Apart from the usual service, he that day expected eighteen trains, containing more than fifteen thousand passengers.

The grey and the blue trains which had started from Paris the first had already arrived at the regulation hour.

But the delay in the arrival of the white train was very troublesome, the more so as the Bayonne express--which passed over the same rails--had not yet been signalled.

It was easy to understand, therefore, what incessant watchfulness was necessary, not a second passing without the entire staff of the station being called upon to exercise its vigilance.
"In ten minutes, then ?" repeated Father Fourcade.
"Yes, in ten minutes, unless I'm obliged to close the line!" cried the station-master as he hastened into the telegraph office.
Father Fourcade and the doctor slowly resumed their promenade.

The thing which astonished them was that no serious accident had ever happened in the midst of such a fearful scramble.