by Grant Allen
Nobody but he was in possession of that important fact now; he held it as his own — a piece of indubitable special information. By to-morrow morning, all the Stock Exchanges would know it. Everybody would be aware that a large tunnel on the main line of the Central Southern had fallen in; that traffic would be entirely suspended for six months at least; that the next half yearly dividend would be nil, or thereabouts; and that a very large sum must come out of the reserve fund for the task of shoring up so considerable a subsidence. Mr. Solomons chuckled to himself with pardonable delight. To-day, Central Southerns were 98 3/8 for the account; to-morrow, he firmly believed, they would be down to 90.
It was an enormous fall. Think what he stood to win by it!
Just at first his only idea was to wire up to town and sell all the stock he actually possessed, buying in again after the fall at the reduced quotation. But in another moment his businesslike mind saw another and still grander prospect opening out before him. Why limit himself to the sum he could gain over his own shares? Why not sell out any amount for which he could find buyers — for the account, of course? — in other words, why not agree to deliver Central Southerns to any extent next week for 98 3/8, when he knew that by that time he could buy as many as ever he wanted for something like 90?
To a man of Mr. Solomons’ type the opening was a glorious one.
In a second of time, in the twinkling of an eye, vast visions of wealth floated vaguely before him. With three hours’ start of such information as that, any fellow who chose could work the market successfully and make as many thousands as he wished, without risk or difficulty. If buyers could be found, there was no reason, indeed, why he shouldn’t sell out at current prices the entire stock of the Central Southern on spec; it would be easy enough to-morrow to buy it all back again at eight or nine discount. So wonderful a chance seldom falls so pat in the way of a man of business. It would be next door to criminal not to seize upon such a brilliant opportunity of fortune.
In the interests of his heirs, executors, and assigns, Mr. Solomons felt called upon to run for it immediately. He set off running down the Knoll at once, in the direction of Hillborough station, lying snug in the valley among the elms and beeches below there. There was a telegraph office at the station, and thence Mr. Solomons designed to wire to London. He would instruct his broker to sell as many Central Southern A’s for the account as the market would take, and, if necessary, to sell a point or two below the current Stock Exchange quotations.
Blown as he was with mounting the hill, and puffed with running, it was hard work that spurt — but the circumstances demanded it. Thousands were at stake. For the sake of his heirs, executors, and assigns he felt he must run the risk with that shaky old heart of his.
Panting and blowing, he reached the bottom of the hill, and looked into the mouth of the tunnel, through which, as a rule, you could see daylight from the side toward Hipsley. The change from the accustomed sight gave him a shock of surprise. Thirty or forty yards from the entrance, the tunnel was entirely blocked by a rough mass of débris. If a train came through now there would be a terrible smash. And in that case Central Southerns would fall still lower — what with compensation and so forth — perhaps as low as 86-87.
If a train came through there would be a terrible smash. The down-train would have just got off before the fall. The up-train would be coming very soon now.... And Sir Paul and Lady Gascoyne would be in it!
With a burst of horror, Mr. Solomons realized at last that aspect of the case which to almost anyone else would have been the first to present itself. There was danger to life and limb in the tunnel! Men and women might be mangled, crushed, and killed. And among them would, perhaps, be Paul and Xea!
The revulsion was terrible, horrible, ghastly. Mr. Solomons pulled himself together with a painful pull. The first thing to do was to warn the station-master, and prevent an accident. The next thing only was to wire up to London, and sell out for the account all his Central Southerns.
Sell out Central Southerns! Pah! What did that matter! Sir Paul and Lady Gascoyne were in the up-train. Unless he made haste, all, all would be lost. He would be left in his old age more desolate than ever.
The new bubble would burst as awfully as the old one.
Fired with this fresh idea, Mr. Solomons rushed forward once more, bluer, bluer than ever, and hurried toward the station, in a bee-line, regardless of the information vouchsafed by the notice-boards that trespassers would be prosecuted. He ran as if his life depended upon his getting there. At all hazards, he must warn them to stop the up-train at Hipsley station.
By the gate of a meadow he paused for a second to catch his breath and mop his forehead. A man was at work there turning manure with a fork. Mr. Solomons was blown He called out loudly to the man, “Hi, you there, come here, will you.”
The man turned round and touched his hat respectfully. “The Knoll tunnel’s fallen in!” Mr. Solomons blurted out between his convulsive bursts of breath.
The man stuck his fork in the ground and stared stolidly in the direction indicated. “So it hev,” he murmured. “Well, naow, that’s cur’ous.”
Mr. Solomons recognized him for the stolid fool of a rustic that he was. There’s only one way to quicken these creatures’ blunted intelligence. He drew out his purse and took from it a sovereign, which he dangled temptingly.
“Take this,” he cried, holding it out, “and run as fast as you can run to the Hillborough station. Tell the station-master the Knoll tunnel has fallen in. Tell him to telegraph to Hipsley and stop the up-train. For God’s sake go, or we shall have an accident!”
In his dull, remote way, urged on by the sovereign, the man took it in — slowly, slowly, slowly; and, as soon as the facts had penetrated through his thick skull, began to run at the top of his speed over hedges and ditches toward the gate of the station. “Tell him to telegraph at once,” Mr. Solomons shouted after him. “The tunnel’s blocked, there’ll be loss of life unless he looks sharp about it.”
And then, having recovered his breath a bit himself, he crossed the gate and proceeded to follow him. There would still be time to realize that fortune by selling out close at existing prices.
Next instant, with another flash of inspiration, it came across his mind that he had done the wrong thing. No use at all to give warning at Hillborough. The wires went over the tunnel, and he remembered now that the pole had fallen and snapped them in the midst at the moment of the subsidence. There was no communication at all with Hipsley. It was toward Hipsley itself he ought to have gone in the first place. He must go there now, all blown as he was; go there at all hazards. He must warn the train, or Sir Paul and Lady Gascoyne would be killed in the tunnel!
It came upon him with all the sudden clearness of a revelation. There was no time to wait or think. He must turn and act upon it. In a second, he had clambered over the gate once more, and, blue and hot in the face, was mounting the Knoll with incredible haste for his weight and age, urged on by his wild desire to save Paul and Nea.
He struggled and scrambled up the steep face of the hill with eager feet. At the top he paused a moment, and panted for breath. The line lies straight in view across the long flat weald. From that panoramic point he could see clearly beneath him the whole level stretch of the iron road. A cloud of white steam sped merrily along across the open lowland. It was the up-train even now on its way to Hipsley.
No time now to stop it before it left the station! But by descending at once on the line and running along upon the six-foot way, he might still succeed in attracting the engine driver’s attention and checking the train before it reached the tunnel.
CHAPTER LI.
CATASTROPHE.
FIRED with this thought and utterly absorbed in his fears for Paul’s and Nea’s safety, Mr. Solomons hurried down the opposite slope of the ridge, and, scrambling through the cutting, gained the side of the railway. It was fenced in by one of those atrocious barbed wire fences, with which the selfishness of sq
uires or farmers is still permitted to outrage every sentiment of common humanity; but Mr. Solomons was too full of his task to mind those barbarous spikes: with torn clothes and bleeding hands, he squeezed himself through somehow, and ran madly along the line in the direction of Hipsley.
As he did so the loud snort of a steam-whistle fell upon his ear, away over in front of him. His heart sank. He knew it was the train leaving Hipsley station.
Still he ran on wildly. He must run and run till he dropped now. No time to pause or draw breath. It was necessary to give the engine-driver ample warning beforehand, so that he might put on the brake some time before reaching the mouth of the tunnel.
If not, the train would dash into it full speed, and not a living soul might survive the collision.
He ran along the six-foot way with all his might, waving his hands frantically above his head toward the approaching train, and doing his best, in one last frenzied effort, to catch the driver’s eye before it was too late. His face was flushed purple with exertion now, and his breath came and went with deadly difficulty. But on he ran, unheeding the warnings of that throbbing heart, unheeding the short, sharp snorts of the train as it advanced, unheeding anything on earth save the internal consciousness of that one imperative duty laid on him. The universe summed itself up to his mind in that supreme moment as a vast and absorbing absolute necessity to save Paul and Nea.
On, on the wild engine came, puffing and snorting terribly; but Mr. Solomons, nothing daunted, on fire with his exertions, almost flung himself in its path, and shrieked aloud, with his hands tossed up and his face purple, “Stop! stop! For God’s sake, stop! Stop! stop!
I tell you!” He ran along backward now, still fronting the train. “Stop! stop!” he cried, gesticulating fiercely to the astonished driver. “For Heaven’s sake, stop! You can’t go on — there’s danger!”
The engine-driver halted and put on the brake. The train began to slow. Mr. Solomons still danced and gesticulated like a madman before it. A jar thrilled through the carriages from end to end. With a sudden effort, the guard, now thoroughly roused to a sense of danger, had succeeded in stopping it at the very mouth of the tunnel. Mr. Solomons, almost too spent to utter a word, shrieked out at the top of his voice, in gasping syllables. “The tunnel’s fallen in. You can’t go on. Put back to Hipsley. I’ve come to warn you!”
But there was no need for him to explain any further now. The driver, looking ahead, could see for himself a mass of yellow sand obstructing the way a hundred yards in front. Slowly he got down and examined the road. “That was a narrow squeak, Bill,” he said, turning to the stoker. “If it hadn’t been for the old gentleman, we’d all ‘a’ been in kingdom come by this time!”
“He looks very queer,” the stoker observed, gazing close at Mr. Solomons, who had seated himself now on the bank by the side, and was panting heavily with bluer face than ever.
“He’s run too ‘ard, that’s where it is,” the engine-driver went on, holding him up and supporting him. “Come along, sir; come on in the train with us. We’ve got to go back to Hipsley now, that’s certain.”
But Mr. Solomons only gasped, and struggled hard for breath. His face was livid and leaden by this time. A terrible wave convulsed his features. “Loosen his collar, Jim,” the stoker suggested. The engine-driver obeyed, and for a moment Mr. Solomons seemed to breathe more freely.
“Now then, what’s the matter? Why don’t we go on?” a bluff man cried, putting his head out of a first-class carriage window.
“Matter enough, sir,” the engine-driver answered.
“Tunnel’s broke; road’s blocked ahead; and this old gentleman by the side’s a dying.”
“Dying!” the bluff personage echoed, descending quickly from his seat, and joining the group. “No, no; not that. Don’t talk such nonsense. Why, God bless my soul, so he is, to be sure. Valvular disease of the heart, that’s what I make it. Have you got any brandy, boys? Leave him to me. I’ll attend to him. I’m a doctor.”
“Run along the train, Bill,” the engine-driver said, “and ask if any gentleman’s got a flask of brandy.”
In a minute the stoker returned, followed close by Paul, who brought a little flask which he offered for the occasion.
“‘Old up the gen’leman’s ‘ead, Jim,” the stoker said, “and pour down some brandy.”
Paul started with horror and amazement.
“Why, my God,” he cried, “it’s Mr. Solomons!”
Mr. Solomons opened his eyes for an instant. His throat gurgled.
“Good-by, Sir Paul,” he said, trying feebly to grope for something in his pocket. “Is Lady Gascoyne safe? Then, thank Heaven, I’ve saved you.”
Paul knelt by his side, and held the flask to his lips. As yet he could hardly comprehend what had happened.
“Oh, Mr. Solomons,” he cried, bending over him eagerly, “do try to swallow some.” But the blue lips never moved. Only, with a convulsive effort, Mr. Solomons drew something out of his breast pocket — a paper it seemed, much worn and faded — and clutching it tight in his grasp, seemed, to thrust it toward him with urgent anxiety.
Paul took no notice of the gesture, but held the brandy still to Mr. Solomons’ livid mouth. The bluff passenger waved him aside.
“No good,” he said, “no good, my dear sir. He can’t even swallow it. He’s unconscious now. The valve don’t act. It’s all up, I’m afraid. Stand aside there, all of you, and let him have fresh air. That’s his last chance. Fan him with a paper.” He put his finger on the pulse, and shook his head ominously. “No good at all,” he murmured. “He’s run too fast, and the effort’s been too much for him.” He examined the lips closely, and held his ear to catch the last sound of breath. “Quite dead!” he went on. “Death from syncope. He died doing his best to prevent an accident.”
A strange solemn feeling came over Paul Gascoyne. Till that moment he had never truly realized how much he liked the old Jew money-lender. But there, as he knelt on the green sward beside his lifeless body, and knew on what errand Mr. Solomons had come by his death, a curious sense of bereavement stole slowly on him. It was some minutes before he could even think of Nea, who sat at the window behind, anxiously awaiting tidings of this unexpected stoppage. Then he burst into tears, as the stoker and the engine-driver slowly lifted the body into an unoccupied carriage, and called on the passengers to take their seats while they backed once more into Hipsley station.
“What is it?” Nea asked, seeing Paul return with blanched cheek and wet eyes to the door of her carriage.
Paul could hardly get out the words to reply.
“A tunnel’s fallen in — the tunnel under the Knoll that I’ve often told you about; and Mr. Solomons, running to warn the train of danger, has fallen down dead by the side with heart-disease.”
“Dead, Paul?”
“Yes, dead, Nea.”
They gazed at one another blankly for a moment. Then “Did he know we were here?” Nea asked, with a face of horror.
“I think so,” Paul answered. “I wrote and told him what train we’d arrive by; and he must have found out the accident and rushed to warn us before anybody else was aware it had tumbled.”
“O Paul, was he alive to see you?”
“Alive?” Paul answered. “Oh, yes, he spoke to me. He asked if you were safe, and said good-by to me.”
They backed into the station by slow degrees, and the passengers, turning out with eager wonder and inquiry, began a hubbub of voices as to the tunnel, and the accident, and the man who had warned them, and the catastrophe, and the heart-disease, and the chance there was of getting on to-night, and how on earth they could ever get their luggage carted across to Hillborough station. But Paul and Nea stood with hushed voices beside the corpse of the man they had parted with so lightly a fortnight before at Lanhydran Rectory.
“Do you know, Paul,” Nea whispered, as she gazed awestruck at that livid face, now half pale in death, “I somehow felt when he said to me that afternoo
n, ‘From my poor, old, worn-out heart I thank you,’ I half felt as if I was never going to see him again. He said good-by to us as one says good-by to one’s friends forever. And I am glad, at least, to think that we made him happy.”
“I’m glad to think so, too,” Paul answered, with tears in his eyes.
“Then I think he died happy,” Nea replied decisively.
“But, Nea, do you know, till this moment I never realized how truly fond I was of him. I feel now as if an element had been taken out of my life forever.”
Slowly and gradually the people at the station got things into order under these altered conditions. Cabs and carriages were brought from Hillborough to carry the through passengers and their luggage across the gap in the line caused by the broken tunnel. Telegrams were sent in every direction to warn coming trains and to organize a temporary local service. All was bustle and noise and turmoil and confusion. But in the midst of the hurly-burly, a few passengers still crowded, whispering, round the silent corpse of the man who had met his own death in warning them of their danger. Little by little the story got about how this was a Mr. Solomons, an estate agent at Hillborough, and how those two young people standing so close to his side and watching over his body were Sir Paul and Lady Gascoyne, for whose sake he had run all the way to stop the train, and had fallen down dead, at the last moment, of heart-disease. In his hand he still clutched that worn and folded paper he had tried to force upon Paul, and his face yet wore in death that eager expression of a desire to bring out words that his tremulous lips refused to utter. They stood there long, watching his features painfully. At last a stretcher was brought from the town, and Mr. Solomons’ body, covered with a black cloth, was carried upon it to his house in the High Street. Paul insisted on bearing a hand in it himself; and Nea, walking slowly and solemnly by their side, made her first entry so as Lady Gascoyne into her husband’s birthplace.
