VIII
The “Maid of Athens” discharged her cargo of cement at Vancouver, and went over to the Puget Sound wharf at Victoria to load lumber for Chile.
She was there for nearly a month before she left her berth on a fine October afternoon, and anchored in the Royal Roads, where the pilot would board her next morning to take her down to Flattery.
Broughton went ashore in the evening for the last time, and walked up to his agent’s offices in Wharf Street. He was burningly anxious to be at sea again. The old restlessness was strong upon him that he had felt before leaving London River, and a number of small vexatious delays had whetted his impatience to the breaking point.
“Letter for you, Cap’n,” the clerk hailed him. “I thought maybe you’d be around, or I’d have sent it over to you.”
Broug
