eth. Those
red hands of murder could not be washed white by the ocean, they
could only "the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green
one red." What if I cannot be decolorized by any sea? What if my
flesh only pollutes the sea, when I plunge, and makes all black?
God help me!!! You are a negrophile and don't half understand.

'Yours truly,

'J. CARRAWAY.'

I questioned the steward. He had found the letter in my place at
table.

Sure enough there was a third-class passenger missing. I suppose
Carraway had slipped off quietly in the moonlight to try his
desperate experiment. It was a cruel business his monomania.

If I had broken my promise and called the doctor earlier, could
he have been cured? Or would he have lingered in an asylum
shuddering over the fictitious glooming of his nails and skin,
shaking in a long ague of negrophoby.

Anyhow, I'm sorry I didn't do more for him, didn't walk him round
the deck the last night at least, and try my best to cheer him.
Yes, I blame myself badly for not doing that.

May God who allowed his delusion pardon that last maneuver of
his! I do not think Carraway had any clear wish to take his own
life.

I can imagine the scene so convincingly Carraway pausing,
hesitating, then plunging into the moon-blanched water from the
dizzy height above, eager to find which the multitudinous seas
would do would they change his imagined color, or would they
suddenly darken, matching in their tints his own discoloration?

AN OLD-WORLD SCRUPLE

'If you come back, which Heaven ordain, you'll be all the more
use to the priesthood,' the Superintendent of Missions said. 'Go
and serve with our fearless and faithful, approach as an acolyte
the altar of freedom. Supposing you don't see your way to go, I
would remind you of a certain passage about "Curse ye Meroz!" I
need not insult your knowledge of the Scriptures by finishing my
quotation.'

Osborne listened respectfully, but his eyes were looking far
away, with dreams of the veld in them.

The Superintendent's preaching of a sort of Christian Jehad
appealed to him infinitesimally.

There was a silence. He knocked his pipe out, and offered the
Superintendent a sundowner.

'I'm glad to have had your opinion,' he said. 'I take it you
don't want me just now as a candidate for ordination?'

The Superintendent flushed and hesitated.

'You mustn't put it like that,' he said almost irritably. 'The
decision rests with you, of