these various circumstances had resulted in all the trains running
between Brives and Cahors, being regularly half an hour late. Further,
in view of the dangerous state of the line, all engine drivers coming
from Brives had received orders to stop their trains two hundred yards
from the end of the tunnel, and all drivers coming from Cahors to stop
their trains five hundred yards before the entrance to the tunnel, so
that should a train appear while any work was going on which rendered it
dangerous to pass, it could wait until the work was completed. The order
was also issued with the primary object of preventing the workers on the
line from being taken by surprise.

* * * * *

Day was just breaking this grey December morning, when the gang of
navvies set to work under a foreman, fixing on the down line the new
sleepers which had been brought up the day before. Suddenly a shrill
whistle was heard, and in the gaping black mouth of the tunnel the light
of two lamps became visible; a train bound for Cahors had stopped in
accordance with orders, and was calling for permission to pass.

The foreman ranged his men on either side of the down line and walked to
a small cabin erected at the mouth of the tunnel, where he pulled the
hand-signal so as to show the green light, thereby authorising the train
to proceed on its way.

There was a second short, sharp whistle; heavy puffs escaped from the
engine, and belching forth a dense volume of black smoke it slowly
emerged from the tunnel, followed by a long train of carriages, the
windows of which were frosted all over by the cold temperature outside.

A man approached the cabin allotted to the plate-layer in charge of that
section of the line in which the tunnel was included.

"I suppose this is the train due at Verrieres at 6.55?" he said
carelessly.

"Yes," the plate-layer answered, "but it's late, for the clock down
there in the valley struck seven several minutes ago."

The train had gone by: the three red lamps fastened at the end of it
were already lost in the morning mist.

The man who spoke to the plate-layer was no other than Francois Paul,
the tramp who had been discharged by the magistrate installed at the
chateau of Beaulieu, at precisely the same time the day before, after a
brief examination. In spite of the deep wrinkle furrowed in his brow the
man seemed to make an effort to appear friendly and to want to carry on
the convers