But he soon tired of that and crouched on the floor again listening and shivering, half with fear and half with cold. It was becoming chillier, so he judged it must be night; up here in the mountains there was still frost at night.
There came another train, a freight, he knew by the heavy pounding and the time it took to pass. He kicked on the door and shouted, but he soon realized that it was of no use to shout in that uproar.
The craving for water was becoming an obsession. He tried not to think about it, but that only made him think about it the more; he would think about not thinking about it and about not thinking about that—and all the time he was growing thirstier. He wondered how long one could live without water; and as the torment grew worse he began to wonder if he was dying. He was hungry, too, and he wondered which was worse, of which one would die the sooner. He had heard that dying men remembered all their past, and so he began to remember his—with extraordinary vividness, and with bursts of strange and entirely new emotions. He remembered particularly all the evil things that he had ever done; including the theft of a ride, for which he was paying the penalty. And meantime, with another part of his mind, he was plotting and seeking. He must not die here like a rat in a hole. There must be some way.
He tried every inch of the car—of the floor and ceiling and walls. But there was not a loose plank nor a crack—the car was new. And that suggested another idea—that he might suffocate before he starved. He was beginning to feel weak and dizzy.
If only he had a knife. He could have cut a hole for air and then perhaps enlarged it and broken out a board. He found a spike on the floor and began tapping round the walls for a place that sounded thin; but they all sounded thick—how thick he had no idea. He began picking splinters away at the juncture of two planks.
Meantime hunger and thirst continued to gnaw at him. At long intervals he would pause while a train roared by, or because he fancied he had heard a sound. Then he would pound and call until he was hoarse, and then go on picking at the splinters.
And so on, for an unknown number of hours, but certainly for days and nights. And Samuel was famished and wild and weak and gasping; when at last it dawned upon his senses that a passing train had begun to make less noise—that the thumping was growing slower. The train was stopping.
He leaped up and began to pound. Then he realized that he must control himself—he must save his strength until the train had stopped. But suppose it went on without delay? He began to pound again and to shout like a madman.
The train stopped and there was silence; then came sounds of cars being coupled—and meantime Samuel was kicking and beating upon the wall. He was almost exhausted and in despair—when suddenly from outside came a muffled call—“Hello!”
For a moment he could not speak. Then “Help! Help!” he shrieked.