"What a world!" he soliloquised. "Siggy Devinter, Baron Von Ragastein,
out here, slaving for God knows what, drilling niggers to fight God
knows whom, a political machine, I suppose, future Governor-General of
German Africa, eh? You were always proud of your country, Devinter."

"My country is a country to be proud of," was the solemn reply.

"Well, you're in earnest, anyhow," Dominey continued, "in earnest
about something. And I--well, it's finished with me. It would have been
finished last night if I hadn't seen the smoke from your fires, and I
don't much care--that's the trouble. I go blundering on. I suppose
the end will come somehow, sometime--Can I have some rum or whisky,
Devinter--I mean Von Ragastein--Your Excellency--or whatever I ought
to say? You see those wreaths of mist down by the river? They'll mean
malaria for me unless I have spirits."

"I have something better than either," Von Ragastein replied. "You shall
give me your opinion of this."

The orderly who stood behind his master's chair, received a whispered
order, disappeared into the commissariat hut and came back presently
with a bottle at the sight of which the Englishman gasped.

"Napoleon!" he exclaimed.

"Just a few bottles I had sent to me," his host explained. "I am
delighted to offer it to some one who will appreciate it."

"By Jove, there's no mistake about that!" Dominey declared, rolling it
around in his glass. "What a world! I hadn't eaten for thirty hours