penters who build the dhows for the coastal trade; the halfcastes who labour in the docks; the Levantine Jews who keep the stores, and a goodly sprinkling of Portuguese ruffians who prey indiscriminately upon the whole community. It is a district of the most appalling squalor, of tumble-down galvanised-iron shacks and dilapidated warehouses, while over all, like the foul breath of sin, broods the dank stink of the river mud. Once, and once only, the moon revealed pathetic attempt at a garden -the despairing effort of some Celestial to produce from this utter desolation a passing likeness to his own fair land. a "How do!" said I, quickly recovering from my first surprise. "I thought I'd just come along and dig you out. How do, Buchanan ! " "Evenin'!" he muttered, and for one moment his bleared eyes looked up into mine. The next, however, they had fallen back to the table, and to the dazed contemplation of his glass of absinthe. I looked at the man, and a feeling of pity was uppermost in my mind as I contemplated the havoc wrought by the last few months. In place of the rather mincing niceness of the old Arthur Buchanan was a slouching indifference. His once immaculate hair was rough and long and tousled. A week's growth of beard, in conjunction with his drooping moustache, gave him a perfectly vile appearance which his bloodshot eyes and swollen mouth only served to accentuate. From Buchanan I turned to Roper, and here the difference between the two men was most marked, for Roper was as trim and clean as the day he had first set foot in the Savoy Hotel. I saw at once that this was not his first fall from grace. "What's the next move I asked him, casually. For a moment he was silent, chewing thoughtfully upon the stem of his pipe. "I don't know," he said at last, "and that's a fact. I don't know what to do with him," and he nodded towards his partner. I followed his glance, and appreciated the difficulty. "You are all right yourself?" I asked. Roper smiled. "Good Lord, yes! I've got my rifle in the station baggage room, and fifty or sixty rounds of ammunition. I'm as right as rain. I'd pull out to-morrow except for him," and again he nodded towards the silent Buchanan. my fling, and I'm through, but I can't leave him here like this. He'll be on the beach in another week or two!" 66 Can't you take him into the bush?" I asked, tentatively. Roper shook his head. "He's not the kind for that life. He doesn't know when to pull up. Got no control of himself. He'd die in a week!" And as he spoke, I remembered the consul's verdict upon the same question. For a while after that there was silence between us as I tried to see daylight through this strange business. It was certainly a most awkward predicament. On the one hand was Roper, ready to take to the bush and pursue his fortunes in any direction that Fate might decide, and on the other was his partner, utterly useless, and incapable of making the slightest effort to recover himself. It could, I saw, "Is he drinking this stuff end in only one way the bush all the time?" I asked. "You mean absinthe? Yes." I whistled softly, and shook my head. Things were worse than I thought. asked presently. for Roper and the beach for Buchanan, and in a place like Beira the latter was unthinkable. "Where are you living?" I be any use in the bush, then? I asked again, insistently, for it seemed to me to be his only hope. Roper "But "Mainly here," said in a deprecatory voice. we have got a room in a house farther down the road. A Chink's house!" "Good Lord! I breathed. "What a shocking mess you're in." "What can I do?" asked Roper defiantly. "I've had 66 66 "Saturday, then," said Roper, as we shook hands at the door, and I'll do my damnedst to get him straight again. I wish to the Lord Harry I'd never seen him," he added, as I stepped through the doorway. A sudden thought struck me, and I turned, quickly. "By the way," I asked him, "how are you doing for money?" "You have asked a question now that I can't answer," replied Roper seriously, taking my arm and pulling me outside. "I thought we had no money left months ago, but each day seems to bring its fresh supply "Don't know about widow's cruse," pursued Roper, 'How long are you stay- "but I do know that Buchanan ing?" he asked. is getting money from some"Not more than a fort- where, and getting it daily too." night," I told him. "That's an extraordinary thing," said I, puzzled by this new discovery. Where on earth can he be getting it from? 66 Heaven knows," sighed Roper. "If I knew I'd stop it, but I simply can't find out at all." "It's a most extraordinary thing," I repeated, breaking the silence that had fallen between us. "I don't see why "If it weren't for the irrefutable fact that he does, I should say 'no,'" replied Roper, who was obviously as much puzzled as myself. At this point I left him, and walked back towards where the lights of Beira held out a promise of better things than did this outrageous collection of tumble-down shacks and unhappy humans. The next day I sought out the consul, and told him what I had learnt the previous evening; but when I came to the narration of the daily income mysteriously arriving from nowhere, he was frankly sceptical. "I don't believe that," he said bluntly. "Who on earth would be sending him money every day?" "Well I do believe it," I countered, "though I am prepared to admit that I can't think and don't understand where it is coming from." "Which I doubt," finished the sceptical consul. True to my word, I again journeyed down to the land of tin shacks upon the following Saturday evening. Going straight to the café I entered, and passed through the inner door into the private room. One glance was sufficient to prove my journey useless, for half across the table lounged Buchanan, and in front of him stood the glass of soul-destroying absinthe. Roper, who was standing with his back against the dusty mantelpiece, broke off from an impassioned harangue as I entered, and turning, gave me a pretty cool good-evening. "It sounds so ridiculous," he isn't the first scrap of decency snorted. "And it it undoubtedly is ridiculous," said I. "But you've got to remember that Roper wants to get away, and this daily income is the only thing that is keeping him there. If it weren't for that, Buchanan would be compelled to come to reason." The consul smoothed his hair reflectively. about the brute. Look at him! and I haven't ceased trying to make him see reason since you were here last!" I looked again towards Buchanan, and I had to admit that Roper was in the right of it. There certainly seemed to be no vestige of manhood left in him. "What defeats me," said I thoughtfully, "is why he hasn't shaking his head knowingly, appearance and company, his "that's just where he's got drink still required to be mixed you all guessing. If you ask just so. I suppose that was me why, I should tell you that the one and only thought in it's because he's jolly well used his mind-a kind of obsession, to it. He's no chicken, you -for no sooner had he accomcan take my word for that." plished the apparently impos"Sorry," said I, "but I sible than he took a hearty can't agree with you there. drink, and then relapsed into You see, I knew him before his former state of comatose you came on the scene, and indifference. there was no absinthe about Arthur Buchanan in those days. He was altogether too fastidious a person for that kind of thing." "Humph!" he growled coolly. "He fell to me easily enough. It didn't take him particularly long to order a couple of drinks, and it was 'I'll mix my own absinthe, thank you,' ," imitating Buchanan's pleasant drawl, "right from the very first. I thought he was a hell-fire binger until I noticed his woman's hands, and then I didn't know what to make of him." The sound of a cork being withdrawn from a bottle brought me round sharply, and I stood and watched Buchanan helping himself with infinite care to another absinthe. Time and again his unsteady hand spilled the absinthe wide of the lump of sugar, but so surely as he spilled it he tipped the whole lot back again into the bottle and, suspending a fresh lump of sugar, commenced operations afresh. It was a strange example of the persistence of thought and habit through the haze of physical weakness, for whereas he was totally oblivious of his "Well, I'm through," nounced Roper, as he turned away from watching his partner. "It's utterly useless my staying any longer, apart from which I'm bored stiff with the whole business. I'm packing off to-morrow early," and there was a note of finality in his voice. I sighed, for I could so easily understand his attitude. He had come in for a racket, and he had had that racket, and now wanted to go away as fast and as far as he could. It is a trait common to all wanderers in Africa. A tremendous fling, and then away from the sight and sound and smell of the town. I understood that only too well, but I hated to think of Buchanan going to the dogs in this way and in this poisonous district. As Roper had said, Buchanan was not the type of man for this life. He had not that sixth sense which warns the thoroughbred gipsy when it is time to up anchor and away. We talked for some little time longer, until Buchanan suddenly raised himself and staggered to his feet. I watched him curiously as he navigated himself to the door, and turning to Roper, |
