[In a long communication which accompanied the MS. of this novel, the Author gives a description of his literary method. We have only room for a few extracts. "I have been accused of plagiarism. I reply that the accusation is ridiculous. Nature is the great plagiarist, the sucker of the brains of authors. There is no situation, however romantic or grotesque, which Nature does not sooner or later appropriate. Therefore the more natural an author is, the more liable is he to envious accusations of plagiarism.... Humour may often be detected in an absence of leg-coverings. A naval officer is an essentially humorous object.... As to literary style, it can be varied at pleasure, but the romantic Egyptian and the plain South African are perhaps best. In future my motto will be, '_Ars Langa Rider brevis_,' and a very good motto too. I like writing in couples. Personally I could never have bothered myself to learn up all these quaint myths and literary fairy tales, but LANG likes it."] CHAPTER I. [Illustration: "Then a strange thing happened."] My name is SMALLUN HALFBOY, a curious name for an old fellow like me, who have been battered and knocked about all over the world from Yorkshire to South Africa. I'm not much of a hand at writing, but, bless your heart, I know the _Bab Ballads_ by heart, and I can tell you it's no end of a joke quoting them everywhere, especially when you quote out of an entirely different book. I am not a brave man, but nobody ever was a surer shot with an Express longbow, and no one ever killed more Africans, men and elephants, than I have in my time. But I do love blood. I love it in regular rivers all over the place, with gashes and slashes and lopped heads and arms and legs rolling about everywhere. Black blood is the best variety; I mean the blood of black men, because nobody really cares twopence about them, and you can massacre several thousands of them in half-a-dozen lines and offend no single soul. And, after all, I am not certain that black men have any souls, so that makes things safe all round, as someone says in the _Bab Ballads_. CHAPTER II.