Jân-Ali-shân gave a shout as he closed with it, for the man was a noted wrestler--'None o' yer buttin's an' booin's; fight _seeda_, or it ain't----' There was no time for more words, since this was no place for a wrestling match--this narrow platform with the river below it, and scarcely room upon it for a man with steady nerves to stand slim and let a fierce shadow with a screaming voice pass in a roar and a rattle. And such a fierce shadow half hidden in the steam fog was sliding on, battling against the curb, thundering, shaking the track with brakes down! So close! Dear God! so close! Chris gave a desperate cry of fear and courage--but was beside those two. And so was the red glare of the angry eyes seen through the steam clouds; so was the scream of the whistle heard above the roar and the rattle. 'Now then, sir, heave! "_Yo-ho--yo-ho, ho! yo-ho, ho!_"' The engine-driver, craning from his cab, heard so much beyond that fog of steam. The officers in the first carriage heard a brief-- 'Keep your head, sir, and git a holt of me.' Only those voices; no more. Then everything was lost in an awful grating sound--a sound of iron grinding iron to powder--a jerk, a wrench, a dislocation; a shock that shook the very air and made the very water in the river ebb and flow as the piers, the retaining-wall, quivered to their foundations. But the next instant the rocking engine recovered its smooth slide, and the carriages were sliding after it over the girders it had jammed home--sliding on to the station, to safety, to the fun and the fighting! And yet a yell of horror rose from the watching crowd. Not because the onward sliding which left the bridge free of steam clouds left it free also of all trace of those wrestling figures. That was only to be expected, since, if they had not fallen victims to the steam-devil, the water must have claimed them. It was because the river was claiming something else, and the bastion, cracked so long, had yielded to its importunity at last--yielded perhaps to the shock, perhaps to that reckless rush of spectators to one side, perhaps to fate! And with a silence, awful in comparison with the clamour around it, it was sliding outwards, downwards. Sliding so slowly that it was well on its way ere an answering yell of terror rose from the figures upon it. Sliding so softly--brick holding fast to brick--that the final rending was almost unheard in the sound of hissing water closing in on water. So, for an instant, nothing remained except two kites whirling distractedly at the swift downpull on their strings, until, giving up the battle, giving in to fate, they yielded the Sovereignty of Air and sank slowly into the river. By this time, however, some of the claimants to that sovereignty had come to the surface again, shrieking for help, and reaching round for anything to support them.