quays of Lisbon on a shiny blue morning, pretty near warm enough to wear flannels. I had now got to be very wary. I did not leave the ship with the shore-going boat, but made a leisurely breakfast. Then I strolled on deck, and there, just casting anchor in the middle of the stream, was another ship with a blue and white funnel I knew so well. I calculated that a month before she had been smelling the mangrove swamps of Angola. Nothing could better answer my purpose. I proposed to board her, pretending I was looking for a friend, and come on shore from her, so that anyone in Lisbon who chose to be curious would think I had landed straight from Portuguese Africa. 

 I hailed one of the adjacent ruffians, and got into his rowboat, with my kit. We reached the vessel—they called her the Henry the Navigator—just as the first shore-boat was leaving. The crowd in it were all Portuguese, which suited my book. 

 But when I went up the ladder the first man I met was old Peter Pienaar. 

 Here was a piece of sheer monumental luck. Peter had opened his eyes and his mouth, and had got as far as “Allemachtig”, when I shut him up. 

 “Brandt,” I said, “Cornelis Brandt. That’s my name now, and don’t you forget it. Who is the captain here? Is it still old Sloggett?” 

 “Ja,” said Peter, pulling himself together. “He was speaking about you yesterday.” 

 This was better and better. I sent Peter below to get hold of Sloggett, and presently I had a few words with that gentleman in his cabin with the door shut. 

 “You’ve got to enter my name in the ship’s books. I came aboard at Mossamedes. And my name’s Cornelis Brandt.” 

 At first Sloggett was for objecting. He said it was a felony. I told him that I dared say it was, but he had got to do it, for reasons which I couldn’t give, but which were highly creditable to all parties. In the end he agreed, and I saw it done. I had a pull on old Sloggett, for I had known him ever since he owned a dissolute tug-boat at Delagoa Bay. 

 Then Peter and I went ashore and swaggered into Lisbon as if we owned De Beers. We put up at the big hotel opposite the railway station, and looked and behaved like a pair of lowbred South Africans home for a spree. It was a fine bright day, so I hired a motor-car and said I would drive it myself. We asked the name of some beauty-spot to visit, and were told Cintra and shown the road to it. I wanted a 

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