iew of the quays, the slim column of a
factory-chimney smoked quietly straight up into the clear air. A
Chinaman, curled down in the stern of one of the half-dozen sampans
floating off the end of the jetty, caught sight of a beckoning hand.
He jumped up, rolled his pigtail round his head swiftly, tucked in two
rapid movements his wide dark trousers high up his yellow thighs, and
by a single, noiseless, finlike stir of the oars, sheered the sampan
alongside the steps with the ease and precision of a swimming fish.

"Sofala," articulated Captain Whalley from above; and the Chinaman,
a new emigrant probably, stared upwards with a tense attention as if
waiting to see the queer word fall visibly from the white man's lips.
"Sofala," Captain Whalley repeated; and suddenly his heart failed him.
He paused. The shores, the islets, the high ground, the low points, were
dark: the horizon had grown somber; and across the eastern sweep of
the shore the white obelisk, marking the landing-place of the
telegraph-cable, stood like a pale ghost on the beach before the dark
spread of uneven roofs, intermingled with palms, of the native town.
Captain Whalley began again.

"Sofala. Savee So-fa-la, John?"

This time the Chinaman made out that bizarre sound, and grunted his
assent uncouthly, low down in his bare throat. With the first yellow
twinkle of a star that appeared like the head of a pin stabbed deep into
the smooth, pale, shimmering fabric of the sky, the edge of a keen chill
seemed to cleave through the warm air of the earth. At the moment of
stepping into the sampan to go and try for the command of the Sofala
Captain Whalley shivered a little.

When on his return he landed on the quay again Venus, like a choice
jewel set low on the hem of the sky, cast a faint gold trail behind him
upon the roadstead, as level as a floor made of one dark and
polished stone. The lofty vaults of the avenues were black--all
black overhead--and the porcelain globes on the lamp-posts resembled
egg-shaped pearls, gigantic and luminous, displayed in a row whose
farther end seemed to sink in the distance, down to the level of his
knees. He put his hands behind his back. He would now consider calmly
the discretion of it before saying the final word to-morrow. His feet
scrunched the gravel loudly--the discretion of it. It would have been
easier to appraise had there been a workable alternative. The honesty
of it was indubitable: he meant well by the fel