The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1893-07-29
ton of things in general before start

ing.
At the last moment richly-dressed
gentleman, wearing long fur coat,
and carrying large travelling rug, en-
tered first-class smoking compart-
ment. This gentleman, whom numer-
Gus people on the platform recognized
as he passed and saluted respectfully,
was Eustace Margraf, Esq. The car
riage he got into was an empty one,
and, lying full length on the seat, COW
cred with his rug, he lit cigar and
composed himself to make the best of a
long and tiresome railway journey.
The guard blew his whistle, the great
engine reproduced it in a loud, deep
tone, and the train steamed slowly out
of the station, twenty minutes late in
starting.
Left to his own reflections, which
were none of the liveliest, and lulled by
the motion of the train, our traveller
soon fell into fitful sleep, wherein he
was haunted by dreams that wrought
upon his brain until he was almost as
nervous as he had been in his own room
some hours before.
He awoke suddenly, with a vague
sense that the train was travelling at o
most unusual and unaccountable speed;
and, as he leaped to his feet in a half
dazed fright, they shot through Tun-
bridge-a place at which they were
timed to make ten minutes stop
| and he was conscious of seeing, as in a
flash, crowd of frightened and awe
struck faces looking at the train from
the platform. He sank back on the
cushioned seat, seized with a nameless
terror. Time and space seemed to his
overweight nerves to be filled with
tokens of some approaching calamity
which he was powerless to prevent; the
terrific speed and violent swaying of
| the train, the shrill howl of the cease
less whistle, the terrible darkness and
silence of everything outside his imme-
date surroundings, and the recollection
of that crowd of terrified faces, all
seemed to thrill hmm with sense of inn
pending horror, and the wretched man
sat terror-stricken on his seat, mere
mass of highly strung and delicate
| nerves
Suddenly, as he looked into the black
night, a face passed the window, as of
some one walking along the footboard
to the engine; a stern-set face, as of one
going to certain danger and needing all
the pluck he possessed to carry him
through; and at the apparition the trav-
eler fairly shrieked aloud, but the face
passed on and was gone.
| In another moment there was sud-
cen shout-a terrific crash-a wild
chaos of sight and southland our trav-
eler knew no more,
| When next he found his senses he was
lying among cushions and rugs in the
waiting-room at Tunbridge Wells sta
ton. He awoke with faint shiver and
tried to raise himself, but found to his
establishment that he could not SO much
as lift finger. AS a matter of fact, he
was among those whom the busy sur
geons had given up as desperate case;
and, after doing all in their power to
ease him, abandoned in favor of more
hopeful subjects; but this he did not
know.
Several of the passengers whose in
juries were only very slight were dis.
cussing the accident in an animated
manner, and, as usual in such cases,
many wild and fanciful conjectures
were passed about as truth. At last
one said:
docs anyone know the rights of the
matter?'
"Yes, / do" volunteered young man
with an arm in sling; and Margrai
lay silently listening, unable to move
or speak.
"Well, what is it?''
"Just after we passed Grove Park,
the fireman was on the front of the en-
CINE oiling, when he felt the locomotive
increasing in speed till it became SO ap-
palling that he grew terrified and could
not get back. He is young fellow,
and this is his trial trip. At length he
managed to crawl back to the cab,
where he found the driver lying, as he
supposed, dead. This so increased his
terror that he was only able to open
the whistle and pull the cord commune
eating with the rear guard, and then
fell in a swoon across the tender.
1.-THE rear guard, plucky young fell
low of about six and twenty, twiggina
the situation, came, as we all know,
along the footboard to the engine
Margraf listened with all his remaining
strength-''in order to stop the train
before it ran into the Ramsgate express,
but apparently was too late"
'But what was up with the driver,
and where was the front guard in the
meanwhile?"
| "Well, it appears from what the front
guard says-marvelous how he escaped
with hardly scatch-both these men
had been drugged, and, as they were
both of them to have run the mail traiz
to the continent tonight, things Looked
very flshy."
Margraf nearly tainted in his efforts
to listen more intensely.
"Thcy were changed on to this train