Surtout, Messieurs, pas de zele.
Such was the meeting of Victor Durnovo and Jack Meredith. Two men with
absolutely nothing in common--no taste, no past, no kinship--nothing but
the future. Such men as Fate loves to bring together for her own strange
purposes. What these purposes are none of us can tell. Some hold that
Fate is wise. She is not so yet, but she cannot fail to acquire wisdom
some day, because she experiments so industriously. She is ever
bringing about new combinations, and one can only trust that she, the
experimenter, is as keenly disappointed in the result as are we, the
experimented.
To Jack Meredith Victor Durnovo conveyed the impression of little
surprise and a slight local interest. He was a man who was not quite a
gentleman; but for himself Jack did not give great heed to this. He had
associated with many such; for, as has been previously intimated, he
had moved in London society, where there are many men who are not quite
gentlemen. The difference of a good coat and that veiled insolence which
passes in some circles for the ease of good breeding had no weight with
the keen son of Sir John Meredith, and Victor Durnovo fared no worse in
his companion's estimation because he wore a rough coat and gave small
attention to his manners. He attracted and held Jack's attention by a
certain open-air manliness which was in keeping with the situation and
with his life. Sportsmen, explorers and wanderers were not new to Jack;
for nowadays one may never know what manner of man is inside a faultless
dress-suit. It is an age of disappearing, via Charing Cross station in
a first-class carriage, to a life of backwooding, living from hand to
mouth, starving in desert, prairie, pampas or Arctic wild, with, all the
while, a big balance at Cox's. And most of us come back again and put on
the dress-suit and the white tie with a certain sense of restfulness and
comfort.
Jack Meredith had known many such. He had, in a small way, done the same
himself. But he had never met one of the men who do not go home--who
possess no dress-coat and no use for it--whose business it is to go
about with a rifle in one hand and their life in the other--who risk
their lives because it is their trade and not their pleasure.
Durnovo could not understand the new-comer at all. He saw at once that
this was one of those British aristocrats who do strange things in a
very strange way. In a degree Meredith reminded him of Maurice Gordon,
the man whose letter of introduction was at that moment serving to
light the camp fire. But it was Maurice Gordon without that semi-sensual
weakness of purpose which made him the boon companion of Tom, Dick, or
Harry, provided that one of those was only with him long enough. There
was a vast depth of reserve--of indefinable possibilities, which puzzled
Durnovo, and in some subtle way inspired fear.
In that part of Africa which lies within touch of the Equator, life is
essentially a struggle. There is hunger about, and where hunger is the
emotions will be found also. Now Jack Meredith was a past-master in the
concealment of these, and, as such, came to Victor Durnovo in the guise
of a new creation. He had lived the latter and the larger part of his
life among men who said, in action if not in words, I am hungry, or I am
thirsty; I want this, or I want that; and if you are not strong enough
to keep it, I will take it from you.
This man was different; and Victor Durnovo did not know--could not find
out--WHAT he wanted.
He had at first been inclined to laugh at him. What struck him most
forcibly was Joseph, the servant. The idea of a man swaggering up an
African river with a European man-servant was so preposterous that it
could only be met with ridicule; but the thing seemed so natural to Jack
Meredith, he accepted the servitude of Joseph so much as a matter of
course, that after a time Durnovo accepted him also as part and parcel
of Meredith.
Moreover, he immediately began to realise the benefit of being waited
upon by an intelligent European, for Joseph took off his coat, turned
up his sleeves, and proceeded to cook such a dinner as Durnovo had not
tasted for many months. There was wine also, and afterwards a cigar of
such quality as appealed strongly to Durnovo's West Indian palate.
The night settled down over the land while they sat there, and before
them the great yellow equatorial moon rose slowly over the trees. With
the darkness came a greater silence, for the myriad insect life
was still. This great silence of Central Africa is wonderfully
characteristic. The country is made for silence, the natives are created
to steal, spirit-ridden, devil-haunted, through vast tracks of lifeless
forest, where nature is oppressive in her grandeur. Here man is put into
his right place--a puny, insignificant, helpless being in a world that
is too large for him.
“So,” said Durnovo, returning to the subject which had never really left
his thoughts, “you have come out here for pleasure?”
“Not exactly. I came chiefly to make money, partly to dispel some of
the illusions of my youth, and I am getting on very well. Picture-book
illusions they were. The man who drew the pictures had never seen
Africa.”
“This is no country for illusions. Things go naked here--damned naked.”
“And only language is adorned?”
Durnovo laughed. He had to be alert to keep up with Jack Meredith--to
understand his speech; and he rather liked the necessity, which was a
change after the tropic indolence in which he had moved.
“Swearing, you mean,” he replied. “Hope you don't mind it?”
“Not a bit. Do it myself.”
At this moment Joseph, the servant, brought coffee served up in tin
cups.
“First-class dinner,” said Durnovo. “The best dinner I have had for
years. Clever chap, your man!”
The last remark was made as much for the servant's edification as for
the master's, and it was accompanied by an inviting smile directed
towards Joseph. Of this the man took no notice whatever. He came from
a world where masters and masters' guests know their place and keep it,
even after a good dinner.
The evening had turned out so very differently from what he had expected
that Durnovo was a little off his balance. Things were so sociable and
pleasant in comparison with the habitual loneliness of his life. The
fire crackled so cheerily, the moon shone down on the river so grandly,
the subdued chatter of the boatmen imparted such a feeling of safety and
comfort to the scene, that he gave way to that impulse of expansiveness
which ever lurks in West Indian blood.
“I say,” he said, “when you told me that you wanted to make money, were
you in earnest?”
“In the deadliest earnest,” replied Jack Meredith, in the half-mocking
tone which he never wholly learnt to lay aside.
“Then I think I can put you in the way of it. Oh, I know it seems a bit
premature--not known you long enough, and all that. But in this country
we don't hold much by the formalities. I like you. I liked the look of
you when you got out of that boat--so damned cool and self-possessed.
You're the right sort, Mr. Meredith.”
“Possibly--for some things. For sitting about and smoking first-class
cigars and thinking second-class thoughts I am exactly the right sort.
But for making money, for hard work and steady work, I am afraid, Mr.
Durnovo, that I am distinctly the wrong sort.”
“Now you're chaffing again. Do you always chaff?”
“Mostly; it lubricates things, doesn't it?”
There was a little pause. Durnovo looked round as if to make sure that
Joseph and the boatmen were out of earshot.
“Can you keep a secret?” he asked suddenly.
Jack Meredith turned and looked at the questioner with a smile. His hat
had slipped to the back of his head, the light of the great yellow moon
fell full upon his clean-cut, sphinx-like face. The eyes alone seemed
living.
“Yes! I can do that.”
He was only amused, and the words were spoken half-mockingly; but his
face said more than his lips. It said that even in chaff this was no
vain boast that he was uttering. Even before he had set foot on African
soil he had been asked to keep so many secrets of a commercial nature.
So many had begun by imparting half a secret, to pass on in due course
to the statement that only money was required, say, a thousand pounds.
And, in the meantime, twenty-five would be very useful, and, if not
that, well, ten shillings. Jack Meredith had met all that before.
But there was something different about Durnovo. He was not suitably
got up. Your bar-room prospective millionaire is usually a jolly fellow,
quite prepared to quench any man's thirst for liquor or information
so long as credit and credulity will last. There was nothing jolly or
sanguine about Durnovo. Beneath his broad-brimmed hat his dark eyes
flashed in a fierce excitement. His hand was unsteady. He had allowed
the excellent cigar to go out. The man was full of quinine and fever, in
deadly earnest.
“I can see you're a gentleman,” he said; “I'll trust you. I want a man
to join me in making a fortune. I have got my hand on it at last. But
I'm afraid of this country. I'm getting shaky; look at that hand. I've
been looking for it too long. I take you into my confidence, the
first comer, you'll think. But there are not many men like you in this
country, and I'm beastly afraid of dying. I'm in a damned funk. I want
to get out of this for a bit, but I dare not leave until I set things
going.”
“Take your time,” said Meredith, quietly and soothingly; “light that
cigar again and lie down. There is no hurry.”
Durnovo obeyed him meekly.
“Tell me,” he said, “have you ever heard of Simiacine?”
“I cannot say that I have,” replied Jack. “What is it for, brown boots
or spasms?”
“It is a drug, the most expensive drug in the market. And they must have
it, they cannot do without it, and they cannot find a substitute. It is
the leaf of a shrub, and your hatful is worth a thousand pounds.”
“Where is it to be found?” asked Jack Meredith. “I should like some--in
a sack.”
“Ah, you may laugh now, but you won't when you hear all about it. The
scientific chaps called it Simiacine, because of an old African legend
which, like all those things, has a grain of truth in it. The legend is,
that the monkeys first found out the properties of the leaf, and it
is because they live on it that they are so strong. Do you know that a
gorilla's arm is not half so thick as yours, and yet he would take you
and snap your backbone across his knee; he would bend a gun-barrel
as you would bend a cane, merely by the turn of his wrist. That is
Simiacine. He can hang on to a tree with one leg and tackle a leopard
with his bare hands--that's Simiacine. At home, in England and in
Germany, they are only just beginning to find out its properties; it
seems that it can bring a man back to life when he is more than half
dead. There is no knowing what children that are brought up on it may
turn out to be; it may double the power of the human brain--some think
it will.”
Jack Meredith was leaning forward, watching with a certain sense of
fascination the wild, disease-stricken face, listening to the man's
breathless periods. It seemed that the fear of death, which had gotten
hold of him, gave Victor Durnovo no time to pause for breath.
“Yes,” said the Englishman, “yes, go on.”
“There is practically no limit to the demand that there is for it. At
present the only way of obtaining it is through the natives, and you
know their manner of trading. They send a little packet down from the
interior, and it very often takes two months and more to reach the
buyer's hands. The money is sent back the same way, and each man who
fingers it keeps a little. The natives find the leaf in the forests by
the aid of trained monkeys, and only in very small quantities. Do you
follow me?”
“Yes, I follow you.”
Victor Durnovo leant forward until his face was within three inches
of Meredith, and the dark wild eyes flashed and glared into the
Englishman's steady glance.
“What,” he hissed, “what if I know where Simiacine grows like a weed?
What if I could supply the world with Simiacine at my own price?
Eh--h--h! What of that, Mr. Meredith?”
He threw himself suddenly back and wiped his dripping face. There was
a silence, the great African silence that drives educated men mad, and
fills the imagination of the poor heathen with wild tales of devils and
spirits.
Then Jack Meredith spoke, without moving.
“I'm your man,” he said, “with a few more details.”
Victor Durnovo was lying back at full length on the hard dry mud,
his arms beneath his head. Without altering his position he gave the
details, speaking slowly and much more quietly. It seemed as if he spoke
the result of long pent-up thought.
“We shall want,” he said, “two thousand pounds to start it. For we must
have an armed force of our own. We have to penetrate through a cannibal
country, of the fiercest devils in Africa. It is a plateau, a little
plateau of two square miles, and the niggers think that it is haunted by
an evil spirit. When we get there we shall have to hold it by force
of arms, and when we send the stuff down to the coast we must have an
escort of picked men. The bushes grow up there as thick as gooseberry
bushes in a garden at home. With a little cultivation they will yield
twice as much as they do now. We shall want another partner. I know a
man, a soldierly fellow full of fight, who knows the natives and the
country. I will undertake to lead you there, but you will have to take
great care of me. You will have to have me carried most of the way. I am
weak, devilish weak, and I am afraid of dying; but I know the way there,
and no other man can say as much! It is in my head here; it is not
written down. It is only in my head, and no one can get it out of
there.”
“No,” said Meredith, in his quiet, refined voice, “no, no one can get it
out. Come, let us turn in. To-morrow I will go down the river with you.
I will turn back, and we can talk it over as we go downstream.”