Presently Lardy Bill tossed away the end of his cigarette, and crossing to his prisoner, examined his bonds and satisfied himself that they were still intact. On going back to the box he was rejoined by Slinkey, who now proceeded to go down on one knee and rest his ear on the rail. "She's coming; I can hear her quite plain," he said after a few moments. "Another five minutes and she ought to be here."
"Then I'll hurry off to the others," said Lardy. "I shall be wanted there when the shindy comes off, and you'll manage here by yourself all right."
"Right you are," responded the other. "As soon as ever the train's past, I shall cut the wires, and then make a bolt of it, and wait for you fellows at the cottage."
Nothing more was said. Lardy Bill started at a quick pace down the branch, while Slinkey re-entered the box.
Neither of them had the slightest suspicion that for the last ten minutes or more all their actions had been watched by an unseen witness; but such was the case. When Clara Brooke, to her intense dismay, discovered that not her husband, but a stranger, was the occupant of the box, she felt for a little while as if her heart must die within her. Then she became aware of two dusky figures standing a little distance away, whom she rightly concluded to be other members of the gang; but still her husband was nowhere to be seen. She had arrived on the spot almost immediately after Gerald had been bound to the tree; but the night was too dark to admit of her seeing him from that distance. She felt at once that she must get round to where the signal-box stood, on the opposite side of the line, and, if it were possible, approach near enough to the men to overhear their conversation, and by that means discover what had become of her husband. No sooner was the thought formulated in her mind than she began to put it into practice. Still keeping in the shelter of the hedge that ran parallel with the line, she sped as fast as her feet could carry her to a point some forty or fifty yards farther down the line, far enough, as she judged, to be out of the range of vision of any one who might be on the lookout at the box. Here, after drawing her shawl over her head--she had discarded her bonnet some time before--she broke through the hedge, was across the line in three seconds; and then, after pushing through the hedge on the opposite side, she turned back in the direction of the signal-box, she and it being both now on the same side of the line. Creeping forward foot by foot and yard by yard, she presently found herself a little way behind the box, and within a dozen yards of her husband, had she only been aware of it.