Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison: Fifteen Years in SolitudeBidwell, Austin
General
Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison: Fifteen Years in Solitude
Bidwell, Austin
Bank fraud -- England; Bank of England; Bidwell, Austin; Criminals -- Biography
given him a revolver, and each of the unlucky thirteen a good nip of
brandy. My anxiety about serious results was over as soon we started,
and in an hour and a half we halted in front of a wretched mountain inn,
patronized by muleteers, with the first story for a stable, but none of
us were disposed to be particular. A supper of Spanish beans was soon
ready, and then a bed was made up on the floor, and the women were soon
asleep. After seeing that the mules and oxen were fed, I took half an
hour's nap. Then with two drivers we started back, taking three yoke of
oxen. What a tramp I had back through the snow and storm! I was very
happy, however, for I knew my wife and party were safely sheltered, and
the excitement of action kept one from being gloomy.
In due time we found our stray, hitched to and started, but it was hard
pulling and the exhausted oxen had to come to frequent halts. At last,
just as I was beginning to feel tired, we came to the fonda.
The snow had slackened, but the wind was beginning to blow, so Nunn and
I carried all the luggage and traps into a corner of the stable below,
and tumbling down into the hay we were soon in the land of dreams. In my
dreams I was on a shoreless sea in a bark that silently and swiftly
circled around. Dark clouds closed in on all sides, while my boat sailed
between ever-narrowing walls, the clouds still closing in, until a giant
hand grew out from a ragged edge of the cloud wall, which, seizing the
prow of my boat, pulled it into the gloom and darkness. I felt the
clouds brushing my cheek. I heard the roar of falling water, and felt
that my doom was sealed. I thought of my wife, and, trying to call her
name, was dumb. I looked behind. Far off and far up there was a glow of
rosy light, and within the aureole was her face, full of sorrow, looking
at me with pity in every feature. As I looked, her face was slowly
eclipsed by a cloud. Then with one cry I plunged into the sea--and
awoke.
That dream would easily have joined the long procession of forgotten
dreams, but it was recalled many a time during many years. And, try as I
might, I felt it to be a portent and a prophecy.
When I awoke in the morning I was dumfounded to find a blizzard blowing
that the cattle could not face, and with every appearance of
continuance. In reply to my inquiries I learned they sometimes blew in
those altitudes for a week. This was unpleasant news for me, and the
prospect made me nervous. It was now Thursday, the fourth day since our
departure from Paris. And what might have happened in London in that
time! Here was I as completely isolated from the outside world and from
all news about my companions in England as if on a desert isle. For all
I knew discovery might have been made, and full details of the fraud
might be blazing in the press of Europe. I began to fear I had run into
a trap. To make matters worse, the steamer El Rey Felipe was advertised
to sail Monday from Cadiz, and to miss her seemed danger indeed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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