a lot of couplings. When you're through with a car,
side-track it and--yank out the coupling. Like all philosophies, this
one has its flaw. Once in a while your soul looks out of the window and
sees some long-forgotten, side-tracked car beckoning to be coupled on
again. If you try to go back and pick it up, you're done. Never look
back, boy; never look back. Live ahead even if you're only living a
compensation."

"What's a compensation?" asked Lewis.

"A compensation," said Leighton thoughtfully, "is a thing that doesn't
quite compensate."

Above the rattle of the train sounded the deep bellow of a steamer's
throttle. Lewis turned to the window. Night had fallen.

"Oh, look, sir!" he cried. "We're almost there!"

Leighton joined him. Before them were spangled, in a great crescent, a
hundred thousand lights. Along the water-front the lights clustered
thickly. They climbed a cliff in long zigzags. At the top they clustered
again. Out on the bay they swayed from halyards, their reflections
glimmering back from the rippling water like so many agitated moons.

"Right you are--Bahia," said Leighton. "We're almost there, and it's no
fishing-hamlet, either."

CHAPTER XIV

The next morning, as they were sitting, after their coffee and rolls, at
a little iron table on the esplanade of the Sul Americano, Leighton
said: "It takes a man five years to learn how to travel in a hurry and
fifteen more to learn how not to hurry. You may consider that you've
been a traveler for twenty years." He stretched and yawned. "Let's take
a walk, slowly."

They started down the broad incline which, in long, descending zigzags,
cut the cliff that divided lower town from upper. The closely laid
cobblestones were slippery with age.

"It took a thousand slaves a century to pave these streets," said
Leighton. "Do you know anything about this town, Bahia?"

"It was once the capital of the empire," said Lewis.

"Yes," said Leighton. "Capital of the empire, seat of learning, citadel
of the church, last and greatest of the great slave-marts. That's a
history. Never bother your mind about a man, a woman, or a town that
hasn't got a history. They may be happy, but they're stupid."

The principal street of the lower town was swarming with a strange
mixture of humanity. Here and there hurried a foreigner in whites, his
flushed cheeks and nose flying the banner of John Barleycorn.

Along the sidewalks passed leisurely the doctorated prod