We had got alongside the wharf at Circular Quay. On the other side of the jetty a white-painted Messageries mail-boat was being moored. If Sydney had only known the terrible cargo which she carried, Sydney would have seen her sunk a thousand fathoms deep rather than let her touch Australian soil. She was the _Pacifique_, the ship I was to cross to New Caledonia in, and the Black Death was a passenger on board her. It was many days more before I learnt the how and the why of this—after I had walked in the same streets, lived in the same houses, and sat at the same table with the Spectre. I had also seen his material reality. This was what it looked like. A lot of little circular globules, flattened in the centre, some red and some white, were floating in a greyish-white liquid under the microscope. Among them were some tiny dark, wriggling things swimming in the fluid and running their heads against the edges of the white globules. They were plague-microbes in blood-serum. If they got inside the white corpuscles the person to whom that blood belonged would have a very good chance of dying the Black Death. If not, he would be very ill, but would probably live, as I did. The newspapers had come on board, and I was having a farewell cocktail in the Doctor’s cabin, a cosy little snuggery, which by this time contained many pleasant memories for me. “There’s bubonic plague at Noumea,” said he; “and they seem to have it pretty bad, too. Of course you won’t think of going while anything like that’s messing around?” Now I loved the Doctor because, in addition to his social qualities and medical skill, he possessed the art of making a cocktail which was an entirely delightful antidote to his medicine. I confess that I didn’t like the news, but I made bold to reply: “Of course I shall. Do you suppose I’ve come fifteen thousand miles to get into that place to be scared by——? Anyhow, I suppose it’s only among the Kanakas?” “My dear fellow, bubonic plague’s a mighty good thing to stop away from,” he said, with unwonted seriousness. “And therefore all the more interesting.” “Well, if you will go, so-long, and don’t get it. If you do, in a place like that you’ll have about one chance in five of getting back.” Ten days afterwards I steamed into the lovely harbour of Noumea, the Malta of the Pacific, which England lost by about three hours one morning nearly fifty years ago. But the adventures of H.M.S. _Dodderer_ will be a twist in another yarn. Even if we had not known that the terrible Black Death had come to Noumea, the least observant of us would have asked: “What is the matter with this place?” A couple of dozen steamers and sailing-ships were laid up, and a ship out of work is about as forlorn a spectacle as a deserted workhouse.