jolly useful."

But though Bones worked day and night, read the book of instructions
from cover to cover, and took the whole apparatus to pieces, examining
each part under a strong magnifying glass, he never succeeded either in
transmitting or receiving a message, and the machine was repacked and
stored in the spare cabin, and was never by any chance referred to,
except by Hamilton in his most unpleasant moments.

Bones took an especial delight in the _Wiggle_; it was his very own
ship, and he gave her his best personal attention.

It was Bones who ordered from London especially engraved notepaper
headed "H. M. S. _Komfuru_"--the native name sounded more dignified than
_Wiggle_, and more important than "Launch 36." It was Bones who
installed the little dynamo which--when it worked--lit the cabins and
even supplied power for a miniature searchlight. It was Bones who had
her painted Service grey, and would have added another funnel if
Hamilton had not detected the attempted aggrandizement. Bones claimed
that she was dustproof, waterproof, and torpedo-proof, and Hamilton had
voiced his regret that she was not also fool-proof.

At five o'clock the next morning, when the world was all big hot stars
and shadows, and there was no sound but the whisper of the running river
and the "ha-a-a-a--ha-a-a-a" of breakers, Bones came from his hut,
crossed the parade-ground, and, making his way by the light of a lantern
along the concrete quay--it was the width of an average table--dropped
on to the deck and kicked the custodian of the _Wiggle_ to wakefulness.

Bones's satellite was one Ali Abid, who was variously described as Moor,
Egyptian, Tripolitan, and Bedouin, but was by all ethnological
indications a half-breed Kano, who had spent the greater part of his
life in the service of a professor of bacteriology. This professor was
something of a purist, and the association with Ali Abid, plus a
grounding in the elementary subjects which are taught at St. Joseph's
Mission School, Cape Coast Castle, had given Ali a gravity of demeanour
and a splendour of vocabulary which many better favoured than he might
have envied.

"Arise," quoth Bones, in the cracked bass which he employed whenever he
felt called upon to deliver his inaccurate versions of Oriental poets--

"Arise, for morning in the bowl of night
Has chucked a stone to put the stars to flight.
And lo! and lo!... Get up, Ali; the caravan is moving.
Oh, mak