Part 10 (1/2)
Clearly there was nothing else to be done. I went out, and as I did so the silent figure in the corner rose also and followed me. The station was evidently going to bed. As I pa.s.sed the porter I repeated the hour he had named, adding: ”That is the first train for ---- Junction?”
He nodded, again naming the exact time. But I cannot do so, as I have never been able to recollect it.
I trudged along the road--there were lamps, though very feeble ones; but by their light I saw that the man who had been in the refreshment-room was still a few steps behind me. It made me feel slightly nervous, and I looked round furtively once or twice; the last time I did so he was not to be seen, and I hoped he had gone some other way.
The ”Restauration” was scarcely more inviting than the station refreshment-room. It, too, was very dimly lighted, and the one or two attendants seemed half asleep and were strangely silent. There was a fire, of a kind, and I seated myself at a small table near it and asked for some coffee, which would, I thought, serve the double purpose of warming me and keeping me awake.
It was brought me, in silence. I drank it, and felt the better for it.
But there was something so gloomy and unsociable, so queer and almost weird about the whole aspect and feeling of the place, that a sort of irritable resignation took possession of me. If these surly folk won't speak, neither will I, I said to myself childishly. And, incredible as it may sound, I did _not_ speak. I think I paid for the coffee, but I am not quite sure. I know I never asked what I had meant to ask--the name of the town--a place of some importance, to judge by the size of the station and the extent of twinkling lights I had observed as I made my way to the ”Restauration”. From that day to this I have never been able to identify it, and I am quite sure I never shall.
What was there peculiar about that coffee? Or was it something peculiar about my own condition that caused it to have the unusual effect I now experienced? That question, too, I cannot answer. All I remember is feeling a sensation of irresistible drowsiness creeping over me--mental, or moral I may say, as well as physical. For when one part of me feebly resisted the first onslaught of sleep, something seemed to reply: ”Oh, nonsense! you have several hours before you. Your papers are all right.
No one can touch them without awaking you.”
And dreamily conscious that my belongings were on the floor at my feet--_the_ bag itself actually resting against my ankle--my scruples silenced themselves in an extraordinary way. I remember nothing more, save a vague consciousness through all my slumber of confused and chaotic dreams, which I have never been able to recall.
I awoke at last, and that with a start, almost a jerk. Something had awakened me--a sound--and as it was repeated to my now aroused ears I knew that I had heard it before, off and on, during my sleep. It was the extraordinary cough!
I looked up. Yes, there he was! At some two or three yards' distance only, at the other side of the fireplace, which, and this I have forgotten to mention as another peculiar item in that night's peculiar experiences, considering I have every reason to believe I was still in Germany, was not a stove, but an open grate.
And he had not been there when I first fell asleep; to that I was prepared to swear.
”He must have come sneaking in after me,” I thought, and in all probability I should neither have noticed nor recognised him but for that traitorous cackle of his.
Now, my misgivings aroused, my first thought, of course, was for my precious charge. I stooped. There were my rugs, my larger bag, but--no, not the smaller one; and though the other two were there, I knew at once that they were not quite in the same position--not so close to me.
Horror seized me. Half wildly I gazed around, when my silent neighbour bent towards me. I could declare there was nothing in his hand when he did so, and I could declare as positively that I had already looked under the small round table beside which I sat, and that the bag was not there. And yet when the man, with a slight cackle, caused, no doubt, by his stooping, raised himself, the thing was in his hand!
Was he a conjurer, a pupil of Maskelyne and Cook? And how was it that, even as he held out my missing property, he managed, and that most cleverly and un.o.btrusively, to prevent my catching sight of his face? I did not see it then--I never did see it!
Something he murmured, to the effect that he supposed the bag was what I was looking for. In what language he spoke I know not; it was more that by the action accompanying the mumbled sounds I gathered his meaning, than that I heard anything articulate.
I thanked him, of course, mechanically, so to say, though I began to feel as if he were an evil spirit haunting me. I could only hope that the splendid lock to the bag had defied all curiosity, but I felt in a fever to be alone again, and able to satisfy myself that nothing had been tampered with.
The thought recalled my wandering faculties. How long had I been asleep?
I drew out my watch. Heavens! It was close upon the hour named for the first train in the morning. I sprang up, collected my things, and dashed out of the ”Restauration”. If I had not paid for my coffee before, I certainly did not pay for it then. Besides my haste, there was another reason for this--there was no one to pay to! Not a creature was to be seen in the room or at the door as I pa.s.sed out--always excepting the man with the cough.
As I left the place and hurried along the road, a bell began, not to ring, but to toll. It sounded most uncanny. What it meant, of course, I have never known. It may have been a summons to the workpeople of some manufactory, it may have been like all the other experiences of that strange night. But no; this theory I will not at present enter upon.
Dawn was not yet breaking, but there was in one direction a faint suggestion of something of the kind not far off. Otherwise all was dark.
I stumbled along as best as I could, helped in reality, I suppose, by the ugly yellow glimmer of the woebegone street, or road lamps. And it was not far to the station, though somehow it seemed farther than when I came; and somehow, too, it seemed to have grown steep, though I could not remember having noticed any slope the other way on my arrival. A nightmare-like sensation began to oppress me. I felt as if my luggage was growing momentarily heavier and heavier, as if I should _never_ reach the station; and to this was joined the agonising terror of missing the train.
I made a desperate effort. Cold as it was, the beads of perspiration stood out upon my forehead as I forced myself along. And by degrees the nightmare feeling cleared off. I found myself entering the station at a run just as--yes, a train was actually beginning to move! I dashed, baggage and all, into a compartment; it was empty, and it was a second-cla.s.s one, precisely similar to the one I had occupied before; it might have been the very same one. The train gradually increased its speed, but for the first few moments, while still in the station and pa.s.sing through its immediate _entourage_, another strange thing struck me--the extraordinary silence and lifelessness of all about. Not one human being did I see, no porter watching our departure with the faithful though stolid interest always to be seen on the porter's visage. I might have been alone in the train--it might have had a freight of the dead, and been itself propelled by some supernatural agency, so noiselessly, so gloomily did it proceed.
You will scarcely credit that I actually and for the third time fell asleep. I could not help it. Some occult influence was at work upon me throughout those dark hours, I am positively certain. And with the daylight it was dispelled. For when I again awoke I felt for the first time since leaving home completely and normally myself, fresh and vigorous, all my faculties at their best.
But, nevertheless, my first sensation was a start of amazement, almost of terror. The compartment was nearly full! There were at least five or six travellers besides myself, very respectable, ordinary-looking folk, with nothing in the least alarming about them. Yet it was with a gasp of extraordinary relief that I found my precious bag in the corner beside me, where I had carefully placed it. It was concealed from view. No one, I felt a.s.sured, could have touched it without awaking me.
It was broad and bright daylight. How long had I slept?
”Can you tell me,” I inquired of my opposite neighbour, a cheery-faced compatriot--”Can you tell me how soon we get to ---- Junction by this train? I am most anxious to catch the evening mail at Calais, and am quite out in my reckonings, owing to an extraordinary delay at ----. I have wasted the night by getting into a stopping train instead of the express.”