The dainty little runs, mellow, perfect, paused when the wire connecting the distance-signal with the station thrilled like a fiddle-string as the signal fell, and Chris Davenant's 'Now!' followed sharply, but they went on again in the darkness, backed by that growing rumble and roar. 'Is it working? I can't hear the water! My God! if it isn't--what is to be done?' The brown hand that had found a place on the crank also trembled against the white one. 'Do? We done our best, sir; an' she's a lydy, so the odds is fair-- "aa--a--a--aa--a-- Trees whe--re you--sit, shall crowd into--o--a--shade.'" Done our best! The words, blending with the tender triumph of those final bars, were in Chris Davenant's ears but a few seconds, yet they brought a strange dreamy content with them, till Jân-Ali-shân, almost before the last note he had learned in his white-robed days ended, burst into a regular yell of relief, as the resistance on the crank lessened, ceased. 'She's down, or nigh it! Now for the fun, and the fightin', sir! Now to see them blamed Kusseyes!----' Clear of the clamour of confined sound in the little room, his voice rose in a laugh, as, to gain a standpoint on the wider ledge beyond the archway, he dashed, followed by Chris, right in front of the thundering engine, which was already so close, that the glare of its red eyes shone full on their reckless figures, as the scream of the danger-whistle rang out shrill and sharp. Not in warning to them only. Not even to the crowd in front; _that_ had parted, as it were, mechanically, leaving the steel-edged ribbon of rail in its midst, clear to the station. It was for the long links of carriages behind, out of which heads were already craning to catch the first glimpse of the fun and the fighting to which they had been summoned so hastily. For there was danger ahead to every one behind. The girders of the drawbridge were still slightly aslant; they had barely closed into the sockets, and beside these a group of half-naked figures were busy. Over what? Jân-Ali-shân guessed in a second that they were trying to prevent a further closing, they were trying to derail the train, and he was off like an arrow across the narrow bridge, hidden by the clouds of steam that rose in an instant from the curbed monster, as the brakes, the valves, were jammed home hard in the effort to stop it. Chris could not understand the cry that came back through the steam--'Drop it, you devils! them's _my_ cold chisels'; but, as ever, he followed on the other's heels, half-scalded, half-deafened; followed blindly until in the clearer air beyond--as yet!--that snorting, sliding, resistless fate behind him, he saw that the group about the sockets had scattered at the mere sight of that reckless onslaught. All but one figure--the figure of the biggest bully of the butchers' gang, Jân-Ali-shân's sworn foe--that, with a yell of absolute hate, had run out as recklessly to bar the way.