“It’s a mean, cowardly trick,” muttered Banks, darkening the lantern as he put down the pot and stood erect. “What would my owd brother workman say if he could see me now? Ay, and what would he say to his black-hearted son for robbing me of all I howd dear? It’s a judgment on him, and he deserves it. Ay, but it’s not like me to do such a thing; but I’ve said I’d do it, and I will. Who’s yon? Curse him; I wish it were Dick Glaire, and I’d fire the train at once if I died wi’ him.”
The foreman stood ready, as he heard whispers and descending steps, and ground his teeth together, as he made out that there was a woman’s voice as well as a man’s.
“It must be Richard Glaire,” he muttered, “and who will it be wi’ him?”
He stood listening again, feeling in his mad excitement neither fear of detection nor death, for his sole desire was to obtain one great sweeping revenge on the man whom he now hated with a deadly hate; and as he listened the thought grew more strongly that this must be Richard holding a meeting with Eve Pelly.
“It can be no one else,” he muttered, pressing his hands to his fevered head, and then stooping to feel the fuse and powder. “I don’t want to hurt her, poor lass, but she’s an enemy now, like her scoundrel o’ a cousin. A villain! a villain! He’s forsaken my poor bairn, then, to come back here and mak’ love to she. If I shrunk from it before, I feel strong now. But I’ll be sure first, for, mad as I am again him, I wouldn’t send an innocent man to his account. But it must be him, it must be him, sent by his fate to die in the midst of his place.”
Joe Banks stood trying to think, but he was in so excited and fevered a state that the effort was vain. He could see nothing but ruin and death. He had promised to fire the train, and he was ready to do it, for passion had long usurped reason, and should he die in the ruins, he cared but little.
Meantime, as he stood intently listening, and with his hand upon the catch of his lantern, ready to apply it to the fuse at any moment, the whisperings continued, ceased within a few yards of where he stood; and then came the sound of a box being opened. There was a sharp, crackling scratch, and a tiny white flame flashed out in the midst of the darkness.
It lasted but a few moments, for Richard uttered a cry of dread, and let it fall, but in those moments Joe Banks had seen who struck the match, and that a female companion had sunk fainting to the earth, and the hot rage, that had almost turned his brain, grew ten times hotter.
“You madman!” cried Richard, who had divined what was to take place; and in his dread he became for the time brave, and sought to grasp the man who was charged with the deadly design. “You madman!” he cried. “What are you about to do? Here, help!”
He sought to grasp the foreman, and had not long to wait, for, choking with rage, the injured man stepped forward to seize him in turn, and they closed in a furious struggle, which resulted in the younger man seeming like a child in the mighty arms of his adversary, who lifted him from the ground, dashed him down, and then, panting with exertion and rage, planted a foot upon his chest and held him there close by the end of the train, while he felt round for the dark lantern he had dropped.