rather, in a sneaking sort of way, it heightened her estimate of him as a potential breadwinner. To date, this was the only area in which she had held misgivings about Sebastian Oldsmith.
From experience she knew that those of her father's business enterprises in which Flynn was not eager to participate personally always involved a great deal of risk.
The thought of Sebastian Oldsmith dressed in a sky-blue uniform, marching across the Rovuma and never coming back, roused in her the same instincts as those of a lioness shortly to be deprived of her cubs.
'He is certainly not going to do it,' she repeated, and then to Sebastian. 'Do you hear me? I forbid it. I forbid it absolutely.'
This was the wrong approach.
Sebastian had, in turn, acquired from his father very Victorian views on the rights and privileges of women. Mr. Oldsmith, the senior, was a courteous domestic tyrant, a man whose infallibility had never been challenged by his wife. A man who regarded sex deviates, Bolsheviks, trade union organizers, and suffragettes, in that descending order of repugnance.
Sebastian's mother, a meek little lady with a perpetually harassed expression, would no more have contemplated absolutely forbidding Mr. Oldsmith a Course of action, than she would have contemplated denying the existence of God.
Her belief in the divine rights of man had extended to her sons. From a very tender age Sebastian had grown accustomed to worshipful obedience, not only from his mother but also from his large flock of sisters.
Rosa's present attitude and manner of speech came as a shock. It took him but a few seconds to recover and then he rose to his feet and adjusted the helmet. 'I beg your pardon? 'he asked coldly.
'You heard me,' snapped Rosa. 'I'm not going to allow this.'
Sebastian nodded thoughtfully, and then hastily grabbed at the helmet as it threatened to spoil his dignity by blind, folding him again. Ignoring Rosa he turned to Flynn. 'I will leave as soon as possible tomorrow?'
'It will take a couple more days to get organized,' Flynn demurred.
'Very well then.' Sebastian stalked from the room, and the sunlight lit his uniform with dazzling splendour.
With a triumphant guffaw, Flynn reached for the enamel mug at his elbow. 'You made a mess of that one,' he gloated, and then his expression changed to unease.
Standing in the doorway, Rosa O'Flynn's shoulders had sagged, the angry line of her lips drooped.
'Oh, come on now!'gruffed Flynn.
'He won't come back. You know what you are doing to him. You're sending him in there to die.'
'Don't talk silly. He's a big boy, he can look after himself.'
'Oh, I hate you. Both of you I hate you both!' and she was gone, running across the yard to the bungalow.
In a red dawn Flynn and Sebastian stood together on the stoep of the bungalow, talking together quietly.
'Now listen, Bassie. I reckon the best thing you can do is send back the collection from each village, as you make it. No sense in carrying all that money round with you.' Tactfully Flynn refrained from pointing out that by following this procedure, in the event of Sebastian running into trouble half-way through the expedition, the profits to that time would be safeguarded.
Sebastian was not really listening he was more preoccupied with the whereabouts of Rosa O'Flynn. He had seen very little of her in the last few days.
'Now you listen to old Mohammed. He knows which are the biggest villages. Let him do the talking those headmen are the biggest bunch of rogues you'll ever meet. They'll all plead poverty and famine, so you've got to be tough. Do you hear me? Tough, Bassie, tough!!'
'Tough,' agreed Sebastian absentmindedly, glancing surreptitiously into the windows of the bungalow for a glimpse of Rosa.
'Now another thing,' Flynn went on. 'Remember to keep moving fast. March until nightfall. Make your cooking fire, eat, and then march again in the dark before you camp.
Never sleep at Your first camp, that's asking for trouble.
Then get away again before first light in the morning.'
There were many other instructions, and Sebastian listened to them without attention. 'Remember the sound of gunfire carries for miles. Don't use your rifle except in emergency, and if you do fire a shot, then don't hang about afterwards. Now the route I've planned for you will never take you more than twenty miles beyond the Rovuma. At the first sign of trouble, you run for the river. If any of your men get hurt, leave them. Don't play hero, leave them and run like hell for the river.'
'Very well,' muttered Sebastian unhappily. The prospect of leaving Lalapanzi was becoming less attractive each minute. Where on earth was she?
'Now remember, don't let those headmen talk you out of anything. You might even have to...' Here Flynn paused to find the least offensive phraseology, you might even have to hang one or two of them.'
'Good God, Flynn. You're not serious.' Sebastian's full attention jerked back to Flynn.
'Ha! Ha!' Flynn laughed away the suggestion. 'I was joking, of course. But...' he went on wistfully, the Germans do it, and it gets results, you know.'
'Well, I'd better be on my way.' Sebastian changed the subject ostentatiously and picked up his helmet. He placed it upon his head and descended the steps to where his Askari, with rifles at the slope, were drawn up on the lawn.
All of them, including Mohammed, were dressed in authentic uniform, complete with puttees and the little pillbox kepis. Sebastian had prudently refrained from asking Flynn how he had obtained these uniforms. The answer was evident in the neatly patched circular punctures in most of the tunics, and the faint brownish stain around each mend.
In single file, the blazing eagle on Sebastian's headpiece leading like a beacon, they marched past the massive solitary figure of Flynn O'Flynn on the veranda. Mohammed called for a salute and the response was enthusiastic, but ragged. Sebastian tripped on his spurs and with an effort, regained his equilibrium and plodded on gamely.
Shading his eyes against the glare, Flynn watched the gallant little column wind away down the valley towards the Rovuma river. Flynn's voice was without conviction as he spoke aloud, 'I hope to God he doesn't mess this one up.'
out of sight of the bungalow, Sebastian halted the column. Sitting beside the footpath, he sighed with relief as he removed the weight of the metal helmet from his head and replaced it with a sombrero of plaited grass, then he eased the spurred boots from his already aching feet, and slipped on a pair of rawhide sandals.
He handed the discarded equipment to his personal bearer, stood up, and in his best Swahili ordered the march to continue.
Three miles down the valley the footpath crossed the stream above a tiny waterfall. It was a place of shade where great trees reached out towards each other across the narrow watercourse. Clear water trickled and gurgled between a tumble of lichen-covered boulders, before jumping like white lace in the sunlight down the slippery black slope of the falls.
Sebastian paused on the bank and allowed his men to proceed. He watched them hop from boulder to boulder, the bearers balancing their loads without effort, and then scramble up the far bank and disappear into the dense river bush. He listened to their voices becoming fainter with distance, and suddenly he was sad and alone.
Instinctively he turned and looked back up the valley towards Latapanzi, and the sense of loss was a great emptiness inside him. The urge to return burned up so strongly, that he took a step back along the path before he could check himself.
He stood irresolute. The voices of his men were very faint now, muted by the dense vegetation, overlaid by the drowsy droning of insects, the wind murmur in the top branches of the trees, and the purl of falling water.
Then the soft rustle beside him, and he turned to it quickly. She stood near him and the sunlight through the leaves threw a golden dapple on her, giving a sense of unreality, a fairy quality, to her presence.
'I wanted to give you something to take with you, a farewell present for you to remember,' she said softly. 'But there was nothing I could think of,' and she came forward, reached up to him with her arms and her mouth, and she kissed him.
Sebastian Oldsmith crossed the Rovuma river in a mood of dreamy goodwill towards all men.
Mohammed was worried about him. He suspected that Sebastian had suffered a malarial relapse and he watched him carefully for evidence of further symptoms.
Mohammed at the head of the column of Askari and bearers had reached the crossing place on the Rovuma, before he realized that Sebastian was missing. In wild concern he had taken two armed Askari with him and hurried back along the path through the thorn scrub and broken rock expecting at any moment to find a pride of lions growling over Sebastian's dismembered corpse. They had almost reached the waterfall when they met Sebastian ambling benignly along the path towards them, an expression of ethereal contentment lighting his classic features. His magnificent uniform was not a little rumpled;
there were fresh grass stains on the knees and elbows, and dead leaves and bits of dried
