“Well, papa, I hardly know,” said Ida.
“This can’t be all of it, uncle?” said the other girl.
“Every bit of it, my pet, at present; but it will grow like a mushroom. Why, there’s an hotel already. We had better get ashore, Jack, and secure rooms.”
“No,” said Uncle Jack, decisively, as he watched a party of rough-looking idlers loafing out of the place, “we’ll arrange with the captain to let us stay on board till we go up-country. Rather a shabby lot here, Ned.”
“Um! yes,” said Captain Bedford, smiling at the appearance of some of the men as they gathered on the wharf.
“Better stay here, I say; the women will be more comfortable. As we are going up the country, the sooner we load up and get off the better. German and I and the boys will camp ashore so as to look after the tackle.”
“Yes, and I’ll come too.”
“No,” said Uncle Jack; “your place is with your wife and the girls.”
“Perhaps you are right,” said the captain, as he stood watching the sailors busily lowering a boat to help to moor the great, tall-masted ship now sitting like a duck on the smooth waters of the river, after months of a stormy voyage from England, when for days the passengers could hardly leave the deck. And as he watched the men, and his eyes wandered inland toward where he could see faint blue mountains beyond dark green forests, he asked himself whether he had done right in realising the wreck of his property left after he had been nearly ruined by the proceedings of a bankrupt company, and making up his mind at fifty to start afresh in the Antipodes, bringing his wife, daughter, and niece out to what must prove to be a very rough life.
“Have I done right?” he said softly; “have I done right?”