The next instant, the still street was in an uproar, the two constables and Mr. Darcy, shouting for assistance as they went, started in pursuit. The corner round which Captain Cavendish had cut, and which they now took, led to a dirty waterside street, branching off into numerous wharves, crowded with hogsheads, bales, barrels, and piles of lumber, affording a secure and handy hiding-place for any runaway. It was like looking for a needle in a hay-stack even in daylight; and now, in the thick fog and darkness, it was the wildest of wildgoose-chases. They ran from one wharf to another, collecting a crowd about them wherever they went; and all the time, he for whom they were searching was quietly watching them in a black and filthy alley, that cut like a dirty vein of black mud from that waterside street to the one above.
Drawing his hat far down over his eyes, Captain Cavendish started up the alley, and found himself again in the street he had left. The cab still stood before the office door of Mr. Darcy; he gave it one derisive glance as he strode rapidly along, and struck into another by-street. If he could only make good his escape; if he could baffle them yet! Hope sent his heart in mad plunges against his side—if he could only escape!
Suddenly, a thought flashed upon him—the cars. There had been a picnic that day, and an excursion-train, he knew, left at half-past seven to fetch the picnickers home. If he could only get to the depot in time, he might stay in hiding about the country until the first hue and cry was over, then, in disguise, make his way to S——, and take the steamer for Quebec. He had a large sum of money about him; he might do it—he might escape yet.
He pulled out his watch as he almost ran along, twenty-five minutes past seven; only five minutes, and a long way off still. He fled through the dark streets like a madman, but no one knew him, and reached the depot at last, panting and breathless. A crowd lingered on the platform, a bell was clanging, and the train was in motion. Desperation goaded him on; he made a furious leap on board, and—there was a wild cry of horror from the bystanders, an awful shriek of "O my God!" from a falling man, and then all was uproar, and confusion, and horror, and dismay. Whether in his blind haste he had missed his footing, whether the darkness of the night deceived him, whether the train was moving faster than he had supposed, no one ever knew; but he was down, and ground under the remorseless wheels of the terrible Juggernaut.
The train was stopped, and everybody flocked around in consternation. Two of the brakemen lifted up something—something that had once been a man, but which was crushed out of all semblance of humanity now. No one there recognized him; they had only heard that one agonized cry wrung from the unbelieving soul in that horrible moment—giving the lie to his whole past life—but they had heard or knew nothing more. Some one brought a door; and they laid the bloody and mangled mass upon it, and now raised it reverentially on their shoulders, and carried it slowly to the nearest house. A cloth was thrown over the white, staring face, the only part of him, it seemed, not mangled into jelly; and so they carried him away from the spot, a dreadful sight, which those who saw never forgot.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE VESPER HYMN.
He was not dead. He was not even insensible. While they carried him carefully through the chill, black night, and when they carried him into the nearest house, and laid him tenderly on a bed, the large, dark eyes were wide open and fixed, but neither in death nor unconsciousness. It was a hotel they had carried him to; and one of the pretty chambermaids, who owned a sentimentally-tender heart, and read a great many novels, cried as she looked at him.
"Poor fellow!" she said, to another pretty chambermaid; "it's such a pity, ain't it—and he so handsome?"