, and who hailed from Blyth, in Northumberland."

He looked round the table, evidently bent on securing our attention to
their particular point. We were all, of course, fully acquainted with
the details he was unfolding, but he was summing things up in quite
judicial fashion, and there was a certain amount of intellectual
satisfaction in listening to a succinct resume. One of us, at any
rate, was following him with rapt attention--Miss Raven. I fancied I
saw why--Baxter, or Netherfield, had already presented himself to her
as a personage of a dark and romantic, if deeply-wicked and even
blood-stained sort.

"Now," continued Lorrimore, becoming more judicial than ever, "according
to the official accounts, as shown at Lloyds, the _Elizabeth Robinson_
never reached Chemulpo, and she is--officially--believed to have been
lost, with all hands, during a typhoon, in the Yellow Sea. All hands! But
we know that, whatever happened to the _Elizabeth Robinson_, and to the
rest of the crew, certain men who were on board her when she left
Hong-Kong, for Chemulpo, did escape whatever catastrophe occurred. The
_Elizabeth Robinson_ may be at the bottom of the Yellow Sea, and most of
her folk with her. But in course of time Noah Quick turns up at Devonport
in England, in possession, evidently, of plenty of money. He takes a
licensed house, runs it on highly respectable lines, and comports himself
as a decent member of society; also he prospers, and has a very good
balance at his bankers. So there is one man who certainly did not go down
with the _Elizabeth Robinson_. And now--to keep matters in chronological
order--we hear of another. A Chinaman, undoubtedly Lo Chuh Fen, turns up
at Lloyds and endeavours to find out if this _Elizabeth Robinson_ ever did
reach Chemulpo. There is a strange point here--Lo Chuh Fen certainly
sailed out of Hong-Kong with the _Elizabeth Robinson_, bound for
Chemulpo, yet, some years later, he is inquiring in London, if the
_Elizabeth Robinson_ ever reached her destination. Why? Did the _Elizabeth
Robinson_ touch at any port after leaving Hong-Kong? Did Lo Chuh Fen leave
her at any such port? We don't know--and for the moment it is not
material; what is material is that a second member of the company on board
the _Elizabeth Robinson_ did not go down with her in the Yellow Sea if, as
is said, she did go. So there are two survivors--Noah Quick and Lo Chuh
Fen. And now a third is added in the person of another Qui