Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1879-08-26

| her stature. Her face, glowered close
down upon. his now, still with the same
/ fell expression. .
AstsThe only thing / could have done, ?
went on Jack, in describing the scene to
me-and just here, he shall speak for
himself-"the only means by which /
might perhaps have made her relax her
hold would have been by aiming one
or two tremendous blows with my right
fist (Which was at liberty at her face.
| Had it been q mans, there would have
been no hesitation; had it been indeed
that of an ordinary woman. DIT such d
pass / should not have hesitated to strike
her, to stun her, if I could, by any
means; but that face, that l seemed to
know so well, yet SO mysteriously,
could not raise my hand against it, and,
as my arm swung up with the first i'm
pulse to deal her a blow, it fell helpless
by my side: Vain were my efforts to get
her hand away from my throat; there
was a terrible swaying to and fro for a
minute or two, felt the grip of the long
fingers Tightening, and myself choking.
Suddenly we fell, the whole carriage
seemed to be falling-there was fearful
jerk or two, strange upheaving of the
floor, a tremendous rattle and crash--I
appeared to be thrown headlong to some
great distance; and-all was darkness p
The termination of that deadly strug-
gle was brought about in manner as
marvellous and unlocked for as could
well have been imagined.
Some fifty souls, say, were travelling
in that train-all, save one, in apparent
security Jacks life alone was in dan
ger, when. lo by one of those marvellous
coincidehces which do happen at times
in the supreme moments of existence,
the rescue came, but at the cost of many
alife, which but just before would have
seemed worth treble the price of Jacks
AT the very instant that his might
have depended upon another Tightening
grip OF two ff0Ii1 tile hand Of q maniac a
frightfl1l catastrophe occurred to the
train. The tire of an engine wheel
broke and half dozen carriages were
hurled down a steep embankment. The
scene that succeeded is, unhappily, of
TOD common an occurrence to need more
than word of reference here. Seven
passengers were killed Outright and
double that number slightly or badly
hurt, the remainder escaping, as by a
miracle, with nothing else than severe
shaking.
My friend was among the shaken. He
had been thrown clear of the debris on
to a soft, grassy spot; half bdfik, half
hedge; emphatically. his life was savedi
But what followed it was that which
caused the suffering wrought the
terrible change Ia Jack. tss
In the darkness. of that soft autumn
night he strove, foremost among those
who had been spared, to rehder such
help as was possible to the less fortunate
Y = 4 i
fires were set blazing to give light, al
most his first care was to try and seek
out his dangerous fellow traveller In
course, to listen to Jacks account Of
her, even had he been prepared then to
give It, She was not, evidently, moving
about among the crowd; he assured HIM
self of that; but supposing her, like him
self. to have escaped injury (afld he coh-
cluded that this was likely), might she
not, with the stealth and cunning incl
dental to her nalady, be hiding, and be
thus further eluding detention; become.
with her homicidal mania, as dangerous
to the community at large as some fierce
wild animal would be The thought
made him shudder; he must lose no time
in assuring himself of her fate.
As soon as an approach to order could
be evolved out of that awful chaos, he
had convinced himself that she was not
among the injured, Then lie turned to
the dead. His eye fell upon several 1i1u-
tilated and motionless forms, which hao
been laid in an ominous row at the foot
of one part of the embankment. Hers
was not among them; he could find no
trace of her. ww@M
At length, as d sfckly dawn was be-
ginning TO make the search easier, he en-
deavored to discover the spot where the
carriage he had occupied had fallen, and
to retrace his steps quite to the rear of
the train, by the way)to the place where
he found himself lying after the catas-
trophe.
By this time he had made known
briefly to some officials that a woman
was missing who had been in the
carriage with him, and one or two of
them followed him in his quest. Pres
emily he realized pretty well where he
had been thrown; he ali but identified
the spot. Then he scrambled through
the hedge, and there, on the opposite
side, on the sloping bank of a ditch, he
beheld, lying quite still, her dark, un-
mistakable form.
He ran forward, and, bending over
her and looking down upon the marble,
up-turned face, saw at a glance that
there was nothing dangerous about her
now-those terrible eyes were closed for
ever. Except for slight wound on one
temple, whence a little blood had trickled,
and the distorted but pow rigidly closed
hand, which had been so lately at his
throat, she looked as calm and unin-
jured as. if she were merely sleeping.
while death had restored for brief
period much of that beauty, the traces Of
which had struck him when her vail
was first lifted.
One of the surgeons here came hurry
ing up, in answer to summons.
'Good heavensl" he exclaimed; .'here
she is, then, at lastl Why, she must
have been in the train. How on earth
did she manage itP"
who is she?" inquired Jack. earn
estly, with strange return of the old,
inexplicable sensation. ''Who is she
You appear to know her. Pray tell me-
"Oh, one of our inmates; she got away
yesterday morning; no one knows how; y
was the answer.
"You are from Longmoor, then. How
long has she been thereP What is her
nameP"
s.Oh, she has been there upward OF
twenty years, / believe; long before my
time,"
s'And her name?"
Upon my word. at this moment,
can hardly" went on the doctor, me-