and darted off at a gallop.  Where?  To Apia?  To Honolulu?  He had 6000 miles of tropical belt to disport himself in, and I did not hear the precise address.  A snorting pony snatched him into “Ewigkeit” in the twinkling of an eye, and I never saw him again; and, what’s more, I don’t know of anybody that ever had a glimpse of him after he departed from my knowledge sitting inside a ramshackle little gharry that fled round the corner in a white smother of dust.  He departed, disappeared, vanished, absconded; and absurdly enough it looked as though he had taken that gharry with him, for never again did I come across a sorrel pony with a slit ear and a lackadaisical Tamil driver afflicted by a sore foot.  The Pacific is indeed big; but whether he found a place for a display of his talents in it or not, the fact remains he had flown into space like a witch on a broomstick.  The little chap with his arm in a sling started to run after the carriage, bleating, “Captain!  I say, Captain!  I sa-a-ay!”—­but after a few steps stopped short, hung his head, and walked back slowly.  At the sharp rattle of the wheels the young fellow spun round where he stood.  He made no other movement, no gesture, no sign, and remained facing in the new direction after the gharry had swung out of sight.

’All this happened in much less time than it takes to tell, since I am trying to interpret for you into slow speech the instantaneous effect of visual impressions.  Next moment the half-caste clerk, sent by Archie to look a little after the poor castaways of the Patna, came upon the scene.  He ran out eager and bareheaded, looking right and left, and very full of his mission.  It was doomed to be a failure as far as the principal person was concerned, but he approached the others with fussy importance, and, almost immediately, found himself involved in a violent altercation with the chap that carried his arm in a sling, and who turned out to be extremely anxious for a row.  He wasn’t going to be ordered about—­“not he, b’gosh.”  He wouldn’t be terrified with a pack of lies by a cocky half-bred little quill-driver.  He was not going to be bullied by “no object of that sort,” if the story were true “ever so”!  He bawled his wish, his desire, his determination to go to bed.  “If you weren’t a God-forsaken Portuguee,” I heard him yell, “you would know that the hospital is the right place for me.”  He pushed the fist of his sound arm under the other’s nose; a crowd began to collect; the half-caste, flustered, but doing his best to appear dignified, tried to explain his intentions.  I went away without waiting to see the end.