In leaving Zanzibar
he was making no sacrifice. He merely was carrying out his original
plan, and by taking away with him the detective was giving Brownell and
his wife at least a month in which to again lose themselves.

What was his own duty he could not determine. That of Hemingway he
knew nothing, he could truthfully testify. And if now Hemingway
claimed to be Henry Brownell, he had no certain knowledge to the
contrary. That through his adventure Hemingway would come to harm did
not greatly disturb him. He foresaw that his friend need only send a
wireless from Nantucket and at the wharf witnesses would swarm to
establish his identity and make it evident the detective had blundered.
And in the meanwhile Brownell and his wife, in some settlement still
further removed from observation, would for the second time have
fortified themselves against pursuit and capture. He saw the eyes of
Hemingway fixed upon him in appeal and warning.

The brisk voice of the detective broke the silence.

"You will testify, if need be, Mr. Consul," he said, "that you heard
the prisoner admit he was Henry Brownell and that he surrendered
himself of his own free will?"

For an instant the consul hesitated, then he nodded stiffly.

"I heard him," he said.

Three hours later, at ten o' clock of the same evening, the detective
and Hemingway leaned together on the rail of the Crown Prince Eitel.
Forward, in the glare of her cargo lights, to the puffing and creaking
of derricks and donkey engines, bundles of beeswax, of rawhides, and
precious tusks of ivory were being hurled into the hold; from the
shore-boats clinging to the ship's sides came the shrieks of the
Zanzibar boys, from the smoking-room the blare of the steward's band
and the clink of glasses. Those of the youth of Zanzibar who were on
board, the German and English clerks and agents, saw in the presence of
Hemingway only a purpose similar to their own; the desire of a homesick
exile to gaze upon the mirrored glories of the Eitel's saloon, at the
faces of white men and women, to listen to home-made music, to drink
home-brewed beer. As he passed the smoking-room they called to him,
and to the stranger at his elbow, but he only nodded smiling and,
avoiding them, ascended to the shadow of the deserted boat-deck.

"You are sure," he said, "you told no one?"

"No one," the detective answered. "Of course your hotel proprietor
knows you're sailing, but he doesn't know why.