f praise to the triumphant King still prancing and
cursing to such good effect up on the hill.

CHAPTER 5

The same vast balloons of sepia rolled over the lake, vomited a host of
liquid ramrods and, after short intervals of brilliant glare, were
succeeded by others. The gutters of the station were turned into burbling
brooks and the grass plot into a morass.

Behind the screen on the south verandah sat zu Pfeiffer in his pink silk
pyjamas, a scowl upon his brow. He sipped his cafe cognac distastefully
and inhaled a cigarette so fiercely that the heat burned his tongue. He
had not slept. Yet the broken nail on the left little finger had been cut
and polished. Half the night he had sat before the photograph in the ivory
frame, pondering upon, and rehearsing, the past; muttering aloud to
Lucille, sometimes words of love and sometimes savage curses; wondering
what she was doing and where she was; gritting his teeth at visions which
aroused insane jealousy; calculating what the consequences of his action
would be were he to obey the impulse that had leaped into his mind in the
first flush of passion. If he were to release the prisoner the fellow
would probably expect an explanation and an apology which was, of course,
out of the question. No, he must carry out the thing thoroughly without
leaving any chance for the man to make trouble at the coast, or through
the Embassy at Washington; at all costs not through Washington. For him,
Birnier merely existed as a person whose feelings mattered nothing.

With the greening of the moon zu Pfeiffer had retired. As he had lain
sleeplessly watching the pallor of the dawn he had savagely corroborated
the decision. Now the roar of the deluge appeared to him in the form of an
abettor to his plan. He watched the grey wall of rain with satisfaction,
stroking the left sentry moustache as if to tame the fierce bristles of an
outraged dignity. When he had emerged from the bath, the pink of his face
appeared to have spread to the whites of his eyes, a fact which Bakunjala
had noted with sullen dread.

Between the storms the sun glared yellow upon the smoking earth. Across
the square squelched zu Pfeiffer to the orderly room. He grunted at
Sergeant Schultz's greeting and sprawled in the chair. When Schultz
proffered him some official documents he waved them aside irritably.

"Bring the prisoner to the Court, sergeant. I will try him immediately."