Then he sat down again, ashy pale, and with the dew on his forehead, and muttered faintly, "Double--the insurance--of the--_Shannon!"_ Men who walk in crooked paths are very subject to such surprises; doomed, like Ahab, to be pierced, through the joints of their armor, by random shafts; by words uttered in one sense, but conscience interprets them in another.
It took a good many underwriters to insure the _Proserpine's_ freight; but the business was done at last.
Then Wardlaw, who had feigned insouciance so admirably in that part of his interview with Condell, went, without losing an hour, and raised a large sum of money on the insured freight, to meet the bills that were coming due for the gold (for he had paid for most of it in paper at short dates), and also other bills that were approaching maturity.

This done, he breathed again, safe for a month or two from everything short of a general panic, and full of hope from his coming master-stroke.

But two months soon pass when a man has a flock of kites in the air.

Pass?
They fly.

So now he looked out anxiously for his Australian ships; and went to Lloyds' every day to hear if either had been seen or heard of by steamers, or by faster vessels than themselves.
And, though Condell had underwritten the _Proserpine_ to the tune of eight thousand pounds, yet still his mysterious words rang strangely in the merchant's ears, and made him so uneasy that he employed a discreet person to sound Condell as to what he meant by "double the insurance of the _Shannon."_ It turned out to be the simplest affair in the world; Condell had secret information that the _Shannon_ was in bad repairs, so he had advised his friend to insure her heavily.