Wigan was passed and Preston not far distant when I bethought me of a plan that would, like enough, have occurred to any other in my position an hour earlier. I might possibly get a message on to the telegraph wires and have Joshua Beakbane stopped when he least expected such a thing. I wrote therefore on a leaf of my pocket-book, but did so in trembling, for should the man I was working to overthrow catch sight of the words, even though he might not guess who I really was, he would at least take me for a detective in disguise, and all must then be over. Thus I worded my telegram:-- "_Prepare to make big arrest at Carlisle. Small man will wave hand from first-class compartment. Flying Scotsman._" For me this was not bad. I doubled it up, put a sovereign in it, wrote on the outside--"Send this at all hazards," and prepared to dispose of it as best I might at Preston. Then fresh terrors held me on every side. Would the robber by any unlucky chance be getting out at the next station? I made bold to ask him. He answered that Carlisle was his destination, and much relieved, I trusted that it might be so for some time. At Preston I scarcely waited for the train to stop before leaping to the platform--as luck would have it on the foot of a sleepy porter. He swore in the Lancashire dialect, and I pressed my message into his hand. I was already back in the carriage again when the fool--I can call him nothing less strong--came up to the window, held my communication under Joshua Beakbane's eye, and inquired what he was to do with it. "It is a telegram to Glasgow," I told him, with my knees knocking together. "It _must_ go. There's a sovereign inside for the man who sends it." The dunder-headed fellow now grasped my meaning and withdrew, tolerably wide awake. Joshua Beakbane showed himself deeply interested in this business, and knowing what I did, it was clear to me from the searching questions he put that his suspicions were violently aroused. The lie to the railway-porter was, so far as my memory serves me, the only one I ever told in my life. Whether it was justified by circumstances I will not presume to decide. But to Joshua Beakbane I spoke the unvarnished truth concerning my trip northward. The pending trial at Glasgow had some element of interest in it; and my half-brother slowly lost the air of mistrust with which he had regarded me as I laid before him the documents relating to my mission. The journey between Preston and Carlisle occupied a trifle more than two hours, though to me it appeared unending. A thousand times I wondered if my message had yet flashed past us in the darkness, and reflected how, on reaching Carlisle, I might best preserve my own safety and yet advance the ends of justice. As we at last began to near the station Joshua Beakbane strapped his rug to his portmanteau, unlocked the carriage-door with a private key he now for the first time produced, and made other preparations for a speedy exit.