you wait-a in the bar, an' I
tell-a the boy go look."

"You must be quick, then," said Dawson, "'cause I'm in a hurry to get
back."

"Yais," smiled the Greek. "Bimeby he rain-a bad."

"Rain?" queried Dawson incredulously. The air was like balm.

"You see," the Greek nodded. "This-a way, sir. I go look-a quick."

Dawson waited in the bar, where a dark, sallow bar-man stared him out
of countenance for twenty minutes. At the end of that time the image
was forthcoming. The ugly thing had burst the paper in which it was
wrapped, and its grinning bullet-head projected handily. The paper
was wisped about its middle like a petticoat. Dawson took it
thankfully from the Greek, and made suitable remuneration in small
silver.

"Bimeby rain," repeated the Greek, as he opened a door for him again.

"Well, I'm not made of sugar," replied Dawson, and set off.

It was night now, for in Mozambique evening is but a brief hiatus
between darkness and day. It lasts only while the sun is dipping;
once the upper limb is under the horizon it is night, full and
absolute. As Dawson retraced his steps the sky over him was velvet-
black, barely punctured by faint stars, and a breeze rustled faintly
from the sea. He had not gone two hundred yards when a large, warm
drop of rain splashed on his back. Another pattered on his hat, and
it was raining, leisurely, ominously.

Dawson pulled up and took thought. At the end of the main street he
would have to turn to the left to the sea-front, and then to the left
again to reach the landing-stage. If, now, there were any nearer
turning to the left--if any of the dark alleys that opened
continually beside him were passable--he might get aboard the steamer
to his dinner in the second-class saloon with a less emphatic
drenching than if he went round by the way he had come. Mozambique,
he reflected, could not have only one street--it was too big for
that. From the steamer, as it came to anchor, he had seen acre upon
acre of flat roofs, and one of the gloomy alleys beside him must
surely debouch upon the sea-front. He elected to try one, anyhow, and
accordingly turned aside into the next.

With ten paces he entered such a darkness as he had never known. The
alley was barely ten feet wide: it lay like a crevasse between high,
windowless walls of houses. The warm, leisurely rain dropped
perpendicularly upon him from an invisible sky, and presently,
hugging the wall, he butted against a corner, and fou