The dawn had come on sufficiently for us to be able to see over a considerable distance.  Without saying anything to anybody, I went in search of the body of my poor Kinko.  And I could not find it among the wreck.

As the engine could not reach the front of the train, owing to their being only a single line, and no turning-table, it was decided to couple it on in the rear and run backwards to the junction.  In this way the box, alas! without the Roumanian in it, was in the last carriage.

We started, and in half an hour we were on the main line again.

Fortunately it was not necessary for us to return to Tai-Youan, and we thus saved a delay of an hour and a half.  At the junction the engine was detached and run for a few yards towards Pekin, then the vans and cars, one by one, were pushed on to the main line, and then the engine backed and the train proceeded, made up as before the accident.  By five o’clock we were on our way across Petchili as if nothing had happened.

I have nothing to say regarding this latter half of the journey, during which the Chinese driver—­to do him justice—­in no way endeavored to make up for lost time.  But if a few hours more or less were of no importance to us, it was otherwise with Baron Weissschnitzerdoerfer, who wanted to catch the Yokohama boat at Tien Tsin.

When we arrived there at noon the steamer had been gone for three-quarters of an hour; and when the German globe-trotter, the rival of Bly and Bisland, rushed on to the platform, it was to learn that the said steamer was then going out of the mouths of the Pei-Ho into the open sea.

Unfortunate traveler!  We were not astonished when, as Gaterna said, the baron “let go both broadsides” of Teutonic maledictions.  And really he had cause to curse in his native tongue.

We remained but a quarter of an hour at Tien Tsin.  My readers must pardon me for not having visited this city of five hundred thousand inhabitants, the Chinese town with its temples, the European quarter in which the trade is concentrated, the Pei-Ho quays where hundreds of junks load and unload.  It was all Faruskiar’s fault, and were it only for having wrecked my reportorial endeavors he ought to be hanged by the most fantastic executioner in China.

Nothing happened for the rest of our run.  I was very sorry at the thought that I was not bringing Kinko along with me, and that his box was empty.  And he had asked me to accompany him to Mademoiselle Zinca Klork!  How could I tell this unfortunate girl that her sweetheart would never reach Pekin station?

Everything ends in this world below, even a voyage of six thousand kilometres on the Grand Transasiatic; and after a run of thirteen days, hour after hour, our train stopped at the gates of the capital of the Celestial Empire.

CHAPTER XXVI.

“Pekin!” shouted Popof.  “All change here.”