t him.

"Men all aboard, sir," he reported.

"We'll go," said Sanders.

He met the girl half-way to the quay. "I know it is something very
serious," she said quietly; "you have all my thoughts." She put both her
hands in his, and he took them. Then, without a word, he left her.

* * * * *

Mr. P. T. Corklan sat before his new hut in the village of Fimini. In
that hut--the greatest the N'gombi had ever seen--were stored hundreds
of packages all well wrapped and sewn in native cloth.

He was not smoking a cigar, because his stock of cigars was running
short, but he was chewing a toothpick, for these, at a pinch, could be
improvised. He called to his headman. "Wafa?" he asked.

"Lord, he will come, for he is very cunning," said the headman.

Mr. Corklan grunted. He walked to the edge of the village, where the
ground sloped down to a strip of vivid green rushes. "Tell me, how long
will this river be full?" he asked.

"Lord, for a moon."

Corklan nodded. Whilst the secret river ran, there was escape for him,
for its meandering course would bring him and his rich cargo to Spanish
territory and deep water.

His headman waited as though he had something to say. "Lord," he said at
last, "the chief of the N'coro village sends this night ten great teeth
and a pot."

Corklan nodded. "If we're here, we'll get 'em. I hope we shall be gone."

And then the tragically unexpected happened. A man in white came through
the trees towards him, and behind was another white man and a platoon of
native soldiers.

"Trouble," said Corklan to himself, and thought the moment was one which
called for a cigar.

"Good-morning, Mr. Sanders!" he said cheerfully.

Sanders eyed him in silence.

"This is an unexpected pleasure," said Corklan.

"Corklan, where is your still?" asked Sanders.

The plump man laughed. "You'll find it way back in the forest," he said,
"and enough sweet potatoes to distil fifty gallons of spirit--all proof,
sir, decimal 1986 specific gravity water extracted by Soemmering's
method--in fact, as good as you could get it in England."

Sanders nodded. "I remember now--you're the man that ran the still in
the Ashanti country, and got away with the concession."

"That's me," said the other complacently. "P. T. Corklan--I never assume
an alias."

Sanders nodded again. "I came past villages," he said, "where every man
and almost every woman was drunk. I have seen villages wiped ou