been induced by extremepoverty to accept the position of
gouvernante to the girl. As to Jacobus's business (which certainly

annoyed his brother) it was a wise choice on his part. It brought
him in contact only with strangers of passage; whereas any other

would have given rise to all sorts of awkwardness with his social
equals. The man was not wanting in a certain tact - only he was

naturally shameless. For why did he want to keep that girl with
him? It was most painful for everybody.

I thought suddenly (and with profound disgust) of the other
Jacobus, and I could not refrain from saying slily:

"I suppose if he employed her, say, as a scullion in his household
and occasionally pulled her hair or boxed her ears, the position

would have been more regular - less shocking to the respectable
class to which he belongs."

He was not so stupid as to miss my intention, and shrugged his
shoulders impatiently.

"You don't understand. To begin with, she's not a mulatto. And a
scandal is a scandal. People should be given a chance to forget.

I dare say it would have been better for her if she had been turned
into a scullion or something of that kind. Of course he's trying

to make money in every sort of petty way, but in such a business
there'll never be enough for anybody to come forward."

When my friend left me I had a conception of Jacobus and his
daughter existing, a lonely pair of castaways, on a desert island;

the girl sheltering in the house as if it were a cavern in a cliff,
and Jacobus going out to pick up a living for both on the beach -

exactly like two shipwrecked people who always hope for some
rescuer to bring them back at last into touch with the rest of

mankind.
But Jacobus's bodilyreality did not fit in with this romantic

view. When he turned up on board in the usual course, he sipped
the cup of coffee placidly, asked me if I was satisfied - and I

hardly listened to the harbour gossip he dropped slowly in his low,
voice-saving enunciation. I had then troubles of my own. My ship

chartered, my thoughts dwelling on the success of a quick round
voyage, I had been suddenly confronted by a shortage of bags. A

catastrophe! The stock of one especial kind, called pockets,
seemed to be totally exhausted. A consignment was shortly expected

- it was afloat, on its way, but, meantime, the loading of my ship
dead stopped, I had enough to worry about. My consignees, who had

received me with such heartiness on my arrival, now, in the
character of my charterers, listened to my complaints with polite

helplessness. Their manager, the old-maidish, thin man, who so
prudishly didn't even like to speak about the impure Jacobus, gave

me the correct commercial view of the position.
"My dear Captain" - he was retracting his leathery cheeks into a

condescending, shark-like smile - "we were not morally obliged to
tell you of a possible shortage before you signed the charter-

party. It was for you to guard against the contingency of a delay
- strictlyspeaking. But of course we shouldn't have taken any

advantage. This is no one's fault really. We ourselves have been
taken unawares," he concluded primly, with an obvious lie.

This lecture I confess had made me thirsty. Suppressed rage
generally produces that effect; and as I strolled on aimlessly I

bethought myself of the tall earthenware pitcher in the captains'
room of the Jacobus "store."

With no more than a nod to the men I found assembled there, I
poured down a deep, cool draught on my indignation, then another,

and then, becoming dejected, I sat plunged in cheerless
reflections. The others read, talked, smoked, bandied over my head

some unsubtle chaff. But my abstraction was respected. And it was
without a word to any one that I rose and went out, only to be

quite unexpectedly accosted in the bustle of the store by Jacobus
the outcast.

"Glad to see you, Captain. What? Going away? You haven't been
looking so well these last few days, I notice. Run down, eh?"

He was in his shirt-sleeves, and his words were in the usual course
of business, but they had a human note. It was commercial amenity,

but I had been a stranger to amenity in that connection. I do
verily believe (from the direction of his heavy glance towards a

certain shelf) that he was going to suggest the purchase of
Clarkson's Nerve Tonic, which he kept in stock, when I said

impulsively:
"I am rather in trouble with my loading."

Wide awake under his sleepy, broad mask with glued lips, he
understood at once, had a movement of the head so appreciative that

I relieved my exasperation by exclaiming:
"Surely there must be eleven hundred quarter-bags to be found in

the colony. It's only a matter of looking for them."
Again that slight movement of the big head, and in the noise and

activity of the store that tranquil murmur:
"To be sure. But then people likely to have a reserve of quarter-

bags wouldn't want to sell. They'd need that size themselves."
"That's exactly what my consignees are telling me. Impossible to

buy. Bosh! They don't want to. It suits them to have the ship
hung up. But if I were to discover the lot they would have to -

Look here, Jacobus! You are the man to have such a thing up your
sleeve."

He protested with a ponderous swing of his big head. I stood
before him helplessly, being looked at by those heavy eyes with a

veiled expression as of a man after some soul-shaking crisis.
Then, suddenly:

"It's impossible to talk quietly here," he whispered. "I am very
busy. But if you could go and wait for me in my house. It's less

than ten minutes' walk. Oh, yes, you don't know the way."
He called for his coat and offered to take me there himself. He

would have to return to the store at once for an hour or so to
finish his business, and then he would be at liberty to talk over

with me that matter of quarter-bags. This programme was breathed
out at me through slightly parted, still lips; his heavy,

motionless glance rested upon me, placid as ever, the glance of a
tired man - but I felt that it was searching, too. I could not

imagine what he was looking for in me and kept silent, wondering.
"I am asking you to wait for me in my house till I am at liberty to

talk this matter over. You will?"
"Why, of course!" I cried.

"But I cannot promise - "
"I dare say not," I said. "I don't expect a promise."

"I mean I can't even promise to try the move I've in my mind. One
must see first . . . h'm!"

"All right. I'll take the chance. I'll wait for you as long as
you like. What else have I to do in this infernal hole of a port!"

Before I had uttered my last words we had set off at a swinging
pace. We turned a couple of corners and entered a street

completely empty of traffic, of semi-rural aspect, paved with
cobblestones nestling in grass tufts. The house came to the line

of the roadway; a single story on an elevated basement of rough-
stones, so that our heads were below the level of the windows as we

went along. All the jalousies were tightly shut, like eyes, and
the house seemed fast asleep in the afternoon sunshine. The

entrance was at the side, in an alley even more grass-grown than
the street: a small door, simply on the latch.

With a word of apology as to showing me the way, Jacobus preceded
me up a dark passage and led me across the naked parquet floor of

what I supposed to be the dining-room. It was lighted by three
glass doors which stood wide open on to a verandah or rather loggia

running its brick arches along the garden side of the house. It
was really a magnificent garden: smooth green lawns and a gorgeous

maze of flower-beds in the foreground, displayed around a basin of
dark water framed in a marble rim, and in the distance the massed

foliage of varied trees concealing the roofs of other houses. The
town might have been miles away. It was a brilliantly coloured

solitude, drowsing in a warm, voluptuous silence. Where the long,
still shadows fell across the beds, and in shady nooks, the massed

colours of the flowers had an extraordinarymagnificence of effect.
I stood entranced. Jacobus grasped me delicately above the elbow,

impelling me to a half-turn to the left.