The Web of Time

by Robert E. Knowles

"Been long at college?"

"A couple of years," answered Harvey; "they go rather slowly when a fellow's anxious to get through. Say, isn't this train going at a tremendous pace? What's the matter?" his voice rising as he clutched savagely at the side of the seat.

It was too late for his companion to make reply—already he was being caught into the current of the storm.

What followed defies description. Harvey's first thought was of some irregularity that would last but a moment—he could not realize that the worst had happened. A shrill voice from another part of the car cried out that they were off the rail, but he swiftly rejected the suggestion. An instant later he was as one struggling for his life. The engine had never left the rail and the driver was quite unconscious of the situation. Dragged ruthlessly along, the car leaped and bounded like a living thing: it seemed, like a runaway horse, to be stampeded by its own wild plunging as it was flung from side to side, bouncing almost clear of the road-bed with every revolution of the wheels.

Flung into the corner by the window, Harvey braced himself as best he could with hands and feet, dimly marvelling at the terrible length of time the process seemed to last. He glanced upward at the bell-rope, swingly wildly; but he knew any attempt to reach it would be disastrous, if not fatal. Still the mad thing tore on; shrieks and cries rose above the din; parcels and valises were everywhere battering about as if flung from catapults; one or two of the passengers cried out in plaintive wrath, some as if remonstrating with a mettlesome steed, others as if appealing for a chance against the sudden violence. Harvey remembered, long after, how he had said to himself that he was still alive—and uninjured—and that all might yet be well, if it would only stop.

Confused and terrified though he was, his senses worked with almost preternatural acuteness; he remarked the spasmodic eagerness with which men clutched at one another, muttering the while like contestants in a mighty struggle; the very grotesqueness of the thing flashed upon his mind an instant, as, the car taking its last desperate bound, he saw strong men flung about like feathers in a gale; two or three near him, shouting wildly, were tossed to the very ceiling of the car, their limbs outflung as when athletes jump high in air. Then the coach was pitched headlong; the man to whom he had spoken but a moment before was hurled through the spacious window, and the overturning car sealed his lips with eternal silence; two stalwart men fell full on Harvey's crouching form—darkness wrapped him about as the car ploughed its way down the steep embankment.

"This is death," he said involuntarily, and aloud, as the dread descent was being accomplished. Many things—much that could never be reproduced, more that could never be uttered—swam before him in the darkness. A sort of reverent curiosity possessed his soul, hurrying, as he believed himself to be, into the eternal. He was to know now! All of which he had so often heard, and thought, and conjectured, was about to unfold itself before him. A swift sense of the insignificance of all things save one—such an estimate as he had never had before—and a great conception of the transcendent claim of the eternal, swept through his mind. Then suddenly—as if emerging from the very wreck of things, illumining all the darkness and clothing the storm with a mysterious calm, there arose the vision of his mother's face. A moment later all was still; blessed stillness, and like to the quietness of death. The car was motionless.

But only for a moment did the stillness reign. Then came the wild surging of human voices, like the sound of many waters; appeal, frenzied fear, tormenting pain, pitiful enquiry—all blended to make it such a discord of human sounds as he had never heard before. It froze his soul amid all the agony of suspense he himself was bearing. For that human load was still upon him, still holding him pinned tight in the corner of the now overturned and shattered car; how much more might hold him down, he could not tell. And with this came his first real taste of terror; the thought of imprisonment beneath the heavy wreckage—and then the outbreaking fire—tore for a moment through his mind.

But already he could feel the forms above his own writhing in their effort to rise; one, his thigh fractured, gave over with a loud cry of pain. The other was trying to lift him as gently as he might. Soon both were from above him. The moment that followed thrilled with suspense—Harvey almost shrank from the attempt to straighten himself up lest he might find himself pinned beneath the deadly truck. But he tried—and he was free. And he could see through the window of the door, upside down as it was, the sparkling sunshine, never so beautiful before.

With a gasp of joy he bounded towards it—then stopped suddenly, checked by the rebuke of what he saw about him. For—let it be recorded to the praise of human nature and the credit of sorrow's ministry—every man who was unhurt seemed engaged with those who were. Strong, selfish-looking men, utter strangers, men who had sat scowling behind their newspapers or frowning because some child's boisterousness disturbed them, could now be seen bending with tender hands and tenderer words above some groaning sufferer, intent only on securing the removal of the helpless from the threatened wreck.