Is this reason? Is this humanity? Alas! it is man.
The next morning Jack Meredith was awakened by his servant Joseph before
it was fully light. It would appear as if Joseph had taken no means of
awakening him, for Meredith awoke quite quietly to find Joseph standing
by his bed.
“Holloa!” exclaimed the master, fully awake at once, as townsmen are.
Joseph stood at attention by the bedside.
“Woke you before yer time, sir,” he said. “There's something wrong among
these 'ere darkie fellers, sir.”
“Wrong! what do you mean?”
Meredith was already lacing his shoes.
“Not rebellion?” he said curtly, looking towards his firearms.
“No, sir, not that. It's some mortual sickness. I don't know what it is.
I've been up half the night with them. It's spreading, too.”
“Sickness! what does it seem like? Just give me that jacket. Not that
sleeping sickness?”
“No, sir. It's not that. Missis Marie was telling me about that--awful
scourge that, sir. No, the poor chaps are wide-awake enough. Groanin',
and off their heads too, mostly.”
“Have you called Mr. Oscard?”
“No, sir.”
“Call him and Mr. Durnovo.”
“Met Mr. Durnovo, sir, goin' out as I came in.”
In a few moments Jack joined Durnovo and Oscard, who were talking
together on the terrace in front of the house. Guy Oscard was still
in his pyjamas, which he had tucked into top-boots. He also wore
a sun-helmet, which added a finish to his costume. They got quite
accustomed to this get-up during the next three days, for he never had
time to change it; and, somehow, it ceased to be humorous long before
the end of that time.
“Oh, it's nothing,” Durnovo was saying, with a singular eagerness. “I
know these chaps. They have been paid in advance. They are probably
shamming, and if they are not they are only suffering from the effects
of a farewell glorification. They want to delay our start. That is their
little game. It will give them a better chance of deserting.”
“At any rate, we had better go and see them,” suggested Jack.
“No, don't!” cried Durnovo eagerly, detaining him with both hands.
“Take my advice, and don't. Just have breakfast in the ordinary way and
pretend there is nothing wrong. Then afterwards you can lounge casually
into the camp.”
“All right,” said Jack, rather unwillingly.
“It has been of some use--this scare,” said Durnovo, turning and looking
towards the river. “It has reminded me of something. We have not nearly
enough quinine. I will just take a quick canoe, and run down to Loango
to fetch some.”
He turned quite away from them, and stooped to attach the lace of his
boot.
“I can travel night and day, and be back here in three days,” he added.
“In the meantime you can be getting on with the loading of the canoes,
and we will start as soon as I get back.”
He stood upright and looked around with weatherwise, furtive eyes.
“Seems to me,” he said, “there's thunder coming. I think I had better be
off at once.”
In the course of his inspection of the lowering clouds which hung,
black as ink, just above the trees, his eyes lighted on Joseph,
standing within the door of the cottage, watching him with a singular
half-suppressed smile.
“Yes,” he said hurriedly, “I will start at once. I can eat some sort of
a breakfast when we are under way.”
He looked beneath his lashes quickly from Jack to Guy and back again.
Their silent acquiescence was not quite satisfactory. Then he called
his own men, and spoke to them in a tongue unknown to the Englishmen.
He hurried forward their preparations with a feverish irritability which
made Jack Meredith think of the first time he had ever seen Durnovo--a
few miles farther down the river--all palpitating and trembling with
climatic nervousness. His face was quite yellow, and there was a line
drawn diagonally from the nostrils down each cheek, to lose itself
ultimately in the heavy black moustache.
Before he stepped into his canoe the thunder was rumbling in the
distance, and the air was still as death. Breathing was an effort; the
inhaled air did not satisfy the lungs, and seemed powerless to expand
them.
Overhead the clouds, of a blue-black intensity, seemed almost to touch
the trees; the river was of ink. The rowers said nothing, but they
lingered on the bank and watched Durnovo's face anxiously. When he took
his seat in the canoe they looked protestingly up to the sky. Durnovo
said something to them rapidly, and they laid their paddles to the
water.
Scarcely had the boat disappeared in the bend of the river before the
rain broke. It came with the rush of an express train--the trees bending
before the squall like reeds. The face of the river was tormented into
a white fury by the drops which splashed up again a foot in height. The
lashing of the water on the bare backs of the negroes was distinctly
audible to Victor Durnovo.
Then the black clouds split up like a rent cloth, and showed behind
them, not Heaven, but the living fire of Hell. The thunder crashed out
in sharp reports like file-firing at a review. With one accord the men
ceased rowing and crouched down in the canoe.
Durnovo shouted to them, his face livid with fury. But for some moments
his voice was quite lost. The lightning ran over the face of the river
like will-o'-the-wisps; the whole heaven was streaked continuously with
it.
Suddenly the negroes leaped to their paddles and rowed with bent back,
and wild staring eyes, as if possessed. They were covered by the muzzle
of Durnovo's revolver.
Behind the evil-looking barrel of blue steel, the half-caste's dripping
face looked forth, peering into the terrific storm. There was no
question of fending off such torrents of rain, nor did he attempt
it. Indeed, he seemed to court its downfall. He held out his arms and
stretched forth his legs, giving free play to the water which ran off
him in a continual stream, washing his thin khaki clothing on his limbs.
He raised his face to the sky, and let the water beat upon his brow and
hair.
The roar of the thunder, which could be FELT, so great was the vibration
of the laden air, seemed to have no fear for him. The lightning, ever
shooting athwart the sky, made him blink as if dazzled, but he looked
upon it without emotion.
He knew that behind him he had left a greater danger than this, and he
stretched out his limbs to the cleansing torrent with an exulting relief
to be washed from the dread infection. Small-pox had laid its hand on
the camp at Msala: and from the curse of it Victor Durnovo was flying
in a mad chattering panic through all the anger of the tropic elements,
holding death over his half-stunned crew, not daring to look behind him
or pause in his coward's flight.
It is still said on the Ogowe river that no man travels like Victor
Durnovo. Certain it is that, in twenty-seven hours from the time that
he left Msala on the morning of the great storm, he presented himself
before Maurice Gordon in his office at the factory at Loango.
“Ah!” cried Gordon, hardly noticing the washed-out, harassed appearance
of the visitor; “here you are again. I heard that the great expedition
had started.”
“So it has, but I have come back to get one or two things we have
forgotten. Got any sherry handy?”
“Of course,” replied Gordon, with perfect adhesion to the truth.
He laid aside his pen and, turning in his chair, drew a decanter from a
small cupboard which stood on the ground at his side.
“Here you are,” he continued, pouring out a full glass with practised,
but slightly unsteady, hand.
Durnovo drank the wine at one gulp and set the glass down.
“Ah!” he said, “that does a chap good.”
“Does it now?” exclaimed Maurice Gordon with mock surprise. “Well, I'll
just try.”
The manner in which he emptied his glass was quite different, with a
long, slow drawing-out of the enjoyment, full of significance for the
initiated.
“Will you be at home to-night?” asked Durnovo, gently pushing aside
the hospitable decanter. “I have got a lot of work to do to-day, but I
should like to run in and see you this evening.”
“Yes, come and dine.”
Durnovo shook his head and looked down at his wrinkled and draggled
clothing.
“No, I can't do that, old man. Not in this trim.”
“Bosh? What matter? Jocelyn doesn't mind.”
“No, but I do.”
It was obvious that he wanted to accept the invitation, although the
objection he raised was probably honest. For that taint in the blood
that cometh from the subtle tar-brush brings with it a vanity that has
its equal in no white man's heart.
“Well, I'll lend you a black coat! Seven o'clock sharp!”
Durnovo hurried away with a gleam of excitement in his dark eyes.
Maurice Gordon did not resume his work at once. He sat for some time
idly drumming with his fingers on the desk.
“If I can only get her to be civil to him,” he reflected aloud, “I'll
get into this business yet.”
At seven o'clock Durnovo appeared at the Gordons' house. He had managed
to borrow a dress-suit, and wore an orchid in his buttonhole. It was
probably the first time that Jocelyn had seen him in this garb of
civilisation, which is at the same time the most becoming and the
most trying variety of costume left to sensible men in these days. A
dress-suit finds a man out sooner than anything except speech.
Jocelyn was civil in her reception--more so, indeed, than Maurice Gordon
had hoped for. She seemed almost glad to see Durnovo, and evinced quite
a kindly interest in his movements. Durnovo attributed this to the
dress-suit, while Maurice concluded that his obvious hints, thrown out
before dinner, had fallen on fruitful ground.
At dinner Victor Durnovo was quite charmed with the interest that
Jocelyn took in the expedition, of which, he gave it to be understood,
he was the chief. So also was Maurice, because Durnovo's evident
admiration of Jocelyn somewhat overcame his natural secrecy of
character.
“You'll hear of me, Miss Gordon, never fear, before three months are
past,” said Durnovo, in reply to a vague suggestion that his absence
might extend to several months. “I am not the sort of man to come to
grief by a foolish mistake or any unnecessary risk.”
To which sentiment two men at Msala bore generous testimony later on.
The simple dinner was almost at an end, and it was at this time that
Jocelyn Gordon began once more to dislike Durnovo. At first she had felt
drawn towards him. Although he wore the dress-clothes rather awkwardly,
there was something in his manner which reminded her vaguely of a
gentleman. It was not that he was exactly gentlemanly, but there was the
reflection of good breeding in his bearing. Dark-skinned people, be it
noted, have usually the imitative faculty. As the dinner and the wine
warmed his heart, so by degrees he drew on his old self like a glove. He
grew bolder and less guarded. His opinion of himself rose momentarily,
and with it a certain gleam in his eyes increased as they rested on
Jocelyn.
It was not long before she noted this, and quite suddenly her ancient
dislike of the man was up in arms with a new intensity gathered she knew
not whence.
“And,” said Maurice, when Jocelyn had left them, “I suppose you'll be a
millionaire in about six months?”
He gently pushed the wine towards him at the same time. Durnovo had
not slept for forty hours. The excitement of his escape from the
plague-ridden camp had scarcely subsided. The glitter of the silver on
the table, the shaded candles, the subtle sensuality of refinement and
daintiness appealed to his hot-blooded nature. He was a little off his
feet perhaps. He took the decanter and put it to the worst use he could
have selected.
“Not so soon as that,” he said; “but in time--in time.”
“Lucky beggar!” muttered Maurice Gordon, with a little sigh.
“I don't mind telling you,” said Durnovo, with a sudden confidence
begotten of Madeira, “that it's Simiacine--that's what it is. I can't
tell you more.”
“Simiacine,” repeated Gordon, fingering the stem of his wine-glass and
looking at him keenly between the candle-shades. “Yes. You've always
been on its track, haven't you?”
“In six months your go-downs will be full of it--my Simiacine, my
Simiacine.”
“By God, I wish I had a hand in it.”
Maurice Gordon pushed the decanter again--gently, almost
surreptitiously.
“And so you may, some day. You help me and I'll help you--that is my
ticket. Reciprocity--reciprocity, my dear Maurice.”
“Yes, but how?”
“Can't tell you now, but I will in good time--in my own time. Come,
let's join the ladies--eh? haha!”
But at this moment the servant brought in coffee, saying in his master's
ear that Miss Jocelyn had gone to bed with a slight headache.