Pro Patria

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Ward, Lock, 1901 - 316 páginas
 

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Página 291 - The vigilance of one man," so ran the post-script to Pro Patria, "defeated this great scheme; he shut the gate, as he says, in the face of France. But the tube of steel still lies below the sea. No living man, outside the purlieus of the secret, can say how far that tunnel is carried, or where the last tube of it is riveted. It may even come to Dover's cliffs.
Página 291 - Tunnel. work for many years is equally well known. Her prospects of success, should such an attempt be repeated, are variously esteemed. We have seen that the more daring capitalists and fanatics of Paris, having compelled the French government to thrust out a tunnel from Calais, sought to open that tunnel here by taking a farmhouse in an Englishman's name. . . . The vigilance of one man defeated this great scheme; he shut the gate, as he says, in the face of France. But the tube of steel still lies...
Página 66 - ... animal which thus would cheat the seas. The tube of steel in which we had walked quivered at every thrust of the engine. Nevertheless, I knew that the work was far away ; for I could hear no voices, could not even see the twinkling lamps of those who gave life to the tongue and controlled it. The very sense of distance appalled and fascinated in an appeal to the imagination surpassing any I had known. "Jeffery...
Página 215 - So subtle was the fascination the man exercised upon me, that I began to wonder if he could compel me, after all, to go back to him. His whistle, echoing shrilly in the trees, seemed to strike a discord in my very marrow. I was afraid, and not afraid ; excited in thought, yet cool in act ; desirous of hearing him and escaping him in the same breath.
Página 60 - That which had been a pandemonium of order and method became in a few minutes a deserted scene of enterprise. None save the sentries guarded the mouth of the pit. Here and there, in the chasm below, flares began to burst up in garish yellow spirit flames ; but those who worked by their light were the chosen few, the more skilled artisans, the engineers. And as we plunged downward and still downward, the great buttressed wall still raising itself higher above us, even the skilled were rarely passed.
Página 66 - that's your Frenchy's love of order. If a ticket were needed for the day of judgment, he'd go aloft without it. Sit down, Billiard, and watch me drink a sup of whisky." He seated himself on the bench and took a long pull from an old black flask, which he passed to me when he had done with it. My refusal to drink seemed to annoy him. It was an excuse the less for his own habit. "Well," he said dryly, "you know best — but you'll get little drink where you're going to.
Página 60 - A HARSH steam siren, blasted for two full minutes as we approached the mouth of the cutting, sent to the countless workmen about me a message of release ; and it being then six o'clock of the night, they came pellmell from the heart of the earth before us, as it seemed ; some crowding in the...
Página 61 - I followed at his heels as we went quickly, ever down towards the sea. When at last the incline of the cutting ceased and we came upon a level way, I could perceive four lines of rails running up to platforms, as for the terminus of a station ; and beyond them the narrow mouth of a tunnel which carried but two tracks, and...
Página 65 - I imagined, before the siren was blown, and the tools of the men — jacks, drills, heavy hammers — lay about as a testimony to French confusion. My guide pointed to them with an ironical finger, and, kicking a hammer from the track, made another bench similar to his own for me. " Look," he said, " that's your Frenchy's love of order.