Page:Harris Dickson--Old Reliable in Africa.djvu/16

 masses of unorganized, undirected people surged back and forth across her decks. Like breakers they ebbed and flowed, congesting in the corners, and rushing out again. A mingled stream of comers and goers jostled each other along her gangplank, restless, excited people who spoke all tongues and wore all garbs. Some for the first time launched their adventures upon the deep; others, drawn by the lure of intangible horizons, longed for strange lands and craved the salt odor in their nostrils.

Through that motley throng upon the dock came a ruddy-faced man, with broad white Panama covering his gray hairs, and a linen suit that flapped like sail-cloth around his sturdy legs—Colonel Beverly, Spottiswoode, cotton-planter, of Vicksburg, Mississippi. Beside him walked two top-hatted Englishmen, men of affairs in their tight little Island.

At the head of the gangplank the Colonel turned, "Zack!" he shouted, "Where's Zack?"

"Comin', suh." Old Reliable tore through the crowd as if untangling himself from a wire fence, a half-sucked orange in one hand and a brand-new suitcase in the other. New store-bought clothes hung upon him in corrugations; a new, flaming red necktie climbed the back of his neck. He took out a new handkerchief, removed a new hat, and