It was all too plain to Beaumanoir that here was no accident at all, but an outrage designed to strand him in that lonely place, where amid the darkness and the confusion murder would come easy. The choice of the locality, half-way up a steep gradient where the speed would be reduced to a minimum, pointed to no desire to injure the passengers generally; indeed, there would have been an obvious intention to avoid a really perilous collision, seeing that some of the conspirators were on board. He could pretty accurately gauge Marker's functions now. The spy was to have kept close to him after the "accident," so as to signal his whereabouts in the darkness to the more active members of the gang.
The emissaries of Ziegler would have to dispense with that aid now, but still Beaumanoir could not shut his eyes to his imminent peril. The three who had traveled in the train were on the other side of the line, but the contingent--there would be at least two of them--who had wrecked the engine were probably lurking somewhere near. He could have no assurance that they were not at his very elbow, stealing on him through the dense undergrowth that fringed the fence.
A shout from the guard to the passengers congregated behind the train told him that at least half an hour must elapse before they could be picked up and carried on, and he at once decided that to stay at the spot would be intolerable. He should go mad if he remained at the mercy of invisible adversaries whom he could not _hit back_. If they would only come out into the open, in a body if they liked, so that he could empty the six chambers of his revolver into them before he went down, he would take his risks gladly; but to stand still in the dark, not knowing how soon a stab in the back would be his fate, was the thing too much. There and then he ended the situation by climbing the fence and plunging into the wood.
He had not taken six steps through the brambles when from the pitch darkness ahead a low, flute-like whistle sounded, to be instantly answered by the cracking of a twig a little to the right of him. His present intention to quit the scene and make his way to Prior's Tarrant on foot across country had evidently been foreseen and provided for. Those bushes were _occupied_, and his retreat at that point was cut off. He clambered back on to the railway, and, running as hard as his lameness would allow, close to the fence, he again essayed the wood two hundred yards ahead of the engine. This time he won free into the tangle of the copse without any sign of pursuit, and presently came to an open "ride" where progress was easier.