replied. 'There the stuff is
transferred to the railway.'

'And you reach Rustchuk when?'

'In ten days, bar accidents. Let us say twelve to be safe.'

'I want to accompany you,' I said. 'In my profession, Herr Captain, it
is necessary sometimes to make journeys by other than the common route.
That is now my desire. I have the right to call upon some other branch
of our country's service to help me. Hence my request.'

Very plainly he did not like it.

'I must telegraph about it. My instructions are to let no one aboard,
not even a man like you. I am sorry, Sir, but I must get authority
first before I can fall in with your desire. Besides, my boat is
ill-found. You had better wait for the next batch and ask Dreyser to
take you. I lost Walter today. He was ill when he came aboard--a
disease of the heart--but he would not be persuaded. And last night he
died.'

'Was that him you have been burying?' I asked.

'Even so. He was a good man and my wife's cousin, and now I have no
engineer. Only a fool of a boy from Hamburg. I have just come from
wiring to my owners for a fresh man, but even if he comes by the
quickest train he will scarcely overtake us before Vienna or even Buda.'

I saw light at last.

'We will go together,' I said, 'and cancel that wire. For behold, Herr
Captain, I am an engineer, and will gladly keep an eye on your boilers
till we get to Rustchuk.'

He looked at me doubtfully.

'I am speaking truth,' I said. 'Before the war I was an engineer in
Damaraland. Mining was my branch, but I had a good general training,
and I know enough to run a river-boat. Have no fear. I promise you I
will earn my passage.'

His face cleared, and he looked what he was, an honest, good-humoured
North German seaman.

'Come then in God's name,' he cried, 'and we will make a bargain. I
will let the telegraph sleep. I require authority from the Government
to take a passenger, but I need none to engage a new engineer.'

He sent one of the hands back to the village to cancel his wire. In ten
minutes I found myself on board, and ten minutes later we were out in
mid-stream and our tows were lumbering into line. Coffee was being made
ready in the cabin, and while I waited for it I picked up the captain's
binoculars and scanned the place I had left.

I saw some curious things. On the first road I had struck on leaving
the cottage there were men on bicycles moving rapidly. They seemed to
wear unif