authority is higher, comes. Is that clear?"

"Perfectly," Fred answered.

"See if this is clear, too!" cut in Will. "You go and ask your
commandant what price he offers for the secret! Nothing for nothing!
Tell him we're not afraid of him!"

"It is none of my business to tell him anything," sneered Schubert,
spitting and turning on his heel. He swaggered out of the
camping-ground and up-street again, leaving the clear impression behind
him that he washed his hands of us for good and all.

"Let's watch him drill his men," said I. "I'll wait on the hospital
steps until they open the place."

So we ate a scratch breakfast and Fred and Will helped me up-street,
past where the Jew stood blinking in the morning sun on the steps of
the D.O.A.G. He seemed to be saying prayers, but beckoned to us.

"Trouble!" he said. "Trouble! If you have any frien's fetch
them--send for them!"

"Can yon send a letter for us to British East?" Fred asked him.

"God forbid!" He jumped at the very thought, and shrugged himself like
a man standing under a water-spout. "What would they do to me if I
were found out?"

"What is the nature of the trouble?" Fred asked him.

"Ali, who should tell! Trouble, I tell you, trouble! Zat cursed
Schubert sat here drinking until dawn. I heard heem say many t'ings!
Send for your friens!"

He turned his back on us and ran in. There was a lieutenant arrayed in
spotless white with a saber in glittering scabbard watching us all from
the boma gate. A little later that morning we knew better why the Jew
fled indoors at sight of him.

Schubert was standing in mid-square with a hundred askaris lined up
two-deep in front of him. There were no other Germans on parade. The
corporals were Nubians, and the rest of the rank and file either Nubian
or some sort of Sudanese. He was haranguing them in a bastard mixture
of Swahili, Arabic, and German, they standing rigidly at attention,
their rifles at the present.

Not content with the effect of his words, he strode up presently to a
front-rank man and hit him in the face with clenched fist. In the
effort to recover his balance the man let his rifle get out of
alignment. Schubert wrenched it from him. It fell to the ground. He
struck the man, and when he stooped to pick the rifle up kicked him in
the face. Then he strode down the line and beat two other men for
grinning. All this the lieutenant watched without a sign of
disapproval, or even