"What is it, boy?"
"Tlain, masta, no-fea'," he replied without hesitation.
There was no room for doubt. The Russians were on his track. Springing back into the cab, Jack ordered the man acting as fireman to put more fuel into the furnace, and opened the regulator valve to its full extent. Dense spark-laden smoke poured from the wide funnel; the pistons flew backward and forward; the great locomotive seemed to leap over the line, and Jack wondered whether the roughly-laid track would hold together. But, looking anxiously back, he found in a few moments that the pursuing train had appreciably gained. It must be either lighter or better engined, or had still the advantage of the momentum acquired before it had been discovered.
Danger acted on Jack like a tonic. He instantly grasped the situation and braced himself to cope with the peril. Shouting to Wang Shih to tear up the rails behind the train as soon as it came to a stop, he shut off steam and applied the brakes hard, bringing the engine with a jolt and a screech to a stand-still. Instantly the men told off leapt on to the line; with feverish energy they loosened the fish-plates, forced up with crowbars the spikes holding the rails to the sleepers, and threw the lifted rails over the embankment. Glancing anxiously back along the track Jack, though the pursuing train was as yet invisible, saw its smoke growing larger and larger in volume over the hills. At last the train itself came into view. Jack saw with surprise that the engine was at the other end of it; could the goods train, he wondered, have been stopped in some inexplicable way and started back after him? In two minutes it would be upon him. He waited for one minute; then, seeing that a gap of some fifteen or twenty yards had been made in the track, he summoned his men back to the train and pressed the regulator handle. To his eager impatience it seemed that the engine would never get under way. The wheels slipped on the rails; he had pushed the regulator too far; he drew it back, the wheels held, and, gathering speed every moment, the locomotive raced on once more.
The thunder of the pursuing train was roaring in Jack's ears. It seemed to him, looking back, that the foremost carriage was charging at the gap. He hoped the work of destruction had not been perceived; but in this he was disappointed, for when the rear of his own train was barely two hundred yards from the break, steam was shut off on the engine of the pursuer, and, helped by the rising gradient, it succeeded in coming to a stand-still just as the buffers of the foremost carriage were within half a dozen yards of the gap.
CHAPTER XXIV
Lieutenant Potugin in Pursuit
From a Hilltop—Mystified—In Full Chase—A Runaway—In Sight—A Railway Duel
"Those Cossacks are taking their time, Akim Akimitch."
"Yes, little father; 'tis to be hoped Ah Lum has not swallowed them."