Page:The Wreck of a World - Grove - 1890.djvu/149

Rh "Well not exactly. I got the donkey engines to work, and made them lower and hoist the stuff to and from the boat. But every ounce of it I rowed across myself, making sometimes fifty journeys in the day. Oh, I wasn't idle.

"It was just six months ago that I made my second start. I knew more of the river now, although the constant shifting of its currents and sand banks used to puzzle the old pilots, I remember. So I got safe down to the mouth, when I found several large vessels lying at anchor across the outlet. These were ships of the new breed"—I observed she spoke very contemptuously of the new self-moving machines.

"By Jove!" said Gell, "they must have been the same we fought with."

"You fought them? Then that accounts for the distant cannonade I heard one day shortly after I had lost you? And what was the result? But I need not ask, for I know you got safely here."

"Oh we sank a lot of them, and cut our way through. Luckily we had the help of Dana and his crew who had just returned from a long cruise."

"Well there's more news for me," replied Aurelia.