a big, subdued drone,
"that of all the people on it there seems only you and I left to
remember this part of the world as it used to be . . ."

He was ready to indulge in the sweetness of a sentimental mood had it
not struck him suddenly that Captain Whalley, unstirring and without
a word, seemed to be awaiting something--perhaps expecting . . . He
gathered the reins at once and burst out in bluff, hearty growls--

"Ha! My dear boy. The men we have known--the ships we've sailed--ay! and
the things we've done . . ."

The pony plunged--the syce skipped out of the way. Captain Whalley
raised his arm.

"Good-by."

VI

The sun had set. And when, after drilling a deep hole with his stick, he
moved from that spot the night had massed its army of shadows under the
trees. They filled the eastern ends of the avenues as if only waiting
the signal for a general advance upon the open spaces of the world; they
were gathering low between the deep stone-faced banks of the canal. The
Malay prau, half-concealed under the arch of the bridge, had not altered
its position a quarter of an inch. For a long time Captain Whalley
stared down over the parapet, till at last the floating immobility
of that beshrouded thing seemed to grow upon him into something
inexplicable and alarming. The twilight abandoned the zenith; its
reflected gleams left the world below, and the water of the canal seemed
to turn into pitch. Captain Whalley crossed it.

The turning to the right, which was his way to his hotel, was only
a very few steps farther. He stopped again (all the houses of the
sea-front were shut up, the quayside was deserted, but for one or two
figures of natives walking in the distance) and began to reckon the
amount of his bill. So many days in the hotel at so many dollars a
day. To count the days he used his fingers: plunging one hand into his
pocket, he jingled a few silver coins. All right for three days more;
and then, unless something turned up, he must break into the five
hundred--Ivy's money--invested in her father. It seemed to him that
the first meal coming out of that reserve would choke him--for certain.
Reason was of no use. It was a matter of feeling. His feelings had never
played him false.

He did not turn to the right. He walked on, as if there still had been
a ship in the roadstead to which he could get himself pulled off in
the evening. Far away, beyond the houses, on the slope of an indigo
promontory closing the v