We were for the most part a queer lot out on that desolate southwest African coast, in charge of the various trading stations that were  scattered along the coast, from the Gaboon River, past the mouth of  the mighty Congo, to the Portuguese city of St. Paul de Loanda. A  mixture of all sorts, especially bad sorts: broken-down clerks, men  who could not succeed anywhere else, sailors, youths, and some whose  characters would not have borne any investigation; and we very nearly  all drank hard, and those who didn't drink hard took more than was  good for them.     

  I don't know exactly what induced me to go out there. I was young for  one thing, the country was unknown, the berth was vacant, and the  conditions of it easy.     

  Imagine a high rocky point or headland, stretching out sideways into  the sea, and at its base a small river winding into a country that was  seemingly a blank in regard to inhabitants or cultivation; a land  continuing for miles and miles, as far as the eye could see, one  expanse of long yellow grass, dotted here and there with groups of  bastard palms. In front of the headland rolled the lonely South  Atlantic; and, as if such conditions were not dispiriting enough to  existence upon the Point, there was yet another feature which at times  gave the place a still more ghastly look. A long way off the shore,  the heaving surface of the ocean began, in anything like bad weather,  to break upon the shoals of the coast. Viewed from the top of the  rock, the sea at such times looked, for at least two miles out, as if  it were scored over with lines of white foam; but lower down, near the  beach, each roller could be distinctly seen, and each roller had a  curve of many feet, and was an enormous mass of water that hurled  itself shoreward until it curled and broke.     

  When I first arrived on the Point there was, I may say, only one house  upon it, and that belonged to Messrs. Flint Brothers, of Liverpool. It  was occupied by one solitary man named Jackson; he had had an  assistant, but the assistant had died of fever, and I was sent to  replace him. Jackson was a man of fifty at least, who had been a  sailor before he had become an African trader. His face bore testimony  to the winds and weather it had encountered, and wore habitually a  grave, if not melancholy, expression. He was rough but kind to me, and  though strict was just, which was no common feature in an old African  hand to one who had just arrived on the coast.     

  He kept the factory--we called all houses on the coast factories--as  neat and clean as if it had been a ship. He had the floor of the  portion we dwelt in holystoned every week; and numberless little racks  and shelves were fitted up all over the house. The outside walls  glittered with paint, and the yard was swept clean every morning; and  every Sunday, at eight o'clock and sunset, the ensign was hoisted and  lowered, and an old cannon fired at the word of command. Order and  rule were with Jackson observed from habit, and were strictly enforced  by him on all the natives employed in the factory.     

  Although I have said the country looked as if uninhabited, there were  numerous villages hidden away in the long grass and brushwood,  invisible at a distance, being huts of thatch or mud, and not so high  as the grass among which they were placed. From these villages came  most of our servants, and also the middlemen, who acted as brokers  between us, the white men, and the negroes who brought ivory and gum  and india-rubber from the far interior for sale. Our trade was  principally in ivory, and when an unusually large number of elephants'  tusks arrived upon the Point for sale, it would be crowded with  Bushmen, strange and uncouth, and hideously ugly, and armed, and then  we would be very busy; for sometimes as many as two hundred tusks  would be brought to us at the same time, and each of these had to be  bargained for and paid for by exchange of cotton cloths, guns, knives,  powder, and a host of small wares.     

  For some time after my arrival our factory, along with the others on  the coast belonging to Messrs. Flint Brothers, was very well supplied  by them with goods for the trade; but by degrees their shipments  became less frequent, and small when they did come. In spite of  repeated letters we could gain no reason from the firm for this fact,  nor could the other factories, and gradually we found ourselves with  an empty storehouse, and nearly all our goods gone. Then followed a  weary interval, during which we had nothing whatever to do, and day  succeeded day through the long hot season. It was now that I began to  feel that Jackson had become of late more silent and reserved with me  than ever he had been. I noticed, too, that he had contracted a habit  of wandering out to the extreme end of the Point, where he would sit  for hours gazing upon the ocean before him. In addition to this, he  grew morose and uncertain in his temper toward the natives, and  sometimes he would fall asleep in the evenings on a sofa, and talk to  himself at such a rate while asleep that I would grow frightened and  wake him, when he would stare about him for a little until he gathered  consciousness, and then he would stagger off to bed to fall asleep  again almost immediately. Also, his hands trembled much, and he began  to lose flesh. All this troubled me, for his own sake as well as my  own, and I resolved to ask him to see the doctor of the next mail-  steamer that came. With this idea I went one day to the end of the  Point, and found him in his usual attitude, seated on the long grass,  looking seaward. He did not hear me approach, and when I spoke he  started to his feet, and demanded fiercely why I disturbed him. I  replied, as mildly as I could, for I was rather afraid of the  glittering look that was in his eyes, that I wished to ask him if he  did not feel ill.     

  He regarded me with a steady but softened glance for a little, and  then said:     

  "My lad, I thank you for your trouble; but I want no doctor. Do you  think I'm looking ill?"     

  "Indeed you are," I answered, "ill and thin; and, do you know, I hear  you talk to yourself in your sleep nearly every night."     

  "What do I say?" he asked eagerly.     

  "That I cannot tell," I replied. "It is all rambling talk; the same  things over and over again, and nearly all about one person--Lucy."     

  "Boy!" he cried out, as if in pain, or as if something had touched him  to the quick, "sit you down, and I'll tell you why I think of her--she  was my wife."     

  He moved nearer to the edge of the cliff, and we sat down, almost over  the restless sea beneath us.     

  "She lives in my memory," he continued, speaking more to himself than  to me, and looking far out to the horizon, beneath which the setting  sun had begun to sink, "in spite of all I can do or think of to make  her appear base in my eyes. For she left me to go with another man--a  scoundrel. This was how it was," he added, quickly: "I married her,  and thought her as pure as a flower; but I could not take her to sea  with me because I was only the mate of a vessel, so I left her among  her own friends, in the village where she was born. In a little  cottage by herself I settled her, comfortable and happy as I thought.  God! how she hung round my neck and sobbed when I went away the first  time! and yet--yet--within a year she left me." And he stopped for  several minutes, resting his head upon his hands. "At first I could  get no trace of her," he resumed. "Her friends knew nothing more of  her than that she had left the village suddenly. Gradually I found out  the name of the scoundrel who had seduced her away. He had bribed her  friends so that they were silent; but I overbribed them with the last  money I had, and I followed him and my wife on foot. I never found  them, nor did I ever know why she had deserted me for him. If I had  only known the reason; if I could have been told of my fault; if she  had only written to say that she was tired of me; that I was too old,  too rough for her soft ways,--I think I could have borne the heavy  stroke the villain had dealt me better. The end of my search was that  I dropped down in the streets of Liverpool, whither I thought I had  tracked them, and was carried to the hospital with brain-fever upon  me. Two months afterward I came out cured, and the sense of my loss  was deadened within me, so that I could go to sea again, which I did,  before the mast, under the name of Jackson, in a bark that traded to  this coast here." And the old sailor rose to his feet and turned  abruptly away, leaving me sitting alone.     

  I saw that he did not wish to be followed, so I stayed where I was and  watched the gray twilight creep over the face of the sea, and the  night quickly succeed to it. Not a cloud had been in the sky all day  long, and as the darkness increased the stars came out, until the  whole heavens were studded with glittering gems.     

  Suddenly, low down, close to the sea, a point of light flickered and  disappeared, shone again for a moment, wavered and went out, only to  reappear and shine steadily. "A steamer's masthead light," I thought,  and ran to the house to give the news; but Jackson had already seen  the light, and pronounced that she had anchored until the morning. At  daybreak there she was, dipping her sides to the swell of the sea as  it rolled beneath her. It was my duty to go off to her in one of the  surf-boats belonging to the factory; and so I scrambled down the cliff  to the little strip of smooth beach that served us for a landing-  place.     

  When I arrived there I found that the white-crested breakers were  heavier than I had thought they would be. However, there was the boat  lying on the beach with its prow toward the waves, and round it were  the boat-boys with their loincloths girded, ready to start; so I  clambered into the stern, or rather--for the boat was shaped alike at  stem and stern--the end from which the steersman, or /patrao/, used  his long oar. With a shout the boys laid hold of the sides of the  boat, and the next moment it was dancing on the spent waves next to  the beach. The patrao kept its head steady, and the boys jumped in and  seized the oars, and began pulling with a will, standing up to their  stroke. Slowly the heavy craft gathered way, and approached a dark and  unbroken roller that hastened toward the beach. Then the patrao  shouted to the crew, and they lay on their oars, and the wave with a  roar burst right in front of the boat, sending the spray of its crest  high above our heads.     

  "/Rema! rema forca!/" ("Row strongly!") now shouted the patrao,  speaking Portuguese, as mostly all African coast natives do; and the  crew gave way. The next roller we had to meet in its strength; and  save for the steady force of the patrao's oar, I believe it would have  tossed us aside and we would have been swept under its curving wall of  water. As it was, the good boat gave a mighty bound as it felt its  force, and its stem pitched high into the air as it slid down its  broad back into the deep.     

  Another and yet another wave were passed, and we could now see them  breaking behind us, shutting out the beach from view. Then the last  roller was overcome, and there was nothing but the long heave of the  deep sea to contend against. Presently we arrived at the steamer,  whose side towered above us--an iron wall.     

  A shout came to me, pitching and lurching with the boat far below,  "Come on board at once." But to come on board was only to be done by  watching a chance as the boat rose on the top of a roller. Taking such  a one, I seized the side-ropes, swung a moment in mid-air, and the  next was on the streamer's clean white deck. Before me stood a tall  man with black hair and whiskers and dark piercing eyes, who asked me  if I was the agent for Flint Brothers. I answered that the agent was  on shore, and that I was his assistant. Whereupon he informed me that  he had been appointed by the firm to liquidate all their stations and  businesses on the coast, and "he would be obliged by my getting his  luggage into the boat." This was said in a peremptory sort of way, as  if he had spoken to a servant; and very much against the grain I  obeyed his orders.     

  That the man was new to the coast was evident, and my consolation was  that he would be very soon sick of it and pretty well frightened  before he even got on shore, for the weather was freshening rapidly, a  fact of which he appeared to take no heed. Not so the boat-boys, who  were anxious to be off. At last we started, and I soon had my revenge.  As we drew near the shore the rollers became higher and higher, and I  perceived that my gentleman clutched the gunwale of the boat very  tightly, and when the first wave that showed signs of breaking  overtook us, he grew very white in the face until it had passed.     

  The next one or two breakers were small, much to his relief I could  see, though he said nothing. Before he had well recovered his  equanimity, however, a tremendous wave approached us somewhat  suddenly. Appalled by its threatening aspect, he sprang from his seat  and seized the arm of the patrao, who roughly shook him off.     

  "My God!" he cried, "we are swamped!" and for the moment it really  looked like it; but the patrao, with a dexterous sweep of his long  oar, turned the boat's head toward the roller. It broke just as it  reached us, and gave us the benefit of its crest, which came in over  the topsides of the boat as it passed by, and deluged every one of us.     

  I laughed, although it was no laughing matter, at the plight the  liquidator was now in. He was changed in a moment from the spruce and  natty personage into a miserable and draggled being. From every part  of him the salt water was streaming, and the curl was completely taken  out of his whiskers. He could not speak from terror, which the boat-  boys soon saw, for none are quicker than negroes to detect signs of  fear in those whom they are accustomed to consider superior to  themselves. Familiar with the surf, and full of mischievous fun, they  began to shout and gesticulate with the settled purpose of making  matters appear worse than they were, and of enjoying the white man's  discomfiture,--all but the patrao, who was an old hand, and on whom  depended the safety of us all. He kept a steady lookout seaward, and  stood upright and firm, grasping his oar with both hands. With him it  was a point of honour to bring the white men intrusted to his care  safely through the surf.     

  We waited for more than half an hour, bow on, meeting each roller as  it came to us; and by the end of that time the unfortunate liquidator  had evidently given up all hope of ever reaching the shore. Luckily,  the worst was soon to pass. After one last tremendous wave there was a  lull for a few moments, and the patrao, who had watched for such a  chance, swiftly turned the boat round, and giving the word to the  crew, they pulled lustily toward the shore. In a few minutes we were  again in safety. The boat grounded on the beach, the oars were tossed  into the sea; the crew sprang overboard; some of them seized the new  arrival; I clambered on the back of the patrao; a crowd of negroes,  who had been waiting on the beach, laid hold of the tow-rope of the  boat, and it and we were landed simultaneously on the dry sand.     

  Once on shore Mr. Bransome, for that was the new man's name, rapidly  recovered his presence of mind and manner, and, by way of covering his  past confusion, remarked that he supposed the surf was seldom so bad  as it then was. I replied in an offhand way, meaning to make fun of  him, that what he had passed through was nothing, and appealed to the  patrao to confirm what I had said. That negro, seeing the joke,  grinned all over his black face; and Mr. Bransome, perceiving that he  was being laughed at, snatched a good-sized stick from a native  standing near, and struck the patrao repeatedly over the back.     

  In vain Sooka, for that was the patrao's name, protested, and demanded  to know what wrong thing he had done. The agent was furious, and  showered his blows upon the black. Equally in vain I shouted that  Sooka had done well by us, and that he, Mr. Bransome, was making an  enemy of a man who would have him now and then in his power. At length  Sooka took to his heels, and sure enough, when he had got a little way  off, he began to threaten vengeance for what he had received. I  sympathised with him, for I knew what a loss to his dignity it was to  be beaten without cause before his fellows, and I feared that Mr.  Bransome would indeed be sorry, sooner or later, for what he had done.     

  I now suggested to him, by way of diverting his thoughts from poor  Sooka, that standing on the beach in wet clothes was the very way to  catch the coast-fever straight off, and he instantly suffered himself  to be carried up the factory. There Jackson received him in a sort of  "who on earth are you?" manner; and Mr. Bransome, clearing his throat,  announced himself and his authority, adding that he intended to make  the factory a point of departure to all the others on the coast; then,  very abruptly, he requested Jackson to prepare quarters for him  without delay.     

  The change that came over Jackson's face as he learned the quality of  the stranger and his requests was great. The old salt, who had been  king of his house and of the Point for so long a time, had evidently  never even thought of the probability of such an intrusion as was now  presented to him, and he was amazed at what he considered to be the  unwarrantable assurance of the stranger. However, he recovered himself  smartly, and asked the new man if he had any written credentials.     

  "Certainly," replied he, pulling out a document all wet with salt  water. "Here is a letter from Messrs. Flint Brothers, of which, no  doubt, you will have a copy in your mail-bag."     

  Jackson took the letter and opened it, and seemed to read it slowly to  himself. All at once he started, looked at the new agent, advanced a  step or two toward him, muttering, "Bransome, Bransome," then stopped  and asked him in a strange constrained voice, "Is /your/ name  Bransome?"     

  "Yes," replied the latter, astonished at the old man's question.     

  "I knew a Bransome once," said Jackson, steadily, "and he was a  scoundrel."     

  For a moment the two men looked at each other--Jackson with a gleam of  hatred in his eyes, while Bransome had a curiously frightened  expression on his face, which blanched slightly. But he quickly  resumed his composure and peremptory way, and said, "Show me a room; I  must get these wet things off me."     

  As, however, he addressed himself this time to me rather than to  Jackson,--who, indeed, regarded him no longer, but stood with the  letter loose in his hand, looking at the floor of the room, as if in  deep meditation,--I showed him into my own room, where I ordered his  trunks to be brought. These, of course, were wet; but he found some  things in the middle of them that were not more than slightly damp,  and with the help of a pair of old canvas trousers of mine he managed  to make his appearance at dinner-time.     

  Jackson was not at the meal. He had left the house shortly after his  interview with the new agent, and had, I fancied, gone on one of his  solitary rambles. At any rate he did not return until late that night.     

  I thought Mr. Bransome seemed to be somewhat relieved when he saw that  the old man was not coming; and he became more affable than I had  expected him to be, and relinquished his arrogant style altogether  when he began to question me about Jackson--who he was? what had he  been? how long he had lived on the coast? To all which questions I  returned cautious answers, remembering that I was under a promise to  the old man not to repeat his story.     

  By the next morning, to my surprise, Jackson appeared to have become  reconciled to the fact that he had been superseded by a man who knew  nothing of the coast, and of his own accord he offered to tell Mr.  Bransome the clues to the letter-locks on the doors of the various  store-rooms; for we on the coast used none but letter-locks, which are  locks that do not require a key to open them. But Mr. Bransome  expressed, most politely, a wish that Jackson should consider himself  still in charge of the factory, at any rate until the whole estate of  the unfortunate Flint Brothers could be wound up; and he trusted that  his presence would make no difference to him.     

  This was a change, on the part of both men, from the manners of the  previous day; and yet I could not help thinking that each but ill  concealed his aversion to the other.     

  Months now slipped away, and Mr. Bransome was occupied in going up and  down the coast in a little steamer, shutting up factory after factory,  transferring their goods to ours, and getting himself much disliked by  all the Europeans under him, and hated by the natives, especially by  the boat-boys, who were a race or tribe by themselves, coming from one  particular part of the coast. He had, of course, been obliged to order  the dismissal of many of them, and this was one reason why they hated  him; but the chief cause was his treatment of Sooka, the patrao. That  man never forgave Mr. Bransome for beating him so unjustly; and the  news of the deed had travelled very quickly, as news does in savage  countries, so that I think nearly all of Sooka's countrymen knew of  the act and resented it.     

  Mr. Bransome was quite unaware of the antipathy he had thus created  toward himself, except so far as Sooka was concerned; and him he never  employed when he had to go off to vessels or land from them, but  always went in the other boat belonging to the factory, which was  steered by a much younger negro. In addition to humbling Sooka in this  way, Bransome took the opportunity of disgracing him whenever he could  do so. Therefore, one day when two pieces of cloth from the cargo-room  were found in the boatmen's huts, it was no surprise to me that Sooka  was at once fastened upon by Mr. Bransome as the thief who had stolen  them, and that he was tied to the flogging-post in the middle of the  yard, and sentenced to receive fifty lashes with the cat that was kept  for such a purpose, and all without any inquiry being made. In vain  did the unfortunate man protest his innocence. A swarthy Kroot-boy  from Cape Coast laid the cat on his brown shoulders right willingly,  for he also was an enemy of Sooka's; and in a few minutes the poor  fellow's flesh was cut and scored as if by a knife.     

  After the flogging was over Mr. Bransome amused himself by getting out  his rifle and firing fancy shots at Sooka, still tied to the post;  that is, he tried to put the bullets as close to the poor wretch as he  could without actually wounding him. To a negro, with his dread of  firearms, this was little short of absolute torture, and at each  discharge Sooka writhed and crouched as close to the ground as he  could, while his wide-opened eyes and mouth, and face of almost a  slate colour, showed how terribly frightened he was. To Mr. Bransome  it appeared to be fine sport, for he fired at least twenty shots at  the man before he shouldered his rifle and went indoors. Jackson said  nothing to this stupid exhibition of temper, but as soon as it was  over he had Sooka released; and I knew he attended to his wounds  himself, and poured friar's balsam into them, and covered his back  with a soft shirt--for all which, no doubt, the negro was afterward  grateful. Whether Mr. Bransome got to know of this, and was offended  at it, I do not know, but shortly afterward he ceased to live with us.     

  There was between the factory and the sea, and a little to the right  of the former, a small wooden cottage which had been allowed to fall  into a dilapidated state from want of some one to live in it. This Mr.  Bransome gave orders to the native carpenters to repair and make  weather-tight; and when they had done so, he caused a quantity of  furniture to be brought from St. Paul de Loanda and placed within in  it. Then he transferred himself and his baggage to the cottage.     

  Jackson displayed complete indifference to this change on the part of  the agent. In fact, there had been, ever since the arrival of the  latter upon the Point, and in spite of apparent friendliness, a  perceptible breach, widening daily, between the two men. As to the  reason of this I had my own suspicions, for I had made the discovery  that Jackson had for some time past been drinking very heavily.     

  In addition to the brandy which we white men had for our own use, I  had, to my horror, found out that he was secretly drinking the coarse  and fiery rum that was sold to the natives; and as I remembered the  mutterings and moanings that had formerly alarmed me, I wondered that  I had not guessed the cause of them at the time; but until the arrival  of Mr. Bransome, Jackson had always kept charge of the spirits  himself, and he was such a secret old fellow that there was no knowing  what he had then taken. Now that I was aware of his failing, I was  very sorry for the old sailor; for on such a coast and in such a  climate there was only one end to it; and although I could not  actually prevent him from taking the liquor, I resolved to watch him,  and if such symptoms as I had seen before again appeared, to tell Mr.  Bransome of them at all hazards. But I was too late to prevent what  speedily followed my discovery. It had come about that the same mail-  steamer that had brought out Mr. Bransome had again anchored off the  Point, and again the weather was coarse and lowering. A stiff breeze  had blown for some days, which made the rollers worse than they had  been for a long while. Both Mr. Bransome and Jackson watched the  weather with eager looks, but each was differently affected by it.  Bransome appeared to be anxious and nervous, while Jackson was  excited, and paced up and down the veranda, and kept, strange to say,  for it was contrary to his late habit, a watch upon Bransome's every  movement.     

  Every now and then, too, he would rub his hands together as if in  eager expectation, and would chuckle to himself as he glanced seaward.  Of his own accord he gave orders to Sooka to get both the surf-boats  ready for launching, and to make the boys put on their newest loin-  cloths; and then, when everything was in readiness, he asked Bransome  if he was going off to the steamer.     

  "I fear I must," said Bransome; "but I--I don't like the look of those  cursed rollers."     

  At this Jackson laughed, and said something about "being afraid of  very little."     

  "The beach is perfectly good," he added; "Sooka knows, and Sooka is  the oldest patrao on the Point."     

  And Sooka, who was standing by, made a low obeisance to the agent, and  said that "the beach lived for well," which was his way of expressing  in English that the sea was not heavy.     

  At that moment a gun was fired from the steamer as a signal to be  quick, and Bransome said, "I will go, but not in that black  blackguard's boat; it need not come," and he went down to the beach.     

  It was one of Jackson's rules that when a boat went through the surf  there should be some one to watch it, so I walked to the end of the  Point to see the agent put off. He got away safely; and I, seeing  Sooka's boat lying on the beach, and thinking that it would be as well  to have it hauled up under the boat-shed, was on the point of  returning to the factory to give the necessary order, when, to my  surprise, I saw the boat's crew rush down the beach to the boat and  begin to push it toward the sea.     

  I waved my arms as a signal to them to stop, but they paid no  attention to me; and I saw them run the boat into the water, jump into  her, and pull off, all singing a song to their stroke in their own  language, the sound of which came faintly up to the top of the Point.  "Stupid fellows!" I muttered to myself, "they might have known that  the boat was not wanted;" and I was again about to turn away, when I  was suddenly seized from behind, and carried to the very edge of the  cliff, and then as suddenly released.     

  I sprang to one side, and turning round saw Jackson, with a look of  such savage fury on his face that I retreated a step or two in  astonishment at him. He perceived my alarm, and burst out into a fit  of laughter, which, instead of reassuring me, had the opposite effect,  it was so demoniacal in character. "Ha! ha!" he laughed again, "are  you frightened?" and advancing toward me, he put his face close to  mine, peering into it with bloodshot eyes, while his breath, reeking  of spirits, poured into my nostrils.     

  Involuntarily I put up my arm to keep him off. He clutched it, and,  pointing with his other hand to the sea, whispered hoarsely, "What do  you hear of the surf? Will the breakers be heavier before sundown? See  how they begin to curve! Listen how they already thunder, thunder, on  the beach! I tell you they are impatient--they seek some one," he  shouted. "Do you know," he continued, lowering his voice again, and  speaking almost confidentially, "sooner or later some one is drowned  upon that bar?" And even as he spoke a fresh line of breakers arose  from the deep, farther out than any had been before. This much I  observed, but I was too greatly unnerved by the strange manner of  Jackson to pay further heed to the sea. It had flashed across my mind  that he was on the verge of an attack of delirium tremens, from the  effects of the liquor he had been consuming for so long, and the  problem was to get him back to the house quietly.     

  Suddenly a thought struck me. Putting my arm within his, I said, as  coolly as I could, "Never mind the sea, Jackson; let us have a  /matabicho/" (our local expression for a "drink"). He took the bait,  and came away quietly enough to the house. Once there, I enticed him  into the dining-room, and shutting to the door quickly, I locked it on  the outside, resolving to keep him there until Mr. Bransome should  return; for, being alone, I was afraid of him.     

  Then I went back to the end of the Point to look for the return of the  two boats. When I reached it I saw that the rollers had increased in  size in the short time that I had been absent, and that they were  breaking, one after another, as fast as they could come shoreward; not  pygmy waves, but great walls of water along their huge length before  they fell.     

  A surf such as I had never yet seen had arisen. I stood and anxiously  watched through a glass the boats at the steamer's side, and at  length, to my relief, I saw one of them leave her, but as it came near  I saw, to my surprise, that Mr. Bransome was not in the boat, and that  it was not the one that Sooka steered. Quickly it was overtaken by the  breakers, but escaped their power, and came inshore on the back of a  majestic roller that did not break until it was close to the beach,  where the boat was in safety.     

  Not without vague apprehension at his imprudence, but still not  anticipating any actual harm from it, I thought that Mr. Bransome had  chosen to come back in Sooka's boat, and I waited and waited to see  /it/ return, although the daylight had now so waned that I could no  longer distinguish what was going on alongside the steamer. At last I  caught sight of the boat, a white speck upon the waters, and, just as  it entered upon the dangerous part of the bar, I discerned to my  infinite amazement, that two figures were seated in the stern--a man  and a woman--a white woman; I could see her dress fluttering in the  wind, and Sooka's black figure standing behind her.     

  On came the boat, impelled by the swift-flowing seas, for a quarter of  an hour it was tossed on the crests of the waves. Again and again it  rose and sank with them as they came rolling in, but somehow, after a  little further time, it seemed to me that it did not make such way  toward the shore as it should have done.     

  I lifted the glass to my eyes, and I saw that the boys were hardly  pulling at all, though the boat was not close to the rocks that were  near the cliff. Nor did Sooka seem to be conscious of a huge roller  that was swiftly approaching him. In my excitement I was just on the  point of shouting to warn those in the boat of their danger, although  I knew that they could not understand what I might say, when I saw  Jackson standing on the edge of the cliff, a little way off, dressed  in his shirt and trousers only. He had escaped from the house! He  perceived that I saw him, and came running up on me, and I threw  myself on my guard. However, he did not attempt to touch me, but  stopped and cried:     

  "Did I not tell you that somebody would be drowned by those waves?  Watch that boat! watch it! it is doomed; and the scoundrel, the  villain, who is in it will never reach the shore alive!" and he hissed  the last word through his clenched teeth.     

  "Good God, Jackson!" I said, "don't say that! Look, there is a white  woman in the boat!"     

  At the words his jaw dropped, his form, which a moment before had  swayed with excitement, became rigid, and his eyes stared at me as if  he knew, but comprehended not, what I had said. Then he slowly turned  his face toward the sea, and, as he did so, the mighty breaker that  had been coming up astern of the boat curled over it. For a moment or  two it rushed forward, a solid body of water, carrying the boat with  it; and in those moments I saw, to my horror, Sooka give one sweep  with his oar, which threw the boat's side toward the roller. I saw the  boat-boys leap clear of the boat into the surf; I saw the agonised  faces of the man and the woman upturned to the wave above them, and  then the billow broke, and nothing was seen but a sheet of frothy  water. The boat and those in it had disappeared. For the crew I had  little concern--I knew they would come ashore safely enough; but for  Mr. Bransome and the woman, whoever she was, there was little hope.  They had not had time to throw themselves into the sea before the boat  had capsized, and their clothing would sink them in such a surf, even  if they had escaped being crushed by the boat. Besides, I feared there  had been some foul play on the part of Sooka. Quickly as he had done  it, I had seen him with his oar put the boat beyond the possibility of  escaping from the wave, and I remembered how he had been treated by  Bransome.     

  With such thoughts I ran along the cliff to the pathway that led down  to the beach; and as I ran, I saw Jackson running before me, not  steadily or rightly, but heavily, and swaying from side to side as he  went. Quickly I passed him, but he gave no sign that he knew any one  was near him; and as I leaped down on to the first ledge of rock below  me, I saw that he was not following me, but had disappeared among the  brushwood.     

  When I got down to the beach, I found that the boat's crew had reached  the shore in safety, but of the two passengers nothing had been seen.  The capsized boat was sometimes visible as it lifted on the rollers,  but through my glass I saw that no one was clinging to it. I called  for Sooka, but Sooka was missing. Every one had seen him land, but he  had disappeared mysteriously. In vain I questioned the other boys as  to the cause of the disaster. The only answer I could get out of them  was an appeal to look to the sea and judge for myself. The woman was a  white woman from the big ship, was all they could say about her; and,  negro-like, they evidently considered the loss of a woman or so of  very little consequence.     

  All I could do was to set a watch along the beach to look for the  bodies when they should be washed ashore, and this done, I returned to  the factory. My next desire was to find Sooka. He could hardly have  gone far, so I sent for a runner to take a message to the native king  under whose protection we on the Point were, and after whom the Point  was called, and who was bound to find the missing man for me if he  could, or if he had not been bribed to let him pass.     

  In my sorrow at what had happened, and in my doubt as to the cause of  it, I had forgotten all about Jackson; but after I had despatched my  messenger to the king, I went to look for him. I discovered him  crouching in a corner of his own bedroom in the dark.     

  "Are they found?" he asked, in a voice so hollow and broken that I  hardly knew it; and before I could answer him, he whispered to  himself, "No, no; they are drowned--drowned."     

  I tried to lead him into the lighted dining-room, but he only crouched  the closer to his corner. At length by the promise of the ever-potent  temptation, liquor, I got him to leave the room. He could scarcely  walk, though, now, and he trembled so violently that I was glad to  give him part of a bottle of brandy that I had by me. He filled a  tumbler half full of the spirits, and drank it off. This put strength  into him, and for a little he was calm; but as he again and again  applied himself to the bottle, he became drunk, and swore at me for my  impudence in giving orders without his sanction. On this I tried to  take the bottle from him, but he clutched it so firmly that I had to  let it go; whereupon he immediately put it to his lips and swallowed  the rest of the liquor that was in it. After which he gave a chuckle,  and staggered to a couch, on which he tumbled, and lay with his eyes  open for a long while. At last he fell asleep, but I was too nervous  to do likewise, and sat watching him the most of the night; at least,  when I awoke it was daylight, and it seemed to me that I had been  asleep for a few minutes.     

  Jackson was still lying on the couch, and his face was calm and  peaceful as he softly breathed. The morning, too, was fine, and as I  walked on to the veranda I saw the sea sparkling in the sunlight, and  there was not a sound from it save a far-off and drowsy murmur. Not a  sign remained on its broad surface of the wrath of the day before. It  was wonderfully calm. Lying here and there on the veranda, rolled up  in their clothes, were the servants of the factory, sleeping soundly  on the hard planks.     

  Presently, as the sun rose in the heavens and warmed the air, the  place began to show signs of life, and one of the watch that I had set  on the beach came running across the yard to tell me that the bodies  had come ashore.     

  Immediately upon hearing this I called the hammock-bearers together,  and going down to the beach, I went a considerable way along it toward  a dark spot, which I knew to be a group of natives. On coming up to  the group, I found at least fifty negroes collected round the drowned  man and woman, all chattering and squabbling among themselves, and  probably over the plunder, for I saw that the bodies had been stripped  to their underclothing. Rushing into the crowd, with the aid of a  stick I dispersed it, so far as to make the wretches stand back. The  man, of course, was Bransome, there was no doubt as to that, although  he had received a terrible blow on the left temple, most likely from  the pointed stem of the boat as it had toppled over upon him, and his  face was distorted and twisted to one side. The woman was evidently  English, young and pretty, although her long hair, heavy and wet, was  polluted by the sand that stuck to it, and her half-open eyes were  filled with the same. On her lips there lingered a slight smile. She  was of middle height, of slender figure, and delicately nurtured, as  the small bare feet and little hands showed. As I looked at the latter  I saw a wedding-ring on her finger, and I thought, "It is Bransome's  wife." I tried to take the ring away, but it would not come off her  finger--which I might have known, because the natives would not have  left it there had they been able to remove it. I then ordered the  bearers to lay the bodies in the hammocks; and that done, our little  party wended its way along the shore homeward, while the natives I had  dispersed followed one after another in African fashion.     

  Arrived at the factory, I bade the boys place the bodies side by side  on a spare bed in an empty room, and then I sent them to dig a grave  in the little burial-ground on the Point, where two or three worm-  eaten wooden crosses marked the resting-places of former agents of  Messrs. Flint Brothers.     

  As quick interment was necessary in such a climate, even on that very  day, I went to call Jackson in order that he might perform the duty  that was his--that of reading the burial service over the dead, and of  sealing up the desk and effects of Mr. Bransome. But Jackson was not  in the factory. I guessed, however, where he was; and sure enough I  found him in his accustomed haunt at the end of the Point. The moment  he saw me he tried to hide himself among the brushwood, but I was too  quick for him, and spied him as he crouched behind a dwarf palm.     

  "I know, I know," he cried, as I ran up to him; "I saw you come along  the beach. Bury them, bury them out of sight."     

  "Come, Mr. Jackson," I replied, "it isn't fair to put all the trouble  on to me. I am sure I have had enough of the weariness and anxiety of  this sad business. You must take your share of it. I want you to read  the service for the dead over them."     

  "No, no," he almost shrieked; "bury them quick; never mind me. Put  them out of sight."     

  "I will not," I said, resolutely. "For your own sake you must, at any  rate, view the bodies."     

  "They have not been murdered?" He replied. But the startled look with  which I received the suggestion his words implied seemed to make him  recollect himself, for he rose and took my arm without saying more. As  he did so, I felt for the first time a sort of repugnance toward him.  Up to that moment my feeling had been one of pity and anxiety on his  account, but now I loathed him. This he seemed instinctively to feel,  and he clung closely to me.     

  Once at the factory I determined that there should be no more delay on  his part, and I took him to the door of the room where the bodies had  been laid, but at it he made a sudden halt and would not enter.  Covering his face with his hands, he trembled violently as I pushed  the door open and advanced to the bedside. The room, hushed and in  semi-darkness; the white sheet, whose surface showed too plainly the  forms beneath it; and the scared, terrified face of the man who, with  brain afire, stood watching, with staring eyes, the bed, made a scene  I have never forgotten.     

  Slowly I turned down the upper part of the sheet, and Jackson, as if  fascinated by the act, advanced a step or two into the room, but with  face averted. Gradually he turned it toward the bodies, and for a  moment his gaze rested upon them. The next instant he staggered  forward, looked at the woman's face, panted for breath once or twice,  and then, with uplifted hands and a wild cry of "Lucy!" fell his  length upon the floor. When I stooped over him he was in convulsions,  and dark matter was oozing out of his mouth. The climax had come. I  shouted for the servants, and they carried him to his own room, and  placed him on his own bed.     

  How I got through that day I hardly know. Alone I buried Bransome and  his wife, and alone I returned from the hurried task to watch by  Jackson's bedside. None of the natives would stay near him. For two  days he lay unconscious. At the end of that time he seemed to have  some idea of the outside world, for his eyes met mine with  intelligence in their look, and on bending over him I heard him  whisper, "Forgive me!" Then he relapsed into unconsciousness again.  Through the long hours his eyes remained ever open and restless; he  could not eat, nor did he sleep, and I was afraid he would pass away  through weakness without a sign, being an old man. On the third day he  became delirious, and commenced chattering and talking to himself, and  imagining that all kinds of horrid shapes and creatures were around  and near him. I had to watch him narrowly in order to prevent him  stealing out of his bed, which he was ready to do at any moment to  avoid the tortures which he fearfully imagined awaited him. By these  signs I knew that he was in the middle of an attack of delirium  tremens, and I tried to quiet him by means of laudanum, but it had no  effect upon him. I got him, however, to swallow a little soup, which  sustained him. My own boy was the only negro I had been able to induce  to stay in the room, and he would only remain in it while I was there.     

  I had sent a messenger to the nearest station, where I remembered  there was a Portuguese doctor; but he had not returned by the evening  of the fourth day. That night, worn out with watching, I had dozed off  to sleep on a chair placed by the sick man's bed, when all at once I  was awakened by a loud report, and I jumped up to find the room filled  with smoke. As it cleared away I saw that Jackson was standing in the  middle of the room with a revolver in his hand. As I confronted him he  laughed a devilish laugh and cocked the weapon, crying as he did so,  "It was you who tempted me with your smooth face and unsuspicious way,  and you shall die, though I suffer doubly in hell for it. Hist!" and  he stopped suddenly and listened. "Don't you hear the breakers? Hark,  how they roar! They say they are ready, always ready," and staring in  front of him, he advanced, as if following the sign of an invisible  hand, to the door, unconsciously placing, to my infinite relief, the  revolver on the top of a chest of drawers as he passed by it. I did  not dare to move, and he opened the door and walked into the front  room. Then I followed him. For a little he remained in the room,  glaring vacantly about him, and muttering to himself; but seeing the  outer door open he made a rush toward it, and disappeared into the  darkness of the night. Calling to the boy, I ran after him, and easily  came up to him, when he turned, and picking up a heavier stone than I  thought he could have lifted, threw it at me. I dodged it and closed  with him. Once in my arms I found I could hold him, and my servant and  I carried him back into the factory. We placed him on the floor of the  dining-room, and he was too exhausted to move for a while. By degrees,  however, he recovered sufficiently to stand; and as soon as he could  do so by himself, with devilish cunning he made for the lamp, which he  struck, quick as lightning, with a stick that had been lying on the  table. In an instant the great round globe fell to pieces, but luckily  the chimney was not broken, and the lamp remained alight, and before  he could strike another blow at it I had grappled with him again. This  time he struggled violently for a few moments, and seemed to think  that he was dealing with Bransome, for he shrieked, "What! have you  come back from the sea? You are wet! you are wet!" and shuddering, he  tried to free himself from my hold; and I, not liking to hurt him, let  him go, taking care to keep myself between him and the lamp.     

  "Back from me, you villain of hell!" he cried, as soon as he was free.  "What have you done with her? what have you done with her?" And then,  in a tone of weird and pathetic sorrow, "Where is my little one that I  loved? I have sought her many a year; oh, why did she forsake me? Aha,  Sooka! we were right to send him to the hell whence he came--the  lying, false-hearted scoundrel, to steal away my white dove!"     

  After which he drew from his finger a solid gold ring which he always  wore, and threw it from him, saying, with a wild laugh, "There! that's  for any one that likes it; I'm a dead man." He then staggered toward  his own room, and I, remembering the loaded revolver which still lay  on the chest of drawers, tried to intercept him. In his rage, for I  verily believe that he also remembered that the weapon was there, he  spat in my face, and struck me with all his force between the eyes;  but I stuck to him, and with the help of the boy, who had been all  this time in hiding, but who came forward at my call, I laid him for  the last time upon his bed. There he lay exhausted for the remainder  of the night; but there was no rest for me; I felt that I had to watch  him now for my own safety.     

  Toward morning, however, his breathing became, all at once, very heavy  and slow, and I bent over him in alarm. As I did so, I heard him sigh  faintly, "Lucy!" and at that moment the native boy softly placed  something upon the bed. I took it up. It was the ring the sick man had  thrown away in the night, and as I looked at it I saw "James, from  Lucy" engraved on its inside surface, and I knew that the dead woman  was his wife.     

  As the first faint streaks of dawn stole into the room, the slow-drawn  breathing of the dying man ceased. I listened--it came again--once--  twice--and then all was silence. He was dead, and I realised in the  sudden stillness that had come upon the room that I was alone. Yet he  had passed away so quietly after his fitful fever that I could not  bring myself to believe that he was really gone, and I stood looking  at the body, fearing to convince myself of the truth by touching it.     

  So entranced was I by that feeling of awe which comes to almost every  one in the presence of death, that I did not hear the shouting of the  hammock-boy outside, or the footsteps of a white man coming into the  room; and not until he touched me on the shoulder did I turn and  recognise the sallow face of the Portuguese doctor whom I had sent  for, and who had thus arrived too late. However, he served to help me  to bury the mortal part of Jackson in the little graveyard beside the  body of his wife and that of the man who had come between them when  alive. And such was without doubt the fact; for when the doctor had  gone, and I was alone again, I collected and made an inventory of the  dead men's effects, and in Jackson's desk I found his diary, or, as he  himself would have called it, his log; and in that log was noted, on  the very day that Bransome had arrived on the Point, his suspicion of  the man, and later on his conviction that Bransome was indeed he who  had injured him.     

  Sooka was never found; but when the mail-steamer returned from the  south coast, I discovered that the younger patrao had made his crew  row away suddenly from the steamer's side, while Mr. Bransome had been  engaged below, and was out of sight. So it was evident that the pair  had been in league together to insure Sooka his revenge. What share  Jackson had had in the murder of his enemy I did not care to think of,  but feared the worst.     

  For myself, I had to remain on the Point for many months, until the  factory was finally closed--for no purchaser was ever found for it;  and doubtless, by this time, the buildings are in ruins, and long  grass hides the graves of those who sleep upon King Bemba's Point.         

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