m not speaking of clairvoyance; I dislike that jargon;
but I do know that I was conscious of Pere Etienne if he did but pass
the smoke-room door when I was about to play a doubled four in No
Trumps.

Well, our old British India tramp lay about for a week in Dar-es-Salaam
harbour, rolled up to Tanga, and finally crossed over to Zanzibar,
without further developments. There we passengers went sweltering about
the narrow streets, visited duly the coconut and clove plantations, and
conceived ourselves to be exploring by hiring a car, crossing the island
to Chuaka, and spending a day up the creek. Pere Etienne went at once
to the Catholic Mission and remained there. Thus it was not until the
evening on which we sailed that we saw him again.

It was half an hour or so before sunset, and a serene beauty lay over
land and sea. There was the gentlest breeze, and at our moorings it
was almost cool. We were clustering on the landward side of the ship,
smoking and watching the town and harbour. Close up under the tall white
houses the blue sea broke in tiny creamy ripples on the sand or the
low coral rocks, and, with its green woods to right and left, the
city seemed to dream in the sun. One could see, however, that it was
preparing to wake. A flutter of orange or scarlet on the flat roofs here
and there told that the women were already coming up to enjoy the cooler
hours; and between the thin cassuarinas in the square that opened to the
sea before the Sultan's Palace, a white-robed crowd was gathering for
the faint excitement of the sunset gun. Between ship and shore, the
brown-timbered rough-hewn native boats came and went on their long
oars, and in smarter skiffs the silk and curio merchants were taking
a lingering leave of us. From the south a dozen peaceful lateen-sailed
dhows beat up for the native anchorage behind which, from our view-point,
the twin spires of the Catholic cathedral stood out against an opal sky.
Despite travellers' tales, there is only one mosque with a minaret in
Zanzibar, and that so small and hidden that it is scarcely visible from
the sea.

Watching the dhows and sighting the cathedral, suggested, I suppose,
Pere Etienne. Someone asked if his reverence had come aboard, but no one
knew. Lazily turning the question and answer over in my mind, I became
aware that I was sure he had. The persistent intuition grew on me.
Without speaking of it, I determined, out of sheer curiosity, to go and
see. I detache