Never had a death-cry rent the air in such a deep, ever memorable complaint. It made the blood run icy cold. The torture became atrocious. Voices, trembling with pity and anger, inveighed against it, beseeching the rescue party to put an end to the misery of this wretched horse, who was in such terrible suffering, and whose endless death rattle, now that the engine had expired, continued like the final lamentation of the catastrophe. Then Pecqueux, still sobbing, picked up the hatchet with the shattered steel head, and at a single blow, right in front of the skull, pole-axed him. Silence now fell on the scene of massacre. Assistance came at last, after waiting a couple of hours. In the shock of the collision the carriages had all been thrown to the left, so that the down-line could be cleared in a few hours. A train from Rouen, consisting of three carriages and a pilot-engine, had just brought the chief-secretary to the Prefect and the Imperial Procurator, along with some engineers and doctors of the company--quite a swarm of active, busy personages; while M. Bessière, the station-master at Barentin, was already attacking the wreckage with a gang of workmen. Extraordinary bustle and excitement prevailed in this out-of-the-way place, usually so silent and deserted. The travellers, who had issued from the accident safe and sound, had not yet lost the frenzy of their panic, which asserted itself in a febrile necessity to keep on the move. Some, terrified at the idea of again seating themselves in a railway carriage, endeavoured to hire vehicles; others, seeing it was impossible to find even a wheel-barrow, already became anxious about eating and sleeping. Everybody wished to send off telegrams, and several people set out for Barentin on foot taking messages with them. While the representatives of the government, assisted by the servants of the railway company, commenced an inquiry, the doctors hastily proceeded to dress the wounds of the injured. Many had lost consciousness and lay in pools of blood. Others, tortured by tweezers and needles, murmured in feeble voices. Altogether there were fifteen passengers killed and thirty-two seriously hurt. The corpses remained in a row on the ground at the foot of the hedge, with their faces to the sky pending identification.