Authors: Claudius Bombarnac
What they are saying is this.
Of these questions and answers exchanged between my lord Faruskiar and
his companions, I do not lose a word.
"When shall we be at the junction?"
"In a few minutes."
"Are you sure that Kardek is at the points?"
"Yes; that has been arranged."
What had been arranged? And who is this Kardek they are talking about?
The conversation continues.
"We must wait until we get the signal," says Faruskiar.
"Is that a green light?" asks Ghangir.
"Yes—it will show that the switch is over."
I do not know if I am in my right senses. The switch over? What switch?
A half minute elapses. Ought I not to tell Popof? Yes—I ought.
I was turning to go out of the van, when an exclamation kept me back.
"The signal—there is the signal!" says Ghangir.
"And now the train is on the Nanking branch!" replies Faruskiar.
The Nanking branch? But then we are lost. At five kilometres from here
is the Tjon viaduct in course of construction, and the train is being
precipitated towards an abyss.
Evidently Major Noltitz was not mistaken regarding my lord Faruskiar. I
understand the scheme of the scoundrels. The manager of the Grand
Transasiatic is a scoundrel of the deepest dye. He has entered the
service of the company to await his opportunity for some extensive
haul. The opportunity has come with the millions of the Son of Heaven I
Yes! The whole abominable scheme is clear enough to me. Faruskiar has
defended the imperial treasure against Ki-Tsang to keep it from the
chief of the bandits who stopped the train, whose attack would have
interfered with his criminal projects! That is why he had fought so
bravely. That is why he had risked his life and behaved like a hero.
And thou, poor beast of a Claudius, how thou hast been sold! Another
howler! Think of that, my friend!
But somehow we ought to prevent this rascal from accomplishing his
work. We ought to save the train which is running full speed towards
the unfinished viaduct, we ought to save the passengers from a
frightful catastrophe. As to the treasure Faruskiar and his accomplices
are after, I care no more than for yesterday's news! But the
passengers—and myself—that is another affair altogether.
I will go back to Popof. Impossible. I seem to be nailed to the floor
of the van. My head swims—
Is it true we are running towards the abyss? No! I am mad. Faruskiar
and his accomplices would be hurled over as well. They would share our
fate. They would perish with us!
But there are shouts in front of the train. The screams of people being
killed. There is no doubt now. The driver and the stoker are being
strangled. I feel the speed of the train begin to slacken.
I understand. One of the ruffians knows how to work the train, and he
is slowing it to enable them to jump off and avoid the catastrophe.
I begin to master my torpor. Staggering like a drunken man, I crawl to
Kinko's case. There, in a few words, I tell him what has passed, and I
exclaim:
"We are lost!"
"No—perhaps" he replies.
Before I can move, Kinko is out of his box. He rushes towards the front
door; he climbs on to the tender.
"Come along! Come along!" he shouts.
I do not know how I have done it, but here I am at his side, on the
foot-plate, my feet in the blood of the driver and stoker, who have
been thrown off on to the line.
Faruskiar and his accomplices are no longer here.
But before they went one of them has taken off the brakes, jammed down
the regulator to full speed, thrown fresh coals into the fire-box, and
the train is running with frightful velocity.
In a few minutes we shall reach the Tjon viaduct.
Kinko, energetic and resolute, is as cool as a cucumber. But in vain he
tries to move the regulator, to shut off the steam, to put on the
brake. These valves and levers, what shall we do with them?
"I must tell Popof!" I shout.
"And what can he do? No; there is only one way—"
"And what is that?"
"Rouse up the fire," says Kinko, calmly; "shut down the safety valves,
and blow up the engine."
And was that the only way—a desperate way—of stopping the train
before it reached the viaduct?
Kinko scattered the coal on to the fire bars. He turned on the greatest
possible draught, the air roared across the furnace, the pressure goes
up, up, amid the heaving of the motion, the bellowings of the boiler,
the beating of the pistons. We are going a hundred kilometres an hour.
"Get back!" shouts Kinko above the roar. "Get back into the van."
"And you, Kinko?"
"Get back, I tell you."
I see him hang on to the valves, and put his whole weight on the levers.
"Go!" he shouts.
I am off over the tender. I am through the van. I awake Popof, shouting
with all my strength:
"Get back! Get back!"
A few passengers suddenly waking from sleep begin to run from the front
car.
Suddenly there is an explosion and a shock. The train at first jumps
back. Then it continues to move for about half a kilometre.
It stops.
Popof, the major, Caterna, most of the passengers are out on the line
in an instant.
A network of scaffolding appears confusedly in the darkness, above the
piers which were to carry the viaduct across the Tjon valley.
Two hundred yards further the train would have been lost in the abyss.
And I, who wanted "incident," who feared the weariness of a monotonous
voyage of six thousand kilometres, in the course of which I should not
meet with an impression or emotion worth clothing in type!
I have made another muddle of it, I admit! My lord Faruskiar, of whom I
had made a hero—by telegraph—for the readers of the
Twentieth.
Century
. Decidedly my good intentions ought certainly to qualify me as
one of the best paviers of a road to a certain place you have doubtless
heard of.
We are, as I have said, two hundred yards from the valley of the Tjon,
so deep and wide as to require a viaduct from three hundred and fifty
to four hundred feet long. The floor of the valley is scattered over
with rocks, and a hundred feet down. If the train had been hurled to
the bottom of that chasm, not one of us would have escaped alive. This
memorable catastrophe—most interesting from a reporter's point of
view—would have claimed a hundred victims. But thanks to the coolness,
energy and devotion of the young Roumanian, we have escaped this
terrible disaster.
All? No! Kinko has paid with his life for the safety of his fellow
passengers.
Amid the confusion my first care was to visit the luggage van, which
had remained uninjured. Evidently if Kinko had survived the explosion
he would have got back into his box and waited till I put myself in
communication with him.
Alas! The coffer is empty—empty as that of a company which has
suspended payment. Kinko has been the victim of his sacrifice.
And so there has been a hero among our traveling companions, and he was
not this Faruskiar, this abominable bandit hidden beneath the skin of a
manager, whose name I have so stupidly published over the four corners
of the globe! It was this Roumanian, this humble, this little, this
poor fellow, whose sweetheart will wait for him in vain, and whom she
will never again see! Well, I will do him justice! I will tell what he
has done. As to his secret, I shall be sorry if I keep it. If he
defrauded the Grand Transasiatic, it is thanks to that fraud that a
whole train has been saved. We were lost, we should have perished in
the most horrible of deaths if Kinko had not been there!
I went back on to the line, my heart heavy, my eyes full of tears.
Assuredly Faruskiar's scheme—in the execution of which he had executed
his rival Ki-Tsang—had been cleverly contrived in utilizing this
branch line leading to the unfinished viaduct. Nothing was easier than
to switch off the train if an accomplice was at the points. And as soon
as the signal was given that we were on the branch, all he had to do
was to gain the foot-plate, kill the driver and stoker, slow the train
and get off, leaving the steam on full to work up to full speed.
And now there could be no doubt that the scoundrels worthy of the most
refined tortures that Chinese practice could devise were hastening down
into the Tjon valley. There, amid the wreck of the train, they expected
to find the fifteen millions of gold and precious stones, and this
treasure they could carry off without fear of surprise when the night
enabled them to consummate this fearful crime. Well! They have been
robbed, these robbers, and I hope that they will pay for their crime
with their lives, at the least. I alone know what has passed, but I
will tell the story, for poor Kinko is no more.
Yes! My mind is made up. I will speak as soon as I have seen Zinca
Klork. The poor girl must be told with consideration. The death of her
betrothed must not come upon her like a thunderclap. Yes! To-morrow, as
soon as we are at Pekin.
After all, if I do not say anything about Kinko, I may at least
denounce Faruskiar and Ghangir and the four Mongols. I can say that I
saw them go through the van, that I followed them, that I found they
were talking on the gangway, that I heard the screams of the driver and
stoker as they were strangled on the foot-plate, and that I then
returned to the cars shouting: "Back! Back!" or whatever it was.
Besides, as will be seen immediately, there was somebody else whose
just suspicions had been changed into certainty, who only awaited his
opportunity to denounce Faruskiar.
We are now standing at the head of the train, Major Noltitz, the German
baron, Caterna, Ephrinell, Pan-Chao, Popof, about twenty travelers in
all. The Chinese guard, faithful to their trust, are still near the
treasure which not one of them has abandoned. The rear guard has
brought along the tail lamps, and by their powerful light we can see in
what a state the engine is.
If the train, which was then running at enormous velocity, had not
stopped suddenly—and thus brought about its destruction—it was
because the boiler had exploded at the top and on the side. The wheels
being undamaged, the engine had run far enough to come gradually to a
standstill of itself, and thus the passengers had been saved a violent
shock.
Of the boiler and its accessories only a few shapeless fragments
remained. The funnel had gone, the dome, the steam chest; there was
nothing but torn plates, broken, twisted tubes, split cylinders, and
loose connecting rods—gaping wounds in the corpse of steel.
And not only had the engine been destroyed, but the tender had been
rendered useless. Its tank had been cracked, and its load of coals
scattered over the line. The luggage-van, curious to relate, had
miraculously escaped without injury.
And looking at the terrible effects of the explosion, I could see that
the Roumanian had had no chance of escape, and had probably been blown
to fragments.
Going a hundred yards down the line I could find no trace of him—which
was not to be wondered at.
At first we looked on at the disaster in silence; but eventually
conversation began.
"It is only too evident," said one of the passengers, "that our driver
and stoker have perished in the explosion."
"Poor fellows!" said Popof. "But I wonder how the train could have got
on the Nanking branch without being noticed?"
"The night was very dark," said Ephrinell, "and the driver could not
see the points."
"That is the only explanation possible," said Popof, "for he would have
tried to stop the train, and, on the contrary, we were traveling at
tremendous speed."
"But," said Pan-Chao, "how does it happen the Nanking branch was open
when the Tjon viaduct is not finished? Had the switch been interfered
with?"
"Undoubtedly," said Popof, "and probably out of carelessness."
"No," said Ephrinell, deliberately. "There has been a crime—a crime
intended to bring about the destruction of the train and passengers—"
"And with what object?" asked Popof.
"The object of stealing the imperial treasure," said Ephrinell. "Do you
forget that those millions would be a temptation to scoundrels? Was it
not for the purpose of robbing the train that we were attacked between
Tchertchen and Tcharkalyk?"
The American could not have been nearer the truth.
"And so," said Popof, "after Ki-Tsang's attempt, you think that other
bandits—"
Up to now Major Noltitz had taken no part in the discussion. Now he
interrupted Popof, and in a voice heard by all he asked:
"Where is Faruskiar?"
They all looked about and tried to discover what had become of the
manager of the Transasiatic.
"And where is his friend Ghangir?" asked the major.
There was no reply.
"And where are the four Mongols who were in the rear van?" asked Major
Noltitz.
And none of them presented themselves.
They called my lord Faruskiar a second time.
Faruskiar made no response.
Popof entered the car where this personage was generally to be found.
It was empty.
Empty? No. Sir Francis Trevellyan was calmly seated in his place,
utterly indifferent to all that happened. Was it any business of his?
Not at all. Was he not entitled to consider that the Russo-Chinese
railways were the very apex of absurdity and disorder? A switch opened,
nobody knew by whom! A train on the wrong line! Could anything be more
ridiculous than this Russian mismanagement?
"Well, then!" said Major Noltitz, "the rascal who sent us on to the
Nanking line, who would have hurled us into the Tjon valley, to walk
off with the imperial treasure, is Faruskiar."
"Faruskiar!" the passengers exclaimed. And most of them refused to
believe it.