CHAPTER III
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?”