Making himself as comfortable as might be in a depressingly third-rate
second-class compartment (there was no first class, and the third was
far too richly flavoured for his stomach) he cultivated a doze as the
train pulled out. But, driven as provincial trains habitually are, in a
high spirit of devil-may-care, its first stop woke him up with a series
of savage, back-breaking jolts which were translated into jerks when it
started on again and fiendishly reiterated at every suspicion of a
way-station on the course. So that he presently abandoned all hope of
sleep and sought solace in tobacco and the shifting views afforded by
the windows. Penetrating the upper valley of the Cernon, the railroad
skirted the southern boundary of the Causse Larzac, then laboriously
climbed up to the plateau itself; and Lanyard roused to the fact that
he was approaching familiar ground from a new angle: the next stop
would be Combe-Redonde.
The day was still in its infancy when that halt was made. Aside from
the station agent, not a soul waited upon the platform. But one or two
passengers were set down and, as the engine began to snort anew, a man
darted from behind the tiny structure that housed ticket-office and
waiting-room, galloped heavily across the platform, and with nothing to
spare threw himself into the compartment immediately behind that
wherein Lanyard sat alone.
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