"Now mark the irony of fate! That was the last passage ever made by the magnificent steamer Atlantic! Some magnetic influence deranged her compass so that she ran twenty miles out of her course, striking on the coast of Nova Scotia, at Meager's Head, Prospect Harbor, broke in two, then rolling into deep water sank in a few minutes. Out of 1,002 persons on board 560 perished, including most of the saloon passengers and all the women and children. The elegant cabins and staterooms became their tombs--and one might have been mine. But not for me such favoring fate; a moment's struggle ended their sufferings, while I was left to undergo the pangs of a thousand deaths! [Illustration: A CORRIDOR OF THE TOMBS, NEW YORK.] "I continued my walk up a hill among the private residences of the city, and, hailing a cab, told the driver to take me back to the station. Eager for a job, he asked to drive me a mile beyond on the railway. Thinking I might elude the detectives at the Queenstown station, I acceded, and he made his little Irish horse rush along at a pace which brought us to the stopping place just before the train arrived. [Illustration: INTERIOR OF AN ENGLISH CONVICT PRISON.] "I purchased a ticket and hastened into a carriage, where, lo and behold! sat the two detectives. A few minutes brought us to Cork again. I was not yet aware they were in possession of my right name and the knowledge that a reward of L5,000 was offered for my capture, nor that their hesitation was occasioned by doubts as to my identity, which the first false step on my part might remove. I did not suppose they were looking especially for me, but for any one in general whose actions and appearance might indicate that he was one of the operators in the bank forgery. Under this erroneous belief I crossed to the Dublin station, which was a quarter of a mile from that of the Cork and Queenstown. As I entered the waiting room I saw my two detectives standing at the other side. 'Well,' I thought to myself, 'this is very strange; I left the Queenstown station ahead of them and here they are again, all alive!' I walked away into the most thronged streets of the business part of the city; turning a corner I glanced backward and saw them following at some distance in the rear. As soon as I had fairly turned the corner I started at a fast walk, turning the next before they came in view, and after three or four such turnings I went into a small temperance hotel and took lodgings for the night. There was but a single commercial traveler in the sitting room--a special room set apart in every English hotel, sacred to the 'drummer' fraternity. In the course of the evening he handed me a small railway map of Ireland, which, in my subsequent flight through the country, proved of incalculable service to me.