ntry was already overrun with floods;
the railway system daily required more hands, daily the superintendent
advertised; but "the unemployed" preferred the resources of charity and
rapine, and a navvy, even an amateur navvy, commanded money in the
market. The same night, after a tedious journey, and a change of trains
to pass a landslip, Norris found himself in a muddy cutting behind South
Clifton, attacking his first shift of manual labour.

For weeks the rain scarce relented. The whole front of the mountain
slipped seaward from above, avalanches of clay, rock, and uprooted
forest spewed over the cliffs and fell upon the beach or in the
breakers. Houses were carried bodily away and smashed like nuts; others
were menaced and deserted, the door locked, the chimney cold, the
dwellers fled elsewhere for safety. Night and day the fire blazed in the
encampment; night and day hot coffee was served to the overdriven
toilers in the shift; night and day the engineer of the section made his
rounds with words of encouragement, hearty and rough and well suited to
his men. Night and day, too, the telegraph clicked with disastrous news
and anxious inquiry. Along the terraced line of rail, rare trains came
creeping and signalling; and paused at the threatened corner, like
living things conscious of peril. The commandant of the post would
hastily review his labours, make (with a dry throat) the signal to
advance; and the whole squad line the way and look on in a choking
silence, or burst into a brief cheer as the train cleared the point of
danger and shot on, perhaps through the thin sunshine between squalls,
perhaps with blinking lamps into the gathering rainy twilight.

One such scene Carthew will remember till he dies. It blew great guns
from the seaward; a huge surf bombarded, five hundred feet below him,
the steep mountain's foot; close in was a vessel in distress, firing
shots from a fowling-piece, if any help might come. So he saw and heard
her the moment before the train appeared and paused, throwing up a
Babylonian tower of smoke into the rain and oppressing men's hearts with
the scream of her whistle. The engineer was there himself; he paled as
he made the signal: the engine came at a foot's pace; but the whole bulk
of mountain shook and seemed to nod seaward, and the watching navvies
instinctively clutched at shrubs and trees: vain precautions, vain as
the shots from the poor sailors. Once again fear was disappointed; the
t