[Illustration: "THE DRIVER'S HEART STOOD STILL WITH TERROR."] And still he waited; and still he temporised. What, what could he do? Oh heaven! be merciful. Even as the engine swept, snorting and puffing steam round the corner, he doubted yet--he doubted and temporised. He reasoned with his own conscience in the quick short-hand of thought. So far as intent was concerned he was guiltless. It wouldn't be a murder of malice prepense. When he laid that log there in the way of the train, he never believed--nay, never even knew--it was a train with a living freight of men and women he was trying to imperil. He felt to it merely as a mad engine unattached. He realised only Netta's pressing danger. Was he bound now to undo what he had innocently done--and leave Netta to perish? Must he take away the post and be Netta's murderer? It was a cruel dilemma for any man to have to face. If he had half an hour to debate and decide, now, he might perhaps have seen his way a little clearer. But with that hideous thing actually rushing red and wrathful on his sight--why--he clapped his hands to his ears. It was too much for him--too much for him. And yet he must face it, and act, or remain passive, one way or the other. With a desperate effort he made up his mind at last just as the train burst upon him, and all was over. He made up his mind and acted accordingly. As the engine turned the corner, the driver, looking ahead in the clear evening light, saw something in front that made him start with sudden horror and alarm. A telegraph pole lay stretched at full length, and a man, unknown, stood agonised by its side, stooping down as he thought to catch and move it. There was no time left to stop her now; no time to avert the threatened catastrophe. All the driver could do in his haste was to put the brake on hard and endeavour to lessen the force of the inevitable concussion. But even as he looked and wondered at the sight, putting on the brake, meanwhile, with all his might and main, he saw the man in front perform, to his surprise, a heroic action. Rushing full upon the line, straight before the very lights of the advancing train, the man unknown lifted up the pole by main force, and brandishing its end, as it were, wildly in the driver's face, hurled the huge balk back with a terrible effort to the side of the railway. It fell with a crash, and the man fell with it. There was a second's pause, while the driver's heart stood still with terror. Then a jar--a thud--a deep scratch into the soil. A wheel was off the line; they had met with an accident.