The Trey o' Hearts/Chapter 22
CHAPTER XXII
Juggernaut
ALAN came to himself supported by Barcus, his senses still reeling from the concussion of that thunderbolt which he had so unwittingly loosed—the cloud of sulphurous smoke not yet dissipated by the wind. Judith lay at his feet, stunned; and round about other figures, of men insensible, if not, for all he could say, dead.
And then Barcus was hustling him down the wharf.
"Come! Come!" he rallied Alan. "Pull yourself together. Rose is waiting in the car, and if you don't want to be arrested you'll stir your stumps, my son! That explosion is going to bring New Bedford buzzing round our ears like a swarm of hornets!"
His prediction was justified, for just then a policeman appeared as if by magic. Brandishing his night-stick, he made for Alan, as if Instinctively recognizing the cause of the disaster, and would have done him serious injury had not Barcus flung himself at the officer's legs, tackling clean and low.
They went down with a crash, and the fight was on; but Barcus managed to shriek:
"Run, you simp, run! Make your getaway with Rose while the going's good! I can take care of myself."
At the same time a hand descended on Alan's shoulder, and he found himself in the grasp of a pugnaciously inclined citizen who reaped unhappy reward for his temerity, being tripped and thrown as Alan realized that Barcus was right—that his first duty was to Rose.
Whereupon he swung about, butted his way through a group of three confused and strong-lunged persons, and in three bounds gained the running-board of the waiting motor-car, in whose body Rose was standing as if half-minded to alight.
"Clear out!" he told the chauffeur violently. "Make yourself scarce!"
As the man hesitated, Alan threw him bodily from the car, dropped into his seat, and threw in the clutch. They were a hundred feet distant from the scene of the accident before Alan was fairly settled in his place. Alan shook himself together and drew upon the lore of a master of motoring. The car shot through that street like a hunted shadow.
As he grew more and more calm, he congratulated himself on the car. If not capable of a racing pace, it would serve his ends as speedily as was consistent with reasonable care for the life of the woman he loved.
Yet his congratulations were premature, they were not ten minutes out of the environs of the city when Rose left her seat and knelt behind his, to communicate the intelligence that they were already being pursued by a heavy touring-car, driven by a man, a woman in the seat by his side—Judith the latter, the man an old employee of her father by the name of Marrophat.
Marrophat!
He looked back, recognized this Marrophat as well as Judith, and realized that theirs was the faster machine.
They could overtake the fugitives practically when they would. Why did they not do so at once? They must be awaiting a favourable opportunity. Ah, well, he would
And then, quite clearly, he recognized the time and the place in the character of the road that lay before him as the car sped like a dragonfly down a slight grade. From the bottom of the grade it swung away in a wide curve, bordered for some distance by railroad tracks on a slightly lower level.
He had guessed the fiendish plan of the other driver only too truly. As they approached at express speed the stretch where the roar paralleled the tracks Alan sought to hug the left-hand side of the road, but in vain.
Roaring, with its muffler cut out, the pursuing car swept up and baffled him, bringing its right forward wheel up beside the left rear wheel of his car, then more slowly forging up until, with its weight, bulk, and superior power, it forced him inch by inch to the right, toward the tracks, until his right-hand wheels left the road and ran on uneven turf, until the left-hand wheels as well lost grip on the road metal, until the car began to dip on the slope to the tracks.
He heard the far hoot-toot of a freight locomotive. There followed a maniac moment, when the world was upside down. Alan's car slipped and skidded, swung sideways with frightful momentum toward the tracks, caught its wheels against the ties, and. …
The sun swung in the heavens like a ball on a string. There was a crash, a roar. There was nothing—oblivion. …
The car had turned turtle, pinning Rose and Alan beneath it.
And there was something very like a miracle in all this: for neither was killed, nor even injured beyond bruises. Alan started back to consciousness to find himself inextricably jammed beneath the machine, only his head and shoulders protruding, and in the same moment found himself looking into the eyes of Rose and heard her voice.
"Alan!" she gasped. "You are not killed?"
"No—not even much hurt, I fancy," he replied. "And you?"
"Not much"
The deep-throated roar of the locomotive bellowing danger silenced him. He closed his eyes.
Then abruptly the weight was lifted from his chest. He saw a man dragging Rose from under the machine, and saw that the man was Marrophat. And almost immediately some one lifted his head and shoulders, caught him with two hands beneath his armpits, and drew him clear of the machine. And the face of the rescuer was the face of Judith Trine.
The crash he had expected, of the car being crumpled up by the oncoming locomotive, did not follow. As he scrambled to his feet, his first glance was up the track, and discovered the train slowing to a halt.
His next was one of wonder for the countenance of Judith Trine as she stood, at a little distance, regarding him: her look a curious compound of relief, regret, hatred, love.
His third glance described beyond her the figure of Marrophat carrying Rose in his arms, stumbling as he ran toward his car on the highroad.
He moved to pursue, but found his way barred by Judith.
"No!" she cried. "No, you shall not"
Her hand caught the grip of a revolver that protruded from her pocket.
"You will never have the courage to pull that trigger when I'm helpless in your hands!"
The hot blood mantled her exquisite face like red fire. She caught her breath with a sob, then flung wildly at him:
"Well, if you must know—it's true. I can't bring myself to kill you. For all that, you shall die—I could not save you if I would! And this I promise you, you shall never see Rose again before you die!"
And while he stood gaping, she ran, quickly covering the little distance between him and the car. As she jumped into this and dropped down upon the seat beside her half-conscious sister, Marrophat swung the car away.
It vanished in a dust-cloud as a throng of railroad employees surrounded and assailed him with clamorous questions.