The Great Train Robbery by Michael Crichton Page B

which is reckoned like venison, and sometimes the hide, which also has value.”
    “They lack tusks,” Mr. Trent said. Mr. Trent had lately financed an elephant-killing expedition on behalf of the bank, and at this very moment an enormous warehouse at dockside was filled with five thousand ivory tusks. Mr. Trent had gone to inspect these goods for himself, a vast room of white curving tusks, most impressive.
    “No, they have no tusks, although the male of the species possesses horns.”
    “Horns, I see. But not of ivory.”
    “No, not ivory.”
    “I see.”
    “Please go on,” Mrs. Trent said, her eyes still flashing.
    “Well,” Pierce said, “the men who ki—who dispatch these buffaloes are called buffalo hunters, and they utilize rifles for their purposes. On occasion they organize themselves into a line to drive the beasts over some cliff in a mass. But that is not common. Most frequently, the beast is dispatched singly. In any event—and here I must beg excuses for the crudity of what I must report of this rude countryside—once the beast has terminated existence, its innards are removed.”
    “Very sensible,” Mr. Trent said.
    “To be sure,” Pierce said, “but here is the peculiar part. These buffalo hunters prize as the greatest of delicacies one portion of the innards, that being the small intestines of the beast.”
    “How are they prepared?” Miss Trent asked. “By roasting over a fire, I expect.”
    “No, Madam,” Pierce said, “for I am telling you a tale of abject savagery. These intestines which are so prized, so much considered a delicacy, are consumed upon the spot, in a state wholly uncooked.”
    “Do you mean
raw
?” asked Mrs. Trent, wrinkling her nose.
    “Indeed, Madam, as we would consume a raw oyster,so do the hunters consume the intestine, and that while it is still warm from the newly expired beast.”
    “Dear God,” said Mrs. Trent.
    “Now, then,” Pierce continued, “it happens upon occasion that two men may have joined in the killing, and immediately afterward each falls upon one end of the prized intestines. Each hunter races the other, trying to gobble up this delicacy faster than his opponent.”
    “Gracious,” Miss Trent said, fanning herself more briskly.
    “Not only that,” Pierce said, “but in their greedy haste, the buffalo hunter often swallows the portions whole. This is a known trick. But his opponent, recognizing the trick, may in the course of eating pull from the other the undigested portion straightaway from his mouth, as I might pull a string through my fingers. And thus one man may gobble up what another has earlier eaten, in a manner of speaking.”
    “Oh, dear,” said Mrs. Trent, turning quite pale.
    Mr. Trent cleared his throat. “Remarkable.”
    “How quaint,” said Miss Trent bravely, with a quivering voice.
    “You really must excuse me,” said Mrs. Trent, rising.
    “My dear,” Mr. Trent said.
    “Madam, I hope I have not distressed you,” said Mr. Pierce, also rising.
    “Your tales are quite remarkable,” Mrs. Trent said, turning to leave.
    “My dear,” Mr. Trent said again, and hastened after her.
    Thus Mr. Edward Pierce and Miss Elizabeth Trent were briefly alone on the back lawn of the mansion, and they were seen to exchange a few words. The content of their conversation is not known. But Miss Trent later admitted to a servant that she found Mr. Pierce “quite fascinating in a rough-and-ready way,” and it was generally agreed in the Trent household that young Elizabethwas now in possession of that most valuable of all acquisitions, a “prospect.”

CHAPTER 13

A Hanging
    The execution of the notorious axe murderess Emma Barnes on August 28, 1854, was a well-publicized affair. On the evening prior to the execution, the first of the crowds began to gather outside the high granite walls of Newgate Prison, where they would spend the night in order to be assured of a good view of the spectacle the following morning. That