hould fall
to murdering like a bushman with his poisoned arrows!' And he
stalked away with much dignity, and left me laughing.

Just then the spies whom our host had sent out in the morning
to find out if there were any traces of our Masai friends about,
returned, and reported that the country had been scoured for
fifteen miles round without a single Elmoran being seen, and
that they believed that those gentry had given up the pursuit
and returned whence they came. Mr Mackenzie gave a sigh of relief
when he heard this, and so indeed did we, for we had had quite
enough of the Masai to last us for some time. Indeed, the general
opinion was that, finding we had reached the mission station
in safety, they had, knowing its strength, given up the pursuit
of us as a bad job. How ill-judged that view was the sequel
will show.

After the spies had gone, and Mrs Mackenzie and Flossie had retired
for the night, Alphonse, the little Frenchman, came out, and
Sir Henry, who is a very good French scholar, got him to tell
us how he came to visit Central Africa, which he did in a most
extraordinary lingo, that for the most part I shall not attempt
to reproduce.

'My grandfather,' he began, 'was a soldier of the Guard, and
served under Napoleon. He was in the retreat from Moscow, and
lived for ten days on his own leggings and a pair he stole from
a comrade. He used to get drunk -- he died drunk, and I remember
playing at drums on his coffin. My father --'

Here we suggested that he might skip his ancestry and come to
the point.

'Bien, messieurs!' replied this comical little man, with a polite
bow. 'I did only wish to demonstrate that the military principle
is not hereditary. My grandfather was a splendid man, six feet
two high, broad in proportion, a swallower of fire and gaiters.
Also he was remarkable for his moustache. To me there remains
the moustache and -- nothing more.

'I am, messieurs, a cook, and I was born at Marseilles. In that
dear town I spent my happy youth. For years and years I washed
the dishes at the Hotel Continental. Ah, those were golden days!'
and he sighed. 'I am a Frenchman. Need I say, messieurs, that
I admire beauty? Nay, I adore the fair. Messieurs, we admire
all the roses in a garden, but we pluck one. I plucked one,
and alas, messieurs, it pricked my finger. She was a chambermaid,
her name Annette, her figure ravishing, her face an angel's,
her heart -- alas, messieurs, that I