When I returned, we drank a little more and then I said to the captain: "Don't you recognize me?" He squirmed. "Well--yes--but----" "You mean you don't recognize me?" "But, Count, have I really met you before?" "Of course, don't you remember me?" He wrestled with a temptation to speak out, but fought it down. "Yes, Count, you do look familiar to me. But where have we met?" He sat there, as the saying goes, with both feet in the trough. "Don't you know me from the ship?" "Man, man, are you Phelax?" "Captain, Captain," warned the shipowner. "Oh, excuse me, excuse me," stammered the captain. "Well, I am Phelax," I laughed. "I went aboard your ship to see how it felt to be a sailor again." "Well, well," stuttered the captain, "and now it is my turn to treat." I told him my story, how I had been born a count, had become a sailor and then an officer of sailing ships, and now was an officer of the Imperial Service. He had tears in his eye. "And my mate--think of it--my mate said you were too independent." The old fellow became so enthusiastic that he insisted that we take a trip through Sankt Pauli with him. We went, and had a high old time. The captain got quite drunk, and he revealed a secret regret that lingered in his mind. What a sail-mender he had missed! "Who will believe it on board," he muttered, "when I tell them that that my fine sail-mender turned out to be a count?" XI IN THE CAMEROONS, AND THE FAIRY OF FUERTEVENTURA I have told of how the Emperor transferred me to the _Panther_, which was then assigned to our West African station, the Cameroons. If my being aboard the _Panther_ inspired, in itself, vivid recollections of my past life, my service as an officer of the ship presently brought me to another and far more delightful memory of my sailing-ship days. This was an incident that not merely returned to me in imagination, but one that brought to me that rarest gift of fortune, a dream come true. The events that preceded the climax of which I speak were such as to provide the ever-striking qualities of contrast. The African jungle, the pursuit of savage beasts, black warriors, an extraordinary black king, fantastic war dances and all the unearthly sights and sounds that are Africa, and then...