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 aliv