oolboy expression popping forth from
some forgotten treasury, and he took his brother's hand in his with
childish tenderness. It was perhaps the touch that recalled him; at
least John opened his eyes, sat suddenly up, and after several
ineffectual movements of his lips, "What's the row?" said he, in a
phantom voice.

The din of that devil's smithy still thundered in their ears. "Let us
get away from that," Morris cried, and pointed to the vomit of steam
that still spouted from the broken engines. And the pair helped each
other up, and stood and quaked and wavered and stared about them at the
scene of death.

Just then they were approached by a party of men who had already
organised themselves for the purposes of rescue.

"Are you hurt?" cried one of these, a young fellow with the sweat
streaming down his pallid face, and who, by the way he was treated, was
evidently the doctor.

Morris shook his head, and the young man, nodding grimly, handed him a
bottle of some spirit.

"Take a drink of that," he said; "your friend looks as if he needed it
badly. We want every man we can get," he added; "there's terrible work
before us, and nobody should shirk. If you can do no more, you can carry
a stretcher."

The doctor was hardly gone before Morris, under the spur of the dram,
awoke to the full possession of his wits.

"My God!" he cried. "Uncle Joseph!"

"Yes," said John, "where can he be? He can't be far off. I hope the old
party isn't damaged."

"Come and help me to look," said Morris, with a snap of savage
determination strangely foreign to his ordinary bearing; and then, for
one moment, he broke forth. "If he's dead!" he cried, and shook his fist
at heaven.

To and fro the brothers hurried, staring in the faces of the wounded, or
turning the dead upon their backs. They must have thus examined forty
people, and still there was no word of Uncle Joseph. But now the course
of their search brought them near the centre of the collision, where the
boilers were still blowing off steam with a deafening clamour. It was a
part of the field not yet gleaned by the rescuing party. The ground,
especially on the margin of the wood, was full of inequalities--here a
pit, there a hillock surmounted with a bush of furze. It was a place
where many bodies might lie concealed, and they beat it like pointers
after game. Suddenly Morris, who was leading, paused and reached forth
his index with a tragic gesture. John followed the directi