Then the other passengers kept on staring at him, and the more so because he looked uneasily at them. In fact, as one passenger said to himself, he looked “as if he been up to no good.”
The drowsy sensation which had made him feel as if walking in a dream had now completely passed away, and though he rested his head in a corner, and, after buttoning up his jacket tightly, tried to sleep, he could not lose consciousness, but sat there with every joint aching, and a miserable feeling of weariness in his back, listening to the rattle of the train, which kept up what sounded like some weird tune, always beginning and never ending.
There came minutes when he felt as if he were going to be seriously ill, for his head throbbed, and there was a burning sensation at the back of his eyes, while the events of the past night seemed as if they had happened a long time back.
Once when the train stopped—though stop it did at every station—Sam closed his eyes tightly and shammed sleep, feeling convinced that when the carriage door was opened, he would hear a rough voice ordering him to get out, consequent upon his description having been telegraphed all along the line; and then the door was opened and banged to again after a man had spoken in a rough voice, but only said jocularly—
“Got room for a little ’un?”
He then squeezed in close to Sam, and proved to be a huge fellow of about twenty stone.
Every one in the compartment laughed but Sam, who went through the same agony again and again, till the tickets were taken at Vauxhall, when the collector looked so much like a detective that the mental suffering was worse than ever.
Waterloo at last. He was parched with fever; his throat felt dry, and there was hot coffee waiting at the buffet, such as would relieve the faintness from which he suffered; but he dared not stop to partake of it. He hurried out of the great station, and walked fast across the bridge, and only began to feel more safe when he was amongst the crowd going and coming in the busy streets.
At last, after dodging in and out in all directions to baffle pursuit, he jumped into a cab to be taken home, but began to feel the next moment that if he were pursued it would be known where he had taken refuge.
Taken altogether, Sam Brandon began to taste very bitterly the agonies of those who break out of straight paths, never having realised till then how thorny the wrong course was, and how deep the pits and chasms in the way.