ght on at once. He indicated a
chair. How very interesting. For his own part he had seen some service
in the last Acheen War, but had never been so far East. Whalley Island?
Of course. Now that was very interesting. What changes his guest must
have seen since.

"I can look further back even--on a whole half-century."

Captain Whalley expanded a bit. The flavor of a good cigar (it was a
weakness) had gone straight to his heart, also the civility of that
young man. There was something in that accidental contact of which he
had been starved in his years of struggle.

The front wall retreating made a square recess furnished like a room.
A lamp with a milky glass shade, suspended below the slope of the high
roof at the end of a slender brass chain, threw a bright round of light
upon a little table bearing an open book and an ivory paper-knife. And,
in the translucent shadows beyond, other tables could be seen, a number
of easy-chairs of various shapes, with a great profusion of skin rugs
strewn on the teakwood planking all over the veranda. The flowering
creepers scented the air. Their foliage clipped out between the uprights
made as if several frames of thick unstirring leaves reflecting the
lamplight in a green glow. Through the opening at his elbow Captain
Whalley could see the gangway lantern of the Sofala burning dim by the
shore, the shadowy masses of the town beyond the open lustrous darkness
of the river, and, as if hung along the straight edge of the projecting
eaves, a narrow black strip of the night sky full of stars--resplendent.
The famous cigar in hand he had a moment of complacency.

"A trifle. Somebody must lead the way. I just showed that the thing
could be done; but you men brought up to the use of steam cannot
conceive the vast importance of my bit of venturesomeness to the Eastern
trade of the time. Why, that new route reduced the average time of a
southern passage by eleven days for more than half the year. Eleven
days! It's on record. But the remarkable thing--speaking to a sailor--I
should say was . . ."

He talked well, without egotism, professionally. The powerful voice,
produced without effort, filled the bungalow even into the empty rooms
with a deep and limpid resonance, seemed to make a stillness outside;
and Mr. Van Wyk was surprised by the serene quality of its tone, like
the perfection of manly gentleness. Nursing one small foot, in a
silk sock and a patent leather shoe, on his knee, he w