One day, nearly a month after the brig had spoken the Reynard, old Watson walked into the big room of the Sydney Merchants' Exchange, as he had done the first thing every morning for some weeks, and scanned the "arrivals" board. For the letters which Barry had written to him and Rose Maynard had come safely to hand nearly six weeks before.
Almost the first notice that met his eye was this:—
"Brig flying Hawaiian Islands and British colours entered 8.45."
The old man tossed his hat up to the ceiling, and gave a loud hurrah.
"Hallo, Watson, what's up?" said a seafaring friend named Craig, whom he ran up against at the door and nearly knocked down, in his eagerness to get out again.
"That brig I was looking out for has just come in. Her skipper is a friend of mine, and although he's been mighty lucky, I've rotten bad news for him, and wish some one else could tell it to him. Damn all women, I say!—leastways, all those who don't stick to the man who stuck to them."
"What's wrong, Watson?"
"Damn them all, I say!" repeated the old sailor in his deep, rumbling tones. "Here's as fine a sailor man as ever trod a deck coming into port to find the girl that was sworn to him another man's wife! Isn't that enough to make a man say 'Damn all women!' including the bad with the good?—not that this one is one of the bad lot, though."
"If I was served like that I'd make it mighty hot for the man who cut me out," said Craig, as they descended the steps of the Exchange, and by mutual intuition walked across the street to the nearest hotel.
"There are circumstances, and circumstances, Tom Craig. This girl is as good a little woman as ever put foot in shoe leather, but she had no grit in her, and that's the whole secret. Come in and take a drink, and I'll tell you the whole yarn before I go aboard and see the young fellow. I've got a letter for him—from her—in my pocket. It'll be a regular stiffener for him, poor chap; but if I'm any judge of a man he'll not make a song about it."