y with their oppressors,
joined hands with the Somalis in their advance on our trading posts
along the coast--they did not touch those belonging to the Germans, for
the very good reason that these have none!

I heard Mr Gresham explaining all this one day to Dabby when they were
both sitting in the captain's gig, to which I had been shifted since my
promotion to able seaman; for I was pulling stroke at the time, the boat
taking them ashore to a grand dinner-party given by the British Consul
to the Sultan or some other `big pot' at Zanzibar, off which port the
_Mermaid_ was then lying.

I wondered what led to this queer talk, as none of us on board had heard
anything on the lower deck about any row being imminent; for, of course,
sick of our stagnant life for the last few months, as all of us were,
the inkling of any fight being in the air would have been as welcome to
us as the `flowers of May.'

Still I kept my ears open all the same; and when, the next morning, I
met the captain's steward returning from the galley with a cup of early
cocoa for `old Hankey Pankey,' and he told me that he thought we were
going to be busy soon, the `old man' having directed him to take out his
sword and pistols, and give them to his marine servant to be cleaned up,
I began, as `Gyp' did that time on board the _Saint Vincent_, `to smell
a rat.'

A little later on, my impressions became confirmed; for, just as we were
piped down to breakfast after `wash and scrub decks,' and I was telling
Larrikins, who sat alongside me at the mess-table, what I had heard, the
engine-room gong sounded, and the word was passed to get up steam as
quickly as possible.

`Old Hankey Pankey' did not waste time when he had once got his orders;
and some couple of hours after we had weighed anchor and were rapidly
leaving Zanzibar, with its rows of square stone houses, built with flat
roofs in the eastern style, that front the beautiful curving bay, whose
white sandy beach is washed by water so clear that you can see the
bottom at six fathoms, and which is backed, beyond the warehouses and
mansions of the merchants, by the bright greenery of palm trees and
dates and other rich tropical growths, the beautiful foliage of which
contrasts vividly with the intense whiteness of the buildings and
adjacent shore, offering quite a relief to the eye from the glaring sun
and coppery sky overhead.

"Say, Tom," said Larrikins to me presently, as the two of us, with a lot