e
ivory, and then we can go home and live as Christians again." He stared
through the doorway of the hut at the aching sunshine beyond. "Oh, Lord!
Think of it, Doc--Home! England! Decent clothes! Regular attendance in
chapel on Sundays, and your soul well cared for and put into safe going
order again!"

"Oh, my soul doesn't bother me. But England! that's fine to think about,
old man, isn't it? England!" he repeated dreamily. "Yes, I suppose I
should have to change my name if I did go back. I don't know, though.
It'd have blown over by now, perhaps; things do blow over, and if I went
to a new part of the country I expect I could still stick to the old
name, and not be known from Adam. Yes, things do blow over with time,
and if you don't make too much stir when you go back. I should have to
keep pretty quiet; but I bet I'd have a good time for all that. Fancy
the luxury of having good Glenlivet in a cask again, with a tap half-way
up, after the beastly stuff one got on the coast, or, worse still, what
one gets up here--and that's no whiskey at all!"

"Well, you needn't worry about choosing your home drinks just now," said
Kettle. "'Palaver no set' here by a very long chalk yet, and till it is
you'll have to go sober, my lad, and keep a very clear head."

Clay came to earth again. "Sorry, Skipper," he said, "but you set me
off. 'Tisn't often I look across at either to-morrow or yesterday. As
you say, it's a very dry shop this, and so the sooner we get what we
want and quit, the sooner we shall hit on a good time again. And the
sooner we clear out, too, the less chance we have of those beastly
Belgians coming in here to meddle. You know we've had luck so far, and
they haven't interfered with us. But we can't expect that for always.
The Congo Free State's a trading corporation, with dividends to make for
the firm of Leopold and Co., in Brussels, and they don't like trade
rivals. What stealing can be done in the country, they prefer to do
themselves."

"When the time comes," said the little sailor grimly, "we shall be ready
for them, and if they interfere with me, I shall make the Congo Free
State people sit up. But in the mean while they are not here, and I
don't see that they need be expected. They can trace us up the Congo
from Leopoldville, if you like, by the villages we stopped at--one,
we'll say, every two hundred miles--but then we find this new river, and
where are we? The river's not charted; it's not known to a