raised his cap again and presently vanished from the curious eyes of the
excited crowd, through the door of the Captain's apartment.

Captain Hawkins closed the door of his sitting-room as he entered, and
said:

"Now, my Lord, I'm not going to ask you any questions to begin with,
because if I once began I should never stop; and besides, perhaps you'd
like to have your own say right away."

"Perhaps that will be the shortest way," said his lordship. "The fact
is, we've not only the remains of this Boer business on our hands, but
we've had what is practically a declaration of war from France and
Russia. Briefly it's this way. A few weeks ago, while the Allies thought
they were fighting the Boxers, it came to the knowledge of my brother,
the Foreign Secretary, that the Tsung-li-Yamen had concluded a secret
treaty with Russia which practically annulled all our rights over the
Yang-tse Valley, and gave Russia the right to bring her Northern Railway
right down through China.

"As you know, we've stood a lot too much in that part of the world
already, but we couldn't stand this; so about ten days ago an ultimatum
was sent declaring that the British Government would consider any
encroachment on the Yang-tse Valley as an unfriendly act.

"Meanwhile France chipped in with a notification that she was going to
occupy Morocco as a compensation for Fashoda, and added a few nasty
things about Egypt and other places. Of course we couldn't stand that
either, so there was another ultimatum, and the upshot of it all was
that I got a wire late last night from my brother telling me that war
would almost certainly be declared to-day, and asking me for the use of
this craft of mine as a sort of dispatch-boat if she was ready. She is
intended for something very much better than fighting purposes, so he
couldn't ask me to use her as a war-ship; besides, I am under a solemn
obligation to her inventor--her creator, in fact, for I've only built
her--to blow her to pieces rather than allow her to be used as a
fighting machine except, of course, in sheer personal self-defence.

"There is the telegram from my brother, so you can see there's no
mistake, and just after it came a messenger asking me, if the machine

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