While these general causes were at work a special misfortune had befallen the house of Girdlestone.  Finding that their fleet of old sailing vessels was too slow and clumsy to compete with more modern ships, they had bought in two first-rate steamers.  One was the Providence, a fine screw vessel of twelve hundred tons, and the other was the Evening Star, somewhat smaller in size, but both classed A1 at Lloyd’s.  The former cost twenty-two thousand pounds, and the latter seventeen thousand.  Now, Mr. Girdlestone had always had a weakness for petty savings, and in this instance he determined not to insure his new vessels.  If the crazy old tubs, for which he had paid fancy premiums for so many years with an eye to an ultimate profit, met with no disaster, surely those new powerful clippers were safe.  With their tonnage and horse-power they appeared to him to be superior to all the dangers of the deep.  It chanced, however, by that strange luck which would almost make one believe that matters nautical were at the mercy of some particularly malignant demon, that as the Evening Star was steaming up Channel in a dense fog on her return from her second voyage, she ran right into the Providence, which had started that very morning from Liverpool upon her third outward trip.  The Providence was almost cut in two, and sank within five minutes, taking down the captain and six of the crew, while the Evening Star was so much damaged about the bows that she put into Falmouth in a sinking condition.  That day’s work cost the African firm more than five and thirty thousand pounds.

Other mishaps had occurred to weaken the firm, apart from their trade with the coast.  The senior partner had engaged in speculation without the knowledge of his son, and the result had been disastrous.  One of the Cornish tin mines in which he had sunk a large amount of money, and which had hitherto yielded him a handsome return, became suddenly exhausted, and the shares went down to zero.  No firm could stand against such a run of bad luck, and the African trading company reeled before it.  John Girdlestone had not said a word yet of all this to his son.  As claims arose he settled them in the best manner he could, and postponed the inevitable day when he should have to give a true account of their financial position.  He hoped against hope that the chapter of accidents or the arrival of some brilliant cargoes from the coast might set the concern on its legs again.

From day to day he had been expecting news of one of his vessels.  At last one morning he found a telegram awaiting him at the office.  He tore it eagerly open, for it bore the Madeira mark.  It was from his agent, Jose Alveciras, and announced that the voyage from which he had hoped so much had been a total failure.  The cargo was hardly sufficient to defray the working expenses.  As the merchant read it, his head dropped over the table and he groaned aloud.  Another of the props which upheld him from ruin had snapped beneath him.