and he was unable to discover
the message of a prophecy till the fulfilment had brought it home to his
very door. "That's a fall, and no mistake," he thought. "There must be
some uncommonly dirty weather knocking about."

The Nan-Shan was on her way from the southward to the treaty port of
Fu-chau, with some cargo in her lower holds, and two hundred Chinese
coolies returning to their village homes in the province of Fo-kien,
after a few years of work in various tropical colonies. The morning was
fine, the oily sea heaved without a sparkle, and there was a queer white
misty patch in the sky like a halo of the sun. The fore-deck, packed
with Chinamen, was full of sombre clothing, yellow faces, and pigtails,
sprinkled over with a good many naked shoulders, for there was no wind,
and the heat was close. The coolies lounged, talked, smoked, or stared
over the rail; some, drawing water over the side, sluiced each other;
a few slept on hatches, while several small parties of six sat on their
heels surrounding iron trays with plates of rice and tiny teacups; and
every single Celestial of them was carrying with him all he had in the
world--a wooden chest with a ringing lock and brass on the corners,
containing the savings of his labours: some clothes of ceremony,
sticks of incense, a little opium maybe, bits of nameless rubbish of
conventional value, and a small hoard of silver dollars, toiled for in
coal lighters, won in gambling-houses or in petty trading, grubbed out
of earth, sweated out in mines, on railway lines, in deadly jungle,
under heavy burdens--amassed patiently, guarded with care, cherished
fiercely.

A cross swell had set in from the direction of Formosa Channel about ten
o'clock, without disturbing these passengers much, because the Nan-Shan,
with her flat bottom, rolling chocks on bilges, and great breadth of
beam, had the reputation of an exceptionally steady ship in a sea-way.
Mr. Jukes, in moments of expansion on shore, would proclaim loudly
that the "old girl was as good as she was pretty." It would never have
occurred to Captain MacWhirr to express his favourable opinion so loud
or in terms so fanciful.

She was a good ship, undoubtedly, and not old either. She had been built
in Dumbarton less than three years before, to the order of a firm of
merchants in Siam--Messrs. Sigg and Son. When she lay afloat, finished
in every detail and ready to take up the work of her life, the builders
contemplated her wi