"Sir," said Bones, blinking and suppressing a yawn with difficulty, "you
can trust the sleepless one."

He had his tent pitched before the cairn, and in the shade of a great
gum he seated himself in his canvas chair.... He looked up and struggled
to his feet. He was half dead with weariness, for the whole of the
previous night, while Bosambo snored in his hut, Bones, pinching
himself, had wandered up and down the street of the city qualifying for
his title.

Now, as he rose unsteadily to his feet, it was to confront
Bosambo--Bosambo with four canoes grounded on the sandy beach of the
island.

"Hello, Bosambo!" yawned Bones.

"O Sleepless One," said Bosambo humbly, "though I came in silence yet
you heard me, and your bright eyes saw me in the little-light."

"Little-light" it was, for the sun had gone down.

"Go now, Bosambo," said Bones, "for it is not lawful that you should be
here."

He looked around for Ahmet, his orderly, but Ahmet was snoring like a
pig.

"Lord, that I know," said Bosambo, "yet I came because my heart is sad
and I have sorrow in my stomach. For did I not say that you had married
my aunt?"

"Now listen whilst I tell you the full story of my wickedness, and of my
aunt who married a white lord----"

Bones sat down in his chair and laid back his head, listening with
closed eyes.

"My aunt, O Sleepless One," began Bosambo, and Bones heard the story in
fragments. "... Coast woman ... great lord ... fine drier of cloth...."

Bosambo droned on in a monotonous tone, and Bones, open-mouthed, his
head rolling from side to side, breathed regularly.

At a gesture from Bosambo, the man who sat in the canoe slipped lightly
ashore. Bosambo pointed to the cairn, but he himself did not move, nor
did he check his fluent narrative.

Working with feverish, fervent energy, the men of Bosambo's party loaded
the great tusks in the canoes. At last all the work was finished and
Bosambo rose.

* * * * *

"Wake up, Bones."

Lieutenant Tibbetts stumbled to his feet glaring and grimacing wildly.

"Parade all correct, sir," he said, "the mail boat has just come in, an'
there's a jolly old salmon for supper."

"Wake up, you dreaming devil," said Hamilton.

Bones looked around. In the bright moonlight he saw the _Zaire_ moored
to the shelving beach, saw Hamilton, and turned his head to the empty
cairn.

"Good Lord!" he gasped.

"O Sleepless One!" said Hamilton softl