Chris could not understand the cry that came back through the steam--'Drop it, you devils! them's my cold chisels'; but, as ever, he followed on the other's heels, half-scalded, half-deafened; followed blindly until in the clearer air beyond--as yet!--that snorting, sliding, resistless fate behind him, he saw that the group about the sockets had scattered at the mere sight of that reckless onslaught.
All but one figure--the figure of the biggest bully of the butchers' gang, Jân-Ali-shân's sworn foe--that, with a yell of absolute hate, had run out as recklessly to bar the way.
Jân-Ali-shân gave a shout as he closed with it, for the man was a noted wrestler--'None o' yer buttin's an' booin's; fight seeda, or it ain't----'
There was no time for more words, since this was no place for a wrestling match--this narrow platform with the river below it, and scarcely room upon it for a man with steady nerves to stand slim and let a fierce shadow with a screaming voice pass in a roar and a rattle.
And such a fierce shadow half hidden in the steam fog was sliding on, battling against the curb, thundering, shaking the track with brakes down! So close! Dear God! so close!
Chris gave a desperate cry of fear and courage--but was beside those two.
And so was the red glare of the angry eyes seen through the steam clouds; so was the scream of the whistle heard above the roar and the rattle.
'Now then, sir, heave!
"Yo-ho--yo-ho, ho! yo-ho, ho!"'
The engine-driver, craning from his cab, heard so much beyond that fog of steam. The officers in the first carriage heard a brief--