At last I lost my _bete noire_, and found a place
close to the door with nothing but a low pile of logs in my front. I was
tired, and soon began to doze; but I woke up with a start and a shudder,
as a haunted man might do, becoming aware, in sleep, of the approach of
some horrible thing. There he sat, on the logs close to my feet, in a
heavy stertorous slumber, his huge head rocking to and fro, and his
features hideously contorted, as he growled and gibbered to himself in
an unknown tongue, like some dreaming Caliban. I arose and fled away
swiftly from the face of my "brother," and, finding no other available
resting-place, did battle on the outside platform with the keen night
wind.
I am indebted, however, to that honest contraband for a curious sight,
which I should have otherwise missed--the crossing of the Gunpowder
River. There, the train rushes, on a single track, over three-quarters
of a mile of tremulous trestle-work, without an apology for a side-rail,
so that you look straight down into the dark water, over which you seem
wafted with no visible support beneath. The effect is sufficiently
startling, especially seen as I saw it, under a bright, capricious moon.
From Baltimore, the cars were less crowded, and I encountered my dusky
tormentor no more.
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