第 3 页

"Sharp fellow, that young what's-his-name Philipps," said the big men amongst themselves. "Must try and shove him into something a bit better when this affair's through. He hasn't done much, of course, but he hasn't muddled everything, like these black regiment fellows generally do."

And in due time the nice pink English Tommies (which Baines had sighed for) were dumped on the noisy beach by the surf-boats, and the march up country, with its attendant miseries, and roadmaking, and fever, was carried out according to honoured precedent and rule. His Excellency the Governor accompanied the force, not necessarily to be shot at, but merely as a guarantee of good faith; and Dayton-Philipps and his Hausas headed the advance, and ambushed the ambushing Katti men very cannily amongst the by-paths of the bush. The correspondents who accompanied the column painted the horrors of Katti City in fresh bright red, as though they were a thing which had never been heard of before, and quite ignored the fact that the Colonials had been vainly crying against them for years.

One illustrator, more ingenious than his fellows, sent home a sombre photograph of " Rev. Padgett's grave." But, truth to tell, Padgett had rather dropped out of history by this time. He was dead; he had been useful; and he was forgotten. What more could the man expect? In life he had not endeared himself to the Colonials.

There was no hitch anywhere. Great Britain makes a speciality of these little wars, and in them trains the sections of her fighting machinery perfectly, as some one will find out expensively when the threatened big war arrives. The King of Katti was duly caught, tried, and deported to a distant shore; his ecclesiastical arrangements were upset for good, and human sacrifices finally abolished; and in his place was set up one Day ton- Philipps, an ordinary British subaltern, as Resi dent, with a guard of Hausas, to uphold his dignity. The country, wearied of its old rulers, settled down at once, and the Hausas (who, being natives, are good judges of such a matter) showed their appreciation of the quietude by sending for their wives and families to come and take up immediate residence in Katti City.

Charteris and Baines bought over the Government loot of carved ivory and gold dust at such a nice profit to themselves that they were able a year later to " chuck the Coast for good " and live decently at home on ample incomes; and His Excellency the Governor received the reward of his tact and luck in the shape of the coveted K.C.M.G., and promotion to another colony where the death-rate for Europeans did not average more than twenty-seven per thousand, which of course was by comparison quite a health resort. Even Forbes got the reward which he so persistently refused to expect, and is now His Excellency the Governor, in his late Excellency's place. And at home people studied their maps and remarked complacently that ter ritory eager for trade had been added to the British Empire, in acreage equal to the British Islands, with Belgium and Holland thrown in.

But Padgett was the discontented man, and in my humble judgment rightly so. He had acted on his own pig-headed initiative certainly; but all the same he had been made use of as a Bait neither more nor less. It appeared that he had not been killed at all, and the shrivelled hand which had been sent down as a mark of 'bona fides had been borrowed from some unknown stranger. Pleasantries of this sort are quite ad mitted in the diplomacy of the African interior. Instead, he had been haled off up country in the custody of a couple of local ecclesiastics, who (as probably he would have done himself) treated their prisoner with some intolerance, and did not liberate him till long after the trouble was over, and he had ceased to have value as a hostage.

He got down to the Coast in rags, but quite unchastened in spirit. Men certainly knew him, but after the first formal congratulations on his escape, their recognitions were disgustingly dry and inhospitable. One would have thought that their sense of generosity would have been touched; they all of them certainly had gained much through Mr. Padgett's unconscious aid. But I am only writing history here, and the fact remains that they gave him the cold shoulder. The man's usefulness was gone; they saw in him only a noisy, objectionable bounder.

Mr. Padgett went home as an "assisted pas senger " by an early steamer, vowing vengeance on Colonial officials, the Coast, and every piece of work to which a white man can put his hand in West Africa. He would have a general in quiry; he would frame a list of abuses; he would have questions in Parliament; he would procure a Royal Commission. He might have done it, too, had the journalistic season been propitious, being a man of astonishing energy against his dislikes. But there was another excitement on hand, and the Colony was saved from worry. One small evening paper, after much clamouring at editorial doors, did publish an expurgated " Statement by Rev. Paget," but there the matter rested. The statement was not copied by any of the other journals. The other excitement on hand beat it in interest.

There is luck in these minor matters of cantankering, just as there is in the larger affairs of empire-making. Suitable baits do not come to hand every day of the week.

II

RUN DOWN

"HULLO! there's Calvert, of all people!" I heard a brisk voice say behind me. " Now, he's the very man. I'll introduce you to him this minute, and then we'll go below and see your room, and backsheesh the steward into civility."

I turned my head and saw Vanrennan elbowing his way amongst the crowd which swarmed on the steamer's bridge-deck between the gang way and the head of the first-class companion. He had a couple of dressing-bags in his fists, a bundle of rugs under his arm, and a pair of ladies in his train. To these last he introduced me:

"Mrs. Codrington, and my sister Mabel. They're going across to New York to stay with some friends, and then, when the warm weather comes, they're off with a party to see the Yosemite Valley. They'll be met on the wharf at the other side, but up to there they'll be two lone, lorn females, and I want you to give them the benefit of your countenance, and do the genial watch-dog business. By the way, you're taking matters pretty coolly: you look either as if you had been settled here for a week, or else had no connection with the steamer whatever. I suppose you are crossing by her?"

I laughed. " Oh, yes," I said; " I came on board her sixteen minutes ago; saw the Purser, and found I knew him; made him give me the best room in the ship instead of the one I'd got; carted my things in there one-time, and locked the door; and then cleared out here, and didn't worry any more."

"You're an old, bold hand," said Vanrennan, "and many years of wandering have made you perfect in the art of looking after yourself. What do you think of the boat?"

"Oh, she's a fine steamer, and she'll do a quick passage. Moreover, because she is a foreigner, they'll feed us extremely well, which is a great thing for this time of year."

"Then do you think we shall have a very bad crossing?" Mrs. Codrington asked anxiously.

"We may have a breeze, or we mayn't; the Western Ocean is always delightfully uncertain about that. But I was thinking about the cold. There'll be precious little going out on deck; meals will be the most interesting item of the day; and therefore a good table is a distinct pleasure to look forward to."

"Do you think there is any danger?" said Mrs. Codrington.

I smiled. " Remarkably little. Considerably less, for instance, than you would be exposed to if you travelled by train for a week backwards and forwards between London and Glasgow. In fact, if you care to give me the sum of one penny apiece, I'll insure you each for .1000 against fatal accident all the way across, like the weekly papers do ashore. Come, now, will you let me do that stroke of business?"

"Save your coppers," said Vanrennan, laughing. " Calvert is too grasping. Come along down below and get settled in your quarters, and then bid me an affectionate good-bye. I shall have to clear if I don't want to be taken on. Ta-ta, Calvert, old chap. So awfully good of you to take these damsels under your charge. Hope you'll all have a good time on the other side, and not get frozen on the road. Good-bye."

We hove up at dusk that afternoon, and because the Channel outside was white with an ugly, choppy sea, there were fiddles on the table at dinner and extraordinarily few diners. I sent down dry champagne and biscuits to Mrs. Codrington's room, and then, seating myself next to the Purser, made a gorgeous meal.

"We do ourselves well here in the grub line, don't we?" said the Purser. " Better than the English boats. We're dragging all the passenger trade away from them now. Come along down to my room for your coffee, and we'll have a quiet smoke before I get to work squaring up my papers. Lord! I wouldn't care to be the Old Man to-night! He'll be perched there freezing on the upper bridge till we're bang clear of the Channel, and very likely for the next twenty-four hours after that if the weather's at all thick. He's got just over a thousand human lives on this ship, and I guess they give him all the responsibility he's any use for. Steward, bring me down a bottle of liqueur cognac to my room. Now, Mr. Calvert, if you're ready."

The Purser and I talked Western Ocean shop during the burning of two Cuban cigars, and then he turned to at work, and I slipped off to the smoke-room and read the illustrated papers. It was eleven o'clock before the smoke-room steward hinted that the hour of closing had come.

I went out into the night, a black misty night full of rain and spindrift driving down from the nor'-nor'-west. I cocked my eye and saw the skipper and two mates patrolling the upper bridge; on the break of the deck ahead of me were three men in glistening oilskins; in the crow's-nest forward were two others; and I shivered luxuriously, and thanked the fates that I was a mere passenger who could travel in abso lute safety and have no watch to keep. And then I went below, made fast my portmanteaux, and turned in. Sleep humoured me at once.

I woke to the tune of colliding ships and the full orchestra of Death.

To say that my senses came to me without flurry and at once would be too great a claim. By some violent shock from beneath I was banged up against the iron roof of the cabin. I pitched back on the floor, and for a minute or so lay there stunned.

Something serious was going on. I became dully conscious of this, and with an effort roused myself and stared curiously at the curtain-rod of the bunk, which lay doubled up and twisted between my hands. Then it began to be borne in upon me that the ship was awake with screaming and the trampling of frightened feet, and then the interpretation of these things came to me in a flash. We were in collision.

A man snatched open my door, stammered out, " We're going down: oh! what shall I do?" and ran away shouting. The ship was full of noise and darkness and hammering. The propeller had stopped; no light came when I turned the electric switch; and we had so heavy a list to starboard (my side) that already the ports were covered most of the time. It was precisely clear that the steamer was in a bad way, and one's first and most natural instinct was to bolt for the upper decks.

I'm ashamed to say that I had already rushed outside the door with this idea before I got my wits in hand again. But then I pulled myself up, and went back and dragged on some heavy serge clothes over my pyjamas, and added boots and a whisky-flask; after which I pounded off along the alley-ways to the room which Mrs. Codrington shared with the Vanrennan girl.

The door of it was slamming noisily with the roll of the ship. I looked inside. The place was empty, and from out of the darkness came a swirl of water which ran coldly about my knees. I guessed they had gone to the upper deck, and ran there myself with the best of pace. There was a feel about the steamer that I knew. She lay down sodden and numb in the sea, and rose to the waves no more. I had felt that sluggish sullen roll before on another ship. We had found her drifting, and boarded her in midocean, and had just time to leave her decks before she sank down to the ocean floor. The mail steamer was going to repeat that dive and she was carrying a thousand human lives.

The bridge-deck lay atilt like the roof of a house, and it was carpeted with humanity. From the upper bridge, rockets climbed up high into the night in one never-ending stream of yel low flame. Orders, prayers, shrieks, and threats were being hurled about in every tongue that Europe knows. The stoke-hold crews, mad with fear, were raging like devils unchained round the grips and chocks of the lifeboats. Naked emi grants were with them. Sick men, who could hardly crawl, tore at the boat-awnings with their teeth. The ship's officers and the few deck-hands were swept aside like straws.

Then a bellow from the steam siren drowned all the clamour, and at that instant the moon slid out and burnt like a great white arc-lamp through a gap in the racing clouds. A shout could not be heard above that din, and the shouts died away whilst the trembling fingers fumbled on at boatgrips, and rived at the stops on the falls. Then the captain on the upper bridge let go the lanyard of the siren, and gave his orders before the silence could be broken.

"Keep your heads, and all will be saved," he cried in German. " Women stand by the star board boats, and men away to port. Boat crews to their stations. I will shoot the first swine that disobeys me." Then he repeated the words in English and French and Norsk, till his cry was lost once more in the raging clamour.

Now, for myself, I had seen the uselessness of thinking about my own hide till matters were somewhat further advanced, and I remembered (with grim amusement) how I had offered to heavily insure two ladies' lives for the trifling premium of two copper coins. So from the moment of coming out on deck I had been em ployed in hunting for these charges amongst the mob, and had not been sparing vigour in the process. There were nine hundred people wedged into one group, and it was not a possible thing to go through these singly. So I had gone round outside the bulwark rail, occasionally climbing up by a stanchion or a stay, and had gazed down on the huddle of faces from above; and when I found the two that were wanted I fought my way to them with elbow or shut fist as required. Mrs.