'Here,' he
added, 'is your ticket as far as Council Bluffs. The East express
will pass in a few hours.' With that, he took both horses, and,
without further words or any salutation, rode off by the way that
we had come.
Three hours afterwards, I was seated on the end platform of the
train as it swept eastward through the gorges and thundered in
tunnels of the mountain. The change of scene, the sense of escape,
the still throbbing terror of pursuit--above all, the astounding
magic of my new conveyance, kept me from any logical or melancholy
thought. I had gone to the doctor's house two nights before
prepared to die, prepared for worse than death; what had passed,
terrible although it was, looked almost bright compared to my
anticipations; and it was not till I had slept a full night in the
flying palace car, that I awoke to the sense of my irreparable loss
and to some reasonable alarm about the future. In this mood, I
examined the contents of the bag. It was well supplied with gold;
it contained tickets and complete directions for my journey as far
as Liverpool, and a long letter from the doctor, supplying me with
a fictitious name and story, recommending the most guarded silence,
and bidding me to await faithfully the coming of his son.
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