He had seen long
service as an artillery officer, was less nervous than I was, and so he
was to go ahead of us in a pilot hand-car, with a Ghurka and another
native; and the plan was that when we should see his car jump over a
precipice we must put on our break [sp.] and send for another pilot.
It was a good arrangement. Also Mr. Barnard, chief engineer of the
mountain-division of the road, was to take personal charge of our car,
and he had been down the mountain in it many a time.
Everything looked safe. Indeed, there was but one questionable detail
left: the regular train was to follow us as soon as we should start, and
it might run over us. Privately, I thought it would.
The road fell sharply down in front of us and went corkscrewing in and
out around the crags and precipices, down, down, forever down, suggesting
nothing so exactly or so uncomfortably as a croaked toboggan slide with
no end to it. Mr. Pugh waved his flag and started, like an arrow from a
bow, and before I could get out of the car we were gone too. I had
previously had but one sensation like the shock of that departure, and
that was the gaspy shock that took my breath away the first time that I
was discharged from the summit of a toboggan slide.
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