Glenarvan, followed by his companions, urged on his horse, and in a few moments arrived at Camden Bridge. Here the cause of this agitation was at once manifest. A terrible accident had occurred, not a collision, but a running off the track and a fall into the river, which was filled with the fragments of cars and locomotives. Either the bridge had given way, or the engine had run off the track; for five coaches out of six had been precipitated into the bed of the Lutton. The last car, miraculously preserved by the breaking of its coupling, stood on the very verge of the abyss. Below was to be seen nothing but a terrible heap of blackened and bent axletrees, broken cars, twisted rails, and charred timbers. The boiler, which had burst at the shock, had thrown its iron plates to an enormous distance. From this mass of unsightly objects issued flames and spiral wreaths of steam, mingled with black smoke. Large spots of blood, scattered limbs, and trunks of burnt bodies appeared here and there; and no one dared to estimate the number of victims buried beneath the ruins.
Glenarvan, Paganel, the major, and Captain Mangles mingled with the crowd, and listened to the conjectures that passed from one to another. Each sought to explain the catastrophe, while laboring to save what was left.
“The bridge has broken,” said one.
“Broken?” replied others. “That cannot be, for it is still uninjured. They forgot to close it for the passage of the train, that is all.”
It was a drawbridge, which had been constructed for the convenience of the shipping. Had the man on guard, through unpardonable negligence, forgotten to close it, and thus precipitated the train, at full speed, into the bed of the Lutton? This supposition seemed plausible, for one half of the bridge lay beneath the fragments of the cars, while the other still hung intact in its chains. Doubt was no longer possible; surely carelessness must have caused the calamity.
The accident had happened to the night express, which left Melbourne at forty-five minutes past eleven. It must have been a quarter-past three in the morning when the train reached Camden Bridge, where this terrible destruction of life and property took place. The travelers and employees of the last car at once busied themselves in seeking assistance; but the telegraph-wires, whose poles lay on the ground, were no longer available. It took the authorities of Castlemaine three hours to reach the scene of the disaster; and it was, therefore, six o’clock in the morning before a corps of workers was organized under the direction of the surveyor-general of the district, and a detachment of policemen, commanded by an officer. The squatters had come to their aid, and exerted themselves to extinguish the fire, which consumed the heap of ruins with unconquerable fierceness. Several unrecognizable bodies lay on the edge of the embankment, but it was impossible to rescue a living being from this furnace. The fire had rapidly accomplished the work of destruction. Of the travelers in the train, whose number was not known, only ten survived, those in the last car. The railroad company had just sent an extra locomotive to convey them to Castlemaine.
Meantime, Lord Glenarvan, having made the acquaintance of the surveyor-general, was conversing with him and the police-officer. The latter was a tall, thin man, of imperturbable coolness, who, if he had any feeling, betrayed no sign of it on his impassible features. He was like a mathematician engaged upon a problem; he was seeking to elucidate the mystery of the disaster. To Glenarvan’s first words, “This is a great calamity!” he replied, calmly, “It is more than that.”
“More than that!” cried Glenarvan; “and what can be more than that?”
“It is a crime!” replied the officer, coolly.
Glenarvan turned to Mr. Mitchell, the surveyor-general, with a questioning look.
“That is correct,” said the latter; “our examination has convinced us that the catastrophe is the result of a crime. The last baggage-wagon was robbed. The surviving travelers were attacked by a party of five or six malefactors. The bridge was opened intentionally; and, taking into account this fact with the disappearance of the guard, I cannot but come to the conclusion that the miserable man was the accomplice of the criminals.”
The police-officer, at these words, slowly shook his head.
“You are not of my opinion?” inquired Mr. Mitchell.
“Not as regards the complicity of the guard.”
“At any rate, this assumed complicity,” continued the surveyor-general, “enables us to attribute the crime to the natives who wander about the country. Without the guard’s assistance these natives could not have opened the drawbridge, for they do not understand its working.”
“Exactly,” replied the officer.
“Now, it is known,” added Mr. Mitchell, “from the testimony of a boatman, whose boat passed Camden Bridge at forty minutes past ten in the evening, that the bridge was closed according to regulation, after his passage.”
“Quite right.”
“Therefore the complicity of the guard seems to me to be proved incontestably.”
The officer again made a gesture of dissent.
“Then you do not attribute the crime to the natives?” inquired Glenarvan.
“I do not.”
“To whom, then?”
At this moment a loud uproar was heard half a mile up the river. A crowd had formed, which rapidly increased, and was now approaching the station. In the midst of the multitude two men were bearing a corpse. It was that of the guard, already cold. A poniard-thrust had pierced him to the heart. The assassins had dragged the body some distance from Camden Bridge, doubtless intending by this means to mislead the police in their first
