Down to the Sea.
An Interlude.

(By V. R.)

How heavy fog through which the massive shapes of liners loomed fantastically; long stretches of deserted pavements with sundry oil stains making incongruent, gay patterns in the heavy rain; and a calm motionless sea; such was the unusual spectacle Wellington wharves presented on a recent wet day, when all work was discontinued owing to the weather.

Men clad cap-a-pie in soaked storm apparel, gathered in knots under the inadequate eaves of the sheds, their coarse sporadic laughter resounding strangely in the quiet air. Far away, in some other world, the roar of traffic grew more and more remote, a part of life for the moment, distant and forgotten. The gulls screamed on, and then, sensing the call for silence, gradually subsided to a diffident stillness too.

With her head well back, and chin proudly raised, the “Rangatira” gazed blankly, with the insolence of youth, over the plebian funnels beneath her, into the darkening greyness; further along an old black coal hulk brooded inscrutably on the secrets which only old ships can wrest from the older sea. The “Rangitane” with that air of aplomb and boredom of the modern passenger ship, waited in well-bred patience, as one who would say, “This, of course, is what one might expect of the colonies. However, I suppose it can't be helped,” yawned, and continued to wait.

There was silence and stillness; the atmosphere of complete unreality of Whistler's “Cremorne Lights.”

Not a ripple on the water gave testimony to the passing of the old scow, to the edges of the mist, where she hung, like a stark phantom ship, etched black against the dark grey of the closing horizon.