is thought
processes. It might have saved something if there had.

Then, one day, Weldon sat up for an hour. The next day, he was put
into his clothes and, three days later, supported on the strong arm
of Kruger Bobs, he crawled into a hospital train bound for Cape
Town. It was an order, and he obeyed. Nevertheless, he shrank from
the very mention of Cape Town. It had been the core of his universe;
but now the core had gone bad. But his time of service had expired.
Red tape demanded that he receive the papers for his discharge from
the Cape Town citadel. That done, he would take the first outgoing
steamer for London. Afterwards, he would leave his life in the hands
of Fate. He took no note of the fact that Fate might step into the
game earlier than he then foresaw.

For full seven hundred miles, the train lumbered on to the
southward. It was tedious, exhausting; yet Weldon found a certain
interest in the jar of the rolling wheels to which he fitted the
measure of his whirring thoughts. As long as the rhythm of the
wheels lasted, his thoughts slowed down to meet their time. When the
train halted, his thoughts dashed off again; but they resumed their
slower course as soon as the wheels began once more. He took no note
of the country about him, as they passed from veldt to karroo, from
karroo to the coast plateau, and from the coast plateau down across
the Cape Flats, sparsely covered with pipe grass and acacias. Then,
as Table Mountain and the Devil's Peak lifted themselves on his
right hand, he knew that Cape Town was near, and he braced himself
to go through what was before him.

Kruger Bobs eyed him anxiously.

"Boss sick," he announced for the dozenth time, as the train drew in
at the Adderley Street station. "Boss berry sick mans. Boss go hotel
soon."

But Weldon shook his head. Even now, rest had scant space in his
plans, least of all, rest in Cape Town.

"I can do it," he asserted resolutely. "Steady me till I get
started, Kruger Bobs. Then I shall astonish you by my agility."

"Boss go hotel," Kruger Bobs muttered in low-voiced mutiny. "Boss
too sick to trek."

"No fear. Did you ever know me to give out, when there was something
still to be done, Kruger Bobs?"

"What Boss do?"

"My discharge. My banker. My passage home."

The arm of Kruger Bobs tightened about the bony figure of his
master, but the pressure of his strong arm was only gentle and
reassuring, and the great, white-ringed eyes glittered