nation before the night
was over. In his present state, rapid travelling was exactly what he
wanted; to feel he was dashing through the country, drawing nearer his
goal with every mile, was like an antidote to pain, it prevented him
from thinking. Now there was nothing for it but to find an hotel and to
wait for morning.

As he made his way out of the station and down into the town, he thought
of the last time he had visited that ancient city. Then he had been the
favoured guest of a well-known nobleman in the neighbourhood, and his
arrival had been the signal for quite a respectable crowd to gather in
the station yard to see the Crown Prince of Pannonia. Flags had
decorated the streets, and the civic authorities had offered him a
hearty welcome in their council-house. Now a thick drizzle was falling
as he walked along the muddy street, and the only welcome he received
was the curse of a tipsy man who reeled and almost fell against him.
When he had discovered a convenient hostelry he engaged a room, and
afterwards strolled about the town. At last he found himself standing
before the ancient cathedral, in what is perhaps the most peaceful and
beautiful close in all the length and breadth of England. The graceful
spire towered hundreds of feet into the moonlit sky, and as he watched
it the clock struck ten, slowly and solemnly, as if it were aware of the
important part it was playing in the passage of time. At the same moment
I was alighting from my train at Southampton Docks, whither I had gone
in search of him. Small wonder was it, since he was in Salisbury, that I
could not find him.

Next morning, shortly before five o'clock, he rose and continued his
journey, catching a London train at Westbury, reaching Bath at eight
o'clock, and Bristol thirty-five minutes later. Before leaving the
station he secured the luggage he had sent on ahead, and then once more
departed in quest of an hotel. This accomplished, he was at liberty to
go in search of a vessel. From the collection of advertisements in the
coffee-room, it would appear that there was no place on the face of the
habitable globe that could not be reached from that port. He could find
nothing, however, to suit him. The United States did not appeal
sufficiently to his sense of the romantic; South Africa had another and
still more vital objection; Canada was impossible, for the simple reason
that he had already visited it, and was exceedingly well known there. He
wan