The air was filled with an intolerable, throbbing roar, which he expected to find die away with the return of consciousness; and instead of that it seemed but to swell the louder and to pierce the more cruelly through his ears.

It was a raging, bellowing thunder, like a boiler-riveting factory.
And now curiosity began to stir, and he sat up and looked about him.

The track at this point ran in a sharp curve about a wooded hillock; all of the near side was heaped with the wreckage of the Bournemouth train; that of the express was mostly hidden by the trees; and just at the turn, under clouds of vomiting steam and piled about with cairns of living coal, lay what remained of the two engines, one upon the other.
On the heathy margin of the line were many people running to and fro, and crying aloud as they ran, and many others lying motionless like sleeping tramps.
Morris suddenly drew an inference.

'There has been an accident' thought he, and was elated at his perspicacity.

Almost at the same time his eye lighted on John, who lay close by as white as paper.