"Jules Verne. The Underground City OR The Black Indies" - читать интересную книгу автора

as the time drew near.

Our worthy engineer belonged to that class of men whose brain is always
on the boil, like a kettle on a hot fire. In some of these brain
kettles the ideas bubble over, in others they just simmer quietly.
Now on this day, James Starr's ideas were boiling fast.

But suddenly an unexpected incident occurred. This was the drop of cold
water, which in a moment was to condense all the vapors of the brain.
About six in the evening, by the third post, Starr's servant brought
him a second letter. This letter was enclosed in a coarse envelope,
and evidently directed by a hand unaccustomed to the use of a pen.
James Starr tore it open. It contained only a scrap of paper,
yellowed by time, and apparently torn out of an old copy book.

On this paper was written a single sentence, thus worded:

"It is useless for the engineer James Starr to trouble himself,
Simon Ford's letter being now without object."

No signature.


CHAPTER II ON THE ROAD


THE course of James Starr's ideas was abruptly stopped,
when he got this second letter contradicting the first.

"What does this mean?" said he to himself. He took up the torn envelope,
and examined it. Like the other, it bore the Aberfoyle postmark.
It had therefore come from the same part of the county of Stirling.
The old miner had evidently not written it. But, no less evidently,
the author of this second letter knew the overman's secret,
since it expressly contradicted the invitation to the engineer to go
to the Yarrow shaft.

Was it really true that the first communication was now without object?
Did someone wish to prevent James Starr from troubling himself either
uselessly or otherwise? Might there not be rather a malevolent intention
to thwart Ford's plans?

This was the conclusion at which James Starr arrived,
after mature reflection. The contradiction which existed
between the two letters only wrought in him a more keen

desire to visit the Dochart pit. And besides, if after all it was
a hoax, it was well worth while to prove it. Starr also thought it
wiser to give more credence to the first letter than to the second;
that is to say, to the request of such a man as Simon Ford,