“Mr. Oscard sent me this note,” she said, showing a crumpled paper, “saying that he was leaving for Africa tonight. He gives no explanation. Why has he gone to Africa?”
“He received a telegram while he was at dinner, miss,” replied the butler, whose knowledge of the world indicated the approach of at least a sovereign. “He rose and threw down his napkin, miss. ‘I’m goin’ to Africa,’ he says. ‘Come and help me pack.’ ”
“Did you see the telegram—by any chance?” asked Miss Chyne.
“Well, miss, I didn’t rightly read it.”
Millicent had given way to a sudden panic on the receipt of Guy’s note. A telegram calling him to Africa—calling with a voice which he obeyed with such alacrity that he had not paused to finish his dinner—could only mean that some disaster had happened—some disaster to Jack Meredith. And quite suddenly Millicent Chyne’s world was emptied of all else but Jack Meredith. For a moment she forgot herself. She ran to the room where Lady Cantourne was affixing the family jewelry on her dress, and, showing the letter, said breathlessly that she must see Guy Oscard at once. Lady Cantourne, wise woman of the world that she was, said nothing. She merely finished her toilet, and, when the carriage was ready, they drove round by Russell Square.
“Who was it from?” asked Millicent.
“From a person named Gordon, miss.”
“And what did it say?”
“Well, miss, as I said before, I did not rightly see. But it seems that it said, ‘Come at once.’ I saw that.”
“And what else? Be quick, please.”
“I think there was mention of somebody bein’ surrounded, miss. Some name like Denver, I think. No! Wait a bit; it wasn’t that; it was somebody else.”
Finishing off the port had also meant beginning it, and the worthy butler’s mind was not particularly clear.
“Was there any mention of Mr. Oscard’s partner, Mr.—eh—Meredith?” asked Millicent, glancing at the clock.
“Yes, miss, there was that name, but I don’t rightly remember in what connection.”
“It didn’t say that he—” Millicent paused and drew in her breath with a jerk—“was dead, or anything like that?”
“Oh, no, miss.”
“Thank you. I—am sorry we missed Mr. Oscard.”
She turned and went back to Lady Cantourne, who was sitting in the carriage. And while she was dancing the second extra with the first comer at four o’clock the next morning, Guy Oscard was racing out of Plymouth Sound into the teeth of a fine, driving rain. On the bridge of the trembling tugboat, by Oscard’s side, stood a keen-eyed Channel pilot, who knew the tracks of the steamers up and down Channel as a gamekeeper knows the hare-tracks across a stubble-field. Moreover, the tugboat caught the big steamer pounding down into the grey of the Atlantic Ocean, and in due time Guy Oscard landed on the beach at Loango.
He had the telegram still in his pocket, and he went, not to Maurice Gordon’s office, but to the bungalow.
Jocelyn greeted him with a little inarticulate cry of joy.
“I did not think that you could possibly be here so soon,” she said.
“What news have you?” he asked, without pausing to explain. He was one of those men who are silenced by an unlimited capacity for prompt action.
“That,” she replied, handing him the note written by Jack Meredith to Marie at Msala.
Guy Oscard read it carefully.
“Dated seven weeks last Monday—nearly two months ago,” he muttered, half to himself.
He raised his head and looked out of the window. There were lines of anxiety round his eyes. Jocelyn never took her glance from his face.
“Nearly two months ago,” he repeated.
“But you will go?” she said—and something in her voice startled him.
“Of course I will go,” he replied. He looked down into her face with a vague question in his quiet eyes; and who knows what he saw there? Perhaps she was off her guard. Perhaps she read this man aright and did not care.
With a certain slow hesitation he laid his hand on her arm. There was something almost paternal in his manner which was in keeping with his stature.
“Moreover,” he went on, “I will get there in time. I have an immense respect for Meredith. If he said that he could hold out for four months, I should say that he could hold out for six. There is no one like Meredith, once he makes up his mind to take things seriously.”
It was not very well done, and she probably saw through it. She probably knew that he was as anxious as she was herself. But his very presence was full of comfort. It somehow brought a change to the moral atmosphere—a sense of purposeful direct simplicity which was new to the West African Coast.
“I will send over to the factory for Maurice,” said the girl. “He has been hard at work getting together your men. If your telegram had not come he was going up to the Plateau himself.”
Oscard looked slightly surprised. That did not sound like Maurice Gordon.
“I believe you are almost capable of going yourself,” said the big man with a slow smile.
“If I had been a man I should have been halfway there by this time.”
“Where is Durnovo?” he asked suddenly.
“I believe he is in Loango. He has not been to this house for more than a fortnight; but Maurice has heard that he is still somewhere in Loango.”
Jocelyn paused. There was an expression on Guy Oscard’s face which she rather liked, while it alarmed her.
“It is not likely,” she went on, “that he will come here. I—I rather lost my temper with him, and said things which I imagine hurt his feelings.”
Oscard nodded gravely.
“I’m rather afraid of doing that myself,” he said; “only it will not be his feelings.”
“I do not think,” she replied, “that it would be at all expedient to say or do anything at present. He must go with you to the Plateau. Afterwards—perhaps.”
Oscard laughed quietly.
“Ah,” he said, “that sounds
