At last we reached the lights, and I saw, as I dashed by, that we had passed the dread point.
As I turned back, I could see the rapidly-dropping cinders from the train which, had the guard's break been sufficiently powerful to have made me [{206}] thirty seconds later, would have utterly destroyed me.
I was still in a difficult position. There was the train half a minute behind us, which, had we kept our time, would have been four minutes in front of us. It came on to the same rails, and I could hear its dull rumble rushing on toward us fast. If I stopped there was no light to warn them. I must go on, for the Sienna train did not stop at Empoli.
I put on more fuel, and after some slight scalding, from turning on the wrong taps, had the pleasure of seeing the water-gauge filling up. Still I could not go on long; the risk was awful. I tried in vain to write on a leaf of my note-book, and after searching in the tool-box, wrote on the iron lid of the tank with a piece of chalk, "Stop everything behind me. The train will not be stopped till three red lights are ranged in a line on the ground. Telegraph forward." And then, as we flew through the Empoli station, I threw it on the platform. On we went; the same dull thunder behind warning me that I dare not stop.
We passed through another station at full speed, and at length I saw the white lights of another station in the distance. The sound behind had almost ceased, and in a few moments more I saw the line of three red lamps low down on the ground. I pulled back the handle, and after an ineffectual effort to pull up at the station, brought up the train about a hundred yards beyond Pontedera.
The porters and police of the station came up and put the train back, and then came the explanation.
The guard had been found dead on the rails, just beyond Empoli, and the telegraph set to work to stop the train. He must have found out the failure of his scheme, and in trying to reach the engine, have fallen on the rails.
The driver was only stupefied, and the stoker fortunately only dangerously, not fatally, wounded.
Another driver was found, and the train was to go on.
The count had listened most attentively to my statements, and then, taking my grimed hand in his, led me to his mother.