Nearly two hundred men handled it and stood around until the Graf arrived. Every one felt a personal interest in the contents. It was “One-eyed Dutchy” who handed it to the owner, and stood there watching out of his single eye the face of his former master. The old man smiled as he folded the letter and put it into his pocket, saying as he did so: “By next ship I leave for Hamburg to take life up where I laid it down.”
A Statesman Under a Cloud
I was sitting on the bench near the door in the bunk-house one day at twilight, when I noticed a profile silhouetted against the window. I had seen only one profile like that in my life, and that was when I was a boy.
I moved closer. The man sat like a statue. His face was very pale, and he was gazing vacantly at the walls in the rear of the building.
Finally I went over and sat down beside him.
“Good evening,” he said quietly, in answer to my salutation.
I looked into his face—a face I knew when a boy, a face familiar to the law-makers of Victoria for a quarter century.
I called him by name. At the sound of his own name his paleness turned to an ashy yellow.
“In Heaven’s name,” I said, “what are you doing here?”
He looked at me with an expression of excruciating pain on his face, and said: