To denizens of _terra firma_, the mere thought of being aboard a ship on fire in mid-sea--we are now five hundred miles from the little British island of Ascension and one thousand and eighty off the Congo (mainland) Coast--is nothing short of appalling. But here with us, in actual experience, it is taken by the officers of the ship as such a simple matter of course, in so far as they show or will admit, that we are even denied the privilege of a mild thrill of excitement. In the meantime there is nothing for the Doctor and myself to do but sit about and guess whether it is to be a boost from the explosives, a simple grill, a descent to Davy Jones, an adventure while athirst and hungering in an open boat on the tossing South Atlantic, a successful run of the ship to the nearest land--or victory over the fire. I wonder which it will be! If the worst comes to the worst, I intend to do for these pages what no one these last three weeks has done for me--commit them to a bottle, if I can find one aboard this ship, which is by no means certain. Indeed it is so uncertain I think I had best start hunting one right now. After nearly a twenty-four hours' search I've got it--a craft to bear these sheets, wide of hatch, generously broad and deep of hull, but destitute of aught of the stimulating aroma I had hoped might cheer them on their voyage--more than I have been cheered on mine. For the best I am able to procure for them is--a jam bottle! While the Doctor and I are not novices at golf, this is one "bunker" we are making so little headway getting out of, that both now seem likely to quit "down" to it. I wonder when the little derelict, tiny and inconspicuous as a Portuguese man-of-war, may be picked up; I wonder when the sheets it bears may reach my publisher to whom it is consigned. Perhaps not for years--a score, two score; perhaps not until he himself, whom a few weeks ago I left in the lusty vigor of early manhood, is gathered to his fathers; perhaps not, therefore, until the writer has no publisher left and is himself no longer remembered. The burning bunker is now a glowing furnace, the men worked down to mere shadows. Plainly the fire is getting the best of them and, what is even more discouraging, there is little more fight left in them. First Mate Watson, who, almost without rest, has led the fight below since it started, says that another half-hour will-- CHAPTER XIV THEY WHO MUST BE OBEYED Few mightier monarchs than Menelek II of Abyssinia ever swayed the destinies of a people. Throughout the vast territory of the Abyssinian highlands his individual will is law to some millions of subjects; law also to hordes of savage Mohammedan and pagan tribesmen without the confines of his kingdom. His court includes no councillors. Alone throughout the long years of his reign Menelek has dealt with all domestic and foreign affairs of state.