a violent
shock, and he was hurled heavily into the opposite seat.

It was not a collision in the newspaper sense of the word. No one was
hurt. A local train, creeping along at four miles an hour, had simply
missed its signal in the fog and bumped the Brighton train.

Young Cargill, in common with most other passengers put his head out of
the window. He saw nothing--except the parapet of the bridge.

"By God!" he muttered. "If that other train had been going a little
faster----"

He could just hear the river gurgling beneath him.

He had got over his fright by the time he reached Victoria.

"Just a common-place accident," he assured himself, as he drove in a
taxi-cab to his chambers. "That's the worst of it! If I happened to be
drowned in the ordinary way they'd swear it was the legend. I suppose,
for that reason, I had better not take any risks. Anyhow, I needn't go
near the sea until the year is out!"

The superstitious would doubtless affirm that the Fates had sent him one
warning and, angered at his refusal to accept it, had determined to
drive home the lesson of his own impotence. For when he arrived at his
chambers he found a cablegram from Paris awaiting him.

"Hullo, this must be from Uncle Peter!" he exclaimed, as he tore open
the envelope.

"_Fear uncle dying. Come at once.--Machell._"

Machell was the elder Cargill's secretary, and young Cargill was the old
man's heir.

It was not until he was in the boat-train that he realised that he was
about to cross the sea.

It was a coincidence--an odd coincidence. When the ship tossed in an
unusually rough crossing he was prepared to admit to himself that it was
an uncanny coincidence.

He stayed a week in Paris for his uncle's funeral. When he made the
return journey the Channel was like the proverbial mill pond. But it was
not until the ship had actually put into Dover that he laughed at the
failure of the Fates to take the opportunity to drown him.

He laughed, to be exact, as he was stepping down the gangway. At the end
of the gangway the fold of the rug which he was carrying on his arm,
caught in the railings. He turned sharply to free it and stepping back,
cannoned into an officer of the dock. It threw him off his balance on
the edge of the dockside.

Even if the official had not grabbed him, it is highly probable that he
could have saved himself from falling into the water, because the
gangway railing was in easy reach; and if you remember th