"About thirty miles."
"And how far to India; eh?"
"About seven thousand."
"A long way," said Jim. "However, not so far as to England."
"Fancy," said Halbert, "one of those old Dutch voyagers driving on this unknown coast on a dark night. What a sudden end to their voyage! Yet that must have happened to many ships which have never come home. Perhaps when they come to explore this coast a little more they may find some old ship's ribs jammed on a reef; the ribs of some ship whose name and memory has perished."
"The very thing you mention is the case," said the Doctor. "Down the coast here, under a hopeless, black basaltic cliff, is to be seen the wreck of a very, very old ship, now covered with coral and seaweed. I waited down there for a spring tide, to examine her, but could determine nothing, save that she was very old; whether Dutch or Spanish I know not. You English should never sneer at those two nations: they were before you everywhere."
"And the Chinese before any of us in Australia," replied Halbert.
"If you will just come here," said Alice, "where those black rocks are hid by the bend of the hill, you get only three colours in your landscape; blue sky, grey grass, and purple sea. But look, there is a man standing on the promontory. He makes quite an eyesore there. I wish he would go away."
"I suppose he has as good a right there as any of us," answered the Doctor. "But he certainly does not harmonise very well with the rest of the colouring. What a strange place he has chosen to stand in, looking out over the sea, as though he were a shipwrecked mariner—the last of the crew."
"A shipwrecked mariner would hardly wear breeches and boots, my dear Doctor," said Jim. "That man is a stockman."