"And the stoker?" said the courier.
"Oh, you and he and I shall escape. We shall be pointed at in the street as the fortunate. It is good, is it not, Alexis, my fox? I have told him that the count is the man who betrayed his sister. He believes it, and is my creature. But, little fox, it was not my cousin, it was myself, that took his Beatrix from her home. Is it not good, Alexis? Is it not genius? And Atkinson—he, the driver—is now stupid: he has drunk from his can the poppy juice that will make him sleep for ever. I will be a politician. I am worthy of office. I will become the Minister of a Bourbon when I am count, my dear fox, and you shall be my comrade again, as of old."
I was, for a time, lost to every sensation save that of hearing. The fiendish garrulity of the man had all the fascination of the serpent's rattle. I felt helplessly resigned to a certain fate.
I was aroused by something white slowly passing the closed window of the carriage. I waited a little, then gently opened it and looked out. The stoker was crawling along the foot-board of the next carriage, holding on by its handles, so as not to be seen by the occupants, and holding the signal lantern that I had noticed at the back of the last carriage in his hand. The meaning of it struck me in a moment: if by any chance we missed the goods train from Sienna, we should be run into from behind by the train from Florence.
The cold air that blew in at the open window refreshed me, and I could think what was to be done. The train was increasing its pace rapidly. Evidently the stoker, in sole charge, was striving to reach Empoli before the other train, which we should follow, was due: he had to make five minutes in a journey of forty-five, and, at the rate we were going, we should do it. We stopped nowhere, and the journey was more than half over. We were now between Segua and [{205}] Montelupo; another twenty minutes and I should be a bruised corpse. Something must be done.
I decided soon. Unfastening my bag, I took out my revolver, without which I never travel, and looking carefully to the loading and capping, fastened it to my waist with a handkerchief. I then cut with my knife the bar across the middle of the window, and carefully looked out. I could see nothing; the rain was falling fast, and the night as dark as ever. I cautiously put out first one leg and then the other, keeping my knees and toes close to the door, and lowered myself till I felt the step. I walked carefully along the foot-board by side steps, holding on to the handles of the doors, till I came to the end of the carriages, and was next the tender. Here was a gulf that seemed impassable. The stoker must have passed over it; why not I? Mounting from the foot-board on to the buffer, and holding on to the iron hook on which the lamps are hung, I stretched my legs to reach the flat part of the buffer on the tender. My legs swung about with the vibration, and touched nothing. I must spring. I had to hold with both hands behind my back, and stood on the case of the buffer-spring, and, suddenly leaving go, leaped forward, struck violently against the edge of the tender, and grasped some of the loose lumps of coal on the top. Another struggle brought me on my knees, bruised and bleeding, on the top. I stood up, and at that moment the stoker opened the door of the furnace, and turned toward me, shovel in hand, to put in the coals. The bright red light from the fire enabled him to see me, while it blinded me. He rushed at me, and then began a struggle that I shall remember to my dying day.
He grasped me round the throat with one arm, dragging me close to his breast, and with the other kept shortening the shovel for an effective blow. My hands, numbed and bruised, were almost useless to me, and for some seconds we reeled to and fro on the foot-plate in the blinding glare. At last he got me against the front of the engine, and, with horrible ingenuity, pressed me against it till the lower part of my clothes were burnt to a cinder. The heat, however, restored my hands, and at last I managed to push him far enough from my body to loosen my pistol. I did not want to kill him, but I could not be very careful, and I fired at his shoulder from the back. He dropped the shovel, the arm that had nearly throttled me relaxed, and he fell. I pushed him into a corner of the tender, and sat down to recover myself.
My object was to get to Empoli before the Sienna goods train, for I knew nothing of what might be behind me. It was too late to stop, but I might, by shortening the journey seven minutes instead of five, get to Empoli three minutes before the goods train was due.
I had never been on an engine before in my life, but I knew that there must be a valve somewhere that let the steam from the boiler into the cylinders, and that, being important, it would be in a conspicuous position. I therefore turned the large handle in front of me, and had the satisfaction of finding the speed rapidly increased, and at the same time felt the guard putting on the break to retard the train. Spite of this, in ten minutes I could see some dim lights; I could not tell where, and I still pressed on faster and faster.
In vain, between the intervals of putting on coals, did I try to arouse the sleeping driver. There I was, with two apparently dead bodies, on the foot-plate of an engine, going at the rate of forty miles an hour, or more, amidst a thundering noise and vibration that nearly maddened me.