Williams news., 1922-09-22

llllIllIlnl | beside the cars as-the fantail dipped
 into the water; Corvet, again leading
 the crew, cleared the leader of those madly charging cars and ran it over J. the stern.
 The fore trucks fell and before the rear trucks reached the edge, the
 stern lifted and caught the car in the
 middle; it balanced, half over the wa
 ter, half over the deck. Corvet
 crouched under the car with a crow | bar; Alan and two others went with l him they worked the car on until the | weight of the end over the water tipped | 1t down; the balance broke, and the | car tumbled and dived. Corvet, hay | ing cleared another hundred tons, leaped back,+ calling to the crew. They followed. him again, unques-
 tioning, obedient. Alan followed close
 to him. It was not pity which stirred him now for Benjamin Corvet; nor was. it bitterness; but it certainly was not;
 contempt. .; Of all the ways in which he had faneied' finding Benjamin Corvet, he had never thought of seeing him like. thfsi, -s ~- =.
 -. It was, probably, only for flash i;
 but the great quality of leadership. which he had once possessed, which HdQ ucSCTfDOu .IO Aldn duu
 which had been destroyed by the threat over him, had returned to him in this desperate emergency which he had ere
 ated. How much or how little, of his
 own condition Corvet understood, Alan
 could not tell; it was plain only that
 he comprehended that he had been the cause of the catastrophe, and in his
 fierce will to repair it he not only dis
 regarded all risk to himself; he also
 had summoned up from within him and
 was spending the last strength of his
 spirit. But he was spending it in a
 losing fight.
 He got. off two more cars; yet the
 deck only dipped lower, and water
 washed farther and farther up over
 the faRtail. Men, leaping from before
 the charging cars, got caught in the -murderouS melee of iron and steel
 and wheels; mems Shrin cries came
 amid the scream of metal. Alan, tug ging at a crate which had struck down a man, felt aid beside him and, turn ing, he saw the priest whom he had passed on the stairs. The priest was bruised and bloody; this was not his first effort to aid. Together they lifted an end of the crate; they bentVAlan
 stepped back, and the priest knelt alone, his lips repeating the prayer for
 
 behind; and the priest rose and turned He saw men caught between two wrecks of cars crushing together; there was no moment to reach them; he stood and raised his arms to them, his head thrown back his voice calling to them, as they died, the words of absolution.
 Three more cars at the cost of two lives the crew cleared. while the sheathing of Ice spread over the steel inboard, and dissolution of all the cargo became complete. Cut stone and motor parts, classes and castings, fur niture and beams, swept back and forth while the cars, burst and splin- tered became monstrous missiles hurt ling forward, sidewise, aSlant, recoil- ing Yet men, though scattered Singly, tried to stay them by ropes and chains while the water washed higher and higher. Dimly, far away, deafened out by the clangOr, the steam whistle of Number 25 was blowing the four long blasts of distress; Alan heard the sound now and then with indifferent wonder All destruction had come for him to be contained within this car deck; here the ship Ioosed n itself all elements of annihilation; who could aid it from without? Alan caught the end of a chain which Coryet flung him and, though he knew it was useless, he carried it across from one stanchion to the next Something, sweeping across the deck, caught him and car ried him with it; 1t brought him be- fore the coupled line of trucks which | hurtIed back and forth where the rails ] of track three had been- He was hurled before. them and rolled over; | something cold and heavy pinned him | down; and upon him, the car trucks | came. |
 But, before them, something warm | and +Hvfng-a hand and bare arm catching him. quickly and pulling at | him, tugged him a little farther on. | Alan, looking up, saw Corvet beside him; Corvet, unable to move him farther, was crouching down there with him. Alan yelled to him to leap, to twist aside and get out of the way; but Corvet only crouched closer and put his arms over Alan; then the wreckage came upon them, driving them apart. AS the movement stopped, Alan still could see Corvet dimly by the glow of the incandescent lamps