Oscard laughed and gave the signal for the men to start, and the long caravan defiled before them. The porters nodded to Meredith with a great display of white teeth, while the head men, the captains of tens, stepped out of the ranks and shook hands. Before they had disappeared over the edge of the plateau, Joseph came forward to say goodbye to Oscard.
“And it is understood,” said the latter, “that I pay in to your account at Lloyd’s Bank your share of the proceeds?”
Joseph grinned. “Yes, sir, if you please, presumin’ it’s a safe bank.”
“Safe as houses.”
“ ’Cos it’s a tolerable big amount,” settling himself into his boots in the manner of a millionaire.
“Lot of money—about four hundred pounds! But you can trust me to see to it all right.”
“No fear, sir,” replied Joseph grandly. “I’m quite content, I’m sure, that you should have the—fingering o’ the dibs.”
As he finished—somewhat lamely perhaps—his rounded periods, he looked very deliberately over Oscard’s shoulder towards Durnovo, who was approaching them.
Meredith walked a little way down the slope with Oscard.
“Goodbye, old chap!” he said when the parting came. “Good luck, and all that. Hope you will find all right at home. By the way,” he shouted after him, “give my kind regards to the Gordons at Loango.”
And so the first consignment of Simiacine was sent from the Plateau to the coast.
Guy Oscard was one of those deceptive men who only do a few things, and do those few very well. In forty-three days he deposited the twenty precious cases in Gordon’s godowns at Loango, and paid off the porters, of whom he had not lost one. These duties performed, he turned his steps towards the bungalow. He had refused Gordon’s invitation to stay with him until the next day, when the coasting steamer was expected. To tell the truth, he was not very much prepossessed in Maurice’s favour, and it was with a doubtful mind that he turned his steps towards the little house in the forest between Loango and the sea.
The room was the first surprise that awaited him, its youthful mistress the second. Guy Oscard was rather afraid of most women. He did not understand them, and probably he despised them. Men who are afraid or ignorant often do.
“And when did you leave them?” asked Jocelyn, after her visitor had explained who he was. He was rather taken aback by so much dainty refinement in remote Africa, and explained rather badly. But she helped him out by intimating that she knew all about him.
“I left them forty-four days ago,” he replied.
“And were they well?”
“She is very much interested,” reflected Oscard, upon whom her eagerness of manner had not been lost. “Surely, it cannot be that fellow Durnovo?”
“Oh, yes,” he replied with unconscious curtness.
“Mr. Durnovo cannot ever remain inland for long without feeling the effect of the climate.”
Guy Oscard, with the perspicacity of his sex, gobbled up the bait. “It is Durnovo,” he reflected.
“Oh, he is all right,” he said; “wonderfully well, and so are the others—Joseph and Meredith. You know Meredith?”
Jocelyn was busy with a vase of flowers standing on the table at her elbow. One of the flowers had fallen half out, and she was replacing it—very carefully.
“Oh, yes,” she said, without ceasing her occupation, “we know Mr. Meredith.”
The visitor did not speak at once, and she looked up at him, over the flowers, with grave politeness.
“Meredith,” he said, “is one of the most remarkable men I have ever met.”
It was evident that this ordinarily taciturn man wanted to unburden his mind. He was desirous of talking to someone of Jack Meredith; and perhaps Jocelyn reflected that she was as good a listener as he would find in Loango.
“Really,” she replied with a kindly interest. “How?”
He paused, not because he found it difficult to talk to this woman, but because he was thinking of something.
“I have read or heard somewhere of a steel gauntlet beneath a velvet glove.”
“Yes.”
“That describes Meredith. He is not the man I took him for. He is so wonderfully polite and gentle and pleasant. Not the qualities that make a good leader for an African exploring expedition—eh?”
Jocelyn gave a strange little laugh, which included, among other things, a subtle intimation that she rather liked Guy Oscard. Women do convey these small meanings sometimes, but one finds that they do not intend them to be acted upon.
“And he has kept well all the time?” she asked softly. “He did not look strong.”
“Oh, yes. He is much stronger than he looks.”
“And you—you have been all right?”
“Yes, thanks.”
“Are you going back to—them?”
“No, I leave tomorrow morning early by the Portuguese boat. I am going home to be married.”
“Indeed! Then I suppose you will wash your hands of Africa forever?”
“Not quite,” he replied. “I told Meredith that I would be prepared to go up to him in case of emergency, but not otherwise. I shall, of course, still be interested in the scheme. I take home the first consignment of Simiacine; we have been very successful, you know. I shall have to stay in London to sell that. I have a house there.”
“Are you to be married at once?” inquired Jocelyn, with that frank interest which makes it so much easier for a man to talk of his own affairs to a woman than to one of his own sex.
“As soon as I can arrange it,” he answered with a little laugh. “There is nothing to wait for. We are both orphans, and, fortunately, we are fairly well off.”
He was fumbling in his breast-pocket, and presently he rose, crossed the room, and handed her, quite without afterthought or self-consciousness, a photograph in a morocco case.
Explanation was unnecessary, and Jocelyn Gordon looked smilingly upon a smiling, bright young face.
“She is very pretty,” she said honestly.
Whereupon Guy Oscard grunted unintelligibly.
“Millicent,” he said after
