AN ACCIDENT
Occasionally in their close intercourse, Tom had a curious feeling that
he had seen Whalen a long while before, and he came to believe that he
had seen him in France. That seemed likely enough, for they had both
been in the fighting near Epernay and also at Chalons.
It was at odd times that Tom noticed this familiar look in Ned’s face.
Ordinarily he did not notice it. Once when his companion was lifting a
heavy stone that familiar look struck him forcibly. He even spoke of it,
and Whalen too thought it quite likely that Tom had seen him.
On the day following their chat in the rustic arbor something happened
which gave a dramatic turn to these thoughts of Tom’s. The incident was
foreshadowed by thunderstorms during the night which shook and wrenched
the cottage so that Tom in bed could actually feel the building lurch
and jump in the slack of the safety cables, like a boat straining at its
anchor rope. He realized then the wisdom of having the cables a little
slack, for in such wind a sudden strain on a taut cable would wrench
loose part of the structure.
In those recurrent frenzies of the elements the cottage seemed to jump
and pull like some savage thing against its metal leashes. And the
creaking of the rusted terminals made a clamorous medley. It was no
wonder that Miranda thought the neighborhood was haunted.
All through the next day these recurrent storms continued. And in the
intervals of unbridled fury a steady drizzle descended out of a leaden
sky. The only bright spot in all the landscape was Mr. Royce
Fairgreaves, resolutely faithful to his task of picking stones, armed
with an umbrella. Most of the others lolled on the back porch of the
hotel. Ferris sat in the cottage making up his accounts. Audry was
engrossed in a book.
In a prolonged interval between showers, Tom and Whalen went into the
woods to see how the roof of their little forest rest was withstanding
the onslaughts of the weather. The tiny pavilion looked isolated and
cosy in the dim woods. The saturated chips and shavings that still
littered the spot imparted that pungent fragrance which comes from fresh
wet wood. The ground was soggy, the thatched roof dripping, and the
little brook running in a torrent.
The necessity of some supplementary work on the little bridge was
apparent, for the water was pouring down one of the low banks and
undermining the land on which the logs rested. The ends of the logs were
resting in mud and settling down rapidly.
“They ought to be longer,” Whalen said.
“What do you say we fell that tree we started on and lay the trunk
crossways underneath here?” Tom asked.
“Ought to do,” said Ned. “It’s going to pour again, though, in about ten
minutes.”
“Let it come,” said Tom cheerily; “I’ll scoot for shelter when it does.”
Taking an axe that lay in one of the enclosed seats, Tom started for a
tree a couple of hundred feet distant which had already been partially
chopped for felling. Whalen sat in the pavilion watching him. Tom soon
became so engrossed in his vigorous labor that he was not aware of the
suddenly increasing volume of rain and the distant rumbling which
heralded another spasm of the fickle weather.
“Would you like an umbrella?” Whalen called in allusion to Fairgreaves.
“Not yet,” laughed Tom.
“Better come in.”
“I can’t stop now,” Tom called, cheerily. “Let her come.”
The low, distant rumbling continued, a dazzling streak of lightning lit
the sky, the woods were bright for a moment, and as the sudden light
subsided through a series of lesser flashes, the dark leaves on all the
trees were standing upright and fluttering madly in the heightening
gale.
In another minute the storm was upon them, rending the air with its
thunderous clamor, brightening the troubled woods with its appalling,
momentary light. Peal after peal of thunder shook the earth.
The whole woods were agitated by the rising wind. Twigs and leaves flew
wild, and a great branch nearby crashed in a tree and hung limp among
the swaying branches. Split and torn, with its long, fibrous area of
white showing, it looked like a suffering, stricken thing.
What happened, happened quickly. Tom’s cheery bravado could not persist
long in such a frenzy of the elements, and pushing back his streaming
hair from his face he laughingly surrendered to the storm and called
that he had had enough. Whalen could not hear him, his voice was
belittled and lost in the uproar.
He was just starting to run when there came a quick, deafening report
followed by a tremor beneath him as if he were in a rocking boat. And
then a prolonged, sharp peal, and a flash that blinded him. The whole of
creation seemed to shake. He had a curious conviction that a chipmunk
was running up his arm, and half-consciously he tried to catch it.
He was in the borderland of consciousness, vaguely aware of movement
nearby. And he had an appalling sensation of sinking. The earth seemed
to be falling away under him. In that brief movement of lapsing
consciousness he thought he was in the ocean and that some frightful
creature of the deep had caught his foot. Instinctively he wrenched and
tugged but all in vain.
Then his senses returned and he was tingling all over. But he knew that
he was not at sea for there was the odor of burning wood and of soaked
foliage, and fresh wet earth. He could not see but he knew that he was
on land.
Yet still something did hold his foot—held it fast. Held it as the jaws
of a tiger hold. He tugged and pulled and became panic-stricken. But the
merciless jaws held fast. He was lying in a very welter of oozy mud. He
wriggled, squirmed, but only an excruciating pain in his ankle followed
these frantic efforts.
“Where am I?” he called. “What—”
And then again his wounded hearing was stricken by a tearing, rending
tumult very close by and he seemed to be tossed at the mercy of some
terrible upheaval. And still those unseen jaws closed tighter on his
foot and held it as the relentless jaws of a tiger hold....