XII.

THE FIRE.


We were very tired, so we turned in early. W Unfortunately, our rooms
were immediately over the billiard room, where a bibulous and
cosmopolitan lot were earnestly endeavouring to bolster up by further
proof the fiction that a white man cannot retain his health in the
tropics. The process was pretty rackety, and while it could not keep us
awake, it prevented us from falling thoroughly asleep. At length, and
suddenly, the props of noise fell away from me, and I sank into a
grateful, profound abyss.

Almost at once, however, I was dragged back to consciousness. Mohammed
stood at my bedside.

"Bwana," he proffered to my rather angry inquiry, "all the people have
gone to the fire. It is a very large fire. I thought you would like to
see it."

I glanced out of the window at the reddening sky, thrust my feet into a
pair of slippers, and went forth in my pyjamas to see what I could see.

We threaded our way through many narrow dark and deserted streets,
beneath balconies that overhung, past walls over which nodded tufted
palms, until a loud and increasing murmuring told us we were nearing the
centre of disturbance. Shortly, we came to the outskirts of the excited