The doctors, European and native, declared with one consent that Mr. Gregson had died in a fit—an apoplectic seizure.
Goring—wise man—said nothing.
THE FORMER PASSENGERS.
“Who is whispering and calling through the rain?
Far above the tempest crashing,
And the torrent’s ceaseless dashing,
I hear a weary calling, as of pain.”
“If any one can help you, it will be Captain Blane.”
This sentence was uttered by a smart young clerk, in a shipping office in Rangoon, who, clothed in cool white drill, leant his elbows confidentially on the desk, and concluded his speech with a reassuring nod.
I was en route from Upper Burmah to Singapore, in order to attend my sister’s wedding. Our flat river-boat was late, and when I presented myself at the booking-office of the P. and O., I found to my dismay that the steamer for the Straits had sailed at dawn, and that there would not be another for a week! I was therefore bound to miss the wedding, and waste my precious leave in Rangoon, thanks to the leisurely old tub that had dawdled down from Mandalay.