---with little or no experience----"

"An insolent lie--and scarcely removed from an unqualified lie!"
murmured Hamilton.

"To put him in my place!" apostrophized Sanders, tilting back his helmet
the better to appeal to the heavens.

"'Orrible! 'Orrible!" said Hamilton; "and now I seem to catch the
accusing eye of the chief officer, which means that he wants me to hop.
God bless you, old man!"

His sinewy paw caught the other's in a grip that left both hands numb at
the finish.

"Keep well," said Sanders in a low voice, his hand on Hamilton's back,
as they walked to the gangway. "Watch the Isisi and sit on
Bosambo--especially Bosambo, for he is a mighty slippery devil."

"Leave me to deal with Bosambo," said Hamilton firmly, as he skipped
down the companion to the big boat that rolled and tumbled under the
coarse skin of the ship.

"I _am_ leaving you," said Sanders, with a chuckle.

He watched the Houssa pick a finnicking way to the stern of the boat;
saw the solemn faces of his rowmen as they bent their naked backs,
gripping their clumsy oars. And to think that they and Hamilton were
going back to the familiar life, to the dear full days he knew! Sanders
coughed and swore at himself.

"Oh, Sandi!" called the headman of the boat, as she went lumbering over
the clear green swell, "remember us, your servants!"

"I will remember, man," said Sanders, a-choke, and turned quickly to his
cabin.

Hamilton sat in the stern of the surf-boat, humming a song to himself;
but he felt awfully solemn, though in his pocket reposed a commission
sealed redly and largely on parchment and addressed to: "Our
well-beloved Patrick George Hamilton, Lieutenant, of our 133rd 1st Royal
Hertford Regiment. Seconded for service in our 9th Regiment of
Houssas--Greeting...."

"Master," said his Kroo servant, who waited his landing, "you lib for
dem big house?"

"I lib," said Hamilton.

"Dem big house," was the Residency, in which a temporarily appointed
Commissioner must take up his habitation, if he is to preserve the
dignity of his office.

"Let us pray!" said Hamilton earnestly, addressing himself to a small
snapshot photograph of Sanders, which stood on a side table. "Let us
pray that the barbarian of his kindness will sit quietly till you
return, my Sanders--for the Lord knows what trouble I'm going to get
into before you return!"

The incoming mail brought Francis Augustus Tibbetts, Lieutenant of the
Houssas, raw to the la