om the train here, still clad as at Beira in
thick, stifling sea-cloth and his hard hat, though his collar was now
but a limp frill. He came lurching, on uncertain feet, into the
establishment of Hop Sing, the only seller of strong drink at
Mendigos. The few languid, half-clad men who lounged within looked up
at him in astonishment. He pointed shakily towards a bottle on the
primitive bar. "Gimme some of that," he croaked, from a parched
throat.

The smiling Chinaman, silk-clad and supple, poured a drink for him,
watched him consume it, and forthwith poured another. With the
replenished tumbler in his hand, the mate returned his look.

"What you starin' at, you Chow?" he demanded.

The subtle-eyed Chinaman ceased neither to smile nor to stare.

"My t'ink you velly sick man. Two shillin' to pay, please."

"Sick!" repeated the mate. "Sick! You you know, do ye?"

The idle men who lounged behind were spectators to the drama,
absorbed but uncomprehending. They saw the fierce, absurdly-clad
sailor, swaying on his feet with the effects of long-endured heat and
thirst, confronting the suave composure of the Chinaman as though the
charge of being unwell were outrageous and shameful.

"Say," he demanded hoarsely, "it, it don't show on me."

The Chinaman made soothing gestures. "My see," he answered. "But dem
feller belong here, him not see nothing. All-a-light foh him. Two
shillin' to pay, please."

The mate dragged a coin from his pocket and dropped it on the bar. He
turned at last to the others, as though he now first noticed them.

"What's back of here?" he asked abruptly, motioning as he spoke to
the still palms which poised over the galvanized iron roofs.

"How d'you mean?" A tall, willowy man in pajamas answered him
surprisedly. "There's nothing beyond here. It's just wild country."

"No white men?" asked the mate.

"Lord, no!" said the other. "White men die out there. It's just trees
and niggers and wild beasts and fevers." He looked at the mate with a
touch of amusement breaking through his curiosity. "You weren't
thinking of goin' there in that kit were you?"

The mate finished his drink and set his glass down.

"I am goin' there," he answered.

"But look here!" The telegraphists broke into a clamor. "You've been
too long in the sun; that's what's the matter with you. You can't go
up there, man; you'd be dead before morning."

The tall man, to whom the mate had spoken first, had a shrewd word to
add.