"It came on to blow hard in the Gulf of Lyons, and the old transport strained so that she sprang a leak, which put her fires out. Later on her masts went, and after beating about for several wretched days, she went ashore on a desolate part of the coast of Spain. The officers and crew of the ship behaved well enough, and though many of them, including the captain and chief mate, were lost, nearly all the passengers were safely landed. But though rescued from the sea, there seemed to be every prospect of their perishing from exposure and famine. With great difficulty the officer in charge managed to find some rude shelter and insufficient food for immediate succour, and then, making his way to the nearest town, he applied to the authorities, and being a linguist who included something of the language in which Don Quixote was written amongst his acquisitions, he obtained clothes, food, and a sum of money for present necessities, with the promise of a vessel to transfer the unfortunates to Gibraltar. "Of course he had lost everything when the ship went to pieces, and he could only get this aid by signing bills and making himself personally responsible. True, he was engaging himself for more than he could perform, but he could neither desert these people who were entrusted to his care, nor stand idly by to see them perish. And he never doubted but that the authorities at home would take the responsibility off his hands. They refused to do so, or rather, worse than that, they drove him about from pillar to post, one official directing him to a second, the second to a third, the third to the first again. And they made him fill up forms, and returned them as incorrect, and broke his heart with subterfuges. "In the meantime he had to meet the claims, and was impoverished. Then, excited by this infamous treatment, he forced his way into a great man's presence, and was violent, and the consequence of his violence was that he lost his Indian appointment. It was well for him that he did so; but his story will none the less show you what a country England is to serve." Again there was a long period of stillness, broken only by the hubble- bubble. Gradually the smoker raised his eyes in the direction of his nephew, but Harry saw that he was looking _beyond_ him, not at him. And this gaze became so steadfast and eager that he turned his head to see what attracted it, almost expecting to see a face on the other side of the window. There was nothing, but still the intense look remained, and it made Harry feel as if cold water was running down his back. His uncle spoke at length, low and slowly at first, more energetically as he went on. "I see it; the crescent rises; the sordid hordes of the West fall in ruin around. The squalid denizens of cities find the fiendish devices of destruction to which they trust for putting the weak over the strong fail them. Man to man they have to stand, and they fall like corn before the scythe."