And finally, utterly exhausted, but cheered through not having heard a sound from his pursuers for the last quarter mile, Alex stumbled into the clearing of the abandoned brick-works, ran low for a distance under cover of a long drying-frame, and scrambling through the low doorway of an old tile oven, threw himself upon the floor, done out, but confident that at last he was safe.
As he lay panting and listening, Alex turned his thoughts again to the train. Had the foreman made his escape? With so many promptly after him, it seemed scarcely probable. Then the saving of Twenty was still upon his own shoulders!
And there was little time in which to do anything, for she was due at 7:50, and it must be after 7 already!
Could he not reach the switch itself, and throw it back just before the train was due? That would be surest. And in the rapidly growing darkness there should be at least a fair chance of getting by any of the foreigners who might be on the watch.
Determinedly Alex gathered himself together, and crawled back to the entrance. Near the doorway he stumbled over something. “Oh, our old switch lantern!” he exclaimed, holding it to the light, and momentarily paused to examine it. For it had been placed under cover there the previous fall by himself and some other boys, after being used in a game of “hold-up” on the brick-yard siding.
“Just as we left it,” said Alex to himself, and was about to put it aside, when he paused with a start, studied it sharply a moment, then uttered a cry, shook it to see that it still contained oil, and scrambled hurriedly forth, taking it with him.
A moment he paused to listen, then set off on the run for the old yard semaphore, dimly discernible a hundred yards distant. Reaching it, he caught the lantern in his teeth, and ran up the ladder hand over hand, clambered onto the little platform, and turned toward the town.
Yes! Through the trees the station lamps were plainly visible! With a cry of delight Alex at once set about carrying out his inspiration. Quickly trimming the lantern wick, he lit it, with his handkerchief tied it to the semaphore arm, and turned it so that the bull’s-eye pointed toward the station.
Then, catching off his cap, he held it over the bull’s-eye, and alternately covering and uncovering the stream of light, began flashing across the darkness signals that corresponded with the telegraphic call of the Bixton station.
“BX,” he flashed. “BX, BX, BX!