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between her and the irony of possible death at the hands of the rescuers.

Extreme caution now marked the labours of those above. The surrounding debris was carefully tested before the removal of any obstruction lest a cave-in should defeat their efforts. Their caution galled the injured man beneath.

“Come on, for God’s sake!” he growled.

At that moment a beam of dusty sunlight fell upon the back of his head.

“You all right?” asked a husky voice.

“Me? Yes,” he answered, leaning on his sound elbow and looking upward with a faint smile. “I’m all right, except that I’m going to faint like a school-girl.”

“You’d better save it until we get you out.”

“I can’t.”

He could not.

They lifted him out carefully and with effort, for he was a man of girth.

“God only knows how he got under that far,” remarked one of his rescuers as they carried him to the middle of the street.

“His heart’s as big as his frame, that’s why,” replied the self-appointed ganger. “Lend a hand here, some of you. Two women here. One of ’em dead, I’m thinking. Two of you on those bars over there. When I give you the word, heave up gently and we’ll see if we can get ’em out.”

****

To James Harley, slumped in the front seat of the taxi, the night was a delirium of whistling wheels, blazing headlights, red tail-lights, blaring motor-horns, violent swerves which threw him from side to side, wakeful towns, shouting people, unwinding black roads and white roads, trees, hedgerows