Much of the narrative, rambling and disconnected,
with which he prefaced this story of the day, was vaguely
familiar to her. He sketched now for her in summary,
and with the sonorous voice of one deeply impressed with the
dramatic values of his declamation, the chronicle of his
wanderings in strange lands--and these he had frequently
told her about before. Soon she perceived, however,
that he was stringing them together on a new thread.
One after another, these experiences of his, as he
related them, turned upon the obstacles and fatal pitfalls
which treachery and malice had put in his path. He seemed,
by his account, to have been a hundred times almost
within touch of the goal. In China, in the Dutch Indies,
in those remoter parts of Australia which were a waterless
waste when he knew them and might have owned them,
and now were yielding fabulous millions to fellows who
had tricked and swindled him--everywhere he had missed
by just a hair's breadth the golden consummation.
In the Western hemisphere the tale repeated itself.
There had been times in the Argentine, in Brazil just before
the Empire fell, in Colorado when the Silver boom was on,
in British Columbia when the first rumours of rich ore
were whispered about--many times when fortune seemed
veritably within his grasp. But someone had always
played him false.
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