The windows of the bungalow were darkened, and the whole camp slept. After cautioning them to silence, Sebastian drew his depleted band up on the front lawn with the tax chest set prominently in front of them. He was proud of his success and wanted to achieve the appropriate mood for his home-coming. Having set the stage, he went up on to the stoep, of the bungalow and tip, toed towards the front door with the intention of awakening the household by hammering upon it dramatically.
However, there was a chair on the stoep, and Sebastian tripped over it. He fell heavily. The chair clattered and the rifle slipped from his shoulder and rang on the stone flags.
Before Sebastian could recover his feet, the door was flung open and through it appeared Flynn O'Flynn in his night-shirt and armed with a double- barrelled shotgun.
'Caught you, you bastard! 'he roared and lifted the shotgun.
Sebastian heard the click of the safety-catch and scrambled to his knees. 'Don't shoot! Flynn, it's me.'
The shotgun wavered a little. 'Who are you and what do you want?'
'It's me Sebastian.'
'Bassie?' Flynn lowered the shotgun uncertainly. 'It can't be. Stand up, let's have a look at yOU.'
Sebastian obeyed with alacrity.
'Good God,' Flynn swore in amazement, 'It is you. Good God! We heard that Fleischer caught you at M'tapa's village a week ago. We heard he'd nob bled you for keeps!' He came forward with his right hand extended in welcome. 'You made it, did you? Well done, Bassie boy.'
Before Sebastian could accept Flynn's hand, Rosa came through the doorway, brushed past Flynn, and almost knocked Sebastian down again. With her arms locked around his chest and her cheek pressed to his unshaven cheek, she kept repeating, 'You're safe! Oh Sebastian, you're safe.'
Acutely aware of the fact that Rosa wore nothing under the thin night-gown, and that everywhere he put his hands they came in contact with thinly-veiled warm flesh, Sebastian grinned sheepishly at Flynn over her shoulder.
'Excuse me, he said.
His first two kisses were off target for she was moving around a lot. One caught her on the eye, the next on her eyebrow, but the third was right between the lips.
When it last they were forced to separate or suffocate,
Rosa gasped, 'I thought YOu were dead.'
'All right, missie,' growled Flynn. 'You can go and put some clothes on now.'
Breakfast at Lalapanzi that morning was a festive affair.
Flynn took advantage of his daughter's weakened condition and brought a bottle of gin to the table. Her protests were half- hearted, and later with her own hands she poured a little into Sebastian's tea to brace it.
They ate on the stoep in golden sunshine that filtered through the bougainvillaea creeper. A flock of glossy starlings hopped and chirruped on the lawns, and an oriel sang from the wild fig-trees. All nature conspired to make Sebastian's victory feast a success, while Rosa and Nanny did their best from the kitchen drawing upon the remains of Herman Fleischer's supplies that Sebastian had brought home with him.
Flynn O'Flynn's eyes were bloodshot and underhung with plum-coloured pouches, for he had been up all night counting the contents of the German tax chest and working out his accounts by the light of a hurricane lamp. Nevertheless, he was in a merry mood made merrier by the cups of fortified tea on which he was breakfasting. He joined warmly in the chorus of praise and felicitation to Sebastian Old, smith that was being sung by Rosa O'Flynn.
'You turned up one for the book, so help me, Bassie,' he chortled at the end of the meal. 'I'd just love to hear how Fleischer is going to explain this one to Governor Schee.
Oh, I'd love to be there when he tells him about the tax money son of a gun, it'll nigh kill them both.'
'While you're on the subject of money,' Rosa smiled at Flynn, 'have you worked out how much Sebastian's share comes to, Daddy?' Rosa only used Flynn's paternal title when she was extremely well-disposed towards him.
'That I have,' admitted Flynn, and the sudden shiftiness of his eyes aroused Rosa's suspicions. Her lips pursed a little.
'And how much is it? 'she asked in the syrupy tone which Flynn recognized as the equivalent of the blood roar of a wounded lioness.
'Sure now, and who wants to be spoiling a lovely day with the talking of business?' Under pressure, Flynn exaggerated the brogue in his voice in the hope that Rosa would find it beguiling. A forlorn hope.
'How much? 'demanded Rosa, and he told her.
There was a sickly silence. Sebastian paled under his sunburn and opened his mouth to protest. On the strength of his half share, he had the previous night made to Rosa O'Flynn a serious proposal, which she had accepted.
'Leave this to me, Sebastian,' she whispered and laid a restraining hand on- his knee as she turned back to her father. 'You'll let us have a look at the accounts, won't you?'
Still syrupy sweet.
'Sure and I will. They're all straight and square.'
The document that Flynn O'Flynn produced under the main heading, 'Joint Venture Between F. O'Flynn, Esq and S. Oldsmith, Esq and Others. German East Africa. Period May 15, 1913, to August 21, 1913,' showed that he belonged to an unorthodox school of accountancy.
The contents of the tax chest had been converted to English sterling at the rates laid down by Pear's Almanac for lyp, 1893. Flynn set great store by this particular publication.
From the gross proceeds of 4,652 pounds Flynn had deducted his own fifty per cent share and the ten per cent of the other partners the Portuguese Chef D'Post and the Governor of Mozambique. From the balance he had then deducted the losses incurred on the Rufiji expedition (for which separate account addressed to German East African Administration). From there he had gone on to charge the expenses of the second expedition, not forgetting such items as:
To L. Parbhoo (Tailor) 15.10 pounds. To One German Dress HelmetE 5.10 pounds To Five Uniforms (Askari)
2.10 pounds each 12.10 pounds. To Five Mauser Rifles 10 pounds each 50 pounds. -.
To Six Hundred and Twenty-Five Rounds 7men Ammunition E22.10 To Advance re travelling expenses, One Hundred Escudos made to S. Oldsmith, Esq. f, 1. 5.
Finally, Sebastian's half share of the net losses amounted to a little under twenty pounds.
'Don't worry,' Flynn assured him magnanimously. 'I don't expect you to pay it now we'll just deduct it from your share of the profits of the next expedition.'
'But, Flynn, I thought you said well, I mean, you told me I had a half share.'
'And so you have, Bassie, and so you have.'
'You said we were equal partners.'
'You must have misunderstood me, boy. I said a half share and that means after expenses. It's just a great pity there was such a large accumulated loss to bring forward.'
While they discussed this, Rosa was busy with a stub of a pencil on the reverse side of the account.
A few minutes later she thrust the result across the breakfast table at Flynn. She said, 'And that's the way I work it out.'
Rosa O'Flynn was a student of the 'One-for-you-one-for, me' school, and her reckonings were much simpler than those of her father.
With a cry of anguish, Flynn O'Flynn lodged objection.
'You don't understand business.'
'But I recognize crookery when I see it,' Rosa flashed back.
'You'd call your old father a crook?'
'Yes.'
'I've a damn good mind to take the kiboko to you. You're not too big and Uppity that I can't warm your tail up good.'
'You just try id' said Rosa, and Flynn back pedalled
'Anyway, what would Bassie do with all that money? It's no good for a youngster. It would spoil him.'
'He'd marry me with it. That's what he'd do with it.'
Flynn made a noise as though there were a fish-bone stuck in his throat, his face mottled over with emotion and he swung ominously in Sebastian's direction. 'So!'he rasped.
'I thought so!'
'Now steady on, old chap,' Sebastian tried to soothe him.
'You come into my home and act like the king of bloody England. You try to fraudulently embezzle my money but that's not enough! Oh no! That's not a bloody 'enough.
You've also got to start tampering with my daughter just to round things off.'
'Don't be coarse,' said Rosa.
'That's rich don't be coarse, she says, and just what exactly have you two been up to behind my back?'
Sebastian stood up from the breakfast table with dignity.
'I will not have you speak so of a lady in my presence, sir.
Especially of the lady who has done me the great honour of consenting to become my Wife.' He begun unbuttoning his jacket. 'Will you step into the garden with me, and give me
