'Well, Pitman,' said he, 'have all
the truck ready in the studio. I'll go.'
About twenty minutes after two, on this eventful day, the vast and
gloomy shed of Waterloo lay, like the temple of a dead religion, silent
and deserted. Here and there at one of the platforms, a train lay
becalmed; here and there a wandering footfall echoed; the cab-horses
outside stamped with startling reverberations on the stones; or from the
neighbouring wilderness of railway an engine snorted forth a whistle.
The main-line departure platform slumbered like the rest; the
booking-hutches closed; the backs of Mr Haggard's novels, with which
upon a weekday the bookstall shines emblazoned, discreetly hidden behind
dingy shutters; the rare officials, undisguisedly somnambulant; and the
customary loiterers, even to the middle-aged woman with the ulster and
the handbag, fled to more congenial scenes. As in the inmost dells of
some small tropic island the throbbing of the ocean lingers, so here a
faint pervading hum and trepidation told in every corner of surrounding
London.
At the hour already named, persons acquainted with John Dickson, of
Ballarat, and Ezra Thomas, of the United States of America, would have
been cheered to behold them enter through the booking-office.
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