7 train was due. "Oh, Lord! Have pity on innocent souls!" In his
mind Semyon saw the engine strike against the loosened rail with its
left wheel, shiver, careen, tear up and splinter the sleepers--and
just there, there was a curve and the embankment seventy feet high,
down which the engine would topple--and the third-class carriages
would be packed ... little children... All sitting in the train now,
never dreaming of danger. "Oh, Lord! Tell me what to do!... No, it is
impossible to run to the hut and get back in time."
Semyon did not run on to the hut, but turned back and ran faster than
before. He was running almost mechanically, blindly; he did not know
himself what was to happen. He ran as far as the rail which had been
pulled up; his sticks were lying in a heap. He bent down, seized one
without knowing why, and ran on farther. It seemed to him the train
was already coming. He heard the distant whistle; he heard the quiet,
even tremor of the rails; but his strength was exhausted, he could run
no farther, and came to a halt about six hundred feet from the awful
spot. Then an idea came into his head, literally like a ray of light.
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