III.
Just at that time the Japanese were casting far and wide for ships
of European build, and he had no difficulty in finding a purchaser, a
speculator who drove a hard bargain, but paid cash down for the Fair Maid, with a view to a profitable resale. Thus it came about that
Captain Whalley found himself on a certain afternoon descending the
steps of one of the most important post-offices of the East with a slip
of bluish paper in his hand. This was the receipt of a registered letter
enclosing a draft for two hundred pounds, and addressed to Melbourne.
Captain Whalley pushed the paper into his waistcoat-pocket, took his
stick from under his arm, and walked down the street.
It was a recently opened and untidy thoroughfare with rudimentary side-walks and a soft layer of dust cushioning the whole width of the road. One end touched the slummy street of Chinese shops near the harbor, the other drove straight on, without houses, for a couple of miles, through patches of jungle-like vegetation, to the yard gates of the new Consolidated Docks Company. The crude frontages of the new Government buildings alternated with the blank fencing of vacant plots, and the view of the sky seemed to give an added spaciousness to the broad vista. It was empty and shunned by natives after business hours, as though they had expected to see one of the tigers from the neighborhood of the New Waterworks on the hill coming at a loping
