"I waited patiently until we reached a station. Then, holding the case carefully behind my back, so as to save my face as much as possible, I jerked it open.
"But nothing happened—nothing, that is to say, except that the cigars fell out of it!
"'Let me see how far the knife will help me,' was my next idea.
"It was quite a little knife, as I have said. But the journey to the Russian frontier was a long one. I had plenty of time in front of me. It seemed just possible that, if I worked diligently, I might at least carve a hole in the lid through which I could put out a finger, if not a hand, and make a signal of distress. I opened the little pocket-knife and set to work.
"At first things went quite easily. The interior of the coffin was lined with a thick felting, designed, no doubt, to muffle any noise that its occupant might make. I worked diligently and succeeded in stripping off a patch of it. But I could get no further. Alas! and alas! Behind the padding I encountered, not wood, but solid lead, upon which the knife made no impression.
"Beaten again!'
"I gasped out the words in the bitterness of my despair and fainted. For an hour or two, as I conjecture, I lay senseless on my back. My last hope, apparently, was gone. My one chance of escaping the hangman was to die before I reached him. But then, suddenly—
"Crash! Bang!
"The noise reached me even in my leaden box. I felt the train slowing down immediately afterwards, and knew exactly what must have happened.
"'The Third Section! They stole the cigar-case from my mantelpiece. They've opened it to try the cigars and fired the bomb themselves.'