THE old man and the train were now face to face. The locomotive came
cautiously, for the shocks had penetrated far up the road, but too
fast--far too fast. Where the track had gone to pieces, a mass of
twisted rails and tossing sleepers and furrowed earth, a bank--what is
called a high bank in Southern topography--raised itself just in the
turn of time to have sent the derailed train plunging down.
The old Negro watched the approaching flare of the head-light as he ran
on, with a grim, defiant eye.
"I stump ye!" he said aloud. He shook his trembling, black fist at the
locomotive. Stumbling along, his old bundle over one shoulder, and the
torpedoes clutched in the other arm, being thus encumbered--for it did
not occur to him that he could throw away his bundle, he was so poor--he
tripped and fell. His foot caught; it is unknown in what,--in a twisted
tie, or perhaps in a crevice of the cracking earth.
When he tried to rise, something held the hero down. He reached his
whole length forward flat upon the road-bed, and with great precision
and with a coolness that one cannot think of now without emotion, he
laid one torpedo on each rail, exactly where it needs must lie to give
the warning through the crushing wheel.
[Illustration: "I STUMP YE!"]
[Illustration: "THE STRONG, BLACK FIST WAS CLINCHED."]
Now for the second time the old man and the locomotive regarded each
other. Her fiery breath was close upon him. Above the uproar of the
reeling earth the shriek of the train sounded in his deafened ears.
Once again, the strong, black fist was clinched in the approaching
monster's face.
"I dare ye!" he cried. "Come on! I dare ye!" He pulled himself up with a
mighty wrench. But the unknown power held him. He felt the claws of the
cow-catcher. He gave one low cry:
"Lord, I'd like to got dar an' seen Juno Soo afore she died--"
Then he closed his eyes, that he might not see what would happen,
clasped his hands above his gray head, and gave his manly soul to God.
[Illustration: "HE LAID ONE TORPEDO ON EACH RAIL."]