"Oh, well," said the optimistic Bones, "we could perhaps borrow an engine from the Great Northern."
He looked down at the girl, then looked at his watch.
"Time to be up and doing, dear old thing," he said, and looked back along the little train. The aged guard was sitting on a barrow, his nodding head testifying to the sleep-giving qualities of Lynhaven air.
Bones jerked the whistle, there was an unearthly shriek, and the guard woke up. He looked at his watch, yawned, searched the train for pa.s.sengers, waved his flag, and climbed into his little compartment.
The engine shrieked again. Bones pulled over the lever gently, and there was a gratifying chuck-chuck-chuck. Bones smiled down at the girl.
"Easy as sh.e.l.ling peas, dear old thing," he said, "and this time I"m going to show you just how she can go."
"Old Joe don"t let her go more than quarter speed," said the diminutive stoker warningly.
"Blow old Joe!" said Bones severely. "He"s a jolly unenterprising old engine-driver. That"s why the naughty old line doesn"t pay. The idea of running "Mary Louisa" at quarter speed!"
He turned to the girl for approval, but she felt that, in the circ.u.mstances and with only the haziest knowledge of engineering, it would be wiser to offer no opinion.
Bones pushed the lever a little farther over, and the "Mary Louisa"
reeled under the shock.
"In _re_ knighthood, dear old miss," said Bones confidentially. His words came jerkily, because the footplate of an outraged locomotive pounding forward at an unaccustomed speed was not a good foundation for continued eloquence. "Rendering the jolly old country a service--helping the Cabinet--dear old Chenney awfully fond of me----"
"Aren"t we going rather fast?" said the girl, gripping the side of the cab for support.
"Not at all," jerked Bones, "not at all. I am going to show "em just how this----"
He felt a touch on his arm, and looked down at the diminutive stoker.
"There"s a lot of sand round here," said the melancholy child; "it won"t hurt you to jump I"m going to."
"Jump!" gasped Bones. "What do you mean? Hey! Don"t do that, you silly young----"
But his black-visaged a.s.sistant was already poised on the step of the engine, and Bones, looking back, saw him performing somersaults down a sandy slope. Bones looked at the girl in amazement.
"Suicide, dear old miss!" he said in an awed voice. "Terrible!"
"Isn"t that a station?" said the girl, more interested for the moment in her own future.
Bones peered through the windows ahead.
"That"s the junction, dear old thing," he said. "This is where we stop her."
He tugged at the lever, but the lever was not to be moved. He tugged desperately, but it seemed the steel bar was riveted in position. The "Mary Louisa" was leaping along at an incredible speed, and less than five hundred yards away was the dead-end of the Bayham platform, into which the Lynhaven train was due to run.
Bones went white and looked at the girl with fearful eyes. He took a swift scrutiny to the left and right, but they had pa.s.sed out of the sandy country, and any attempt to leave the train now would mean certain destruction.
The Right Honourable Mr. Parkinson Chenney had concluded a very satisfactory morning"s work of inspection at Tolness, and had secured all the information he needed to answer any question which might be put to him in Parliament by the best-informed of questioners.
He was lunching with the officers of the small garrison, when a telephone message was brought to him. He read it and smiled.
"Good!" he said. "Gentlemen, I am afraid I have to leave you a little earlier than I expected. Colonel Wraggle, will you see that my special train is ready! I must leave in ten minutes. The Chinese Commission has arrived," he said impressively, "or, rather, it arrives in London this afternoon, and I am deputed by the Prime Minister----"
He explained to his respectful audience just what part he had played in securing Chinese Coal Concessions. He made a little speech on the immense value to the Empire in particular and the world in general of these new coalfields which had been secured to the country through the ac.u.men, genius, forethought, and patriotic disinterestedness of the Cabinet.
He would not claim to set any particular merit on his own action, and went on to claim it. By which time his train was ready. It was indeed vital that he should be in London to meet a commission which had shown such reluctance to trade with foreign devils, and had been, moreover, so punctilious in its demand for ceremonious receptions, but he had not the slightest doubt about his ability to reach London before the boat train arrived. He had two and a half hours, and two and a half hours gave him an ample margin of time.
Just before his special rounded the bend which brought it within sight of Bayham Junction the Lynhaven express had reached within a few hundred yards of annihilation. The signalman at Bayham Junction had watched the oncoming rush of Bones"s train, and, having a fairly extensive knowledge of the "Mary Louisa" and her eccentricities, he realised just what had happened.
There was only one thing to be done. He could see the smoke from the Cabinet Minister"s special rising above the cutting two miles away, and he threw over two levers simultaneously. The first set the points which brought the Lynhaven express on to the main line, switching it from the deadly bay wherein the runaway train would have been smashed to pieces; the second lever set the distant signal against the special.
It was a toss-up whether the special had not already pa.s.sed the distant signal, but he had to take that risk.
Bones, with his arm round the girl, awaiting a noisy and violent dissolution, felt the "Mary Louisa" sway to the right when it should have swayed to the left, heard the clang of the points as he pa.s.sed them, and drew a long breath when he found himself headed along a straight clear stretch of line. It was some time before he found his voice, and then it was little more than a squeak.
"We"re going to London, dear old thing," he said tremulously.
The girl smiled, though her face was deathly pale.
"I thought we were going to heaven," she said.
"Never, dear old thing," said Bones, recovering something of his spirits as he saw the danger past. "Old Bones will never send you there."
The problem of the "Mary Louisa" was still unsettled. She was tearing away like a Flying Dutchman. She was oozing steam at every pore, and, glancing back, Bones saw the agitated countenance of the aged guard thrust through the window. He waved frantically at Bones, and Bones waved genially back again.
He was turning back to make another attempt on the lever, when, looking past the guard, he saw a sight which brought his heart into his mouth.
Pounding along behind him, and emitting feathers of steam from her whistle, was an enormous locomotive. Bones guessed there was a train behind it, but the line was too straight for him to see.
"Gracious heavens!" he gasped. "We"re being chased!"
He jerked at the lever--though it was a moment when he should have left it severely alone--and to his ill-founded joy it moved.
The two trains came to a standstill together ten miles from Bayham Junction, and Bones climbed down into the six-foot way and walked back.
Almost the first person he met was a gesticulating gentleman in a frock coat and with a red face, who, mistaking him for an engine-driver, dismissed him on the spot, threatened him with imprisonment--with or without hard labour he did not specify--and demanded what the d.i.c.kens he meant by holding up a Cabinet Minister?
"Why," chortled Bones, "isn"t it my dear friend, Mr. Chenney?"
"Who are you," snarled Mr. Chenney, "and what do you mean by calling me your dear friend? By Heavens, I"ll have you kicked out of this service!"
"Don"t you know old Tibbetts?" cooed Bones. "Well, well, fancy meeting you!"
He held out a grimy hand, which was not taken.
"Tibbetts!" growled the gentleman. "Oh, you are the foo--the gentleman who bought the Lynhaven line, didn"t you?"
"Certainly," said Bones.
"But what is your train doing here?" asked Mr. Chenney violently.