IX
"THE GINA"
The dockyard of Fulton and Co., shipbuilders, was being cleared for action. A new ship, built for the Southern Cross, the line plying between Antwerp and Australia, was about to be launched. The ceremony had been announced for eleven o'clock. The last preparations were being made. Like an enormous butterfly that had for a long time been dormant in its chrysalis, the boat, now completely matured, had been stripped of its envelope of timber work.
The dockyard was decorated with masts and with porticos that vanished beneath a profusion of banners and flags of all colors and all nations, among which the most prevalent was the red, yellow and black of Belgium. Ingenious monograms drew together the names of the ship, its builder and its owner: Gina, Fulton, Béjard. And here and there were displayed figures telling when the work had been begun and when finished.
Near the ship itself rose a platform hung with sailcloth, which the damp wind blew furiously about. Near the water, looking like a stranded whale, lay the huge boat, a powerful carcass, shored up and freshly painted black and red. On the poop, in golden letters upon
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