ther that I followed him up. He had had another crisis, I
found, but he was better again by the time I got to him. Then he
improved a little, and seemed to be convalescing. Then malaria
chose to interfere with the running of her sister fever's course.
This seemed extraordinarily meddlesome, and made things hazardous
still, though they were as well as one expected, when the time of
my going on leave came.

How glad I was to get off! My Good-byes were hurried when once
the brown envelope had come. I saw him on the hospital stoep
(baraza, did they call it in that alien part of Africa?) just as
I was rushing down to the station. He had lost his blue color,
but still looked rather flickery.

'If you go to Bulawayo, you'll remember, won't you?' he said.
'You've got the plan?'

He had given me an elaborate little drawing of two streets that
converged. His bungalow stood upon an island betwixt their
confluence and the shading that he had marked waste ground. The
pink paper was in my breast pocket, but, knowing my way with
papers, I had already learned those streets' names.

'All right,' I said. 'But I'm not likely to go that way. And the
time's so short. I'll try though.'

His face lit, and his eyes gleamed. 'Do try,' he said.

'Don't build on it,' I entreated him. 'I'll try to write to her
anyway.'

Then he looked downcast indeed; he had fallen from such a
confident height. But he said 'Goodbye' like a real friend.

I forgot him almost completely for the next four days or so.
There were excitements, seeing somebody at headquarters, wiring
business wires, writing friendly letters against time, steering a
forlorn small native and a more forlorn small dog, who were
sharing my fortunes, down to the coast. At last I was there, and
discussing shipping news with new-found keenness. My prospects of
getting off with speed looked black for a bit; then came the
flash of a fresh idea. As there was no ship for the African port
I knew, why not book for the unknown? There were transports
returning to a port beyond, I had heard. True, the cost of
railway traveling thence was hard to forecast, resources were of
a modest sort, and there were three of us to find fares for.

Yet ways and means began to show their forms out of the mist
soon. I chose to sail almost at once by the untried road, and I
wrote to friends', telling them how I had chosen. I wrote to my
friend in hospital, among others. I was going the Bulawayo way
after all,