"Poor sheep, poor bulls!" murmured Ida, as the last of the beasts were driven up the gangway and disappeared. "Perhaps you have come from another Herondale! Do you remember, do you look back, as I do?"
She drew back, for the big man suddenly lurched in her direction, and, indeed, almost, against her.
"Beg pardon, miss," he said, touching his slouch hat. "Anything I can do for you, anybody you're looking for?"
"No, oh, no!" said Ida, blushing and turning away. Mr. Joffler, for it was that genial Australian, nodded and stretched his moon-like face in a smile.
"Thought you'd come to say 'good-bye' to someone, p'raps. Wish it was me! Though, if it was, I've an idea that I should stay on—air or no air—and I'm blest if there ain't precious little about this morning! Hi, there! All ready? Bless it all, we'll be too late for the tide if he don't come," he said to the captain, who stood with one foot on the taffrail, an expression of impatience on his weather-beaten face.
"Like enough he ain't comin', Mr. Joffler," he said. "Them kind o' gents is always slippery."
"I dessay. Though I didn't think as this one was one of that kind. Too much grit about him—ah, and I was not mistaken! Here he is! Get ready there!"
He turned, and Ida, instinctively turning with him, saw a tall figure clad in a serge suit making its way quickly through the crowd of busy dock-men and idly lounging spectators. He came straight to the big, fat man, who greeted him jovially and loudly, and they passed side by side on to the vessel.
Ida drew a long breath and passed her hand over her brow. It was absurd, of course, it was a trick of the imagination, of a wearied and overstrained brain—but the tall figure in the blue serge—ah, how like it was to that of Stafford!
It disappeared with that of the big man into the vessel, and, with a sigh, she was coming away when she saw the two men coming along the deck and mount to the quarter. The fat man was talking and laughing, but the man in the blue serge was grave and silent, as if he was lost in thought and not listening.