The Perfume of Egypt by C. W. Leadbeater (smart ebook reader .TXT) 📕

I stepped out on the platform, and my doubts were soon set at rest, for in a few moments a single engine came into sight round the curve. She was coming along at a very high speed, but as you see this is a steepish incline (a bank, railway men call it) leading up to the station, and that checked her a good deal, so that she swept through not much faster than ordinary. As she approached I recognised her as the Fire Queen, but I saw there was only one man on her, and as sure as there is a heaven above us that man was Tom Price.

I saw him, sir, I solemnly assure you, as plainly as I see you now, and had no more possibility of making a mistake as to his identity than I have now as to yours. As he passed he turned to look at me, and such a face as I saw then I had never seen before, and I pray God I may never see again. The black scowl of hatred and jealousy was there, and stronger than ever; but with it there was something quite new and much more dreadful — a horrible look of intense, gloating, fiendish triumph that no words can describe. And yet all this terrible,devilish expression was in half the face only, for as he turned in passing I saw that the right side of his head was streaming with blood, and beaten out of all shape and form!

What I felt at the sight of this awful apparition, seen thus in broad daylight on that lovely summer morning, I can never tell you or anyone. How long I stood like one paralysed, staring after it, I do not know; but at last I was roused by the ringing of my telegraph bell. Mechanically I went to the instrument and answered the call from the terminus. The message was to tell me that an engine had run away with no one on her, and that I was to try to throw her off the line to prevent accidents. Then for the first time I saw it all, and it seemed like a great light flashing in upon me and blinding me.

I knew now what that fierce look of joy meant, and my hands shook so I could scarcely send the sad message to tell them that their warning had come too late. I begged them to warn Keysborough, but I felt as I did so that it was useless. I knew that even at that very moment an early market train would be just about leaving Keysborough station; I remembered that the Rector of Keysborough had arranged to take his bible-class out for a picnic among the ruins at Carston, and that, to make the day as long as possible, they were to start by that train; and I knew therefore that pretty Hetty Hawkins and careless Joe Brown, all unconscious of their danger, were in the very track along which that pitiless spectre was hurling fifty tons of iron at seventy miles an hour.

If you read the newspapers at the time you’ll know what the result was as well as I do. You don’t remember it? Well, it will take but few words to tell you, though it is a dreadful tale. There was the train, crowded as usual with farmers and their wives on their way to the market, and there were the two extra carriages put on behind on purpose for the Rector’s party. Everybody was in the highest spirits at the prospect of a glorious day, and the guard was just making ready to start the train, when suddenly, without a minute’s warning, the whole bright and busy scene was changed into one of suffering and death.

The heavy engine, coming at that tremendous speed, simply wrecked the train; nearly every carriage was thrown off the metals, and the last three, together with the brake-van, were absolutely reduced to splinters; shattered planks, panels, wheels, axles, door-frames, seats, roofs, were driven about like the chaff from a threshing-floor, and they tell me that the pile of broken wood and twisted iron and mangled corpses was full twenty feet in height.

Many were killed on the spot, and many more — some terribly wounded, some almost unhurt — were imprisoned under that dreadful pile. I suppose only one thing more was wanting to make the horror complete, and in a few moments that thing came, for some of the red-hot ashes had been thrown out of the furnace of the engine in the collision, and the heap of ruins caught fire!

An awful sight it must have been; thank heaven I did not see it, though I have dreamt of it often. Station-master, porters, neighbours, all worked like heroes trying to get the victims out; but the wood was dry and the fire spread rapidly, and I fear many a poor creature must have died the worst of all deaths. The shrieks and cries were piteous to hear, until the good old Rector, who was lying entangled in a heap of woodwork, with an arm and shoulder badly broken, called out in his cheery, commanding voice:

“Hush, boys and girls! Let us bear our pain nobly; all who can, join with me.”

And he began to sing a well-known children’s hymn. I suppose his noble courage and the instinct of obedience to the voice they were used to follow strengthened them, for one and another joined in, till from that burning pile there rose a ringing chorus:

O, we shall happy be,

� When from pain and sorrow free,

Lord, we shall dwell with Thee,

� Blest, blest for aye.

The band of workers increased every moment, and presently the fire was got under and the heap of wreckage torn down, and all were saved who were not already past saving. Many, as I have said, were killed, and many more were crippled, and a pretty penny the Company had to pay for compensation; but I think no amount of money can make up to a young man or a young woman for the loss of health or strength just as they are starting in life. The brave old Rector was badly burnt, besides his broken arm; but he slowly recovered, and was able to get about a little in a few weeks’ time. Hetty Hawkins by a sort of miracle was almost unhurt, escaping with a scorched hand and arm and a few slight cuts; but Joe Brown must have been killed on the spot, for his body was found at the very bottom of all, crushed by the weight of half the train: so Tom Price had his revenge.

The Board of Directors held a great enquiry into the cause of the accident, and of course they would not believe the story that Tom had been seen. They could make nothing out of it, except that the engine had certainly run away, and that no one connected with the line or sheds could have been on her; so they decided that one of the cleaning-boys must have been playing with her (as they sometimes will do, if they have chance) before she made steam, and must have left the regulator open. Two boys were discharged on suspicion, but they declared they were innocent, and I believe quite truly; for I saw Tom Price on that engine, I saw the look on his face; and the decision of a hundred Boards could never persuade me out of that.

Besides, the turner and the pit-sweeper saw him; were they both deceived too? People have suggested that there was some one else on the engine, and that our imagination made us take it for Tom; but this I deny. I knew him as well as I do you; I saw him as close and as clearly as I see you; what is the use of telling me I took some one else for him? Besides, if the engine was driven by a human being, where was his body? It must have been found among the victims after the accident, whereas the most careful search revealed no sign of any such person. No, sir; as sure as we stand here now, Tom Price came back from the grave to take his revenge, and an awful revenge he had; I would not have the blood on my soul that he has, for all the gold in the world.

That is my story, sir; I hope it has not wearied you; you understand now why I told you that I believe in ghosts.

*

The above narrative will, I think, be of interest to the student of psychology. It tells its own story, and requires but little comment. A wicked man dies suddenly with an intense ungratified desire for vengeance: that vengeance he proceeds to take at the earliest opportunity, employing a method which would naturally have been suggested by his previous life. Quite possibly the members of the commission were right in their opinion that the regulator was left open by a boy, since it may have been easier for the dead man to influence the boy to do it than to apply force directly to the handle.

It was at the dinner table of one of the highest dignitaries of the Church — a man whose name, were I at liberty to mention it, would command recognition and respect wherever the English language is spoken — that I heard the two stories which I shall next relate. I am aware that to give the name of the narrator would add greatly to the value of the account with many minds, and indeed, I have no reason to suppose that there would be any objection to my mentioning it; but I did not ask permission to do so (having at the time not the slightest idea of ever publishing the tales) and therefore I refrain.

Whether the stories have been given to the public before by any other writer, and if so where and in what form, I cannot say; the distinguished narrator was of opinion that they had become the theme of common talk, and seemed much surprised that no one present had heard them; but since they were entirely new to the forty or fifty persons gathered round that table, and since I myself have never seen them in print, though I have read most of the extant collections of such stories, I run the risk of repeating what may, perhaps, be to some people an oft-told tale. For the sake of clearness I shall in each case call the chief actor in the story ‘the bishop,’ though, of course, in the first of the cases related, his episcopal honours were far in the future.

The first of his ghostly experiences occurred while ‘the bishop’ was still at college. It seems that one night he had retired to bed somewhat earlier than usual, having locked the outer door of his sitting-room, but leaving that between the latter apartment and his bedroom standing open. In the sitting-room a large fire was blazing brightly, flooding the place with its cheerful light, and rendering every object almost as distinctly visible as at noon-day. It was half-past ten, and the bishop had just laid himself down in blissful expectation of long and uninterrupted sleep, when he saw the figure of his father standing in the doorway between the two rooms, in the