Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 June 1893 — A BACE WITH DEATH. [ARTICLE]

A BACE WITH DEATH.

BY RICHARD ASHE-KING.

“ That is not true —not true at all. I gave you no encouragement,” cried Milly, hotly. “ I couldn't have given you any, because I’m engaged.” “ Engaged! What! To that engineer fellow?” “ That is no concern of yours. I have given you neither right nor reason to question me about it, or to—to insult me, as you’ve just done,” she faltered, only saved by het pride from breaking down into tears —for the young cub, who was intoxicated, had just kissed her. Her father, for his father’s sake, had shown Bastable much kindness since his coming to Worston, and Milly had been as pleasant to him as she was to every one. Her winning manner he had taken for encouragement, and had the Dutch audacity to night, upon meeting her in a lonely lane where she expected her fiance, to snatch a kiss. “You’re an arrant.little flirt, and have ruined iny life,” he cried, thickly, with sudden eavageness. Then seizing her in his arms he kissed her brutally many times before she found breath to scream.

Hardly had she uttered the scream before her assailant was gripped by the coat-collar, wrenched aside, and thrashed with a stout stick so furiously that the blows fell like rain on all parts of the head, face, and body. The young engineer laid his blows on with such fierce force that Bastable’s face streamed with blood, while his body was a mass of bruises before Milly could hold her lover’s arm. He then flung the fellow to the ground, a little ashamed of the violence of his assault upon a man physically so much his inferior. He had walked many steps away with Milly before Bastable raised himself into a sitting posture —at the moment that Milly was looking round anxiously in the fear that he was seriously injured. “You villains !”ne yelled as he wiped the blood from his mouth. “You’ll pay for this—both of you—both of you 1” he reiterated, with such concentrated malignity in his face and voice as made Milly shudder. For days after she was haunted by the remembrance of the Satanic hate in his face, and with the horror of the revenge upon her lover it portended. And this she did well to dread. Bastable, a vindictive brute, naturally, had received such punishment under such circum'stanoes as might have fired the meekest of men to revenge. He really loved Milly Harman with all the love of which his gross soul was capable: and to be thrashed by his successful rival under her eyes while in the act of a dastardly assault upon her was an ignominy to be wiped out in blood. He brooded upon his love, his hate, his jealousy, and his revenge till you might rather say that these possessions possessed him than that he possessed them. Another passion, alsb, which fed all these with the fire of hell—the passion for drink—now mastered him so entirely that he was hardly ever sober.

Well, therefore, might Milly dread a demoniac so possessed; and this dread made her consent to an immediate marriage with Arthur Munro. Accordingly the wedding day was not only hastened, but the wedding itself was kept strictly private in deference to Milly’s dread of Bastable's vengeance upon her lover. And her precautions would probably have precluded all she feared bnt for the merest accident. The carriage with the bride and bridegroom in it drove up to the station at the moment that Bastable was in the act of quitting it*

Seeing the luggage labelled “Munro, London,” he asked the coachman, when they had entered the station, “A wedding?’’ “Summat o’ t’ sowrt,” the man answered gruffly. Meanwhile Milly cried, clinging to Arthur’s arm convulsively, “Oh, Arthur! He—he has heard of it! He’s here! I saw him!” “Who, dear?” “Mr. Bastablel” “Milly, darling! You’ve got that brute on the brain. What can he do here at mid-day in a crowded station?’’ Then turning to a porter he asked, “Which is the London train?” “She’s there, in the siding, sir; she’ll back in here when the local’s gone.” “Let me put you into a carriage, dear, while I look after the luggage.” So saying he hurried her to a carriage and got in with her to dispose of the wraps and other light articles on the seat and in the rack. At this moment Bastable, who had dogged them to the carriage, passed its door unseen and walked on toward the end of the platform, gnashing his teeth with the impotent fury of a caged wild beast. He stopped opposite the express engine, his nostrils distended, his lips parted, his teeth clinched, the nails of his hands buried in their palms, while his eyes glared with the lurid light of madness. He was brought a little to himself by being forced to step aside to allow the stoker to get off his engine—in order to follow the driver into the refreshment bar for a drink. This called Bastable’s attention to the circumstance that the engine was momentarily deserted. “By George!—that’ll do it!” he almost shouted, and without looking round he jumped on the engine, opened the regulator to the full, and as she bounded forward leaped off at the other side

Arthur Munro had quitted the carriage to look after the luggage, and the only soul in the runaway train was poor Milly. Munro had not left the train a minute when loud shouts of alarm arrested him. “What is it? What’s the matter?” he asked, facing round, with a horrible suspicion that Bastable had attacked Milly. “T’London express has run away!” cried a porter. “Good Heavens! She’ll be into the Bingham train at Lilford!” cried another. And Milly was alone in the train! Yet did not Murno lose his presence of mind. Flying to the end of the platform, he jumped upon the engine of the local,and without a word to driver or stoker seized the regulator. Before he could open it, the driver stopped him. “Holdon, sir—hold on! Bill, unhook the train!” In a minute Bill had leaped dovyn, unhooked the engine from the train, and was back again on the engine-plate just as she began to glide out of the station. “Express!” shouted the driver, pointing to the runaway. “Couldn’t catch her up wi' a load like that on,” chucking his thumb behind toward the train they had been detached from. But they lost nearly as much time by the stoppage as they gained by the lightening of the load, for the runaway had got almost a mile’s start by the delay. “How far to Lifford?” shouted Munro frenziedly. “Six miles.” “My wife—my wife!” he moaned, in blank despair. Wrenching the shovel from the stoker, he proceeded to feed the furnace with all an expert’s skill; but though the engine was going now at a rate which made it rock and pitch violently, they had not sighted the runaway yet. Suddenly she slowed down, and Munro looking up saw the steam shut off. “What? Why?” he shouted. “Lifford distance,” replied the driver, pointing to the signal. “All up by this! We should only pile up the smash now.”

Then Munro lost all heart and hope, and sank in a heap on the engine-plate, hiding his face with his hands. Meanwhile the driver had nearly got her under coutrol as he came in sight of the station. All clear! A wire from Worstoa had got the Bingham train into siding only just in time. As they glided past the platform the stationmaster shouted: “They have wired to Bentham Box to switch her into stop-blocks at that siding.” That was, of course, to wreck the train against the blocks. Munro heard, and starting up like a madman he wrenched open the regulator to the full, shouting only “My wife! my wife!”—all he could articulate for the moment. Presently, when they had got again into swing he cried: “My wife is in the carriage next the engine!” “There’s Bentham Bank!” shouted back the driver, encouragingly.

Bentham Bank is a steep gradient where the seven-foot driving wheels of the expiess would need a driver's skilful coaxing and sanding to keep them from slipping at every other revolution. “By Heavens! we'll do it if she keeps the rails!” shouted the driver, as they shot through Thornley Tunnel like a bullet through its rifled barrel. All three men were now on the lookout. In less than a minute they would sight Bentham Bank, and if the runaway had topped it she woul l be matched in a second. The incline at the other side was nearly as steep as the assent at this, and to go down it under a full head of steam meant a pace of ninety miles an hour into the siding and against the stop-blocks at the bottom. “I told you I” shouted the driver excitedly, as they sighted the runaway half up the bank before them. But Munro did not hear him. He was already at the smoke-box of the rocking, reeling engine, having run along its boiler holding by the rail. “ Steady, sir, steady 1 Hold on hard! We’re into her!” And, indeed, they struck the runaway with the smart shock of a mild collision. The driver hurried after Munro, and gave him a steadying hand across the touching buffers of the engine and train; and then, as Munro put the brake hard on iu the guard’s van the driver stooped and managed with wonderful coolness and handiness to hook on the engine to the runaway.

—— J - “Reverse her, Bill;” he shouted to the I stoker. Meanwhile Munro, walking along the foot-boards, and holding by the hand-rails, reached the carriage in ] which his bride was. “Oh, Arthur,’’ she cried when she saw him, “I got such a fright. I thought you were left behind!” He broke into a scream of almost hysterical laughter as he hurried on to the runaway engine. There was little difficulty or danger in getting on to it and shutting off the steam now, since the train began to feel the backward pull of the reversed engine behind; and Milly was saved. “I thought you had gone mad. What made you laugh like that, Arthur? ” she asked. “At your being driver, stoker, guard and passengers of the London express—without knowing it; and also, I suppose, in the reaction from the most horrible half-hour of my life—on my weddingday. It was that brute’s doing,” he added, more to himself than to her, “and he’ll get ten years for it.” As a matter of fact Bastable got a tenth of that punishment—about a seventh of what he’d have got had he forged a bill.—[New York Storiettes.