ment a bride and bridegroom were dying, clasped
in each other's arms in mute despair.

The line was free along the whole length of the train, and people came
and went, prowling round the carriages like beasts of prey in search
of carrion. All classes were mingled together. A millionaire, a high
functionary, it was said, wept on a workman's shoulder. The lamps had
been extinguished from the first, and the engine fire was nearly out. To
pass from one carriage to another it was necessary to grope about, and
thus, too, one slowly reached the engine, recognizable by its enormous
barrel, its cold, motionless flanks, its useless strength, its grim
silence, in the overwhelming night. Nothing could be more appalling than
this train entombed alive with its passengers perishing one by one.

I gloated over the ghastliness of each detail; howls resounded through
the vault; somebody whom one could not see, whose vicinity was not
even suspected, would suddenly drop upon another's shoulder. But what
affected me most of all was the cold and the want of air. I have never
felt so chilled; a mantle of snow seemed to enwrap me; heavy moisture
rained upon my skull; I was gasping; the rocky vault seemed to crush my
chest; the whole mountain was seemingly weighing upon me.

Suddenly a cry of deliverance sounded. For some time past we fancied
that we could hear a dull sound, and we tried to hope that men were
at work and that help was coming, but it came not thus. One of the
passengers, however, had discovered an air shaft in the tunnel, and,
crowding round, we all saw this shaft, above which we could discern a
blue patch about the size of a wafer. That blue patch filled us with
rapture, for it was the sky. We stretched ourselves and stood on tiptoes
to breathe more freely. Then we distinguished some black specks moving
about, specks that must surely be workmen about to deliver us. A furious
clamor arose. The cry "Saved! Saved!" burst from every mouth, while
trembling arms were uplifted toward the tiny azure patch above.

That roar of voices aroused me. Where was I? In the tunnel, of course. I
was lying at full length; hard walls were pressing against my ribs. Then
I attempted to rise and struck my head roughly. Was it the rock
closing in on all sides? The blue speck had vanished--aye, the sky had
disappeared and I was still suffocating, shivering, with chattering
teeth.

All at once I remembered. Intense horror raised my hair on end. I fel