Dallas felt himself hurled violently somewhere—to death, he hoped, in that brief moment before he landed with a dull thud on the soft grass in a field close by the railroad.
He lay still a few moments, feeling as if every bone in his body were broken, and just waiting languidly for death to still his fluttering breath.
The thought came to him of Daisie. Would she be sorry when she heard he was dead? That he had met his death obeying her wish, that he should go away forever?
Then he became conscious of groans, and cries, and anxious voices. People were going about among the dead and wounded, helping them out from the awful wreck.
Two of the trainmen bent over him, saying:
“Look at this fellow, hurled through the roof of the car out into the hay field. Is he dead, or just stunned?”
Dallas opened wide his large black eyes, and gave them a start.
“Not dead, you see, thanks to this shock of hay I fell on. I thought at first my bones were all broken, but give me your hands, and let’s see if I can stand up. So! Why, I’m as sound as a dollar!” in amazement.
It was true. Death had passed him by, to take others not as willing to go as this unhappy lover.
Several persons had been killed outright, and as many more wounded, so Dallas joined the relief corps that was so busy, and in his anxiety over others forgot for a while his own grief.