The young man sprang on the next coach that came opposite him, it was a risky job, a false step and he would be thrown on to the rails, under the wheels, but the journalist had audacity and fearlessness on his side, and dexterity into the bargain, and he landed safely. In a few seconds, by help of the hand-holds running along the sides and the mouldings of the woodwork, which luckily projected outwards, he succeeded in first hoisting himself between two carriages and then climbing on to the roof of one of them. He stretched himself flat on his face and threw his arms round the projecting top of a lamp, then with legs wide to help maintain his equilibrium, he lay perfectly still.
Hardly was he in position before the train quickened its pace and emerged from the tunnel. The journalist breathed the purer air with infinite gusto. But his satisfaction was of short duration; the engine now began to emit showers of sparks and clouds of greasy, blinding smoke. He could only shut his eyes tight and wait in stoical patience.
“Pooh!” the young fellow said to himself, “it’s merely a bad night to get through! I shall be a bit cold perhaps, and a bit dirty, but the great point is, I shall get there. Hâvre is not so far away as they make out; I think we must already be getting near the bridge of Asnières, for the train, I see, is beginning to slow down, as they always do.”
But next moment he let fly a big oath. The train, contrary to all precedent, was taking a big curve, the rails were steeply inclined inwards and the carriages tilted over in the same direction, so that Fandor, who was not expecting it, very nearly slipped off his perch. He would infallibly have tumbled off if he had not made a wild clutch at the top of his lamp. The brakes were applied sharply and a jar ran from carriage to carriage; then the train stopped dead.
Fandor opened his eyes and looked about him. He was in the middle of a vast shed; on either side he saw the roofs of carriages stretching away into infinity. For a moment he was at a loss what to think, then the truth burst upon him.
“Damnation!” he cried, “was it worth my while to lay my plans so carefully, and make such a monstrous mistake after all!”
Instead of taking the train for Hâvre, he had got on to a line of empty coaches which a yard-engine was simply hauling out to its siding for the night.
Even as he realized the fact, in the distance, full steam ahead and brilliantly lighted up, he saw a main line train go by—the Hâvre train without a doubt!
CHAPTER X
TOM BOB ON THE SPOT
The Lorraine had just entered the port of Hâvre after an excellent passage across the Atlantic. As usual, her passenger list was a full one, and bore many names well known in the worlds of high finance and fashion. The decks were crowded with pretty women in brilliant toilettes and clean-shaven, keen-faced men in check cloth caps, a typically American company, not to mention a minority of other nationalities—Frenchmen, Englishmen, heavily built Germans, with a sprinkling of Spaniards and Italians and even a half-dozen bronzed Asiatics, a cosmopolitan assemblage.