the world for such as he. Told me that I must not mind,
seeing him so lonely, so apparently depressed. That it was nothing.
Just the Tropics, and being so far away, and perhaps thinking a
little too much of things that did not concern his work. But the work
would surely come on. Moods came on him from time to time, which he
recognised were quite the right moods in which to work, in which to
produce great things. His genius was surely ripe now--he must just
concentrate. Some day, very shortly, there would be a great rush, he
should feel himself charged again with the old, fine fire. He would
produce the great work of his life. He felt it coming on--it would be
finished next time I called.

"This is the next time. Shall we go?" asked the Captain.

Accordingly, within a day or two, the small coastwise steamer dropped
her anchor in a shallow bay, off a desert island marked with a cross
on the Captain's chart, and unmarked upon all other charts of the same
waters. All around lay the tranquil spaces of a desolate ocean, and on
the island the thatched roof of a solitary hut showed among the palms.
The Captain went ashore by himself, and presently, after a little
lapse of time, he returned.

"It is finished," he announced briefly, "the great work is finished. I
think it must have been completed several weeks ago. He must have
died several weeks ago. Possibly soon after my last call."

He held out a sheet of paper on which was written one word,
"Beloved."

CHOLERA

IX

CHOLERA

There is cholera in the land, and there is fear of cholera in the
land. Both are bad, though they are different. Those who get cholera
have no fear of it. They are simple people and uneducated, fishermen
and farmers, and little tradesmen, and workers of many kinds. Those
who have fear of cholera have more intelligence, and know what it
means. They have education, and their lives are bigger lives--more
imposing, as it were, and they would safeguard them. Those who are
afraid are the foreigners and the officials, yes, even the Emperor
himself. Is he afraid, the Emperor? One can but guess. He has spent
many weeks of this hot summer, when cholera was ravaging his country,
in his summer palace at Nikko. There he was safe. And cholera spread
itself throughout the land, in the seaports, in the capital, across
the rice-fields to the inland villages, taking its toll here and
there, of little petty lives. But dangerous to the Emperor, thes