Just ten minutes before three the obliging guard came in and roused us from a mild sleep.
"The train is coming, mein herr."
"Thank God!"
"But I neglected to mention that it is an express and never stops here."
My right hand was still in a bandage, but it was so nearly healed that I could have used it without discomfort—(note my ability to drive a motor car)—and it was with the greatest difficulty that I restrained a mad, devilish impulse to strike that guard full upon the nose, from which the raindrops coursed in an interrupted descent from the visor of his cap.
The shrill, childish whistle of the locomotive reached us at that instant. A look of wonder sprang into the eyes of the guard.
"It—it is going to stop, mein herr," he cried. "Gott in himmel! It has never stopped before." He rushed out upon the platform in a great state of agitation, and we trailed along behind him, even more excited than he.
It was still raining, but not so hard. The glare of the headlight was upon us for an instant and then, passing, left us in blinding darkness. The brakes creaked, the wheels grated and at last the train came to a standstill. For one horrible moment I thought it was going on through in spite of its promissory signal. Britton went one way and I the other, with our umbrellas ready. Up and down the line of wagon lits we raced. A conductor stepped down from the last coach but one, and prepared to assist a passenger to alight. I hastened up to him.
"Permit me," I said, elbowing him aside.
A portly lady squeezed through the vestibule and felt her way carefully down the steps. Behind her was a smallish, bewhiskered man, trying to raise an umbrella inside the narrow corridor, a perfectly impossible feat.