The Vanished Messenger. E. Phillips Oppenheim

we left Liverpool Street Station,” Mr. Dunster interrupted, “I promised five pounds each to you, the engine-driver, and his mate. That five pounds shall be made twenty-five if you succeed in getting me to the coast. Do your best for me.”

      The guard raised his hat and departed without another word.

      “It will probably suit you better,” Mr. Dunster continued, turning to his companion, “to leave me at Ipswich and join the mail.”

      The latter shook his head.

      “I don’t see that there’s any chance, anyway, of my getting over in time now,” he remarked. “If you’ll take me on with you as far as Norwich, I can go quietly home from there!”

      “You live in this part of the world, then?” Mr. Dunster asked.

      The young man assented. Again there was a certain amount of hesitation in his manner.

      “I live some distance the other side of Norwich,” he said. “I don’t want to sponge on you too much,” he went on, “but if you’re really going to stick it out and try and get there, I’d like to go on, too. I am afraid I can’t offer to share the expense, but I’d work my passage if there was anything to be done.”

      Mr. Dunster drummed for a moment upon the table with his fingers. All the time the young man had been speaking, his eyes had been studying his face. He turned now once more to his map.

      “It was my idea,” he said, “to hire a steam trawler from Yarmouth. If I do so, you can, if you wish, accompany me so far as the port at which we may land in Holland. On the other hand, to be perfectly frank with you, I should prefer to go alone. There will be, no doubt, a certain amount of risk in crossing to-night. My own business is of importance. A golf tournament, however, is scarcely worth risking your life for, is it?”

      “Oh, I don’t know about that!” the young man replied grimly. “I fancy I should rather like it. Let’s see whether we can get on to Norwich, anyhow, shall we? We may find that there are bridges down on that line.”

      They relapsed once more into silence. Presently the guard reappeared.

      “Instructions to take you on to Yarmouth, if possible, sir,” he announced, “and to collect the mileage at our destination.”

      “That will be quite satisfactory,” Mr. Dunster agreed. “Let us be off, then, as soon as possible.” Presently they crawled on. They passed the boat train in Ipswich Station, where they stayed for a few moments. Mr. Dunster bought wine and sandwiches, and his companion followed his example. Then they continued their journey. An hour or more passed; the storm showed no signs of abatement. Their speed now rarely exceeded ten or fifteen miles an hour. Mr. Dunster smoked all the time, occasionally rubbing the window-pane and trying to look out. Gerald Fentolin slept fitfully.

      “Have you any idea where we are?” Mr. Dunster asked once.

      The boy cautiously let down the window a little way. With the noise of the storm came another sound, to which he listened for a moment with puzzled face: a dull, rumbling sound like the falling of water. He closed the window, breathless.

      “I don’t think we are far from Norwich. We passed Forncett, anyhow, some time ago.”

      “Still raining?”

      “In torrents! I can’t see a yard ahead of me. I bet we get some floods after this. I expect they are out now, if one could only see.”

      They crept on. Suddenly, above the storm, they heard what sounded at first like the booming of a gun, and then a shrill whistle from some distance ahead. They felt the jerk as their brakes were hastily applied, the swaying of the little train, and then the crunching of earth beneath them, the roar of escaping steam as their engine ploughed its way on into the road bed.

      “Off the rails!” the boy cried, springing to his feet. “Hold on tightly, sir. I’d keep away from the window.”

      The carriage swayed and rocked. Suddenly a telegraph post seemed to come crashing through the window and the polished mahogany panels. The young man escaped it by leaping to one side. It caught Mr. Dunster, who had just risen to his feet, upon the forehead. There was a crash all around of splitting glass, a further shock. They were both thrown off their feet. The light was suddenly extinguished. With the crashing of glass, the splitting of timber—a hideous, tearing sound—the wrecked saloon, dragging the engine half-way over with it, slipped down a low embankment and lay on its side, what remained of it, in a field of turnips.

CHAPTER III

       Table of Contents

      As the young man staggered to his feet, he had somehow a sense of detachment, as though he were commencing a new life, or had suddenly come into a new existence. Yet his immediate surroundings were charged with ugly reminiscences. Through a great gap in the ruined side of the saloon the rain was tearing in. As he stood up, his head caught the fragments of the roof. He was able to push back the wreckage with ease and step out. For a moment he reeled, as he met the violence of the storm. Then, clutching hold of the side of the wreck, he steadied himself. A light was moving back and forth, close at hand. He cried out weakly: “Hullo!”

      A man carrying a lantern, bent double as he made his way against the wind, crawled up to them. He was a porter from the station close at hand.

      “My God!” he exclaimed. “Any one alive here?”

      “I’m all right,” Gerald muttered, “at least, I suppose I am. What’s it all—what’s it all about? We’ve had an accident.”

      The porter caught hold of a piece of the wreckage with which to steady himself.

      “Your train ran right into three feet of water,” he answered. “The rails had gone—torn up. The telegraph line’s down.”

      “Why didn’t you stop the train?”

      “We were doing all we could,” the man retorted gloomily. “We weren’t expecting anything else through to-night. We’d a man along the line with a lantern, but he’s just been found blown over the embankment, with his head in a pool of water. Any one else in your carriage?”

      “One gentleman travelling with me,” Gerald answered. “We’d better try to get him out. What about the guard and engine-driver?”

      “The engine-driver and stoker are both alive,” the porter told him. “I came across them before I saw you. They’re both knocked sort of sillylike, but they aren’t much hurt. The guard’s stone dead.”

      “Where are we?”

      “A few hundred yards from Wymondham. Let’s have a look for the other gentleman.”

      Mr. John P. Dunster was lying quite still, his right leg doubled up, and a huge block of telegraph post, which the saloon had carried with it in its fall, still pressing against his forehead. He groaned as they dragged him out and laid him down upon a cushion in the shelter of the wreckage.

      “He’s alive all right,” the porter remarked. “There’s a doctor on the way. Let’s cover him up quick and wait.”

      “Can’t we carry him to shelter of some sort?” Gerald proposed.

      The man shook his head. Speech of any sort was difficult. Even with his lips close to the other’s ears, he had almost to shout.

      “Couldn’t be done,” he replied. “It’s all one can do to walk alone when you get out in the middle of the field, away from the shelter of the embankment here. There’s bits of trees flying all down the lane. Never was such a night! Folks is fair afraid of the morning to see what’s happened. There’s a mill blown right over on its side in the next field, and the man in charge of it lying dead. This poor chap’s