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to spend the night.”
    They went on, with the engine clanking lugubriously, to where the river broke up again into a fresh batch of small waterways. Allnutt cast a last lingering glance over his engine, and scuttled up into the bows.
    “Round ’ere, Miss,” he called, with a wave of his arm.
    Rose put the tiller over and they surged into a narrow channel.
    “Round ’ere again,” said Allnutt. “Steady! There’s a channel ’ere. Bring ’er up into it. Steady! Keep ’er at that!”
    They were heading upstream now, in a narrow passage roofed over by trees, whose roots, washed bare by the rushing brown water, and tangled together almost as thick as basket-work, constituted the surface of the banks. Against the sweeping current the African Queen made bare headway. Allnutt let go the anchor and, running back, shut off steam. The launch swung stationary to her mooring with hardly a jerk.
    For once, in a way, Rose had been interested in the manoeuvres, and she filled with pride at the thought that she had understood them. She didn’t usually trouble; when travelling by train she never tried to understand railway signals, and even the Italian first officer had never been able to rouse her interest in ship’s work. But to-day she had understood the significance of it all, of the necessity to moor bows upstream in that narrow fast channel, in consequence of the anchor being in the bows. Rose could not quite imagine what that fast current would do to a boat if it caught it while jammed broadside on across a narrow waterway, but she could hazard a guess that it would be a damaging business. Allnutt stood watching attentively for a moment to make certain that the anchor was not dragging, and then sat down with a sigh in the sternsheets.
    “Coo!” he said, “it’s ’ot work, ain’t it, Miss? I could do a drink.”
    From the locker beside her he produced a dirty enamel mug, and then a second one.
    “Going to ’ave one, Miss?” Allnutt asked.
    “No,” said Rose, shortly. She knew instinctively that she was about to come into opposition with what Samuel always called Rum. She watched, fascinated. From under the bench on which he sat Allnutt dragged out a wooden case, and from out of the case he brought a bottle, full of some clear liquid like water. He proceeded to pour a liberal portion into the tin mug.
    “What is that?” asked Rose.
    “Gin, Miss,” said Allnutt. “An’ there’s only river water to drink it with.”
    Rose’s knowledge of strong drink was quite hazy. The first time she had ever sat at a table where it was served had been in the Italian steamer; she remembered the polite amusement of the officers when she and her brother had stiffly refused to drink the purple-red wine which appeared at every meal. During her brother’s ministry in England she had heard drink and its evil effects discussed; there were even bad characters in the congregation who were addicted to it, and with whom she had sometimes tried to reason. At the mission, Samuel had striven ineffectively for ten years to persuade his coloured flock to abandon the use of the beer they had been accustomed to brew from time immemorial—Rose knew how very ineffective his arguments had been. And there were festivals when everybody brewed and drank stronger liquors still, and got raging drunk, and made fearful noises, and all had sore heads the next morning; and not even the sore heads had reconciled Samuel to the backsliding of his congregation the night before.
    And the few white men all drank, too—although up to this minute Rose, influenced by Samuel’s metaphorical description, had been under the impression that their tipple was a fearsome stuff called rum, and not this innocent-appearing gin. Rum, and the formation of unhallowed unions with native women, and the brutal conscription of native labour, had been the triple-headed enemy Samuel was always in arms against. Now, Rose found herself face to face with the first of these sins.