But none of these things militated against him in Oscard’s mind. They only made him fitter for the work he had undertaken.
“How long will it take?” asked Guy.
Durnovo tugged at his strange, curtain-like moustache. His mouth was hidden; it was quite impossible to divine his thoughts.
“Three months to get there,” he answered at length. “One month to pick the leaf, and then you can bring the first crop down to the coast and home, while Meredith and I stay on at the plateau.”
“I could be home again in eight months?”
“Certainly! We thought that you might work the sale of the stuff in London, and in a couple of years or so, when the thing is in swing, Meredith will come home. We can safely leave the cultivation in native hands when once we have established ourselves up there, and made ourselves respected among the tribes.”
A significance in his tone made Guy Oscard look up inquiringly.
“How?”
“You know my way with the natives,” answered Durnovo with a cruel smile. “It is the only way. There are no laws in Central Africa except the laws of necessity.”
Oscard was nothing if not outspoken.
“I do not like your way with the natives,” he said, with a pleasant smile.
“That is because you do not know them. But in this affair you are to be the leader of the fighting column. You will, of course, have carte blanche.”
Oscard nodded.
“I suppose,” he said, after a pause, “that there is the question of money?”
“Yes; Meredith and I have talked that over. The plan we fixed upon was that you and he each put a thousand pounds into it; I put five hundred. For the first two years we share the profits equally. After that we must come to some fresh arrangement, should you or Meredith wish to give up an active part in the affair. I presume you would not object to coming up at the end of a year, with a handy squad of men to bring down the crop under escort?”
“No,” replied Oscard, after a moment’s reflection. “I should probably be able to do that.”
“I reckon,” continued the other, “that the journey down could be accomplished in two months, and each time you do the trip you will reduce your time.”
“Yes.”
“Of course,” Durnovo went on, with the details which he knew were music in Oscard’s ears, “of course we shall be a clumsy party going up. We shall have heavy loads of provisions, ammunition, and seeds for cultivating the land up there.”
“Yes,” replied Guy Oscard absently. In his ears there rang already the steady plash of the paddle, the weird melancholy song of the boatmen, the music of the wind amidst the forest trees.
Durnovo rose briskly.
“Then,” he said, “you will join us? I may telegraph out to Meredith that you will join us?”
“Yes,” replied Oscard simply. “You may do that.”
“There is no time to be lost,” Durnovo went on. “Every moment wasted adds to the risk of our being superseded. I sail for Loango in a fortnight; will you come with me?”
“Yes.”
“Shall I take a passage for you?”
“Yes.”
Durnovo held out his hand.
“Goodbye,” he said. “Shall I always find you here when I want you?”
“Yes—stay, though! I shall be going away for a few days. Come tomorrow to luncheon, and we will settle the preliminaries.”
“Right—one o’clock?”
“One o’clock.”
When Durnovo had gone Guy sat down and wrote to Lady Cantourne accepting her invitation to spend a few days at Cantourne Place, on the Solent. He explained that his visit would be in the nature of a farewell, as he was about to leave for Africa for a little big-game hunting.
IX
To Pass the Time
Quand on n’a pas ce que l’on aime, il faut aimer ce que l’on a.
“Your energy, my dear lady, is not the least of many attributes.”
Lady Cantourne looked up from her writing-desk with her brightest smile. Sir John Meredith was standing by the open window, leaning against the jamb thereof with a grace that had lost its youthful repose. He was looking out, across a sloping lawn, over the Solent, and for that purpose he had caused himself to be clad in a suit of blue serge. He looked the veteran yachtsman to perfection—he could look anything in its season—but he did his yachting from the shore—by preference from the drawing-room window.
“One must keep up with the times, John,” replied the lady, daintily dipping her quill.
“And ‘the times’ fills its house from roof to cellar with people who behave as if they were in a hotel. Some of them—say number five on the first floor, number eleven on the second, or some of the atticated relatives—announce at breakfast that they will not be home to lunch. Another says he cannot possibly return to dinner at half-past seven, and so on. ‘The times’ expects a great deal for its money, and does not even allow one to keep the small change of civility.”
Lady Cantourne was blotting vigorously.
“I admit,” she answered, “that the reaction is rather strong; reactions are always stronger than they intend to be. In our early days the formalities were made too much of; now they are—”
“Made into a social hash,” he suggested, when she paused for a word, “where the prevailing flavour is the common onion of commerce! Now, I’ll wager any sum that that is an invitation to someone you do not care a
