There may never be a
third time. The Lord has----"
A sudden jerk of the car threw them both off their feet. They were
passing now over a high trestle bridge above a foaming torrent. There
was a horrible grinding and jarring and crashing. The tail-car of the
train flicked out sideways and hung half over the river, dragging with
it the cars in front. For an age-long second it seemed as if the whole
train would be precipitated into the water.
Then the couplings parted.
The end car, turning over and over, struck the river a hundred feet
below and impaled itself on a jagged spur of rock hidden under the swirl
of waters.
Dean had been battered to insensibility before the car reached the
rocks.
He awoke to consciousness through the agonized dream that fiends were
staking him down under water and torturing him by letting the water rise
higher and higher, until finally he would be drowned by inches.
He awoke, struggling frantically, to the reality which had dictated the
dream.
Waters were swirling around him, and his legs were pinned fast in the
wreckage of the car tilted up on end amongst the sunken rocks. Burning
pains shot through him. Far up above on the bridge men were shouting and
rushing wildly.
He screamed out for help. A wave dashed at him and choked the scream on
his lips. He struggled to free himself from the wreckage that pinned him
fast, and blinding pain drove him to unconsciousness again.
As he awoke for the second time, a groan near by made him twist his head
to see who it might come from.
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