ht man, with a red moustache. He sought me
occasionally of an eventide, and confided to me views of life
in general, and of some of his fellow-passengers in particular.
I remember one night especially, when the Southern Cross
was in full view and the water about the keel splotched with
phosphorescence. Carraway had a big grievance that night. He
commented acridly on a colored woman that I had espied on board.
She was not very easily visible herself, but one or two faintly
colored children played often about the deck, and she herself
might now and then be seen nursing a baby. I had seen her on a
bench sometimes when I had gone to the library to change a book.
I had seen her more rarely in the sunshine on deck, nursing the
aforesaid baby.

'One man's brought a Kaffir wife on board,' growled Carraway.

I said, 'I thought she might be a nurse.'

'No, she's his wife,' contended Carraway. 'It's cheek of him
bringing her on board with the third-class passengers.'

I said, 'Which is her husband?'

'He's been pointed out to me,' he said. 'The other white men seem
rather to avoid him. I don't know what your opinion on this point
may be,' he said. 'I consider that a man who marries a Kaffir
sinks to her status.'

I said nothing. He did not like my silence much, I gathered. He
was not so very cordial afterwards. He was a man with many
grievances Carraway.

When we were drawing close to Madeira, two nights before, on the
Sunday, Carraway touched the subject again.

The parson had preached incidentally on the advisability of being
white--white all round. I thought he played to his gallery a bit,
in what he said.

'An excellent sermon,' said Carraway. 'Did you hear how he got at
that josser with the Kaffir wife? That parson's a white man.'

I said nothing.

'What God hath divided let no man unite,' said Carraway,
improving the occasion. 'I don't uphold Kaffirs. The white man
must always be top dog,' etc., etc.

Carraway grew greasily fluent on rather well-worn lines. I smoked
my pipe and made no comment. By-and-bye he tired of his
monologue.

He gave me no further confidences till the night after we left
Madeira.

Then he came to me suddenly about eleven o'clock as I stood on
the well-deck, smoking a pipe before turning in.

'Come and have a walk,' he said, in a breathless sort of way.

We climbed some steps and paced the upper deck towards the
wheel-house. There were few electric lights burning now. After
a t