Durnovo gave an ugly laugh. He had readjusted his disordered dress and was brushing the dirt from his knees.
"Oh, don"t make a fool of yourself," he said in a hissing voice; "you don"t understand these natives at all. The man raised his hand to me.
He would have killed me if he had had the chance. Shooting was the only thing left to do. You can only hold these men by fear. They expect it."
"Of course they expect it," shouted Joseph in his face; "of course they expect it, Mr. Durnovo."
"Why?"
"Because they"re SLAVES. Think I don"t know that?"
He turned to Oscard.
"This man, Mr. Oscard," he said, "is a slave-owner. Them forty that joined at Msala was slaves. He"s shot two of "em now; this is his second. And what does he care?--they"re his slaves. Oh! shame on yer!"
turning again to Durnovo; "I wonder G.o.d lets yer stand there. I can only think that He doesn"t want to dirty His hand by strikin" yer down."
Oscard had taken his pipe from his lips. He looked bigger, somehow, than ever. His brown face was turning to an ashen colour, and there was a dull, steel-like gleam in his blue eyes. The terrible, slow-kindling anger of this Northerner made Durnovo catch his breath. It was so different from the sudden pa.s.sion of his own countrymen.
"Is this true?" he asked.
"It"s a lie, of course," answered Durnovo, with a shrug of the shoulders. He moved away as if he were going to his tent, but Oscard"s arm reached out. His large brown hand fell heavily on the half-breed"s shoulder.
"Stay," he said; "we are going to get to the bottom of this."
"Good," muttered Joseph, rubbing his hands slowly together; "this is prime."
"Go on," said Oscard to him.
"Where"s the wages you and Mr. Meredith has paid him for those forty men?" pursued Joseph. "Where"s the advance you made him for those men at Msala? Not one ha"penny of it have they fingered. And why? Cos they"re slaves! Fifteen months at fifty pounds--let them as can reckon tot it up for theirselves. That"s his first swindle--and there"s others, sir! Oh, there"s more behind. That man"s just a stinkin" hotbed o" crime. But this "ere slave-owning is enough to settle his hash, I take it."
"Let us have these men here--we will hear what they have to say," said Oscard in the same dull tone that frightened Victor Durnovo.
"Not you!" he went on, laying his hand on Durnovo"s shoulder again; "Joseph will fetch them, thank you."
So the forty--or the thirty-seven survivors, for one had died on the journey up and two had been murdered--were brought. They were peaceful, timorous men, whose manhood seemed to have been crushed out of them; and slowly, word by word, their grim story was got out of them. Joseph knew a little of their language, and one of the head fighting men knew a little more, and spoke a dialect known to Oscard. They were slaves they said at once, but only on Oscard"s promise that Durnovo should not be allowed to shoot them. They had been brought from the north by a victorious chief, who in turn had handed them over to Victor Durnovo in payment of an outstanding debt for ammunition supplied.
The great African moon rose into the heavens and shone her yellow light upon this group of men. Overhead all was peace: on earth there was no peace. And yet it was one of Heaven"s laws that Victor Durnovo had broken.
Guy Oscard went patiently through to the end of it. He found out all that there was to find; and he found out something which surprised him.
No one seemed to be horror-struck. The free men stood stolidly looking on, as did the slaves. And this was Africa--the heart of Africa, where, as Victor Durnovo said, no one knows what is going on. Oscard knew that he could apply no law to Victor Durnovo except the great law of humanity. There was nothing to be done, for one individual may not execute the laws of humanity. All were a.s.sembled before him--the whole of the great Simiacine Expedition except the leader, whose influence lay over one and all only second to his presence.
"I leave this place at sunrise to-morrow," said Guy Oscard to them all.
"I never want to see it again. I will not touch one penny of the money that has been made. I speak for Mr. Meredith and myself--"
"Likewise me--d.a.m.n it!" put in Joseph.
"I speak as Mr. Meredith himself would have spoken. There is the Simiacine--you can have it. I won"t touch it. And now who is going with me--who leaves with me to-morrow morning?"
He moved away from Durnovo.
"And who stays with me?" cried the half-breed, "to share and share alike in the Simiacine?"
Joseph followed Oscard, and with him a certain number of the blacks, but some stayed. Some went over to Durnovo and stood beside him. The slaves spoke among themselves, and then they all went over to Durnovo.
So that which the placid moon shone down upon was the break-up of the great Simiacine scheme. Victor Durnovo had not come off so badly. He had the larger half of the men by his side. He had all the finest crop the trees had yielded--but he had yet to reckon with high Heaven.
CHAPTER x.x.xIV. AMONG THORNS
We shut our hearts up nowadays, Like some old music-box that plays Unfashionable airs.
Sir John Meredith was sitting stiffly in a straight-backed chair by his library fire. In his young days men did not loll in deep chairs, with their knees higher than their heads. There were no such chairs in this library, just as there was no afternoon tea except for ladies. Sir John Meredith was distressed to observe a great many signs of the degeneration of manhood, which he attributed to the indulgence in afternoon tea. Sir John had lately noticed another degeneration, namely, in the quality of the London gas. So serious was this falling off that he had taken to a lamp in the evening, which lamp stood on the table at his elbow.
Some months earlier--that is to say, about six months after Jack"s departure--Sir John had called casually upon an optician. He stood upright by the counter, and frowned down on a mild-looking man who wore the strongest spectacles made, as if in advertis.e.m.e.nt of his own wares.
"They tell me," he said, "that you opticians make gla.s.ses now which are calculated to save the sight in old age."
"Yes, sir," replied the optician, with wriggling white fingers. "We make a special study of that. We endeavour to save the sight--to store it up, as it were, in--a middle life, for use in old age. You see, sir, the pupil of the eye--"
Sir John held up a warning hand.
"The pupil of the eye is your business, as I understand from the sign above your shop--at all events, it is not mine," he said. "Just give me some gla.s.ses to suit my sight, and don"t worry me with the pupil of the eye."
He turned towards the door, threw back his shoulders, and waited.
"Spectacles, sir?" inquired the man meekly.
"Spectacles, sir!" cried Sir John. "No, sir. Spectacles be d.a.m.ned! I want a pair of eyegla.s.ses."
And these eyegla.s.ses were affixed to the bridge of Sir John Meredith"s nose, as he sat stiffly in the straight-backed chair.
He was reading a scientific book which society had been pleased to read, mark, and learn, without inwardly digesting, as is the way of society with books. Sir John read a good deal--he had read more lately, perhaps, since entertainments and evening parties had fallen off so lamentably--and he made a point of keeping up with the mental progress of the age.
His eyebrows were drawn down, as if the process of storing up eyesight for his old age was somewhat laborious. At times he turned and glanced over his shoulder impatiently at the lamp.
The room was very still in its solid old-fashioned luxury. Although it was June a small wood fire burned in the grate, and the hiss of a piece of damp bark was the only sound within the four walls. From without, through the thick curtains, came at intervals the rumble of distant wheels. But it was just between times, and the fashionable world was at its dinner. Sir John had finished his, not because he dined earlier than the rest of the world--he could not have done that--but because a man dining by himself, with a butler and a footman to wait upon him, does not take very long over his meals.
He was in full evening dress, of course, built up by his tailor, bewigged, perfumed, and cunningly aided by toilet-table deceptions.
At times his weary old eyes wandered from the printed page to the smouldering fire, where a whole volume seemed to be written--it took so long to read. Then he would pull himself together, glance at the lamp, readjust the eyegla.s.ses, and plunge resolutely into the book. He did not always read scientific books. He had a taste for travel and adventure--the Arctic regions, Asia, Siberia, and Africa--but Africa was all locked away in a lower drawer of the writing-table. He did not care for the servants to meddle with his books, he told himself. He did not tell anybody that he did not care to let the servants see him reading his books of travel in Africa.
There was nothing dismal or lonely about this old man sitting in evening dress in a high-backed chair, stiffly reading a scientific book of the modern, cheap science tenor--not written for scientists, but to step in when the brain is weary of novels and afraid of communing with itself. Oh, no! A gentleman need never be dull. He has his necessary occupations. If he is a man of intellect he need never be idle. It is an occupation to keep up with the times.
Sometimes after dinner, while drinking his perfectly made black coffee, Sir John would idly turn over the invitation cards on the mantelpiece--the carriage was always in readiness--but of late the invitations had not proved very tempting. There was no doubt that society was not what it used to be. The summer was not what it used to be, either. The evenings were so confoundedly cold. So he often stayed at home and read a book.
He paused in the midst of a scientific definition and looked up with listening eyes. He had got into the way of listening to the pa.s.sing wheels. Lady Cantourne sometimes called for him on her way to a festivity, but it was not that.