Trent moved forward and greeted the newcomer awkwardly. “You're Captain Francis,” he said. “We've been waiting for you.”
The statement appeared to annoy the Explorer. He looked nervously at the two men and about the hut.
“I don't know how the devil you got to hear of my coming, or what you want with me,” he answered brusquely. “Are you both English?”
Trent assented, waving his hand towards his companion in introductory fashion.
“That's my pal, Monty,” he said. “We're both English right enough.”
Monty raised a flushed face and gazed with bloodshot eyes at the man who was surveying him so calmly. Then he gave a little gurgling cry and turned away. Captain Francis started and moved a step towards him. There was a puzzled look in his face—as though he were making an effort to recall something familiar.
“What is the matter with him?” he asked Trent.
“Drink!”
“Then why the devil don't you see that he doesn't get too much?” the newcomer said sharply. “Don't you know what it means in this climate? Why, he's on the high-road to a fever now. Who on this earth is it he reminds me of?”
Trent laughed shortly.
“There's never a man in Buckomari—no, nor in all Africa—could keep Monty from the drink,” he said. “Live with him for a month and try it. It wouldn't suit you—I don't think.”
He glanced disdainfully at the smooth face and careful dress of their visitor, who bore the inspection with a kindly return of contempt.
“I've no desire to try,” he said; “but he reminds me very strongly of some one I knew in England. What do you call him—Monty?”
Trent nodded.
“Never heard any other name,” he said.
“Have you ever heard him speak of England?” Francis asked.
Trent hesitated. What was this newcomer to him that he should give away his pal? Less than nothing! He hated the fellow already, with a rough, sensitive man's contempt of a bearing and manners far above his own.
“Never. He don't talk.”
Captain Francis moved a step towards the huddled-up figure breathing heavily upon the floor, but Trent, leaning over, stopped him.
“Let him be,” he said gruffly. “I know enough of him to be sure that he needs no one prying and ferreting into his affairs. Besides, it isn't safe for us to be dawdling about here. How many soldiers have you brought with you?”
“Two hundred,” Captain Francis answered shortly.
Trent whistled.
“We're all right for a bit, then,” he said; “but it's a pretty sort of a picnic you're on, eh?”
“Never mind my business,” Captain Francis answered curtly; “what about yours? Why have you been hanging about here for me?”
“I'll show you,” Trent answered, taking a paper from his knapsack. “You see, it's like this. There are two places near this show where I've found gold. No use blowing about it down at Buckomari—the fellows there haven't the nerve of a kitten. This cursed climate has sapped it all out of them, I reckon. Monty and I clubbed together and bought presents for his Majesty, the boss here, and Monty wrote out this little document—sort of concession to us to sink mines and work them, you see. The old buffer signed it like winking, directly he spotted the rum, but we ain't quite happy about it; you see, it ain't to be supposed that he's got a conscience, and there's only us saw him put his mark there. We'll have to raise money to work the thing upon this, and maybe there'll be difficulties. So what we thought was this. Here's an English officer coming; let's get him to witness it, and then if the King don't go on the square, why, it's a Government matter.”
Captain Francis lit a cigarette and smoked thoughtfully for a moment or two.
“I don't quite see,” he said, “why we should risk a row for the sake of you two.”
Trent snorted.
“Look here,” he said; “I suppose you know your business. You don't want me to tell you that a decent excuse for having a row with this old Johnny is about the best thing that could happen to you. He's a bit too near the borders of civilisation to be a decent savage. Sooner or later some one will have to take him under their protection. If you don't do it, the French will. They're hanging round now looking out for an opportunity. Listen!”
Both men moved instinctively towards the open part of the hut and looked across towards the village. Up from the little open space in front of the King's dwelling-house leaped a hissing bright flame; they had kindled a fire, and black forms of men, stark naked and wounding themselves with spears, danced around it and made the air hideous with discordant cries. The King himself, too drunk to stand, squatted upon the ground with an empty bottle by his side. A breath of wind brought a strong, noxious odour to the two men who stood watching. Captain Francis puffed hard at his cigarette.
“Ugh!” he muttered; “beastly!”
“You may take my word for it,” Trent said gruffly, “that if your two hundred soldiers weren't camped in the bush yonder, you and I and poor Monty would be making sport for them to-night. Now come. Do you think a quarrel with that crew is a serious thing to risk?”
“In the interests of civilisation,” Captain Francis answered, with a smile, “I think not.”
“I don't care how you put it,” Trent answered shortly. “You soldiers all prate of the interests of civilisation. Of course it's all rot. You want the land—you want to rule, to plant a flag, and be called a patriot.”
Captain Francis laughed. “And you, my superior friend,” he said, glancing at Trent, gaunt, ragged, not too clean, and back at Monty—“you want gold—honestly if you can get it, if not—well, it is not too wise to ask. Your partnership is a little mysterious, isn't it—with a man like that? Out of your magnificent morality I trust that he may get his share.”
Trent flushed a brick-red. An angry answer trembled upon his lips, but Oom Sam, white and with his little fat body quivering with fear, came hurrying up to them in the broad track of the moonlight.
“King he angry,” he called out to them breathlessly. “Him mad drunk angry. He say white men all go away, or he fire bush and use the poisoned arrow. Me off! Got bearers waiting.”
“If you go before we've finished,” Trent said, “I'll not pay you a penny. Please yourself.”
The little fat man trembled—partly with rage, partly with fear.
“You stay any longer,” he said, “and King him send after you and kill on way home. White English soldiers go Buckomari with you?”
Trent shook his head.
“Going the other way,” he said, “down to Wana Hill.”
Oom Sam shook his head vigorously.
“Now you mind,” he said; “I tell you, King send after you. Him blind mad.”
Oom Sam scuttled away. Captain Francis looked thoughtful. “That little fat chap may be right,” he remarked. “If I were you I'd get out of this sharp. You see, I'm going the other way. I can't help you.”
Trent set his teeth.
“I've spent a good few years trying to put a bit together, and this is the first chance I've had,” he said; “I'm going to have you back me as a British subject on that concession. We'll go down into the village now if you're ready.”
“I'll get an escort,” Francis said. “Best to impress 'em a bit, I think. Half a minute.”
He stepped back into the hut and looked steadfastly at the man who was still lying doubled up upon the floor. Was it his fancy, or had those eyes closed swiftly at his turning—was it by accident, too, that Monty, with a little groan, changed his position at that moment, so that his face was in the shadow? Captain Francis was puzzled.
“It's like him,” he said to himself softly; “but after all the thing's too improbable!”
He turned away with a shade upon his face and followed Trent out into the moonlight. The screeching from the village below grew louder and more hideous every minute.
The howls became a roar, blind passion was changed into purposeful fury. Who were these white men to march so boldly into the presence of the King without even the formality of sending an envoy ahead? For the King of Bekwando, drunk or sober, was a stickler for etiquette. It pleased him to keep white men waiting. For days sometimes a visitor was kept waiting his pleasure, not altogether certain either as to his ultimate fate, for there were ugly stories as to those who had journeyed to Bekwando and never been seen or heard of since. Those were the sort of visitors with whom his ebon Majesty loved to dally until they became pale with fright or furious with anger and impatience; but men like this white captain, who had brought him no presents, who came in overwhelming force and demanded a passage through his country as a matter of right were his special detestation. On his arrival he had simply marched into the place at the head of his columns of Hausas without ceremony, almost as a master, into the very presence of the King. Now he had come again with one of those other miscreants who at least had knelt before him and brought rum and many other presents. A slow, burning, sullen wrath was kindled in the King's heart as the three men drew near. His people, half-mad with excitement and debauch, needed only a cry from him to have closed like magic round these insolent intruders. His thick lips were parted, his breath came hot and fierce whilst he hesitated. But away outside the clearing was that little army of Hausas, clean-limbed, faithful, well drilled and armed. He choked down his wrath. There were grim stories about those who had yielded to the luxury of slaying these white men—stories of villages razed to the ground and destroyed, of a King himself who had been shot, of vengeance very swift and very merciless. He closed his mouth with a snap and sat up with drunken dignity. Oom Sam, in fear and trembling, moved to his side.
“What they want?” the King asked.
Oom Sam spread out the document which Trent had handed him upon a tree-stump, and explained. His Majesty nodded more affably. The document reminded him of the pleasant fact that there were three casks of rum to come to him every year. Besides, he rather liked scratching his royal mark upon the smooth, white paper. He was quite willing to repeat the performance, and took up the pen which Sam handed him readily.
“Him white man just come,” Oom Sam explained; “want see you do this.”
His Majesty was flattered, and, with the air of one to whom the signing of treaties and concessions is an everyday affair, affixed a thick, black cross upon the spot indicated.
“That all right?” he asked Oom Sam.
Oom Sam bowed to the ground.
“Him want to know,” he said, jerking his head towards Captain Francis, “whether you know what means?”
His forefinger wandered aimlessly down the document. His Majesty's reply was prompt and cheerful.
“Three barrels of rum a year.”
Sam explained further. “There will be white men come digging,” he said; “white men with engines that blow, making holes under the ground and cutting trees.”
The King was interested. “Where?” he asked.
Oom Sam pointed westward through the bush.
“Down by creek-side.”
The King was thoughtful “Rum come all right?” he asked.
Oom Sam pointed to the papers.
“Say so there,” he declared. “All quite plain.”
The King grinned. It was not regal, but he certainly did it. If white men come too near they must be shot—carefully and from ambush. He leaned back with the air of desiring the conference to cease. Oom Sam turned to Captain Francis.
“King him quite satisfied,” he declared. “Him all explained before—he agree.”
The King suddenly woke up again. He clutched Sam by the arm, and whispered in his ear. This time it was Sam who grinned.
“King, him say him signed paper twice,” he explained. “Him want four barrels of rum now.”
Trent laughed harshly.
“He shall swim in it, Sam,” he said; “he shall float down to hell upon it.”
Oom Sam explained to the King that, owing to the sentiments of affection and admiration with which the white men regarded him, the three barrels should be made into four, whereupon his Majesty bluntly pronounced the audience at an end and waddled off into his Imperial abode.
The two Englishmen walked slowly back to the hut. Between them there had sprung up from the first moment a strong and mutual antipathy. The blunt savagery of Trent, his apparently heartless treatment of his weaker partner, and his avowed unscrupulousness, offended the newcomer much in the same manner as in many ways he himself was obnoxious to Trent. His immaculate fatigue-uniform, his calm superciliousness, his obvious air of belonging to a superior class, were galling to Trent beyond measure. He himself felt the difference—he realised his ignorance, his unkempt and uncared-for appearance. Perhaps, as the two men walked side by side, some faint foreshadowing of the future showed to Trent another and a larger world where they two would once more walk side by side, the outward differences between them lessened, the smouldering irritation of the present leaping up into the red-hot flame of hatred. Perhaps it was just as well for John Francis that the man who walked so sullenly by his side had not the eyes of a seer, for it was a wild country and Trent himself had drunk deep of its lawlessness. A little accident with a knife, a carelessly handled revolver, and the man who was destined to stand more than once in his way would pass out of his life for ever. But in those days Trent knew nothing of what was to come—which was just as well for John Francis.
Monty was sitting up when they reached the hut, but at the sight of Trent's companion he cowered back and affected sleepiness. This time, however, Francis was not to be denied. He walked to Monty's side, and stood looking down upon him.
“I think,” he said gently, “that we have met before.”
“A mistake,” Monty declared. “Never saw you in my life. Just off to sleep.”
But Francis had seen the trembling of the man's lips, and his nervously shaking hands.
“There is nothing to fear,” he said; “I wanted to speak to you as a friend.”
“Don't know you; don't want to speak to you,” Monty declared.
Francis stooped down and whispered a name in the ear of the sullen man. Trent leaned forward, but he could not hear it—only he too saw the shudder and caught the little cry which broke from the white lips of his partner.
Monty sat up, white, despairing, with strained, set face and bloodshot eyes.
“Look here,” he said, “I may be what you say, and I may not. It's no business of yours. Do you hear? Now be off and leave me alone! Such as I am, I am. I won't be interfered with. But—” Monty's voice became a shriek.
“Leave me alone!” he cried. “I have no name I tell you, no past, no future. Let me alone, or by Heaven I'll shoot you!”
Francis shrugged his shoulders, and turned away with a sigh.
“A word with you outside,” he said to Trent—and Trent followed him out into the night. The moon was paling—in the east there was a faint shimmer of dawn. A breeze was rustling in the trees. The two men stood face to face.
“Look here, sir,” Francis said, “I notice that this concession of yours is granted to you and your partner jointly whilst alive and to the survivor, in case of the death of either of you.”
“What then?” Trent asked fiercely.
“This! It's a beastly unfair arrangement, but I suppose it's too late to upset it. Your partner is half sodden with drink now. You know what that means in this climate. You've the wit to keep sober enough yourself. You're a strong man, and he is weak. You must take care of him. You can if you will.”
“Anything else?” Trent asked roughly.
The officer looked his man up and down.
“We're in a pretty rough country,” he said, “and a man gets into the habit of having his own way here. But listen to me! If anything happens to your partner here or in Buckomari, you'll have me to reckon with. I shall not forget. We are bound to meet! Remember that!”
Trent turned his back upon him in a fit of passion which choked down all speech. Captain Francis lit a cigarette and walked across towards his camp.
A sky like flame, and an atmosphere of sulphur. No breath of air, not a single ruffle in the great, drooping leaves of the African trees and dense, prickly shrubs. All around the dank, nauseous odour of poison flowers, the ceaseless dripping of poisonous moisture. From the face of the man who stood erect, unvanquished as yet in the struggle for life, the fierce sweat poured like rain—his older companion had sunk to the ground and the spasms of an ugly death were twitching at his whitening lips.
“I'm done, Trent,” he gasped faintly. “Fight your way on alone. You've a chance yet. The way's getting a bit easier—I fancy we're on the right track and we've given those black devils the slip! Nurse your strength! You've a chance! Let me be. It's no use carrying a dead man.” Gaunt and wild, with the cold fear of death before him also, the younger man broke out into a fit of cursing.
“May they rot in the blackest corner of hell, Oom Sam and those miserable vermin!” he shouted. “A path all the way, the fever season over, the swamps dry! Oh! when I think of Sam's smooth jargon I would give my chance of life, such as it is, to have him here for one moment. To think that beast must live and we die!”
“Prop me up against this tree, Trent—and listen,” Monty whispered. “Don't fritter away the little strength you have left.”
Trent did as he was told. He had no particular affection for his partner and the prospect of his death scarcely troubled him. Yet for twenty miles and more, through fetid swamps and poisoned jungles, he had carried him over his shoulder, fighting fiercely for the lives of both of them, while there remained any chance whatever of escape. Now he knew that it was in vain, he regretted only his wasted efforts—he had no sentimental regrets in leaving him. It was his own life he wanted—his own life he meant to fight for.
“I wouldn't swear at Oom Sam too hard,” Monty continued. “Remember for the last two days he was doing all he could to get us out of the place. It was those fetish fellows who worked the mischief and he—certainly—warned us all he could. He took us safely to Bekwando and he worked the oracle with the King!”
“Yes, and afterwards sneaked off with Francis,” Trent broke in bitterly, “and took every bearer with him—after we'd paid them for the return journey too. Sent us out here to be trapped and butchered like rats. If we'd only had a guide we should have been at Buckomari by now.”
“He was right about the gold,” Monty faltered. “It's there for the picking up. If only we could have got back we were rich for life. If you escape—you need never do another stroke of work as long as you live.”
Trent stood upright, wiped the dank sweat from his forehead and gazed around him fiercely, and upwards at that lurid little patch of blue sky.
“If I escape!” he muttered. “I'll get out of this if I die walking. I'm sorry you're done, Monty,” he continued slowly. “Say the word and I'll have one more spell at carrying you! You're not a heavy weight and I'm rested now!”
But Monty, in whose veins was the chill of death and who sought only for rest, shook his head.
“It shakes me too much,” he said, “and it's only a waste of strength. You get on, Trent, and don't you bother about me. You've done your duty by your partner and a bit more. You might leave me the small revolver in case those howling savages come up—and Trent!”
“Yes—”
“The picture—just for a moment. I'd like to have one look at her!”
Trent drew it out from his pocket—awkwardly—and with a little shame at the care which had prompted him to wrap it so tenderly in the oilskin sheet. Monty shaded his face with his hands, and the picture stole up to his lips. Trent stood a little apart and hated himself for this last piece of inhumanity. He pretended to be listening for the stealthy approach of their enemies. In reality he was struggling with the feeling which prompted him to leave this picture with the dying man.
“I suppose you'd best have it,” he said sullenly at last.
But Monty shook his head feebly and held out the picture.
Trent took it with an odd sense of shame which puzzled him. He was not often subject to anything of the sort.
“It belongs to you, Trent. I lost it on the square, and it's the only social law I've never broken—to pay my gambling debts. There's one word more!”
“Yes.”
“It's about that clause in our agreement. I never thought it was quite fair, you know, Trent!”
“Which clause?”
“The clause which—at my death—makes you sole owner of the whole concession. You see—the odds were scarcely even, were they? It wasn't likely anything would happen to you!”
“I planned the thing,” Trent said, “and I saw it through! You did nothing but find a bit of brass. It was only square that the odds should be in my favour. Besides, you agreed. You signed the thing.”
“But I wasn't quite well at the time,” Monty faltered. “I didn't quite understand. No, Trent, it's not quite fair. I did a bit of the work at least, and I'm paying for it with my life!”
“What's it matter to you now?” Trent said, with unintentional brutality. “You can't take it with you.”
Monty raised himself a little. His eyes, lit with feverish fire, were fastened upon the other man.
“There's my little girl!” he said hoarsely. “I'd like to leave her something. If the thing turns out big, Trent, you can spare a small share. There's a letter here! It's to my lawyers. They'll tell you all about her.”
Trent held out his hands for the letter.
“All right,” he said, with sullen ungraciousness. “I'll promise something. I won't say how much! We'll see.”
“Trent, you'll keep your word,” Monty begged. “I'd like her to know that I thought of her.”
“Oh, very well,” Trent declared, thrusting the letter into his pocket. “It's a bit outside our agreement, you know, but I'll see to it anyhow. Anything else?”
Monty fell back speechless. There was a sudden change in his face. Trent, who had seen men die before, let go his hand and turned away without any visible emotion. Then he drew himself straight, and set his teeth hard together.
“I'm going to get out of this,” he said to himself slowly and with fierce emphasis. “I'm not for dying and I won't die!”
He stumbled on a few steps, a little black snake crept out of its bed of mud, and looked at him with yellow eyes protruding from its upraised head. He kicked it savagely away—a crumpled, shapeless mass. It was a piece of brutality typical of the man. Ahead he fancied that the air was clearer—the fetid mists less choking—in the deep night-silence a few hours back he had fancied that he had heard the faint thunder of the sea. If this were indeed so, it would be but a short distance now to the end of his journey. With dull, glazed eyes and clenched hands, he reeled on. A sort of stupor had laid hold of him, but through it all his brain was working, and he kept steadily to a fixed course. Was it the sea in his ears, he wondered, that long, monotonous rolling of sound, and there were lights before his eyes—the lights of Buckomari, or the lights of death!
They found him an hour or two later unconscious, but alive, on the outskirts of the village.
Three days later two men were seated face to face in a long wooden house, the largest and most important in Buckomari village.
Smoking a corn-cob pipe and showing in his face but few marks of the terrible days through which he had passed was Scarlett Trent—opposite to him was Hiram Da Souza, the capitalist of the region. The Jew—of Da Souza's nationality it was impossible to have any doubt—was coarse and large of his type, he wore soiled linen clothes and was smoking a black cigar. On the little finger of each hand, thickly encrusted with dirt, was a diamond ring, on his thick, protruding lips a complacent smile. The concession, already soiled and dog-eared, was spread out before them.
It was Da Souza who did most of the talking. Trent indeed had the appearance of a man only indirectly interested in the proceedings.
“You see, my dear sir,” Da Souza was saying, “this little concession of yours is, after all, a very risky business. These niggers have absolutely no sense honour. Do I not know it—alas—to my cost?”
Trent listened in contemptuous silence. Da Souza had made a fortune trading fiery rum on the Congo and had probably done more to debauch the niggers he spoke of so bitterly than any man in Africa.
“The Bekwando people have a bad name—very bad name. As for any sense of commercial honour—my dear Trent, one might as well expect diamonds to spring up like mushrooms under our feet.”
“The document,” Trent said, “is signed by the King and witnessed by Captain Francis, who is Agent-General out here, or something of the sort, for the English Government. It was no gift and don't you think it, but a piece of hard bartering. Forty bearers carried our presents to Bekwando and it took us three months to get through. There is enough in it to make us both millionaires.
“Then why,” Da Souza asked, looking up with twinkling eyes, “do you want to sell me a share in it?”
“Because I haven't a darned cent to bless myself with,” Trent answered curtly. “I've got to have ready money. I've never had my fist on five thousand pounds before—no, nor five thousand pence, but, as I'm a living man, let me have my start and I'll hold my own with you all.”
Da Souza threw himself back in his chair with uplifted hands.
“But my dear friend,” he cried, “my dear young friend, you were not thinking—do not say that you were thinking of asking such a sum as five thousand pounds for this little piece of paper!”
The amazement, half sorrowful, half reproachful, on the man's face was perfectly done. But Trent only snorted.
“That piece of paper, as you call it, cost us the hard savings of years, it cost us weeks and months in the bush and amongst the swamps—it cost a man's life, not to mention the niggers we lost. Come, I'm not here to play skittles. Are you on for a deal or not? If you're doubtful about it I've another market. Say the word and we'll drink and part, but if you want to do business, here are my terms. Five thousand for a sixth share!”
“Sixth share,” the Jew screamed, “sixth share?”
Trent nodded.
“The thing's worth a million at least,” he said. “A sixth share is a great fortune. Don't waste any time turning up the whites of your eyes at me. I've named my terms and I shan't budge from them. You can lay your bottom dollar on that.”
Da Souza took up the document and glanced it through once more.
“The concession,” he remarked, “is granted to Scarlett Trent and to one Monty jointly. Who is this Monty, and what has he to say to it?”
Trent set his teeth hard, and he never blenched.
“He was my partner, but he died in the swamps, poor chap. We had horrible weather coming back. It pretty near finished me.”
Trent did not mention the fact that for four days and nights they were hiding in holes and up trees from the natives whom the King of Bekwando had sent after them, that their bearers had fled away, and that they had been compelled to leave the track and make their way through an unknown part of the bush.
“But your partner's share,” the Jew asked. “What of that?”
“It belongs to me,” Trent answered shortly. “We fixed it so before we started. We neither of us took much stock in our relations. If I had died, Monty would have taken the lot. It was a fair deal. You'll find it there!”
The Jew nodded.
“And your partner?” he said. “You saw him die! There is no doubt about that?”
Trent nodded.
“He is as dead,” he said, “as Julius Caesar.”
“If I offered you—” Da Souza began.
“If you offered me four thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine pounds,” Trent interrupted roughly, “I would tell you to go to glory.”
Da Souza sighed. It was a hard man to deal with—this.
“Very well,” he said, “if I give way, if I agree to your terms, you will be willing to make over this sixth share to me, both on your own account and on account of your late partner?”
“You're right, mate,” Trent assented. “Plank down the brass, and it's a deal.”
“I will give you four thousand pounds for a quarter share,” Da Souza said.
Trent knocked the ashes from his pipe and stood up.
“Here, don't waste any more of my time,” he said. “Stand out of the way, I'm off.”
Da Souza kept his hands upon the concession.
“My dear friend,” he said, “you are so violent. You are so abrupt. Now listen. I will give you five thousand for a quarter share. It is half my fortune.”
“Give me the concession,” Trent said. “I'm off.”
“For a fifth,” Da Souza cried.
Trent moved to the door without speech. Da Souza groaned.
“You will ruin me,” he said, “I know it. Come then, five thousand for a sixth share. It is throwing money away.”
“If you think so, you'd better not part,” Trent said, still lingering in the doorway. “Just as you say. I don't care.”
For a full minute Da Souza hesitated. He had an immense belief in the richness of the country set out in the concession; he knew probably more about it than Trent himself. But five thousand pounds was a great deal of money and there was always the chance that the Government might not back the concession holders in case of trouble. He hesitated so long that Trent was actually disappearing before he had made up his mind.
“Come back, Mr. Trent,” he called out. “I have decided. I accept. I join with you.”
Trent slowly returned. His manner showed no exultation.
“You have the money here?” he asked.
Da Souza laid down a heap of notes and gold upon the table. Trent counted them carefully and thrust them into his pocket. Then he took up a pen and wrote his name at the foot of the assignment which the Jew had prepared.
“Have a drink?” he asked.
Da Souza shook his head.
“The less we drink in this country,” he said, “the better. I guess out here, spirits come next to poison. I'll smoke with you, if you have a cigar handy.”
Trent drew a handful of cigars from his pocket. “They're beastly,” he said, “but it's a beastly country. I'll be glad to turn my back on it.”
“There is a good deal,” Da Souza said, “which we must now talk about.”
“To-morrow,” Trent said curtly. “No more now! I haven't got over my miserable journey yet. I'm going to try and get some sleep.”
He swung out into the heavy darkness. The air was thick with unwholesome odours rising from the lake-like swamp beyond the drooping circle of trees. He walked a little way towards the sea, and sat down upon a log. A faint land-breeze was blowing, a melancholy soughing came from the edge of the forest only a few hundred yards back, sullen, black, impenetrable. He turned his face inland unwillingly, with a superstitious little thrill of fear. Was it a coyote calling, or had he indeed heard the moan of a dying man, somewhere back amongst that dark, gloomy jungle? He scoffed at himself! Was he becoming as a girl, weak and timid? Yet a moment later he closed his eyes, and pressed his hands tightly over his hot eyeballs. He was a man of little imaginative force, yet the white face of a dying man seemed suddenly to have floated up out of the darkness, to have come to him like a will-o'-the-wisp from the swamp, and the hollow, lifeless eyes seemed ever to be seeking his, mournful and eloquent with dull reproach. Trent rose to his feet with an oath and wiped the sweat from his forehead. He was trembling, and he cursed himself heartily.
“Another fool's hour like this,” he muttered, “and the fever will have me. Come out of the shadows, you white-faced, skulking reptile, you—bah! what a blithering fool I am! There is no one there! How could there be any one?”
He listened intently. From afar off came the faint moaning of the wind in the forest and the night sounds of restless animals. Nearer there was no one—nothing stirred. He laughed out loud and moved away to spend his last night in his little wooden home. On the threshold he paused, and faced once more that black, mysterious line of forest.
“Well, I've done with you now,” he cried, a note of coarse exultation in his tone. “I've gambled for my life and I've won. To-morrow I'll begin to spend the stakes.”
In a handsomely appointed room of one of the largest hotels in London a man was sitting at the head of a table strewn with blotting-paper and writing materials of every description. Half a dozen chairs had been carelessly pushed back, there were empty champagne bottles upon the sideboard, the air was faintly odorous of tobacco smoke—blue wreaths were still curling upwards towards the frescoed ceiling. Yet the gathering had not been altogether a festive one. There were sheets of paper still lying about covered with figures, a brass-bound ledger lay open at the further end of the table, In the background a young man, slim, pale, ill-dressed in sober black, was filling a large tin box with documents and letters.
It had been a meeting of giants. Men whose names were great in the world of finance had occupied those elaborately decorated leather chairs. There had been cynicism, criticism, and finally enthusiasm. For the man who remained it had been a triumph. He had appeared to do but little in the way of persuasion. His manners had been brusque, and his words had been few. Yet he remained the master of the situation. He had gained a victory not only financial but moral, over men whose experience and knowledge were far greater than his. He was no City magnate, nor had he ever received any training in those arts and practices which go to the making of one. For his earlier life had been spent in a wilder country where the gambling was for life and not merely for gold. It was Scarlett Trent who sat there in thoughtful and absorbed silence. He was leaning a little back in a comfortably upholstered chair, with his eyes fixed on a certain empty spot upon the table. The few inches of polished mahogany seemed to him—empty of all significance in themselves—to be reflecting in some mysterious manner certain scenes in his life which were now very rarely brought back to him. The event of to-day he knew to be the culmination of a success as rapid as it had been surprising. He was a millionaire. This deal to-day, in which he had held his own against the shrewdest and most astute men of the great city, had more than doubled his already large fortune. A few years ago he had landed in England friendless and unknown, to-day he had stepped out from even amongst the chosen few and had planted his feet in the higher lands whither the faces of all men are turned. With a grim smile upon his lips, he recalled one by one the various enterprises into which he had entered, the courage with which he had forced them through, the solid strength with which he had thrust weaker men to the wall and had risen a little higher towards his goal upon the wreck of their fortunes. Where other men had failed he had succeeded. To-day the triumph was his alone. He was a millionaire—one of the princes of the world!
The young man, who had filled his box and also a black bag, was ready to go. He ventured most respectfully to break in upon the reflections of his employer.
“Is there anything more for me to do, sir?”
Trent woke from his day-dream into the present. He looked around the room and saw that no papers had been omitted. Then he glanced keenly into his clerk's face.
“Nothing more,” he said. “You can go.”
It was significant of the man that, notwithstanding his hour of triumph, he did not depart in the slightest degree from the cold gruffness of his tone. The little speech which his clerk had prepared seemed to stick in his throat.
“I trust, sir, that you will forgive—that you will pardon the liberty, if I presume to congratulate you upon such a magnificent stroke of business!”
Scarlett Trent faced him coldly. “What do you know about it?” he asked. “What concern is it of yours, young man, eh?”
The clerk sighed, and became a little confused. He had indulged in some wistful hopes that for once his master might have relaxed, that an opportune word of congratulation might awaken some spark of generosity in the man who had just added a fortune to his great store. He had a girl-wife from whose cheeks the roses were slowly fading, and very soon would come a time when a bank-note, even the smallest, would be a priceless gift. It was for her sake he had spoken. He saw now that he had made a mistake.
“I am very sorry, sir,” he said humbly. “Of course I know that these men have paid an immense sum for their shares in the Bekwando Syndicate. At the same time it is not my business, and I am sorry that I spoke.”
“It is not your business at any time to remember what I receive for properties,” Scarlett Trent said roughly. “Haven't I told you that before? What did I say when you came to me? You were to hear nothing and see nothing outside your duties! Speak up, man! Don't stand there like a jay!”
The clerk was pale, and there was an odd sensation in his throat. But he thought of his girl-wife and he pulled himself together.
“You are quite right, sir,” he said. “To any one else I should never have mentioned it. But we were alone, and I thought that the circumstances might make it excusable.”
His employer grunted in an ominous manner.
“When I say forget, I mean forget,” he declared. “I don't want to be reminded by you of my own business. D'ye think I don't know it?”
“I am very sure that you do, sir,” the clerk answered humbly. “I quite see that my allusion was an error.”
Scarlett Trent had turned round in his chair, and was eying the pale, nervous figure with a certain hard disapproval.
“That's a beastly coat you've got on, Dickenson,” he said. “Why don't you get a new one?”
“I am standing in a strong light, sir,” the young man answered, with a new fear at his heart. “It wants brushing, too. I will endeavour to get a new one—very shortly.”
His employer grunted again.
“What's your salary?” he asked.
“Two pounds fifteen shillings a week, sir.”
“And you mean to say that you can't dress respectably on that? What do you do with your money, eh? How do you spend it? Drink and music-halls, I suppose!”
The young man was able at last to find some spark of dignity. A pink spot burned upon his cheeks.
“I do not attend music-halls, sir, nor have I touched wine or spirits for years. I—I have a wife to keep, and perhaps—I am expecting—”
He stopped abruptly. How could he mention that other matter which, for all its anxieties, still possessed for him a sort of quickening joy in the face of that brutal stare. He did not conclude his sentence, the momentary light died out of his pale commonplace features. He hung his head and was silent.
“A wife,” Scarlett Trent repeated with contempt, “and all the rest of it of course. Oh, what poor donkeys you young men are! Here are you, with your way to make in the world, with your foot scarcely upon the bottom rung of the ladder, grubbing along on a few bob a week, and you choose to go and chuck away every chance you ever might have for a moment's folly. A poor, pretty face I suppose. A moonlight walk on a Bank Holiday, a little maudlin sentiment, and over you throw all your chances in life. No wonder the herd is so great, and the leaders so few,” he added, with a sneer.
The young man raised his head. Once more the pink spot was burning. Yet how hard to be dignified with the man from whom comes one's daily bread.
“You are mistaken, sir,” he said. “I am quite happy and quite satisfied.”
Scarlett Trent laughed scornfully.
“Then you don't look it,” he exclaimed.
“I may not, sir,” the young man continued, with a desperate courage, “but I am. After all happiness is spelt with different letters for all of us. You have denied yourself—worked hard, carried many burdens and run great risks to become a millionaire. I too have denied myself, have worked and struggled to make a home for the girl I cared for. You have succeeded and you are happy. I can hold Edith's—I beg your pardon, my wife's hand in mine and I am happy. I have no ambition to be a millionaire. I was very ambitious to win my wife.”
Scarlett Trent looked at him for a moment open mouthed and open-eyed. Then he laughed outright and a chill load fell from the heart of the man who for a moment had forgotten himself. The laugh was scornful perhaps, but it was not angry.
“Well, you've shut me up,” he declared. “You seem a poor sort of a creature to me, but if you're content, it's no business of mine. Here buy yourself an overcoat, and drink a glass of wine. I'm off!”
He rose from his seat and threw a bank-note over the table. The clerk opened it and handed it back with a little start.
“I am much obliged to you, sir,” he said humbly, “but you have made a mistake. This note is for fifty pounds.”
Trent glanced at it and held out his hand. Then he paused.
“Never mind,” he said, with a short laugh, “I meant to give you a fiver, but it don't make much odds. Only see that you buy some new clothes.”
The clerk half closed his eyes and steadied himself by grasping the back of a chair. There was a lump in his throat in earnest now.
“You—you mean it, sir?” he gasped. “I—I'm afraid I can't thank you!”
“Don't try, unless you want me to take it back,” Trent said, strolling to the sideboard. “Lord, how those City chaps can guzzle! Not a drop of champagne left. Two unopened bottles though! Here, stick 'em in your bag and take 'em to the missis, young man. I paid for the lot, so there's no use leaving any. Now clear out as quick as you can. I'm off!”
“You will allow me, sir—”
Scarlett Trent closed the door with a slam and disappeared. The young man passed him a few moments later as he stood on the steps of the hotel lighting a cigar. He paused again, intent on stammering out some words of thanks. Trent turned his back upon him coldly.