THE anxious and bewildered passengers heard the snap! snap! of the
torpedoes, and half of them rushed to the platforms. The engineer
signalled "Down brakes!" and the train, with a mighty jolt, came to a
stop. A heavy shock shook the night at that instant. The smell of
sulphur was strong in the chilly air. The engineer got out with a
lantern. The crowd gathered in a moment. At the brink of the scattered
track, at the very edge of wreck and death, the train had come to a
stand.
"Who did it?" swept from lip to lip. No one was in sight.
"I thought we hit a man," said the engineer, swinging his lantern far
out into the darkness. But no sign, whether of the dead or of the
living, was in sight,--nothing except a half-starved, collarless dog,
who sat stupidly upon the grass, and who did not even wag his tail when
the stoker spoke to him.
"Who saved us? Who saved the train?"
Ask the disappointed vulture and the mouth of the muttering earth to
tell you, gentlemen passengers! There is no other lip to answer.
* * * * *
Yes, there is one; a little, trembling, ashy lip--a child's--scarcely
able to articulate for grief or terror, and pouring forth confused cries
that nobody can understand. The passengers have left the train, and are
making their way cautiously homeward down the devastated road-bed, where
the track had lain. It is hurled now to every point of the compass in
the wild night.
They come to a halt suddenly, before a little huddling figure, with its
face hidden in its arms, crouched beside a crooked rail. An old horse,
with traces hanging and harness a wreck, stands snorting beside the boy.
"Donny! Donny! Why, my sonny boy!"
The crowd parts for a thin, white-faced man,--the passenger who had been
heard to say upon the way, "My little son is coming to meet me. I hope
these shocks do not extend to the Summerville station."
There is one other little wild call, "Papä! Papä!"--a tremendous effort
to be manly, and not cry before strangers--and the boy melts into his
father's arms, and wonders whose tears they are which rain upon his
cuddling face.
[Illustration: "PAPÄ! PAPÄ!"]
But who saved the train? Where is he? How did he do it? Who took that
noble risk? Where is the hero? Here?
"_You_, my lad?"
Then Donny raised his awestruck face from his father's quick-beating
heart, and standing among the strangers and the neighbors, told the
story,--all that he knew; all that he could tell.
[Illustration: "A LITTLE HUDDLING FIGURE."]
"I only remembered the torpedoes, sir. The old man did the rest."
"What old man? Where is he?"
"Why, the old colored man! Haven't you seen him? The old colored man who
ran ahead and put them on the track. _He_ saved the train."
The engineer took his lantern and silently went back and swung the spot
of fire in the black, cold air. It had not rained, as we have said, for
many weeks, but his feet splashed into deep pools and running rivulets,
and sank into crevices and gashes in the trembling earth.
A few of the passengers followed the engineer. The locality where the
train stood was examined thoroughly. Again, the same result,--no human
creature, dead or living, was to be seen. The pauper dog sat just where
they had left him. The engineer went up and patted him. At the touch he
fell over--dead of fright.
They returned to report what they had found. As they did so, they called
and shouted into the darkness, seeking for the brave life that had saved
their own. Only the roar of the earthquake answered them.
"But he _must_ be there!" cried the lad, "of course he's there. He's a
very shabby old Negro. He is all patches and his knees and hair stick
out. His hat looked like a coon-skin hat. His hair is gray hair. He
carries a little bundle on his shoulder. He's a very strong old Negro.
He smashed the station in like--like blocks. He was a slave, and he was
so strong he cost two thousand dollars. He's going to see his
daughter in Branchville. She's dying. He's so poor he had to walk from
Charleston all the way. _He_ saved the train. You just look and you'll
find him."
[Illustration: "THE LOCALITY WHERE THE TRAIN STOOD WAS EXAMINED
THOROUGHLY."]
A mighty shock drowned the boy's words at this moment, and seemed to
jeer at them. The people huddled together, and looked into each others'
appalled faces, and no man said a word. Instinctively they ranged
themselves into a mass, as if united humanity could defy aroused and
raging Nature,--then broke, and ran for their homes, and wives and
babes, and whatever fate had left to them.