morning when we met I thought--but am not now sure--that
she smiled singularly: I thought so. She may, she _may_, have heard--But
I cannot tell.

* * * * *

Twice I was obliged to abandon engines on account of forest-tree
obstructions right across the line, which, do what I might, I could not
move, and these were the two bitterest incidents of the pilgrimage; and
at least thirty times I changed from engine to engine, when other trains
blocked. As for the extent of the earthquake, it is pretty certain that
it was universal over the Peninsula, and at many points exhibited
extreme violence, for up to the time that we entered upon Servian
territory, we occasionally came upon stretches of the lines so
dislocated, that it was impossible to proceed upon them, and during the
whole course I never saw one intact house or castle; four times, where
the way was of a nature to permit of it, I left the imbedded metals and
made the engine travel the ground till I came upon other metals, when I
always succeeded in driving it upon them. It was all very leisurely, for
not everywhere, nor every day, could I get a nautical observation, and
having at all times to go at low pressures for fear of tube and boiler
weakness, crawling through tunnels, and stopping when total darkness
came on, we did not go fast, nor much cared to. Once, moreover, for
three days, and once for four, we were overtaken by hurricanes of such
vast inclemency, that no thought of travelling entered our heads, our
only care being to hide our poor cowering bodies as deeply and darkly as
possible. Once I passed through a city (Adrianople) doubly devastated,
once by the hellish arson of my own hand, and once by the earthquake:
and I made haste to leave that place behind me.

Finally, three months and twenty-seven days from the date of the
earthquake, having traversed only 900 odd English miles, I let go in the
Venice lagoon, in the early morning of the 10th September, the lateen
sail and stone anchor of a Maltese _speronare_, which I had found, and
partially cleaned, at Trieste; and thence I passed up the Canalazzo in a
gondola. For I said to Leda: 'In Venice will I pitch my Patriarch tent.'

But to will and to do are not the same thing, and still further
Westward was I driven. For the stagnant upper canals of this place are
now mere miasmas of pestilence: and within two days I was rolling with
fever in the Old Procurazie Palace, she standin