The Socialist Part 9

Then quite suddenly full consciousness returned--rather, he arrived at full consciousness. Everything was dark, pitch dark. His ears were full of a horrid clamour. A heavy, suffocating weight was pressing upon him.

He lay perfectly still for some moments endeavouring to recollect where he was and what had happened. Finally he remembered and realised that he was actually--he himself--a victim of one of those terrible railway accidents of which he had read so often in the newspapers with a careless word of pity, or perhaps, no emotion at all.

Another train had crashed into the Oxford express in the fog.

The duke moved his right arm, and found he could do so freely, except above his body, where the heavy something which was lying upon him prevented its pa.s.sage. He strove to dislodge the weight, but was utterly unable to do so. He was, in fact, pinned beneath a ma.s.s of woodwork, which, while not pressing on him with more than a little of its weight, nevertheless kept him rigid upon his back without possibility of movement. His left arm he could not move at all. Curiously enough, the sensation of fear was entirely absent.

"I am in a deuce of a tight place," he thought of himself, and thought about himself in a strangely detached fas.h.i.+on as if he was thinking of another person.

"I am in a deuce of a tight place. What is to be done?"

He tried once more to move the crus.h.i.+ng roof. He might as well have tried to push down the Bank of England with an umbrella.

Next there came to him a sudden thought, a realisation that at least one thing was in his favour. As far as he knew he was perfectly unhurt. He felt fairly certain that no limbs were broken, and that he had no severe internal injury. He was cut and bruised, doubtless, and still giddy from the blow of the impact, but, save for this, there could be no doubt that he had been most mercifully preserved.

The air was full of confused noises, shouts, the roaring of escaped steam, cries of agony. The duke added his clamour to the rest. His voice was full and strong, and echoed and re-echoed in his ears.

Nothing happened, and now for the first time a sickening feeling of fear came to him and his cries sank into silence.

Almost immediately afterwards he heard a noise much nearer than before, much more distinct and individual. It was a cras.h.i.+ng, regular noise, some one was working at the debris.

Once more he shouted, and this time an answering hail came to him.

"Is anyone there?"

"Yes," the duke called out. "I am pinned down here by a heavy ma.s.s of timber."

"Are you badly injured?"

"I don't think I'm much hurt, only it is impossible for me to move."

"Cheer up!" came back the voice. "We will soon have you out." And then the cras.h.i.+ng, tearing noise went on with renewed vigour.

In a few minutes the duke found the pressure on his chest was much relieved and the noise grew infinitely louder. It was as though he was lying shut up in a box, at the sides of which half a dozen stalwart navvies were kicking. He thought that the drums of his ears were bursting. Then there was a chorus of shouts, a last tremble and heaving of the confining ma.s.s, a breath of cold reviving air, and strong hands withdrew him from his prison.

He was carried swiftly to the side of the line and laid down upon a pile of sacking. Immediately he became aware that soft, dexterous hands were feeling him all over, hands which seemed to be definite and separate organisms, so light and purposeful were they.

He realised that a doctor was examining him, and the light of a lantern which some one else was holding showed him that the surmise was correct.

A tall young man with a pointed beard, in a long mackintosh, was bending over him.

"You are all right, thank goodness!" said the doctor. "You are not hurt a bit, only you have been stunned, and of course you are suffering from the shock. Now, you just lie here until I come to you again. You must stay still for half an hour. Drink this."

He held a little cup of brandy to the duke's mouth. The fiery liquid sent new life into the young man's veins. Everything became more real and actual to him. Before everything had been a little blurred, as the first image upon the lenses of field-gla.s.ses is blurred. Now, the duke seemed to have got the right focus.

"Now, mind, you are not to move at all till I come back," the doctor said. "You have got a warm coat, and I will put some of these sacks over you. You are not hurt, but if you move now until you are rested a little you may get a shock to the nerves, which will remain with you for a long time. Now I must go to attend to some of the poor chaps who want me far more than you do."

"Is it a bad smash?" the duke asked. They were the first words he had spoken.

"One of the worst smashes for many years," answered the doctor over his shoulder as he was hurrying away. "You may thank your Maker that you have been so mercifully preserved."

The duke lay where he was.

The brandy had revived him, and, to his surprise, he realised that, except for a more or less violent headache, he really felt as well as he had been when he first got into the train. He was not even aware of any bruises or contusions, save only that his left hand had been rather badly cut, and was covered with congealed blood.

He wondered exactly where he was, and he looked around him. The fog was still impenetrably dense, though it was illuminated here and there by glowing fires and moving torches--a strange Dantesque vision of moving forms and red light, dim and distorted, like some mysterious tragedy of the underworld.

Now and then some sharp and almost animal like cry of agony came to his ears, cutting through the gloom like a knife, horribly distressing to hear.

n.o.body was immediately near him. He was outside the radius of the chief activities of the breakdown gang and the doctors. There was nothing for him to do but to wait where he was. The doctor would be certain not to forget him, and, besides, he had not the faintest notion in what direction to move in order to get away from all this horror.

So he lay still.

Presently the brandy, to which he was unaccustomed, began to work within him, and induced a languor and drowsiness. His heavy sable coat, all torn and soiled now, though it had cost him six hundred guineas less than a month before, kept his body warm, and, in addition to it, he was covered by sacking.

His mind wandered a little, and he was almost on the point of dropping to sleep when there was a sound as of approaching footsteps upon gravel or cinders. He heard a muttered and strangely husky conversation, apparently between two people, a quick, furtive ripple of talk, and then something descended upon his mouth, something warm and firm--a man's hand.

In the dark he could see two figures about him. A man had stooped down and brought his hand silently down upon his mouth, so that he could not cry out. Another was bending towards him on the other side, and soon he felt that deft hands were going through his pockets. When the doctor had touched him he had felt nothing but surprise and wonder at the prehensile intelligence of the touch. Now he shuddered.

He began to struggle, but found himself by no means so strong as he had imagined that he was a quarter of an hour ago.

A harsh voice hissed in his ear: "Now, stow that, or I'll make you!"

In all his life the Duke of Paddington had never been spoken to in such a way, and, ill as he was, the imperious blood leapt to his brain, and he redoubled his exertions.

Suddenly he stopped with a low gurgle of anguish.

His ear had been seized between two bony knuckles and twisted round with a sharp jerk until the pain was frightful.

Then he lay still once more.

He realised what was happening. The accident to the train had occurred on that part of the line some little way out of the station, upon which all sorts of more or less slum houses debouch. Two of those modern brigands who infest London had come, attracted to this scene of suffering and tragedy by the hope of plunder--even as in the old days, after a battlefield, obscene and terrible creatures appeared in the night and nameless deeds were done.

They had his watch. Sir John Bennett had made it specially for him. It was one of those repeating watches with all sorts of costly additional improvements, which can do almost anything but talk.

He heard the man about him say: "This 'ere's a rich bloke, Sidney; but the ticker's no blooming use except for the case. The--fence wouldn't look at it. Too easy to identify. Ah, this 'ere's better!"

He had found the duke's sovereign purse.

Swiftly, and with the skill born of long practice, the man went through every pocket. When he found the little case of green crocodile skin, in which the duke carried paper money, his cards, and a letter or two, he gave a low whistle of delight.

The duke could hear the little crackle close to his ear as the man counted the five-pound notes.

Almost immediately after this there was a gasp of astonishment.

"Look 'ere!" the other man said, "it's the bloomin' Duke of Paddington himself!"

The duke started, and obviously his captors imagined that he was about to recommence his struggles, for there was a sharp tweak of his ear once more. After that he heard nothing.

The two men had joined heads over his body and were whispering eagerly to each other. It seemed an eternity while he was lying there with the heavy hand upon his mouth, breathing with difficulty through his nostrils, though, in actual point of fact, from first to last, the whole thing was of less than two minutes' duration.