THE CRATER BY ROBERT GORE-BROWNE

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<p style=""margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in;

text-align:justify""><span style=""font-size: 13.5pt;"">er story,” said

Ross, aiming his cigar-end at a phosphorescent patch of ocean, “was

discreditable enough to be true.” He drew an immense red handkerchief from the

pocket of his pyjamas, and wiped his extensive forehead, muttering, “As far as

a woman ever tells the truth about herself.”<p></p></span></p>



<p style=""margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in;

text-align:justify""><span style=""font-size: 13.5pt;"">I sat on in

silence waiting for the epigrams to end and the narrative to begin.<p></p></span></p>



<p style=""margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in;

text-align:justify""><span style=""font-size: 13.5pt;"">It was a

stifling night off the East Coast of Africa. A wind that blew from the Equator

and followed a crowded ship made sleep impossible. Nightly it drove Ross and

myself on deck to spend the intolerable hours in talk.<p></p></span></p>



<p style=""margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in;

text-align:justify""><span style=""font-size: 13.5pt;"">I did not know

much about Ross; no one on board did. A big man with a walrus moustache and a

bald head, he had joined the vessel at an unusual East Coast port with few

possessions—a rifle or two, and a green kit bag. His preposterous opinions were

enunciated with the precise utterance of a spinster, and punctuated by pulls at

a virulent black cigar. He knew men and cities; he knew Africa at its heart,

where are neither men nor cities.<p></p></span></p>



<p style=""margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in;

text-align:justify""><span style=""font-size: 13.5pt;"">Our mutual

acquaintanceship exhausted, we had drifted to anecdotes of the improbabilities

that happen daily in that improbable continent.<p></p></span></p>



<p style=""margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in;

text-align:justify""><span style=""font-size: 13.5pt;"">“You can never

tell what the most normal folk will do,” he had said. “One of the most charming

girls I know—in three weeks she and her husband had reduced the Decalogue to

ribbons....” He broke off, and I had difficulty in inducing him to begin again.<p></p></span></p>



<p style=""margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in;

text-align:justify""><span style=""font-size: 13.5pt;"">“The girl,” he

said at last, between puffs of his cigar, “came to me for advice. This implied

no particular compliment to my wisdom, since I was the only disinterested white

man for a hundred miles. I told her that only fools gave advice, and only wise

men took it.<p></p></span></p>



<p style=""margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in;

text-align:justify""><span style=""font-size: 13.5pt;"">'God knows I'm

not wise,' she said, 'but I'd do anything to...'<p></p></span></p>



<p style=""margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0in;

text-align:justify""><span style=""font-size: 13.5pt;"">'My dear, I'll

do my best,' I said when I saw that she did not mean to finish her sentence,

'but even for that I must hear a bit more.' She looked at me a little startled,

then threw up