Jack Meredith knew quite well what he was about when he listened with a favourable ear to Durnovo's scheme. He knew that this man was not a gentleman, but his own position was so assured that he could afford to associate with any one. Here, again, men are safer. A woman is too delicate a social flower to be independent of environments. She takes the tone of her surroundings. It is, one notices, only the ladies who protest that the barmaid married in haste and repented of at leisure can raise herself to her husband's level. The husband's friends keep silence, and perhaps, like the mariner's bird, they meditate all the more.

What Meredith proposed to do was to enter into a partnership with Victor Durnovo, and when the purpose of it was accomplished, to let each man go his way. Such partnerships are entered into every day. Men have carried through a brilliant campaign—a world-affecting scheme—side by side, working with one mind and one heart; and when the result has been attained they drop out of each other's lives for ever. They are created so, for a very good purpose, no doubt. But sometimes Providence steps in and turns the little point of contact into the leaven that leaveneth the whole lump. Providence, it seems—or let us call it Fate—was hovering over that lone African river, where two men, sitting in the stern of a native canoe, took it upon themselves to prearrange their lives.

A month later Victor Durnovo was in London. He left behind him in Africa Jack Meredith, whose capacities for organisation were developing very quickly.

There was plenty of work for each to do. In Africa Meredith had undertaken to get together men and boats, while Durnovo went home to Europe for a threefold purpose. Firstly, a visit to Europe was absolutely necessary for his health, shattered as it was by too long a sojourn in the fever-ridden river beds of the West Coast. Secondly, there were rifles, ammunition, and stores to be purchased and packed in suitable cases. And, lastly, he was to find and enlist the third man, "the soldierly fellow full of fight," who knew the natives and the country.

This, indeed, was his first care on reaching London, and before his eyes and brain were accustomed to the roar of the street life he took a cab to Russell Square, giving the number affixed to the door of a gloomy house in the least frequented corner of the stately quadrangle.

"Is Mr. Guy Oscard at home?" he inquired of the grave man-servant.

"He is, sir," replied the butler, stepping aside.

Victor Durnovo thought that a momentary hesitation on the part of the butler was caused by a very natural and proper feeling of admiration for the new clothes and hat which he had purchased out of the money advanced by Jack Meredith for the outfit of the expedition. In reality the man was waiting for the visitor to throw away his cigar before crossing the threshold. But he waited in vain, and Durnovo stood, cigar in mouth, in the dining-room until Guy Oscard came to him.

At first Oscard did not recognise him, and conveyed this fact by a distant bow and an expectant silence.

"You do not seem to recognise me," said Durnovo with a laugh, which lasted until the servant had closed the door. "Victor Durnovo!"

"Oh—yes—how are you?"

Oscard came forward and shook hands. His manner was not exactly effusive. The truth was that their acquaintanceship in Africa had been of the slightest, dating from some trivial services which Durnovo had been able and very eager to render to the sportsman.

"I'm all right, thanks," replied Durnovo. "I only landed at Liverpool yesterday. I'm home on business. I'm buying rifles and stores."

Guy Oscard's honest face lighted up at once—the curse of Ishmael was on him in its full force. He was destined to be a wanderer on God's earth, and all things appertaining to the wild life of the forests were music in his ears.

Durnovo was no mean diplomatist. He had learnt to know man, within a white or coloured skin. The effect of his words was patent to him.

"You remember the Simiacine?" he said abruptly.

"Yes."

"I've found it."

"The devil you have! Sit down."

Durnovo took the chair indicated.

"Yes, sir," he said, "I've got it. I've laid my hand on it at last. I've always been on its track. That has been my little game all the time. I did not tell you when we met out there, because I was afraid I should never find it, and because I wanted to keep quiet about it."

Guy Oscard was looking out of the window across to the dull houses and chimneys that formed his horizon, and in his eyes there was the longing for a vaster horizon, a larger life.

"I have got a partner," continued Durnovo, "a good man—Jack Meredith, son of Sir John Meredith. You have, perhaps, met him."

"No," answered Oscard; "but I have heard his name, and I have met Sir John—the father—once or twice."

"He is out there," went on Durnovo, "getting things together quietly. I have come home to buy rifles, ammunition, and stores."

He paused, watching the eager, simple face.

"We want to know," he said quietly, "if you will organise and lead the fighting men."

Guy Oscard drew a deep breath. There are some Englishmen left, thank Heaven! who love fighting for its own sake, and not only for the gain of it. Such men as this lived in the old days of chivalry, at which modern puny carpet-knights make bold to laugh, while inwardly thanking their stars that they live in the peaceful age of the policeman. Such men as this ran their thick simple heads against many a windmill, couched lance over many a far-fetched insult, and swung a sword in honour of many a worthless maid; but they made England, my masters. Let us remember that they made England.

"Then there is to be fighting?"

"Yes," said Durnovo, "there will be fighting. We must fight our way there, and we must hold it when we get there. But so far as the world is concerned, we are only a private expedition exploring the source of the Ogowe."

"The Ogowe?" and again Guy Oscard's eyes lighted up.

"Yes, I do not mind telling you that much. To begin with, I trust you; secondly, no one could get there without me to lead the way."

Guy Oscard looked at him with some admiration, and that sympathy which exists between the sons of Ishmael. Durnovo looked quite fit for the task he set himself. He had regained his strength on the voyage, and with returning muscular force his moral tone was higher, his influence over men greater. Amidst the pallid sons of the pavement among whom Guy Oscard had moved of late, this African traveller was a man apart—a being much more after his own heart. The brown of the man's face and hands appealed to him—the dark flashing eyes, the energetic carriage of head and shoulders. Among men of a fairer skin the taint that was in Victor Durnovo's blood became more apparent—the shadow on his finger-nails, the deep olive of his neck against the snowy collar, and the blue tint in the white of his eyes.

But none of these things militated against him in Oscard's mind. They only made him fitter for the work he had undertaken.

"How long will it take?" asked Guy.

Durnovo tugged at his strange, curtain-like moustache. His mouth was hidden; it was quite impossible to divine his thoughts.

"Three months to get there," he answered at length. "One month to pick the leaf, and then you can bring the first crop down to the coast and home, while Meredith and I stay on at the plateau."

"I could be home again in eight months?"

"Certainly! We thought that you might work the sale of the stuff in London, and in a couple of years or so, when the thing is in swing, Meredith will come home. We can safely leave the cultivation in native hands when once we have established ourselves up there, and made ourselves respected among the tribes."

A significance in his tone made Guy Oscard look up inquiringly.

"How?"

"You know my way with the natives," answered Durnovo with a cruel smile. "It is the only way. There are no laws in Central Africa except the laws of necessity."

Oscard was nothing if not outspoken.

"I do not like your way with the natives," he said, with a pleasant smile.

"That is because you do not know them. But in this affair you are to be the leader of the fighting column. You will, of course, have carte blanche."

Oscard nodded.

"I suppose," he said, after a pause, "that there is the question of money?"

"Yes; Meredith and I have talked that over. The plan we fixed upon was that you and he each put a thousand pounds into it; I put five hundred. For the first two years we share the profits equally. After that we must come to some fresh arrangement, should you or Meredith wish to give up an active part in the affair. I presume you would not object to coming up at the end of a year, with a handy squad of men to bring down the crop under escort?"

"No," replied Oscard, after a moment's reflection. "I should probably be able to do that."

"I reckon," continued the other, "that the journey down could be accomplished in two months, and each time you do the trip you will reduce your time."

"Yes."

"Of course," Durnovo went on, with the details which he knew were music in Oscard's ears, "of course we shall be a clumsy party going up. We shall have heavy loads of provisions, ammunition, and seeds for cultivating the land up there."

"Yes," replied Guy Oscard absently. In his ears there rang already the steady plash of the paddle, the weird melancholy song of the boatmen, the music of the wind amidst the forest trees.

Durnovo rose briskly.

"Then," he said, "you will join us? I may telegraph out to Meredith that you will join us?"

"Yes," replied Oscard simply. "You may do that."

"There is no time to be lost," Durnovo went on. "Every moment wasted adds to the risk of our being superseded. I sail for Loango in a fortnight; will you come with me?"

"Yes."

"Shall I take a passage for you?"

"Yes."

Durnovo held out his hand.

"Good-bye," he said. "Shall I always find you here when I want you?"

"Yes—stay, though! I shall be going away for a few days. Come to-morrow to luncheon, and we will settle the preliminaries."

"Right—one o'clock?"

"One o'clock."

When Durnovo had gone Guy sat down and wrote to Lady Cantourne accepting her invitation to spend a few days at Cantourne Place, on the Solent. He explained that his visit would be in the nature of a farewell, as he was about to leave for Africa for a little big-game hunting.



CHAPTER IX. TO PASS THE TIME



Quand on n'a pas ce que l'on aime, il faut aimer ce que l'on a.

"Your energy, my dear lady, is not the least of many attributes."

Lady Cantourne looked up from her writing-desk with her brightest smile. Sir John Meredith was standing by the open window, leaning against the jamb thereof with a grace that had lost its youthful repose. He was looking out, across a sloping lawn, over the Solent, and for that purpose he had caused himself to be clad in a suit of blue serge. He looked the veteran yachtsman to perfection—he could look anything in its season—but he did his yachting from the shore—by preference from the drawing-room window.

"One must keep up with the times, John," replied the lady, daintily dipping her quill.

"And 'the times' fills its house from roof to cellar with people who behave as if they were in a hotel. Some of them—say number five on the first floor, number eleven on the second, or some of the atticated relatives—announce at breakfast that they will not be home to lunch. Another says he cannot possibly return to dinner at half-past seven, and so on. 'The times' expects a great deal for its money, and does not even allow one to keep the small change of civility."

Lady Cantourne was blotting vigorously.

"I admit," she answered, "that the reaction is rather strong; reactions are always stronger than they intend to be. In our early days the formalities were made too much of; now they are—"

"Made into a social hash," he suggested, when she paused for a word, "where the prevailing flavour is the common onion of commerce! Now, I'll wager any sum that that is an invitation to some one you do not care a screw about."

"It is. But, Sir John, the hash must be kept moving; cold hash is not palatable. I will tell you at once, I am inviting young Semoor to fill the vacancy caused by Mr. Oscard's departure."

"Ah! Mr. Oscard proposes depriving us of his—society."

"He leaves to-morrow. He only came to say good-bye."

"He moves on—to some other hostelry?"

"No! He is going to—"

She paused, so that Sir John was forced to turn in courteous inquiry and look her in the face.

"Africa!" she added sharply, never taking her bright eyes from his face.

She saw the twitching of the aged lips before his hand got there to hide them. She saw his eyes fall before her steady gaze, and she pitied him while she admired his uncompromising pride.

"Indeed!" he said. "I have reason to believe," he added, turning to the window again, "that there is a great future before that country; all the intellect of Great Britain seems to be converging in its direction."

Since his departure Jack's name had never been mentioned, even between these two whose friendship dated back a generation. Once or twice Sir John had made a subtle passing reference to him, such as perhaps no other woman but Lady Cantourne could have understood; but Africa was, so to speak, blotted out of Sir John Meredith's map of the world. It was there that he kept his skeleton—the son who had been his greatest pride and his deepest humiliation—his highest hope in life—almost the only failure of his career.

He stood there by the window, looking out with that well-bred interest in details of sport and pastime which was part of his creed. He braved it out even before the woman who had been a better friend to him than his dead wife. Not even to her would he confess that any event of existence could reach him through the impenetrable mask he wore before the world. Not even she must know that aught in his life could breathe of failure or disappointment. As it is given to the best of women to want to take their sorrows to another, so the strongest men instinctively deny their desire for sympathy.

Lady Cantourne, pretending to select another sheet of note-paper, glanced at him with a pathetic little smile. Although they had never been anything to each other, these two people had passed through many of the trials to which humanity is heir almost side by side. But neither had ever broken down. Each acted as a sort of mental tonic on the other. They had tacitly agreed, years before, to laugh at most things. She saw, more distinctly than any, the singular emptiness of his clothes, as if the man was shrinking, and she knew that the emptiness was of the heart.

Sir John Meredith had taught his son that Self and Self alone reigns in the world. He had taught him that the thing called Love, with a capital L, is nearly all Self, and that it finally dies in the arms of Self. He had told him that a father's love, or a son's, or a mother's, is merely a matter of convenience, and vanishes when Self asserts itself.

Upon this principle they were both acting now, with a strikingly suggestive similarity of method. Neither was willing to admit to the world in general, and to the other in particular, that a cynical theory could possibly be erroneous.

"I am sorry that our young friend is going to leave us," said Sir John, taking up and unfolding the morning paper. "He is honest and candid, if he is nothing else."

This meant that Guy Oscard's admiration for Millicent Chyne had never been concealed for a moment, and Lady Cantourne knew it.

"He interests me," went on the old aristocrat, studying the newspaper; and his hearer knew the inner significance of the remark.

At times she was secretly ashamed of her niece, but that esprit de corps which binds women together prompted her always to defend Millicent. The only defence at the moment was silence, and an assumed density which did not deceive Sir John—even she could not do that.

In the meantime Miss Millicent Chyne was walking on the sea-wall at the end of the garden with Guy Oscard. One of the necessary acquirements of a modern educational outfit is the power of looking perfectly at home in a score of different costumes during the year, and, needless to say, Miss Chyne was finished in this art. The manner in which she wore her sailor-hat, her blue serge, and her neat brown shoes conveyed to the onlooker, and especially the male of that species (we cannot in conscience call them observers), the impression that she was a yachtswoman born and bred. Her delicate complexion was enhanced by the faintest suspicion of sunburn and a few exceedingly becoming freckles. There was a freedom in her movements which had not been observable in London drawing-rooms. This was Diana-like and in perfect keeping with the dainty sailor outfit; moreover, nine men out of ten would fail to attribute the difference to sundry cunning strings within the London skirt.

"It is sad," Millicent was saying, "to think that we shall have no more chances of sailing. The wind has quite dropped, that horrid tide is running, and—this is your last day."

She ended with a little laugh, knowing full well that there was little sentiment in the big man by her side.

"Really," she went on, "I think I should be able to manage a boat in time, don't you think so? Please encourage me. I am sure I have tried to learn."

But he remained persistently grave. She did not like that gravity; she had met it before in the course of her experiments. One of the grievances harboured by Miss Millicent Chyne against the opposite sex was that they could not settle down into a harmless, honest flirtation. Of course, this could be nothing but a flirtation of the lightest and most evanescent description. She was engaged to Jack Meredith—poor Jack, who was working for her, ever so hard, somewhere near the Equator—and if Guy Oscard did not know this he had only himself to blame. There were plenty of people ready to tell him. He had only to ask.

Millicent Chyne, like Guy, was hampered at the outset of life by theories upon it. Experience, the fashionable novel, and modern cynicism had taught her to expect little from human nature—a dangerous lesson, for it eases responsibility, and responsibility is the Ten Commandments rolled into a compact whole, suitable for the pocket.

She expected of no man—not even of Jack—that perfect faithfulness in every word and thought which is read of in books. And it is one of the theories of the day that what one does not expect one is not called upon to give. Jack, she reflected, was too much a man of the world to expect her to sit and mope alone. She was apparently incapable of seeing the difference between that pastime and sitting on the sea-wall behind a large flowering currant-tree with a man who did not pretend to hide the fact that he was in love with her. Some women are thus.

"I do not know if you have learnt much," he answered. "But I have."

"What have you learnt?" she asked in a low voice, half-fascinated by the danger into which she knew that she was running.

"That I love you," he answered, standing squarely in front of her, and announcing the fact with a deliberate honesty which was rather startling. "I was not sure of it before, so I stayed away from you for three weeks; but now I know for certain."

"Oh, you mustn't say that!"

She rose hastily and turned away from him. There was in her heart a sudden feeling of regret. It was the feeling that the keenest sportsman sometimes has when some majestic monarch of the forest falls before his merciless rifle—a sudden passing desire that it might be undone.

"Why not?" he asked. He was desperately in earnest, and that which made him a good sportsman—an unmatched big-game hunter, calm and self-possessed in any strait—gave him a strange deliberation now, which Millicent Chyne could not understand. "Why not?"

"I do not know—because you mustn't."

And in her heart she wanted him to say it again.

"I am not ashamed of it," he said, "and I do not see why I should not say it to you—or to any one else, so far as that goes."

"No, never!" she cried, really frightened. "To me it does not matter so much. But to no one else—no, never! Aunt Marian must not know it—nor Sir John."

"I cannot see that it is any business of Sir John's. Of course, Lady Cantourne would have liked you to marry a title; but if you cared for me she would be ready to listen to reason."

In which judgment of the good lady he was no doubt right—especially if reason spoke with the voice of three thousand pounds per annum.

"Do you care for me?" he asked, coming a little closer.

There was a whole world of gratified vanity and ungratified curiosity for her in the presence of this strong man at her elbow. It was one of the supreme triumphs of her life, because he was different from the rest. He was for her what his first tiger had been for him. The danger that he might come still nearer had for her a sense of keen pleasure. She was thoroughly enjoying herself, and the nearest approach that men can experience to the joy that was hers is the joy of battle.

"I cannot answer that—not now."

And the little half-shrinking glance over her shoulder was a low-minded, unmaidenly invitation. But he was in earnest, and he was, above all, a gentleman. He stood his ground a yard away from her.

"Then when," he asked—"when will you answer me?"

She stood with her back turned towards him, looking out over the smooth waters of the Solent, where one or two yachts and a heavy black schooner were creeping up on the tide before the morning breeze. She drummed reflectively with her fingers on the low stone wall. Beneath them a few gulls whirled and screamed over a shoal of little fish. One of the birds had a singular cry, as if it were laughing to itself.

"You said just now," Millicent answered at length, "that you were not sure yourself—not at first—and therefore you cannot expect me to know all at once."

"You would know at once," he argued gravely, "if it was going to be no. If you do not say no now, I can only think that it may be yes some day. And"—he came closer—he took the hand that hung at her side—conveniently near—"and I don't want you to say no now. Don't say no! I will wait as long as you like for yes. Millicent, I would rather go on waiting, and thinking that it is going to be yes, even if it is no after all."

She said nothing, but she left her hand in his.

"May I go on thinking that it will be yes until I come back?"

"I cannot prevent your thinking, can I?" she whispered, with a tender look in her eyes.

"And may I write to you?"

She shook her head.

"Well—I—I—Now and then," he pleaded. "Not often. Just to remind you of my existence."

She gave a little laugh, which he liked exceedingly, and remembered afterwards.

"If you like," she answered.

At this moment Lady Cantourne's voice was heard in the distance, calling them.

"There!" exclaimed Millicent. "We must go at once. And no one—no one, mind—must know of this."

"No one shall know of it," he answered.



CHAPTER X. LOANGO



Faithful and hopeful, wise in charity, Strong in grave peace, in pity circumspect.

Those who for their sins have been to Loango will scarcely care to have its beauties recalled to memory. And to such as have not yet visited the spot one can only earnestly recommend a careful avoidance.

Suffice it to say, therefore, that there is such a place, and the curious may find it marked in larger type than it deserves on the map of Africa, on the West Coast of that country, and within an inch or so of the Equator.

Loango has a bar, and outside of that mysterious and somewhat suggestive nautical hindrance the coasting steamers anchor, while the smaller local fry find harbour nearer to the land. The passenger is not recommended to go ashore—indeed, many difficulties are placed in his way, and he usually stays on board while the steamer receives or discharges a scanty cargo, rolling ceaselessly in the Atlantic swell. The roar of the surf may be heard, and at times some weird cry or song. There is nothing to tempt even the most adventurous through that surf. A moderately large white building attracts the eye, and usually brings upon itself a contemptuous stare, for it seems to be the town of Loango, marked so bravely on the map. As a matter of fact the town is five miles inland, and the white building is only a factory or trading establishment.

Loango is the reverse of cheerful. To begin with, it is usually raining there. The roar of the surf—than which there are few sadder sounds on earth—fills the atmosphere with a never-ceasing melancholy. The country is overwooded; the tropical vegetation, the huge tangled African trees, stand almost in the surf; and inland the red serrated hills mount guard in gloomy array. For Europeans this country is accursed. From the mysterious forest-land there creeps down a subtle, tainted air that poisons the white man's blood, and either strikes him down in a fever or terrifies him by strange unknown symptoms and sudden disfiguring disease. The Almighty speaks very plainly sometimes and in some places—nowhere more plainly than on the West Coast of Africa, which land He evidently wants for the black man. We of the fairer skin have Australia now; we are taking America, we are dominant in Asia; but somehow we don't get on in Africa. The Umpire is there, and He insists on fair play.

"This is not cheery," Jack Meredith observed to his servant as they found themselves deposited on the beach within a stone's-throw of the French factory.

"No, sir, not cheery, sir," replied Joseph. He was very busy attending to the landing of their personal effects, and had only time to be respectful. It was Joseph's way to do only one thing at a time, on the principle, no doubt, that enough for the moment is the evil thereof. His manner implied that, when those coloured gentlemen had got the baggage safely conveyed out of the boats on to the beach, it would be time enough to think about Loango.

Moreover, Joseph was in his way rather a dauntless person. He held that there were few difficulties which he and his master, each in his respective capacity, were unable to meet. This African mode of life was certainly not one for which he had bargained when taking service; but he rather enjoyed it than otherwise, and he was consoled by the reflection that what was good enough for his master was good enough for him. Beneath the impenetrable mask of a dignified servitude he knew that this was "all along of that Chyne girl," and rightly conjectured that it would not last for ever. He had an immense respect for Sir John, whom he tersely described as a "game one," but his knowledge of the world went towards the supposition that headstrong age would finally bow before headstrong youth. He did not, however, devote much consideration to these matters, being a young man although an old soldier, and taking a lively interest in the present.

It had been arranged by letter that Jack Meredith should put up, as his host expressed it, at the small bungalow occupied by Maurice Gordon and his sister. Gordon was the local head of a large trading association somewhat after the style of the old East India Company, and his duties partook more of the glory of a governor than of the routine of a trader.

Of Maurice Gordon's past Meredith knew nothing beyond the fact that they were schoolfellows strangely brought together again on the deck of a coasting steamer. Maurice Gordon was not a reserved person, and it was rather from a lack of opportunity than from an excess of caution that he allowed his new-found friend to go up the Ogowe river, knowing so little of himself, Maurice Gordon, of Loango.

There were plenty of willing guides and porters on the beach; for in this part of Africa there is no such thing as continued and methodical labour. The entire population considers the lilies of the field to obvious purpose.

Joseph presently organised a considerable portion of this population into a procession, headed triumphantly by an old white-woolled negro whose son cleaned Maurice Gordon's boots. This man Joseph selected—not without one or two jokes of a somewhat personal nature—as a fitting guide to the Gordons' house. As they neared the little settlement on the outskirts of the black town where the mission and other European residences are situated, the veteran guide sent on couriers to announce the arrival of the great gentleman, who had for body-servant the father of laughter.

On finally reaching the bungalow Meredith was pleasantly surprised. It was pretty and homelike—surrounded by a garden wherein grew a strange profusion of homely English vegetables and tropical flowers.

Joseph happened to be in front, and, as he neared the verandah, he suddenly stopped at the salute; moreover, he began to wonder in which trunk he had packed his master's dress-clothes.

An English lady was coming out of the drawing-room window to meet the travellers—a lady whose presence diffused that sense of refinement and peace into the atmosphere which has done as much towards the expansion of our piecemeal empire as ever did the strong right arm of Thomas Atkins. It is because—sooner or later—these ladies come with us that we have learnt to mingle peace with war—to make friends of whilom enemies.

She nodded in answer to the servant's salutation, and passed on to greet the master.

"My brother has been called away suddenly," she said. "One of his sub-agents has been getting into trouble with the natives. Of course you are Mr. Meredith?"

"I am," replied Jack, taking the hand she held out; it was a small white hand—small without being frail or diaphanous. "And you are Miss Gordon, I suppose? I am sorry Gordon is away, but no doubt we shall be able to find somewhere to put up."

"You need not do that," she said quietly. "This is Africa, you know. You can quite well stay with us, although Maurice is away until to-morrow."

"Sure?" he asked.

"Quite!" she answered.

She was tall and fair, with a certain stateliness of carriage which harmonised wonderfully with a thoughtful and pale face. She was not exactly pretty, but gracious and womanly, with honest blue eyes that looked on men and women alike. She was probably twenty-eight years of age; her manner was that of a woman rather than of a girl—of one who was in life and not on the outskirts.

"We rather pride ourselves," she said, leading the way into the drawing-room, "upon having the best house in Loango. You will, I think, be more comfortable here than anywhere."

She turned and looked at him with a slow, grave smile. She was noticing that, of the men who had been in this drawing-room, none had seemed so entirely at his ease as this one.

"I must ask you to believe that I was thinking of your comfort and not of my own."

"Yes, I know you were," she answered. "Our circle is rather limited, as you will find, and very few of the neighbours have time to think of their houses. Most of them are missionaries, and they are so busy; they have a large field, you see."

"Very—and a weedy one, I should think."

He was looking round, noting with well-trained glance the thousand little indescribable touches that make a charming room. He knew his ground. He knew the date and the meaning of every little ornament—the title and the writer of each book—the very material with which the chairs were covered; and he knew that all was good—all arranged with that art which is the difference between ignorance and knowledge.

"I see you have all the new books."

"Yes, we have books and magazines; but, of course, we live quite out of the world."

She paused, leaving the conversation with him, as in the hands of one who knew his business.

"I," he said, filling up the pause, "have hitherto lived in the world—right in it. There is a lot of dust and commotion; the dust gets into people's eyes and blinds them; the commotion wears them out; and perhaps, after all, Loango is better!"

He spoke with the easy independence of the man of the world, accustomed to feel his way in strange places—not heeding what opinion he might raise—what criticism he might brave. He was glancing round him all the while, noting things, and wondering for whose benefit this pretty room had been evolved in the heart of a savage country. Perhaps he had assimilated erroneous notions of womankind in the world of which he spoke; perhaps he had never met any of those women whose natural refinement urges them to surround themselves, even in solitude, with pretty things, and prompts them to dress as neatly and becomingly as their circumstances allow for the edification of no man.

"I never abuse Loango," she answered; "such abuse is apt to recoil. To call a place dull is often a confession of dulness."

He laughed—still in that somewhat unnatural manner, as if desirous of filling up time. He had spent the latter years of his life in doing nothing else. The man's method was so different to what Jocelyn Gordon had met with in Loango, where men were all in deadly earnest, pursuing souls or wealth, that it struck her forcibly, and she remembered it long after Meredith had forgotten its use.

"I have no idea," she continued, "how the place strikes the passing traveller; he usually passes by on the other side; but I am afraid there is nothing to arouse the smallest interest."

"But, Miss Gordon, I am not the passing traveller."

She looked up with a sudden interest.

"Indeed! I understood from Maurice that you were travelling down the coast without any particular object."

"I have an object—estimable, if not quite original."

"Yes?"

"I want to make some money. I have never made any yet, so there is a certain novelty in the thought which is pleasant."

She smiled with the faintest suspicion of incredulity.

"I know what you are thinking," he said; "that I am too neat and tidy—too namby-pamby to do anything in this country. That my boots are too narrow in the toe, my hair too short and my face too clean. I cannot help it. It is the fault of the individual you saw outside—Joseph. He insists on a strict observance of the social duties."

"We are rougher here," she answered.

"I left England," he explained, "in rather a hurry. I had no time to buy uncomfortable boots, or anything like that. I know it was wrong. The ordinary young man of society who goes morally to the dogs and physically to the colonies always has an outfit. His friends buy him an outfit, and certain enterprising haberdashers make a study of such things. I came as I am."

While he was speaking she had been watching him—studying him more closely than she had hitherto been able to do.

"I have heard of a Sir John Meredith," she said suddenly.

"My father."

He paused, drawing in his legs, and apparently studying the neat brown boots of which there had been question.

"Should you meet him again," he went on, "it would not be advisable to mention my name. He might not care to hear it. We have had a slight difference of opinion. With me it is different. I am always glad to hear about him. I have an immense respect for him."

She listened gravely, with a sympathy that did not attempt to express itself in words. On such a short acquaintance she had not learnt to expect a certain lightness of conversational touch which he always assumed when speaking of himself, as if his own thoughts and feelings were matters for ridicule.

"Of course," he went on, "I was in the wrong. I know that. But it sometimes happens that a man is not in a position to admit that he is in the wrong—when, for instance, another person would suffer by such an admission."

"Yes," answered Jocelyn; "I understand."

At this moment a servant came in with lamps and proceeded to close the windows. She was quite an old woman—an Englishwoman—and as she placed the lamps upon the table she scrutinised the guest after the manner of a privileged servitor. When she had departed Jack Meredith continued his narrative with a sort of deliberation which was explained later on.

"And," he said, "that is why I came to Africa—that is why I want to make money. I do not mind confessing to a low greed of gain, because I think I have the best motive that a man can have for wanting to make money."

He said this meaningly, and watched her face all the while.

"A motive which any lady ought to approve of."

She smiled sympathetically.

"I approve and I admire your spirit."

She rose as she spoke, and moved towards a side table, where two lighted candles had been placed.

"My motive for talking so barefacedly about myself," he said, as they moved towards the door together, "was to let you know exactly who I am and why I am here. It was only due to you on accepting your hospitality. I might have been a criminal or an escaped embezzler. There were two on board the steamer coming out, and several other shady characters."

"Yes," said the girl; "I saw your motive."

They were now in the hall, and the aged servant was waiting to show him his room.



CHAPTER XI. A COMPACT



Drifting, slow drifting down a wizard stream.

"No one knows," Victor Durnovo was in the habit of saying, "what is going on in the middle of Africa."

And on this principle he acted.

"Ten miles above the camping-ground where we first met," he had told Meredith, "you will find a village where I have my headquarters. There is quite a respectable house there, with—a—a woman to look after your wants. When you have fixed things up at Loango, and have arranged for the dhows to meet my steamer, take up all your men to this village—Msala is the name—and send the boats back. Wait there till we come."

In due time the telegram came, via St. Paul de Loanda, announcing the fact that Oscard had agreed to join the expedition, and that Durnovo and he might be expected at Msala in one month from that time. It was not without a vague feeling of regret that Jack Meredith read this telegram. To be at Msala in a month with forty men and a vast load of provisions meant leaving Loango almost at once. And, strange though it may seem, he had become somewhat attached to the dreary West African town. The singular cosmopolitan society was entirely new to him; the life, taken as a life, almost unique. He knew that he had not outstayed his welcome. Maurice Gordon had taken care to assure him of that in his boisterous, hearty manner, savouring more of Harrow than of Eton, every morning at breakfast.

"Confound Durnovo!" he cried, when the telegram had been read aloud. "Confound him, with his energy and his business-like habits! That means that you will have to leave us before long; and somehow it has got to be quite natural to see you come lounging in ten minutes late for most things, with an apology for Jocelyn, but none for me. We shall miss you, old chap."

"Yes," added Jocelyn, "we shall."

She was busy with the cups, and spoke rather indifferently.

"So you've got Oscard?" continued Maurice. "I imagine he is a good man—tip-top shot and all that. I've never met him, but I have heard of him."

"He is a gentleman, at all events," said Meredith quietly; "I know that."

Jocelyn was looking at him between the hibiscus flowers decorating the table.

"Is Mr. Durnovo going to be leader of the expedition?" she inquired casually, after a few moments' silence; and Jack, looking up with a queer smile, met her glance for a moment.

"No," he answered.

Maurice Gordon's hearty laugh interrupted.

"Ha, ha!" he cried. "I wonder where the dickens you men are going to?"

"Up the Ogowe river," replied Jack.

"No doubt. But what for? There is something mysterious about that river. Durnovo keeps his poor relations there, or something of that kind."

"We are not going to look for them."

"I suppose," said Maurice, helping himself to marmalade, "that he has dropped upon some large deposit of ivory; that will turn out to be the solution of the mystery. It is the solution of most mysteries in this country. I wish I could solve the mysteries of ways and means and drop upon a large deposit of ivory, or spice, or precious stones. We should soon be out of this country, should we not, old girl?"

"I do not think we have much to complain of," answered Jocelyn.

"No; you never do. Moreover, I do not suppose you would do so if you had the excuse."

"Oh yes, I should, if I thought it would do any good."

"Ah!" put in Meredith. "There speaks Philosophy—jam, please."

"Or Resignation—that is strawberry and this is black currant."

"Thanks, black currant. No—Philosophy. Resignation is the most loathsome of the virtues."

"I can't say I care for any of them very much," put in Maurice.

"No; I thought you seemed to shun them," said Jack, like a flash.

"Sharp! very sharp! Jocelyn, do you know what we called him at school?—the French nail; he was so very long and thin and sharp! I might add polished and strong, but we were not so polite in those days. Poor old Jack! he gave as good as he got. But I must be off—the commerce of Western Africa awaits me. You'll be round at the office presently, I suppose, Jack?"

"Yes; I have an appointment there with a coloured person who is a liar by nature and a cook by trade."

Maurice Gordon usually went off like this—at a moment's notice. He was one of those loud-speaking, quick-actioned men, who often get a reputation for energy and capacity without fully deserving it.

Jack, of a more meditative habit, rarely followed his host with the same obvious haste. He finished his breakfast calmly, and then asked Jocelyn whether she was coming out on to the verandah. It was a habit they had unconsciously dropped into. The verandah was a very important feature of the house, thickly overhung as it was with palms, bananas, and other tropical verdure. Africa is the land of creepers, and all around this verandah, over the trellis-work, around the supports, hanging in festoons from the roof, were a thousand different creeping flowers. The legend of the house—for, as in India, almost every bungalow on the West Coast has its tale—was that one of the early missionaries had built it, and, to beguile the long months of the rainy season, had carefully collected these creepers to beautify the place against the arrival of his young wife. She never came. A telegram stopped her. A snake interrupted his labour of love.

Jack took a seat at once, and began to search for his cigar-case in the pocket of his jacket. In this land of flies and moths men need not ask permission before they smoke. Jocelyn did not sit down at once. She went to the front of the verandah and watched her brother mount his horse. She was a year older than Maurice Gordon, and exercised a larger influence over his life than either of them suspected.

Presently he rode past the verandah, waving his hand cheerily. He was one of those large, hearty Englishmen who seem to be all appetite and laughter—men who may be said to be manly, and beyond that nothing. Their manliness is so overpowering that it swallows up many other qualities which are not out of place in men, such as tact and thoughtfulness, and PERHAPS intellectuality and the power to take some interest in those gentler things that interest women.

When Jocelyn came to the back of the verandah she was thinking about her brother Maurice, and it never suggested itself to her that she should not speak her thoughts to Meredith, whom she had not seen until three weeks ago. She had never spoken of Maurice behind his back to any man before.

"Does it ever strike you," she said, "that Maurice is the sort of man to be led astray by evil influence?"

"Yes; or to be led straight by a good influence, such as yours."

He did not meet her thoughtful gaze. He was apparently watching the retreating form of the horse through the tangle of flower and leaf and tendril.

"I am afraid," said the girl, "that my influence is not of much account."

"Do you really believe that?" asked Meredith, turning upon her with a half-cynical smile.

"Yes," she answered simply.

Before speaking again he took a pull at his cigar.

"Your influence," he said, "appears to me to be the making of Maurice Gordon. I frequently see serious flaws in the policy of Providence; but I suppose there is wisdom in making the strongest influence that which is unconscious of its power."

"I am glad you think I have some power over him," said Jocelyn; "but, at the same time, it makes me uneasy, because it only confirms my conviction that he is very easily led. And suppose my influence—such as it is—was withdrawn? Suppose that I were to die, or, what appears to be more likely, suppose that he should marry?"

"Then let us hope that he will marry the right person. People sometimes do, you know."

She smiled with a strange little flicker of the eyelids. They had grown wonderfully accustomed to each other during the last three weeks. Here, it would appear, was one of those friendships between man and woman that occasionally set the world agog with curiosity and scepticism. But there seemed to be no doubt about it. He was over thirty, she verging on that prosaic age. Both had lived and moved in the world; to both life was an open book, and they had probably discovered, as most of us do, that the larger number of the leaves are blank. He had almost told her that he was engaged to be married, and she had quite understood. There could not possibly be any misapprehension; there was no room for one of those little mistakes about which people write novels and fondly hope that some youthful reader may be carried away by a very faint resemblance to that which they hold to be life. Moreover, at thirty, one leaves the first romance of youth behind.

There was something in her smile that suggested that she did not quite believe in his cynicism.

"Also," she said gravely, "some stronger influence might appear—an influence which I could not counteract."

Jack Meredith turned in his long chair and looked at her searchingly.

"I have a vague idea," he said, "that you are thinking of Durnovo."

"I am," she admitted, with some surprise. "I wonder how you knew? I am afraid of him."

"I can reassure you on that score," said Meredith. "For the next two years or so Durnovo will be in daily intercourse with me. He will be under my immediate eye. I did not anticipate much pleasure from his society. But now I do."

"Why?" she asked, rather mystified.

"Because I shall have the daily satisfaction of knowing that I am relieving you of an anxiety."

"It is very kind of you to put it in that way," said Jocelyn. "But I should not like you to sacrifice yourself to what may be a foolish prejudice on my part."

"It is not a foolish prejudice. Durnovo is not a gentleman either by birth or inclination. He is not fit to associate with you."

To this Jocelyn answered nothing. Victor Durnovo was one of her brother's closest friends—a friend of his own choosing.

"Miss Gordon," said Jack Meredith suddenly, with a gravity that was rare, "will you do me a favour?"

"I think I should like to."

"You admit that you are afraid of Durnovo now: if at any time you have reason to be more afraid, will you make use of me? Will you write or come to me and ask my help?"

"Thank you," she said hesitatingly.

"You see," he went on, in a lighter tone, "I am not afraid of Durnovo. I have met Durnovos before. You may have observed that my locks no longer resemble the raven's wing. There is a little grey—just here—above the temple. I am getting on in life, and I know how to deal with Durnovos."

"Thank you," said the girl, with a little sigh of relief. "The feeling that I have some one to turn to will be a great relief. You see how I am placed here. The missionaries are very kind and well-meaning, but there are some things which they do not quite understand. They may be gentlemen—some of them are; but they are not men of the world. I have no definite thought or fear, and very good persons, one finds, are occasionally a little dense. Unless things are very definite, they do not understand."

"On the other hand," pursued Jack, in the same reflective tone, as if taking up her thought, "persons who are not good have a perception of the indefinite. I did not think of it in that light before."

Jocelyn Gordon laughed softly, without attempting to meet his lighter vein.

"Do you know," she said, after a little silence, "that I was actually thinking of warning you against Mr. Durnovo? Now I stand aghast at my own presumption."

"It was kind of you to give the matter any thought whatever."

He rose and threw away the end of his cigar. Joseph was already before the door, leading the horse which Maurice Gordon had placed at his visitor's disposal.

"I will lay the warning to heart," he said, standing in front of Jocelyn and looking down at her as she lay back in the deep basket-chair. She was simply dressed in white—as was her wont, for it must be remembered that they were beneath the Equator—a fair English maiden, whose thoughts were hidden behind a certain gracious, impenetrable reserve. "I will lay it to heart, although you have not uttered it. But I have always known with what sort of man I was dealing. We serve each other's purpose, that is all; and he knows that as well as I do."

"I am glad Mr. Oscard is going with you," she answered guardedly.

He waited a moment. It seemed as if she had not done speaking—as if there was another thought near the surface. But she did not give voice to it, and he turned away. The sound of the horse's feet on the gravel did not arouse her from the reverie into which she had fallen; and long after it had died away, leaving only the hum of insect life and the distant ceaseless song of the surf, Jocelyn Gordon sat apparently watching the dancing shadows on the floor as the creepers waved in the breeze.



CHAPTER XII. A MEETING



No one can be more wise than destiny.

The short equatorial twilight was drawing to an end, and all Nature stood in silence, while Night crept up to claim the land where her reign is more autocratic than elsewhere on earth. There is a black night above the trees, and a blacker beneath. In an hour it would be dark, and, in the meantime, the lowering clouds were tinged with a pink glow that filtered through from above. There was rain coming, and probably thunder. Moreover, the trees seemed to know it, for there was a limpness in their attitude as if they were tucking their heads into their shoulders in anticipation of the worst. The insects were certainly possessed of a premonition. They had crept away.

It was distinctly an unlikely evening for the sportsman. The stillness was so complete that the faintest rustle could be heard at a great distance. Moreover, it was the sort of evening when Nature herself seems to be glancing over her shoulder with timorous restlessness.

Nevertheless, a sportsman was abroad. He was creeping up the right-hand bank of a stream, his only chance lying in the noise of the waters, which might serve to deaden the sound of broken twig or rustling leaf.

This sportsman was Jack Meredith, and it was evident that he was bringing to bear upon the matter in hand that intelligence and keenness of perception which had made him a person of some prominence in other scenes where Nature has a less assured place.

It would appear that he was not so much at home in the tangle of an African forest as in the crooked paths of London society; for his clothes were torn in more than one place; a mosquito, done to sudden death, adhered sanguinarily to the side of his aristocratic nose, while heat and mental distress had drawn damp stripes down his countenance. His hands were scratched and inclined to bleed, and one leg had apparently been in a morass. Added to these physical drawbacks there was no visible sign of success, which was probably the worst part of Jack Meredith's plight.

Since sunset he had been crawling, scrambling, stumbling up the bank of this stream in relentless pursuit of some large animal which persistently kept hidden in the tangle across the bed of the river. The strange part of it was that when he stopped to peep through the branches the animal stopped too, and he found no way of discovering its whereabouts. More than once they remained thus for nearly five minutes, peering at each other through the heavy leafage. It was distinctly unpleasant, for Meredith felt that the animal was not afraid of him, and did not fully understand the situation. The respective positions of hunter and hunted were imperfectly defined. He had hitherto confined his attentions to such game as showed a sporting readiness to run away, and there was a striking novelty in this unseen beast of the forest, fresh, as it were, from the hands of its Creator, that entered into the fun of the thing from a totally mistaken standpoint.

Once Meredith was able to decide approximately the whereabouts of his prey by the momentary shaking of a twig. He raised his rifle and covered that twig steadily; his forefinger played tentatively on the trigger; but on second thoughts he refrained. He was keenly conscious of the fact that the beast was doing its work with skill superior to his own. In comparison to his, its movements were almost noiseless. Jack Meredith was too clever a man to be conceited in the wrong place, which is the habit of fools. He recognised very plainly that he was not distinguishing himself in this new field of glory; he was not yet an accomplished big-game hunter.

Twice he raised his rifle with the intention of firing at random into the underwood on the remote chance of bringing his enemy into the open. But the fascination of this duel of cunning was too strong, and he crept onwards with bated breath.

It was terrifically hot, and all the while Night was stalking westward on the summits of the trees with stealthy tread.

While absorbed in the intricacies of pursuit—while anathematising tendrils and condemning thorns to summary judgment—Jack Meredith was not losing sight of his chance of getting back to the little village of Msala. He knew that he had only to follow the course of the stream downwards, retracing his steps until a junction with the Ogowe river was effected. In the meantime his lips were parted breathlessly, and there was a light in the quiet eyes which might have startled some of his well-bred friends could they have seen it.

At last he came to an open space made by a slip of the land into the bed of the river. When Jack Meredith came to this he stepped out of the thicket and stood in the open, awaiting the approach of his stealthy prey. The sound of its footfall was just perceptible, slowly diminishing the distance that divided them. Then the trees were parted, and a tall, fair man stepped forward on to the opposite bank.

Jack Meredith bowed gravely, and the other sportsman, seeing the absurdity of the situation, burst into hearty laughter. In a moment or two he had leapt from rock to rock and come to Meredith.

"It seems," he said, "that we have been wasting a considerable amount of time."

"I very nearly wasted powder and shot," replied Jack, significantly indicating his rifle.

"I saw you twice, and raised my rifle; your breeches are just the colour of a young doe. Are you Meredith? My name is Oscard."

"Ah! Yes, I am Meredith. I am glad to see you."

They shook hands. There was a twinkle in Jack Meredith's eyes, but Oscard was quite grave. His sense of humour was not very keen, and he was before all things a sportsman.

"I left the canoes a mile below Msala, and landed to shoot a deer we saw drinking, but I never saw him. Then I heard you, and I have been stalking you ever since."

"But I never expected you so soon; you were not due till—look!" Jack whispered suddenly.

Oscard turned on his heel, and the next instant their two rifles rang out through the forest stillness in one sharp crack. Across the stream, ten yards behind the spot where Oscard had emerged from the bush, a leopard sprang into the air, five feet from the ground, with head thrown back, and paws clawing at the thinness of space with grand free sweeps. The beast fell with a thud, and lay still—dead.

The two men clambered across the rocks again, side by side. While they stood over the prostrate form of the leopard—beautiful, incomparably graceful and sleek even in death—Guy Oscard stole a sidelong glance at his companion. He was a modest man, and yet he knew that he was reckoned among the big-game hunters of the age. This man had fired as quickly as himself, and there were two small trickling holes in the animal's head.

While he was being quietly scrutinised Jack Meredith stooped down, and, taking the leopard beneath the shoulders, lifted it bodily back from the pool of blood.

"Pity to spoil the skin," he explained, as he put a fresh cartridge into his rifle.

Oscard nodded in an approving way. He knew the weight of a full-grown male leopard, all muscle and bone, and he was one of those old-fashioned persons mentioned in the Scriptures as taking a delight in a man's legs—or his arms, so long as they were strong.

"I suppose," he said quietly, "we had better skin him here."

As he spoke he drew a long hunting-knife, and, slashing down a bunch of the maidenhair fern that grew like nettles around them, he wiped the blood gently, almost affectionately, from the leopard's cat-like face.

There was about these two men a strict attention to the matter in hand, a mutual and common respect for all things pertaining to sport, a quiet sense of settling down without delay to the regulation of necessary detail that promised well for any future interest they might have in common.

So these highly-educated young gentlemen turned up their sleeves and steeped themselves to the elbow in gore. Moreover, they did it with a certain technical skill and a distinct sense of enjoyment. Truly, the modern English gentleman is a strange being. There is nothing his soul takes so much delight in as the process of getting hot and very dirty, and, if convenient, somewhat sanguinary. You cannot educate the manliness out of him, try as you will; and for such blessings let us in all humbleness give thanks to Heaven.

This was the bringing together of Jack Meredith and Guy Oscard—two men who loved the same woman. They knelt side by side, and Jack Meredith—the older man, the accomplished, gifted gentleman of the world, who stood second to none in that varied knowledge required nowadays of the successful societarian—Jack Meredith, be it noted, humbly dragged the skin away from the body while Guy Oscard cut the clinging integuments with a delicate touch and finished skill.

They laid the skin out on the trampled maidenhair, and contemplated it with silent satisfaction. In the course of their inspection they both arrived at the head at the same moment. The two holes in the hide, just above the eyes, came under their notice at the same moment, and they turned and smiled gravely at each other, thinking the same thought—the sort of thought that Englishmen rarely put into intelligible English.

"I'm glad we did that," said Guy Oscard at length, suddenly. "Whatever comes of this expedition of ours—if we fight like hell, as we probably shall, before it is finished—if we hate each other ever afterwards, that skin ought to remind us that we are much of a muchness."

It might have been put into better English; it might almost have sounded like poetry had Guy Oscard been possessed of the poetic soul. But this, fortunately, was not his; and all that might have been said was left to the imagination of Meredith. What he really felt was that there need be no rivalry, and that he for one had no thought of such; that in the quest which they were about to undertake there need be no question of first and last; that they were merely two men, good or bad, competent or incompetent, but through all equal.

Neither of them suspected that the friendship thus strangely inaugurated at the rifle's mouth was to run through a longer period than the few months required to reach the plateau—that it was, in fact, to extend through that long expedition over a strange country that we call Life, and that it was to stand the greatest test that friendship has to meet with here on earth.

It was almost dark when at last they turned to go, Jack Meredith carrying the skin over his shoulder and leading the way. There was no opportunity for conversation, as their progress was necessarily very difficult. Only by the prattle of the stream were they able to make sure of keeping in the right direction. Each had a thousand questions to ask the other. They were total strangers; but it is not, one finds, by conversation that men get to know each other. A common danger, a common pleasure, a common pursuit—these are the touches of Nature by which men are drawn together into the kinship of mutual esteem.

Once they gained the banks of the Ogowe their progress was quicker, and by nine o'clock they reached the camp at Msala. Victor Durnovo was still at work superintending the discharge of the baggage and stores from the large trading-canoes. They heard the shouting and chattering before coming in sight of the camp, and one voice raised angrily above the others.

"Is that Durnovo's voice?" asked Meredith.

"Yes," answered his companion curtly.

It was a new voice which Meredith had not heard before. When they shouted to announce their arrival it was suddenly hushed, and presently Durnovo came forward to greet them.

Meredith hardly knew him, he was so much stronger and healthier in appearance. Durnovo shook hands heartily.

"No need to introduce you two," he said, looking from one to the other.

"No; after one mistake we discovered each other's identity in the forest," answered Meredith.

Durnovo smiled; but there was something behind the smile. He did not seem to approve of their meeting without his intervention.



CHAPTER XIII. IN BLACK AND WHITE



A little lurking secret of the blood, A little serpent secret rankling keen.

The three men walked up towards the house together. It was a fair-sized house, with a heavy thatched roof that overhung the walls like the crown of a mushroom. The walls were only mud, and the thatching was nothing else than banana leaves; but there was evidence of European taste in the garden surrounding the structure, and in the glazed windows and wooden door.

As they approached the open doorway three little children, clad in very little more than their native modesty, ran gleefully out, and proceeded to engage seats on Jack Meredith's boots, looking upon him as a mere public conveyance. They took hardly any notice of him, but chattered and quarrelled among themselves, sometimes in baby English, sometimes in a dialect unknown to Oscard and Meredith.

"These," said the latter, when they were seated, and clinging with their little dusky arms round his legs, "are the very rummest little kids I ever came across."

Durnovo gave an impatient laugh, and went on towards the house. But Guy Oscard stopped, and walked more slowly beside Meredith as he laboured along heavy footed.

"They are the jolliest little souls imaginable," continued Jack Meredith. "There," he said to them when they had reached the doorstep, "run away to your mother—very fine ride—no! no more to-night! I'm aweary—you understand—aweary!"

"Aweary—awe-e-e-ary!" repeated the little things, standing before him in infantile nude rotundity, looking up with bright eyes.

"Aweary—that is it. Good night, Epaminondas—good night, Xantippe! Give ye good hap, most stout Nestorius!"

He stooped and gravely shook hands with each one in turn, and, after forcing a like ceremonial upon Guy Oscard, they reluctantly withdrew.

"They have not joined us, I suppose?" said Oscard, as he followed his companion into the house.

"Not yet. They live in this place. Nestorius, I understand, takes care of his mother, who, in her turn, takes care of this house. He is one and a half."

Guy Oscard seemed to have inherited the mind inquisitive from his learned father. He asked another question later on.

"Who is that woman?" he said during dinner, with a little nod towards the doorway, through which the object of his curiosity had passed with some plates.

"That is the mother of the stout Nestorius," answered Jack—"Durnovo's housekeeper."

He spoke quietly, looking straight in front of him; and Joseph, who was drawing a cork at the back of the room, was watching his face.

There was a little pause, during which Durnovo drank slowly. Then Guy Oscard spoke again.

"If she cooked the dinner," he said, "she knows her business."

"Yes," answered Durnovo, "she is a good cook—if she is nothing else."

It did not sound as if further inquiries would be welcome, and so the subject was dropped with a silent tribute to the culinary powers of Durnovo's housekeeper at the Msala Station.

The woman had only appeared for a moment, bringing in some dishes for Joseph—a tall, stately woman, with great dark eyes, in which the patience of motherhood had succeeded to the soft fire of West Indian love and youth. She had the graceful, slow carriage of the Creole, although her skin was darker than that of those dangerous sirens. That Spanish blood ran in her veins could be seen by the intelligence of her eyes; for there is an intelligence in Spanish eyes which stand apart. In the men it seems to refer to the past or the future, for their incorrigible leisureliness prevents the present rendering of a full justice to their powers. In the women it belongs essentially to the present; for there is no time like the present for love and other things.

"They call me," she had said to Jack Meredith, in her soft, mumbled English, a fortnight earlier, "they call me Marie."

The children he had named after his own phantasy, and when she had once seen him with them there was a notable change in her manner. Her eyes rested on him with a sort of wondering attention, and when she cooked his meals or touched anything that was his there was something in her attitude that denoted a special care.

Joseph called her "Missis," with a sort of friendliness in his voice, which never rose to badinage nor descended to familiarity.

"Seems to me, missis," he said, on the third evening after the arrival of the advance column, "that the guv'nor takes uncommon kindly to them little 'uns of yours."

They were washing up together after dinner in that part of the garden which was used for a scullery, and Joseph was enjoying a post-prandial pipe.

"Yes," she said simply, following the direction of Joseph's glance. Jack Meredith was engaged in teaching Epaminondas the intellectual game of bowls with a rounded pebble and a beer-bottle. Nestorius, whose person seemed more distended than usual, stood gravely by, engaged in dental endeavours on a cork, while Xantippe joined noisily in the game. Their lack of dress was essentially native to the country, while their mother affected a simple European style of costume.

"And," added Joseph, on politeness bent, "it don't surprise me. I'm wonderfully fond of the little nig—nippers already. I am—straight."

The truth was that the position of this grave and still comely woman was ambiguous. Neither Joseph nor his master called her by the name she had offered for their use. Joseph compromised by the universal and elastic "Missis"; his master simply avoided all names.

Ambiguity is one of those intangible nothings that get into the atmosphere and have a trick of remaining there. Marie seemed in some subtle way to pervade the atmosphere of Msala. It would seem that Guy Oscard, in his thick-headed way, was conscious of this mystery in the air; for he had not been two hours in Msala before he asked "Who is that woman?" and received the reply which has been recorded.

After dinner they passed out on to the little terrace overlooking the river, and it was here that the great Simiacine scheme was pieced together. It was here beneath the vast palm trees that stood like two beacons towering over the surrounding forest, that three men deliberately staked their own lives and the lives of others against a fortune. Nature has a strange way of hiding her gifts. Many of the most precious have lain unheeded for hundreds of years in barren plains, on inaccessible mountains, or beneath the wave, while others are thrown at the feet of savages who know no use for them.

The man who had found the Simiacine was eager, restless, full of suspicion. To the others the scheme obviously presented itself in a different light. Jack Meredith was dilettante, light-hearted, and unsatisfactory. It was impossible to arouse any enthusiasm in him—to make him take it seriously. Guy Oscard was gravely indifferent. He wanted to get rid of a certain space of time, and the African forest, containing as it did the only excitement that his large heart knew, was as good a place as any. The Simiacine was, in his mind, relegated to a distant place behind weeks of sport and adventure such as his soul loved. He scarcely took Victor Durnovo au pied de la lettre. Perhaps he knew too much about him for that. Certain it is that neither of the two realised at that moment the importance of the step that they were taking.

"You men," said Durnovo eagerly, "don't seem to take the thing seriously."

"I," answered Meredith, "intend at all events to take the profits very seriously. When they begin to come in, J. Meredith will be at the above address, and trusts by a careful attention to business to merit a continuance of your kind patronage."

Durnovo laughed somewhat nervously. Oscard did not seem to hear.

"It is all very well for you," said the half-caste in a lower voice. "You have not so much at stake. It is likely that the happiness of my whole life depends upon this venture."

A curious smile passed across Jack Meredith's face. Without turning his head, he glanced sideways into Durnovo's face through the gloom. But he said nothing, and it was Oscard who broke the silence by saying simply:

"The same may possibly apply to me."

There was a little pause, during which he lighted his pipe.

"To a certain extent," he said in emendation. "Of course, my real object, as you no doubt know, is to get away from England until my father's death has been forgotten. My own conscience is quite clear, but—"

Jack Meredith drew in his legs and leant forward.

"But," he said, interrupting, and yet not interrupting—"but the public mind is an unclean sink. Everything that goes into it comes out tainted. Therefore it is best only to let the public mind have the scourings, as it were, of one's existence. If they get anything better—anything more important—it is better to skedaddle until it has run through and been swept away by a flow of social garbage."

Guy Oscard grunted with his pipe between his teeth, after the manner of the stoic American-Indian—a grunt that seemed to say, "My pale-faced brother has spoken well; he expresses my feelings." Then he gave further vent to the deliberate expansiveness which was his.

"What I cannot stand," he said, "are the nudges and the nods and the surreptitious glances of the silly women who think that one cannot see them looking. I hate being pointed out."

"Together with the latest skirt-dancing girl, and the last female society-detective, with the blushing honours of the witness-box thick upon her," suggested Jack Meredith.

"Yes," muttered Guy. He turned with a sort of simple wonder, and looked at Meredith curiously. He had never been understood so quickly before. He had never met man or woman possessing in so marked a degree that subtle power of going right inside the mind of another and feeling the things that are there—the greatest power of all—the power that rules the world; and it is only called Sympathy.

"Well," said the voice of Durnovo through the darkness, "I don't mind admitting that all I want is the money. I want to get out of this confounded country; but I don't want to leave till I have made a fortune."

The subtle influence that Meredith wielded seemed to have reached him too, warming into expansiveness his hot Spanish blood. His voice was full of confidence.

"Very right and proper," said Meredith. "Got a grudge against the country; make the country pay for it in cash."

"That's what I intend to do; and it shall pay heavily. Then, when I've got the money, I'll know what to do with it. I know where to look, and I do not think that I shall look in vain."

Guy Oscard shuffled uneasily in his camp-chair. He had an Englishman's horror of putting into speech those things which we all think, while only Frenchmen and Italians say them. The Spaniards are not so bad, and Victor Durnovo had enough of their blood in him to say no more.

It did not seem to occur to any of them that the only person whose individuality was still veiled happened to be Jack Meredith. He alone had said nothing, had imparted no confidence. He it was who spake first, after a proper period of silence. He was too much of an adept to betray haste, and thus admit his debt of mutual confidence.

"It seems to me," he said, "that we have all the technicalities arranged now. So far as the working of the expedition is concerned, we know our places, and the difficulties will be met as they present themselves. But there is one thing which I think we should set in order now. I have been thinking about it while I have been waiting here alone."

The glow of Victor Durnovo's cigar died away as if in his attention he was forgetting to smoke; but he said nothing.

"It seems to me," Jack went on, "that before we leave here we should draw up and sign a sort of deed of partnership. Of course, we trust each other perfectly—there is no question of that. But life is an uncertain thing, as some earlier philosopher said before me; and one never knows what may happen. I have drawn up a paper in triplicate. If you have a match, I will read it to you."

Oscard produced a match, and, striking it on his boot, sheltered it with the hollow of his hand, while Jack read:

"We, the undersigned, hereby enter into partnership to search for and sell, to our mutual profit, the herb known as Simiacine, the profits to be divided into three equal portions, after the deduction of one-hundredth part to be handed to the servant, Joseph Atkinson. Any further expenses that may be incurred to be borne in the same proportion as the original expense of fitting out the expedition, namely, two-fifths to be paid by Guy Cravener Oscard, two-fifths by John Meredith, one-fifth by Victor Durnovo.

"The sum of fifty pounds per month to be paid to Victor Durnovo, wherewith he may pay the thirty special men taken from his estate and headquarters at Msala to cultivate the Simiacine, and such corn and vegetables as may be required for the sustenance of the expedition; these men to act as porters until the plateau be reached.

"The opinion of two of the three leaders against one to be accepted unconditionally in all questions where controversy may arise. In case of death each of us undertakes hereby to hand over to the executors of the dead partner or partners such moneys as shall belong to him or them."

At this juncture there was a little pause while Guy Oscard lighted a second match.

"And," continued Jack, "we hereby undertake severally, on oath, to hold the whereabouts of the Simiacine a strict secret, which secret may not be revealed by any one of us to whomsoever it may be without the sanction, in writing, of the other two partners."

"There," concluded Jack Meredith, "I am rather pleased with that literary production: it is forcible and yet devoid of violence. I feel that in me the commerce of the century has lost an ornament. Moreover, I am ready to swear to the terms of the agreement."

There was a little pause. Guy Oscard took his pipe from his mouth, and while he knocked the ashes out against the leg of his chair he mumbled, "I swear to hold that agreement."

Victor Durnovo took off his hat with a sweep and a flourish, and, raising his bared brow to the stars, he said, "I swear to hold to that agreement. If I fail, may God strike me dead!"



CHAPTER XIV. PANIC-STRICKEN



Is this reason? Is this humanity? Alas! it is man.

The next morning Jack Meredith was awakened by his servant Joseph before it was fully light. It would appear as if Joseph had taken no means of awakening him, for Meredith awoke quite quietly to find Joseph standing by his bed.

"Holloa!" exclaimed the master, fully awake at once, as townsmen are.

Joseph stood at attention by the bedside.

"Woke you before yer time, sir," he said. "There's something wrong among these 'ere darkie fellers, sir."

"Wrong! what do you mean?"

Meredith was already lacing his shoes.

"Not rebellion?" he said curtly, looking towards his firearms.

"No, sir, not that. It's some mortual sickness. I don't know what it is. I've been up half the night with them. It's spreading, too."

"Sickness! what does it seem like? Just give me that jacket. Not that sleeping sickness?"

"No, sir. It's not that. Missis Marie was telling me about that—awful scourge that, sir. No, the poor chaps are wide-awake enough. Groanin', and off their heads too, mostly."

"Have you called Mr. Oscard?"

"No, sir."

"Call him and Mr. Durnovo."

"Met Mr. Durnovo, sir, goin' out as I came in."

In a few moments Jack joined Durnovo and Oscard, who were talking together on the terrace in front of the house. Guy Oscard was still in his pyjamas, which he had tucked into top-boots. He also wore a sun-helmet, which added a finish to his costume. They got quite accustomed to this get-up during the next three days, for he never had time to change it; and, somehow, it ceased to be humorous long before the end of that time.

"Oh, it's nothing," Durnovo was saying, with a singular eagerness. "I know these chaps. They have been paid in advance. They are probably shamming, and if they are not they are only suffering from the effects of a farewell glorification. They want to delay our start. That is their little game. It will give them a better chance of deserting."

"At any rate, we had better go and see them," suggested Jack.

"No, don't!" cried Durnovo eagerly, detaining him with both hands. "Take my advice, and don't. Just have breakfast in the ordinary way and pretend there is nothing wrong. Then afterwards you can lounge casually into the camp."

"All right," said Jack, rather unwillingly.

"It has been of some use—this scare," said Durnovo, turning and looking towards the river. "It has reminded me of something. We have not nearly enough quinine. I will just take a quick canoe, and run down to Loango to fetch some."

He turned quite away from them, and stooped to attach the lace of his boot.

"I can travel night and day, and be back here in three days," he added. "In the meantime you can be getting on with the loading of the canoes, and we will start as soon as I get back."

He stood upright and looked around with weatherwise, furtive eyes.

"Seems to me," he said, "there's thunder coming. I think I had better be off at once."

In the course of his inspection of the lowering clouds which hung, black as ink, just above the trees, his eyes lighted on Joseph, standing within the door of the cottage, watching him with a singular half-suppressed smile.

"Yes," he said hurriedly, "I will start at once. I can eat some sort of a breakfast when we are under way."

He looked beneath his lashes quickly from Jack to Guy and back again. Their silent acquiescence was not quite satisfactory. Then he called his own men, and spoke to them in a tongue unknown to the Englishmen. He hurried forward their preparations with a feverish irritability which made Jack Meredith think of the first time he had ever seen Durnovo—a few miles farther down the river—all palpitating and trembling with climatic nervousness. His face was quite yellow, and there was a line drawn diagonally from the nostrils down each cheek, to lose itself ultimately in the heavy black moustache.

Before he stepped into his canoe the thunder was rumbling in the distance, and the air was still as death. Breathing was an effort; the inhaled air did not satisfy the lungs, and seemed powerless to expand them.

Overhead the clouds, of a blue-black intensity, seemed almost to touch the trees; the river was of ink. The rowers said nothing, but they lingered on the bank and watched Durnovo's face anxiously. When he took his seat in the canoe they looked protestingly up to the sky. Durnovo said something to them rapidly, and they laid their paddles to the water.

Scarcely had the boat disappeared in the bend of the river before the rain broke. It came with the rush of an express train—the trees bending before the squall like reeds. The face of the river was tormented into a white fury by the drops which splashed up again a foot in height. The lashing of the water on the bare backs of the negroes was distinctly audible to Victor Durnovo.

Then the black clouds split up like a rent cloth, and showed behind them, not Heaven, but the living fire of Hell. The thunder crashed out in sharp reports like file-firing at a review. With one accord the men ceased rowing and crouched down in the canoe.

Durnovo shouted to them, his face livid with fury. But for some moments his voice was quite lost. The lightning ran over the face of the river like will-o'-the-wisps; the whole heaven was streaked continuously with it.

Suddenly the negroes leaped to their paddles and rowed with bent back, and wild staring eyes, as if possessed. They were covered by the muzzle of Durnovo's revolver.

Behind the evil-looking barrel of blue steel, the half-caste's dripping face looked forth, peering into the terrific storm. There was no question of fending off such torrents of rain, nor did he attempt it. Indeed, he seemed to court its downfall. He held out his arms and stretched forth his legs, giving free play to the water which ran off him in a continual stream, washing his thin khaki clothing on his limbs. He raised his face to the sky, and let the water beat upon his brow and hair.

The roar of the thunder, which could be FELT, so great was the vibration of the laden air, seemed to have no fear for him. The lightning, ever shooting athwart the sky, made him blink as if dazzled, but he looked upon it without emotion.

He knew that behind him he had left a greater danger than this, and he stretched out his limbs to the cleansing torrent with an exulting relief to be washed from the dread infection. Small-pox had laid its hand on the camp at Msala: and from the curse of it Victor Durnovo was flying in a mad chattering panic through all the anger of the tropic elements, holding death over his half-stunned crew, not daring to look behind him or pause in his coward's flight.

It is still said on the Ogowe river that no man travels like Victor Durnovo. Certain it is that, in twenty-seven hours from the time that he left Msala on the morning of the great storm, he presented himself before Maurice Gordon in his office at the factory at Loango.