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conductor shook him and asked if he was ill. My eyes are as yellow as your brass buttons; does that look well to you? Blair thought.
    “I’m fine.”
    “If you’re sick, I’ll have to put you off,” the conductor warned.
    There was a moment of embarrassment among the teetotalers after the conductor left. Then the one across from Blair licked his lips and confided, “I was once as you are, brother. My name is Smallbone.”
    Smallbone’s nose was a rosy knob. His black suit shone, the sign of wool revived with polish. Blue lines tattooed his forehead. The blue was permanent, Blair knew: dust in the scars every miner collected from coal roofs.
    “But my husband was saved,” said the woman at his side. She pressed her mouth into a line. “Weak and worthless though we may be.”
    There was no access to another compartment unless he crawled along the outside of the train. He considered it.
    “Would you mind if we prayed for you?” Mrs. Smallbone asked.
    “Not if you do it quietly,” Blair said.
    Smallbone whispered to his wife, “Maybe he’s a papist.”
    “Or a thug,” said the other man. He had a full beard with a black, curly nap that crept nearly to his eyes. An almost Persian beard, Blair thought, one that Zoroaster would have been proud of. “I would have said a cashiered officer until you opened your mouth, which pronounces you American. I can see that you are usually clean-shaven, which is the habit of artistic types, Italians or French.”
    The miner’s wife told Blair, “Mr. Earnshaw is a member of Parliament.”
    “That must account for his manners.”
    “You make enemies quickly,” Earnshaw said.
    “It’s a talent. Good night.” Blair closed his eyes.
    Gold was what drew the British. The Ashanti had so much that they seemed the Incas of Africa. Their rivers were flecked with gold, their hills veined with it. What better investment than a man with a tripod and sextant, auger and pan, and bottles of quicksilver? Let heroes discover the source of the Nile and the Mountains of the Moon, slaughter lions and apes, baptize lakes and peoples. All Blair searched for was pyrite and quartz, the telltale glitter of aurora.
    In a feverish dream he was back on the golden sea-sands of Axim. This time Rowland was with him. He knew the Bishop’s nephew was insane, but he hoped the ocean would soothe his blue eyes. The sea breeze tugged at Rowland’s golden beard. Surf rolled in with the steady pace of wheels. “Excellent,” Rowland murmured. “Excellent.” At Axim, women panned the sands with wooden plates painted black to let the sun find the gold. Naked, they waded into the water to rinse the sand away, and rose and fell in the waves, holding the pans high. “Wonderful ducks,” Rowland said and raised his rifle. A pan flew and the woman who had been holding it sank into a reddening wave. While he reloaded, the other women waded for shore. Rowland shot again, methodically, casually. As a woman fell, gold dust dashed across the sand. He rolled her with his foot so that she was dusted with sparkling flecks. Blair gathered the remaining women to lead them to safety, and Rowland reloaded and turned the rifle on him. He felt the barrel press against the back of his neck.
    Sheer terror brought Blair half awake. It was sweat onhis neck, not a rifle. It was only a dream. Rowland had never done anything like that—at least not at Axim.
    We live equally in two worlds, an African had told Blair. Awake, we plod on with our eyes downcast from the sun, ignoring or not seeing what lies around us. Asleep, eyes open behind their lids, we pass through a vibrant world in which men become lions, women become snakes, in which the vague fears of the daytime become, through heightened senses, revealed and visible.
    Awake, we are trapped in the present like a lizard in an hourglass that crawls forever over the falling sand. Asleep, we fly from the past into the future. Time is no longer a narrow, drudging path but an entire