the night before he had been shaking down limes and oranges from
groves of trees set with green leaves and studded with golden fruit.
Once he had dreamed of a new fruit, a cross between a pear and a
watermelon; but when he cut into it he found nothing but hard, small
seeds, with a pineapple flavor, which he detested.

Peters was dreaming now, for he twined his fingers in the long grass and
tossed uneasily.

"I'll pick them all," he muttered sleepily. "All mixed together, with
ten or twelve pounds of damp, brown sugar, and boiled into jam."

He woke and felt his teeth for the hundredth time, to note whether any
untoward looseness betokened the advent of the dreaded scurvy.
Reassured, he stretched his limbs and rolled over into the shade of the
tree.

"When I get back to a white man's country," he murmured--"when I get
home to England what is it I am going to do? Why, I shall go into a
restaurant and order some rich brown soup. Then I shall have _pate de
foie gras_ sandwiches. Then scrambled eggs, chocolate, and muffins
buttered with whipped cream. Then half a dozen cans of jam. I shall
either begin with strawberry and conclude with apricot, or else I shall
begin with apricot and wind up with raspberry. It doesn't matter much;
any kind of jam will do except pineapple."

He opened his eyes, brushed away the flies that swarmed noisily round
him, took out his hard-tack, and opened a small can of dried beef. He
munched for a while, sipping occasionally from the tepid water in his
canteen. When he had finished he put the can-opener back in the pocket
of his tunic and rose, his face overspread with a look of resolution.

"I believe," he cried, "I believe that I could eat even a can of
pineapple!"

He rose, the light of his illusion still in his eyes, and began
staggering weakly under the blazing sun in the direction of his camp. He
was weaker than he had thought, and when he reached the shelter of his
tent he sank down exhausted upon the bed. Through the open flap he could
see, five hundred yards away, the round, beehive-shaped huts of the
native village and, in their centre, the square palace of King
Mtetanyanga, built of sticks and Niger mud, surrounded by its stockade,
the royal flag, a Turkish bath-towel stained yellow and blue, floating
proudly above.

Lieutenant Peters had been sent by the Nigerian Government along the
upper Niger to conclude treaties with the different kings and sweep them
within the British s