Jones walked rapidly in the direction of the Culebra station. He knew that Susan cared for him still; he believed that if he waited and persisted he would be able to break down her resolution. But he might have long to wait, and he did not feel equal to that. His work at Christobal had become a dreary drudgery. It would be better to go back to Jamaica, and that he would do the next day.
He did not blame Susan now; he felt for her nothing but kindness and affection. It was Mackenzie he blamed; Mackenzie it was who had inveigled her away from him: Mackenzie was the cause of her unhappiness and his. But even while he thought this, he felt in his heart of hearts that he himself had been the first cause of Susan’s desertion of him. He had promised to marry her and had broken his word. He had made a fool of himself in Colon. He sought for excuses for his conduct; he found many; yet his self-accusation persisted: conscience was by no means dead in Samuel Josiah.
He reached the station; there he learnt that there would be no train leaving for the next couple of hours. This delay he had not foreseen: he wondered what he should do with himself in the meantime. He could not return to Susan’s house.
He lounged about the station for a few minutes, but his thoughts troubled him and inaction was irksome. He must do something, he would walk about a little: he turned his back to the station and took the road leading down into the Culebra Cut. He had never been inside the Cut before. Troubled in mind as he was, the scene there made demands on his attention. Soon he was looking about him with wondering eyes.
On either hand of him rose lofty walls of rock and earth, carved into wide terraces which formed the buttresses of the mighty Cut. He was walking along one of these terraces; on it and on all the others train lines were laid. The trains were passing up and down, powerful engines dragging twenty, thirty, forty dump-cars laden with the stones and dirt that had been dug out of this part of the Canal; and at the bottom of the ditch and along the sides of it steam shovels were at work.
He watched these shovels curiously. He saw long cranes attached to engines, and at the end of each crane an iron box with a movable lid and bottom. The crane swung round, was lowered, the iron box or mouth bit into a pile of earth and rock shattered by dynamite, gorged itself, swung round again until it hovered over a dump-car. Then the bottom of the box opened slowly and a mass of earth and stones was poured into the car. Again the shovel swung back, and again and again was this process repeated. He remembered that Mackenzie was engaged on one of those steam shovels, and thought that perhaps he was, without knowing it, watching Mackenzie’s shovel at work. Then he resumed his walk, thankful that he had worn his waterproof that day, for now black and heavy rain-clouds were brooding over the Cut.
He walked along rapidly, knowing that he had not much more time to spare. The farther on he went, the more intense became the activity of the works, the more impressive the scene around him. Thousands of men were earnestly at work; groups of West Indians were manipulating the air-drills which bored the holes for the dynamite charges, scores of steam shovels were toiling to remove the heaped-up debris, dozens of steam-engines were hurrying to and fro and sending forth shrill screams. From the escapes of the steam shovels came puffs of greyish smoke, from the funnels of the engines a thick black smoke was belched, from the air-drills little spurts of steam darted, and from all around came the heavy detonation of dynamite discharges, shaking the earth.
Penned in by the high walls on either side, the smoke drifted hither and thither, forming a gloomy pall. The cliffs of Culebra flung back the deep boom of the explosions, the hurrying trains seemed to threaten at every moment to come into violent collision. Jones saw West Indian labourers carelessly carrying boxes of dynamite on their heads and shoulders, and remembered that many a man had, through his carelessness, been shattered to pieces in an instant. He saw more than one of them trip and the boxes they carried almost hurled to the ground. The men laughed. Familiarity with danger had rendered them contemptuous of it; but Jones shuddered; he could not appreciate the indifference and recklessness of these workers.
Boom, boom, boom: that sound dominated every other. It was answered soon by a thunder-crash from above, and then the driving rainstorm burst over Culebra. The rain came roaring down, an opaque volume of rushing water; objects a yard or two away were completely blotted out of sight; the blackness of night was above. But still he heard the whistling scream of the trains, still the heavy detonations warned him that the dynamite was blasting the solid rock. Nothing could be allowed to stay this work; the men, clad in their waterproofs, toiled on; the deafening noise ceased never for a moment.
He was drenched in spite of his cloak. Yet, because of the awful heat, he was in a profuse perspiration. He began to think he had lost his train after all; he would have to wait until another one came in from the city of Panama. Happily the downpour was ceasing; it was too violent to last. He waited until it became a drizzle, cast a regretful glance before him, for he wished he had been able to go farther on, and was about to retrace his steps when a shout from some men in front of him caused him to look hurriedly opposite, towards where these men were pointing with wild gestures.