The record-union., 1899-05-08

habits of brave man. Your attitude
toward yourself then is that of hero
regarding poltroon."
AS but a very inconsiderable minor
ity are ever put to these fearful tests,
said l, why trouble about the mat
ter?"
Very few" said Chandos, lose their
lives by falling from great nights, yet
thousands are haunted by the dread OF
it all their days.
What was said Tonight he con-
tinued, gives me hope that the mod
ern man is not such a funk aus he seems,
only more stupid. He gets Hurried, and
cannot think of simple things. I swear,
If ever get into a mess, 1 will rack
my brain until l can think of some
thing utterly commonplace.
"A Knight of the Obvious replied,
little thinking how soon my companion
would be given a chance of winning his
spurs.
1t came about in this wise. Chandos
travels to town every day by the West
London Railway, whose line, as every
one knows, runs through the Bell tun-
mel, which Is nearly two miles long. 1t
is perhaps the darkest tunnel in Eng
land, the line making curve so sharp
that daylight is lost sight of immediate
~ There are but two lines of metals
and the place, despite it's darkness
should be as safe as any two miles IN
the railway system. Nevertheless, it
was the scene of a bad accident. An
up train, stopping in the tunnel at no
great distance from the entrance, was
run into by another. Chandos was in
the second train, and at the time of the
catastrophe was absorbed in his news
paper. A second after the shock he was
seated upon the floor picking a splinter
of glass out of his head and smiling
contentedly. The light had been ex-
tinguished, but upon the palpable dark
ness Chandos could read the words,
the obvious" almost as plainly as if
they had been thrown by limelight upon
sheet. I'VE are none of us really Iii
Jured,' suppose a voice had said, and
half a dozen people, some of them a
little obviously, had pronounced them
selves unhurt. They were getting out,
these people, to walk back to daylight
which, they said, was, fortunately, not
far. Chandos, though with a different
purpose, prepared to follow them As
he left the compartment, a piece Of
glass from a broken window fell upon
the sin and broke into fragments, and
in the further corner there began
slow, regular dripping. The noise was
very faint-so slight that it escaped the
ears of Ctandos altogether, but it con-
tinued after he had gone for quite
while with horrid persistence.
Once upon the lines Chandos set him
self to stem the current that had al
Caf rd no av;f
plan he was carrying out had come to
him as he sat upon the carriage floor
Starting with the assumption that in
every crisis there is a manifest duty
which no one sees, and whose neglect
has dire consequences he had arrived,
by a process of reasoning that seemed
fiawless. at the conclusion that he must
traverse the tunnels length, and stop
the oncoming down train, which, should
it plunge into the debris of the col
lision, would certainly be thrown off the
line. There was an up train nearly
due, but this, presumably, would have
the signal against it. There was moth
ing startling about the scheme, but, to
Chandos, this was its great charm He
would act in an everyday way, and
show that by catastrophes he could be
neither stimulated nor depressed. In
all that vast throng he was possibly
the only one whose equable pulses al
lowed him to be quite ordinary, the
only man with faculties SO normal that
he could discern the obvious. The exc
cution of the plan, however, presented
difficulties. The human river with
which Chandos, like stout swimmer,
contended was momentarily being aug
mented by tributary rills. These were
composed of persons whose first
thought had been that nothing very
particular happened, and that their
release could wait until it was
effected in SOME regular and Of
fetal way 1t was noticed that these
people became, when their first ira
tional calm was broken, the fiercest of
strugglers Chandos found himself
tossed about like a cork, swept from
one side to the other, and. had it not
been for his almost physical grasp of
his object, he would have been carried
back altogether. On a sudden the river
ceased to flow A high moaning that
quickly deepened announced that an
other train had entered the tunnel
Neither exit being in sight, the ear, and
the ear alone, had to locate the danger,
and the ear, the least trustworthy of
our intelligencers, was unable to per-
form the task The sound came from
everywhere. 1t enveloped the distracted
multitude like an atmosphere. They
felt it in their faces at the backs of
their necks, while the weight of it seem
ed to be flattening them on the line. For
shelter the men began to rush to The
tunnel wall or to the footboard of the
wrecked train. A few ran helplessly
from side to side. Chandos kept straight
on, the comparative clearness of the
course now enabling him to make good
progress, though his sensation was that
of being swept round and round in a
whirlpool of sound. Suddenly the clat-
ter rushed up into a shrek. The noise
became localized, and far away down
the line there was the shock of a col
Iislon. Chandos was quite clear of the
trains by this time. 1t did not take him
long to reach daylight, and to climb
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