CHAPTER XXI. THE FIRE GOES OUT.
A great sob burst from Bram’s lips as he threw himself down beside Christian, whose moans were terrible to hear. He had been caught by the train, the wheels of the engine having passed over both his legs, crushing and mangling them in the most horrible manner. Bram saw at a glance that there was not the slightest hope of saving his friend’s life, and that there was only the faintest chance of prolonging it for a little while.
Fortunately, help was at hand. A man, one of the hands employed at the works, ran out from the sheds which bordered the railway. He was in a panic of terror, and was at first almost incapable of listening to the directions Bram gave him.
Such first aid as it was possible to give Bram was already giving. But Christian himself shook his head feebly, and made a faint gesture to stop him.
“It’s all of no use, Bram,” said he, in a broken voice. “She’s done for me; she’s had her revenge now. You may just as well leave me alone, and then the next passing train will put me out of my pain. Oh, I would be thankful—thankful——”
Another moan broke from his lips, and his head, which was wet with great beads of agony, fell like lead in Bram’s arms.
“Come, come, we can’t leave you lying here,” said Bram, in a deep, vibrating voice, as he hugged the dying head to his breast.
He had succeeded in getting the poor, wounded, mangled body from the line itself to the comparative safety of the space between that row of metals and the next. More than this he dared not attempt until further help came. He sent the workman to the office with directions that he should send in search of a surgeon the first person he met on the way. He was then to break the news, not to Mr. Cornthwaite himself, if he were still there, but to one of the managers or to one of the older clerks.
The man went away, and Christian, who had lain so still for some seconds that Bram feared he was past help already, opened his eyes.
“Hallo, Bram,” said he, in a very weak, faint, and broken voice, but with something like his old cheerfulness of manner. “It’s odd that I should peg out here, in the very thick of the smoke and the grime I’ve always hated so much, isn’t it?”
Bram could not speak for a minute. When he did, it was in a ferocious growl.
“Don’t talk of pegging out, Mr. Christian,” said he. “You don’t want to give in yet, eh?”
He spoke like this, not that he had the slightest hope left, but because he wished to keep in the flicker of life as long as he could, at least until the father could exchange one last hand-clasp with his dying son. And Bram judged that hope was the best stimulant he could administer. But Chris only smiled ever so faintly.
“Oh, Bram, you don’t really think it would be worth while to rig me up with a pair of wooden legs, do you? I shouldn’t be much like myself, should I? And the guv’nor wouldn’t have to complain of my running after the girls any more, would he?”
Bram shivered. These light words had a terrible import now, and they sent his thoughts back from the sufferer to the author of the outrage. He glanced round instinctively, and an involuntary sound escaped his lips as he saw, standing on the edge of the network of lines, only a few feet from himself and Chris, the figure of Claire.
With head bent and hands clasped, she stood, neither moving nor uttering a sound, but watching the two men with wild eyes, and with a look of unspeakable, stony, horror on her gray white face.
Chris looked up, caught sight of her, and uttered a cry.
“Claire! Claire!” he called, in a voice hoarse and unlike his own.
She did not move, did not seem to hear him.
Then Bram called to her.
“Come. He wants you to come.”
At the sound of Bram’s voice she looked up suddenly, shivered, and came slowly nearer.
“Look out! Take care! Come here between the lines!” said Bram.
She obeyed his directions mechanically, stumbling as she came. When she found herself beside the two men, she fell to trembling violently, but without shedding a single tear.
Chris tried to raise himself, and Bram lifted him up so that he could meet her eyes.
“Claire!” said the dying man in a whisper, “come here. Don’t look down. Look at my face—my face.”
But her eyes had seen enough of the nature of the injuries he had received to render her for a few moments absolutely powerless to move. She seemed not even to hear his voice, but stood beside him without uttering a sound, possessed by a horror unspeakable, indescribable. Christian tried to speak in a louder voice to distract her attention from his injuries, to draw it upon himself.
“Claire,” said he, “remember I haven’t much time. Stoop down, kneel down; listen to what I have to say.”
There was a short silence. At last her eyes moved; she drew a long breath. She looked at his face, and the tears began to stream down her cheeks.
“Oh, Chris, Chris!” she sobbed out in a voice almost inaudible. “It is too awful, too horrible! Oh, won’t you, can’t you—get well?”
“No, no,” said he impatiently. “Surely you can’t wish it! I want to speak to you, Claire; you can’t prevent my saying what I like now, can you?”
She only answered by a sob, as she sank down on her knees beside him. Bram, in an agony of uneasiness—for the space between the lines where they all three were was a narrow one, and another train might pass at any minute, and shake the little life there was remaining in Christian out of his maimed body—kept watch a few feet away. He was afraid of some rash movement on the part of the miserable, grief-stricken girl, whom he believed to be suffering such agonies of remorse as to be incapable of controlling herself if an emergency should arise. He could hear the voice of Christian as he whispered into Claire’s ear; he even caught the sense of what he said, with a terrible sense of gnawing sorrow for the wasted life that was ebbing so fast away.
“I’ve been a fool, Claire, the biggest fool in the world,” said Christian, still in the old easy tones, though his voice was no longer that which had raised the spirits of his friends by the very sound of it. “If I hadn’t been a fool, I should have taken Bram’s advice and married you. I know you didn’t want me; I believe you liked old Bram better; but that wouldn’t have mattered. You’d have had to marry me if I’d made up my mind you should.”
“Oh, Chris, don’t tell me. It’s too horrible!”
“No, it isn’t horrible to talk about it, to me, at least. And you have to let a fellow be selfish when he’s only got a few minutes to live. If I’d married you, I should have been happy, even if you hadn’t been. You’re the only girl I ever really cared about. Claire—yes, you can’t stop me, and it’s no use talking about my wife, because the only consolation I have in this business is the knowledge that I can’t ever see her again! I loathe her! I know I ought to have found it out sooner, but I’ve been punished for that mistake with the rest.”
He stopped, his voice having gradually grown weaker and weaker. Bram turned quickly, and came down to him. But the moment Claire put her hand under his head he raised it again, and a faint tinge of color came into his cheeks.
“Kiss me, Claire,” said he.
For a moment, to the surprise and indignation of Bram, she seemed to hesitate. Then she obeyed, putting her lips to Christian’s forehead, after a vain attempt to check her tears. Then there was a silence. They heard the voices of Mr. Cornthwaite and another man asking—“Where? Where is he?” And Christian opened his eyes.
“Bram,” said he, in a voice which betrayed agitation, “take her away. Don’t let my father see her. Take her away. Never mind leaving me. Quick.”
But there was no time. Mr. Cornthwaite was already close to the group. He touched Claire, and shrank back with an exclamation of horror and disgust. Bram seized her arm, and almost lifted her from the spot where she stood, dazed and incapable of movement. She, however, was evidently unconscious both of Mr. Cornthwaite’s touch and of his utterance. She was like a bewildered child in Bram’s hands, and she allowed him to lead her across the lines, obeying his smallest injunction with perfect, unresisting docility.
When he had brought her to a place of safety within the works, he turned to her.
“I want to go back to him,” he said. “It will only be for a moment, I’m afraid. Then I’ll come back and take you home. Will you wait for me?”
“Yes,” she answered in the same obedient manner, as if his wish were a command.
He looked searchingly into her face. In mercy, it seemed to Bram, a cloud had settled on her mind; the terrible events of the past half-hour had become a blank to her. The little creature, who had been a passionate fury such a short time ago, had changed into the most helpless, the most docile, of living things. Did she understand what it was that she had done? Did she realize that it was her own act which had killed her cousin? Bram could not believe it. He gave one more look into her white face, hardly daring to tell himself what the outcome of this terrible scene would be for her, and then he left her, and went back across the rails to the spot where he had quitted his friend.
They had raised him from the ground in spite of his protests, and were bearing him by his father’s orders into the shelter of the works. When they stopped, and laid him down on a couch which had been hastily made with coats and sacks, he was so much exhausted that it was not until they had forced a few drops of brandy down his throat that he was able to speak again. Then he only uttered one word—
“Bram!”
“Elshaw, he wants you!” cried Mr. Cornthwaite, who was leaning over his son, with haggard eyes.
Bram came forward. Christian put out his right hand very feebly, let it rest for a moment in Bram’s, which he faintly tried to press, and looked into his face with glazing eyes. Bram, holding the hand firmly in a warm, strong grip, knew when the life went out of it. Even before the hand fell back, and the eyes closed, he knew that the fingers he held were those of a dead man.