Drifting, slow drifting down a wizard stream.
“No one knows,” Victor Durnovo was in the habit of saying, “what is going on in the middle of Africa.”
And on this principle he acted.
“Ten miles above the camping-ground where we first met,” he had told Meredith, “you will find a village where I have my headquarters. There is quite a respectable house there, with—a—a woman to look after your wants. When you have fixed things up at Loango, and have arranged for the dhows to meet my steamer, take up all your men to this village—Msala is the name—and send the boats back. Wait there till we come.”
In due time the telegram came, via St. Paul de Loanda, announcing the fact that Oscard had agreed to join the expedition, and that Durnovo and he might be expected at Msala in one month from that time. It was not without a vague feeling of regret that Jack Meredith read this telegram. To be at Msala in a month with forty men and a vast load of provisions meant leaving Loango almost at once. And, strange though it may seem, he had become somewhat attached to the dreary West African town. The singular cosmopolitan society was entirely new to him; the life, taken as a life, almost unique. He knew that he had not outstayed his welcome. Maurice Gordon had taken care to assure him of that in his boisterous, hearty manner, savouring more of Harrow than of Eton, every morning at breakfast.
“Confound Durnovo!” he cried, when the telegram had been read aloud. “Confound him, with his energy and his business-like habits! That means that you will have to leave us before long; and somehow it has got to be quite natural to see you come lounging in ten minutes late for most things, with an apology for Jocelyn, but none for me. We shall miss you, old chap.”
“Yes,” added Jocelyn, “we shall.”
She was busy with the cups, and spoke rather indifferently.
“So you've got Oscard?” continued Maurice. “I imagine he is a good man—tip-top shot and all that. I've never met him, but I have heard of him.”
“He is a gentleman, at all events,” said Meredith quietly; “I know that.”
Jocelyn was looking at him between the hibiscus flowers decorating the table.
“Is Mr. Durnovo going to be leader of the expedition?” she inquired casually, after a few moments' silence; and Jack, looking up with a queer smile, met her glance for a moment.
“No,” he answered.
Maurice Gordon's hearty laugh interrupted.
“Ha, ha!” he cried. “I wonder where the dickens you men are going to?”
“Up the Ogowe river,” replied Jack.
“No doubt. But what for? There is something mysterious about that river. Durnovo keeps his poor relations there, or something of that kind.”
“We are not going to look for them.”
“I suppose,” said Maurice, helping himself to marmalade, “that he has dropped upon some large deposit of ivory; that will turn out to be the solution of the mystery. It is the solution of most mysteries in this country. I wish I could solve the mysteries of ways and means and drop upon a large deposit of ivory, or spice, or precious stones. We should soon be out of this country, should we not, old girl?”
“I do not think we have much to complain of,” answered Jocelyn.
“No; you never do. Moreover, I do not suppose you would do so if you had the excuse.”
“Oh yes, I should, if I thought it would do any good.”
“Ah!” put in Meredith. “There speaks Philosophy—jam, please.”
“Or Resignation—that is strawberry and this is black currant.”
“Thanks, black currant. No—Philosophy. Resignation is the most loathsome of the virtues.”
“I can't say I care for any of them very much,” put in Maurice.
“No; I thought you seemed to shun them,” said Jack, like a flash.
“Sharp! very sharp! Jocelyn, do you know what we called him at school?—the French nail; he was so very long and thin and sharp! I might add polished and strong, but we were not so polite in those days. Poor old Jack! he gave as good as he got. But I must be off—the commerce of Western Africa awaits me. You'll be round at the office presently, I suppose, Jack?”
“Yes; I have an appointment there with a coloured person who is a liar by nature and a cook by trade.”
Maurice Gordon usually went off like this—at a moment's notice. He was one of those loud-speaking, quick-actioned men, who often get a reputation for energy and capacity without fully deserving it.
Jack, of a more meditative habit, rarely followed his host with the same obvious haste. He finished his breakfast calmly, and then asked Jocelyn whether she was coming out on to the verandah. It was a habit they had unconsciously dropped into. The verandah was a very important feature of the house, thickly overhung as it was with palms, bananas, and other tropical verdure. Africa is the land of creepers, and all around this verandah, over the trellis-work, around the supports, hanging in festoons from the roof, were a thousand different creeping flowers. The legend of the house—for, as in India, almost every bungalow on the West Coast has its tale—was that one of the early missionaries had built it, and, to beguile the long months of the rainy season, had carefully collected these creepers to beautify the place against the arrival of his young wife. She never came. A telegram stopped her. A snake interrupted his labour of love.
Jack took a seat at once, and began to search for his cigar-case in the pocket of his jacket. In this land of flies and moths men need not ask permission before they smoke. Jocelyn did not sit down at once. She went to the front of the verandah and watched her brother mount his horse. She was a year older than Maurice Gordon, and exercised a larger influence over his life than either of them suspected.
Presently he rode past the verandah, waving his hand cheerily. He was one of those large, hearty Englishmen who seem to be all appetite and laughter—men who may be said to be manly, and beyond that nothing. Their manliness is so overpowering that it swallows up many other qualities which are not out of place in men, such as tact and thoughtfulness, and PERHAPS intellectuality and the power to take some interest in those gentler things that interest women.
When Jocelyn came to the back of the verandah she was thinking about her brother Maurice, and it never suggested itself to her that she should not speak her thoughts to Meredith, whom she had not seen until three weeks ago. She had never spoken of Maurice behind his back to any man before.
“Does it ever strike you,” she said, “that Maurice is the sort of man to be led astray by evil influence?”
“Yes; or to be led straight by a good influence, such as yours.”
He did not meet her thoughtful gaze. He was apparently watching the retreating form of the horse through the tangle of flower and leaf and tendril.
“I am afraid,” said the girl, “that my influence is not of much account.”
“Do you really believe that?” asked Meredith, turning upon her with a half-cynical smile.
“Yes,” she answered simply.
Before speaking again he took a pull at his cigar.
“Your influence,” he said, “appears to me to be the making of Maurice Gordon. I frequently see serious flaws in the policy of Providence; but I suppose there is wisdom in making the strongest influence that which is unconscious of its power.”
“I am glad you think I have some power over him,” said Jocelyn; “but, at the same time, it makes me uneasy, because it only confirms my conviction that he is very easily led. And suppose my influence—such as it is—was withdrawn? Suppose that I were to die, or, what appears to be more likely, suppose that he should marry?”
“Then let us hope that he will marry the right person. People sometimes do, you know.”
She smiled with a strange little flicker of the eyelids. They had grown wonderfully accustomed to each other during the last three weeks. Here, it would appear, was one of those friendships between man and woman that occasionally set the world agog with curiosity and scepticism. But there seemed to be no doubt about it. He was over thirty, she verging on that prosaic age. Both had lived and moved in the world; to both life was an open book, and they had probably discovered, as most of us do, that the larger number of the leaves are blank. He had almost told her that he was engaged to be married, and she had quite understood. There could not possibly be any misapprehension; there was no room for one of those little mistakes about which people write novels and fondly hope that some youthful reader may be carried away by a very faint resemblance to that which they hold to be life. Moreover, at thirty, one leaves the first romance of youth behind.
There was something in her smile that suggested that she did not quite believe in his cynicism.
“Also,” she said gravely, “some stronger influence might appear—an influence which I could not counteract.”
Jack Meredith turned in his long chair and looked at her searchingly.
“I have a vague idea,” he said, “that you are thinking of Durnovo.”
“I am,” she admitted, with some surprise. “I wonder how you knew? I am afraid of him.”
“I can reassure you on that score,” said Meredith. “For the next two years or so Durnovo will be in daily intercourse with me. He will be under my immediate eye. I did not anticipate much pleasure from his society. But now I do.”
“Why?” she asked, rather mystified.
“Because I shall have the daily satisfaction of knowing that I am relieving you of an anxiety.”
“It is very kind of you to put it in that way,” said Jocelyn. “But I should not like you to sacrifice yourself to what may be a foolish prejudice on my part.”
“It is not a foolish prejudice. Durnovo is not a gentleman either by birth or inclination. He is not fit to associate with you.”
To this Jocelyn answered nothing. Victor Durnovo was one of her brother's closest friends—a friend of his own choosing.
“Miss Gordon,” said Jack Meredith suddenly, with a gravity that was rare, “will you do me a favour?”
“I think I should like to.”
“You admit that you are afraid of Durnovo now: if at any time you have reason to be more afraid, will you make use of me? Will you write or come to me and ask my help?”
“Thank you,” she said hesitatingly.
“You see,” he went on, in a lighter tone, “I am not afraid of Durnovo. I have met Durnovos before. You may have observed that my locks no longer resemble the raven's wing. There is a little grey—just here—above the temple. I am getting on in life, and I know how to deal with Durnovos.”
“Thank you,” said the girl, with a little sigh of relief. “The feeling that I have some one to turn to will be a great relief. You see how I am placed here. The missionaries are very kind and well-meaning, but there are some things which they do not quite understand. They may be gentlemen—some of them are; but they are not men of the world. I have no definite thought or fear, and very good persons, one finds, are occasionally a little dense. Unless things are very definite, they do not understand.”
“On the other hand,” pursued Jack, in the same reflective tone, as if taking up her thought, “persons who are not good have a perception of the indefinite. I did not think of it in that light before.”
Jocelyn Gordon laughed softly, without attempting to meet his lighter vein.
“Do you know,” she said, after a little silence, “that I was actually thinking of warning you against Mr. Durnovo? Now I stand aghast at my own presumption.”
“It was kind of you to give the matter any thought whatever.”
He rose and threw away the end of his cigar. Joseph was already before the door, leading the horse which Maurice Gordon had placed at his visitor's disposal.
“I will lay the warning to heart,” he said, standing in front of Jocelyn and looking down at her as she lay back in the deep basket-chair. She was simply dressed in white—as was her wont, for it must be remembered that they were beneath the Equator—a fair English maiden, whose thoughts were hidden behind a certain gracious, impenetrable reserve. “I will lay it to heart, although you have not uttered it. But I have always known with what sort of man I was dealing. We serve each other's purpose, that is all; and he knows that as well as I do.”
“I am glad Mr. Oscard is going with you,” she answered guardedly.
He waited a moment. It seemed as if she had not done speaking—as if there was another thought near the surface. But she did not give voice to it, and he turned away. The sound of the horse's feet on the gravel did not arouse her from the reverie into which she had fallen; and long after it had died away, leaving only the hum of insect life and the distant ceaseless song of the surf, Jocelyn Gordon sat apparently watching the dancing shadows on the floor as the creepers waved in the breeze.
No one can be more wise than destiny.
The short equatorial twilight was drawing to an end, and all Nature stood in silence, while Night crept up to claim the land where her reign is more autocratic than elsewhere on earth. There is a black night above the trees, and a blacker beneath. In an hour it would be dark, and, in the meantime, the lowering clouds were tinged with a pink glow that filtered through from above. There was rain coming, and probably thunder. Moreover, the trees seemed to know it, for there was a limpness in their attitude as if they were tucking their heads into their shoulders in anticipation of the worst. The insects were certainly possessed of a premonition. They had crept away.
It was distinctly an unlikely evening for the sportsman. The stillness was so complete that the faintest rustle could be heard at a great distance. Moreover, it was the sort of evening when Nature herself seems to be glancing over her shoulder with timorous restlessness.
Nevertheless, a sportsman was abroad. He was creeping up the right-hand bank of a stream, his only chance lying in the noise of the waters, which might serve to deaden the sound of broken twig or rustling leaf.
This sportsman was Jack Meredith, and it was evident that he was bringing to bear upon the matter in hand that intelligence and keenness of perception which had made him a person of some prominence in other scenes where Nature has a less assured place.
It would appear that he was not so much at home in the tangle of an African forest as in the crooked paths of London society; for his clothes were torn in more than one place; a mosquito, done to sudden death, adhered sanguinarily to the side of his aristocratic nose, while heat and mental distress had drawn damp stripes down his countenance. His hands were scratched and inclined to bleed, and one leg had apparently been in a morass. Added to these physical drawbacks there was no visible sign of success, which was probably the worst part of Jack Meredith's plight.
Since sunset he had been crawling, scrambling, stumbling up the bank of this stream in relentless pursuit of some large animal which persistently kept hidden in the tangle across the bed of the river. The strange part of it was that when he stopped to peep through the branches the animal stopped too, and he found no way of discovering its whereabouts. More than once they remained thus for nearly five minutes, peering at each other through the heavy leafage. It was distinctly unpleasant, for Meredith felt that the animal was not afraid of him, and did not fully understand the situation. The respective positions of hunter and hunted were imperfectly defined. He had hitherto confined his attentions to such game as showed a sporting readiness to run away, and there was a striking novelty in this unseen beast of the forest, fresh, as it were, from the hands of its Creator, that entered into the fun of the thing from a totally mistaken standpoint.
Once Meredith was able to decide approximately the whereabouts of his prey by the momentary shaking of a twig. He raised his rifle and covered that twig steadily; his forefinger played tentatively on the trigger; but on second thoughts he refrained. He was keenly conscious of the fact that the beast was doing its work with skill superior to his own. In comparison to his, its movements were almost noiseless. Jack Meredith was too clever a man to be conceited in the wrong place, which is the habit of fools. He recognised very plainly that he was not distinguishing himself in this new field of glory; he was not yet an accomplished big-game hunter.
Twice he raised his rifle with the intention of firing at random into the underwood on the remote chance of bringing his enemy into the open. But the fascination of this duel of cunning was too strong, and he crept onwards with bated breath.
It was terrifically hot, and all the while Night was stalking westward on the summits of the trees with stealthy tread.
While absorbed in the intricacies of pursuit—while anathematising tendrils and condemning thorns to summary judgment—Jack Meredith was not losing sight of his chance of getting back to the little village of Msala. He knew that he had only to follow the course of the stream downwards, retracing his steps until a junction with the Ogowe river was effected. In the meantime his lips were parted breathlessly, and there was a light in the quiet eyes which might have startled some of his well-bred friends could they have seen it.
At last he came to an open space made by a slip of the land into the bed of the river. When Jack Meredith came to this he stepped out of the thicket and stood in the open, awaiting the approach of his stealthy prey. The sound of its footfall was just perceptible, slowly diminishing the distance that divided them. Then the trees were parted, and a tall, fair man stepped forward on to the opposite bank.
Jack Meredith bowed gravely, and the other sportsman, seeing the absurdity of the situation, burst into hearty laughter. In a moment or two he had leapt from rock to rock and come to Meredith.
“It seems,” he said, “that we have been wasting a considerable amount of time.”
“I very nearly wasted powder and shot,” replied Jack, significantly indicating his rifle.
“I saw you twice, and raised my rifle; your breeches are just the colour of a young doe. Are you Meredith? My name is Oscard.”
“Ah! Yes, I am Meredith. I am glad to see you.”
They shook hands. There was a twinkle in Jack Meredith's eyes, but Oscard was quite grave. His sense of humour was not very keen, and he was before all things a sportsman.
“I left the canoes a mile below Msala, and landed to shoot a deer we saw drinking, but I never saw him. Then I heard you, and I have been stalking you ever since.”
“But I never expected you so soon; you were not due till—look!” Jack whispered suddenly.
Oscard turned on his heel, and the next instant their two rifles rang out through the forest stillness in one sharp crack. Across the stream, ten yards behind the spot where Oscard had emerged from the bush, a leopard sprang into the air, five feet from the ground, with head thrown back, and paws clawing at the thinness of space with grand free sweeps. The beast fell with a thud, and lay still—dead.
The two men clambered across the rocks again, side by side. While they stood over the prostrate form of the leopard—beautiful, incomparably graceful and sleek even in death—Guy Oscard stole a sidelong glance at his companion. He was a modest man, and yet he knew that he was reckoned among the big-game hunters of the age. This man had fired as quickly as himself, and there were two small trickling holes in the animal's head.
While he was being quietly scrutinised Jack Meredith stooped down, and, taking the leopard beneath the shoulders, lifted it bodily back from the pool of blood.
“Pity to spoil the skin,” he explained, as he put a fresh cartridge into his rifle.
Oscard nodded in an approving way. He knew the weight of a full-grown male leopard, all muscle and bone, and he was one of those old-fashioned persons mentioned in the Scriptures as taking a delight in a man's legs—or his arms, so long as they were strong.
“I suppose,” he said quietly, “we had better skin him here.”
As he spoke he drew a long hunting-knife, and, slashing down a bunch of the maidenhair fern that grew like nettles around them, he wiped the blood gently, almost affectionately, from the leopard's cat-like face.
There was about these two men a strict attention to the matter in hand, a mutual and common respect for all things pertaining to sport, a quiet sense of settling down without delay to the regulation of necessary detail that promised well for any future interest they might have in common.
So these highly-educated young gentlemen turned up their sleeves and steeped themselves to the elbow in gore. Moreover, they did it with a certain technical skill and a distinct sense of enjoyment. Truly, the modern English gentleman is a strange being. There is nothing his soul takes so much delight in as the process of getting hot and very dirty, and, if convenient, somewhat sanguinary. You cannot educate the manliness out of him, try as you will; and for such blessings let us in all humbleness give thanks to Heaven.
This was the bringing together of Jack Meredith and Guy Oscard—two men who loved the same woman. They knelt side by side, and Jack Meredith—the older man, the accomplished, gifted gentleman of the world, who stood second to none in that varied knowledge required nowadays of the successful societarian—Jack Meredith, be it noted, humbly dragged the skin away from the body while Guy Oscard cut the clinging integuments with a delicate touch and finished skill.
They laid the skin out on the trampled maidenhair, and contemplated it with silent satisfaction. In the course of their inspection they both arrived at the head at the same moment. The two holes in the hide, just above the eyes, came under their notice at the same moment, and they turned and smiled gravely at each other, thinking the same thought—the sort of thought that Englishmen rarely put into intelligible English.
“I'm glad we did that,” said Guy Oscard at length, suddenly. “Whatever comes of this expedition of ours—if we fight like hell, as we probably shall, before it is finished—if we hate each other ever afterwards, that skin ought to remind us that we are much of a muchness.”
It might have been put into better English; it might almost have sounded like poetry had Guy Oscard been possessed of the poetic soul. But this, fortunately, was not his; and all that might have been said was left to the imagination of Meredith. What he really felt was that there need be no rivalry, and that he for one had no thought of such; that in the quest which they were about to undertake there need be no question of first and last; that they were merely two men, good or bad, competent or incompetent, but through all equal.
Neither of them suspected that the friendship thus strangely inaugurated at the rifle's mouth was to run through a longer period than the few months required to reach the plateau—that it was, in fact, to extend through that long expedition over a strange country that we call Life, and that it was to stand the greatest test that friendship has to meet with here on earth.
It was almost dark when at last they turned to go, Jack Meredith carrying the skin over his shoulder and leading the way. There was no opportunity for conversation, as their progress was necessarily very difficult. Only by the prattle of the stream were they able to make sure of keeping in the right direction. Each had a thousand questions to ask the other. They were total strangers; but it is not, one finds, by conversation that men get to know each other. A common danger, a common pleasure, a common pursuit—these are the touches of Nature by which men are drawn together into the kinship of mutual esteem.
Once they gained the banks of the Ogowe their progress was quicker, and by nine o'clock they reached the camp at Msala. Victor Durnovo was still at work superintending the discharge of the baggage and stores from the large trading-canoes. They heard the shouting and chattering before coming in sight of the camp, and one voice raised angrily above the others.
“Is that Durnovo's voice?” asked Meredith.
“Yes,” answered his companion curtly.
It was a new voice which Meredith had not heard before. When they shouted to announce their arrival it was suddenly hushed, and presently Durnovo came forward to greet them.
Meredith hardly knew him, he was so much stronger and healthier in appearance. Durnovo shook hands heartily.
“No need to introduce you two,” he said, looking from one to the other.
“No; after one mistake we discovered each other's identity in the forest,” answered Meredith.
Durnovo smiled; but there was something behind the smile. He did not seem to approve of their meeting without his intervention.
A little lurking secret of the blood,A little serpent secret rankling keen.
The three men walked up towards the house together. It was a fair-sized house, with a heavy thatched roof that overhung the walls like the crown of a mushroom. The walls were only mud, and the thatching was nothing else than banana leaves; but there was evidence of European taste in the garden surrounding the structure, and in the glazed windows and wooden door.
As they approached the open doorway three little children, clad in very little more than their native modesty, ran gleefully out, and proceeded to engage seats on Jack Meredith's boots, looking upon him as a mere public conveyance. They took hardly any notice of him, but chattered and quarrelled among themselves, sometimes in baby English, sometimes in a dialect unknown to Oscard and Meredith.
“These,” said the latter, when they were seated, and clinging with their little dusky arms round his legs, “are the very rummest little kids I ever came across.”
Durnovo gave an impatient laugh, and went on towards the house. But Guy Oscard stopped, and walked more slowly beside Meredith as he laboured along heavy footed.
“They are the jolliest little souls imaginable,” continued Jack Meredith. “There,” he said to them when they had reached the doorstep, “run away to your mother—very fine ride—no! no more to-night! I'm aweary—you understand—aweary!”
“Aweary—awe-e-e-ary!” repeated the little things, standing before him in infantile nude rotundity, looking up with bright eyes.
“Aweary—that is it. Good night, Epaminondas—good night, Xantippe! Give ye good hap, most stout Nestorius!”
He stooped and gravely shook hands with each one in turn, and, after forcing a like ceremonial upon Guy Oscard, they reluctantly withdrew.
“They have not joined us, I suppose?” said Oscard, as he followed his companion into the house.
“Not yet. They live in this place. Nestorius, I understand, takes care of his mother, who, in her turn, takes care of this house. He is one and a half.”
Guy Oscard seemed to have inherited the mind inquisitive from his learned father. He asked another question later on.
“Who is that woman?” he said during dinner, with a little nod towards the doorway, through which the object of his curiosity had passed with some plates.
“That is the mother of the stout Nestorius,” answered Jack—“Durnovo's housekeeper.”
He spoke quietly, looking straight in front of him; and Joseph, who was drawing a cork at the back of the room, was watching his face.
There was a little pause, during which Durnovo drank slowly. Then Guy Oscard spoke again.
“If she cooked the dinner,” he said, “she knows her business.”
“Yes,” answered Durnovo, “she is a good cook—if she is nothing else.”
It did not sound as if further inquiries would be welcome, and so the subject was dropped with a silent tribute to the culinary powers of Durnovo's housekeeper at the Msala Station.
The woman had only appeared for a moment, bringing in some dishes for Joseph—a tall, stately woman, with great dark eyes, in which the patience of motherhood had succeeded to the soft fire of West Indian love and youth. She had the graceful, slow carriage of the Creole, although her skin was darker than that of those dangerous sirens. That Spanish blood ran in her veins could be seen by the intelligence of her eyes; for there is an intelligence in Spanish eyes which stand apart. In the men it seems to refer to the past or the future, for their incorrigible leisureliness prevents the present rendering of a full justice to their powers. In the women it belongs essentially to the present; for there is no time like the present for love and other things.
“They call me,” she had said to Jack Meredith, in her soft, mumbled English, a fortnight earlier, “they call me Marie.”
The children he had named after his own phantasy, and when she had once seen him with them there was a notable change in her manner. Her eyes rested on him with a sort of wondering attention, and when she cooked his meals or touched anything that was his there was something in her attitude that denoted a special care.
Joseph called her “Missis,” with a sort of friendliness in his voice, which never rose to badinage nor descended to familiarity.
“Seems to me, missis,” he said, on the third evening after the arrival of the advance column, “that the guv'nor takes uncommon kindly to them little 'uns of yours.”
They were washing up together after dinner in that part of the garden which was used for a scullery, and Joseph was enjoying a post-prandial pipe.
“Yes,” she said simply, following the direction of Joseph's glance. Jack Meredith was engaged in teaching Epaminondas the intellectual game of bowls with a rounded pebble and a beer-bottle. Nestorius, whose person seemed more distended than usual, stood gravely by, engaged in dental endeavours on a cork, while Xantippe joined noisily in the game. Their lack of dress was essentially native to the country, while their mother affected a simple European style of costume.
“And,” added Joseph, on politeness bent, “it don't surprise me. I'm wonderfully fond of the little nig—nippers already. I am—straight.”
The truth was that the position of this grave and still comely woman was ambiguous. Neither Joseph nor his master called her by the name she had offered for their use. Joseph compromised by the universal and elastic “Missis”; his master simply avoided all names.
Ambiguity is one of those intangible nothings that get into the atmosphere and have a trick of remaining there. Marie seemed in some subtle way to pervade the atmosphere of Msala. It would seem that Guy Oscard, in his thick-headed way, was conscious of this mystery in the air; for he had not been two hours in Msala before he asked “Who is that woman?” and received the reply which has been recorded.
After dinner they passed out on to the little terrace overlooking the river, and it was here that the great Simiacine scheme was pieced together. It was here beneath the vast palm trees that stood like two beacons towering over the surrounding forest, that three men deliberately staked their own lives and the lives of others against a fortune. Nature has a strange way of hiding her gifts. Many of the most precious have lain unheeded for hundreds of years in barren plains, on inaccessible mountains, or beneath the wave, while others are thrown at the feet of savages who know no use for them.
The man who had found the Simiacine was eager, restless, full of suspicion. To the others the scheme obviously presented itself in a different light. Jack Meredith was dilettante, light-hearted, and unsatisfactory. It was impossible to arouse any enthusiasm in him—to make him take it seriously. Guy Oscard was gravely indifferent. He wanted to get rid of a certain space of time, and the African forest, containing as it did the only excitement that his large heart knew, was as good a place as any. The Simiacine was, in his mind, relegated to a distant place behind weeks of sport and adventure such as his soul loved. He scarcely took Victor Durnovo au pied de la lettre. Perhaps he knew too much about him for that. Certain it is that neither of the two realised at that moment the importance of the step that they were taking.
“You men,” said Durnovo eagerly, “don't seem to take the thing seriously.”
“I,” answered Meredith, “intend at all events to take the profits very seriously. When they begin to come in, J. Meredith will be at the above address, and trusts by a careful attention to business to merit a continuance of your kind patronage.”
Durnovo laughed somewhat nervously. Oscard did not seem to hear.
“It is all very well for you,” said the half-caste in a lower voice. “You have not so much at stake. It is likely that the happiness of my whole life depends upon this venture.”
A curious smile passed across Jack Meredith's face. Without turning his head, he glanced sideways into Durnovo's face through the gloom. But he said nothing, and it was Oscard who broke the silence by saying simply:
“The same may possibly apply to me.”
There was a little pause, during which he lighted his pipe.
“To a certain extent,” he said in emendation. “Of course, my real object, as you no doubt know, is to get away from England until my father's death has been forgotten. My own conscience is quite clear, but—”
Jack Meredith drew in his legs and leant forward.
“But,” he said, interrupting, and yet not interrupting—“but the public mind is an unclean sink. Everything that goes into it comes out tainted. Therefore it is best only to let the public mind have the scourings, as it were, of one's existence. If they get anything better—anything more important—it is better to skedaddle until it has run through and been swept away by a flow of social garbage.”
Guy Oscard grunted with his pipe between his teeth, after the manner of the stoic American-Indian—a grunt that seemed to say, “My pale-faced brother has spoken well; he expresses my feelings.” Then he gave further vent to the deliberate expansiveness which was his.
“What I cannot stand,” he said, “are the nudges and the nods and the surreptitious glances of the silly women who think that one cannot see them looking. I hate being pointed out.”
“Together with the latest skirt-dancing girl, and the last female society-detective, with the blushing honours of the witness-box thick upon her,” suggested Jack Meredith.
“Yes,” muttered Guy. He turned with a sort of simple wonder, and looked at Meredith curiously. He had never been understood so quickly before. He had never met man or woman possessing in so marked a degree that subtle power of going right inside the mind of another and feeling the things that are there—the greatest power of all—the power that rules the world; and it is only called Sympathy.
“Well,” said the voice of Durnovo through the darkness, “I don't mind admitting that all I want is the money. I want to get out of this confounded country; but I don't want to leave till I have made a fortune.”
The subtle influence that Meredith wielded seemed to have reached him too, warming into expansiveness his hot Spanish blood. His voice was full of confidence.
“Very right and proper,” said Meredith. “Got a grudge against the country; make the country pay for it in cash.”
“That's what I intend to do; and it shall pay heavily. Then, when I've got the money, I'll know what to do with it. I know where to look, and I do not think that I shall look in vain.”
Guy Oscard shuffled uneasily in his camp-chair. He had an Englishman's horror of putting into speech those things which we all think, while only Frenchmen and Italians say them. The Spaniards are not so bad, and Victor Durnovo had enough of their blood in him to say no more.
It did not seem to occur to any of them that the only person whose individuality was still veiled happened to be Jack Meredith. He alone had said nothing, had imparted no confidence. He it was who spake first, after a proper period of silence. He was too much of an adept to betray haste, and thus admit his debt of mutual confidence.
“It seems to me,” he said, “that we have all the technicalities arranged now. So far as the working of the expedition is concerned, we know our places, and the difficulties will be met as they present themselves. But there is one thing which I think we should set in order now. I have been thinking about it while I have been waiting here alone.”
The glow of Victor Durnovo's cigar died away as if in his attention he was forgetting to smoke; but he said nothing.
“It seems to me,” Jack went on, “that before we leave here we should draw up and sign a sort of deed of partnership. Of course, we trust each other perfectly—there is no question of that. But life is an uncertain thing, as some earlier philosopher said before me; and one never knows what may happen. I have drawn up a paper in triplicate. If you have a match, I will read it to you.”
Oscard produced a match, and, striking it on his boot, sheltered it with the hollow of his hand, while Jack read:
“We, the undersigned, hereby enter into partnership to search for and sell, to our mutual profit, the herb known as Simiacine, the profits to be divided into three equal portions, after the deduction of one-hundredth part to be handed to the servant, Joseph Atkinson. Any further expenses that may be incurred to be borne in the same proportion as the original expense of fitting out the expedition, namely, two-fifths to be paid by Guy Cravener Oscard, two-fifths by John Meredith, one-fifth by Victor Durnovo.
“The sum of fifty pounds per month to be paid to Victor Durnovo, wherewith he may pay the thirty special men taken from his estate and headquarters at Msala to cultivate the Simiacine, and such corn and vegetables as may be required for the sustenance of the expedition; these men to act as porters until the plateau be reached.
“The opinion of two of the three leaders against one to be accepted unconditionally in all questions where controversy may arise. In case of death each of us undertakes hereby to hand over to the executors of the dead partner or partners such moneys as shall belong to him or them.”
At this juncture there was a little pause while Guy Oscard lighted a second match.
“And,” continued Jack, “we hereby undertake severally, on oath, to hold the whereabouts of the Simiacine a strict secret, which secret may not be revealed by any one of us to whomsoever it may be without the sanction, in writing, of the other two partners.”
“There,” concluded Jack Meredith, “I am rather pleased with that literary production: it is forcible and yet devoid of violence. I feel that in me the commerce of the century has lost an ornament. Moreover, I am ready to swear to the terms of the agreement.”
There was a little pause. Guy Oscard took his pipe from his mouth, and while he knocked the ashes out against the leg of his chair he mumbled, “I swear to hold that agreement.”
Victor Durnovo took off his hat with a sweep and a flourish, and, raising his bared brow to the stars, he said, “I swear to hold to that agreement. If I fail, may God strike me dead!”