Little did I suppose that I was leaving Act I, Scene I, of the drama of my life; and yet the scene, or rather the captain’s face, lingered for some time in my memory.  I was no prophet, as I say; but I was something else:  I was an observer; and one thing I knew, I knew when a man was terrified.  Captain Trent, of the British brig Flying Scud, had been glib; he had been ready; he had been loud; but in his blue eyes I could detect the chill, and in the lines of his countenance spy the agitation of perpetual terror.  Was he trembling for his certificate?  In my judgment, it was some livelier kind of fear that thrilled in the man’s marrow as he turned to drink.  Was it the result of recent shock, and had he not yet recovered the disaster to his brig?  I remembered how a friend of mine had been in a railway accident, and shook and started for a month; and although Captain Trent of the Flying Scud had none of the appearance of a nervous man, I told myself, with incomplete conviction, that his must be a similar case.

CHAPTER IX.  THE WRECK OF THE “FLYING SCUD.”

The next morning I found Pinkerton, who had risen before me, seated at our usual table, and deep in the perusal of what I will call the Daily Occidental.  This was a paper (I know not if it be so still) that stood out alone among its brethren in the West; the others, down to their smallest item, were defaced with capitals, head-lines, alliterations, swaggering misquotations, and the shoddy picturesque and unpathetic pathos of the Harry Millers:  the Occidental alone appeared to be written by a dull, sane, Christian gentleman, singly desirous of communicating knowledge.  It had not only this merit, which endeared it to me, but was admittedly the best informed on business matters, which attracted Pinkerton.

“Loudon,” said he, looking up from the journal, “you sometimes think I have too many irons in the fire.  My notion, on the other hand, is, when you see a dollar lying, pick it up!  Well, here I’ve tumbled over a whole pile of ’em on a reef in the middle of the Pacific.”

“Why, Jim, you miserable fellow!” I exclaimed; “haven’t we Depew City, one of God’s green centres for this State? haven’t we——­”

“Just listen to this,” interrupted Jim.  “It’s miserable copy; these Occidental reporter fellows have no fire; but the facts are right enough, I guess.”  And he began to read:—­

“WRECK OF THE BRITISH BRIG, ‘FLYING SCUD.’

“H.B.M.S.  Tempest, which arrived yesterday at this port, brings Captain Trent and four men of the British brig Flying Scud, cast away February 12th on Midway Island, and most providentially rescued the next day.  The Flying Scud was of 200 tons burthen, owned in London, and has been out nearly two years tramping.  Captain Trent left Hong Kong December 8th, bound for this port in rice and a small mixed cargo of silks, teas, and China notions, the whole