word to the Commissioner that
you have been found."

He wrote a message on a piece of paper and despatched the constable with
it. Having done so he turned to Beckenham and said--

"Now, my lord, pray let us hear your story."

Beckenham forthwith commenced.

CHAPTER III

LORD BECKENHAM'S STORY

"When you left me, Mr. Hatteras, I remained in the house for half an
hour or so reading. Then, thinking no harm could possibly come of it, I
started out for a little excursion on my own account. It was about
half-past eleven then.

"Leaving the hotel I made for the ferry and crossed Darling Harbour to
Millers Point; then, setting myself for a good ramble, off I went
through the city, up one street and down another, to eventually bring up
in the botanical gardens. The view was so exquisite that I sat myself
down on a seat and resigned myself to rapturous contemplation of it. How
long I remained there I could not possibly say. I only know that while I
was watching the movements of a man-o'-war in the cove below me I became
aware, by intuition--for I did not look at him--that I was the object of
close scrutiny by a man standing some little distance from me. Presently
I found him drawing closer to me, until he came boldly up and seated
himself beside me. He was a queer-looking little chap, in some ways not
unlike my old tutor Baxter, with a shrewd, clean-shaven face, grey hair,
bushy eyebrows, and a long and rather hooked nose. He was well dressed,
and when we had been sitting side by side for some minutes he turned to
me and said--

"'It is a beautiful picture we have spread before us, is it not?'

"'It is, indeed,' I answered. 'And what a diversity of shipping!'

"'You may well say that,' he continued. 'It would be an interesting
study, would it not, to make a list of all the craft that pass in and
out of this harbour in a day--to put down the places where they were
built and whence they hail, the characters of their owners and
commanders, and their errands about the world. What a book it would
make, would it not? Look at that man-o'-war in Farm Cove; think of the
money she cost, think of where that money came from--the rich people who
paid without thinking, the poor who dreaded the coming of the tax
collector like a visit from the Evil One; imagine the busy dockyard in
which she was built--can't you seem to hear the clang of the riveters
and the buzzing of the steam saws? Then take that Norwegian boat passing
t