ing get-up. The proper time for the Sofala to arrive
at Batu Beru was an hour before sunset, and he looked picturesque, and
somehow quite correct too, walking at the water's edge on the background
of grass slope crowned with a low long bungalow with an immensely steep
roof of palm thatch, and clad to the eaves in flowering creepers. While
the Sofala was being made fast he strolled in the shade of the few trees
left near the landing-place, waiting till he could go on board. Her
white men were not of his kind. The old Sultan (though his wistful
invasions were a nuisance) was really much more acceptable to his
fastidious taste. But still they were white; the periodical visits of
the ship made a break in the well-filled sameness of the days without
disturbing his privacy. Moreover, they were necessary from a business
point of view; and through a strain of preciseness in his nature he was
irritated when she failed to appear at the appointed time.

The cause of the irregularity was too absurd, and Massy, in his opinion,
was a contemptible idiot. The first time the Sofala reappeared under the
new agreement swinging out of the bend below, after he had almost given
up all hope of ever seeing her again, he felt so angry that he did not
go down at once to the landing-place. His servants had come running to
him with the news, and he had dragged a chair close against the front
rail of the veranda, spread his elbows out, rested his chin on his
hands, and went on glaring at her fixedly while she was being made fast
opposite his house. He could make out easily all the white faces on
board. Who on earth was that kind of patriarch they had got there on the
bridge now?

At last he sprang up and walked down the gravel path. It was a fact
that the very gravel for his paths had been imported by the Sofala.
Exasperated out of his quiet superciliousness, without looking at anyone
right or left, he accosted Massy straightway in so determined a manner
that the engineer, taken aback, began to stammer unintelligibly. Nothing
could be heard but the words: "Mr. Van Wyk . . . Indeed, Mr. Van Wyk
. . . For the future, Mr. Van Wyk"--and by the suffusion of blood Massy's
vast bilious face acquired an unnatural orange tint, out of which the
disconcerted coal-black eyes shone in an extraordinary manner.

"Nonsense. I am tired of this. I wonder you have the impudence to come
alongside my jetty as if I had it made for your convenience alone."

Massy trie