As a fact, he had never been in love. Art, particularly as expressed by brass instruments, was his mistress. He turned to descend the steps from the bandstand, when he perceived a tall African standing at attention at the bottom of the steps. “What do you want?” he asked the African. The man smiled the placid and infantile smile of his race, and handed a note to Carpentaria. “You from the Soudanese village?” “Yes, sah.” The inhabitant of the Soudanese village, which was one of the attractions of the hippodrome, stood about six feet four inches high, and he was in native costume, which consisted largely, but not exclusively, of beads and polish. To gaze, dazzled, at the polish on that man’s face, shoulders, chest, and calves, one would guess that the whole tribe must sit up at nights bringing his polish to such a unique pitch of perfection. In his cheek you could see yourself as in a mirror, and he had the air of being personally well satisfied with the splendour of his mahogany skin. Carpentaria opened the note. It read: “Please come to me at once.--Ilam.” Should he go? Or should he refuse this strange invitation, and hasten at once to Mr. Jetsam and the doctor? “Where is Mr. Ilam?” he demanded of the Soudanese. The Soudanese merely increased his smile, and pointed vaguely in the direction of the Amusement Park. “Over there?” “Yes, sah.” “But where, man?” “Yes, sah!” He lifted an arm and pointed. The upper part of the illuminated rim of the giant wheel, a hundred feet higher than any other wheel in the world, could be seen over the roofs of the lofty white buildings in the Central Way. At this moment a rushing, roaring noise was heard to the east, and simultaneously the lights of the giant wheel were extinguished. Carpentaria glanced round. A rocket burst with a faint reverberation in the sky, a little colony of crimson stars floated for a few seconds amid the clouds--some stars had the shape of the letter I and others of the letter C--and then they expired, and the sky was black again. Cheers greeted the ingenious signal for the commencement of the first pyrotechnic display of the City of Pleasure, and a small crowd, which was beginning to form in the neighbourhood of the Soudanese, frittered itself suddenly away in a rush towards the Embankment. The fireworks were discharged from a plot of ground on the other side of the river--a plot specially leased for that sole purpose. “I’ll come with you,” said Carpentaria to the Soudanese. He had decided that an interview with Ilam could not do any harm, and there was always the chance that it might in some way prove decisive. As for Mr. Jetsam, he would deal with Mr. Jetsam later. Possibly Ilam might have determined to make a general confession to him. And he had his revolver. The Soudanese walked quickly, and he was several inches taller than Carpentaria. In something less than five minutes they had arrived at the entrance to the Amusements Park, which was closing for the night.