The roar of the thunder, which could be felt, so great was the vibration of the laden air, seemed to have no fear for him. The lightning, ever shooting athwart the sky, made him blink as if dazzled, but he looked upon it without emotion.
He knew that behind him he had left a greater danger than this, and he stretched out his limbs to the cleansing torrent with an exulting relief to be washed from the dread infection. Smallpox had laid its hand on the camp at Msala; and from the curse of it Victor Durnovo was flying in a mad chattering panic through all the anger of the tropic elements, holding death over his half-stunned crew, not daring to look behind him or pause in his coward’s flight.
It is still said on the Ogowe river that no man travels like Victor Durnovo. Certain it is that, in twenty-seven hours from the time that he left Msala on the morning of the great storm, he presented himself before Maurice Gordon in his office at the factory at Loango.
“Ah!” cried Gordon, hardly noticing the washed-out, harassed appearance of the visitor; “here you are again. I heard that the great expedition had started.”
“So it has, but I have come back to get one or two things we have forgotten. Got any sherry handy?”
“Of course,” replied Gordon, with perfect adhesion to the truth.
He laid aside his pen and, turning in his chair, drew a decanter from a small cupboard which stood on the ground at his side.
“Here you are,” he continued, pouring out a full glass with practised, but slightly unsteady, hand.
Durnovo drank the wine at one gulp and set the glass down.
“Ah!” he said, “that does a chap good.”
“Does it now?” exclaimed Maurice Gordon with mock surprise. “Well, I’ll just try.”
The manner in which he emptied his glass was quite different, with a long, slow drawing-out of the enjoyment, full of significance for the initiated.
“Will you be at home tonight?” asked Durnovo, gently pushing aside the hospitable decanter. “I have got a lot of work to do today, but I should like to run in and see you this evening.”
“Yes, come and dine.”
Durnovo shook his head and looked down at his wrinkled and draggled clothing.
“No, I can’t do that, old man. Not in this trim.”
“Bosh? What matter? Jocelyn doesn’t mind.”
“No, but I do.”
It was obvious that he wanted to accept the invitation, although the objection he raised was probably honest. For that taint in the blood that cometh from the subtle tar-brush brings with it a vanity that has its equal in no white man’s heart.
“Well, I’ll lend you a black coat! Seven o’clock sharp!”
Durnovo hurried away with a gleam of excitement in his dark eyes.
Maurice Gordon did not resume his work at once. He sat for some time idly drumming with his fingers on the desk.
“If I can only get her to be civil to him,” he reflected aloud, “I’ll get into this business yet.”
At seven o’clock Durnovo appeared at the Gordons’ house. He had managed to borrow a dress-suit, and wore an orchid in his buttonhole. It was probably the first time that Jocelyn had seen him in this garb of civilisation, which is at the same time the most becoming and the most trying variety of costume left to sensible men in these days. A dress-suit finds a man out sooner than anything except speech.
Jocelyn was civil in her reception—more so, indeed, than Maurice Gordon had hoped for. She seemed almost glad to see Durnovo, and evinced quite a kindly interest in his movements. Durnovo attributed this to the dress-suit, while Maurice concluded that his obvious hints, thrown out before dinner, had fallen on fruitful ground.
At dinner Victor Durnovo was quite charmed with the interest that Jocelyn took in the expedition, of which, he gave it to be understood, he was the chief. So also was Maurice, because Durnovo’s evident admiration of Jocelyn somewhat overcame his natural secrecy of character.
“You’ll hear of me, Miss Gordon, never fear, before three months are past,” said Durnovo, in reply to a vague suggestion that his absence might extend to several months. “I am not the sort of man to come to grief by a foolish mistake or any unnecessary risk.”
To which sentiment two men at Msala bore generous testimony later on.
The simple dinner was almost at an end, and it was at this time that Jocelyn Gordon began once more to dislike Durnovo. At first she had felt drawn towards him. Although he wore the dress-clothes rather awkwardly, there was something in his manner which reminded her vaguely of a gentleman. It was not that he was exactly gentlemanly, but there was the reflection of good breeding in his bearing. Dark-skinned people, be it noted, have usually the imitative faculty. As the dinner and the wine warmed his heart, so by degrees he drew on his old self like a glove. He grew bolder and less guarded. His opinion of himself rose momentarily, and with it a certain gleam in his eyes increased as they rested on Jocelyn.
It was not long before she noted this, and quite suddenly her ancient dislike of the man was up in arms with a new intensity gathered she knew not whence.
“And,” said Maurice, when Jocelyn had left them, “I suppose you’ll be a millionaire in about six months?”
He gently pushed the wine towards him at the same time. Durnovo had not slept for forty hours. The excitement of his escape from the plague-ridden camp had scarcely
