hether my brother intended to
take her away with him and was prevented by some accident, or whether he
had changed his mind. I think he intended to. I can tell you what I did
myself. Before I left Genoa I married Rosa. She wanted it. She did not
trust herself. There are men like that. Women cannot trust themselves
unless some man will trust them.

"When we sailed out of Genoa bound for Buenos Ayres, I was a married
man, and Rosa had a flat in _Via Palestro_. I thought I knew my brother
well enough to feel sure that I needn't fear him any more. That's the
strange part of a business like that. To Rosa, to me, it was life or
death; to my brother it was the amusement of a few hours, days, perhaps
a week. It's a queer world.

"I think it was about two years after that before I saw my brother
again. When the war in South Africa started we were outward bound in
ballast for Buenos Ayres. At Monte Video we received orders to go to
Rosario and load remounts for Cape Town. It was a big business; I
believe the owners built three new ships out of the profits of that
charter. When we got up the river those bony Argentine cattle were
waiting for us and run aboard in a few hours. No time for boilers or
overhauling engines or anything. Straight out again, due east, with a
crowd of the toughest cattlemen I ever saw before or since. There was no
peace or quiet on the ship at all. They were not professional
cattle-deck tenders at all, you see. They only took the job to get to
the Cape, where the trouble was. Most of them deserted and drifted up
country. Each trip we had to get a fresh team. I can't say I enjoyed my
life very much during that charter. It was hard luck, though nothing out
of the way for a sailor-man, to go off the Genoa run now I was married,
and had a wife there.

"I saw my brother soon after Cronje was captured at Paardeberg. I was
ashore in Cape Town one evening taking a walk with the Second, just to
get out of sight of the ship for an hour, when he pulls my sleeve and
says he:

"'I say, Chief, you remember that new mess-man you got in B. A.? That
Lord? Well, ain't that him over there. You remember, don't you? That
chap who won the lottery in Genoa that time. Look!' He pointed across
the street to a party of chaps in khaki walking along and slapping their
legs with their canes. The tallest man and the finest-looking of the
lot was my brother. I couldn't be mistaken, though it would be difficult
to say exactly why. It