Dreams and Dream Stories | Page 5

Hand over hand I passed along in this way from one carriage to another; and as I did so I saw by the light within each carriage that the passengers had no idea of the fate upon which they were being hurried. At length, in one of the compartments, I saw you. "Come out!" I cried; "come out! Save yourself! In another minute we shall be dashed to pieces!" You rose instantly, wrenched open the door, and stood beside me outside on the footboard. The rapidity at which we were going was now more fearful than ever. The train rocked as it fled onwards. The wind shrieked as we were carried through it. "Leap down," I cried to you; "save yourself! It is certain death to stay here. Before us is an abyss; and there is no one on the engine!" At this you turned your face full upon me with a look of intense earnestness, and said, "No, we will not leap down. We will stop the train." With these words you left me, and crept along the foot-board towards the front of the train. Full of half angry anxiety at what seemed to me a Quixotic act, I followed. In one of the carriages we passed I saw my mother and eldest brother, unconscious as the rest. Presently we reached the last carriage, and saw by the lurid light of the furnace that the voice had spoken truly, and that there was no one on the engine. You continued to move onwards. "Impossible! Impossible!" I cried; "It cannot be done. O, pray, come away." Then you knelt upon the footboard, and said,--"You are right. It cannot be done in that way; but we can save the train. Help me to get these irons asunder." The engine was connected with the train by two great iron hooks and staples. By a tremendous effort, in making which I almost lost my balance, we unhooked the irons and detached the train; when, with a mighty leap as of some mad supernatural monster, the engine sped on its way alone, shooting back as it went a great flaming trail of sparks, and was lost in the darkness. We stood together on the footboard, watching in silence the gradual slackening of the speed. When at length the train had come to a standstill, we cried to the passengers, "Saved! Saved!" and then amid the confusion of opening the doors and descending and eager talking, my dream ended, leaving me shattered and palpitating with the horror of it. --London, Nov. 1876.

II. The Wonderful Spectacles*

I was walking alone on the seashore. The day was singularly clear and sunny. Inland lay the most beautiful landscape ever seen; and far off were ranges of tall hills, the highest peaks of which were white with glittering snows. Along the sands by the sea came towards me a man accoutred as a postman. He gave me a letter. It was from you. It ran thus:-- "I have got hold of the earliest and most precious book extant. It was written before the world began. The text is easy enough to read; but the notes, which are very copious and numerous, are in such minute and obscure characters that I cannot make them out. I want you to get for me the spectacles which Swedenborg used to wear; not the smaller pair--those he gave to Hans Christian Andersen--but the large pair, and these seem to have got mislaid. I think they are Spinoza's make. You know he was an optical-glass maker by profession, and the best we have ever had. See if you can get them for me." When I looked up after reading this letter, I saw the postman hastening away across the sands, and I cried out to him, "Stop! how am I to send the answer? Will you not wait for it?" He looked round, stopped, and came back to me. "I have the answer here," he said, tapping his letter-bag, "and I shall deliver it immediately." ------------- * From another letter to the friend mentioned in the note appended to the "Doomed Train."--(Author's Note.) -------------
"How can you have the answer before I have written it?" I asked. "You are making a mistake." "No," he said." In the city from which I come, the replies are all written at the office, and sent out with the letters themselves. Your reply is in my bag." "Let me see it," I said. He took another letter from his wallet and gave it to me. I opened it, and read, in my own handwriting, this answer, addressed to you:-- "The spectacles you want can be bought in London. But you will not be able to use them at once, for they have not been worn for many years, and they