He made no sign; the fires of Hell were round him,The Pit of Hell below.
“About as bad as they can be, sir. That's how things is.” Joseph set down his master's breakfast on the rough table that stood in front of his tent and looked at Jack Meredith.
Meredith had a way of performing most of his toilet outside his tent, and while Joseph made his discouraging report he was engaged in buttoning his waistcoat. He nodded gravely, but his manner was not that of a man who fully realised his position of imminent danger. Some men are like this—they die without getting at all flustered.
“There's not more nor two or three out of the whole lot that I can put any trust in,” continued Joseph.
Jack Meredith was putting on his coat.
“I know what a barrack-room mutiny is. I've felt it in the hatmosphere, so to speak, before now, sir.”
“And what does it feel like?” inquired Jack Meredith, lightly arranging his watch-chain.
But Joseph did not answer. He stepped backwards into the tent and brought two rifles. There was no need of answer; for this came in the sound of many voices, the clang and clatter of varied arms.
“Here they come, sir,” said the soldier-servant—respectful, mindful of his place even at this moment.
Jack Meredith merely sat down behind the little table where his breakfast stood untouched. He leant his elbow on the table and watched the approach of the disorderly band of blacks. Some ran, some hung back, but all were armed.
In front walked a small, truculent-looking man with broad shoulders and an aggressive head.
He planted himself before Meredith, and turning, with a wave of the hand, to indicate his followers, said in English:
“These men—these friends of me—say they are tired of you. You no good leader. They make me their leader.”
He shrugged his shoulders with a hideous grin of deprecation.
“I not want. They make me. We go to join our friends in the valley.”
He pointed down into the valley where the enemy was encamped.
“We have agreed to take two hundred pounds for you. Price given by our friends in valley—”
The man stopped suddenly. He was looking into the muzzle of a revolver with a fixed fascination. Jack Meredith exhibited no haste. He did not seem yet to have realised the gravity of the situation. He took very careful aim and pulled the trigger. A little puff of white smoke floated over their heads. The broad-shouldered man with the aggressive head looked stupidly surprised. He turned towards his supporters with a pained look of inquiry, as if there was something he did not quite understand, and then he fell on his face and lay quite still.
Jack Meredith looked on the blank faces with a glance of urbane inquiry.
“Has anybody else anything to say to me?” he asked.
There was a dead silence. Some one laughed rather feebly in the background.
“Then I think I will go on with my breakfast.”
Which he accordingly proceeded to do.
One or two of the mutineers dropped away and went back to their own quarters.
“Take it away,” said Meredith, indicating the body of the dead man with his teaspoon.
“And look here,” he cried out after them, “do not let us have any more of this nonsense! It will only lead to unpleasantness.”
Some of the men grinned. They were not particularly respectful in their manner of bearing away the mortal remains of their late leader. The feeling had already turned.
Joseph thought fit to clench matters later on in the day by a few remarks of his own.
“That's the sort o' man,” he said, more in resignation than in anger, “that the guv'nor is. He's quiet like and smooth-spoken, but when he does 'it he 'its 'ard, and when he shoots he shoots mortal straight. Now, what I says to you Christy Minstrels is this; we're all in the same box and we all want the same thing, although I admit there's a bit of a difference in our complexions. Some o' you jokers have got a fine richness of colour on your physiognimies that I don't pretend to emulate. But no matter. What you wants is to get out of this confounded old Platter, quick time, ain't it now?—to get down to Loango and go out on the bust, eh?”
The Christy Minstrels acquiesced.
“Then,” said Joseph, “obey orders and be hanged to yer.”
It had been apparent to Meredith for some weeks past that the man Nattoo, whom he had just shot, was bent on making trouble. His prompt action had not, therefore, been the result of panic, but the deliberate execution of a fore-ordained sentence. The only question was how to make the necessary execution most awe-inspiring and exemplary. The moment was well chosen, and served to strengthen, for the time being, the waning authority of these two Englishmen thus thrown upon their own resources in the heart of Africa.
The position was not a pleasant one. For three months the Plateau had been surrounded by hostile tribes, who made desultory raids from time to time. These, the little force on the summit was able to repulse; but a combined attack from, say, two sides at once would certainly have been successful. Meredith had no reason to suppose that his appeal for help had reached Msala, infested as the intervening forests were by cannibal tribes. Provisions were at a low ebb. There seemed to be no hope of outside aid, and disaffection was rife in his small force. Jack Meredith, who was no soldier, found himself called upon to defend a weak position, with unreliable men, for an indefinite period.
Joseph had a rough knowledge of soldiering and a very rudimentary notion of fortification. But he had that which served as well—the unerring eye for covert of a marksman. He was a dead shot at any range, and knowing what he could hit he also knew how to screen himself from the rifle of an enemy.
Above all, perhaps, was the quiet influence of a man who never flinched from danger nor seemed to be in the least disconcerted by its presence.
“It seems, sir,” said Joseph to his master later in the day, “that you've kinder stumped them. They don't understand you.”
“They must be kept in check by fear. There is no other way,” replied Meredith rather wearily. Of late he had felt less and less inclined to exert himself.
“Yes, sir. Those sort o' men.”
Meredith made no answer, and after a little pause Joseph repeated the words significantly, if ungrammatically.
“Those sort o' men.”
“What do you mean?”
“Slaves,” replied Joseph sharply, touching his hat without knowing why.
“Slaves! What the devil are you talking about?”
The man came a little nearer.
“Those forty men—leastwise thirty-four men—that we brought from Msala—Mr. Durnovo's men, that cultivate this 'ere Simiacine as they call it—they're different from the rest, sir.”
“Yes, of course they are. We do not hire them direct—we hire them from Mr. Durnovo and pay their wages to him. They are of a different tribe from the others—not fighting men but agriculturists.”
“Ah—” Joseph paused. “Strange thing, sir, but I've not seen 'em handling any of their pay yet.”
“Well, that is their affair.”
“Yessir.”
Having unburthened himself of his suspicion, the servant retired, shaking his head ominously. At any other time the words just recorded would have aroused Jack Meredith's attention, but the singular slothfulness that seemed to be creeping over his intellect was already acting as a clog on his mental energy.
The next morning he was unable to leave his bed, and lay all day in a state of semi-somnolence. Joseph explained to the men that the leader was so disgusted with their ungrateful conduct that he would not leave the tent. In the evening there was a slight attack made from the southern side. This Joseph was able to repulse, chiefly by his own long-range firing, assisted by a few picked rifles. But the situation was extremely critical. The roll of the big war-drum could be heard almost incessantly, rising with weird melancholy from the forest land beneath them.
Despite difficulties the new crop of Simiacine—the second within twelve months—had been picked, dried, and stored in cases. Without, on the Plateau, stood the bare trees, affording no covert for savage warfare—no screen against the deadly bullet. The camp was placed near one edge of the tableland, and on this exposed side the stockade was wisely constructed of double strength. The attacks had hitherto been made only from this side, but Joseph knew that anything in the nature of a combined assault would carry his defence before it. In his rough-and-ready way he doctored his master, making for him such soups and strength-giving food as he could. Once, very late in the night, when it almost seemed that the shadow of death lay over the little tent, he pounded up some of the magic Simiacine leaves and mixed them in the brandy which he administered from time to time.
Before sunrise the next morning the alarm was given again, and the little garrison was called to arms.
When Joseph left his master's tent he was convinced that neither of them had long to live; but he was of that hard material which is found in its very best form in the ranks and on the forecastle—men who die swearing. It may be very reprehensible—no doubt it is—but it is very difficult for a plain-going man to withhold his admiration for such as these. It shows, at all events, that Thomas Atkins and Jack are alike unafraid of meeting their Maker. It is their duty to fight either a living enemy or a cruel sea, and if a little profanity helps them to their duty, who are we that we may condemn them?
So Joseph went out with a rifle in each hand and a fine selection of epithets on his tongue.
“Now, you devils,” he said, “we're just going to fight like hell.”
And what else he said it booteth little.
He took his station on the roof of a hut in the centre of the little stockade, and from thence he directed the fire of his men. Crouching beneath him he had a disabled native who loaded each rifle in turn; and just by way of encouraging the others he picked off the prominent men outside the stockade with a deadly steadiness. By way of relieving the tension he indulged in an occasional pleasantry at the expense of the enemy.
“Now,” he would say, “there's a man lookin' over that bush with a green feather on his nut. It's a mistake to wear green feathers; it makes a body so conspicuous.”
And the wearer of the obnoxious feather would throw up his arms and topple backwards, down the hill.
If Joseph detected anything like cowardice or carelessness he pointed his rifle with a threatening frown towards the culprit, with instant effect. Presently, however, things began to get more serious. This was not the sudden assault of a single chief, but an organised attack. Before long Joseph ceased to smile. By sunrise he was off the roof, running from one weak point to another, encouraging, threatening, fighting, and swearing very hard. More than once the enemy reached the stockade, and—ominous sign—one or two of their dead lay inside the defence.
“Fight, yer devils—fight!” he cried in a hoarse whisper, for his voice had given way. “Hell—give 'em hell!”
He was everywhere at once, urging on his men, kicking them, pushing them, forcing them up to the stockade. But he saw the end. Half-dazed, the blacks fought on in silence. The grim African sun leapt up above the distant line of forest and shone upon one of the finest sights to be seen on earth—a soldier wounded, driven, desperate, and not afraid.
In the midst of it a hand was laid on Joseph's shoulder.
“There,” cried a voice, “THAT corner. See to it.”
Without looking round, Joseph obeyed, and the breached corner was saved. He only knew that his master, who was almost dead, had come to life again. There was no time for anything else.
For half an hour it was a question of any moment. Master and man were for the time being nothing better than madmen, and the fighting frenzy is wildly infectious.
At last there was a pause. The enemy fell back, and in the momentary silence the sound of distant firing reached the ears of the little band of defenders.
“What's that?” asked Meredith sharply. He looked like one risen from the dead.
“Fighting among themselves,” replied Joseph, who was wiping blood and grime from his eyes.
“Then one of them is fighting with an Express rifle.”
Joseph listened.
“By God!” he shouted, “by God, Mer—sir, we're saved!”
The enemy had apparently heard the firing too. Perhaps they also recognised the peculiar sharp “smack” of the Express rifle amidst the others. There was a fresh attack—an ugly rush of reckless men. But the news soon spread that there was firing in the valley and the sound of a white man's rifle. The little garrison plucked up heart, and the rifles, almost too hot to hold, dealt death around.
They held back the savages until the sound of the firing behind them was quite audible even amidst the heavy rattle of the musketry.
Then suddenly the firing ceased—the enemy had divided and fled. For a few moments there was a strange, tense silence. Then a voice—an English voice—cried:
“Come on!”
The next moment Guy Oscard stood on the edge of the Plateau. He held up both arms as a signal to those within the stockade to cease firing, and then he came forward, followed by a number of blacks and Durnovo.
The gate was rapidly disencumbered of its rough supports and thrown open.
Jack Meredith stood in the aperture, holding out his hand.
“It's all right; it's—all right,” he said.
Oscard did not seem to take so cheerful a view of matters. He scrutinised Meredith's face with visible anxiety.
Then suddenly Jack lurched up against his rescuer, grabbing at him vaguely.
In a minute Oscard was supporting him back towards his tent.
“It's all right, you know,” explained Jack Meredith very gravely; “I am a bit weak—that is all. I am hungry—haven't had anything to eat for some time, you know.”
“Oh, yes,” said Oscard shortly; “I know all about it.”
Chacun de vous peut-etre en son coeur solitaireSous des ris passagers etouffe un long regret.
“Good-bye to that damned old Platter—may it be for ever!” With this valedictory remark Joseph shook his fist once more at the unmoved mountain and resumed his march.
“William,” he continued gravely to a native porter who walked at his side and knew no word of English, “there is some money that is not worth the making.”
The man grinned from ear to ear and nodded with a vast appreciation of what experience taught him to take as a joke.
“Remember that, my black diamond, and just mind the corner of your mouth don't get hitched over yer ear,” said Joseph, patting him with friendly cheerfulness.
Then he made his way forward to walk by the side of his master's litter and encourage the carriers with that mixture of light badinage and heavy swearing which composed his method of dealing with the natives.
Three days after the arrival of the rescuing force at the Plateau, Guy Oscard had organised a retreating party, commanded by Joseph, to convey Jack Meredith down to the coast. He knew enough of medicine to recognise the fact that this was no passing indisposition, but a thorough breakdown in health. The work and anxiety of the last year, added to the strange disquieting breath of the Simiacine grove, had brought about a serious collapse in the system which only months of rest and freedom from care could repair.
Before the retreating column was ready to march it was discovered that the hostile tribes had finally evacuated the country; which deliverance was brought about not by Oscard's blood-stained track through the forest, not by the desperate defence of the Plateau, but by the whisper that Victor Durnovo was with them. Truly a man's reputation is a strange thing.
And this man—the mighty warrior whose name was as good as an army in Central Africa—went down on his knees one night to Guy Oscard, imploring him to abandon the Simiacine Plateau, or at all events to allow him to go down to Loango with Meredith and Joseph.
“No,” said Oscard; “Meredith held this place for us when he could have left it safely. He has held it for a year. It is our turn now. We will hold it for him. I am going to stay, and you have to stay with me.”
For Jack Meredith, life was at this time nothing but a constant, never-ceasing fatigue. When Oscard helped him into the rough litter they had constructed for his comfort, he laid his head on the pillow, overcome with a dead sleep.
“Good-bye, old chap,” said Oscard, patting him on the shoulder.
“G'bye;” and Jack Meredith turned over on his side as if he were in bed, drew up the blanket, and closed his eyes. He did not seem to know where he was, and, what was worse, he did not seem to care. Oscard gave the signal to the bearers, and the march began. There is something in the spring of human muscles unlike any other motive power; the power of thought may be felt even on the pole of a litter, and one thing that modern invention can never equal is the comfort of being carried on the human shoulder. The slow swinging movement came to be a part of Jack Meredith's life—indeed, life itself seemed to be nothing but a huge journey thus peacefully accomplished. Through the flapping curtains an endless procession of trees passed before his half-closed eyes. The unintelligible gabble of the light-hearted bearers of his litter was all that reached his ears. And ever at his side was Joseph—cheerful, indefatigable, resourceful. There was in his mind one of the greatest happinesses of life—the sense of something satisfactorily accomplished—the peacefulness that comes when the necessity for effort is past and left behind—that lying down to rest which must surely be something like Death in its kindest form.
The awe inspired by Victor Durnovo's name went before the little caravan like a moral convoy and cleared their path. Thus guarded by the name of a man whom he hated, Jack Meredith was enabled to pass through a savage country literally cast upon a bed of sickness.
In due course the river was reached, and the gentle swing of the litter was changed for the smoother motion of the canoe. And it was at this period of the journey—in the forced restfulness of body entailed—that Joseph's mind soared to higher things, and he determined to write a letter to Sir John.
He was, he admitted even to himself, no great penman, and his epistolary style tended, perhaps, more to the forcible than to the finished.
“Somethin',” he reflected, “that'll just curl his back hair for 'im; that's what I'll write 'im.”
Msala had been devastated, and it was within the roofless walls of Durnovo's house that Joseph finally wrote out laboriously the projected capillary invigorator.
“HONOURED SIR” (he wrote),—“Trusting you will excuse the liberty, I take up my pen to advise you respectfully”—while writing this word Joseph closed his left eye—“that my master is taken seriously worse. Having been on the sick-list now for a matter of five weeks, he just lies on his bed as weak as a new-born babe, as the sayin' is, and doesn't take no notice of nothing. I have succeeded in bringing him down to the coast, which we hope to reach to-morrow, and when we get to Loango—a poor sort of place—I shall at once obtain the best advice obtainable—that is to be had. Howsoever, I may have to send for it; but money being no object to either master or me, respectfully I beg to say that every care will be took. Master having kind friends at Loango, I have no anxiety as to the future, but, honoured sir, it has been a near touch in the past—just touch and go, so to speak. Not being in a position to form a estimate of what is the matter with master, I can only respectfully mention that I take it to be a general kerlapse of the system, brought on, no doubt, by too long a living in the unhealthy platters of Central Africa. When I gets him to Loango I shall go straight to the house of Mr. and Miss Gordon, where we stayed before, and with no fear but what we will be received with every kindness and the greatest hospitality. Thank God, honoured sir, I've kept my health and strength wonderful, and am therefore more able to look after master. When we reach Loango I shall ask Miss Gordon kindly to write to you, sir, seeing as I have no great facility with my pen.—I am, honoured sir, your respectful servant to command,
“JOSEPH ATKINSON,“Late Corporal 217th Regt.”
There were one or two round splashes on the paper suggestive, perhaps, of tears, but not indicative of those useless tributes. The truth was that it was a hot evening, and Joseph had, as he confessed, but little facility with the pen.
“There,” said the scribe, with a smile of intense satisfaction. “That will give the old 'un beans. Not that I don't respect him—oh no.”
He paused, and gazed thoughtfully at the evening star.
“Strange thing—life,” he muttered, “uncommon strange. Perhaps the old 'un is right; there's no knowin'. The ways o' Providence ARE mysterious—onnecessarily mysterious to my thinkin'.”
And he shook his head at the evening star, as if he was not quite pleased with it.
With a feeling of considerable satisfaction, Joseph approached the Bungalow at Loango three days later. The short sea voyage had somewhat revived Meredith, who had been desirous of walking up from the beach, but after a short attempt had been compelled to enter the spring cart which Joseph had secured.
Joseph walked by the side of this cart with an erect carriage, and a suppressed importance suggestive of ambulance duty in the old days.
As the somewhat melancholy cortege approached the house, Meredith drew back the dusky brown holland curtain and looked anxiously out. Nor were Joseph's eyes devoid of expectation. He thought that Jocelyn would presently emerge from the flower-hung trellis of the verandah; and he had rehearsed over and over again a neat, respectful speech, explanatory of his action in bringing a sick man to the house.
But the hanging fronds of flowers and leaf remained motionless, and the cart drove, unchallenged, round to the principal door.
A black servant—a stranger—held the handle, and stood back invitingly. Supported by Joseph's arm, Jack Meredith entered. The servant threw open the drawing-room door; they passed in. The room was empty. On the table lay two letters, one addressed to Guy Oscard, the other to Jack Meredith. Meredith felt suddenly how weak he was, and sat wearily down on the sofa.
“Give me that letter,” he said.
Joseph looked at him keenly. There was something forlorn and cold about the room—about the whole house—with the silent, smiling, black servants and the shaded windows.
Joseph handed the letter as desired, and then, with quick practised hands, he poured a small quantity of brandy into the cup of his flask. “Drink this first, sir,” he said.
Jack Meredith fumbled rather feebly at the letter. It was distinctly an effort to him to tear the paper.
“MY DEAR MEREDITH” (he read),—“Just a line to tell you that the Bungalow and its contents are at your service. Jocelyn and I are off home for two months' change of air. I have been a bit seedy. I leave this at the Bungalow, and we shall feel hurt if you do not make the house your home whenever you happen to come down to Loango. I have left a similar note for Oscard, in whose expedition to your relief I have all faith.—Yours ever,
“MAURICE GORDON.”
“Here,” said Meredith to his servant, “you may as well read it for yourself.”
He handed the letter to Joseph and leant back with a strange rapidity of movement on the sofa. As he lay there with his eyes closed he looked remarkably like a dead man.
While Joseph was reading the letter the sound of bare feet on the cocoa-leaf matting made him turn round.
A small, rotund white figure of a child, clad in a cotton garment, stood in the doorway, finger in mouth, gazing gravely at the two occupants of the room.
“Nestorius!” exclaimed Joseph, “by all that's holy! Well, I AM glad to see you, my son. Where's Mammy, eh?”
Nestorius turned gravely round and pointed a small dusky finger in the direction of the servants' quarters. Then he replaced the finger between his lips and came slowly forward to examine Meredith, who had opened his eyes.
“Well, stout Nestorius. This is a bad case, is it not?” said the sick man.
“Bad case,” repeated Nestorius mechanically.
At that moment Marie came into the room, dignified, gentle, self-possessed.
“Ah, missis,” said Joseph, “I'm glad to see you. You're wanted badly, and that's the truth. Mr. Meredith's not at all well.”
Marie bowed gravely. She went to Meredith's side, and looked at him with a smile that was at once critical and encouraging. Nestorius holding on to her skirts looked up to her face, and seeing the smile, smiled too. He went further. He turned and smiled at Joseph as if to make things pleasant all round.
Marie stooped over the sofa and her clever dusky fingers moved to the cushions.
“You will be better in bed,” she said; “I will get Mr. Gordon's room made ready for you—yes?”
There are occasions when the mere presence of a woman supplies a distinct want. She need not be clever, or very capable; she need have no great learning or experience. She merely has to be a woman—the more womanly the better. There are times when a man may actually be afraid for the want of a woman, but that is usually for the want of one particular woman. There may be a distinct sense of fear—a fear of life and its possibilities—which is nothing else than a want—the want of a certain voice, the desire to be touched by a certain hand, the carping necessity (which takes the physical form of a pressure deep down in the throat) for the sympathy of that one person whose presence is different from the presence of other people. And failing that particular woman another can, in a certain degree, by her mere womanliness, stay the pressure of the want.
This was what Marie did for Jack Meredith, by coming into the room and bending over him and touching his cushions with a sort of deftness and savoir-faire. He did not define his feelings—he was too weak for that; but he had been conscious, for the first time in his life, of a distinct sense of fear when he read Maurice Gordon's letter. Of course he had thought of the possibility of death many times during the last five weeks; but he had no intention of dying. He set the fact plainly before himself that with care he might recover, but that at any moment some symptom could declare itself which would mean death.
Both he and Joseph had, without making mention of it to each other, counted entirely on finding the Gordons at home. It was more than a disappointment—very much more for Jack Meredith. But in real life we do not analyse our feelings as do men in books—more especially books of the mawko-religious tenor written by ladies. Jack Meredith only knew that he felt suddenly afraid of dying when he read Maurice Gordon's letter, and that when the half-caste woman came into the room and gently asserted her claim, as it were, to supreme authority in this situation, the fear seemed to be allayed.
Joseph, with something bright glistening in his keen, quick eyes, stood watching his face as if for a verdict.
“You are tired,” she said, “after your long journey.”
Then she turned to Joseph with that soft, natural way which seems to run through the negro blood, however much it may be diluted.
“Help Mr. Meredith,” she said, “to Mr. Gordon's room. I will go at once and see that the bed is prepared.”
We dare not let our tears flow, lest, in truth,They fall upon our work which must be done.
“They was just in time,” said Joseph pleasantly to Marie that same evening, when Jack Meredith had been made comfortable for the night, and there was time to spare for supper.
“Ah!” replied the woman, who was busy with the supper-table.
Joseph glanced at her keenly. The exclamation not only displayed a due interest, but contained many questions. He stretched out his legs and wagged his head sapiently.
“And no mistake!” he said. “They timed it almost to the minute. We had sort of beaten them back for the time bein'. Mr. Meredith had woke up sudden, as I told you, and came into the thick of the melee, as we say in the service. Then we heard the firin' in the distance and the 'splat' of Mr. Oscard's Express rifle. I just turns, like this 'ere, my head over me shoulder, quite confidential, and I says, 'Good Lord, I thank yer.' I'm no hand at tracts and Bible-readin's, but I'm not such a blamed fool, Mistress Marie, as to think that this 'ere rum-go of a world made itself. No, not quite. So I just put in a word, quiet-like, to the Creator.”
Marie was setting before him such luxuries as she could command. She nodded encouragingly.
“Go on,” she said. “Tell me!”
“Cheddar cheese,” he said parenthetically, with an appreciative sniff. “Hav'n't seen a bit o' that for a long time! Well, then, up comes Mr. Oscard as cool as a cowcumber, and Mr. Meredith he gives a sort of little laugh and says, 'Open that gate.' Quite quiet, yer know. No high falutin' and potry and that. A few minutes before he had been fightin' and cussin' and shoutin', just like any Johnny in the ranks. Then he calms down and wipes the blood off'n his hand on the side of his pants, and says, 'Open that gate.' That's a nice piece of butter you've got there, mistress. Lord! it's strange I never missed all them things.”
“Bring your chair to the table,” said Marie, “and begin. You are hungry—yes?”
“Hungry ain't quite the word.”
“You will have some mutton—yes? And Mr. Durnovo, where was he?”
Joseph bent over his plate, with elbows well out, wielding his knife and fork with a more obvious sense of enjoyment than usually obtains in the politer circles.
“Mr. Durnovo,” he said, with one quick glance towards her. “Oh, he was just behind Mr. Oscard. And he follows 'im, and we all shake hands just as if we was meeting in the Row, except that most of our hands was a bit grimy and sticky-like with blood and grease off'n the cartridges.”
“And,” said Marie, in an indirectly interrogative way, as she helped him to a piece of sweet potato, “you were glad to see them, Mr. Oscard and Mr. Durnovo—yes?”
“Glad ain't quite the word,” replied Joseph, with his mouth full.
“And they were not hurt or—ill?”
“Oh, no!” returned Joseph, with another quick glance. “They were all right. But I don't like sitting here and eatin' while you don't take bit or sup yourself. Won't you chip in, Mistress Marie? Come now, do.”
With her deep, patient smile she obeyed him, eating little and carelessly, like a woman in some distress.
“When will they come down to Loango?” she asked suddenly, without looking at him.
“Ah! that I can't tell you. We left quite in a hurry, as one may say, with nothin' arranged. Truth is I think we all feared that the guv'nor had got his route. He looked very like peggin' out, and that's the truth. Howsomever, I hope for the best now.”
Marie said nothing, merely contenting herself with attending to his wants, which were numerous and frequent.
“That God-forsaken place, Msala,” said Joseph presently, “has been rather crumpled up by the enemy.”
“They have destroyed it—yes?”
“That is so. You're right, they 'ave destroyed it.”
Marie gave a quick little sigh—one of those sighs which the worldly-wise recognise at once.
“You don't seem over-pleased,” said Joseph.
“I was very happy there,” she answered.
Joseph leant back in his chair, fingering reflectively his beer-glass.
“I'm afraid, mistress,” he said half-shyly, “that your life can't have been a very happy one. There's some folk that is like that—through no fault of their own, too, so far as our mortal vision, so to speak, can reckon it up.”
“I have my troubles, like other people,” she answered softly.
Joseph inclined his head to one side and collected his breadcrumbs thoughtfully.
“Always seems to me,” he said, “that your married life can't have been so happy-like as—well, as one might say, you deserved, missis. But then you've got them clever little kids. I DO like them little kids wonderful. Not bein' a marrying man myself, I don't know much of such matters. But I've always understood that little 'uns—especially cunning little souls like yours—go a long way towards makin' up a woman's happiness.”
“Yes,” she murmured, with her slow smile.
“Been dead long—their pa?”
“He is not dead.”
“Oh—beg pardon.”
And Joseph drowned a very proper confusion in bitter beer.
“He has only ceased to care about me—or his children,” explained Marie.
Joseph shook his head; but whether denial of such a possibility was intended, or an expression of sympathy, he did not explain.
“I hope,” he said, with a somewhat laboured change of manner, “that the little ones are in good health.”
“Yes, thank you.”
Joseph pushed back his chair with considerable vigour, and passed the back of his hand convivially across his moustache.
“A square meal I call that,” he said, with a pleasant laugh, “and I thank you kindly.”
With a tact which is sometimes found wanting inside a better coat than he possessed, Joseph never again referred to that part of Marie's life which seemed to hang like a shadow over her being. Instead, he set himself the task of driving away the dull sense of care which was hers, and he succeeded so well that Jack Meredith, lying between sleep and death in his bedroom, sometimes heard a new strange laugh.
By daybreak next morning Joseph was at sea again, steaming south in a coasting-boat towards St. Paul de Loanda. He sent off a telegram to Maurice Gordon in England, announcing the success of the Relief Expedition, and then proceeded to secure the entire services of a medical man. With this youthful disciple of AEsculapius he returned forthwith to Loango and settled down with characteristic energy to nurse his master.
Meredith's progress was lamentably slow, but still it was progress, and in the right direction. The doctor, who was wise in the strange maladies of the West Coast, stayed for two days, and promised to return once a week. He left full instructions, and particularly impressed upon the two nurses the fact that the recovery would necessarily be so slow that their unpractised eyes could hardly expect to trace its progress.
It is just possible that Meredith could at this time have had no better nurse than Joseph. There was a military discipline about the man's method which was worth more than much feminine persuasion.
“Beef tea, sir,” he would announce with a face of wood, for the sixth time in one day.
“What, again? No, hang it! I can't.”
“Them's my orders, sir,” was Joseph's invariable reply, and he was usually in a position to produce documentary confirmation of his statement. The two men—master and servant—had grown so accustomed to the military discipline of a besieged garrison that it did not seem to occur to them to question the doctor's orders.
Nestorius—small, stout, and silent—was a frequenter of the sick-room, by desire of the invalid. After laboriously toiling up the shallow stairs—a work entailing huge effort of limbs and chin—he would stump gravely into the room without any form of salutation. There are some great minds above such trifles. His examination of the patient was a matter of some minutes. Then he would say, “Bad case,” with the peculiar mechanical diction that was his—the words that Meredith had taught him on the evening of his arrival. After making his diagnosis Nestorius usually proceeded to entertain the patient with a display of his treasures for the time being. These were not in themselves of great value: sundry pebbles, a trouser-button, two shells, and a glass stopper, formed, as it were, the basis of his collection, which was increased or diminished according to circumstances. Some of these he named; others were exhibited with a single adjective, uttered curtly, as between men who required no great tale of words wherewith to understand each other. A few were considered to be of sufficient value and importance to tell their own story and make their way in the world thereupon. He held these out with a face of grave and contemplative patronage.
“Never, Nestorius,” Meredith would say gravely, “in the course of a long and varied experience, have I seen a Worcester-sauce stopper of such transcendent beauty.”
Sometimes Nestorius clambered on to the bed, when the mosquito-curtains were up, and rested from his labours—a small curled-up form, looking very comfortable. And then, when his mother's soft voice called him, he was wont to gather up his belongings and take his departure. On the threshold he always paused, finger in mouth, to utter a valedictory “Bad case” before making his way downstairs with a shadowy, mystic smile.
Kind neighbours called, and well-meaning but mistaken dissenting missionaries left religious works of a morbid nature, eminently suitable to the sick-bed; but Joseph, Marie, and Nestorius were the only three who had free access to the quiet room.
And all the while the rain fell—night and day, morning, noon, and evening—as if the flood-gates had been left open by mistake.
“Sloobrious, no doubt,” said Joseph, “but blamed depressing.”
And he shook his head at the lowering sky with a tolerant smile, which was his way of taking Providence to task.
“Do y' know what I would like, missis?” he asked briskly of Marie one evening.
“No.”
“Well, I'd like to clap my eyes on Miss Gordon, just a stepping in at that open door—that's what we want. That sawbones feller is right when he says the progress will be slow. Slow! Slow ain't quite the word. No more ain't progress the word—that's my opinion. He just lies on that bed, and the most he can do is to skylark a bit with Nestorius. He don't take no interest in nothin', least of all in his victuals—and a man's in a bad way when he takes no interest in his victuals. Yes, I'll take another pancake, thankin' you kindly. You've got a rare light hand for pancakes. Rare—rare ain't quite the word.”
“But what could Miss Gordon do?” asked Marie.
“Well, she could kinder interest him in things—don't you see? Him and I we ain't got much in common—except his clothes and that confounded beef-tea and slushin's. And then there's Mr. Gordon. He's a good hearty sort, he is. Comes galamphin' into the room, kickin' a couple of footstools and upsettin' things promiscuous. It cheers a invalid up, that sort o' thing.”
Marie laughed in an awkward, unwonted way.
“But it do, missis,” pursued Joseph, “wonderful; and I can't do it myself. I tried the other day, and master only thought I'd been drinkin'.”
“You are impatient,” said Marie. “He is better, I know. I can see it. You see it yourself—yes?”
“A bit—just a bit. But he wants some one of his own station in life, without offence, Mistress Marie. Some one as will talk with him about books and evenin' parties and things. And—” he paused reflectively, “and Miss Gordon would do that.”
There was a little silence, during which another pancake met its fate.
“You know,” said Joseph, with sudden confidence, “he's goin' to marry a young lady at home, in London; a young lady of fashion, as they say—one of them that's got one smile for men and another for women. Not his sort, as I should have thought myself, knowin' him as I do.”
“Then why does he marry her?” asked Marie.
“Ah!” Joseph rose, and stretched out his arms with a freedom from restraint learnt in the barrack-room. “There you're asking me more than I can tell you. I suppose—it's the old story—I suppose he thinks that she is his sort.”