no show and to excite no observation, and then again he
was very lavish with his money, and did every thing to attract people's
attention. The Major did not understand the man. He must certainly have
been a locomotive-driver; and what is there that he may not have been!

"Yes, Laadi," exclaimed he, speaking to the dog, "come, lie down by me.
Yes, Laadi; neither of us could ever dream of going through this! If we
only once do get through it! Yes, Laadi, she will mourn for you too if
we are killed."

The dog growled away to himself; he must have been full of wrath also
at the fool-hardy Sonnenkamp.

Madder and madder was the speed: down they went over descending grades
near the river, and the Major expected every instant that the
locomotive would run off the track, and the passenger-car be dashed in
pieces and tumbled into the stream. Yes, there came over him such a
settled fear, or rather expectation, of immediate death, that he braced
his feet against the back of the seat, and thought to himself,--

"Well, death, come! God be praised, I have never harmed anybody in the
world, and Fraeulein Milch has been cared for, so that she will never
suffer need."

Tears wet his closed eyes, and he made a strange face in order to
stifle his tears; he was unwilling to die, and then, too, when there
was no need of it. He opened his eyes with rage, and doubled up his
fists; this extra train is wholly unnecessary; Roland was known to be
in good hands. But this man is such a savage!

The Major was very angry with Sonnenkamp, and yet more with himself,
for being drawn into any such mad freak. All his heroic mood was gone,
he was wholly unreconciled to the position, he had been duped, this was
not fit for him. Fraeulein Milch is right; he is weak, he cannot say no.

Whenever he looked out he became dizzy. He found a lucky expedient; he
placed himself so as to ride backwards. There one sees only what has
been gone over, and not what is coming. But neither does this do any
good; it is even more terrible than before, for one sees now the bold,
short curves which the road makes, and the cars incline on one side as
if to plunge over. And now tears actually flow out of the Major's eyes.
He thought of the funeral service which the lodge, would perform for
him after he was dead; he heard the organ-peal, and the dirges, saying
to himself,--

"You eulogize me more than I deserve, but I have been a good brother.
The Builder of all the world