“That is rather queer,” Frank thought. “As I am alone here, there was plenty of room for him. Perhaps he had made a mistake in the carriage. At any rate, they won’t catch me napping.”
The strong coffee that he had taken at Lyons had sharpened his faculties, and he never felt more awake than he did after leaving Vienne. He sat with his eyes apparently closed, as if asleep, with a warm rug wrapped round his legs. An hour later he saw a face appear at the opposite window. At first it was but for an instant; a few seconds later it appeared again and watched him steadily; then the man moved along to the door and another joined him. Frank without moving cocked the pistol in his right-hand pocket, and took a firm hold of the butt with his finger on the trigger. The door opened noiselessly, and the second man thrust in an arm holding a pistol; so it remained for half a minute. Frank was convinced that there was no intention of shooting if it could be avoided, and remained perfectly still; then the arm was withdrawn, and another man, holding a knife in one hand and a roll of something in the other, entered. In a moment Frank’s right arm flew up and his pistol cracked out: his assailant fell back and disappeared through the open door. Frank sprang to his feet as he fired, and stood with his pistol levelled towards the window, where the head of the second man had disappeared as his comrade fell backwards.
“He knows I have the best of him now,” Frank muttered to himself; “I don’t think that he will have another try.”
Advancing cautiously, he pulled the door to, lowered the window, and putting a hand out without exposing his head, turned the handle, and then drew up the window again. His foot struck against something as he backed to his seat in the corner. As he still kept his eyes fixed on the window, he paid no attention to this for a minute or two; then he became conscious of a faint odour.
“I expect that is chloroform or ether or something of that sort,” he said, as he lowered the window next to him; and then, still keeping an eye on the door opposite, moved a step forward and picked up a large handkerchief, steeped in a liquid of some sort or other. He was about to open the window and throw it out, when an idea struck him.
“I had better keep it,” he said: “there may be a beastly row over the business, and this handkerchief may be useful in confirming my story.”
He therefore put it up on the rack, lowered the window a few inches, and did the same to the one opposite to it. Then wrapping the handkerchief up in two or three newspapers he had bought by the way, to prevent the liquid from evaporating, he sat down in his corner again. He felt confident that the attack would not be renewed, now he was found to be on the watch and armed. It was probable that the two men were alone, and the one remaining would hardly venture single-handed to take any steps whatever against one who was certain to continue to be vigilant. He had no doubt that he had killed the man he fired at, and that, even if the wound had not been instantly fatal, he would have been killed by his fall from the train.
“It seems horrid,” he muttered, “to have shot a man; but it was just as much his life or mine as it would have been in battle. I hope no one heard the shot fired. I expect that most of the passengers were asleep; and if any one did hear it, he might suppose that a door had come open, or had been opened by a guard, and had been slammed to. Of course, the man’s body will be found on the line in the morning, and I expect there will be some fuss over it; but I hope we shall all be out of the train and scattered through the town before any inquiries are set on foot. If they traced it to me, I might be kept at Marseilles for weeks. Of course, I should be all right; but the delay would be a frightful nuisance. There is one thing,—the guard looked at my ticket just before the train started from the last station, and would know that I was alone in the carriage.”