. He must have the room next to mine."

"We can manage that easily for you."

Schomberg steered with dignity, staring straight ahead, but very much
interested by these two promising "accounts." Their belongings, a couple
of large leather trunks browned by age and a few smaller packages,
were piled up in the bows. A third individual--a nondescript, hairy
creature--had modestly made his way forward and had perched himself on
the luggage. The lower part of his physiognomy was over-developed;
his narrow and low forehead, unintelligently furrowed by horizontal
wrinkles, surmounted wildly hirsute cheeks and a flat nose with wide,
baboon-like nostrils. There was something equivocal in the appearance of
his shaggy, hair-smothered humanity. He, too, seemed to be a follower of
the clean-shaven man, and apparently had travelled on deck with native
passengers, sleeping under the awnings. His broad, squat frame denoted
great strength. Grasping the gunwales of the launch, he displayed a
pair of remarkably long arms, terminating in thick, brown hairy paws of
simian aspect.

"What shall we do with the fellow of mine?" the chief of the party asked
Schomberg. "There must be a boarding-house somewhere near the port--some
grog-shop where they could let him have a mat to sleep on?"

Schomberg said there was a place kept by a Portuguese half-caste.

"A servant of yours?" he asked.

"Well, he hangs on to me. He is an alligator-hunter. I picked him up in
Colombia, you know. Ever been in Colombia?"

"No," said Schomberg, very much surprised. "An alligator-hunter? Funny
trade! Are you coming from Colombia, then?"

"Yes, but I have been coming for a long time. I come from a good many
places. I am travelling west, you see."

"For sport, perhaps?" suggested Schomberg.

"Yes. Sort of sport. What do you say to chasing the sun?"

"I see--a gentleman at large," said Schomberg, watching a sailing canoe
about to cross his bow, and ready to clear it by a touch of the helm.

The other passenger made himself heard suddenly.

"Hang these native craft! They always get in the way."

He was a muscular, short man with eyes that gleamed and blinked, a harsh
voice, and a round, toneless, pock-marked face ornamented by a thin,
dishevelled moustache, sticking out quaintly under the tip of a rigid
nose. Schomberg made the reflection that there was nothing secretarial
about him. Both he and his long, lank principal wore the usual white
suit of the trop