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The Wrong Box-Part3_ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON(1850-1894)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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by name; and yet, if the whole of this wandering cohort were to

disappear tomorrow, their absence would be wholly unremarked. How



much more, if only one--say this one in the ventilating

cloth--should vanish! He had paid his bills at Bournemouth; his



worldly effects were all in the van in two portmanteaux, and

these after the proper interval would be sold as unclaimed



baggage to a Jew; Sir Faraday's butler would be a half-crown

poorer at the year's end, and the hotelkeepers of Europe about



the same date would be mourning a small but quite observable

decline in profits. And that would be literally all. Perhaps the



old gentleman thought something of the sort, for he looked

melancholy enough as he pulled his bare, grey head back into the



carriage, and the train smoked under the bridge, and forth, with

ever quickening speed, across the mingled heaths and woods of the



New Forest.

Not many hundred yards beyond Browndean, however, a sudden



jarring of brakes set everybody's teeth on edge, and there was a

brutal stoppage. Morris Finsbury was aware of a confused uproar



of voices, and sprang to the window. Women were screaming, men

were tumbling from the windows on the track, the guard was crying



to them to stay where they were; at the same time the train began

to gather way and move very slowly backward toward Browndean; and



the next moment--, all these various sounds were blotted out in

the apocalyptic whistle and the thundering onslaught of the down



express.

The actualcollision Morris did not hear. Perhaps he fainted. He



had a wild dream of having seen the carriage double up and fall

to pieces like a pantomime trick; and sure enough, when he came



to himself, he was lying on the bare earth and under the open

sky. His head ached savagely; he carried his hand to his brow,



and was not surprised to see it red with blood. The air was

filled with an intolerable, throbbing roar, which he expected to



find die away with the return of consciousness; and instead of

that it seemed but to swell the louder and to pierce the more



cruelly through his ears. It was a raging, bellowing thunder,

like a boiler-riveting factory.



And now curiosity began to stir, and he sat up and looked about

him. The track at this point ran in a sharp curve about a wooded



hillock; all of the near side was heaped with the wreckage of the

Bournemouth train; that of the express was mostlyhidden by the



trees; and just at the turn, under clouds of vomiting steam and

piled about with cairns of living coal, lay what remained of the



two engines, one upon the other. On the heathy margin of the line

were many people running to and fro, and crying aloud as they



ran, and many others lying motionless like sleeping tramps.

Morris suddenly drew an inference. 'There has been an accident'



thought he, and was elated at his perspicacity. Almost at the

same time his eye lighted on John, who lay close by as white as



paper. 'Poor old John! poor old cove!' he thought, the schoolboy

expression popping forth from some forgotten treasury, and he



took his brother's hand in his with childishtenderness. It was

perhaps the touch that recalled him; at least John opened his



eyes, sat suddenly up, and after several ineffectual movements of

his lips, 'What's the row?' said he, in a phantom voice.



The din of that devil's smithy still thundered in their ears.

'Let us get away from that,' Morris cried, and pointed to the



vomit of steam that still spouted from the broken engines. And

the pair helped each other up, and stood and quaked and wavered



and stared about them at the scene of death.

Just then they were approached by a party of men who had already



organized themselves for the purposes of rescue.

'Are you hurt?' cried one of these, a young fellow with the sweat



streaming down his pallid face, and who, by the way he was

treated, was evidently the doctor.



Morris shook his head, and the young man, nodding grimly, handed

him a bottle of some spirit.



'Take a drink of that,' he said; 'your friend looks as if he

needed it badly. We want every man we can get,' he added;



'there's terrible work before us, and nobody should shirk. If you

can do no more, you can carry a stretcher.'



The doctor was hardly gone before Morris, under the spur of the

dram, awoke to the full possession of his wits.






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