"Dthat vould be enough. Madame Steele vish much to see Guatemala; she go on and ve miss dthat train."
"Brilliant scheme!" I admit, "but——" A shrill blast cuts through the air. "Heavens and earth! that's the whistle!"
Like one possessed I tear down the road with never a glance behind—it seems miles to the station, and as I come near I see the train is moving. I make a rush for the rear platform. Voices behind scream reproof and warning, but I never look back; I grasp the iron railing and am whisked off my feet by the motion. With a desperate wrench I pull myself up the steps and steady my trembling body against the door of the baggage car. I look in. It's locked, and no one is there. "Stupid idiot!" I mutter. "That mooning Baron hasn't the smallest grain of sense—saying we had twenty minutes! Well, he's left anyhow—serves him right!" And then I cool down and reflect that going to Guatemala without the Baron may not be so amusing. I shake the door of the car, but no one hears, and I notice the train is slowing. "Mrs. Steele thinks I'm left and has made them come back—well, I'm not sorry, for now we'll get that stupid Baron again. Yes, just as I thought——" as we begin to move back to Escuintla—"there's the vine-covered hut that idiotic person proposed buying—here's the station and ... who's that?" Before my astonished eyes stand Mrs. Steele and the Baron de Bach, looking anxiously for the advancing train. As it stops they run forward.
"My dear, don't you ever do such a foolhardy thing again," begins Mrs. Steele, severely.
"If I had known vhat you vould do, I vould haf hold you till——"
"The train doesn't go for ten minutes," Mrs. Steele interrupts; "it was only shifting to another track. You might have known the Baron would watch the time."
Mrs. Steele looks weak with apprehension—it is only when she has been alarmed that I realise how delicate she is.
"I'm so sorry you were frightened," I say, feeling too utterly reduced to rebuff the Baron for lifting me down from the platform as he would have taken a child.
"Come," says Mrs. Steele, "we will get our old places."
An Indian woman comes to the window after we are seated and offers a paraquito for sale. The Baron buys it and shows me how to hold it on my fan and let it take a piece of sappadilla from my teeth. This performance somewhat restores my spirits, and the incident of catching the wrong train at the risk of life and limb fades before the crowding interests of an eventful day. It seems hotter and closer in the cramped little car. Mrs. Steele grows faint.