I N Merlin's Cave--Clarence and I and fifty-two
fresh, bright, well-educated, clean-minded young
British boys. At dawn I sent an order to the fac-
tories and to all our great works to stop operations
and remove all life to a safe distance, as everything
was going to be blown up by secret mines, "and no
telling at what moment--therefore, vacate at once."
These people knew me, and had confidence in my
word. They would clear out without waiting to part
their hair, and I could take my own time about dat-
ing the explosion. You couldn't hire one of them
to go back during the century, if the explosion was
still impending.

We had a week of waiting. It was not dull for
me, because I was writing all the time. During the
first three days, I finished turning my old diary into
this narrative form; it only required a chapter or
so to bring it down to date. The rest of the week I
took up in writing letters to my wife. It was always
my habit to write to Sandy every day, whenever we
were separate, and now I kept up the habit for love
of it, and of her, though I couldn't do anything with
the letters, of course, after I had written them.
But it put in the time, you see, and was almost like

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