Part 13 (2/2)

I proffered hi before, for his face at once took on that curious look which one person in authority alears when he is confronted with another He studied it closely and then raised his eyes

'Well, Sir?' he said 'I observe your credentials What can I do for you?'

'I take it you are bound for Constantinople?' I asked

'The boats go as far as Rustchuk,' he replied 'There the stuff is transferred to the railway'

'And you reach Rustchuk when?'

'In ten days, bar accidents Let us say twelve to be safe'

'I want to accompany you,' I said 'In my profession, Herr Captain, it is necessary sometimes to make journeys by other than the coht to call upon some other branch of our country's service to help me Hence my request'

Very plainly he did not like it

'I raph about it My instructions are to let no one aboard, not even a et authority first before I can fall in with your desire Besides, my boat is ill-found You had better wait for the next batch and ask Dreyser to take you I lost Walter today He was ill when he came aboard-a disease of the heart-but he would not be persuaded And last night he died'

'Was that hiood ineer Only a fool of a boy fro to my owners for a fresh man, but even if he comes by the quickest train he will scarcely overtake us before Vienna or even Buda'

I saw light at last

'We will go together,' I said, 'and cancel that wire For behold, Herr Captain, I aladly keep an eye on your boilers till we get to Rustchuk'

He looked attruth,' I said 'Before the war I was an engineer in Daeneral training, and I know enough to run a river-boat Have no fear I proe'

His face cleared, and he looked what he was, an honest, good-humoured North German seaman

'Coain I will let the telegraph sleep I require authority froage a new engineer'

He sent one of the hands back to the village to cancel his wire In ten minutes I found myself on board, and ten minutes later ere out ininto line Coffee was being made ready in the cabin, and while I waited for it I picked up the captain's binoculars and scanned the place I had left

I saw so the cottage there wererapidly They seemed to wear uniforh the village, I could see others I noticed, too, that several figures appeared to be beating the intervening fields

Stuot busy at last, and I thanked ers had seen ot away much too soon, for in another half-hour he would have had ler

Before I turned in that evening I had done soine-room The boat was oil-fired, and in very fair order, so my duties did not look as if they would be heavy There was nobody who could be properly called an engineer; only, besides the furnace-o apprentices in a shi+p-building yard They were civil fellows, both of them consumptive, who did what I told them and said little By bedtime, if you had seen me in my blue jumper, a pair of carpet slippers, and a flat cap-all the property of the deceased Walter-you would have sworn I had been bred to the firing of river-boats, whereas I had acquired e on one run down the Zaot drunk and fell overboard a the crocodiles