I threw out
her dead, backed her from the Outer to the Inner Basin to my train on
the quai, took in the twenty-three hundred-weight bags of gold, and the
half-ton of amber, and with this alone went to Dover, thence to
Canterbury by motor, and thence in a long train, with a store of
dynamite from the Castle for blasting possible obstructions, to London:
meaning to make Dover my _depot_, and the London rails my thoroughfare
from all parts of the country.
Instead of three months, as I had calculated, it took me nine: a
harrowing slavery. I had to blast no less than forty-three trains from
the path of my loaded wagons, several times blasting away the metals as
well, and then having to travel hundreds of yards without metals: for
the labour of kindling the obstructing engines, to shunt them down
sidings perhaps distant, was a thing which I would not undertake.
However, all's well that ends well, though if I had it to go through
again, certainly I should not. The _Speranza_ is now lying seven miles
off Cape Roca, a heavy mist on the still water, this being the 19th of
June at 10 in the night: no wind, no moon: cabin full of mist: and I
pretty listless and disappointed, wondering in my heart why I was such
a fool as to take all that trouble, nine long servile months, my good
God, and now seriously thinking of throwing the whole vile thing to the
devil; she pretty deep in the water, pregnant with the palace.
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