. "Many thanks to you."

CHAPTER II. THE END OF THE JOURNEY

Southward, with low funnel belching forth fire and smoke into the
blackness of the night, the huge engine, with its solitary saloon
carriage and guard's brake, thundered its way through the night towards
the great metropolis. Across the desolate plain, stripped bare of all
vegetation, and made hideous forever by the growth of a mighty industry,
where the furnace fires reddened the sky, and only the unbroken line of
ceaseless lights showed where town dwindled into village and suburbs
led back again into town. An ugly, thickly populated neighborhood, whose
area of twinkling lights seemed to reach almost to the murky skies;
hideous, indeed by day, not altogether devoid now of a certain weird
attractiveness by reason of low-hung stars. On, through many tunnels
into the black country itself, where the furnace fires burned oftener,
but the signs of habitation were fewer. Down the great iron way the
huge locomotive rushed onward, leaping and bounding across the maze
of metals, tearing past the dazzling signal lights, through crowded
stations where its passing was like the roar of some earth-shaking
monster. The station-master at Crewe unhooked his telephone receiver and
rang up Liverpool.

"What about this special?" he demanded.

"Passenger brought off from the Lusitania in a private tug. Orders are
to let her through all the way to London."

"I know all about that," the station-master grumbled. "I have three
locals on my hands already,--been held up for half an hour. Old Glynn,
the director's, in one of them too. Might be General Manager to hear him
swear."

"Is she signalled yet?" Liverpool asked.

"Just gone through at sixty miles an hour," was the reply. "She made our
old wooden sheds shake, I can tell you. Who's driving her?"

"Jim Poynton," Liverpool answered. "The guvnor took him off the mail
specially."

"What's the fellow's name on board, anyhow?" Crewe asked. "Is it a
millionaire from the other side, trying to make records, or a member of
our bloated aristocracy?"

"The name's Fynes, or something like it," was the reply. "He didn't look
much like a millionaire. Came into the office carrying a small handbag
and asked for a special to London. Guvnor told him it would take two
hours and cost a hundred and eighty pounds. Told him he'd better wait
for the mail. He produced a note from some one or other, and you
should have seen the old man bustl