_door_!" There was a sound of splintering glass and
the acrid smell of smoke.

"Fire!" squealed the girl in Michael's hold, fighting to free herself.

"Steady!" he soothed. "Let you be still now, till----"

"Fire! Fire! Fire!" It ran from solo shrieks into a frantic chorus. The
middy blouse girl bit and clawed herself out of the Irishman's hands and
he turned and faced Jane, his grasp on the rail above them, covering her
with his body. "Lay hold of me," he commanded, and she locked her arms
about his neck. The smoke-laden air was filled now with the sound of
smashing windows, with labored breathing and moans and gasping sobs, with
the dull impact of blows, with the grinding, rasping contact of tightly
packed bodies. From time to time Michael called out to them to have
patience, to have courage, to wait, and other voices echoed his words,
but they were drowned out in the red sea of panic. Slowly, for all its
insane haste, the crowd, that portion of it still on its feet, began to
work its way through the shattered windows and doors into the black
passage outside. The pressure against Jane and Michael was greatly
lessened and she spoke with her lips close to his ear.

"Are we just to wait here until help comes?"

"We are just to wait here."

Presently she spoke again. "I am not afraid, M.D."

"I know you are not." He added a swift line in Gaelic.

When there was a cleared space about them, they sat down again on the
seat, hand in hand, like good children. The air was growing difficult.
"We must just wait until they come for us, mustn't we?" She was coughing
a little.

"We must just wait."

There was a shuddering groan from the floor, just at their feet, and he
bent with his pocket flash. It was the gaunt girl in the middy blouse....
"Keep fast hold of my coat," said Daragh. He bent and lifted the girl on
to the opposite seat. "There must be others. I must look."

"Let me hold the flash," said Jane. "That will give you both hands free.
I won't let go of you." They traversed the black length of the car, doing
the grim little they could do where there was anything to be done, and
then they went back to their corner. Jane's teeth were chattering. "But
I'm not afraid, M.D.," she said. "It's just--the ghoulishness of it! The
abysmal savagery--I can't _bear_ it!"

"Many there were as cool as ourselves," he said, "swept on by the panic
and couldn't help themselves. It was the wild few only that brought the
curse. And