It was not the first time I had been in Thursday Island by many a score, and I was well acquainted with the customs and peculiarities of the place and its inhabitants. I did not, therefore, waste my time making inquiries in any of the grog shanties beside the beach, but passed along the front until I reached the most gorgeous caravanserai of all, the Hotel of All Nations. It was here, I felt certain, if anywhere, that we should hear some tidings of the man we were after. Accordingly, I walked through the verandah, and, with Mr. Leversidge at my heels, entered the bar. The real business hour had not yet arrived, and for this reason, save for a Kanaka asleep in a corner, and a gorgeously upholstered youth polishing glasses behind the counter, the bar was deserted. It was plain that the latter had never seen me before, or, if he had, that he had forgotten both my name and the circumstances under which we had last met. I accordingly bade him call his employer to me.
"Good gracious, can it be you, Mr. Collon?" exclaimed the latter as he entered the room and saw me standing before him; "I thought you were in China. Leastways, Bill Smith, of the Coral Queen, was only saying yesterday that the mate of the Chang Tung saw you at Foochow the last time he was up there, which was about five months ago."
"Five months is a long time," I said, with a laugh. "It is possible for a good deal to happen in that time. Five months ago, if you had told any of the people who went down in the Monarch of Macedonia what was before them, they would not have believed you."
"That was a bad thing, wasn't it?" he replied, shaking his head. "I suppose you know that the only persons who escaped were brought on here. As a matter of fact, I took them in."
"I guessed as much," I answered. "I said to my friend here, as we came along, that I felt certain they would come to the Hotel of All Nations."
"Yes; I took them in. The foremast hand, however, went up in the China boat the following day; but the Rev. Colway-Brown stayed longer."
"The deuce he did!" As I said this I glanced at the bar-tender, who was listening with both his ears. I had no desire that he should hear what we had to say, so I drew his employer a little on one side, saying, "By the way, Birch, can we have five minutes with you alone in your own private room?"
"And why not?" he replied. "Surely, if there's one man in this world who's we'come, it's you, Dick Collon. Come along with me, gentlemen, and let us have our talk together."
A few moments later we were installed in the hospitable landlord's private office, from the windows of which a magnificent view could be obtained of the harbour, the islands beyond, and, on a very clear day, of Cape York, the most northerly coast line of Australia, peeping up miles away to the southward. Many and strange would be the stories that the room could tell were it possible for it to speak. In it men had sold their birthrights to all intents and purposes for a mess of pottage; in it others, who had hitherto been considered nobodies, had learnt the news that the tide of fortune had turned for them, and that for the future they were to take their places among the high-born of the earth. In that room men flying from justice in the South, who had believed themselves beyond the reach of pursuit and had come ashore while the mail-boat coaled, had been arrested. For me alone that room had at least a hundred different memories and associations. I had been familiar with it for many years, but this much I can safely say, never had I entered it on such a strange errand as that which was now engrossing all my attention.
"Well, what can I do for you?" asked Birch, when he had invited us to be seated and had closed the door behind him.