After him sprang, far down into the grey-blue
water, Lacey and Mahommed. When they came again to the surface, the
little train with its handful of human freight had disappeared.
Two people had seen the train plunge to destruction--the solitary
horseman whom David had watched kneel upon his sheepskin, and who now
from a far hill had seen the disaster, but had not seen the three jump
for their lives, and a fisherman on the bank, who ran shouting towards a
village standing back from the river.
As the fisherman sped shrieking and beckoning to the villagers, David,
Lacey, and Mahommed fought for their lives in the swift current, swimming
at an angle upstream towards the shore; for, as Mahommed warned them,
there were rocks below. Lacey was a good swimmer, but he was heavy, and
David was a better, but Mahommed had proved his merit in the past on many
an occasion when the laws of the river were reaching out strong hands for
him. Now, as Mahommed swam, he kept moaning to himself, cursing his
father and his father's son, as though he himself were to blame for the
crime which had been committed.
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