Part 39 (1/2)

The Nanking branch? But then we are lost. At five kilometres from here is the Tjon viaduct in course of construction, and the train is being precipitated towards an abyss.

Evidently Major Nolt.i.tz was not mistaken regarding my lord Faruskiar. I understand the scheme of the scoundrels. The manager of the Grand Transasiatic is a scoundrel of the deepest dye. He has entered the service of the company to await his opportunity for some extensive haul. The opportunity has come with the millions of the Son of Heaven I Yes! The whole abominable scheme is clear enough to me. Faruskiar has defended the imperial treasure against Ki-Tsang to keep it from the chief of the bandits who stopped the train, whose attack would have interfered with his criminal projects! That is why he had fought so bravely. That is why he had risked his life and behaved like a hero.

And thou, poor beast of a Claudius, how thou hast been sold! Another howler! Think of that, my friend!

But somehow we ought to prevent this rascal from accomplis.h.i.+ng his work. We ought to save the train which is running full speed towards the unfinished viaduct, we ought to save the pa.s.sengers from a frightful catastrophe. As to the treasure Faruskiar and his accomplices are after, I care no more than for yesterday's news! But the pa.s.sengers--and myself--that is another affair altogether.

I will go back to Popof. Impossible. I seem to be nailed to the floor of the van. My head swims--

Is it true we are running towards the abyss? No! I am mad. Faruskiar and his accomplices would be hurled over as well. They would share our fate. They would perish with us!

But there are shouts in front of the train. The screams of people being killed. There is no doubt now. The driver and the stoker are being strangled. I feel the speed of the train begin to slacken.

I understand. One of the ruffians knows how to work the train, and he is slowing it to enable them to jump off and avoid the catastrophe.

I begin to master my torpor. Staggering like a drunken man, I crawl to Kinko's case. There, in a few words, I tell him what has pa.s.sed, and I exclaim:

”We are lost!”

”No--perhaps” he replies.

Before I can move, Kinko is out of his box. He rushes towards the front door; he climbs on to the tender.

”Come along! Come along!” he shouts.

I do not know how I have done it, but here I am at his side, on the foot-plate, my feet in the blood of the driver and stoker, who have been thrown off on to the line.

Faruskiar and his accomplices are no longer here.

But before they went one of them has taken off the brakes, jammed down the regulator to full speed, thrown fresh coals into the fire-box, and the train is running with frightful velocity.

In a few minutes we shall reach the Tjon viaduct.

Kinko, energetic and resolute, is as cool as a cuc.u.mber. But in vain he tries to move the regulator, to shut off the steam, to put on the brake. These valves and levers, what shall we do with them?

”I must tell Popof!” I shout.

”And what can he do? No; there is only one way--”

”And what is that?”

”Rouse up the fire,” says Kinko, calmly; ”shut down the safety valves, and blow up the engine.”

And was that the only way--a desperate way--of stopping the train before it reached the viaduct?

Kinko scattered the coal on to the fire bars. He turned on the greatest possible draught, the air roared across the furnace, the pressure goes up, up, amid the heaving of the motion, the bellowings of the boiler, the beating of the pistons. We are going a hundred kilometres an hour.

”Get back!” shouts Kinko above the roar. ”Get back into the van.”