Page:The One Woman (1903).pdf/306

 At last—it had seemed an hour—it stopped with a shivering crash.

And then the blackness of night, the swash of gusts of rain overhead, and the moan of the wind. Not another sound. Not a groan or a cry or a human voice.

Was she dead or alive? Ruth felt she must scream this awful question or faint. The children began to sob and she gasped in gratitude:

"Thank God, they are not dead!"

She attempted to get out of her berth and found she must climb. The car was lying on its side. She looked out into the aisle through her curtains and everything was dark. The air choked her with dust, and she caught the odour of burning wool. Deep down below somewhere she could hear, in the lull of the wind, the roar of waters, and feel the car sway as though it were hanging on the edge of an embankment or trestle and about to topple into a torrent.

She pulled the children out into the aisle and tried to crawl toward the end of the car, only to find it crushed into a shapeless mass and the way piled with débris.

A light suddenly flashed up and the steady crackle of flames began. From the débris below came the scream of a woman for help.

She drew back her slender fist and tried to smash the double plate glass windows and only bruised her tapering fingers.

She found a step-ladder and broke the windows out.