The Vanished Messenger | Page 8

the noise of
the storm came another sound, to which he listened for a moment with
puzzled face: a dull, rumbling sound like the falling of water. He closed
the window, breathless.
"I don't think we are far from Norwich. We passed Forncett, anyhow,
some time ago."
"Still raining?"
"In torrents! I can't see a yard ahead of me. I bet we get some floods
after this. I expect they are out now, if one could only see."
They crept on. Suddenly, above the storm, they heard what sounded at
first like the booming of a gun, and then a shrill whistle from some
distance ahead. They felt the jerk as their brakes were hastily applied,
the swaying of the little train, and then the crunching of earth beneath
them, the roar of escaping steam as their engine ploughed its way on
into the road bed.
"Off the rails!" the boy cried, springing to his feet. "Hold on tightly, sir.
I'd keep away from the window."
The carriage swayed and rocked. Suddenly a telegraph post seemed to
come crashing through the window and the polished mahogany panels.
The young man escaped it by leaping to one side. It caught Mr. Dunster,

who had just risen to his feet, upon the forehead. There was a crash all
around of splitting glass, a further shock. They were both thrown off
their feet. The light was suddenly extinguished. With the crashing of
glass, the splitting of timber - a hideous, tearing sound - the wrecked
saloon, dragging the engine half-way over with it, slipped down a low
embankment and lay on its side, what remained of it, in a field of
turnips.
CHAPTER III
As the young man staggered to his feet, he had somehow a sense of
detachment, as though he were commencing a new life, or had
suddenly come into a new existence. Yet his immediate surroundings
were charged with ugly reminiscences. Through a great gap in the
ruined side of the saloon the rain was tearing in. As he stood up, his
head caught the fragments of the roof. He was able to push back the
wreckage with ease and step out. For a moment he reeled, as he met the
violence of the storm. Then, clutching hold of the side of the wreck, he
steadied himself. A light was moving back and forth, close at hand. He
cried out weakly: "Hullo!"
A man carrying a lantern, bent double as he made his way against the
wind, crawled up to them. He was a porter from the station close at
hand.
"My God!" he exclaimed. "Any one alive here?"
"I'm all right," Gerald muttered, "at least, I suppose I am. What's it all -
what's it all about? We've had an accident."
The porter caught hold of a piece of the wreckage with which to steady
himself.
"Your train ran right into three feet of water," he answered. "The rails
had gone - torn up. The telegraph line's down."
"Why didn't you stop the train?"

"We were doing all we could," the man retorted gloomily. "We weren't
expecting anything else through to-night. We'd a man along the line
with a lantern, but he's just been found blown over the embankment,
with his head in a pool of water. Any one else in your carriage?"
"One gentleman travelling with me," Gerald answered. "We'd better try
to get him out. What about the guard and engine-driver?"
"The engine-driver and stoker are both alive," the porter told him. "I
came across them before I saw you. They're both knocked sort of
sillylike, but they aren't much hurt. The guard's stone dead."
"Where are we?"
"A few hundred yards from Wymondham. Let's have a look for the
other gentleman."
Mr. John P. Dunster was lying quite still, his right leg doubled up, and
a huge block of telegraph post, which the saloon had carried with it in
its fall, still pressing against his forehead. He groaned as they dragged
him out and laid him down upon a cushion in the shelter of the
wreckage.
"He's alive all right," the porter remarked. "There's a doctor on the way.
Let's cover him up quick and wait."
"Can't we carry him to shelter of some sort?" Gerald proposed.
The man shook his head. Speech of any sort was difficult. Even with
his lips close to the other's ears, he had almost to shout.
"Couldn't be done," he replied. "It's all one can do to walk alone when
you get out in the middle of the field, away from the shelter of the
embankment here. There's bits of trees flying all down the lane. Never
was such a night! Folks is fair afraid of the morning to see what's
happened. There's a mill blown right over on its side in