CHAPTER XIV


PICKAXE AND TROWEL


The same evening Barbicane and his companions returned to Tampa
Town; and Murchison, the engineer, re-embarked on board the
Tampico for New Orleans. His object was to enlist an army of
workmen, and to collect together the greater part of the materials.
The members of the Gun Club remained at Tampa Town, for the
purpose of setting on foot the preliminary works by the aid of
the people of the country.

Eight days after its departure, the Tampico returned into the
bay of Espiritu Santo, with a whole flotilla of steamboats.
Murchison had succeeded in assembling together fifteen
hundred artisans. Attracted by the high pay and considerable
bounties offered by the Gun Club, he had enlisted a choice
legion of stokers, iron-founders, lime-burners, miners,
brickmakers, and artisans of every trade, without distinction
of color. As many of these people brought their families with
them, their departure resembled a perfect emigration.

On the 31st of October, at ten o'clock in the morning, the troop
disembarked on the quays of Tampa Town; and one may imagine the
activity which pervaded that little town, whose population was
thus doubled in a single day.