'An explorer!' I heard Betty breathe, as if to herself. I was not so
impressed, I fear, as she was. Explorers, as a matter of fact, leave me
a trifle cold. It has always seemed to me that the difficulties of
their life are greatly exaggerated--generally by themselves. In a large
country like Africa, for instance, I should imagine that it was almost
impossible for a man not to get somewhere if he goes on long enough.
Give me the fellow who can plunge into the bowels of the earth
at Piccadilly Circus and find the right Tube train with nothing but a
lot of misleading signs to guide him. However, we are not all
constituted alike in this world, and it was apparent from the flush on
her cheek and the light in her eyes that Betty admired explorers.
'I wired to him at once,' went on Mortimer, 'and insisted on his coming
down here. It's two years since I saw him. You don't know how I have
looked forward, dear, to you and Eddie meeting. He is just your sort. I
know how romantic you are and keen on adventure and all that. Well,
you should hear Eddie tell the story of how he brought down the
bull bongo with his last cartridge after all the pongos, or
native bearers, had fled into the dongo, or undergrowth.'
'I should love to!' whispered Betty, her eyes glowing. I suppose to an
impressionable girl these things really are of absorbing interest. For
myself, bongos intrigue me even less than pongos, while
dongos frankly bore me. 'When do you expect him?'
'He will get my wire tonight. I'm hoping we shall see the dear old
fellow tomorrow afternoon some time. How surprised old Eddie will be to
hear that I'm engaged. He's such a confirmed bachelor himself. He told
me once that he considered the wisest thing ever said by human tongue
was the Swahili proverb--'Whoso taketh a woman into his kraal
depositeth himself straightway in the wongo.' Wongo, he
tells me, is a sort of broth composed of herbs and meat-bones,
corresponding to our soup. You must get Eddie to give it you in the
original Swahili. It sounds even better.'
I saw the girl's eyes flash, and there came into her face that peculiar
set expression which married men know. It passed in an instant, but not
before it had given me material for thought which lasted me all the way
to my house and into the silent watches of the night. I was fond of
Mortimer Sturgis, and I could see trouble ahead for him as plainly as
though I had been a palmist reading his hand at two guineas a visit.
There are other proverbs fully as wise as the one which Mortimer had
translated from the Swahili, and one of the wisest is that quaint old
East London saying, handed down from one generation of costermongers to
another, and whispered at midnight in the wigwams of the whelk-seller!
'Never introduce your donah to a pal.' In those seven words is
contained the wisdom of the ages. I could read the future so plainly.
What but one thing could happen after Mortimer had influenced Betty's
imagination with his stories of his friend's romantic career, and added
the finishing touch by advertising him as a woman-hater? He might just
as well have asked for his ring back at once. My heart bled for
Mortimer.
* * * *
I happened to call at his house on the second evening of the explorer's
