"Here, hi! You're too late, sir!" roared a couple of porters running in pursuit; and as Max Bray leaped on to the door-step, and clung to the handle of the compartment with his face within a few inches of Ella's, a porter's hand was upon his arm; there was a shout, a curse, the words "Bai Jove!" half uttered, and then the speaker felt his hands snatched from their hold; the next moment it was as though a fearful blow was struck him, and he and the porter were rolling upon the platform. But again there was a jerk, a wild shriek that froze the bystanders' blood, and the form of one of the wrestlers was seen to be drawn down between the last carriage and the platform; the guard's break passed on, and Max Bray lay motionless upon the line. Volume 3, Chapter XX. THE BIRD FLIES. "Here, let-down the window! Open the door! Good heavens, there'll be some one killed! Let him be; we'll get him in. Those porters are so officious, and they cause accidents, instead of preventing 'em. Let him be, I tell you, and report him afterwards. There, I thought so! They'll be killed! Heaven help him--he's down under one of the carriages!" So cried one of Ella's fellow-travellers as he witnessed the struggle from within, heedless, in his excitement, that not a word he uttered was heard by the actors in the thrilling scene. But as Max was caught by the carriage and dragged under the train, the man threw open the window and leaned out as far as he could, to draw his head back after a few moments, and impart his intelligence to the pale figure close beside him. "I'm afraid he's killed, miss!" Still no answer. Ella neither heard nor saw, for this part of her life--from the time when Max caught her wrists in his, and till long after--was a void that her memory could never again people. "Deaf as a post, and a good thing too, poor lass!" muttered the man as he again leaned out. And now there was shouting, signalling, and the stopping of the train for a few minutes, long enough for the passengers to see a motionless form lifted from the line and borne into one of the waiting-rooms, the passenger who had watched the proceedings having leaped out, but now coming panting back to reach his place as the signal for starting was once more given. "Is he much hurt?" was eagerly asked by the other occupants of the carnage. "I'm afraid so," said the passenger. "Not killed?" "No, I don't think he's killed. You see, he went down at the end of the platform just where it begins to slope. If it had been off the level, he must have been crushed to death in an instant. But I didn't have above a quarter of a minute to see him." "It's very, very dangerous," observed one, "this trying to get into a train when it's started." "Very," said another; "but they will do it. That gentleman, too, was so determined, climbing over the fence; and I suppose that made the railway folks determined too." "He must have been anxious to get off, or he would not have acted as he did."