"Why! Kent says that even of you."

"Does he?" I retorted, extremely embittered all at once against my
former captain. "There's nothing of that in the written character from
him which I've got in my pocket. Has he given you any instances of my
lunacy?"

Captain Giles explained in a conciliating tone that it had been only
a friendly remark in reference to my abrupt leaving the ship for no
apparent reason.

I muttered grumpily: "Oh! leaving his ship," and mended my pace. He
kept up by my side in the deep gloom of the avenue as if it were
his conscientious duty to see me out of the colony as an undesirable
character. He panted a little, which was rather pathetic in a way. But
I was not moved. On the contrary. His discomfort gave me a sort of
malicious pleasure.

Presently I relented, slowed down, and said:

"What I really wanted was to get a fresh grip. I felt it was time. Is
that so very mad?"

He made no answer. We were issuing from the avenue. On the bridge over
the canal a dark, irresolute figure seemed to be awaiting something or
somebody.

It was a Malay policeman, barefooted, in his blue uniform. The silver
band on his little round cap shone dimly in the light of the street
lamp. He peered in our direction timidly.

Before we could come up to him he turned about and walked in front of us
in the direction of the jetty. The distance was some hundred yards; and
then I found my coolies squatting on their heels. They had kept the pole
on their shoulders, and all my worldly goods, still tied to the pole,
were resting on the ground between them. As far as the eye could reach
along the quay there was not another soul abroad except the police peon,
who saluted us.

It seems he had detained the coolies as suspicious characters, and had
forbidden them the jetty. But at a sign from me he took off the embargo
with alacrity. The two patient fellows, rising together with a faint
grunt, trotted off along the planks, and I prepared to take my leave of
Captain Giles, who stood there with an air as though his mission were
drawing to a close. It could not be denied that he had done it all. And
while I hesitated about an appropriate sentence he made himself heard:

"I expect you'll have your hands pretty full of tangled-up business."

I asked him what made him think so; and he answered that it was his
general experience of the world. Ship a long time away from her port,
owners inaccessible by cable, and the only man wh