The point of this person's destination, he
had been assured on all hands, was a spot beyond which even the most
aggressively assertive engine could not proceed, so that he had no
fears of being incapably drawn into more remote places, yet when hour
after hour passed and the ill-destined machine never failed in its
malicious endeavours to leave each successive tarrying station, it is
not to be denied that my imagination dwelt regretfully upon the true
civilisation of our own enlightened country, where, by the considerate
intervention of an all-wise government, the possibilities of so
distressing an experience are sympathetically removed from one's path.
Thus the greater part of the day had faded, and I was conjecturing
that by this time we must inevitably be approaching the barren and
inhospitable country which forms the northern limit of the Island,
when the door suddenly opened and the barbarian stranger whom I had
left many hundred li behind entered the carriage.
At this manifestation all uncertainty departed, and I now understood
that to some obscure end witchcraft of a very powerful and high-caste
kind was being employed around me; for in no other way was it credible
to one's intelligence that a person could propel himself through the
air with a speed greater than that of one of these fire-chariots, and
overtake it. Doubtless it was a part of this same scheme which made it
seem expedient to the stranger that he should feign a part, for he at
once greeted me as though the occasion were a matter of everyday
happening, exclaiming genially--
"Well, Mr.
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