Next morning William awoke in a new world.

As he stood on the verandah calling for his boy, he slowly became aware of the transformation which had taken place overnight. The rains were over. The boards were warm under his feet; below the steps the dank weeds of Frau Dressler's garden had suddenly burst into crimson flower; a tropic sun blazed in the sky, low at present, but with promise of a fiery noon, while beyond the tin roofs of the city, where before had hung a blank screen of slatey cloud, was now disclosed a vast landscape, mile upon mile of sunlit highland, rolling green pastures, dun and rosy terraces, villages and farms and hamlets, gardens and crops and tiny stockaded shrines; crest upon crest receding to the blue peaks of the remote horizon. William called for his boy and called in vain.

'He is gone,' said Frau Dressler, crossing the yard with a load of earthenware. 'All the boys have gone today. They are making holiday for the end of the rains. Some German friends have come to help me.'

And William's breakfast was eventually brought him by a destitute mechanic who owed Frau Dressler for his share of the last Christmas tree.

****

It was an eventful day.

At nine Erik Olafsen came to say goodbye. There was an outbreak of plague down the line and he was off to organize a hospital. He went without enthusiasm.

'It is stupid work,' he said. 'I have been in a plague hospital before. How many do you think we cured?'

'I've no idea.'

'None at all. We could only catch the patients who were too ill to move. The others ran away to the villages, so more and more people got it. In the civilized colonies they send soldiers not doctors. They make a ring all round the place where there is plague and shoot anyone who tries to get out. Then in a few days when everyone is dead they burn the huts. But here one can do nothing for the poor people. Well, the Government have asked me to go, so I leave now. Where is Kätchen?'

'She's out shopping.'

'Good. That is very good. She was sad with such old, dirty clothes. I am very glad she has become your friend. You will say goodbye to her.'

At ten she returned laden with packages. 'Darling,' she said, 'I have been so happy. Everyone is excited that the summer is come and they are all so kind and polite now they know I have a friend. Look at what I have bought.'

'Lovely. Did you get any news?'

'It was difficult. I had so much to say about the things I was buying that I did not talk politics. Except to the Austrian. The President's governess had tea with the Austrian yesterday, but I am afraid you will be disappointed. She has not seen the President for four days. You see he is locked up.'

'Locked up?'

'Yes, they have shut him in his bedroom. They often do that when there are important papers for him to sign. But the governess is unhappy about it. You see it is generally his family who lock him up and then it is only for a few hours. This time it is Doctor Benito and the Russian and the two black secretaries who came from America; they locked him up three days ago and when his relatives try to see him they say he is drunk. They would not let him go to the opening of Jackson College. The governess says something is wrong.'

'Do you think I ought to report that to the Beast?'

'I wonder,' said Kätchen doubtfully. 'It is such a lovely morning. We ought to go out.'

'I believe Corker would make something of it... the editor seems very anxious for news.'

'Very well. Only be quick. I want to go for a drive.'

She left William to his work.

He sat at the table, stood up, sat down again, stared gloomily at the wall for some minutes, lit his pipe, and then, laboriously, with a single first finger and his heart heavy with misgiving, he typed the first news story of his meteoric career. No one observing that sluggish and hesitant composition could have guessed that this was a moment of history--of legend, to be handed down among the great traditions of his trade, told and retold over the milk-bars of Fleet Street, quoted in books of reminiscence, held up as a model to aspiring pupils of Correspondence Schools of Profitable Writing, perennially fresh in the jaded memories of a hundred editors; the moment when Boot began to make good.

PRESS COLLECT BEAST LONDON he wrote.

NOTHING MUCH HAS HAPPENED EXCEPT TO THE PRESIDENT WHO HAS BEEN IMPRISONED IN HIS OWN PALACE BY REVOLUTIONARY JUNTA HEADED BY SUPERIOR BLACK CALLED BENITO AND RUSSIAN JEW WHO BANNISTER SAYS IS UP TO NO GOOD THEY SAY HE IS DRUNK WHEN HIS CHILDREN TRY TO SEE HIM BUT GOVERNESS SAYS MOST UNUSUAL LOVELY SPRING WEATHER BUBONIC PLAGUE RAGING.

He got so far when he was interrupted.

Frau Dressler brought him a cable: YOUR CONTRACT TERMINATED STOP ACCEPT THIS STIPULATED MONTHS NOTICE AND ACKNOWLEDGE STOP BEAST.

William added to his message, SACK RECEIVED SAFELY THOUGHT I MIGHT AS WELL SEND THIS ALL THE SAME.

****

Kätchen's head appeared at the window.

'Finished?'

'Yes.'

He rolled the cable he had received into a ball and threw it into the corner of the room. The yard was bathed in sunshine. Kätchen wanted a drive. It was not a good time to tell her of his recall.

****

Twelve miles out of the town the coming of summer brought no joy to Corker and Pigge.

'Look at the flowers,' said Pigge.

'Yes. Like a bloody cemetery,' said Corker.

The lorry stood where it had sunk, buried in mud to the axles. On all sides lay evidence of the unavailing efforts of yesterday--stones painfully collected from a neighbouring water-course and bedded round the back wheels; bruised and muddy boughs dragged in the rain from the sparse woods a mile or more distant; the great boulder which they had rolled, it seemed, from the horizon to make a base for the jack--vainly; the heaps thrown up behind as the wheels, like a dog in a rabbit-hole, spun and burrowed. Listlessly helped by their boys, Pigge and Corker had worked all day their faces blackened by exhaust smoke, their hands cut, soaked with rain, weary of limb, uncontrollable in temper.

It was a morning of ethereal splendour--such a morning as Noah knew as he gazed from his pitchy bulwarks over limitless, sunlit waters while the dove circled and mounted and became lost in the shining heavens; such a morning as only the angels saw on the first day of that rash cosmic experiment that had resulted, at the moment, in landing Corker and Pigge here in the mud, stiff and unshaven and disconsolate.

The earth-bound journalists turned hopelessly to the four quarters of the land.

'You can see for miles,' said Pigge.

'Yes,' said Corker bitterly, 'and not a bloody human being in sight.'

Their boys were dancing to celebrate the new season, clapping and shuffling and shouting a low, rhythmical song of praise. 'What the hell have they got to be cheerful about?'

'They've been at the whisky again,' said Corker.

****

That afternoon there was the party at the British Legation. Kätchen had not got her card so William went alone. It did not rain. Nothing marred the summer serenity of the afternoon. Guests of all colours and nationalities paraded the gravel walks, occasionally pausing behind the flowering shrubs to blow their noses--delicately between forefinger and thumb--as though trumpeting against the defeated devils of winter.

'The President usually comes,' said Bannister, 'but he doesn't seem to be here today. Odd thing but there isn't a single Jackson in sight. I wonder what's become of them all.'

'I don't know about the others but the President is locked in his bedroom.'

'Good Lord, is he? I say you'd better talk to the old man about this. I'll try and get hold of him.'

The Minister was regarding the scene with an expression of alarm and despair; he stood on the top step of the terrace, half in, half out of the french windows, in a position, dimly remembered from the hide-and-seek of his childhood as strategically advantageous; it afforded a general survey of the dispositions of the attacking forces and offered alternative lines of retreat, indoors or through the rose garden.

Bannister introduced William.

The Minister gave the Vice-Consul a glance of mild reproach and smiled bleakly, the wry smile of one heroically resisting an emotion of almost overwhelming repulsion.

'So glad you could come,' he said. 'Being looked after all right? Good, excellent.'

He peered over his shoulder into the shady refuge of his study. As he did so the door opened and three obese Indians waddled into the room; each wore a little gold skull cap, a long white shirt and a short black coat, each carried a strawberry ice. 'How did they get in?' he asked petulantly. 'They've no business there at all. Get them out. Get them out.'

Bannister hurried to head them off and the Minister was left alone with William.

'You are from the Beast?'

'Yes.'

'Can't say I read it myself. Don't like its politics. Don't like any politics... Finding Ishmaelia interesting?'

'Yes, very interesting.'

'Are you? Wish I was. But then you've got a more interesting job. Better paid too I expect. I wonder, how does one get a job like that. Pretty difficult I suppose, stiff examination eh?'

'No, no examination.'

'No examination? My word that's interesting. I must tell my wife. Didn't know you could get any job nowadays without examinations. Wretched system, ruining all the services. I've got a boy in England now, lazy fellow, can't pass any examinations, don't know what to do with him. D'you suppose they'd give him a job on your paper?'

'I expect so. It seemed quite easy to me.'

'I say, that's splendid. Must tell my wife. Here she is. My dear, Mr Boot here says he will give Archie a job on his paper.'

'I'm afraid I can't be much help. I got the sack this morning.'

'Did you? Did you really? Pity. Then you can't be any help to Archie.'

'No, I'm afraid not.'

'My dear,' said the Minister's wife, 'I'm very sorry indeed but I've got to introduce a new missionary you haven't met.'

She led him away and presented a blinking giant of a young man; the Minister nodded absently to William as he left him.

****

Doctor Benito was at the party, very neat, very affable, very self-possessed, smiling wickedly on all sides. He approached William.

'Mr Boot,' he said, 'you must be very lonely without your colleagues.'

'No, I much prefer it.'

'And it is dull for you,' Doctor Benito insisted, in the level patient tones of a mesmerist, 'very dull, with so little happening in the town. So I have arranged a little divertissement for you.'

'It is very kind but I am greatly diverted here.'

'You are too kind to our simple little city. But I think I can promise you something better. Now that the summer has come there will be no difficulty. You shall have a little tour of our country and see some of its beauties--the forest of Popo for instance and the great waterfall at Chip.'

'It's very kind of you... some other time perhaps.'

'No, no, at once. It is all arranged. I have a motor-car. I cannot alas go with you myself but I will send a charming young man--very cultured, a university graduate--who will be able to explain everything as well as I can. You will find my country people very hospitable. I have arranged for you to spend tonight just outside the city at the villa of the postmaster-general. Then you will be able to start early in the morning for the mountains. You will see much more than any of your colleagues, who, I hear, are not being fortunate in their trip to Laku. Perhaps you will be able to do a little lion shooting.'

'Thank you very much indeed, Doctor Benito, but I don't want to leave Jacksonburg at the moment.'

'There will be room for any companion you care to take.'

'No, thank you.'

'And you will, of course, be the guest of the Government.'

'It's not that.'

'You will see most interesting native dances, curious customs,' he smiled more horribly than before, 'some of the tribes are most primitive and interesting.'

'I'm very sorry, I can't go.'

'But it is all arranged.'

'I'm very sorry. You should have consulted me before you took so much trouble.'

'My Government would not like you to lose financially by their hospitality. I quite see that you would not be able to do your work fully during your absence but any reasonable recompense...'

'Look here, Doctor Benito,' said William. 'You're being a bore. I'm not going.'

Doctor Benito suddenly stopped smiling. 'Everyone will be very disappointed,' he said.

****

William told Bannister what had been said.

'Yes, they want to get you out of the way. They don't want any journalists here when the fun starts. They even took the trouble to shift Olafsen. They told him there was cholera down the line.'

'Plague.'

'Some lie anyway. I'm in communication with our agent there by telephone. Everyone's as fit as a flea.'

'Perhaps if he knew I'd got the sack he wouldn't bother so much.'

'He wouldn't believe it. He must have seen your cable, all the foreign cables go to his office before they're delivered. He thinks it's a trick. That's the disadvantage of being clever in Benito's way.'

'You seem to know most things that go on in this town.'

'It's a hobby. Must do something. If I stuck to my job I should spend the day answering commercial questionnaires. Did you get anything interesting out of the Minister?'

'No.'

'He sticks to his job.'

****

As William drove back from the Legation he pondered over the question of when and in what terms he should break the news of his recall to Kätchen.

He need not have worried.

In the first place he found a cable awaiting him, CONGRATULATIONS UPFOLLOW FULLEST SPEEDILIEST.

In the second place Kätchen was no longer at the Pension Dressler; a posse of soldiers had come for her that afternoon and taken her away in a closed motor-car.

'I suppose it is because of her papers,' said Frau Dressler. 'She telephoned to the German Consulate but they would not help her. She should not have been upset. When they put white people in prison here they are well looked after. She will be as comfortable,' she added with unprofessional candour, 'as she was here. There is one of the secret police waiting to see you. I would not let him into your room. He is in the dining-room.'

William found a natty young Negro smoking from a long cigarette holder. 'Good-evening,' he said. 'I have come from Doctor Benito to take you for a little tour in the mountains.'

'I told Doctor Benito I could not go.'

'He hoped you would change your mind.'

'Why have you arrested Miss Kätchen?'

'It is a temporary measure, Mr Boot. She is being very well looked after. She is at the villa of the postmaster-general, just outside the town. She asked me to collect some luggage for her--a parcel of geological specimens that were left in your room.'

'They are my property.'

'So I understand. You paid a hundred American dollars for them I think. Here is the money.'

William was by nature a man of mild temper; on the rare occasions when he gave way to rage the symptoms were abundantly evident. The Negro stood up, removed the cigarette end from its holder and added, 'Perhaps I should tell you that when I was at the Adventist University of Alabama I was welter-weight champion of my year... May I repeat my offer? Doctor Benito wishes very much to examine these specimens; they are the property of the Government for they were collected by a foreigner who came here without the formality of obtaining a prospecting licence from the Ministry of Mines--a foreigner who unfortunately is at the moment protected by the capitulations--at the moment only. Arrangements are being made about him. Since you bought these specimens under a misapprehension the Government decided very generously to make an offer of reimbursement--'

'Get out,' said William.

'Very well. You will hear of this matter again.'

He rose with dignity and swaggered into the yard.

The milch-goat looked up from her supper of waste-paper; her perennial optimism quickened within her, and swelled to a great and mature confidence; all day she had shared the exhilaration of the season, her pelt had glowed under the newborn sun; deep in her heart she too had made holiday, had cast off the doubts of winter and exulted among the crimson flowers; all day she had dreamed gloriously; now in the limpid evening she gathered her strength, stood for a moment rigid, quivering from horn to tail; then charged, splendidly, irresistibly, triumphantly; the rope snapped and the welter-weight champion of the Adventist University of Alabama sprawled on his face amid the kitchen garbage.

****

The events of that day were not yet ended.

As soon as Doctor Benito's agent had gone, limping and dishevelled, and the goat, sated and peaceably disposed to retrospection, recaptured and secured, William drove back to the British Consulate with his bag of minerals.

'The party's over,' said Bannister. 'We all want a rest.'

'I've brought some luggage for you to keep an eye on.'

He explained the circumstances.

'If you knew the amount of work you were causing,' said Bannister, 'you wouldn't do this. From tomorrow onwards for the next six years I shall get a daily pile of bumf from the Ministry of Mines and in the end the Mixed Court will decide against you--God damn all capitulations. What's in the bag anyway?'

He opened it and examined the stones. 'Yes,' he said, 'just what I expected--gold ore. The mountains in the West are stiff with it. We knew it was bound to cause international trouble sooner or later. There have been two companies after a mineral concession--German and Russian. So far as the Jacksons have any political principles it has been to make the country unprofitable for foreign investment. The President kept his end up pretty well--played one company off against the other for months. Then the Smiles trouble started. We are pretty certain that the Germans were behind it. The Russians have been harder to follow--we only learned a day or two ago that they had bought Benito and the Young Ishmaelite party. It's between Smiles and Benito now and it looks to me as if Benito has won hands down. I'm sorry--the Jacksons were a pack of rogues but they suited the country and they suited H.M.G. We stand to lose quite a lot if they start a Soviet state here... Now you've stopped being a journalist I can tell you these things.'

'As a matter of fact I've just become a journalist again. D'you mind if I cable this to the Beast?'

'Well, don't let on that you got it from me... as a matter of fact a newspaper campaign at the moment might just do the trick.'

'There's another thing. Can you help me get a girl friend out of jug?'

'Certainly not,' said Bannister. 'I'm a keen supporter of the local prison system; it's the one thing that keeps the British Protected Persons off my doorstep. Its only weakness is you can buy yourself out when you want to for a fiver.'

****

When it was dinner time in Jacksonburg, it was tea-time in London.

'Nothing more from Boot,' said Mr Salter.

'Well, make up the Irish edition with his morning cable--rewrite it and splash it. If the follow up comes in before six in the morning, run a special.'

****

William returned home with a mission; he was going to do down Benito. Dimly at first, then in vivid detail, he foresaw a spectacular, cinematographic consummation, when his country should rise chivalrously to arms; Bengal Lancers and kilted highlanders invested the heights of Jacksonburg; he at their head burst open the prison doors; with his own hands he grappled with Benito, shook him like a kitten and threw him choking out of his path; Kätchen fluttered towards him like a wounded bird and he bore her in triumph to Boot Magna... Love, patriotism, zeal for justice and personal spite flamed within him as he sat at his typewriter and began his message. One finger was not enough; he used both hands. The keys rose together like bristles on a porcupine, jammed and were extricated; curious anagrams appeared on the paper before him; vulgar fractions and marks of punctuation mingled with the letters. Still he typed.

The wireless station closed at nine; at five minutes to William pushed his sheaf of papers over the counter.

'Sending tomorrow,' said the clerk.

'Must send tonight; urgent,' said William.

'No tonight. Summer holiday tonight.'

William added a handful of banknotes to the typewritten sheets. 'Sending tonight,' he said.

'All right.'

Then William went round to dinner alone at Popotakis's.

****

'Two thousand words from Boot,' said Mr Salter.

'Any good?' asked the general editor.

'Look at it.'

The general editor looked. He saw 'Russian plot... coup d'etat... overthrow constitutional government... red dictatorship... goat butts head of police... imprisoned blonde... vital British interest jeopardized,' it was enough; it was news. 'It's news,' he said, 'Stop the machines at Manchester and Glasgow. Clear the line to Belfast and Paris. Scrap the whole front page. Kill the Ex-Beauty Queen's pauper funeral. Get in a photograph of Boot.'

'I don't suppose we've got a photograph of Boot in the office.'

'Ring up his family. Find his best girl. There must be a photograph of him somewhere in the world.'

'They took one for his passport,' said Mr Salter doubtfully, 'but I remember thinking at the time it was an extremely poor likeness.'

'I don't care if it looks like a baboon--'

'That's just how it does look.'

'Give it two columns depth. This is the first front page foreign news we've had for a month.'

When the final edition had left the machines, carrying William's sensational message into two million apathetic homes, Mr Salter left the office.

His wife was still up when he got home.

'I've made your Ovaltine,' she said. 'Has it been a bad day?'

'Terrible.'

'You didn't have to dine with Lord Copper.'

'No, not as bad as that. But we had to remake the whole paper after it had gone to bed. That fellow Boot.'

'The one who upset you so all last week. I thought you were sacking him.'

'We did. Then we took him back. He's all right. Lord Copper knew best.'

Mr Salter took off his boots and Mrs Salter poured out the Ovaltine. When he had drunk it, he felt calmer.

'You know,' he said meditatively, 'it's a great experience to work for a man like Lord Copper. Again and again I've thought he was losing grip. But always it turns out he knew best. What made him spot Boot? It's a sixth sense... real genius.'

****

Popotakis's was empty and William was tired. He ate his dinner and strolled home. When he reached his room he found it filled with tobacco smoke, a cheroot, one of his cheroots, glowed in the darkness. A voice, with a strong German accent said, 'Close the shutters, please, before you turn on the light.'

William did as he was asked. A man rose from the armchair, clicked his heels and made a guttural sound. He was a large blond man of military but somewhat dilapidated appearance. He wore khaki shorts and an open shirt, boots ragged and splashed with mud. His head, once shaven, was covered with stubble, uniform with his chin, like a clipped yew in a neglected garden.

'I beg your pardon?' said William.

The man clicked his heels again and made the same throaty sound, adding, 'That is my name.'

'Oh,' said William. Then he came to attention and said 'Boot.'

They shook hands.

'I must apologize for using your room. Once it was mine. I did not know until I found your luggage here, that there had been a change. I left some specimens of ore. Do you by any chance know what has become of them?'

'I have them safe.'

'Well it is of no importance now... I left a wife, too. Have you seen her?'

'She is in prison.'

'Yes,' said the German, without surprise. 'I suppose she is. They will put me in prison too. I have just come from my Consulate. They say they will not protect me. I cannot complain. They warned me before we started that if I failed they could not protect me... and I have failed... if you will excuse me, I will sit down. I am very tired.'

'Have you had any dinner?'

'Not for two days. I have just returned from the interior. We could not stop to sleep or to look for food. All the way back they were trying to kill me. They had paid the bandits. I am very tired and very hungry.'

William took a case from the pile of stores; it was corded and wired and lined and battened to resist all emergencies. He struggled for some time while the German sat in a kind of melancholy stupor; then he said, 'There's some food in here if you can get it open.'

'Food.' At the word the German came to his senses. With surprising dexterity he got the blade of his clasp knife under the lid of the box; it fell open revealing William's Christmas dinner.

They spread it on the table--turkey, plum pudding, crystallized plums, almonds, raisins, champagne and crackers. The German cried a little, nostalgically, teutonically. Then he began to gorge, at first in silence, later, with the dessert, loquaciously.

'...three times they shot at me on the road--but the bandits have very old rifles. Not like the rifles we gave to Smiles. We gave him everything, machine guns, tanks, consulates; we bought him two Paris newspapers, a column a day week after week--you know what that costs. There were five thousand volunteers ready to sail. He could have been in Jacksonburg in a month. No one wants the Jacksons here. They are foolish people. For a year we have been trying to make business with them. They said first one thing, then another. We gave them money; we gave them all money; heavens how many Jacksons there are! Still they would not make business...'

'I ought to warn you that I am a journalist.'

'That is well. When you come to write of this affair say that it was not my fault that we failed. It was Smiles. We gave him money and he ran away to the Soudan. He wanted me to go with him.'

'Wouldn't that have been better?'

'I had left my wife in Jacksonburg... besides, it is not good for me to go to the Soudan. I was once in trouble in Khartoum. There are many countries where it is not good for me to go. I have often been very foolish.' At the thought of his wife and of his former indiscretions he seemed once more to be overcome with melancholy. He sat in silence. William began to fear he would fall asleep.

'Where are you going now?' he asked. 'You can't stay here, you know, or they will come and arrest you.'

'No,' said the German. 'I can't stay here.' And immediately he fell asleep, mouth open, head back, a crumpled cracker in his right hand, breathing uproariously.

****

And still that day was not ended.

Hardly had the German's preliminary, convulsive snorts and gurgles given place to the gentler, automatic, continuous snoring of regular sleep, than William was again disturbed.

The night watchman stood clucking in the doorway, pointing towards the gates, smiling and nodding unintelligibly. The German never stirred; his snores followed William across the yard.

At the gates a motor-car was waiting. Its lights had been turned off. The yard and the lane outside it, were in darkness. A voice from inside the car said, 'William, is it you?' Kätchen scrambled out and ran to him--as he had imagined it, like a wounded bird. 'Darling, darling,' he said.

They clung together. In the darkness he could discern over Kätchen's shoulder the figure of the night watchman, stork like, on one leg, his spear behind his shoulders.

'Darling,' said Kätchen. 'Have you got any money with you?'

'Yes.'

'A lot?'

'Yes.'

'I promised the driver a hundred American dollars. Was it too much?'

'Who is he?'

'The postmaster-general's chauffeur. They have arrested the postmaster-general. He was a Jackson. All the Jacksons are being arrested. He got the key of the room when the soldiers were having supper. I said I would give him a hundred dollars if he brought me back.'

'Tell him to wait. I'll get the money from my room.'

The driver wrapped himself in his blanket and settled down over the wheel. Kätchen and William stood together in the yard.

'I must go away,' said Kätchen. 'We must go away. I have thought about it in the motor-car. You must marry me. Then I shall be British and they will not be able to hurt me. And we will leave Ishmaelia at once. No more journalism. We will go to Europe together. Will you do that?'

'Yes,' said William without hesitation.

'And will you marry me properly--in an office?'

'Yes.'

'It will be the first time I have been properly married.' The tremendous respirations echoed across the yard. 'What is that? William, there is something making a noise in your room.'

'Yes, I had forgotten--you made me forget. Come and see who it is.'

They climbed the steps, hand in hand, crossed the verandah and reached the door of William's room.

Kätchen dropped his hand and ran forward with a little cry. She knelt at the German's side and held him, shook him. He stirred and grunted and opened his eyes. They spoke to one another in German; Kätchen nestled against him; he laid his cheek against her head and lapsed again into coma.

'How happy I am,' she said. 'I thought he would never come back, that he was dead or had left me. How he sleeps. Is he well? Is he hungry?'

'No,' said William. 'I don't think you need have any anxiety on that point. Within the last hour, to my certain knowledge, he has consumed an entire Christmas dinner designed for four children or six adults.'

'He must have been starving. Is he not thin?'

'No,' said William. 'Frankly I should not have called him thin.'

'Ah, you should have seen him before he went away... How he snores. That is a good sign. Whenever he is well he snores like this.' She brooded fondly over the unconscious figure. 'But he is dirty.'

'Yes,' said William, 'very dirty indeed.'

'William, you sound so cross suddenly. Are you not glad my husband has come back to me.'

'Come back to you?'

'William, you are not jealous? How I despise jealousy. You could not be jealous of my husband. I have been with him for two years, before ever you and I met. I knew he would not leave me. But what are we to do now? I must think...'

They both thought, not on the same lines.

'I have a plan,' said Kätchen at last.

'Yes?' said William gloomily.

'I think it will work nice. My husband is German so the Ishmaelites will not be allowed to hurt him. It is harder for me because of my papers. So I will marry you. Then I shall be English and I and my husband can go away together. You will give us our tickets to Europe. It will not be expensive, we will travel in the second class.... How is that?'

'There are several serious objections; for one thing the German Legation are not going to protect your friend.'

'Oh dear, I thought if one had papers one was always safe everywhere... I must think of another plan... If after I marry you, I marry my husband, he would then be English, yes?'

'No.'

'Oh dear.'

They had to speak with raised voices to make themselves heard above the German's snores. 'Would it be very unkind to wake my husband? He is always full of ideas. He has great experience of difficulties.'

She shook him into sensibility and they spoke together earnestly in German.

William began to collect the distasteful remains of the Christmas dinner; he put the crackers back in their box and arranged the empty tins and bottles outside his door beside his dirty shoes.

'Our only hope is the postmaster-general's chauffeur,' said Kätchen at last. 'The town guards know him. If they have not yet heard that the postmaster-general is in prison he can drive through the barricades without difficulty. But he could not get to the frontier. They would telegraph for him to be stopped. The railway is impossible.'

'There is the river,' said the German. 'It is high. We could strike it below the cataract fifteen miles from here. Then we could sail down to French territory--if we had a boat.'

'How much would a boat cost?' asked Kätchen.

'Once in the Matto Grosso I made a boat,' said the German dreamily. 'I burned out the centre of an iron wood tree. It took ten weeks to make, and it sank like a stone.'

'A boat,' said Kätchen. 'But you have a boat--our boat.'

****

They drove through the streets of the sleeping city, the German in front with the postmaster-general's chauffeur, Kätchen and William at the back with the canoe. A few hyenas flashed red eyes at them from the rubbish heaps, then turned their mangy quarters and scuttled off into the night.

The guards at the barrier saluted and let them pass into the open country. They drove in silence.

'I will send you a postcard,' said Kätchen, at last, 'to tell you we are well.'

Day was breaking as they reached the river; they came upon it suddenly where it flowed black and swift between low banks. There they assembled the canoe; William and Kätchen did the work, as they had done before; it was familiar; there was no adventure now in fitting the sockets. The German sat on the running-board of the car, still stupefied with the lack of sleep; his eyes were open; his mouth also. When the boat was ready they called to him to join them.

'It is very small,' he said.

William stood knee deep among the reeds holding it with difficulty; the current tugged and sucked. Kätchen climbed in balancing precariously, with a hand on William's arm; then the German; the boat sank almost to the gunwales.

'We shall not have room for the stores,' said Kätchen.

'My boat in Matto Grosso was twenty feet long,' said the German drowsily 'it turned over and went straight to the bottom. Two of my boys were drowned. They had always said it would sink.'

'If we get safely to the French border' said Kätchen, 'shall we leave the boat there for you. Will you want it again?'

'No.'

'We might sell it and send you the money.'

'Yes.'

'Or we could keep the money until we get to Europe--it will be easier to send.'

'It is an abstract speculation,' said the German, suddenly awake, and impatient. 'It is a question purely of academic interest. We shall not reach the French border. Let us start.'

'Goodbye,' said Kätchen.

The two figures sat opposite one another, knees touching, expectant, as though embarking upon the ornamental waters of a fair-ground; lovers for the day's outing, who had stood close in a queue, and now waited half reluctant to launch into the closer intimacy of the grottoes and transparencies.

William released the boat; it revolved once or twice slowly, as it drifted into mid-stream; there it was caught in the full power of the flood, and spinning dizzily was swept out of sight into the dawn.

****

William returned to his empty room. The boy had put back the débris of the Christmas dinner, carefully ranged upon the writing table. A cleft stick lay across the bed, bearing no message for William. He sat down at his table and with his eyes fixed on the label of the turkey-tin, began to compose his despatch.

'Take to wireless,' he ordered his boy. 'Sit on step till open. Then come back and sit on this step. Don't let anyone in. Want to sleep very much.'

But he did not sleep very much.

The boy shook him at half-past ten. 'No send,' he said, waving the typewritten message.

William painfully roused himself from his brief sleep. 'Why no send?'

'No Jacksons. No Government. No send.'

William dressed and went to the wireless bureau. A jaunty black face smiled at him through the guichet; starched collar, bow tie, long ivory cigarette holder--the welter-weight.

'Good morning,' said William. 'I hope you are not feeling too sore after your meeting with the goat. Where is the wireless clerk?'

'He is on a little holiday. I have taken over from him.'

'My boy says that this cable has been refused.'

'That is so. We are very much occupied with Government business. I think we shall be occupied all day, perhaps for several days. It would have been far better if you had gone for the tour we had planned for you. Meanwhile perhaps you would like to see the manifesto that we are issuing. I think you do not read Ishmaelite?'

'No.'

'A very barbarous language. I have never learned it. Soon we shall make Russian the official language of the country. I have a copy here in English.'

He handed William a sheet of crimson paper headed WORKERS OF ISHMAELIA UNITE and snapped down the trap of the guichet.

William stepped out into the sunlight. A black man on a ladder was painting out the name of Jackson Street. Someone had stencilled a sickle and hammer on the front of the post office, a red flag hung limp overhead. He read the manifesto as he returned to the Pension Dressler.

...development of mineral resources of the workers by the workers for the workers... Jacksons to be speedily brought to trial... arraigned for high treason to the Revolution... liquidated... New Calendar. Year One of the Soviet State of Ishmaelia...

In the yard he crumpled the paper into a scarlet ball and tossed it to the goat; it went down like an oyster.

He stood on his verandah and looked across to the beastly attic from which Kätchen used to greet him, at about this time in the morning, calling him to come out to Popotakis's Ping-Pong Parlour.

'Change and decay in all around I see,' he sang softly, almost unctuously. It was the favourite tune of his uncle Theodore.

He bowed his head.

'Oh great crested grebe,' he prayed, 'maligned fowl, have I not expiated the wrong my sister did you; am I still to be an exile from the green places of my heart? Was there not even in the remorseless dooms of antiquity a god from the machine?'

He prayed without hope.

And then above the multitudinous noises of the Pension Dressler came a small sound, an insistent, swelling monotone. The servants in the yard looked up. The sound increased and high above them in the cloudless sky, rapidly approaching, there appeared an aeroplane. The sound ceased as the engine was cut off. The machine circled and dropped silently. It was immediately overhead when a black speck detached itself and fell towards them; white stuff streamed behind it, billowed and spread. The engine sang out again; the machine swooped up and away, out of sight and hearing. The little domed tent paused and gently sank, as though immersed in depths of limpid water.

'If he comes onto my roof,' said Frau Dressler. 'If he breaks anything...'

The parachutist came on the roof; he broke nothing. He landed delicately on the tips of his toes; the great sail crumpled and collapsed behind him; he deftly extricated himself from the bonds and stood clear. He took a comb from his pocket and settled the slightly disordered auburn hair about his temples, glancing at his watch, bowed to Frau Dressler and asked for a ladder, courteously in five or six languages. They brought him one. Rung by rung, on pointed, snake skin toes, he descended to the yard. The milch-goat reverently made way for him. He smiled politely at William; then recognized him.

'Why,' he exclaimed. 'It is my fellow traveller, the journalist. How agreeable to meet a fellow Britisher in this remote spot.'