Thus much Mrs Durby saw in one horrified glance and then fainted dead away, in which condition she remained, to the great anxiety and distress of Captain Lee, until the “Flying Dutchman,” after doing seventy-eight miles in one hour and a half, glided as softly up to the platform of the station in the great Metropolis as if it were a modest young train which had yet to win its spurs, instead of being a tried veteran which had done its best for many years past to annihilate space and time. But, after all, it resembled all other tried veterans in this respect.
Generally speaking, engine-drivers are little—far too little—thought of after a journey is over. Mankind is not prone to be wise or discriminating, in giving credit to whom credit is due. We “remember” waiters after having eaten a good dinner, but who, in any sense of the word, “remembers” the cook? So in like manner we think of railway porters and guards at the end of our journeys, and talk of their civility mayhap, but who thinks or talks of the driver and fireman as they lean on the rails of their iron horse, wet and weary perchance—smoke and dust and soot begrimed for certain—and calmly watch the departure of the multitudes whom they have, by the exercise of consummate coolness, skill, and courage, brought through dangers and hairbreadth escapes that they neither knew nor dreamed of?
On this particular occasion, however, the tables were turned for once. The gentlemen in the train hurried to the guard to ask what had caused the slight shock which they had felt. Joe Turner had been called aside for a moment by a clerk, so they went direct to John Marrot himself, who modestly related what had happened in a half apologetic tone, for he did not feel quite sure that he had done the best in the circumstances. His admiring audience had no doubt on the point, however.
“You’re a brick, John!” exclaimed an enthusiastic commercial traveller.
“That’s true,” said another. “If we had more men like him, there would be fewer accidents.”
“Let’s give him something,” whispered a third.
The suggestion was eagerly acted on. A subscription was made on the spot, and in three minutes the sum of about ten pounds was thrust into John’s huge dirty hand by the enthusiastic commercial traveller. But John firmly refused to take it.
“What’s to be done with it, then?” demanded the traveller, “I can’t keep it, you know, and I’m not going to sit down here and spend half-an-hour in returning the money. If you don’t take it John, I must fling it under the engine or into the furnace.”
“Well,” said the driver, after a moment’s consideration, while he closed his hand on the money and thrust it into his breeches pocket, “I’ll take it. It will help to replace the cart we smashed, if I can find the owner.”
While this was going on near the engine, the robbers were being removed from their carriage to receive the due reward of their deeds. Three tall and strong-boned men had been on the platform for some time awaiting the arrival of the “Flying Dutchman.” Swift though John Marrot’s iron horse was, a swifter messenger had passed on the line before him. The electric spark—and a fast volatile, free-and-easy, yet faithful spark it is—had been commissioned to do a little service that day. Half-an-hour after the train had left Clatterby a detective, wholly unconnected with our friend Sharp, had called and sent a message to London to have Thomson, Jenkins, and Smith apprehended, in consequence of their connexion with a case of fraud which had been traced to them. The three tall strong-boned men were there in virtue of this telegram. But, accustomed though these men were to surprising incidents, they had scarcely expected to find that the three culprits had added another to their many crimes, and that one of them had leaped out of the train and out of their clutches—in all probability out of the world altogether! Two of the strong men went off immediately in search of him, or his remains, while the other put proper manacles on Jenkins and Smith and carried them off in a cab.