So cowards never use their might
But 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.