16.  “Here’s Little Oscue just before us,” cried out one of the guard.  But even as he spoke, the buildings were at hand.  A sickening sensation settled upon my heart, for I supposed that we were now gone.  The houses flew by like lightning.  I knew if the officers here had turned the switch as usual, we should be hurled into eternity in one fearful crash.  I saw a flash,—­it was another engine,—­I closed my eyes; but still we thundered on!  The officers had seen our speed, and knowing that we would not be able to stop, in that distance, they had changed the switch, so that we went forward.

17.  But there was sure death ahead, if we did not stop.  Only fifteen miles from us was the town of Schwetz, on the Vistula; and at the rate we were going we should be there in a few minutes, for each minute carried us over a mile.  The shrieks of the passengers now rose above the crash of the rails, and more terrific than all else arose the demoniac yells of the mad engineer.

“Merciful heavens!” gasped the guardsman, “there’s not a moment to lose; Schwetz is close.  But hold,” he added; “let’s shoot him.”

18.  At that moment a tall, stout German student came over the platform where we stood, and saw that the mad-man had his heavy pistol aimed at us.  He grasped a huge stick of wood, and, with a steadiness of nerve which I could not have commanded, he hurled it with such force and precision that he knocked the pistol from the maniac’s hand.  I saw the movement, and on the instant that the pistol fell, I sprang forward, and the German followed me.  I grasped the man by the arm; but I should have been nothing in his mad power, had I been alone.  He would have hurled me from the platform, had not the student at that moment struck him upon the head with a stick of wood, which he caught as he came over the tender.

19.  Kroller settled down like a dead man, and on the next instant I shut off the steam and opened the valve.  As the free steam shrieked and howled in its escape, the speed began to decrease, and in a few minutes more the danger was passed.  As I settled back, entirely overcome by the wild emotions that had raged within me, we began to turn the river; and before I was fairly recovered, the fireman had stopped the train in the station house at Schwetz.

20.  Martin Kroller, still insensible, was taken from the platform; and, as we carried him to the guard room, one of the guard recognized him, and told us that he had been there about two weeks before.

“He came,” said the guard, “and swore that an engine which stood near by was his.  He said it was one he had made to go to the moon in, and that it had been stolen from him.  We sent for more help to arrest him, and he fled.”

“Well,” I replied, with a shudder, “I wish he had approached me in the same way; but he was more cautious at Dantzic.”

At Schwartz we found an engineer to run the engine to Bromberg; and having taken out the western mail for the next northern mail to carry along, we saw that Kroller would be properly attended to, and then started on.