“He’s acting as a flywheel,” said the corporal. “He’s steadying, and I think he’s about to race.”

Indeed, not only did he catch up with us, he increased his speed beyond ours, and Jacobs’ death-sprint was a sprint the like of which the living cannot conceive. So much so that the last car, which had disappeared during the time it took us to train the deceased, grew larger and larger, and resumed its normal place, which it never should have left, with the middle of the tender half a yard off my right shoulder. All this did not take place, naturally enough, without our cheers being raised, thundered into our four masks:

“Hip, hip, hurray for Jewey Jacobs!”

And the flying trumpet echoed throughout the skies:

“Hip, hip, hurray for Jewey Jacobs!”

I had lost sight of the locomotive and its two cars while we were teaching the dead to live; when he was able to get along by himself I saw the rear of the last car growing bigger as though it were coming back to hear the latest news. It was no doubt a hallucination – the distorted reflection of the five-man machine in the mahogany of the great sleeping car, more limpid than a mirror – but I saw what looked like a hunchbacked human being – hunchbacked or bearing some enormous burden – pedaling along behind the train. His legs were moving at exactly the same speed as ours.

Instantly, the vision disappeared, hidden. by the back corner of the car, which we had already passed. I thought it very comical to hear the ridiculous Bob Rumble, panic-stricken and jumping from side to side of his wicker seat like a monkey in a cage, yapping as before:

“There’s something pedaling, there’s something following us!”

The education of Jewey Jacobs had taken us a whole day. It was the morning of the fourth day, three minutes, seven and two-fifths seconds after nine o’clock, and the speedometer was at its farthest limit, which it had not been designed to exceed: 300 kilometers per hour.

The flying machine was of great help to us, and though I don’t know whether we exceeded the previously recorded speed, I am sure that it was responsible for our not slowing down, as the needle of the speedometer remained at the far end of the dial. The train kept up with us steadily, but they could not have foreseen such high speeds when taking on fuel, for the passengers – there were no others than Mr. Elson and his daughter – passed through the corridor to the platform of the locomotive, near the engine driver, bringing their food and drink with them. The girl seemed marvelously active, and was carrying a dressing case. They were all busy – there were five or six in all – breaking up the cars and throwing everything combustible into the fire box.