He was hungry again, and again
nibbled with prudence at his loaf and his sausage. He could not at
all tell the hour. Every time the train stopped and he heard the
banging, stamping, shouting, and jangling of chains that went on,
his heart seemed to jump up into his mouth. If they should find
him out! Sometimes porters came and took away this case and the
other, a sack here, a bale there, now a big bag, now a dead
chamois. Every time the men trampled near him, and swore at each
other, and banged this and that to and fro, he was so frightened
that his very breath seemed to stop. When they came to lift the
stove out, would they find him? and if they did find him, would
they kill him? That was what he kept thinking of all the way, all
through the dark hours, which seemed without end. The goods trains
are usually very slow, and are many days doing what a quick train
does in a few hours. This one was quicker than most, because it
was bearing goods to the King of Bavaria; still, it took all the
short winter's day and the long winter's night and half another
day to go over ground that the mail trains cover in a forenoon. It
passed great armored Kufstein standing across the beautiful and
solemn gorge, denying the right of way to all the foes of Austria.
It passed twelve hours later, after lying by in out-of-the-way
stations, pretty Rosenheim, that marks the border of Bavaria.
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