“I thank you; I never smoke.”
“Ah! you are worse than a hot potato. But I am dying for a smoke; and, if you will excuse me, I will go forward. I will see you again before we get to New York.”
Captain de Banyan, apparently entirely satisfied with himself, rose from his seat, and sauntered gracefully forward to the door of the car, through which he disappeared, leaving Lieutenant Somers busy in a vain endeavor to crowd five weeks in between the 4th and the 20th of June. The captain was certainly a pleasant and voluble person, and Somers had enjoyed the interview; though he could not repress a rising curiosity to see the bullet which had passed twice through the body of the valiant soldier, and the medal of the Legion of Honor conferred upon him by his imperial majesty the Emperor of France.
Some painful doubts in regard to the truth of Captain de Banyan’s remarkable experience were beginning to intrude themselves into his mind; and it is quite probable that he would have been hurled into an unhappy state of skepticism, if the train in which he was riding had not been suddenly hurled down an embankment some twenty feet in height, where the cars were piled up in shapeless wrecks, and human beings, full of life and hope a moment before, were suddenly ushered into eternity, or maimed and mangled for life.
CHAPTER II
THE SENATOR’S DAUGHTER
A scene terribly beyond the power of description was presented to the gaze of Lieutenant Somers when he recovered his scattered senses. The car had been literally wrenched to pieces, and the passengers were partially buried beneath the fragments. Our traveler was stunned by the shock, and made giddy by the wild vaulting of the car as it leaped down the embankment to destruction. He was bruised and lacerated; but he was not seriously injured. He did not make the mistake which many persons do under such trying circumstances, of believing that they are killed; or, if their senses belie this impression, that they shall die within a brief period.
Lieutenant Somers was endowed with a remarkable degree of self-possession, and never gave up anything as long as there was any chance of holding on. He saw a great many stars not authenticated in any respectable catalogue of celestial luminaries. His thoughts, and even his vitality, seemed to be suspended for an instant; but the thoughts came back, and the stream of life still flowed on, notwithstanding the rude assault which had been made upon his corporal frame.
Finding that he was not killed, he struggled out from beneath the wreck which had overwhelmed him. His first consideration, after he had assured himself that he was comparatively uninjured, was for those who were his fellow-passengers on this race to ruin and death; and perhaps it is not strange that the fair young lady who had occupied the opposite seat in the car came to his mind. Men and women were disengaging themselves from the shapeless rubbish. Some wept, some groaned, and some were motionless and silent.