They reached the station in exactly four minutes and a half. Bourke had little money with him, but he was well known, and known to be wealthy. In less than five minutes the superintendent, in regard for a check for two hundred and fifty dollars, had ordered out the fastest engine in the shop. In ten minutes more it was ready, and the message had flashed along the line to make way for “45.” By this time every man in the yard was surging about the engine in excited sympathy. As the engineer gave the word and Bourke and the priest climbed in, the men cheered lustily. Bourke raised his hat. Father Connor waved them his blessing. The engine sprang down the road in pursuit of the New York express. Despite the flying moments, the horror that seemed to sit grimacing upon the hour of eleven every time that he looked at his watch, Bourke felt the exhilaration of that ride, the enchantment of uncertainty. The morning air was cool; the river flashed with gold; the earth was very green. They seemed to cut the air as they raced through fields and towns, dashed and whizzed round curve after curve. People ran after them, some shouting with terror, thinking it was a runaway engine. Father Connor had bought some sandwiches at the station, and Bourke ate mechanically. He wondered if he should ever recognise the fine flavour of food again. The priest put his lips to Bourke’s ear and spoke for the first time. “Where do you expect to catch the train?” “At Poughkeepsie. It waits there ten minutes.” “And what shall you do if you don’t catch it?” “Go on to Sing Sing, and do the best I can. I have made one fatal mistake: I should have telegraphed to Sing Sing. But I was mad, I think, until I reached Albany, and there it is no wonder I forgot it. The regular time for—that business is round eleven o’clock, about a quarter past; but if the warden happens to be drunk there’s no telling what he will take it into his head to do. But I dare not stop.” Suddenly they shot about a curve. The engineer shouted “There! There!” A dark speck was just making another curve, far to the south. “The express!” cried the engineer. “We’ve side-tracked everything else. We’ll catch her now.” An hour later they dashed into Poughkeepsie, the express only two minutes ahead of them. Amidst a crowd of staring people, Bourke and the priest, begrimed, dishevelled, leaped from the engine and boarded a parlour car of the express. Alone, Bourke would probably have been arrested as a madman, controlled as was his demeanour; but the priest’s frock forbade interference. The governor was not in the parlour car, nor in the next, nor in the next. Yes, he had been there, a porter replied, and would be there again; but he had left the train as soon as it had stopped. No, he did not know in what direction he had gone; nor did any one else.