So cowards never use their mightBut against such that will not fight.
On nearing the bungalow, Jocelyn turned aside into the forest where a little colony of huts nestled in a hollow of the sand-dunes.
“Nala,” she cried, “the paddle-maker. Ask him to come to me.”
She spoke in the dialect of the coast to some women who sat together before one of the huts.
“Nala—yes,” they answered. And they raised their strident voices.
In a few moments a man emerged from a shed of banana-leaves. He was a scraggy man—very lightly clad—and a violent squint handicapped him seriously in the matter of first impressions. When he saw Jocelyn he dropped his burden of wood and ran towards her. The African negro does not cringe. He is a proud man in his way. If he is properly handled, he is not only trustworthy—he is something stronger. Nala grinned as he ran towards Jocelyn.
“Nala,” she said, “will you go a journey for me?”
“I will go at once.”
“I came to you,” said Jocelyn, “because I know that you are an intelligent man and a great traveller.”
“I have travelled much,” he answered, “when I was younger.”
“Before you were married?” said the English girl. “Before little Nala came?”
The man grinned.
He looked back over his shoulder towards one of the huts, where a scraggy infant with a violent squint lay on its diaphragm on the sand.
“Where do you wish me to go?” asked the proud father.
“To Msala on the Ogowe river.”
“I know the Ogowe. I have been at Msala,” with the grave nod of a great traveller.
“When can you leave?”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“Now.”
Jocelyn had her purse in her hand.
“You can hire a dhow,” she said; “and on the river you may have as many rowers as you like. You must go very quickly to Msala. There you must ask about the Englishman's Expedition. You have heard of it?”
“Yes: the Englishman, Durnovo, and the soldier who laughs.”
“Yes. Some of the men are at Msala now. They were going up-country to join the other Englishman far away—near the mountains. They have stopped at Msala. Find out why they have not gone on, and come back very quickly to tell me. You understand, Nala?”
“Yes.”
“And I can trust you?”
“Yes: because you cured the little one when he had an evil spirit. Yes, you can trust me.”
She gave him money and rode on home. Before she reached the bungalow the paddle-maker passed her at a trot, going towards the sea.
She waited for three days, and then Victor Durnovo came again. Maurice was still away. There was an awful sense of impending danger in the very air in the loneliness of her position. Yet she was not afraid of Durnovo. She had left that fear behind. She went to the drawing-room to see him, full of resolution.
“I could not go away,” he said, after relinquishing her hand, “without coming to see you.”
Jocelyn said nothing. The scared look which she had last seen in his face was no longer there; but the eyes were full of lies.
“Jocelyn,” the man went on, “I suppose you know that I love you? It must have been plain to you for a long time.”
“No,” she answered, with a little catch in her breath. “No, it has not. And I am sorry to hear it now.”
“Why?” he asked, with a dull gleam which could not be dignified by the name of love.
“Because it can only lead to trouble.”
Victor Durnovo was standing with his back to the window, while Jocelyn, in the full light of the afternoon, stood before him. He looked her slowly up and down with a glance of approval which alarmed and disquieted her.
“Will you marry me?” he asked.
“No!”
His black moustache was pushed forward by some motion of the hidden lips.
“Why?”
“Do you want the real reason?” asked Jocelyn.
Victor Durnovo paused for a moment.
“Yes,” he said.
“Because I not only do not care for you, but I despise and distrust you.”
“You are candid,” he said, with an unpleasant little laugh.
“Yes.”
He moved a little to one side and drew a chair towards him, half-leaning, half-sitting on the back of it.
“Then,” he said, “I will be candid with you. I intend you to marry me; I have intended it for a long time. I am not going down on my knees to ask you to do it: that is not my way. But, if you drive me to it, I will make your brother Maurice go down on his knees and beg you to marry me.”
“I don't think you will do that,” answered the girl steadily. “Whatever your power over Maurice may be, it is not strong enough for that; you overrate it.”
“You think so?” he sneered.
“I am sure of it.”
Durnovo glanced hastily round the room in order to make sure that they were not overheard.
“Suppose,” he said, in a low, hissing voice, “that I possess knowledge that I have only to mention to one or two people to make this place too hot for Maurice Gordon. If he escaped the fury of the natives, it would be difficult to know where he could go to. England would be too hot for him. They wouldn't have him there; I could see to that. He would be a ruined man—an outcast—execrated by all the civilised world.”
He was watching her face all the while. He saw the colour leave even her lips, but they were steady and firm. A strange wonder crept into his heart. This woman never flinched. There was some reserved strength within herself upon which she was now drawing. His dealings had all been with half-castes—with impure blood and doubtful descendants of a mixed ancestry. He had never fairly roused a pure-bred English man or woman, and suddenly he began to feel out of his depth.
“What is your knowledge?” asked Jocelyn in a coldly measured voice.
“I think you had better not ask that; you will be sorry afterwards. I would rather that you thought quietly over what I have told you. Perhaps, on second thoughts, you will see your way to give me some—slight hope. I should really advise it.”
“I did not ask your advice. What is your knowledge?”
“You will have it?” he hissed.
“Yes.”
He leant forward, craning his neck, pushing his yellow face and hungering black eyes close into hers.
“Then, if you will have it, your brother—Maurice Gordon—is a slave-owner.”
She drew back as she might have done from some unclean animal. She knew that he was telling the truth. There might be extenuating circumstances. The real truth might have quite a different sound, spoken in different words; but there was enough of the truth in it, as Victor Durnovo placed it before her, to condemn Maurice before the world.
“Now will you marry me?” he sneered.
“No!”
Quick as thought she had seen the only loophole—the only possible way of meeting this terrible accusation.
He laughed; but there was a faint jangle of uneasiness in his laughter.
“Indeed!”
“Supposing,” said Jocelyn, “for one moment that there was a grain of truth in your fabrication, who would believe you? Who on this coast would take your word against the word of an English gentleman? Even if the whole story were true, which it is not, could you prove it? You are a liar, as well as a coward and a traitor! Do you think that the very servants in the stable would believe you? Do you think that the incident of the small-pox at Msala is forgotten? Do you think that all Loango, even to the boatmen on the beach, ignores the fact that you are here in Loango now because you are afraid to go through a savage country to the Simiacine Plateau as you are pledged to do? You were afraid of the small-pox once; there is something else that you are afraid of now. I do not know what it is, but I will find out. Coward! Go! Leave the house at once, before I call in the stable-boys to turn you out, and never dare to speak to me again!”
Victor Durnovo recoiled before her, conscious all the while that she had never been so beautiful as at that moment. But she was something far above him—a different creation altogether. He never knew what drove him from that room. It was the fear of something that he did not understand.
He heard her close the window after him as he walked away beneath the trees.
She stood watching him—proud, cold, terrible in her womanly anger. Then she turned, and suddenly sank down upon the sofa, sobbing.
But fortune decreed that she should have neither time to weep nor think. She heard the approaching footsteps of her old servant, and when the door was opened Jocelyn Gordon was reading a book, with her back turned towards the window.
“That man Nala, miss, the paddle-maker, wants to see you.”
“Tell him to go round to the verandah.”
Jocelyn went out by the open window, and presently Nala came grinning towards her. He was evidently very much pleased with himself—held himself erect, and squinted more violently than usual.
“I have been to Msala,” he said, with considerable dignity of manner.
“Yes, and what news have you?”
Nala squatted down on the chunam floor, and proceeded to unfold a leaf. The operation took some time. Within the outer covering there was a second envelope of paper, likewise secured by a string. Finally, the man produced a small note, which showed signs of having been read more than once. This he handed to Jocelyn with an absurd air of importance.
She opened the paper and read:
“To MARIE AT MSALA,—Send at once to Mr. Durnovo, informing him that the tribes have risen and are rapidly surrounding the Plateau. He must return here at once with as large an armed force as he can raise. But the most important consideration is time. He must not wait for men from elsewhere, but must pick up as many as he can in Loango and on the way up to Msala. I reckon that we can hold out for four months without outside assistance, but after that period we shall be forced to surrender or to try and cut our way through WITHOUT the Simiacine. With a larger force we could beat back the tribes, and establish our hold on the Plateau by force of arms. This must be forwarded to Mr. Durnovo at once, wherever he is. The letter is in duplicate, sent by two good messengers, who go by different routes.
“JOHN MEREDITH.”
When Jocelyn looked up, dry-lipped, breathless, Nala was standing before her, beaming with self-importance.
“Who gave you this?”
“Marie at Msala.”
“Who is she?”
“Oh—Mr. Durnovo's woman at Msala. She keeps his house.”
“But this letter is for Mr. Durnovo,” cried Jocelyn, whose fear made her unreasonably angry. “Why has he not had it?”
Nala came nearer, with upraised forefinger and explanatory palm.
“Marie tell me,” he said, “that Mr. Meredith send two letters. Marie give Mr. Durnovo one. This—other letter.”
There was a strange glitter in the girl's blue eyes—something steely and unpleasant.
“You are sure of that? You are quite sure that Mr. Durnovo has had a letter like this?” she asked slowly and carefully, so that there could be no mistake.
“That is true,” answered the man.
“Have you any more news from Msala?”
Nala looked slightly hurt. He evidently thought that he had brought as much news as one man could be expected to carry.
“Marie has heard,” he said, “that there is much fighting up in the country.”
“She has heard no particulars—nothing more than that?”
“No: nothing.”
Jocelyn Gordon rose to this occasion also.
“Can you go,” she said, after a moment's thought, “to St. Paul de Loanda for me?”
The man laughed.
“Yes,” he answered simply.
“At once—now?”
“Oh, yes,” with a sigh.
Already Jocelyn was writing something on a sheet of paper.
“Take this,” she said, “to the telegraph office at St. Paul de Loanda, and send it off at once. Here is money. You understand? I will pay you when you bring back the receipt. If you have been very quick, I will pay you well.”
That same evening a second messenger started northward after Maurice Gordon with a letter telling him to come back at once to Loango.
Take heed of still waters.
Despite his assertion to Lady Cantourne, Guy Oscard stayed on in the gloomy house in Russell Square. He had naturally gone thither on his return from Africa, and during the months that followed he did not find time to think much of his own affairs. Millicent Chyne occupied all his thoughts—all his waking moments. It is marvellous how busily employed an active-minded young lady can keep a man.
In the ill-lighted study rendered famous by the great history which had emanated in the manuscript therefrom, Guy Oscard had interviewed sundry great commercial experts, and a cheque for forty-eight thousand pounds had been handed to him across the table polished bright by his father's studious elbow. The Simiacine was sold, and the first portion of it spent went to buy a diamond aigrette for the dainty head of Miss Millicent Chyne.
Guy Oscard was in the midst of the London season. His wealth and a certain restricted renown had soon made him popular. He had only to choose his society, and the selection was not difficult. Wherever Millicent Chyne went he went also, and to the lady's credit it must be recorded that no one beyond herself and Guy Oscard had hitherto noticed this fact. Millicent was nothing if not discreet. It was more or less generally known that she was engaged to Jack Meredith, who, although absent on some vaguely romantic quest of a fortune, was not yet forgotten. No word, however, was popularly whispered connecting her name with that of any other swain nearer home. Miss Chyne was too much of a woman of the world to allow that. But, in the meantime, she rather liked diamond aigrettes and the suppressed devotion of Guy Oscard.
It was the evening of a great ball, and Guy Oscard, having received his orders and instructions, was dining alone in Russell Square, when a telegram was handed to him. He opened it and spread the thin paper out upon the table-cloth. A word from that far, wild country, which seemed so much fitter a background to his simple bulk and strength than the cramped ways of London society—a message from the very heart of the dark continent—to him:
“Meredith surrounded and in danger Durnovo false come at once Jocelyn Gordon.”
Guy Oscard pushed back his chair and rose at once, as if there were somebody waiting in the hall to see him.
“I do not want any more dinner,” he said, “I am going to Africa. Come and help me to pack my things.”
He studied Bradshaw and wrote a note to Millicent Chyne. To her he said the same as he had said to the butler, “I am going to Africa.”
There was something refreshingly direct and simple about this man. He did not enter into long explanations. He simply bore on in the line he had marked out. He rose from the table and never looked back. His attitude seemed to say, “I am going to Africa; kindly get out of my way.”
At three minutes to nine—that is to say, in one hour and a half—Guy Oscard took his seat in the Plymouth express. He had ascertained that a Madeira boat was timed to sail from Dartmouth at eight o'clock that evening. He was preceded by a telegram to Lloyd's agent at Plymouth:
“Have fastest craft available, steam up ready to put to sea to catch the Banyan African steamer four o'clock to-morrow morning. Expense not to be considered.”
As the train crept out into the night, the butler of the gloomy house in Russell Square, who had finished the port, and was beginning to feel resigned, received a second shock. This came in the form of a carriage and pair, followed by a ring at the bell.
The man opened the door, and his fellow servitor of an eccentric class and generation stepped back on the door-step to let a young lady pass into the hall.
“Mr. Oscard?” she said curtly.
“Left 'ome, miss,” replied the butler, stiffly conscious of walnut-peel on his waistcoat.
“How long ago?”
“A matter of half an hour, miss.”
Millicent Chyne, whose face was drawn and white, moved farther into the hall. Seeing the dining-room door ajar, she passed into that stately apartment, followed by the butler.
“Mr. Oscard sent me this note,” she said, showing a crumpled paper, “saying that he was leaving for Africa to-night. He gives no explanation. Why has he gone to Africa?”
“He received a telegram while he was at dinner, miss,” replied the butler, whose knowledge of the world indicated the approach of at least a sovereign. “He rose and threw down his napkin, miss. 'I'm goin' to Africa,' he says. 'Come and help me pack.'”
“Did you see the telegram—by any chance?” asked Miss Chyne.
“Well, miss, I didn't rightly read it.”
Millicent had given way to a sudden panic on the receipt of Guy's note. A telegram calling him to Africa—calling with a voice which he obeyed with such alacrity that he had not paused to finish his dinner—could only mean that some disaster had happened—some disaster to Jack Meredith. And quite suddenly Millicent Chyne's world was emptied of all else but Jack Meredith. For a moment she forgot herself. She ran to the room where Lady Cantourne was affixing the family jewelry on her dress, and, showing the letter, said breathlessly that she must see Guy Oscard at once. Lady Cantourne, wise woman of the world that she was, said nothing. She merely finished her toilet, and, when the carriage was ready, they drove round by Russell Square.
“Who was it from?” asked Millicent.
“From a person named Gordon, miss.”
“And what did it say?”
“Well, miss, as I said before, I did not rightly see. But it seems that it said, 'Come at once.' I saw that.”
“And what else? Be quick, please.”
“I think there was mention of somebody bein' surrounded, miss. Some name like Denver, I think. No! Wait a bit; it wasn't that; it was somebody else.”
Finishing off the port had also meant beginning it, and the worthy butler's mind was not particularly clear.
“Was there any mention of Mr. Oscard's partner, Mr.—eh—Meredith?” asked Millicent, glancing at the clock.
“Yes, miss, there was that name, but I don't rightly remember in what connection.”
“It didn't say that he—” Millicent paused and drew in her breath with a jerk—“was dead, or anything like that?”
“Oh, no, miss.”
“Thank you. I—am sorry we missed Mr. Oscard.”
She turned and went back to Lady Cantourne, who was sitting in the carriage. And while she was dancing the second extra with the first comer at four o'clock the next morning, Guy Oscard was racing out of Plymouth Sound into the teeth of a fine, driving rain. On the bridge of the trembling tug-boat, by Oscard's side, stood a keen-eyed Channel pilot, who knew the tracks of the steamers up and down Channel as a gamekeeper knows the hare-tracks across a stubble-field. Moreover, the tug-boat caught the big steamer pounding down into the grey of the Atlantic Ocean, and in due time Guy Oscard landed on the beach at Loango.
He had the telegram still in his pocket, and he went, not to Maurice Gordon's office, but to the bungalow.
Jocelyn greeted him with a little inarticulate cry of joy.
“I did not think that you could possibly be here so soon,” she said.
“What news have you?” he asked, without pausing to explain. He was one of those men who are silenced by an unlimited capacity for prompt action.
“That,” she replied, handing him the note written by Jack Meredith to Marie at Msala.
Guy Oscard read it carefully.
“Dated seven weeks last Monday—nearly two months ago,” he muttered, half to himself.
He raised his head and looked out of the window. There were lines of anxiety round his eyes. Jocelyn never took her glance from his face.
“Nearly two months ago,” he repeated.
“But you will go?” she said—and something in her voice startled him.
“Of course I will go,” he replied. He looked down into her face with a vague question in his quiet eyes; and who knows what he saw there? Perhaps she was off her guard. Perhaps she read this man aright and did not care.
With a certain slow hesitation he laid his hand on her arm. There was something almost paternal in his manner which was in keeping with his stature.
“Moreover,” he went on, “I will get there in time. I have an immense respect for Meredith. If he said that he could hold out for four months, I should say that he could hold out for six. There is no one like Meredith, once he makes up his mind to take things seriously.”
It was not very well done, and she probably saw through it. She probably knew that he was as anxious as she was herself. But his very presence was full of comfort. It somehow brought a change to the moral atmosphere—a sense of purposeful direct simplicity which was new to the West African Coast.
“I will send over to the factory for Maurice,” said the girl. “He has been hard at work getting together your men. If your telegram had not come he was going up to the Plateau himself.”
Oscard looked slightly surprised. That did not sound like Maurice Gordon.
“I believe you are almost capable of going yourself,” said the big man with a slow smile.
“If I had been a man I should have been half-way there by this time.”
“Where is Durnovo?” he asked suddenly.
“I believe he is in Loango. He has not been to this house for more than a fortnight; but Maurice has heard that he is still somewhere in Loango.”
Jocelyn paused. There was an expression on Guy Oscard's face which she rather liked, while it alarmed her.
“It is not likely,” she went on, “that he will come here. I—I rather lost my temper with him, and said things which I imagine hurt his feelings.”
Oscard nodded gravely.
“I'm rather afraid of doing that myself,” he said; “only it will not be his feelings.”
“I do not think,” she replied, “that it would be at all expedient to say or do anything at present. He must go with you to the Plateau. Afterwards—perhaps.”
Oscard laughed quietly.
“Ah,” he said, “that sounds like one of Meredith's propositions. But he does not mean it any more than you do.”
“I do mean it,” replied Jocelyn quietly. There is no hatred so complete, so merciless, as the hatred of a woman for one who has wronged the man she loves. At such times women do not pause to give fair play. They make no allowance.
Jocelyn Gordon found a sort of fearful joy in the anger of this self-contained Englishman. It was an unfathomed mine of possible punishment over which she could in thought hold Victor Durnovo.
“Nothing,” she went on, “could be too mean—nothing could be mean enough—to mete out to him in payment of his own treachery and cowardice.”
She went to a drawer in her writing-table and took from it an almanac.
“The letter you have in your hand,” she said, “was handed to Mr. Durnovo exactly a month ago by the woman at Msala. From that time to this he has done nothing. He has simply abandoned Mr. Meredith.”
“He is in Loango?” inquired Oscard, with a premonitory sense of enjoyment in his voice.
“Yes.”
“Does he know that you have sent for me?”
“No,” replied Jocelyn.
Guy Oscard smiled.
“I think I will go and look for him,” he said.
At dusk that same evening there was a singular incident in the bar-room of the only hotel in Loango.
Victor Durnovo was there, surrounded by a few friends of antecedents and blood similar to his own. They were having a convivial time of it, and the consumption of whisky was greater than might be deemed discreet in such a climate as that of Loango.
Durnovo was in the act of raising his glass to his lips when the open doorway was darkened, and Guy Oscard stood before him. The half-breed's jaw dropped; the glass was set down again rather unsteadily on the zinc-covered counter.
“I want you,” said Oscard.
There was a little pause, an ominous silence, and Victor Durnovo slowly followed Oscard out of the room, leaving that ominous silence behind.
“I leave for Msala to-night,” said Oscard, when they were outside, “and you are coming with me.”
“I'll see you damned first!” replied Durnovo, with a courage born of Irish whisky.
Guy Oscard said nothing, but he stretched out his right hand suddenly. His fingers closed in the collar of Victor Durnovo's coat, and that parti-coloured scion of two races found himself feebly trotting through the one street of Loango.
“Le' go!” he gasped.
But the hand at his neck neither relinquished nor contracted. When they reached the beach the embarkation of the little army was going forward under Maurice Gordon's supervision. Victor looked at Gordon. He reflected over the trump card held in his hand, but he was too skilful to play it then.
I must mix myself with action lest I wither by despair.
Jocelyn had not conveyed to her brother by word or hint the accusation brought against him by Victor Durnovo. But when he returned home it almost seemed as if he were conscious of the knowledge that was hers. She thought she detected a subtle difference in his manner towards herself—something apologetic and humble. This was really the result of Victor Durnovo's threat made in the office of the factory long before.
Maurice Gordon was not the sort of man to carry through the burden of a half-discovered secret. It needs a special temperament for this—one that is able to inspire fear in whomsoever it may be necessary to hold in check—a temperament with sufficient self-reliance and strength to play an open game steadily through to the end. Since Durnovo's plain-spoken threat had been uttered Gordon had thought of little else, and it was well known that Jocelyn's influence was all that prevented him from taking hopelessly to drink. When away from her at the sub-factories it is to be feared that he gave way to the temptation. There is nothing so wearing as a constant suspense, a never-resting fear; and if a man knows that both may be relieved by a slight over-indulgence he must be a strong man indeed if he can turn aside.
Gordon betrayed himself to Jocelyn in a thousand little ways. He consulted her wishes, deferred to her opinion, and sought her advice in a way which never had been his hitherto; and while both were conscious of this difference, both were alike afraid of seeking to explain it.
Jocelyn knew that her repulse of Victor Durnovo was only a temporary advantage; the position could not remain long undecided. Victor Durnovo would have to be met sooner or later. Each day increased the strength of her conviction that her brother was in the power of this man. Whether he had really allowed himself to be dragged into the horrors of even a slight connection with the slave-trade she could not tell; but she knew the world well enough to recognise the fact that Durnovo had only to make the accusation for it to be believed by the million sensation-mongers who are always on the alert for some new horror. She knew that should Durnovo breathe a word of this in the right quarter—that is to say, into the eager journalistic ear—there would hardly be a civilised country in the world where Maurice Gordon of Loango could dwell under his own name. She felt that they were all living on a slumbering volcano. It was one of those rare cases where human life seems no longer sacred; and this refined, educated, gentle English lady found herself face to face with the fact that Victor Durnovo's life would be cheap at the price of her own.
At this moment Providence, with the wisdom of which we sometimes catch a glimpse, laid another trouble upon her shoulders. While she was half distracted with the thought of her brother's danger, the news was put into her hand by the grinning Nala that Jack Meredith—the man she openly in her own heart loved—was in an even greater strait.
Here, at all events, was a peril that could be met, however heavy might be the odds. Her own danger, the horror of Maurice's crime, the hatred for Victor Durnovo, were all swallowed up in the sudden call to help Jack Meredith. And Jocelyn found at least a saving excitement in working night and day for the rescue of the man who was to be Millicent Chyne's husband.
Maurice aided her loyally. His influence with the natives was great; his knowledge of the country second only to Durnovo's. During the fortnight that elapsed between the despatch of the telegram to Guy Oscard and the arrival of that resourceful individual at Loango, the whole coast was astir with preparation and excitement. Thus it came about that Guy Oscard found a little army awaiting him, and to Maurice Gordon was the credit given. Victor Durnovo simply kept out of the way. The news that an expedition was being got together to go to the relief of Jack Meredith never reached him in his retreat. But after a fortnight spent in idleness in the neighbouring interior, he could stand the suspense no longer, and came down into the town, to be pounced upon at once by Guy Oscard.
As he stood on the beach near to Oscard, watching the embarkation of the men, his feelings were decidedly mixed. There was an immense relief from the anxiety of the last few weeks. He had stood on the verge of many crimes, and had been forcibly dragged back therefrom by the strong arm of Guy Oscard. It had been Victor Durnovo's intention not only to abandon Jack Meredith to his certain fate, but to appropriate to his own use the consignment of Simiacine, valued at sixty thousand pounds, which he had brought down to the coast. The end of it all was, of course, the possession of Jocelyn Gordon. The programme was simple; but, racked as he was by anxiety, weakened by incipient disease, and paralysed by chronic fear, the difficulties were too great to be overcome. To be a thorough villain one must possess, first of all, good health; secondly, untiring energy; and thirdly, a certain enthusiasm for wrong-doing for its own sake. Criminals of the first standard have always loved crime. Victor Durnovo was not like that. He only made use of crime, and had no desire to cultivate it for its own sake. To be forcibly dragged back, therefore, into the paths of virtue was in some ways a great relief. The presence of Guy Oscard, also, was in itself a comfort. Durnovo felt that no responsibility attached itself to him; he had entire faith in Oscard, and had only to obey.
Durnovo was not a person who suffered from too delicate a susceptibility. The shame of his present position did not affect him deeply. Indeed, he was one of those men who have no sense of shame before certain persons; and Guy Oscard was one of those. The position was not in itself one to be proud of, but the half-breed accepted it with wonderful equanimity, and presently he began to assist in the embarkation.
It was nearly dark when the little coast steamer secured by Maurice Gordon for the service turned her prow northward and steamed away.
“The truth is,” Durnovo took an early opportunity of saying to Oscard, “that my nerve is no longer up to this work. I should not care to undertake this business alone, despite my reputation on the coast. It is a wonderful thing how closely the nerves are allied to the state of one's health.”
“Wonderful!” acquiesced Guy Oscard, with a lack of irony which only made the irony keener.
“I've been too long in this d——d country,” exclaimed Durnovo, “that's the fact. I'm not the man I was.”
Guy Oscard smoked for some moments in silence; then he took his pipe from his lips.
“The only pity is,” he said judicially, “that you ever undertook to look for the Simiacine if you were going to funk it when the first difficulty arose.”
Without further comment he walked away, and entered into conversation with the captain of the steamer.
“All right,” muttered Durnovo between his teeth—“all right, my sarcastic grand gentleman. I'll be even with you yet.”
The strange part of it was that Guy Oscard never attempted to degrade Durnovo from his post of joint commander. This puzzled the half-breed sorely. It may have been that Oscard knew men better than his indifferent manner would have led the observer to believe. Durnovo's was just one of those natures which in good hands might have been turned to good account. Too much solitude, too much dealing with negro peoples, and, chiefly, too long a sojourn in the demoralising atmosphere of West Africa, had made a worse man of Victor Durnovo than Nature originally intended. He was not wholly bad. Badness is, after all, a matter of comparison, and, in order to draw correctly such a comparison, every allowance must be made for a difference in standard. Victor Durnovo's standard was not a high one; that was all. And in continuing to treat him as an equal, and trust him as such, Guy Oscard only showed that he was a cleverer man than the world took him to be.
In due time Msala was reached. As the canoes suitable for up-river traffic were by no means sufficient to transport the whole of the expeditionary force in one journey, a division was made. Durnovo took charge of the advance column, journeying up to the camp from which the long march through the forest was to begin, and sending back the canoes for Oscard and the remainder of the force. With these canoes he sent back word that the hostile tribes were within a few days' march, and that he was fortifying his camp.
This news seemed to furnish Guy Oscard with food for considerable thought, and after some space of time he called Marie.
She came, and, standing before him with her patient dignity of mien, awaited his communications. She never took her eyes off the letter in his hand. Oscard noticed the persistency of her gaze at the time, and remembered it again afterwards.
“Marie,” he said, “I have had rather serious news from Mr. Durnovo.”
“Yes?” rather breathlessly.
“It will not be safe for you to stay at Msala—you must take the children down to Loango.”
“Does he say that?” she asked, in her rapid, indistinct English.
“Who?”
“Vic—Mr. Durnovo.”
“No,” replied Oscard, wondering at the question.
“He does not say anything about me or the children?” persisted Marie.
“No.”
“And yet he says there is danger?”
There was a strange, angry look in her great dark eyes which Oscard did not understand.
“He says that the tribes are within two days' march of his camp.”
She gave an unpleasant little laugh.
“He does not seem to have thought of us at Msala.”
“I suppose,” said Oscard, folding the letter and putting it in his pocket, “that he thinks it is my duty to do what is best for Msala. That is why I asked you to speak to me.”
Mario did not seem to be listening. She was looking over his head up the river, in the direction from whence the message had come, and there was a singular hopelessness in her eyes.
“I cannot leave until he tells me to,” she said doggedly.
Guy Oscard took the pipe from his lips and examined the bowl of it attentively for a moment.
“Excuse me,” he said gently, “but I insist on your leaving with the children to-morrow. I will send two men down with you, and will give you a letter to Miss Gordon, who will see to your wants at Loango.”
She looked at him with a sort of wonder.
“You insist?” she said.
He raised his eyes to meet hers.
“Yes,” he answered.
She bowed her head in grave submission, and made a little movement as if to go.
“It is chiefly on account of the children,” he added.
Quite suddenly she smiled, and seemed to check a sob in her throat.
“Yes,” said she softly, “I know.” And she went into the house.
The next morning brought further rumours of approaching danger, and it seemed certain that this news must have filtered through Durnovo's fortified camp further up the river. This time the report was more definite. There were Arabs leading the tribes, and rumour further stated that an organised descent on Msala was intended. And yet there was no word from Durnovo—no sign to suggest that he had even thought of securing the safety of his housekeeper and the few aged negroes in charge of Msala. This news only strengthened Oscard's determination to send Marie down to the coast, and he personally superintended their departure before taking his seat in the canoe for the up-river voyage. The men of his division had all preceded him, and no one except his own boatmen knew that Msala was to be abandoned.
There was in Guy Oscard a dogged sense of justice which sometimes amounted to a cruel mercilessness. When he reached the camp he deliberately withheld from Durnovo the news that the Msala household had left the river station. Moreover, he allowed Victor Durnovo to further inculpate himself. He led him on to discuss the position of affairs, and the half-breed displayed an intimate knowledge of the enemy's doings. There was only one inference to be drawn, namely, that Victor Durnovo had abandoned his people at Msala with the same deliberation which had characterised his cowardly faithlessness to Jack Meredith.
Guy Oscard was a slow thinking man, although quick in action. He pieced all these things together. The pieces did not seem to fit just then—the construction was decidedly chaotic in its architecture. But later on the corner-stone of knowledge propped up the edifice, and everything slipped into its place.
Despite disquieting rumours, the expedition was allowed to depart from the river-camp unmolested. For two days they marched through the gloomy forest with all speed. On the third day one of the men of Durnovo's division captured a native who had been prowling on their heels in the line of march. Victor Durnovo sent captor and prisoner to the front of the column, with a message to Oscard that he would come presently and see what information was to be abstracted from the captive. At the midday halt Durnovo accordingly joined Oscard, and the man was brought before them. He was hardly worthy of the name, so disease-stricken, so miserable and half-starved was he.
At first Durnovo and he did not seem to be able to get to an understanding at all; but presently they hit upon a dialect in which they possessed a small common knowledge.
His news was not reassuring. In dealing with numbers he rarely condescended to the use of less than four figures, and his conception of a distance was very vague.
“Ask him,” said Oscard, “whether he knows that there is an Englishman with a large force on the top of a mountain far to the east.”
Durnovo translated, and the man answered with a smile. In reply to some further question the negro launched into a detailed narrative, to which Durnovo listened eagerly.
“He says,” said the latter to Oscard, “that the Plateau is in possession of the Masais. It was taken two months ago. The blacks were sold as slaves; the two Englishmen were tortured to death and their bodies burnt.”
Oscard never moved a muscle.
“Ask him if he is quite sure about it.”
“Quite,” replied Durnovo, after questioning. “By God! Oscard; what a pity! But I always knew it. I knew it was quite hopeless from the first.”
He passed his brown hand nervously over his face, where the perspiration stood in beads.
“Yes,” said Oscard slowly; “but I think we will go on all the same.”
“What!” cried Durnovo. “Go on?”
“Yes,” replied Guy Oscard; “we will go on, and if I find you trying to desert I'll shoot you down like a rat.”