"Ah!" cried Gordon, hardly noticing the washed-out, harassed appearance of the visitor; "here you are again. I heard that the great expedition had started."

"So it has, but I have come back to get one or two things we have forgotten. Got any sherry handy?"

"Of course," replied Gordon, with perfect adhesion to the truth.

He laid aside his pen and, turning in his chair, drew a decanter from a small cupboard which stood on the ground at his side.

"Here you are," he continued, pouring out a full glass with practised, but slightly unsteady, hand.

Durnovo drank the wine at one gulp and set the glass down.

"Ah!" he said, "that does a chap good."

"Does it now?" exclaimed Maurice Gordon with mock surprise. "Well, I'll just try."

The manner in which he emptied his glass was quite different, with a long, slow drawing-out of the enjoyment, full of significance for the initiated.

"Will you be at home to-night?" asked Durnovo, gently pushing aside the hospitable decanter. "I have got a lot of work to do to-day, but I should like to run in and see you this evening."

"Yes, come and dine."

Durnovo shook his head and looked down at his wrinkled and draggled clothing.

"No, I can't do that, old man. Not in this trim."

"Bosh? What matter? Jocelyn doesn't mind."

"No, but I do."

It was obvious that he wanted to accept the invitation, although the objection he raised was probably honest. For that taint in the blood that cometh from the subtle tar-brush brings with it a vanity that has its equal in no white man's heart.

"Well, I'll lend you a black coat! Seven o'clock sharp!"

Durnovo hurried away with a gleam of excitement in his dark eyes.

Maurice Gordon did not resume his work at once. He sat for some time idly drumming with his fingers on the desk.

"If I can only get her to be civil to him," he reflected aloud, "I'll get into this business yet."

At seven o'clock Durnovo appeared at the Gordons' house. He had managed to borrow a dress-suit, and wore an orchid in his buttonhole. It was probably the first time that Jocelyn had seen him in this garb of civilisation, which is at the same time the most becoming and the most trying variety of costume left to sensible men in these days. A dress-suit finds a man out sooner than anything except speech.

Jocelyn was civil in her reception—more so, indeed, than Maurice Gordon had hoped for. She seemed almost glad to see Durnovo, and evinced quite a kindly interest in his movements. Durnovo attributed this to the dress-suit, while Maurice concluded that his obvious hints, thrown out before dinner, had fallen on fruitful ground.

At dinner Victor Durnovo was quite charmed with the interest that Jocelyn took in the expedition, of which, he gave it to be understood, he was the chief. So also was Maurice, because Durnovo's evident admiration of Jocelyn somewhat overcame his natural secrecy of character.

"You'll hear of me, Miss Gordon, never fear, before three months are past," said Durnovo, in reply to a vague suggestion that his absence might extend to several months. "I am not the sort of man to come to grief by a foolish mistake or any unnecessary risk."

To which sentiment two men at Msala bore generous testimony later on.

The simple dinner was almost at an end, and it was at this time that Jocelyn Gordon began once more to dislike Durnovo. At first she had felt drawn towards him. Although he wore the dress-clothes rather awkwardly, there was something in his manner which reminded her vaguely of a gentleman. It was not that he was exactly gentlemanly, but there was the reflection of good breeding in his bearing. Dark-skinned people, be it noted, have usually the imitative faculty. As the dinner and the wine warmed his heart, so by degrees he drew on his old self like a glove. He grew bolder and less guarded. His opinion of himself rose momentarily, and with it a certain gleam in his eyes increased as they rested on Jocelyn.

It was not long before she noted this, and quite suddenly her ancient dislike of the man was up in arms with a new intensity gathered she knew not whence.

"And," said Maurice, when Jocelyn had left them, "I suppose you'll be a millionaire in about six months?"

He gently pushed the wine towards him at the same time. Durnovo had not slept for forty hours. The excitement of his escape from the plague-ridden camp had scarcely subsided. The glitter of the silver on the table, the shaded candles, the subtle sensuality of refinement and daintiness appealed to his hot-blooded nature. He was a little off his feet perhaps. He took the decanter and put it to the worst use he could have selected.

"Not so soon as that," he said; "but in time—in time."

"Lucky beggar!" muttered Maurice Gordon, with a little sigh.

"I don't mind telling you," said Durnovo, with a sudden confidence begotten of Madeira, "that it's Simiacine—that's what it is. I can't tell you more."

"Simiacine," repeated Gordon, fingering the stem of his wine-glass and looking at him keenly between the candle-shades. "Yes. You've always been on its track, haven't you?"

"In six months your go-downs will be full of it—my Simiacine, my Simiacine."

"By God, I wish I had a hand in it."

Maurice Gordon pushed the decanter again—gently, almost surreptitiously.

"And so you may, some day. You help me and I'll help you—that is my ticket. Reciprocity—reciprocity, my dear Maurice."

"Yes, but how?"

"Can't tell you now, but I will in good time—in my own time. Come, let's join the ladies—eh? haha!"

But at this moment the servant brought in coffee, saying in his master's ear that Miss Jocelyn had gone to bed with a slight headache.



CHAPTER XV. A CONFIDENCE



The spirits Of coming things stride on before their issues.

There is nothing that brings men so close to each other as a common grievance or a common danger. Men who find pleasure in the same game or the same pursuit are drawn together by a common taste; but in the indulgence of it there is sure to arise, sooner or later, a spirit of competition. Now, this spirit, which is in most human affairs, is a new bond of union when men are fighting side by side against a common foe.

During the three days that followed Durnovo's departure from Msala, Jack Meredith and Oscard learnt to know each other. These three days were as severe a test as could well be found; for courage, humanity, tenderness, loyalty, were by turns called forth by circumstance. Smallpox rages in Africa as it rages nowhere else in these days. The natives fight it or bow before it as before an ancient and deeply dreaded foe. It was nothing new to them, and it would have been easy enough for Jack and Oscard to prove to their own satisfaction that the presence of three white men at Msala was a danger to themselves and no advantage to the natives. It would have been very simple to abandon the river station, leaving there such men as were stricken down to care for each other. But such a thought never seemed to suggest itself.

The camp was moved across the river, where all who seemed strong and healthy were placed under canvas, awaiting further developments.

The infected were carried to a special camp set apart and guarded, and this work was executed almost entirely by the three Englishmen, aided by a few natives who had had the disease.

For three days these men went about with their lives literally in their hands, tending the sick, cheering the despondent, frightening the cowards into some semblance of self-respect and dignity. And during these three days, wherein they never took an organised meal or three consecutive hours of rest, Joseph, Meredith, and Oscard rose together to that height of manhood where master and servant, educated man and common soldier, stand equal before their Maker.

Owing to the promptness with which measures had been taken for isolating the affected, the terrible sickness did not spread. In all eleven men were stricken, and of these ten died within three days. The eleventh recovered, but eventually remained at Msala.

It was only on the evening of the third day that Jack and Guy found time to talk of the future. They had never left Durnovo's house, and on this third day they found time to dine together.

"Do you think," Oscard asked bluntly, when they were left alone to smoke, "that Durnovo knew what was the matter?"

"I am afraid that I have not the slightest doubt of it," replied Jack lightly.

"And bolted?" suggested Oscard.

"And bolted."

Guy Oscard gave a contemptuous little laugh, which had a deeper insult in it than he could have put into words.

"And what is to be done?" he inquired.

"Nothing. People in books would mount on a very high pinnacle of virtue and cast off Mr. Durnovo and all his works; but it is much more practical to make what use we can of him. That is a worldly-wise, nineteenth-century way of looking at it; we cannot do without him."

The contemplativeness of nicotine was upon Guy Oscard.

"Umph!" he grunted. "It is rather disgusting," he said, after a pause; "I hate dealing with cowards."

"And I with fools. For everyday use, give me a coward by preference."

"Yes, there is something in that. Still, I'd throw up the whole thing if—"

"So would I," said Jack, turning sharply in his chair, "if—"

Oscard laughed curtly and waited.

"If," continued Jack, "I could. But I am more or less bound to go on now. Such chances as this do not turn up every day; I cannot afford to let it go by. Truth is, I told—some one who shall be nameless—that I would make money to keep her in that state of life wherein her godfathers, etc., have placed her; and make that money I must."

"That is about my position too," said Guy Oscard, somewhat indistinctly, owing to the fact that he habitually smoked a thick-stemmed pipe.

"Is it? I'm glad of that. It gives us something in common to work for."

"Yes." Guy paused, and made a huge effort, finally conquering that taciturnity which was almost an affliction to him. "The reason I gave the other night to you and that chap Durnovo was honest enough, but I have another. I want to lie low for a few months, but I also want to make money. I'm as good as engaged to be married, and I find that I am not so well off as I thought I was. People told me that I should have three thousand a year when the governor died, but I find that people know less of my affairs than I thought."

"They invariably do," put in Jack encouragingly.

"It is barely two thousand, and—and she has been brought up to something better than that."

"Um! they mostly are. Mine has been brought up to something better than that too. That is the worst of it."

Jack Meredith leant back in his folding chair, and gazed practically up into the heavens.

"Of course," Guy went on, doggedly expansive now that he had once plunged, "two thousand a year sounds pretty good, and it is not bad to start upon. But there is no chance of its increasing; in fact, the lawyer fellows say it may diminish. I know of no other way to make money—had no sort of training for it. I'm not of a commercial turn of mind. Fellows go into the City and brew beer or float companies, whatever that may be."

"It means they sink other people's funds," explained Jack.

"Yes, I suppose it does. The guv'nor, y' know, never taught me how to make a livelihood; wouldn't let me be a soldier; sent me to college, and all that; wanted me to be a litterateur. Now I'm not literary."

"No, I shouldn't think you were."

"Remains Africa. I am not a clever chap, like you, Meredith."

"For which you may thank a gracious Providence," interposed Jack. "Chaps like me are what some people call 'fools' in their uncouth way."

"But I know a little about Africa, and I know something about Durnovo. That man has got a mania, and it is called Simiacine. He is quite straight upon that point, whatever he may be upon others. He knows this country, and he is not making any mistake about the Simiacine, whatever—"

"His powers of sick-nursing may be," suggested Jack.

"Yes, that's it. We'll put it that way if you like."

"Thanks, I do prefer it. Any fool could call a spade a spade. The natural ambition would be to find something more flowery and yet equally descriptive."

Guy Oscard subsided into a monosyllabic sound.

"I believe implicitly in this scheme," he went on, after a pause. "It is a certain fact that the men who can supply pure Simiacine have only to name their price for it. They will make a fortune, and I believe that Durnovo knows where it is growing in quantities."

"I cannot see how it would pay him to deceive us in the matter. That is the best way of looking at it," murmured Jack reflectively. "When I first met him, the man thought he was dying, and for the time I really believe that he was honest. Some men are honest when they feel unwell. There was so little doubt in my mind that I went into the thing at once."

"If you will go on with it I will stand by you," said Oscard shortly.

"All right; I think we two together are as good as any half-bred sharper on this coast, to put it gracefully."

Jack Meredith lighted a fresh cigarette, and leant back with the somewhat exaggerated grace of movement which was in reality partly attributable to natural litheness. For some time they smoked in silence, subject to the influence of the dreamy tropic night. Across the river some belated bird was calling continuously and cautiously for its mate. At times the splashing movements of a crocodile broke the smooth silence of the water. Overhead the air was luminous with that night-glow which never speaks to the senses in latitudes above the teens.

There is something in man's nature that inclines him sympathetically—almost respectfully—towards a mental inferior. Moreover, the feeling, whatever it may be, is rarely, if ever, found in women. A man does not openly triumph in victory, as do women. One sees an easy victor—at lawn tennis, for instance—go to his vanquished foe, wiping vigorously a brow that is scarcely damp, and explaining more or less lamely how it came about. But the same rarely happens in the "ladies' singles." What, to quote another instance, is more profound than the contempt bestowed by the girl with the good figure upon her who has no figure at all? Without claiming the virtue of a greater generosity for the sex, one may, perhaps, assume that men learn by experience the danger of despising any man. The girl with the good figure is sometimes—nay, often—found blooming alone in her superiority, while the despised competitor is a happy mother of children. And all this to explain that Jack Meredith felt drawn towards his great hulking companion by something that was not a mere respect of mind for matter.

As love is inexplicable, so is friendship. No man can explain why David held Jonathan in such high esteem. Between men it would appear that admiration is no part of friendship. And such as have the patience to follow the lives of the two Englishmen thus brought together by a series of chances will perhaps be able to discover in this record of a great scheme the reason why Jack Meredith, the brilliant, the gifted, should bestow upon Guy Oscard such a wealth of love and esteem as he never received in return.

During the silence Jack was apparently meditating over the debt of confidence which he still owed to his companion; for he spoke first, and spoke seriously, about himself, which was somewhat against his habit.

"I daresay you have heard," he said, "that I had a—a disagreement with my father."

"Yes. Heard something about it," replied Oscard, in a tone which seemed to imply that the "something" was quite sufficient for his requirements.

"It was about my engagement," Jack went on deliberately. "I do not know how it was, but they did not hit it off together. She was too honest to throw herself at his head, I suppose; for I imagine a pretty girl can usually do what she likes with an old man if she takes the trouble."

"Not with him, I think. Seemed to be rather down on girls in general," said Oscard coolly.

"Then you know him?"

"Yes, a little. I have met him once or twice, out, you know. I don't suppose he would know me again if he saw me."

Which last remark does not redound to the credit of Guy's powers of observation.

They paused. It is wonderful how near we may stand to the brink and look far away beyond the chasm. Years afterwards they remembered this conversation, and it is possible that Jack Meredith wondered then what instinct it was that made him change the direction of their thoughts.

"If it is agreeable to you," he said, "I think it would be wise for me to go down to Loango, and gently intimate to Durnovo that we should be glad of his services."

"Certainly."

"He cannot be buying quinine all this time, you know. He said he would travel night and day."

Oscard nodded gravely.

"How will you put it?" he asked.

"I thought I would simply say that his non-arrival caused us some anxiety, and that I had come down to see if anything was wrong."

Jack rose and threw away the end of his cigarette. It was quite late, and across the river the gleam of the moonlight on fixed bayonets told that only the sentries were astir.

"And what about the small-pox?" pursued Oscard, more with the desire to learn than to amend.

"Don't think I shall say anything about that. The man wants careful handling."

"You will have to tell him that we have got it under."

"Yes, I'll do that. Good-night, old fellow; I shall be off by daylight."

By seven o'clock the next morning the canoe was ready, with its swarthy rowers in their places. The two Englishmen breakfasted together, and then walked down to the landing-stage side by side.

It was raining steadily, and the atmosphere had that singular feeling of total relaxation and limpness which is only to be felt in the rain-ridden districts of Central Africa.

"Take care of yourself," said Oscard gruffly as Jack stepped into the canoe.

"All right."

"And bring back Durnovo with you."

Jack Meredith looked up with a vague smile.

"That man," he said lightly, "is going to the Plateau if I have to drag him there by the scruff of the neck."

And he believed that he was thinking of the expedition only.



CHAPTER XVI. WAR



Who, when they slash and cut to pieces, Do so with civilest addresses.

There is no power so subtle and so strong as that of association. We have learnt to associate mustard with beef, and therefore mustard shall be eaten with beef until the day when the lion shall lie down with the lamb.

Miss Millicent Chyne became aware, as the year advanced towards the sere and yellow leaf, that in opposing her wayward will in single combat against a simple little association in the public mind she was undertaking a somewhat herculean task.

Society—itself an association—is the slave of a word, and society had acquired the habit of coupling the names of Sir John Meredith and Lady Cantourne. They belonged to the same generation; they had similar tastes; they were both of some considerable power in the world of leisured pleasure; and, lastly, they amused each other. The result is not far to seek. Wherever the one was invited, the other was considered to be in demand; and Millicent found herself face to face with a huge difficulty.

Sir John was distinctly in the way. He had a keener eye than the majority of young men, and occasionally exercised the old man's privilege of saying outright things which, despite theory, are better left unsaid. Moreover, the situation was ill-defined, and an ill-defined situation does not improve in the keeping. Sir John said sharp things—too sharp even for Millicent—and, in addition to the original grudge begotten of his quarrel with Jack and its result, the girl nourished an ever-present feeling of resentment at a persistency in misunderstanding her of which she shrewdly suspected the existence.

Perhaps the worst of it was that Sir John never said anything which could be construed into direct disapproval. He merely indicated, in passing, the possession of a keen eyesight coupled with the embarrassing faculty of adding together correctly two small numerals.

When, therefore, Millicent allowed herself to be assisted from the carriage at the door of a large midland country house by an eager and lively little French baron of her acquaintance, she was disgusted but not surprised to see a well-known figure leaning gracefully on a billiard-cue in the hall.

"I wish I could think that this pleasure was mutual," said Sir John with his courtliest smile, as he bowed over Millicent's hand.

"It might be," with a coquettish glance.

"If—?"

"If I were not afraid of you."

Sir John turned, smiling, to greet Lady Cantourne. He did not appear to have heard, but in reality the remark had made a distinct impression on him. It signalised a new departure—the attack at a fresh quarter. Millicent had tried most methods—and she possessed many—hitherto in vain. She had attempted to coax him with a filial playfulness of demeanour, to dazzle him by a brilliancy which had that effect upon the majority of men in her train, to win him by respectful affection; but the result had been failure. She was now bringing her last reserve up to the front; and there are few things more dangerous, even to an old campaigner, than a confession of fear from the lips of a pretty girl.

Sir John Meredith gave himself a little jerk—a throw back of the shoulders which was habitual—which might have been a tribute either to Millicent behind, or to Lady Cantourne in front.

The pleasantest part of existence in a large country house full of visitors is the facility with which one may avoid those among the guests for whom one has no sympathy. Millicent managed very well to avoid Sir John Meredith. The baron was her slave—at least he said so—and she easily kept him at her beck and call during the first evening.

It would seem that that strange hollow energy of old age had laid its hand upon Sir John Meredith, for he was the first to appear in the breakfast-room the next morning. He went straight to the sideboard where the letters and newspapers lay in an orderly heap. It is a question whether he had not come down early on purpose to look for a letter. Perhaps he could not stay in his bed with the knowledge that the postman had called. He was possibly afraid to ask his old servant to go down and fetch his letters.

His bent and knotted hands fumbled among the correspondence, and suddenly his twitching lips were still. A strange stillness indeed overcame his whole face, turning it to stone. The letter was there; it had come, but it was not addressed to him.

Sir John Meredith took up the missive; he looked at the back, turned it, and examined the handwriting of his own son. There was a whole volume—filled with pride, and love, and unquenchable resolve—written on his face. He threw the letter down among its fellows, and his hand went fumbling weakly at his lips. He gazed, blinking his lashless lids, at the heap of letters, and the corner of another envelope presently arrested his attention. It was of the same paper, of the same shape and hue, as that addressed to Miss Chyne. Sir John drew a deep breath, and reached out his hand. The letter had come at last. At last, thank God! And how weakly ready he was to grasp at the olive branch held out to him across a continent!

He took the letter; he made a step with it towards the door, seeking solitude; then, as an afterthought, he looked at the superscription. It was addressed to the same person, Miss Chyne, but in a different handwriting—the handwriting of a man well educated but little used to wielding the pen.

"The other," mumbled Sir John. "The other man, by God!"

And, with a smile that sat singularly on his withered face, he took up a newspaper and went towards the fireplace, where he sat stiffly in an armchair, taking an enormous interest in the morning's news. He read a single piece of news three times over, and a fourth time in a whisper, so as to rivet his attention upon it. He would not admit that he was worsted—would not humble his pride even before the ornaments on the mantelpiece.

Before Millicent came down, looking very fresh and pretty in her tweed dress, the butler had sorted the letters. There were only two upon her plate—the twin envelopes addressed by different hands. Sir John was talking with a certain laboured lightness to Lady Cantourne, when that lady's niece came into the room. He was watching keenly. There was a certain amount of interest in the question of those two envelopes, as to which she would open first. She looked at each in turn, glanced furtively towards Sir John, made a suitable reply to some remark addressed to her by the baron, and tore open Jack's envelope. There was a gravity—a concentrated gravity—about her lips as she unfolded the thin paper; and Sir John, who knew the world and the little all-important trifles thereof, gave an impatient sigh. It is the little trifle that betrays the man, and not the larger issues of life in which we usually follow precedent. It was that passing gravity (of the lips only) that told Sir John more about Millicent Chyne than she herself knew, and what he had learnt did not seem to be to his liking.

There is nothing so disquieting as the unknown motive, which disquietude was Sir John's soon after breakfast. The other men dispersed to put on gaiters and cartridge-bags, and the old aristocrat took his newspaper on to the terrace.

Millicent followed him almost at once.

"Sir John," she said, "I have had a letter from Africa."

Did she take it for granted that he knew this already? Was this spontaneous? Had Jack told her to do it?

These questions flashed through the old man's mind as his eyes rested on her pretty face.

He was beginning to be afraid of this girl: which showed his wisdom. For the maiden beautiful is a stronger power in the world than the strong man. The proof of which is that she gets her own way more often than the strong man gets his.

"From Africa?" repeated Sir John Meredith, with a twitching lip. "And from whom is your letter, my dear young lady?"

His face was quite still, his old eyes steady, as he waited for the answer.

"From Jack."

Sir John winced inwardly. Outwardly he smiled and folded his newspaper upon his knees.

"Ah, from my brilliant son. That is interesting."

"Have you had one?" she asked, in prompt payment of his sarcasm.

Sir John Meredith looked up with a queer little smile. He admired the girl's spirit. It was the smile of the fencer on touching worthy steel.

"No, my dear young lady, I have not. Mr. John Meredith does not find time to write to me—but he draws his allowance from the bank with a filial regularity."

Millicent had the letter in her hand. She made it crinkle in her fingers within a foot of the old gentleman's face. A faint odour of the scent she used reached his nostrils. He drew back a little, as if he disliked it. His feeling for her almost amounted to a repugnance.

"I thought you might like to hear that he is well," she said gently. She was reading the address on the envelope, and again he saw that look of concentrated gravity which made him feel uneasy for reasons of his own.

"It is very kind of you to throw me even that crumb from your richly-stored intellectual table. I am very glad to hear that he is well. A whole long letter from him must be a treat indeed."

She thought of a proverb relating to the grapes that are out of reach, but said nothing.

It was the fashion that year to wear little flyaway jackets with a coquettish pocket on each side. Millicent was wearing one of them, and she now became aware that Sir John had glanced more than once with a certain significance towards her left hand, which happened to be in that pocket. It, moreover, happened that Guy Oscard's letter was in the same receptacle.

She withdrew the hand and changed colour slightly as she became conscious that the corner of the envelope was protruding.

"I suppose that by this time," said Sir John pleasantly, "you are quite an authority upon African matters?"

His manner was so extremely conversational and innocent that she did not think it necessary to look for an inner meaning. She was relieved to find that the two men, having actually met, spoke of each other frankly. It was evident that Guy Oscard could be trusted to keep his promise, and Jack Meredith was not the man to force or repose a confidence.

"He does not tell me much about Africa," she replied, determined to hold her ground. She was engaged to be married to Jack Meredith, and whether Sir John chose to ignore the fact or not she did not mean to admit that the subject should be tabooed.

"No—I suppose he has plenty to tell you about himself and his prospects?"

"Yes, he has. His prospects are not so hopeless as you think."

"My dear Miss Chyne," protested Sir John, "I know nothing about his prospects beyond the fact that, when I am removed from this sphere of activity, he will come into possession of my title, such as it is, and my means, such as they are."

"Then you attach no importance to the work he is inaugurating in Africa?"

"Not the least. I did not even know that he was endeavouring to work. I only trust it is not manual labour—it is so injurious to the finger-nails. I have no sympathy with a gentleman who imagines that manual labour is compatible with his position, provided that he does not put his hand to the plough in England. Is not there something in the Scriptures about a man putting his hand to the plough and looking back? If Jack undertakes any work of that description, I trust that he will recognise the fact that he forfeits his position by doing so."

"It is not manual labour—I can assure you of that."

"I am glad to hear it. He probably sells printed cottons to the natives, or exchanges wrought metal for ivory—an intellectual craft. But he is gaining experience, and I suppose he thinks he is going to make a fortune."

It happened that this was precisely the thought expressed by Jack Meredith in the letter in Millicent's hand.

"He is sanguine," she admitted.

"Of course. Quite right. Pray do not discourage him—if you find time to write. But between you and me, my dear Miss Chyne, fortunes are not made in Africa. I am an old man, and I have some experience of the world. That part of it which is called Africa is not the place where fortunes are made. It is as different from India as chalk is from cheese, if you will permit so vulgar a simile."

Millicent's face dropped.

"But SOME people have made fortunes there."

"Yes—in slaves! But that interesting commerce is at an end. However, so long as my son does not suffer in health, I suppose we must be thankful that he is creditably employed."

He rose as he spoke.

"I see," he went on, "your amiable friend the baron approaching with lawn-tennis necessaries. It is wonderful that our neighbours never learn to keep their enthusiasm for lawn-tennis in bounds until the afternoon."

With that he left her, and the baron came to the conclusion, before very long, that something had "contraried" the charming Miss Chyne. The truth was that Millicent was bitterly disappointed. The idea of failure had never entered her head since Jack's letters, full of life and energy, had begun to arrive. Sir John Meredith was a man whose words commanded respect—partly because he was an old man whose powers of perception had as yet apparently retained their full force, and the vast experience of life which was his could hardly be overrated. Man's prime is that period when the widest experience and the keenest perception meet.

Millicent Chyne had lulled herself into a false security. She had taken it for granted that Jack would succeed, and would return rich and prosperous within a few months. Upon this pleasant certainty Sir John had cast a doubt, and she could hardly treat his words with contempt. She had almost forgotten Guy Oscard's letter. Across a hemisphere Jack Meredith was a stronger influence in her life than Oscard.

While she sat on the terrace and flirted with the baron she reflected hurriedly over the situation. She was, she argued to herself, not in any way engaged to Guy Oscard. If he in an unguarded moment should dare to mention such a possibility to Jack, it would be quite easy to contradict the statement with convincing heat. But in her heart she was sure of Guy Oscard. One of the worst traits in the character of an unfaithful woman is the readiness with which she trades upon the faithfulness of men.



CHAPTER XVII. UNDERHAND



The offender never pardons.

Victor Durnovo lingered on at Loango. He elaborated and detailed to all interested, and to some whom it did not concern, many excuses for his delay in returning to his expedition, lying supine and attendant at Msala. It was by now an open secret on the coast that a great trading expedition was about to ascend the Ogowe river, with, it was whispered, a fortune awaiting it in the dim perspective of Central Africa.

Durnovo had already built up for himself a reputation. He was known as one of the foremost ivory traders on the coast—a man capable of standing against those enormous climatic risks before which his competitors surely fell sooner or later. His knowledge of the interior was unrivalled, his power over the natives a household word. Great things were therefore expected, and Durnovo found himself looked up to and respected in Loango with that friendly worship which is only to be acquired by the possession or prospective possession of vast wealth.

It is possible even in Loango to have a fling, but the carouser must be prepared to face, even in the midst of his revelry, the haunting thought that the exercise of the strictest economy in any other part of the world might be a preferable pastime.

During the three days following his arrival Victor Durnovo indulged, according to his lights, in the doubtful pleasure mentioned. He purchased at the best factory the best clothes obtainable; he lived like a fighting cock in the one so-called hotel—a house chiefly affected and supported by ship-captains. He spent freely of money that was not his, and imagined himself to be leading the life of a gentleman. He rode round on a hired horse to call on his friends, and on the afternoon of the sixth day he alighted from this quadruped at the gate of the Gordons' bungalow.

He knew that Maurice Gordon had left that morning on one of his frequent visits to a neighbouring sub-factory. Nevertheless, he expressed surprise when the servant gave him the information.

"Miss Gordon," he said, tapping his boot with a riding-whip: "is she in?"

"Yes, sir."

A few minutes later Jocelyn came into the drawing-room, where he was waiting with a brazen face and a sinking heart. Somehow the very room had power to bring him down towards his own level. When he set eyes on Jocelyn, in her fair Saxon beauty, he regained aplomb.

She appeared to be rather glad to see him.

"I thought," she said, "that you had gone back to the expedition?"

And Victor Durnovo's boundless conceit substituted "feared" for "thought."

"Not without coming to say good-bye," he answered. "It is not likely."

Just to demonstrate how fully he felt at ease, he took a chair without waiting for an invitation, and sat tapping his boot with his whip, looking her furtively up and down all the while with an appraising eye.

"And when do you go?" she asked, with a subtle change in her tone which did not penetrate his mental epidermis.

"I suppose in a few days now; but I'll let you know all right, never fear."

Victor Durnovo stretched out his legs and made himself quite at home; but Jocelyn did not sit down. On the contrary, she remained standing, persistently and significantly.

"Maurice gone away?" he inquired.

"Yes."

"And left you all alone," in a tone of light badinage, which fell rather flat, on stony ground.

"I am accustomed to being left," she answered gravely.

"I don't quite like it, you know."

"YOU?"

She looked at him with a steady surprise which made him feel a trifle uncomfortable.

"Well, you know," he was forced to explain, shuffling the while uneasily in his chair and dropping his whip, "one naturally takes an interest in one's friends' welfare. You and Maurice are the best friends I have in Loango. I often speak to Maurice about it. It isn't as if there was an English garrison, or anything like that. I don't trust these niggers a bit."

"Perhaps you do not understand them?" suggested she gently.

She moved away from him as far as she could get. Every moment increased her repugnance for his presence.

"I don't think Maurice would endorse that," he said, with a conceited laugh.

She winced at the familiar mention of her brother's name, which was probably intentional, and her old fear of this man came back with renewed force.

"I don't think," he went on, "that Maurice's estimation of my humble self is quite so low as yours."

She gave a nervous little laugh.

"Maurice has always spoken of you with gratitude," she said.

"To deaf ears, eh? Yes, he has reason to be grateful, though perhaps I ought not to say it. I have put him into several very good things on the coast, and it is in my power to get him into this new scheme. It is a big thing; he would be a rich man in no time."

He rose from his seat and deliberately crossed the room to the sofa where she had sat down, where he reclined, with one arm stretched out along the back of it towards her. In his other hand he held his riding-whip, with which he began to stroke the skirt of her dress, which reached along the floor almost to his feet.

"Would you like him to be in it?" he asked, with a meaning glance beneath his lashes. "It is a pity to throw away a good chance; his position is not so very secure, you know."

She gave a strange little hunted glance round the room. She was wedged into a corner, and could not rise without incurring the risk of his saying something she did not wish to hear. Then she leant forward and deliberately withdrew her dress from the touch of his whip, which was in its way a subtle caress.

"Is he throwing away the chance?" she asked.

"No, but you are."

Then she rose from her seat, and, standing in the middle of the room, faced him with a sudden gleam in her eyes.

"I do not see what it has to do with me," she said; "I do not know anything about Maurice's business arrangements, and very little about his business friends."

"Then let me tell you, Jocelyn—well, then, Miss Gordon, if you prefer it—that you will know more about one of his business friends before you have finished with him. I've got Maurice more or less in my power now, and it rests with you—"

At this moment a shadow darkened the floor of the verandah, and an instant later Jack Meredith walked quietly in by the window.

"Enter, young man," he said dramatically, "by window—centre."

"I am sorry," he went on in a different tone to Jocelyn, "to come in this unceremonious way, but the servant told me that you were in the verandah with Durnovo and—"

He turned towards the half-breed, pausing.

"And Durnovo is the man I want," weighing on each word.

Durnovo's right hand was in his jacket pocket. Seeing Meredith's proffered salutation, he slowly withdrew it and shook hands.

The flash of hatred was still in his eyes when Jack Meredith turned upon him with aggravating courtesy. The pleasant, half-cynical glance wandered from Durnovo's dark face very deliberately down to his jacket pocket, where the stock of a revolver was imperfectly concealed.

"We were getting anxious about you," he explained, "seeing that you did not come back. Of course, we knew that you were capable of taking—care—of yourself."

He was still looking innocently at the tell-tale jacket pocket, and Durnovo, following the direction of his glance, hastily thrust his hand into it.

"But one can never tell, with a treacherous climate like this, what a day may bring forth. However, I am glad to find you looking—so very fit."

Victor Durnovo gave an awkward little laugh, extremely conscious of the factory clothes.

"Oh, yes; I'm all right," he said. "I was going to start this evening."

The girl stood behind them, with a flush slowly fading from her face. There are some women who become suddenly beautiful—not by the glory of a beautiful thought, not by the exaltation of a lofty virtue, but by the mere practical human flush. Jack Meredith, when he took his eyes from Durnovo's, glancing at Jocelyn, suddenly became aware of the presence of a beautiful woman.

The crisis was past; and if Jack knew it, so also did Jocelyn. She knew that the imperturbable gentlemanliness of the Englishman had conveyed to the more passionate West Indian the simple, downright fact that in a lady's drawing-room there was to be no raised voice, no itching fingers, no flash of fiery eyes.

"Yes," he said, "that will suit me splendidly. We will travel together."

He turned to Jocelyn.

"I hear your brother is away?"

"Yes, for a few days. He has gone up the coast."

Then there was a silence. They both paused, helping each other as if by pre-arrangement, and Victor Durnovo suddenly felt that he must go. He rose, and picked up the whip which he had dropped on the matting. There was no help for it—the united wills of these two people were too strong for him.

Jack Meredith passed out of the verandah with him, murmuring something about giving him a leg up. While they were walking round the house, Victor Durnovo made one of those hideous mistakes which one remembers all through life with a sudden rush of warm shame and self-contempt. The very thing that was uppermost in his mind to be avoided suddenly bubbled to his lips, almost, it would seem, in defiance of his own will.

"What about the small—the small-pox?" he asked.

"We have got it under," replied Jack quietly. "We had a very bad time for three days, but we got all the cases isolated and prevented it from spreading. Of course, we could do little or nothing to save them; they died."

Durnovo had the air of a whipped dog. His mind was a blank. He simply had nothing to say; the humiliation of utter self-contempt was his.

"You need not be afraid to come back now," Jack Meredith went on, with a strange refinement of cruelty.

And that was all he ever said about it.

"Will it be convenient for you to meet me on the beach at four o'clock this afternoon?" he asked, when Durnovo was in the saddle.

"Yes."

"All right—four o'clock."

He turned and deliberately went back to the bungalow.

There are some friendships where the intercourse is only the seed which absence duly germinates. Jocelyn Gordon and Jack had parted as acquaintances; they met as friends. There is no explaining these things, for there is no gauging the depths of the human mind. There is no getting down to the little bond that lies at the bottom of the well—the bond of sympathy. There is no knowing what it is that prompts us to say, "This man, or this woman, of all the millions, shall be my friend."

"I am sorry," he said, "that he should have had a chance of causing you uneasiness again."

Jocelyn remembered that all her life. She remembers still—and Africa has slipped away from her existence for ever. It is one of the mental photographs of her memory, standing out clear and strong amidst a host of minor recollections.



CHAPTER XVIII. A REQUEST



It surely was my profit had I known It would have been my pleasure had I seen.

"Why did he come back?"

Jocelyn had risen as if to intimate that, if he cared to do so, they would sit in the verandah.

"Why did Mr. Durnovo come back?" she repeated; for Jack did not seem to have heard the question. He was drawing forward a cane chair with the leisurely debonnair grace that was his, and, before replying, he considered for a moment.

"To get quinine," he answered.

Without looking at her, he seemed to divine that he had made a mistake. He seemed to know that she had flushed suddenly to the roots of her hair, with a distressed look in her eyes. The reason was too trivial. She could only draw one conclusion.

"No," he continued; "to tell you the truth, I think his nerve gave way a little. His health is undermined by this climate. He has been too long in Africa. We have had a bad time at Msala. We have had small-pox in the camp. Oscard and I have been doing doughty deeds. I feel convinced that, if we applied to some Society, we should get something or other—a testimonial or a monument—also Joseph."

"I like Joseph," she said in a low tone.

"So do I. If circumstances had been different—if Joseph had not been my domestic servant—I should have liked him for a friend."

He was looking straight in front of him with a singular fixity. It is possible that he was conscious of the sidelong scrutiny which he was undergoing.

"And you—you have been all right?" she said lightly.

"Oh, yes," with a laugh. "I have not brought the infection down to Loango; you need not be afraid of that."

For a moment she looked as if she were going to explain that she was not "afraid of that." Then she changed her mind and let it pass, as he seemed to believe.

"Joseph constructed a disinfecting room with a wood-smoke fire, or something of that description, and he has been disinfecting everything, down to Oscard's pipes."

She gave a little laugh, which stopped suddenly.

"Was it very bad?" she asked.

"Oh, no. We took it in time, you see. We had eleven deaths. And now we are all right. We are only waiting for Durnovo to join, and then we shall make a start. Of course, somebody else could have come down for the quinine."

"Yes."

He glanced at her beneath his lashes before going on,

"But, as Durnovo's nerves were a little shaken, it—was just as well, don't you know, to get him out of it all."

"I suppose he got himself out of it all?" she said quietly.

"Well—to a certain extent. With our approval, you understand."

Men have an esprit de sexe as well as women. They like to hustle the cowards through with the crowd, unobserved.

"It is a strange thing," said Jocelyn, with a woman's scorn of the man who fears those things of which she herself has no sort of dread, "a very strange thing, that Mr. Durnovo said nothing about it down here. It is not known in Loango that you had small-pox in the camp."

"Well, you see, when he left we were not quite sure about it."

"I imagine Mr. Durnovo knows all about small-pox. We all do on this coast. He could hardly help recognising it in its earliest stage."

She turned on him with a smile which he remembered afterwards. At the moment he felt rather abashed, as if he had been caught in a very maze of untruths. He did not meet her eyes. It was a matter of pride with him that he was equal to any social emergency that might arise. He had always deemed himself capable of withholding from the whole questioning world anything that he might wish to withhold. But afterwards—later in his life—he remembered that look in Jocelyn Gordon's face.

"Altogether," she said, with a peculiar little contented laugh, "I think you cannot keep it up any longer. He ran away from you and left you to fight against it alone. All the same, it was—nice—of you to try and screen him. Very nice, but I do not think that I could have done it myself. I suppose it was—noble—and women cannot be noble."

"No, it was only expedient. The best way to take the world is to wring it dry—not to try and convert it and make it better, but to turn its vices to account. That method has the double advantage of serving one's purpose at the time, and standing as a warning later. The best way to cure vice is to turn it ruthlessly to one's own account. That is what we are doing with Durnovo. His little idiosyncrasies will turn in witness against him later on."

She shook her head in disbelief.

"Your practice and your theory do not agree," she said.

There was a little pause; then she turned to him gravely.

"Have you been vaccinated?" she asked.

"In the days of my baptism, wherein I was made—"

"No doubt," she interrupted impatiently, "but since? Have you had it done lately?"

"Just before I came away from England. My tailor urged it so strongly. He said that he had made outfits for many gents going to Africa, and they had all made their wills and been vaccinated. For reasons which are too painful to dwell upon in these pages I could not make a will, so I was enthusiastically vaccinated."

"And have you all the medicines you will require? Did you really want that quinine?"

There was a practical, common-sense anxiety in the way she asked these questions which made him answer gravely.

"All, thanks. We did not really want the quinine, but we can do with it. Oscard is our doctor; he is really very good. He looks it all up in a book, puts all the negative symptoms on one side, and the positive on the other—adds them all up, then deducts the smaller from the larger, and treats what is left of the patient accordingly."

She laughed, more with the view of pleasing him than from a real sense of the ludicrous.

"I do not believe," she said, "that you know the risks you are running into. Even in the short time that Maurice and I have been here we have learnt to treat the climate of Western Africa with a proper respect. We have known so many people who have—succumbed."

"Yes, but I do not mean to do that. In a way, Durnovo's—what shall we call it?—lack of nerve is a great safeguard. He will not run into any danger."

"No, but he might run you into it."

"Not a second time, Miss Gordon. Not if we know it. Oscard mentioned a desire to wring Durnovo's neck. I am afraid he will do it one of these days."

"The mistake that most people make," the girl went on more lightly, "is a want of care. You cannot be too careful, you know, in Africa."

"I am careful; I have reason to be."

She was looking at him steadily, her blue eyes searching his.

"Yes?" she said slowly, and there were a thousand questions in the word.

"It would be very foolish of me to be otherwise," he said. "I am engaged to be married, and I came out here to make the wherewithal. This expedition is an expedition to seek the wherewithal."

"Yes," she said, "and therefore you must be more careful than any one else. Because, you see, your life is something which does not belong to you, but with which you are trusted. I mean, if there is anything dangerous to be done, let some one else do it. What is she like? What is her name?"

"Her name is Millicent—Millicent Chyne."

"And—what is she like?"

He leant back, and, interlocking his fingers, stretched his arms out with the palms of his hands outward—a habit of his when asked a question needing consideration.

"She is of medium height; her hair is brown. Her worst enemy admits, I believe, that she is pretty. Of course, I am convinced of it."

"Of course," replied Jocelyn steadily. "That is as it should be. And I have no doubt that you and her worst enemy are both quite right."

He nodded cheerfully, indicating a great faith in his own judgment on the matter under discussion.

"I am afraid," he said, "that I have not a photograph. That would be the correct thing, would it not? I ought to have one always with me in a locket round my neck, or somewhere. A curiously-wrought locket is the correct thing, I believe. People in books usually carry something of that description—and it is always curiously wrought. I don't know where they buy them."

"I think they are usually inherited," suggested Jocelyn.

"I suppose they are," he went on in the same semi-serious tone. "And then I ought to have it always ready to clasp in my dying hand, where Joseph would find it and wipe away a furtive tear as he buried me. It is a pity. I am afraid I inherited nothing from my ancestors except a very practical mind."

"I should have liked very much to see a photograph of Miss Chyne," said Jocelyn, who had, apparently, not been listening.

"I hope some day you will see herself, at home in England. For you have no abiding city here."

"Only a few more years now. Has she—are her parents living?"

"No, they are both dead. Indian people they were. Indian people have a tragic way of dying young. Millicent lives with her aunt, Lady Cantourne. And Lady Cantourne ought to have married my respected father."

"Why did she not do so?"

He shrugged his shoulders—paused—sat up and flicked a large moth off the arm of his chair. Then,

"Goodness only knows," he said. "Goodness, and themselves. I suppose they found it out too late. That is one of the little risks of life."

She answered nothing.

"Do you think," he went on, "that there will be a special Hell in the Hereafter for parents who have sacrificed their children's lives to their own ambition? I hope there will be."

"I have never given the matter the consideration it deserves," she answered. "Was that the reason? Is Lady Cantourne a more important person than Lady Meredith?"

"Yes."

She gave a little nod of comprehension, as if he had raised a curtain for her to see into his life—into the far perspective of it, reaching back into the dim distance of fifty years before. For our lives do reach back into the lives of our fathers and grandfathers; the beginnings made there come down into our daily existence, shaping our thought and action. That which stood between Sir John Meredith and his son was not so much the present personality of Millicent Chyne as the past shadows of a disappointed life, an unloved wife and an unsympathetic mother. And these things Jocelyn Gordon knew while she sat, gazing with thoughtful eyes, wherein something lived and burned of which she was almost ignorant—gazing through the tendrils of the creeping flowers that hung around them.

At last Jack Meredith rose briskly, watch in hand, and Jocelyn came back to things of earth with a quick gasping sigh which took her by surprise.

"Miss Gordon, will you do something for me?"

"With pleasure."

He tore a leaf from his pocket-book, and, going to the table, he wrote on the paper with a pencil pendent at his watch-chain.

"The last few days," he explained while he wrote, "have awakened me to the lamentable fact that human life is rather an uncertain affair."

He came towards her, holding out the paper.

"If you hear—if anything happens to me, would you be so kind as to write to Millicent and tell her of it? That is the address."

She took the paper, and read the address with a dull sort of interest.

"Yes," she said. "Yes, if you like. But—nothing must happen to you."

There was a slight unsteadiness in her voice, which made her stop suddenly. She did not fold the paper, but continued to read the address.

"No," he said, "nothing will. But would you not despise a man who could not screw up his courage to face the possibility?"

He wondered what she was thinking about, for she did not seem to hear him.

A clock in the drawing-room behind them struck the half-hour, and the sound seemed to recall her to the present.

"Are you going now?" she asked.

"Yes," he answered, vaguely puzzled. "Yes, I must go now."

She rose, and for a moment he held her hand. He was distinctly conscious of something left unsaid—of many things. He even paused on the edge of the verandah, trying to think what it was that he had to say. Then he pushed aside the hanging flowers and passed out.

"Good-bye!" he said over his shoulder.

Her lips moved, but he heard no sound. She turned with a white, drawn face and sat down again. The paper was still in her hand. She consulted it again, reading in a whisper:

"Millicent Chyne—Millicent!"

She turned the paper over and studied the back of it—almost as if she was trying to find what there was behind that name.

Through the trees there rose and fell the music of the distant surf. Somewhere near at hand a water-wheel, slowly irrigating the rice-fields, creaked and groaned after the manner of water-wheels all over Africa. In all there was that subtle sense of unreality—that utter lack of permanency which touches the heart of the white exile in tropic lands, and lets life slip away without allowing the reality of it to be felt.

The girl sat there with the name before her—written on the little slip of paper—the only memento he had left her.



CHAPTER XIX. IVORY



'Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus, Another thing to fall.

One of the peculiarities of Africa yet to be explained is the almost supernatural rapidity with which rumour travels. Across the whole breadth of this darkest continent a mere bit of gossip has made its way in a month. A man may divulge a secret, say, at St. Paul de Loanda, take ship to Zanzibar, and there his own secret will be told to him.

Rumour met Maurice Gordon almost at the outset of his journey northward.

"Small-pox is raging on the Ogowe River," they told him. "The English expedition is stricken down with it. The three leaders are dead."

Maurice Gordon had not lived four years on the West African coast in vain. He took this for what it was worth. But if he had acquired scepticism, he had lost his nerve. He put about and sailed back to Loango.

"I wonder," he muttered, as he walked up from the beach to his office that same afternoon—"I wonder if Durnovo is among them?"

And he was conscious of a ray of hope in his mind. He was a kind-hearted man, in his way, this Maurice Gordon of Loango; but he could not disguise from himself the simple fact that the death of Victor Durnovo would be a distinct convenience and a most desirable relief. Even the best of us—that is to say, the present writer and his reader—have these inconvenient little feelings. There are people who have done us no particular injury, to whom we wish no particular harm, but we feel that it would be very expedient and considerate of them to die.

Thinking these thoughts, Maurice Gordon arrived at the factory and went straight to his own office, where he found the object of them—Victor Durnovo—sitting in consumption of the office sherry.

Gordon saw at once that the rumour was true. There was a hunted unwholesome look in Durnovo's eyes. He looked shaken, and failed to convey a suggestion of personal dignity.

"Hulloa!" exclaimed the proprietor of the decanter. "You look a bit chippy. I have been told there is small-pox up at Msala."

"So have I. I've just heard it from Meredith."

"Just heard it—is Meredith down here too?"

"Yes, and the fool wants to go back to-night. I have to meet him on the beach at four o'clock."

Maurice Gordon sat down, poured out for himself a glass of sherry, and drank it thoughtfully.

"Do you know, Durnovo," he said emphatically, "I have my doubts about Meredith being a fool."

"Indeed!" with a derisive laugh.

"Yes."

Maurice Gordon looked over his shoulder to see that the door was shut.

"You'll have to be very careful," he said. "The least slip might let it all out. Meredith has a quiet way of looking at one which disquiets me. He might find out."

"Not he," replied Durnovo confidently, "especially if we succeed; and we shall succeed—by God we shall!"

Maurice Gordon made a little movement of the shoulders, as indicating a certain uneasiness, but he said nothing.

There was a pause of considerable duration, at the end of which Durnovo produced a paper from his pocket and threw it down.

"That's good business," he said.

"Two thousand tusks," murmured Maurice Gordon. "Yes, that's good. Through Akmed, I suppose?"

"Yes. We can outdo these Arabs at their own trade."

An evil smile lighted up Durnovo's sallow face. When he smiled, his dropping, curtain-like moustache projected in a way that made keen observers of the human face wonder what his mouth was like.

Gordon, who had been handling the paper with the tips of his finger, as if it were something unclean, threw it down on the table again.

"Ye—es," he said slowly; "but it does not seem to dirty black hands as it does white. They know no better."

"Lord!" ejaculated Durnovo. "Don't let us begin the old arguments all over again. I thought we settled that the trade was there; we couldn't prevent it, and therefore the best thing is to make hay while the sun shines, and then clear out of the country."

"But suppose Meredith finds out?" reiterated Maurice Gordon, with a lamentable hesitation that precedes loss.

"If Meredith finds out, it will be the worse for him."

A certain concentration of tone aroused Maurice Gordon's attention, and he glanced uneasily at his companion.

"No one knows what goes on in the heart of Africa," said Durnovo darkly. "But we will not trouble about that; Meredith won't find out."

"Where is he now?"

"With your sister, at the bungalow. A lady's man—that is what he is."

Victor Durnovo was smarting under a sense of injury which was annoyingly indefinite. It was true that Jack Meredith had come at a very unpropitious moment; but it was equally clear that the intrusion could only have been the result of accident. It was really a case of the third person who is no company, with aggravated symptoms. Durnovo had vaguely felt in the presence of either a subtle possibility of sympathy between Jocelyn Gordon and Jack Meredith. When he saw them together, for only a few minutes as it happened, the sympathy rose up and buffeted him in the face, and he hated Jack Meredith for it. He hated him for a certain reposeful sense of capability which he had at first set down as conceit, and later on had learnt to value as something innate in blood and education which was not conceit. He hated him because his gentlemanliness was so obvious that it showed up the flaws in other men, as the masterpiece upon the wall shows up the weaknesses of the surrounding pictures. But most of all he hated him because Jocelyn Gordon seemed to have something in common with the son of Sir John Meredith—a world above the head of even the most successful trader on the coast—a world in which he, Victor Durnovo, could never live and move at ease.

Beyond this, Victor Durnovo cherished the hatred of the Found Out. He felt instinctively that behind the courteous demeanour of Jack Meredith there was an opinion—a cool, unbiassed criticism—of himself, which Meredith had no intention of divulging.

On hearing that Jack was at the bungalow with Jocelyn, Maurice Gordon glanced at the clock and wondered how he could get away from his present visitor. The atmosphere of Jack Meredith's presence was preferable to that diffused by Victor Durnovo. There was a feeling of personal safety and dignity in the very sound of his voice which set a weak and easily-led man upon his feet.

But Victor Durnovo had something to say to Gordon which circumstances had brought to a crisis.

"Look here," he said, leaning forward and throwing away the cigarette he had been smoking. "This Simiacine scheme is going to be the biggest thing that has ever been run on this coast."

"Yes," said Gordon, with the indifference that comes from non-participation.

"And I'm the only business man in it," significantly.

Gordon nodded his head, awaiting further developments.

"Which means that I could work another man into it. I might find out that we could not get on without him."

The black eyes seemed to probe the good-natured, sensual face of Maurice Gordon, so keen, so searching was their glance.

"And I would be willing to do it—to make that man's fortune—provided—that he was—my brother-in-law."

"What the devil do you mean?" asked Gordon, setting down the glass that was half raised to his lips.

"I mean that I want to marry—Jocelyn."

And the modern school of realistic, mawkishly foul novelists, who hold that Love excuseth all, would have taken delight in the passionate rendering of the girl's name.

"Want to marry Jocelyn, do you?" answered Maurice, with a derisive little laugh. On the first impulse of the moment he gave no thought to himself or his own interests, and spoke with undisguised contempt. He might have been speaking to a beggar on the roadside.

Durnovo's eyes flashed dangerously, and his tobacco-stained teeth clenched for a moment over his lower lip.

"That is my desire—and intention."

"Look here, Durnovo!" exclaimed Gordon. "Don't be a fool! Can't you see that it is quite out of the question?"

He attempted weakly to dismiss the matter by leaning forward on his writing-table, taking up his pen, and busying himself with a number of papers.

Victor Durnovo rose from his chair so hastily that in a flash Maurice Gordon's hand was in the top right-hand drawer of his writing-table. The good-natured blue eyes suddenly became fixed and steady. But Durnovo seemed to make an effort over himself, and walked to the window, where he drew aside the woven-grass blind and looked out into the glaring sunlight. Still standing there, he turned and spoke in a low, concentrated voice:

"No," he said, "I can't see that it is out of the question. On the contrary, it seems only natural that she should marry the man who is her brother's partner in many a little—speculation."

Maurice Gordon, sitting there, staring hopelessly into the half-breed's yellow face, saw it all. He went back in a flash of recollection to many passing details which had been unnoted at the time—details which now fitted into each other like the links of a chain—and that chain was around him. He leapt forward in a momentary opening of the future, and saw himself ruined, disgraced, held up to the execration of the whole civilised world. He was utterly in this man's power—bound hand and foot. He could not say him no. And least of all could he say no to this demand, which had roused all the latent chivalry, gentlemanliness, brotherly love, that was in him. Maurice Gordon knew that Victor Durnovo possessed knowledge which Jocelyn would consider cheap at the price of her person.

There was one way out of it. His hand was still on the handle of the top right-hand drawer. He was a dead shot. His finger was within two inches of the stock of a revolver. One bullet for Victor Durnovo, another for himself. Then the old training of his school days—the training that makes an upright, honest gentleman—asserted itself, and he saw the cowardice of it. There was time enough for that later, when the crisis came. In the meantime, if the worst came to the worst, he could fight to the end.

"I don't think," said Durnovo, who seemed to be following Gordon's thoughts, "that the idea would be so repellent to your sister as you seem to think."

And a sudden ray of hope shot athwart the future into which his listener was staring. It might be so. One can never tell with women. Maurice Gordon had had considerable experience of the world, and, after all, he was only building up hope upon precedent. He knew, as well as you or I, that women will dance and flirt with—even marry—men who are not gentlemen. Not only for the moment, but as a permanency, something seems to kill their perception of a fact which is patent to every educated man in the room; and one never knows what it is. One can only surmise that it is that thirst for admiration which does more harm in the world than the thirst for alcoholic stimulant which we fight with societies and guilds, oaths and little snips of ribbon.

"The idea never entered my head," said Gordon.

"It has never been out of mine," replied Durnovo, with a little harsh laugh which was almost pathetic. "I don't want you to do anything now," he went on more gently. It was wonderful how well he knew Maurice Gordon. The suggested delay appealed to one side of his nature, the softened tone to another. "There is time enough. When I come back I will speak of it again."

"You have not spoken to her?"

"No, I have not spoken to her."

Maurice Gordon shook his head.

"She is a queer girl," he said, trying to conceal the hope that was in his voice. "She is cleverer than me, you know, and all that. My influence is very small, and would scarcely be considered.

"But your interests would," suggested Durnovo. "Your sister is very fond of you, and—I think I have one or two arguments to put forward which she would recognise as uncommonly strong."

The colour which had been returning slowly to Maurice Gordon's face now faded away again. His lips were dry and shrivelled as if he had passed through a sirocco.

"Mind," continued Durnovo reassuringly, "I don't say I would use them unless I suspected that you were acting in opposition to my wishes."

Gordon said nothing. His heart was throbbing uncomfortably—it seemed to be in his throat.

"I would not bring forward those arguments except as a last resource," went on Victor Durnovo, with the deliberate cruelty of a tyrant. "I would first point out the advantages; a fourth share in the Simiacine scheme would make you a rich man—above suspicion—independent of the gossip of the market-place."

Maurice Gordon winced visibly, and his eyes wavered as if he were about to give way to panic.

"You could retire and go home to England—to a cooler climate. This country might get too hot for your constitution—see?"

Durnovo came back into the centre of the room and stood by the writing-table. His attitude was that of a man holding a whip over a cowering dog.

He took up his hat and riding-whip with a satisfied little laugh, as if the dog had cringingly done his bidding.

"Besides," he said, with a certain defiance of manner, "I may succeed without any of that—eh?"

"Yes," Gordon was obliged to admit with a gulp, as if he were swallowing his pride, and he knew that in saying the word he was degrading his sister—throwing her at this man's feet as the price of his honour.

With a half-contemptuous nod Victor Durnovo turned, and went away to keep his appointment with Meredith.



CHAPTER XX. BROUGHT TO THE SCRATCH



Take heed of still waters; they quick pass away.

Guy Oscard was sitting on the natural terrace in front of Durnovo's house at Msala, and Marie attended to his simple wants with that patient dignity which suggested the recollection of better times, and appealed strongly to the manhood of her fellow-servant Joseph.

Oscard was not good at the enunciation of those small amenities which are supposed to soothe the feelings of the temporarily debased. He vaguely felt that this woman was not accustomed to menial service, but he knew that any suggestion of sympathy was more than he could compass. So he merely spoke to her more gently than to the men, and perhaps she understood, despite her chocolate-coloured skin.

They had inaugurated a strange, unequal friendship during the three days that Oscard had been left alone at Msala. Joseph had been promoted to the command of a certain number of the porters, and his domestic duties were laid aside. Thus Marie was called upon to attend to Guy Oscard's daily wants.

"I think I'll take coffee," he was saying to her in reply to a question. "Yes—coffee, please, Marie."

He was smoking one of his big wooden pipes, staring straight in front of him with a placidity natural to his bulk.

The woman turned away with a little smile. She liked this big man with his halting tongue and quiet ways. She liked his awkward attempts to conciliate the coquette Xantippe—to extract a smile from the grave Nestorius, and she liked his manner towards herself. She liked the poised pipe and the jerky voice as he said, "Yes—coffee, please, Marie."

Women do like these things—they seem to understand them and to attach some strange, subtle importance of their own to them. For which power some of us who have not the knack of turning a pretty phrase or throwing off an appropriate pleasantry may well be thankful.

Presently she returned, bringing the coffee on a rough tray, also a box of matches and Oscard's tobacco pouch. Noting this gratuitous attention to his comfort, he looked up with a little laugh.

"Er—thank you," he said. "Very kind."

He did not put his pipe back to his lips—keenly alive to the fact that the exigency of the moment demanded a little polite exchange of commonplace.

"Children gone to bed?" he asked anxiously.

She paused in her slow, deft arrangement of the little table.

"Yes," she answered.

He nodded as if the news were eminently satisfactory. "Nestorius," he said, adhering to Meredith's pleasantry, "is the jolliest little chap I have met for a long time."

"Yes," she answered softly. "Yes—but listen!"

He raised his head, listening as she did—both looking down the river into the gathering darkness.

"I hear the sound of paddles," she said. "And you?"

"Not yet. My ears are not so sharp as yours."

"I am accustomed to it," the woman said, with some emotion in her voice which he did not understand then. "I am always listening."

Oscard seemed to be struck with this description of herself. It was so very apt—so comprehensive. The woman's attitude before the world was the attitude of the listener for some distant sound.

She poured out his coffee, setting the cup at his elbow. "Now you will hear," she said, standing upright with that untrammelled dignity of carriage which is found wherever African blood is in the veins. "They have just come round Broken Tree Bend. There are two boats."

He listened, and after a moment heard the regular glug-glug of the paddles stealing over the waters of the still tropic river, covering a wonderful distance.

"Yes," he said, "I hear. Mr. Meredith said he would be back to-night."

She gave a strange, little low laugh—almost the laugh of a happy woman.

"He is like that, Mr. Meredith," she said; "what he says he does"—in the pretty English of one who has learnt Spanish first.

"Yes, Marie—he is like that."

She turned, in her strangely subdued way, and went into the house to prepare some supper for the new-comers.

It was not long before the sound of the paddles was quite distinct, and then—probably on turning a corner of the river and coming in sight of the lights of Msala—Jack Meredith's cheery shout came floating through the night. Oscard took his pipe from his lips and sent back an answer that echoed against the trees across the river. He walked down to the water's edge, where he was presently joined by Joseph with a lantern.

The two boats came on to the sloping shore with a grating sound, and by the light of the waving lantern Oscard saw Durnovo and Jack land from the same boat.

The three men walked up to the house together. Marie was at the door, and bowed her head gravely in answer to Jack's salutation. Durnovo nodded curtly and said nothing.

In the sitting-room, by the light of the paraffin lamp, the two Englishmen exchanged a long questioning glance, quite different from the quick interrogation of a woman's eyes. There was a smile on Jack Meredith's face.

"All ready to start to-morrow?" he inquired.

"Yes," replied Oscard.

And that was all they could say. Durnovo never left them alone together that night. He watched their faces with keen, suspicious eyes. Behind the moustache his lips were pursed up in restless anxiety. But he saw nothing—learnt nothing. These two men were inscrutable.

At eleven o'clock the next morning the Simiacine seekers left their first unhappy camp at Msala. They had tasted of misfortune at the very beginning, but after the first reverse they returned to their work with that dogged determination which is a better spirit than the wild enthusiasm of departure, where friends shout and flags wave, and an artificial hopefulness throws in its jarring note.

They had left behind them with the artifice of civilisation that subtle handicap of a woman's presence; and the little flotilla of canoes that set sail from the terrace at Msala one morning in November, not so many years ago, was essentially masculine in its bearing. The four white men—quiet, self-contained, and intrepid—seemed to work together with a perfect unity, a oneness of thought and action which really lay in the brain of one of them. No man can define a true leader; for one is too autocratic and the next too easily led; one is too quick-tempered, another too reserved. It would almost seem that the ideal leader is that man who knows how to extract from the brains of his subordinates all that is best and strongest therein—who knows how to suppress his own individuality, and merge it for the time being into that of his fellow-worker—whose influence is from within and not from without.

The most successful Presidents of Republics have been those who are, or pretend to be, nonentities, content to be mere pegs, standing still and lifeless, for things to be hung upon. Jack Meredith was, or pretended to be, this. He never assumed the airs of a leader. He never was a leader. He merely smoothed things over, suggested here, laughed there, and seemed to stand by, indifferent all the while.

In less than a week they left the river, hauling their canoes up on the bank, and hiding them in the tangle of the virgin underwood. A depot of provisions, likewise hidden, was duly made, and the long, weary march began.

The daily routine of this need not be followed, for there were weeks of long monotony, varied only by a new difficulty, a fresh danger, or a deplorable accident. Twice the whole company had to lay aside the baggage and assume arms, when Guy Oscard proved himself to be a cool and daring leader. Not twice, but two hundred times, the ring of Joseph's unerring rifle sent some naked savage crawling into the brake to die, with a sudden wonder in his half-awakened brain. They could not afford to be merciful; their only safeguard was to pass through this country, leaving a track of blood and fire and dread behind them.

This, however, is no record of travel in Central Africa. There are many such to be had at any circulating library, written by abler and more fantastic pens. Some of us who have wandered in the darkest continent have looked in vain for things seen by former travellers—things which, as the saying is, are neither here nor there. Indeed, there is not much to see in a vast, boundless forest with little life and no variety—nothing but a deadly monotony of twilit tangle. There is nothing new under the sun—even immediately under it in Central Africa. The only novelty is the human heart—Central Man. That is never stale, and there are depths still unexplored, heights still unattained, warm rivers of love, cold streams of hatred, and vast plains where strange motives grow. These are our business.

We have not to deal so much with the finding of the Simiacine as with the finders, and of these the chief at this time was Jack Meredith. It seemed quite natural that one duty after another should devolve upon him, and he invariably had time to do them all, and leisure to comment pleasantly upon it. But his chief care was Victor Durnovo.

As soon as they entered the forest, two hundred miles above Msala, the half-breed was a changed man. The strange restlessness asserted itself again—the man was nervous, eager, sincere. His whole being was given up to this search; his whole heart and soul were enveloped in it. At first he worked steadily, like a mariner treading his way through known waters; but gradually his composure left him, and he became incapable of doing other work.

Jack Meredith was at his side always. By day he walked near him as he piloted the column through the trackless forest. At night he slept in the same tent, stretched across the doorway. Despite the enormous fatigue, he slept the light sleep of the townsman, and often he was awakened by Durnovo talking aloud, groaning, tossing on his narrow bed.

When they had been on the march for two months—piloted with marvellous instinct by Durnovo—Meredith made one or two changes in the organisation. The caravan naturally moved slowly, owing to the enormous amount of baggage to be carried, and this delay seemed to irritate Victor Durnovo to such an extent that at last it was obvious that the man would go mad unless this enormous tension could be relieved.

"For God's sake," he would shout, "hurry those men on! We haven't done ten miles to-day. Another man down—damn him!"

And more than once he had to be dragged forcibly away from the fallen porter, whom he battered with both fists. Had he had his will, he would have allowed no time for meals, and only a few hours' halt for rest. Guy Oscard did not understand it. His denser nerves were incapable of comprehending the state of irritation and unreasoning restlessness into which the climate and excitement had brought Durnovo. But Meredith, in his finer organisation, understood the case better. He it was who soothingly explained the necessity for giving the men a longer rest. He alone could persuade Durnovo to lie down at night and cease his perpetual calculations. The man's hands were so unsteady that he could hardly take the sights necessary to determine their position in this sea-like waste. And to Jack alone did Victor Durnovo ever approach the precincts of mutual confidence.

"I can't help it, Meredith," he said one day, with a scared look, after a particularly violent outburst of temper. "I don't know what it is. I sometimes think I am going mad."

And soon after that the change was made.

An advance column, commanded by Meredith and Durnovo, was selected to push on to the Plateau, while Oscard and Joseph followed more leisurely with the baggage and the slower travellers.

One of the strangest journeys in the vast unwritten history of commercial advance was that made by the five men from the camp of the main expedition across the lower slopes of a mountain range—unmarked on any map, unnamed by any geographer—to the mysterious Simiacine Plateau. It almost seemed as if the wild, bloodshot eyes of their guide could pierce the density of the forest where Nature had held unchecked, untrimmed sway for countless generations. Victor Durnovo noted a thousand indications unseen by his four companions. The journey no longer partook of the nature of a carefully calculated progress across a country untrodden by a white man's foot; it was a wild rush in a straight line through unbroken forest fastness, guided by an instinct that was stronger than knowledge. And the only Englishman in the party—Jack Meredith—had to choose between madness and rest. He knew enough of the human brain to be convinced that the only possible relief to this tension was success.

Victor Durnovo would never know rest now until he reached the spot where the Simiacine should be. If the trees were there, growing, as he said, in solitary state and order, strangely suggestive of human handiwork, then Victor Durnovo was saved. If no such spot was found, madness and death could only follow.

To save his companion's reason, Meredith more than once drugged his food; but when the land began to rise beneath their feet in tentative, billow-like inequalities—the deposit of a glacial age—Durnovo refused to stop for the preparation of food. Eating dry biscuits and stringy tinned meat as they went along, the four men—three blacks and one white—followed in the footsteps of their mad pilot.

"We're getting to the mountains—we're getting to the mountains! We shall be there to-night! Think of that, Meredith—to-night!" he kept repeating with a sickening monotony. And all the while he stumbled on. The perspiration ran down his face in one continuous stream; at times he paused to wipe it from his eyes with the back of his hands, and as these were torn and bleeding, there were smears of blood across his cheeks.

The night fell; the moon rose, red and glorious, and the beasts of this untrodden forest paused in their search for meat to watch with wondering, fearless eyes that strange, unknown animal—man.

It was Durnovo who, climbing wildly, first saw the break in the trees ahead. He gave a muffled cry of delight, and in a few minutes they were all rushing, like men possessed, up a bare slope of broken shale.

Durnovo reached the summit first. A faint, pleasant odour was wafted into their faces. They stood on the edge of a vast table-land melting away in the yellow moonlight. Studded all over, like sheep in a meadow, were a number of little bushes, and no other vegetation.

Victor Durnovo stooped over one of these. He buried his face among the leaves of it, and suddenly he toppled over.

"Yes," he cried as he fell, "it's Simiacine!"

And he turned over with a groan of satisfaction, and lay like a dead man.



CHAPTER XXI. THE FIRST CONSIGNMENT



Since all that I can ever do for thee Is to do nothing, may'st thou never see, Never divine, the all that nothing costeth me.

One morning, three months later, Guy Oscard drew up in line his flying column. He was going back to England with the first consignment of Simiacine. During the twelve weeks that lay behind there had been constant reference made to his little body of picked men, and the leader had selected with a grave deliberation that promised well.

The lost soldier that was in him was all astir in his veins as he reviewed his command in the cool air of early morning. The journey from Msala to the Plateau had occupied a busy two months. Oscard expected to reach Msala with his men in forty days. Piled up in neat square cases, such as could be carried in pairs by a man of ordinary strength, was the crop of Simiacine, roughly valued by Victor Durnovo at forty thousand pounds. Ten men could carry the whole of it, and the twenty cases set close together on the ground made a bed for Guy Oscard. Upon this improvised couch he gravely stretched his bulk every night all through the journey that followed.

Over the whole face of the sparsely vegetated table-land the dwarf bushes grew at intervals, each one in a little circle of its own, where no grass grew: for the dead leaves, falling, poisoned the earth. There were no leaves on the bushes now, for they had all been denuded, and the twisted branches stood out naked in the morning mist. Some of the bushes had been roughly pruned, to foster, if possible, a more bushy growth and a heavier crop of leaves near to the parent stem.

It was a strange landscape; and any passing traveller, knowing nothing of the Simiacine, must perforce have seen at once that these insignificant little trees were something quite apart in the vegetable kingdom. Each standing with its magic circle, no bird built its nest within the branches—no insect constructed its filmy home—no spider weaved its busy web from twig to twig.

Solitary, mournful, lifeless the Plateau which had nearly cost Victor Durnovo his life lay beneath the face of heaven, far above the surrounding country—the summit of an unnamed mountain—a land lying in the heart of a tropic country which was neither tropic, temperate, nor arctic. Fauna had it none, for it produced nothing that could sustain life. Flora it knew not, for the little trees, with their perennial fortune of brilliant brown-tinted leaves, monopolised vegetable life, and slew all comers. It seemed like some stray tract of another planet, where the condition of living things was different. There was a strange sense of having been thrown up—thrown up, as it were, into mid-heaven, there to hang for ever—neither this world nor the world to come. The silence of it all was such as would drive men mad if they came to think of it. It was the silence of the stars.

The men who had lived up here for three months did not look quite natural. There was a singular heaviness of the eyelids which all had noticed, though none had spoken of it. A craving for animal food, which could only be stayed by the consumption of abnormal quantities of meat, kept the hunters ever at work on the lower slopes of the mountain. Sleep was broken, and uncanny things happened in the night. Men said that they saw other men like trees, walking abroad with sightless eyes; and Joseph said, "Gammon, my festive darky—gammon!" but he, nevertheless, glanced somewhat uneasily towards his master whenever the natives said such things.

A clearing had been made on that part of the Plateau which was most accessible from below. The Simiacine trees had been ruthlessly cut away—even the roots were grubbed up and burnt—far away on the leeward side of the little kingdom. This was done because there arose at sunset a soft and pleasant odour from the bushes which seemed to affect the nerves, and even made the teeth chatter. It was, therefore, deemed wise that the camp should stand on bare ground.

It was on this ground, in front of the tents, that Guy Oscard drew up his quick-marching column before the sun had sprung up in its fantastic tropical way from the distant line of virgin forest. As he walked along the line, making a suggestion here, pulling on a shoulder-rope there, he looked staunch and strong as any man might wish to be. His face was burnt so brown that eyebrows and moustache stood out almost blonde, though in reality they were only brown. His eyes did not seem to be suffering from the heaviness noticeable in others; altogether, the climate and the mystic breath of the Simiacine grove did not appear to affect him as it did his companions. This was probably accounted for by the fact that, being chief of the hunters, most of his days had been passed on the lower slopes in search of game.

To him came presently Jack Meredith—the same gentle-mannered man, with an incongruously brown face and quick eyes seeing all. It is not, after all, the life that makes the man. There are gentle backwoodsmen, and ruffians among those who live in drawing-rooms.