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Beasts and Superbeasts-Part31_H.H.Munro(Saki)(1870-1916)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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officials; and they agreed that snow was about to come.



And it came, rapidly, plenteously. The train had not

been more than an hour on its journey when the cotton-



wool clouds commenced to dissolve in a blinding downpour

of snowflakes. The forest trees on either side of the



line were speedily coated with a heavy white mantle, the

telegraph wires became thick glistening ropes, the line



itself was buried more and more completely under a

carpeting of snow, through which the not very powerful



engine ploughed its way with increasing difficulty. The

Vienna-Fiume line is scarcely the best equipped of the



Austrian State railways, and Abbleway began to have

serious fears for a breakdown. The train had slowed down



to a painful and precarious crawl and presently came to a

halt at a spot where the drifting snow had accumulated in



a formidablebarrier. The engine made a special effort

and broke through the obstruction, but in the course of



another twenty minutes it was again held up. The process

of breaking through was renewed, and the train doggedly



resumed its way, encountering and surmounting fresh

hindrances at frequent intervals. After a standstill of



unusually long duration in a particularly deep drift the

compartment in which Abbleway was sitting gave a huge



jerk and a lurch, and then seemed to remain stationary;

it undoubtedly was not moving, and yet he could hear the



puffing of the engine and the slow rumbling and jolting

of wheels. The puffing and rumbling grew fainter, as



though it were dying away through the agency of

intervening distance. Abbleway suddenly gave vent to an



exclamation of scandalised alarm, opened the window, and

peered out into the snowstorm. The flakes perched on his



eyelashes and blurred his vision, but he saw enough to

help him to realise what had happened. The engine had



made a mightyplunge through the drift and had gone

merrily forward, lightened of the load of its rear



carriage, whose coupling had snapped under the strain.

Abbleway was alone, or almost alone, with a derelict



railway waggon, in the heart of some Styrian or Croatian

forest. In the third-class compartment next to his own



he remembered to have seen a peasant woman, who had

entered the train at a small wayside station. "With the



exception of that woman," he exclaimed dramatically to

himself, "the nearest living beings are probably a pack



of wolves."

Before making his way to the third-class compartment



to acquaint his fellow-traveller with the extent of the

disaster Abbleway hurriedly pondered the question of the



woman's nationality. He had acquired a smattering of

Slavonic tongues during his residence in Vienna, and felt



competent to grapple with several racial possibilities.

"If she is Croat or Serb or Bosniak I shall be able



to make her understand," he promised himself. "If she is

Magyar, heaven help me! We shall have to converse



entirely by signs."

He entered the carriage and made his momentous



announcement in the best approach to Croat speech that he

could achieve.



"The train has broken away and left us!"

The woman shook her head with a movement that might



be intended to conveyresignation to the will of heaven,

but probably meant noncomprehension. Abbleway repeated



his information with variations of Slavonic tongues and

generous displays of pantomime.



"Ah," said the woman at last in German dialect, "the

train has gone? We are left. Ah, so."



She seemed about as much interested as though

Abbleway had told her the result of the municipal



elections in Amsterdam.

"They will find out at some station, and when the



line is clear of snow they will send an engine. It

happens that way sometimes."






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