The Lost Palace

The Lost Palace

[From the Ingham Papers.]

"Passengers for Philadelphia and New York will change
cars."

This annoying and astonishing cry was loudly made in
the palace-car "City of Thebes," at Pittsburg, just as
the babies were well asleep, and all the passengers
adapting themselves to a quiet evening.

"Impossible!" said I, mildly, to the "gentlemanly
conductor," who beamed before me in the majesty of gilt
lace on his cap, and the embroidered letters P. P. C.
These letters do not mean, as in French, "to take leave,"
for the peculiarity of this man is, that he does not
leave you till your journey's end: they mean, in
American, "Pullman's Palace Car." "Impossible!" said I;
"I bought my ticket at Chicago through to Philadelphia,
with the assurance that the palace-car would go through.
This lady has done the same for herself and her children.
Nay, if you remember, you told me yourself that the `City
of Thebes' was built for the Philadelphia service, and
that I need not move my hat, unless I wished, till we
were there."

The man did not blush, but answered, in the well-
mannered tone of a subordinate used to obey,

Here are my orders, sir; telegram just received here
from headquarters: `"City of Thebes" is to go to
Baltimore.' Another palace here, sir, waiting for you."
And so we were trans-shipped into such chairs and berths
as might have been left in this other palace, as not
wanted by anybody in the great law of natural selection;
and the "City of Thebes" went to Baltimore, I suppose.
The promises which had been made to us when we bought our
tickets went to their place, and the people who made them
went to theirs.

Except for this little incident, of which all my
readers have probably experienced the like in these days
of travel, the story I am now to tell would have seemed
to me essentially improbable. But so soon as I
reflected, that, in truth, these palaces go hither, go
thither, controlled or not, as it may be, by some distant
bureau, the story recurred to me as having elements of
vraisemblance which I had not noticed before. Having
occasion, nearly at the same time, to inquire at the
Metropolitan station in Boston for a lost shawl which had
been left in a certain Brookline car, the gentlemanly
official told me that he did not know where that car was;
he had not heard of it for several days. This again
reminded me of "The Lost Palace." Why should not one
palace, more or less, go astray, when there are thousands
to care for? Indeed had not Mr. Firth told me, at
the Albany, that the worst difficulty in the
administration of a strong railway is, that they cannot
call their freight-cars home? They go astray on the line
of some weaker sister, which finds it convenient to use
them till they begin to show a need for paint or repairs.
If freight-cars disappear, why not palaces? So the story
seems to me of more worth, and I put it upon paper.

It was on my second visit to Melbourne that I heard
it. It was late at night, in the coffee-room of the
Auckland Arms, rather an indifferent third-class house,
in a by-street in that city, to which, in truth, I should
not have gone had my finances been on a better scale than
they were. I laid down, at last, an old New York
"Herald," which the captain of the "Osprey" had given me
that morning, and which, in the hope of home-news, I had
read and read again to the last syllable of the
"Personals." I put down the paper as one always puts
down an American paper in a foreign land, saying to
myself, "Happy is that nation whose history is
unwritten." At that moment Sir Roger Tichborne, who had
been talking with an intelligent-looking American on the
other side of the table, stretched his giant form, and
said he believed he would play a game of billiards before
he went to bed. He left us alone; and the American
crossed the room, and addressed me.

"You are from Massachusetts, are you not?" said he.
I said I had lived in that State.

"Good State to come from," said he. "I was
there myself for three or four months,--four months
and ten days precisely. Did not like it very well; did
not like it. At least I liked it well enough: my wife
did not like it; she could not get acquainted."

"Does she get acquainted here?" said I, acting on a
principle which I learned from Scipio Africanus at the
Latin School, and so carrying the war into the enemy's
regions promptly. That is to say, I saw I must talk with
this man, and I preferred to have him talk of his own
concerns rather than of mine.

"O sir, I lost her,--I lost her ten years ago! Lived
in New Altoona then. I married this woman the next
autumn, in Vandalia. Yes, Mrs. Joslyn is very well
satisfied here. She sees a good deal of society, and
enjoys very good health."

I said that most people did who were fortunate enough
to have it to enjoy. But Mr. Joslyn did not understand
this bitter sarcasm, far less resent it. He went on,
with sufficient volubility, to give to me his impressions
of the colony,--of the advantages it would derive from
declaring its independence, and then from annexing itself
to the United States. At the end of one of his periods,
goaded again to say something, I asked why he left his
own country for a "colony," if he so greatly preferred
the independent order of government.

Mr. Joslyn looked round somewhat carefully, shut the
door of the room in which we were now alone,--and
were likely, at that hour of the night, to be alone,--and
answered my question at length, as the reader will see.

"Did you ever hear of the lost palace?" said he a
little anxiously.

I said, no; that, with every year or two, I heard
that Mr. Layard had found a palace at Nineveh, but that
I had never heard of one's being lost.

"They don't tell of it, sir. Sometimes I think they
do not know themselves. Does not that seem possible?"
And the poor man repeated this question with such
eagerness, that, in spite of my anger at being bored by
him, my heart really warmed toward him. "I really think
they do not know. I have never seen one word in the
papers about it. Now, they would have put something in
the papers,--do you not think they would? If they knew
it themselves, they would."

"Knew what?" said I, really startled out of my
determination to snub him.

"Knew where the palace is,--knew how it was lost."

By this time, of course, I supposed he was crazy.
But a minute more dispelled that notion; and I beg the
reader to relieve his mind from it. This man knew
perfectly well what he was talking about, and never, in
the whole narration, showed any symptom of mania,--a
matter on which I affect to speak with the intelligence
of the "experts" indeed.

After a little of this fencing with each other, in
which he satisfied himself that my ignorance was not
affected, he took a sudden resolution, as if it were a
relief to him to tell me the whole story.

"It was years on years ago," said he. "It was when
they first had palaces."

Still thinking of Nimrod's palace and Priam's, I said
that must have been a great while ago.

"Yes, indeed," said he. "You would not call them
palaces now, since you have seen Pullman's and Wagner's.
But we called them palaces then. So many looking-
glasses, you know, and tapestry carpets and gold spit-
boxes. Ours was the first line that run palaces."

I asked myself, mentally, of what metal were the
spit-boxes in Semiramis's palace; but I said nothing.

"Our line was the first line that had them. We were
running our lightning express on the `Great Alleghanian.'
We were in opposition to everybody, made close
connections, served supper on board, and our passengers
only were sure of the night-boat at St. Louis. Those
were the days of river-boats, you know. We introduced
the palace feature on the railroad; and very successful
it was. I was an engineer. I had a first-rate
character, and the best wages of any man on the line.
Never put me on a dirt-dragger or a lazy freight loafer,
I tell you. No, sir! I ran the expresses, and nothing
else, and lay off two days in the week, besides. I don't
think I should have thought of it but for Todhunter,
who was my palace conductor."

Again this IT, which bad appeared so mysteriously in
what the man said before. I asked no question, but
listened, really interested now, in the hope I should
find out what IT was; and this the reader will learn. He
went on, in a hurried way:--

"Todhunter was my palace conductor. One night he was
full, and his palace was hot, and smelled bad of whale-
oil. We did not burn petroleum then. Well, it was a
splendid full moon in August; and we were coming down
grade, making up the time we had lost at the Brentford
junction. Seventy miles an hour she ran if she ran one.
Todhunter had brought his cigar out on the tender, and
was sitting by me. Good Lord! it seems like last week.

"Todhunter says to me, `Joslyn,' says he, `what's the
use of crooking all round these valleys, when it would be
so easy to go across?' You see, we were just beginning
to crook round, so as to make that long bend there is at
Chamoguin; but right across the valley we could see the
stern lights of Fisher's train: it was not more than half
a mile away, but we should run eleven miles before we
came there."

I knew what Mr. Joslyn meant. To cross the mountain
ranges by rail, the engineers are obliged to wind up one
side of a valley, and then, boldly crossing the head of
the ravine on a high arch, to wind up the other side
still, so that perhaps half an hour's journey is
consumed, while not a mile of real distance is made.
Joslyn took out his pencil, and on the back of an
envelope drew a little sketch of the country; which, as
it happened, I still preserve, and which, with his
comments, explains his whole story completely. "Here we
are," said he. "This black line is the Great
Alleghanian,--double track, seventy pounds to the yard;
no figuring off there, I tell you. This was a good
straight run, down grade a hundred and seventy-two feet
on the mile. There, where I make this X, we came on the
Chamoguin Valley, and turned short, nearly north.
So we ran wriggling about till Drums here, where we
stopped if they showed lanterns,--what we call a flag-
station. But there we got across the valley, and worked
south again to this other X, which was, as I say, not
five-eighths of a mile from this X above, though it had
taken us eleven miles to get there."

He had said it was not more than half a mile; but
this half-mile grew to five-eighths as he became more
accurate and serious.

"Well," said he, now resuming the thread of his
story, "it was Todhunter put it into my head. He owns he
did. Todhunter says, says he, `Joslyn, what's the use of
crooking round all these valleys, when it would be so
easy to go across?'

"Well, sir, I saw it then, as clear as I see it now.
When that trip was done, I had two days to myself,--one
was Sunday,--and Todhunter had the same; and he came
round to my house. His wife knew mine, and we liked
them. Well, we fell talking about it; and I got down the
Cyclopaedia, and we found out there about the speed of
cannon-balls, and the direction they had to give them.
You know this was only talk then; we never thought what
would come of it; but very curious it all was."

And here Mr. Joslyn went into a long mathematical
talk, with which I will not harass the reader, perfectly
sure, from other experiments which I have tried with
other readers, that this reader would skip it all if
it were written down. Stated very briefly, it amounted
to this: In the old-fashioned experiments of those days,
a cannon-ball travelled four thousand and one hundred
feet in nine seconds. Now, Joslyn was convinced, like
every other engineman I ever talked to, that on a steep
down-grade he could drive a train at the rate of a
hundred miles an hour. This is thirteen hundred and
fourteen feet in nine seconds,--almost exactly one-third
of the cannon-ball's velocity. At those rates, if the
valley at Chamoguin were really but five-eighths of a
mile wide, the cannon-ball would cross it in seven or
eight seconds, and the train in about twenty-three
seconds. Both Todhunter and Joslyn were good enough
mechanics and machinists to know that the rate for
thirty-three hundred feet, the width of the valley, was
not quite the same as that for four thousand feet; for
which, in their book, they had the calculations and
formulas; but they also knew that the difference was to
their advantage, or the advantage of the bold experiment
which had occurred to both of them when Todhunter had
made on the tender his very critical suggestion.

The reader has already conceived the idea of this
experiment. These rash men were wondering already
whether it were not possible to leap an engine flying
over the Chamoguin ravine, as Eclipse or Flying Childers
might have leaped the brook at the bottom of it. Joslyn
believed implicitly, as I found in talk with him,
the received statement of conversation, that Eclipse, at
a single bound, sprang forty feet. "If Eclipse, who
weighed perhaps one thousand two hundred, would spring
forty feet, could not my train, weighing two hundred
tons, spring a hundred times as far?" asked he
triumphantly. At least, he said that he said this to
Todhunter. They went into more careful studies of
projectiles, to see if it could or could not.

The article on "Gunnery" gave them just one of those
convenient tables which are the blessing of wise men and
learned men, and which lead half-trained men to their
ruin. They found that for their "range," which was, as
they supposed, eleven hundred yards, the elevation of a
forty-two pounder was one degree and a third; of a nine-
pounder, three degrees. The elevation for a railway
train, alas! no man had calculated. But this had
occurred to both of them from the beginning. In
descending the grade, at the spot where, on his little
map, Joslyn made the more westerly X, they were more than
eleven hundred feet above the spot where he had made his
second, or easterly X. All this descent was to the
advantage of the experiment. A gunner would have said
that the first X "commanded" the second X, and that a
battery there would inevitably silence a battery at the
point below.

"We need not figure on it," said Todhunter, as Mrs.
Joslyn called them in to supper. "If we did, we
should make a mistake. Give me your papers. When I go
up, Monday night, I'll give them to my brother Bill. I
shall pass him at Faber's Mills. He has studied all
these things, of course; and he will like the fun of
making it out for us." So they sat down to Mrs. Joslyn's
waffles; and, but for Bill Todhunter, this story would
never have been told to me, nor would John Joslyn and
"this woman" ever have gone to Australia.

But Bill Todhunter was one of those acute men of whom
the new civilization of this country is raising thousands
with every year; who, in the midst of hard hand-work, and
a daily duty which to collegians and to the ignorant men
among their professors seems repulsive, carry on careful
scientific study, read the best results of the latest
inquiry, manage to bring together a first-rate library of
reference, never spend a cent for liquor or tobacco,
never waste an hour at a circus or a ball, but make their
wives happy by sitting all the evening, "figuring," one
side of the table, while the wife is hemming napkins on
the other. All of a sudden, when such a man is wanted,
he steps out, and bridges the Gulf of Bothnia; and people
wonder, who forget that for two centuries and a half the
foresighted men and women of this country have been
building up, in the face of the Devil of Selfishness on
the one hand, and of the Pope of Rome on the other, a
system of popular education, improving every hour.

At this moment Bill Todhunter was foreman of Repair
Section No. II on the "Great Alleghanian,"--a position
which needed a man of first-rate promptness, of great
resource, of good education in engineering. Such a man
had the "Great Alleghanian" found in him, by good luck;
and they had promoted him to their hardest-worked and
best-paid section,--the section on which, as it happened,
was this Chamoguin run, and the long bend which I have
described, by which the road "headed" that stream.

The younger Todhunter did meet his brother at Faber's
Mills, where the repair-train had hauled out of the way
of the express, and where the express took wood. The
brothers always looked for each other on such occasions;
and Bill promised to examine the paper which Joslyn had
carefully written out, and which his brother brought to
him.

I have never repeated in detail the mass of
calculations which Bill Todhunter made on the suggestion
thus given to him. If I had, I would not repeat them
here, for a reason which has been suggested already. He
became fascinated with the problem presented to him.
Stated in the language of the craft, it was this:

Given a moving body, with a velocity eight thousand
eight hundred feet in a minute, what should be its
elevation that it may fall eleven hundred feet in the
transit of five-eighths of a mile?" He had not only
to work up the parabola, comparatively simple, but he had
to allow for the resistance of the air, on the
supposition of a calm, according to the really admirable
formulas of Robins and Coulomb, which were the best be
had access to. Joslyn brought me, one day, a letter from
Bill Todhunter, which shows how carefully he went into
this intricate inquiry.

Unfortunately for them all, it took possession of
this spirited and accomplished young man. You see, he
not only had the mathematical ability for the calculation
of the fatal curve, but, as had been ordered without any
effort of his, he was in precisely the situation of the
whole world for trying in practice his own great
experiment. At each of the two X X of Joslyn's map, the
company had, as it happened, switches for repair-trains
or wood-trains. Had it not, Bill Todhunter had ample
power to make them.

For the "experiment," all that was necessary was,
that under the pretext of re-adjusting these switches, he
should lay out that at the upper X so that it should run,
on the exact grade which he required, to the western edge
of the ravine, in a line which should be the direct
continuation of the long, straight run with which the
little map begins.

An engine, then, running down that grade at the
immense rapidity practicable there, would take the switch
with its full speed, would fly the ravine at precisely
the proper slopes, and, if the switch had been
rightly aligned, would land on the similar switch at the
lower X. It would come down exactly right on the track,
as you sit precisely on a chair when you know exactly how
high it is.

"If." And why should it not be rightly aligned, if
Bill Todhunter himself aligned it? This he was well
disposed to do. He also would align the lower switch,
that at the lower X, that it might receive into its
willing embrace the engine on its arrival.

When the bold engineer had conceived this plan, it
was he who pushed the others on to it, not they who urged
him. They were at work on their daily duty, sometimes
did not meet each other for a day or two. Bill Todhunter
did not see them more than once in a fortnight. But
whenever they did meet, the thing seemed to be taken more
and more for granted. At last Joslyn observed one day,
as he ran down, that there was a large working-party at
the switch above Drums, and he could see Bill Todhunter,
in his broad sombrero, directing them all. Joslyn was
not surprised, somehow, when he came to the lower switch,
to find another working-party there. The next time they
all three met, Bill Todhunter told them that all was
ready if they were. He said that he had left a few
birches to screen the line of the upper switch, for fear
some nervous bungler, driving an engine down, might be
frightened, and "blow" about the switch. But he said
that any night when the others were ready to make
the fly, he was; that there would be a full moon the next
Wednesday, and, if there was no wind, he hoped they would
do it then.

"You know," said poor Joslyn, describing it to me, "I
should never have done it alone; August would never have
done it alone; no, I do not think that Bill Todhunter
himself would have done it alone. But our heads were
full of it. We had thought of it and thought of it till
we did not think of much else; and here was everything
ready, and neither of us was afraid, and neither of us
chose to have the others think he was afraid. I did say,
what was the truth, that I had never meant to try it with
a train. I had only thought that we should apply to the
supe, and that he would get up a little excursion party
of gentlemen,--editors, you know, and stockholders,--who
would like to do it together, and that I should have the
pleasure and honor of taking them over. But Todhunter
poohed at that. He said all the calculations were made
for the inertia of a full train, that that was what the
switch was graded for, and that everything would have to
be altered if any part of the plan were altered.
Besides, he said the superintendent would never agree,
that he would insist on consulting the board and the
chief engineer, and that they would fiddle over it till
Christmas.

"`No,' said Bill, `next Wednesday, or never! If you
will not do it then, I will put the tracks back
again.' August Todhunter said nothing; but I knew he
would do what we agreed to, and he did.

"So at last I said I would jump it on Wednesday
night, if the night was fine. But I had just as lief own
to you that I hoped it would not be fine. Todhunter--
Bill Todhunter, I mean--was to leave the switch open
after the freight had passed, and to drive up to the
Widow Jones's Cross Road. There he would have a lantern,
and I would stop and take him up. He had a right to stop
us, as chief of repairs. Then we should have seven miles
down-grade to get up our speed, and then--we should see!

"Mr. Ingham, I might have spared myself the hoping
for foul weather. It was the finest moonlight night that
you ever knew in October. And if Bill Todhunter had
weighed that train himself, he could not have been better
pleased,--one baggage-car, one smoking-car, two regular
first-class, and two palaces: she run just as steady as
an old cow! We came to the Widow Jones's, square on
time; and there was Bill's lantern waving. I slowed the
train: he jumped on the tender without stopping it. I
`up brakes' again, and then I told Flanagan, my fireman,
to go back to the baggage-car, and see if they would lend
me some tobacco. You see, we wanted to talk, and we
didn't want him to see. `Mr. Todhunter and I will feed
her till you come back,' says I to Flanagan. In a
minute after he had gone, August Todhunter came forward
on the engine; and, I tell you, she did fly!

"`Not too fast,' said Bill, `not too fast: too fast
is as bad as too slow.'

"`Never you fear me,' says I. `I guess I know this
road and this engine. Take out your watch, and time the
mile-posts,' says I; and he timed them. `Thirty-eight
seconds,' says he; `thirty-seven and a half, thirty-six,
thirty-six, thirty-six,'--three times thirty-six, as we
passed the posts, just as regular as an old clock! And
then we came right on the mile-post you know at Old
Flander's. `Thirty-six,' says Bill again. And then she
took the switch,--I can hear that switch-rod ring under
us now Mr. Ingham,--and then--we were clear!

"Wasn't it grand? The range was a little bit up,
you see, at first; but it seemed as if we were flying
just straight across. All the rattle of the rail
stopped, you know, though the pistons worked just as true
as ever; neither of us said one word, you know; and she
just flew--well, as you see a hawk fly sometimes, when he
pounces, you know, only she flew so straight and true!
I think you may have dreamed of such things. I have; and
now,--now I dream it very often. It was not half a
minute, you know, but it seemed a good long time. I said
nothing and they said nothing; only Bill just squeezed my
hand. And just as I knew we must be half over,--for I
could see by the star I was watching ahead that we
were not going up, but were falling again,--do you think
the rope by my side tightened quick, and the old bell on
the engine gave one savage bang, turned right over as far
as the catch would let it, and stuck where it turned!
Just that one sound, everything else was still; and then
she landed on the rails, perhaps seventy feet inside the
ravine, took the rails as true and sweet as you ever saw
a ship take the water, hardly touched them, you know,
skimmed--well, as I have seen a swallow skim on the sea;
the prettiest, well, the tenderest touch, Mr. Ingham,
that ever I did see! And I could just hear the
connecting rods tighten the least bit in the world behind
me, and we went right on.

"We just looked at each other in the faces, and we
could not speak; no, I do not believe we spoke for three
quarters of a minute. Then August said, `Was not that
grand? Will they let us do it always, Bill?' But we
could not talk then. Flanagan came back with the
tobacco, and I had just the wit to ask him why he had
been gone so long. Poor fellow! he was frightened enough
when we pulled up at Clayville, and he thought it was
Drums. Drums, you see, was way up the bend, a dozen
miles above Clayville. Poor Flanagan thought we must
have passed there while he was skylarking in the baggage-
car, and that he had not minded it. We never stopped at
Drums unless we had passengers, or they. It was what
we call a flag-station. So I blew Flanagan up, and
told him he was gone too long.

"Well, sir, at Clayville we did stop,--always stopped
there for wood. August Todhunter, he was the palace
conductor; he went back to look to his passengers. Bill
stayed with me. But in a minute August came running
back, and called me off the engine. He led me forward,
where it was dark; but I could see, as we went, that
something was to pay. The minute we were alone he
says,--

"`John, we've lost the rear palace.'

"`Don't fool me, August,' says I.

"`No fooling, John,' says he. `The shackle parted.
The cord parted, and is flying loose behind now. If you
want to see, come and count the cars. The "General
Fremont" is here all right; but I tell you the "James
Buchanan" is at the bottom of the Chamoguin Creek.'

"I walked back to the other end of the platform, as
fast as I could go and not be minded. Todhunter was
there before me, tying up the loose end of the bell-cord.
There was a bit of the broken end of the shackle twisted
in with the bolt. I pulled the bolt and threw the iron
into the swamp far as I could fling her. Then I nodded
to Todhunter and walked forward just as that old goose at
Clayville had got his trousers on, so he could come out,
and ask me if we were not ahead of time. I tell you,
sir, I did not stop to talk with him. I just rang `All
aboard!' and started her again; and this time I run
slow enough to save the time before we came down to
Steuben. We were on time, all right, there."

Here poor Joslyn stopped a while in his story; and I
could see that he was so wrought up with excitement that
I had better not interrupt, either with questions or with
sympathy. He rallied in a minute or two, and said,--

"I thought--we all thought--that there would be a
despatch somewhere waiting us. But no; all was as
regular as the clock. One palace more or less,--what did
they know, and what did they care? So daylight came. We
could not say a word, you know, with Flanagan there; and
we only stopped, you know, a minute or two every hour;
and just then was when August Todhunter had to be with
his passengers, you know. Was not I glad when we came
into Pemaquid,--our road ran from Pemaquid across the
mountains to Eden, you know,--when we came into Pemaquid,
and nobody had asked any questions?

"I reported my time at the office of the master of
trains, and I went home. I tell you, Mr. Ingham, I have
never seen Pemaquid Station since that day.

"I had done nothing wrong, of course. I had obeyed
every order, and minded every signal. But still I knew
public opinion might be against me when they heard of the
loss of the palace. I did not feel very well about it,
and I wrote a note to say I was not well enough to take
my train the next night; and I and Mrs. Joslyn went
to New York, and I went aboard a Collins steamer as
fireman; and Mrs. Joslyn, she went as stewardess; and I
wrote to Pemaquid, and gave up my place. It was a good
place, too; but I gave it up, and I left America.

Bill Todhunter, he resigned his place too, that same
day, though that was a good place. He is in the Russian
service now. He is running their line from Archangel to
Astrachan; good pay, he says, but lonely. August would
not stay in America after his brother left; and he is now
captain's clerk on the Harkaway steamers between Bangkok
and Cochbang; good place he says, but hot. So we are all
parted.

"And do you know, sir, never one of us ever heard of
the lost palace!"

Sure enough, under that very curious system of
responsibility, by which one corporation owns the
carriages which another corporation uses, nobody in the
world has to this moment ever missed "The Lost Palace."
On each connecting line, everybody knew that "she" was
not there; but no one knew or asked where she was. The
descent into the rocky bottom of the Chamouin, more than
fifteen hundred feet below the line of flight, had of
course been rapid,--slow at first, but in the end rapid.
In the first second, the lost palace had fallen sixteen
feet; in the second, sixty-four; in the third, one
hundred and forty-four; in the fourth, two hundred and
fifty-six; in the fifth, four hundred feet; so that
it must have been near the end of the sixth second of its
fall, that, with a velocity now of more than six hundred
feet in a second, the falling palace, with its
unconscious passengers, fell upon the rocks at the bottom
of the Chamoguin ravine. In the dead of night, wholly
without jar or parting, those passengers must have been
sleeping soundly; and it is impossible, therefore, on any
calculation of human probability, that any one of them
can have been waked an instant before the complete
destruction of the palace, by the sudden shock of its
fall upon the bed of the stream. To them the accident,
if it is fair to call it so, must have been wholly free
from pain.

The tangles of that ravine, and the swamp below it,
are such that I suppose that even the most adventurous
huntsman never finds his way there. On the only occasion
when I ever met Mr. Jules Verne he expressed a desire to
descend there from one of his balloons, to learn whether
the inhabitants of "The Lost Palace" might not still
survive, and be living in a happy republican colony
there,--a place without railroads, without telegrams,
without mails, and certainly without palaces. But at the
moment when these sheets go to press, no account of such
an adventure has appeared from his rapid pen.

-THE END-
Edward Everett Hale's short story: The Lost Palace

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