Retracing our steps to the head of the pier, we entered a very handsome _café_, or hotel, crowded with men. The eternal dominos were rattling on every table, glasses were ringing against glasses, and voices were heard, in high-toned conversation, in all languages, with mingled oaths and laughter; the noise and confusion were sufficient, without a miracle, to make a deaf man hear. All these persons, probably, were from the city, and had come down to the lake to amuse themselves, or kill an hour. The opposite _café_ was equally crowded; while the billiard-rooms adjoining were filled with spectators and players. Clouds of tobacco-smoke enveloped the multitude, and the rooms rung with "Sacré bleu!" "Mon Dieu!" "Diable!" and blunt English oaths of equal force and import.
The first bell for the return had rung, and the passengers rushed to the cars, which were soon filled; the signal for starting was given, and the locomotive again led the van, with as much apparent importance as that with which the redoubtable and twice immortal Major Downing might be supposed to precede his gallant "rigiment of down easters." We had passed two-thirds of the distance when we were alarmed by a sudden and tremendous shouting from the forward car. The cry was echoed involuntarily along the whole train, and every head was instantly darted from the windows. The cause of the alarm was instantly perceptible. Less than a quarter of a mile ahead, a cow was lying very quietly and composedly, directly in the track of the flying cars. The shouts of the frightened passengers on discovering her, either petrified her with utter fear--for such yellings and whoopings were never heard before on this side Hades--or did not reach her, for she kept her position with the most complacent _nonchalance_. The engineer instantly stopped the locomotive, but though our momentum was diminished, it was too late to effect his object; in thirty seconds from the first discovery of the cow, the engine passed over the now terrified animal, with a jump--jump--and a grinding crash, and with so violent a shock as nearly to throw the car from the track; the next, and the next car followed--and the poor animal, the next instant, was left far behind, so completely severed, that the rear cars passed over her without any perceptible shock.
