The first stroke fell out of a clear sky. Captain Marshall died suddenly, leaving his business affairs in a bad way. For three months, the town was in turmoil. At the end of that time, it became apparent that the old shipowner had involved all of his own property, as well as that of many others, in a series of disastrous speculations. No one hinted at dishonesty, but the hard fact remained. Ship property had greatly fallen off in value in the last few years; this, it would seem, had been the immediate cause of Captain Marshall’s financial stringency. He, too, had banked heavily on the old times. Captain Bradley arrived that year from Hong Kong, to find himself poorer by more than half of his modest fortune. All of his ready money was gone in the wreck; what remained was a bundle of pieces of vessels, quarters and sixteenths and thirty-seconds. Worst of all, the _Viking_, the one ship that Captain Marshall had owned outright, with the exception of the eighth share standing in Captain Bradley’s name, would have to be sold by auction to satisfy the creditors. In this crisis, Captain Bradley’s idealism overcame all other considerations. "By God, I’ll buy her myself!" he cried. His friends told him that he was a fool; but this only heightened his determination. He called the creditors together, and made them an offer. By great exertions, he managed to negotiate on his various ship holdings, disposing of some at figures below their value, mortgaging others, selling the house, and finally raising sufficient money to carry out his word. It took all he had; but he was glad that he possessed enough property to do it. When he sailed from New York on the next voyage, he was the sole owner of the vessel. His confidence, momentarily shaken by the failure of one of the pillars of his world, had begun to return. He realized that times were not what they had been; but it seemed impossible that the demand for sailing ships would ever wholly go by. The next few years, however, seriously undermined his assurance. Freights were falling rapidly, were even becoming hard to get. One time he had laid her up in Hong Kong for six months, resolving to wait for a better figure than had been offered, and had at length been obliged to accept a charter that barely paid the ship’s way. Steam was to blame for it all. He began to hate steamers with a bitter and unreasoning hatred. They were driving the fine old sailing ships off the sea.