"Thank you--so much," she murmured drowsily, and the man looking down at
her caught his breath sharply betwixt his teeth. Then, with an almost
imperceptible shrug of his shoulders, he stepped back and resumed his
seat.

The express sped on through the night, the little twin globes of light
high up in the carriage ceiling jumping and flickering as it swung along
the metals.

Down the track it flew like a living thing, a red glow marking its
passage as it cleft the darkness, its freight of human souls contentedly
sleeping, or smoking, or reading, as the fancy took them. And half a
mile ahead on the permanent way, Death stood watching--watching and
waiting where, by some hideous accident of fate, a faulty coupling-rod
had snapped asunder in the process of shunting, leaving a solitary
coal-truck to slide slowly back into the shadows of the night, unseen,
the while its fellows were safely drawn on to a aiding.




CHAPTER III

AN ENCOUNTER WITH DEATH

One moment the even throbbing of the engine as the train slipped along
through the silence of the country-side--the next, and the silence was
split by a shattering roar and the shock of riven plates, the clash of
iron driven against iron, and of solid woodwork grinding and grating as
it splintered into wreckage.