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

This etext was prepared by Judy Boss, Omaha, NE
From:
Verne, Jules. _Works of Jules Verne_. Ed. Charles F. Horne. Vol. 9.
New York: F. Tyler Daniels Company, 1911. 277-394. [_Off on
a Comet_, transmitted as a separate file earlier, constitutes pp.
1-276 of Vol. 9.]





The Underground City

OR

The Black Indies
(Sometimes Called The Child of the Cavern)




The Underground City

CHAPTER I
CONTRADICTORY LETTERS


To Mr. F. R. Starr, Engineer, 30 Canongate, Edinburgh.

IF Mr. James Starr will come to-morrow to the Aberfoyle coal-mines,
Dochart pit, Yarrow shaft, a communication of an interesting nature
will be made to him.

"Mr. James Starr will be awaited for, the whole day,
at the Callander station, by Harry Ford, son of the old
overman Simon Ford."

"He is requested to keep this invitation secret."

Such was the letter which James Starr received by the first post,
on the 3rd December, 18--, the letter bearing the Aberfoyle postmark,
county of Stirling, Scotland.

The engineer's curiosity was excited to the highest pitch.
It never occurred to him to doubt whether this letter might
not be a hoax. For many years he had known Simon Ford,
one of the former foremen of the Aberfoyle mines, of which he,
James Starr, had for twenty years, been the manager, or,
as he would be termed in English coal-mines, the viewer.
James Starr was a strongly-constituted man, on whom his fifty-five