A big drop of rain smote him in the face and he went still faster. It would not take long now before the rain came in streams. Vivid blinding flashes of lightning now lit up the piling clouds, and the thunder commenced. There would be ropes of water soon—enough to drown a man.
The embankment was rough under his feet and covered with debris, but he feared to leave it. One foot was bleeding from a sharp piece of iron that had gone clean through his cloth shoe; but he scarcely felt the pain and soon the rain washed it clean. On he ran, bedraggled and beginning to feel cold, but with his indomitable pluck still strong in him. Through the mist of water he saw a thing rise up: it was a tiny brick-house. He was too ignorant of railways to know that it was a linesman's house—or all that remained of.... For him it represented a haven of refuge—if the roof were still intact. He ran on falling several times in his haste and almost blinded by the rain which came down in sheets of water, and deafened by the roar of thunder which was now unending....
At last!
He tumbled through the doorway exhausted and panting. Here was a roof to shelter him. Two men who had taken refuge there, called loudly in their alarm at his sudden apparition. But all he could do was to gasp that he, too, had been surprised by the storm and had come for refuge. Then he flung himself on the ground and lay like an exhausted dog, panting as if his heart would break.
CHAPTER XXII
Presently he felt better and began to take stock of the two other intruders. Though he was as bedraggled and as tired as if he had been ducked in a stream, his wits did not desert him, nor was his caution relaxed.
So far as he could see, they were mere villagers surprised by the storm. He looked keenly to see some trace of the red girdle, or any of the dread insignia which had brought convulsions to the land—but there was nothing more menacing in each man's belt than a sickle.
"Ai-ya," he exclaimed, purposely pretending to shiver from the cold and wet, and screwing up his ugly intelligent face as he studied them. "Certainly it is a piece of ill-luck to be caught by such weather. What an amount of water! If I had only shown caution I should have stopped an hour ago. Still fortune favoured me when I caught sight of this roof. Without it, it would be hard to say what would have happened."
The two men grunted but made no other audible response.