anyhow," Dominey continued, "in earnest
about something. And I--well, it's finished with me. It would have been
finished last night if I hadn't seen the smoke from your fires, and I
don't much care--that's the trouble. I go blundering on. I suppose
the end will come somehow, sometime--Can I have some rum or whisky,
Devinter--I mean Von Ragastein--Your Excellency--or whatever I ought
to say? You see those wreaths of mist down by the river? They'll mean
malaria for me unless I have spirits."

"I have something better than either," Von Ragastein replied. "You shall
give me your opinion of this."

The orderly who stood behind his master's chair, received a whispered
order, disappeared into the commissariat hut and came back presently
with a bottle at the sight of which the Englishman gasped.

"Napoleon!" he exclaimed.

"Just a few bottles I had sent to me," his host explained. "I am
delighted to offer it to some one who will appreciate it."

"By Jove, there's no mistake about that!" Dominey declared, rolling it
around in his glass. "What a world! I hadn't eaten for thirty hours
when I rolled up here last night, and drunk nothing but filthy water
for days. To-night, fricassee of chicken, white bread, cabinet hock and
Napoleon brandy. And to-morrow again--well, who knows? When do you move
on, Von Ragastein?"

"Not for several days."

"What the mischief do you find to do so far from headquarters, if you
don't shoot lions or elephants?" his guest asked curiously.

"If you really wish to know," Von Ragastein replied, "I am annoying your
political agents immensely by moving from place to place, collecting
natives for drill."

"But what do you want to drill them for?" Dominey persisted. "I heard
some time ago that you have four times as many natives under arms as we
have. You don't want an army here. You're not likely to quarrel with us
or the Portuguese."

"It is our custom," Von Ragastein declared a little didactically, "in
Germany and wherever we Germans go, to be prepared not only for what is
likely to happen but for what might possibly happen."

"A war in my younger days, when I was in the Army," Dominey mused,
"might have made a man of me."

"Surely you had your chance out here?"

Dominey shook his head.

"My battalion never left the country," he said. "We were shut up in
Ireland all the time. That was the reason I chucked the army when I was
really only a boy."

Later on they dragged their chairs a littl