I examined both engines, and found them of the old boiler steam-type with manholes, heaters, autoclaves, feed-pump, &c., now rare in western countries, except England.  In one there was no water, but in that at the platform, the float-lever, barely tilted toward the float, showed that there was some in the boiler.  Of this one I overhauled all the machinery, and found it good, though rusted.  There was plenty of fuel, and oil, which I supplemented from a near shop:  and during ninety minutes my brain and hands worked with an intelligence as it were automatic, of their own motion.  After three journeys across the station and street, I saw the fire blaze well, and the manometer move; when the lever of the safety-valve, whose load I lightened by half an atmosphere, lifted, I jumped down, and tried to disconnect the long string of carriages from the engine:  but failed, the coupling being an automatic arrangement new to me; nor did I care.  It was now very dark; but there was still oil for bull’s-eye and lantern, and I lit them.  I forgot nothing.  I rolled driver and stoker—­the guard was absent—­one to the platform, one upon the rails:  and I took their place there.  At about 8.30 I ran out from Dover, my throttle-valve pealing high a long falsetto through the bleak and desolate night.

* * * * *

My aim was London.  But even as I set out, my heart smote me:  I knew nothing of the metals, their junctions, facing-points, sidings, shuntings, and complexities.  Even as to whether I was going toward, or away from, London, I was not sure.  But just in proportion as my first timorousness of the engine hardened into familiarity and self-sureness, I quickened speed, wilfully, with an obstinacy deaf and blind.

Finally, from a mere crawl at first, I was flying at a shocking velocity, while something, tongue in cheek, seemed to whisper me:  ’There must be other trains blocking the lines, at stations, in yards, and everywhere—­it is a maniac’s ride, a ride of death, and Flying Dutchman’s frenzy:  remember your dark five-deep brigade of passengers, who rock and bump together, and will suffer in a collision.’  But with mulish stubbornness I thought:  ‘They wished to go to London’; and on I raged, not wildly exhilarated, so far as I can remember, nor lunatic, but feeling the dull glow of a wicked and morose Unreason urge in my bosom, while I stoked all blackened at the fire, or saw the vague mass of dead horse or cow, running trees and fields, and dark homestead and deep-slumbering farm, flit ghostly athwart the murky air, as the half-blind saw ‘men like trees walking.’