She smiled with a strange little flicker of the eyelids. They had grown wonderfully accustomed to each other during the last three weeks. Here, it would appear, was one of those friendships between man and woman that occasionally set the world agog with curiosity and scepticism. But there seemed to be no doubt about it. He was over thirty, she verging on that prosaic age. Both had lived and moved in the world; to both life was an open book, and they had probably discovered, as most of us do, that the larger number of the leaves are blank. He had almost told her that he was engaged to be married, and she had quite understood. There could not possibly be any misapprehension; there was no room for one of those little mistakes about which people write novels and fondly hope that some youthful reader may be carried away by a very faint resemblance to that which they hold to be life. Moreover, at thirty, one leaves the first romance of youth behind.
There was something in her smile that suggested that she did not quite believe in his cynicism.
"Also," she said gravely, "some stronger influence might appear--an influence which I could not counteract."
Jack Meredith turned in his long chair and looked at her searchingly.
"I have a vague idea," he said, "that you are thinking of Durnovo."
"I am," she admitted, with some surprise. "I wonder how you knew? I am afraid of him."
"I can rea.s.sure you on that score," said Meredith. "For the next two years or so Durnovo will be in daily intercourse with me. He will be under my immediate eye. I did not antic.i.p.ate much pleasure from his society. But now I do."
"Why?" she asked, rather mystified.
"Because I shall have the daily satisfaction of knowing that I am relieving you of an anxiety."
"It is very kind of you to put it in that way," said Jocelyn. "But I should not like you to sacrifice yourself to what may be a foolish prejudice on my part."
"It is not a foolish prejudice. Durnovo is not a gentleman either by birth or inclination. He is not fit to a.s.sociate with you."
To this Jocelyn answered nothing. Victor Durnovo was one of her brother"s closest friends--a friend of his own choosing.
"Miss Gordon," said Jack Meredith suddenly, with a gravity that was rare, "will you do me a favour?"
"I think I should like to."
"You admit that you are afraid of Durnovo now: if at any time you have reason to be more afraid, will you make use of me? Will you write or come to me and ask my help?"
"Thank you," she said hesitatingly.
"You see," he went on, in a lighter tone, "I am not afraid of Durnovo. I have met Durnovos before. You may have observed that my locks no longer resemble the raven"s wing. There is a little grey--just here--above the temple. I am getting on in life, and I know how to deal with Durnovos."
"Thank you," said the girl, with a little sigh of relief. "The feeling that I have some one to turn to will be a great relief. You see how I am placed here. The missionaries are very kind and well-meaning, but there are some things which they do not quite understand. They may be gentlemen--some of them are; but they are not men of the world. I have no definite thought or fear, and very good persons, one finds, are occasionally a little dense. Unless things are very definite, they do not understand."
"On the other hand," pursued Jack, in the same reflective tone, as if taking up her thought, "persons who are not good have a perception of the indefinite. I did not think of it in that light before."
Jocelyn Gordon laughed softly, without attempting to meet his lighter vein.
"Do you know," she said, after a little silence, "that I was actually thinking of warning you against Mr. Durnovo? Now I stand aghast at my own presumption."
"It was kind of you to give the matter any thought whatever."
He rose and threw away the end of his cigar. Joseph was already before the door, leading the horse which Maurice Gordon had placed at his visitor"s disposal.
"I will lay the warning to heart," he said, standing in front of Jocelyn and looking down at her as she lay back in the deep basket-chair. She was simply dressed in white--as was her wont, for it must be remembered that they were beneath the Equator--a fair English maiden, whose thoughts were hidden behind a certain gracious, impenetrable reserve.
"I will lay it to heart, although you have not uttered it. But I have always known with what sort of man I was dealing. We serve each other"s purpose, that is all; and he knows that as well as I do."
"I am glad Mr. Oscard is going with you," she answered guardedly.
He waited a moment. It seemed as if she had not done speaking--as if there was another thought near the surface. But she did not give voice to it, and he turned away. The sound of the horse"s feet on the gravel did not arouse her from the reverie into which she had fallen; and long after it had died away, leaving only the hum of insect life and the distant ceaseless song of the surf, Jocelyn Gordon sat apparently watching the dancing shadows on the floor as the creepers waved in the breeze.
CHAPTER XII. A MEETING
No one can be more wise than destiny.
The short equatorial twilight was drawing to an end, and all Nature stood in silence, while Night crept up to claim the land where her reign is more autocratic than elsewhere on earth. There is a black night above the trees, and a blacker beneath. In an hour it would be dark, and, in the meantime, the lowering clouds were tinged with a pink glow that filtered through from above. There was rain coming, and probably thunder. Moreover, the trees seemed to know it, for there was a limpness in their att.i.tude as if they were tucking their heads into their shoulders in antic.i.p.ation of the worst. The insects were certainly possessed of a premonition. They had crept away.
It was distinctly an unlikely evening for the sportsman. The stillness was so complete that the faintest rustle could be heard at a great distance. Moreover, it was the sort of evening when Nature herself seems to be glancing over her shoulder with timorous restlessness.
Nevertheless, a sportsman was abroad. He was creeping up the right-hand bank of a stream, his only chance lying in the noise of the waters, which might serve to deaden the sound of broken twig or rustling leaf.
This sportsman was Jack Meredith, and it was evident that he was bringing to bear upon the matter in hand that intelligence and keenness of perception which had made him a person of some prominence in other scenes where Nature has a less a.s.sured place.
It would appear that he was not so much at home in the tangle of an African forest as in the crooked paths of London society; for his clothes were torn in more than one place; a mosquito, done to sudden death, adhered sanguinarily to the side of his aristocratic nose, while heat and mental distress had drawn damp stripes down his countenance.
His hands were scratched and inclined to bleed, and one leg had apparently been in a mora.s.s. Added to these physical drawbacks there was no visible sign of success, which was probably the worst part of Jack Meredith"s plight.
Since sunset he had been crawling, scrambling, stumbling up the bank of this stream in relentless pursuit of some large animal which persistently kept hidden in the tangle across the bed of the river. The strange part of it was that when he stopped to peep through the branches the animal stopped too, and he found no way of discovering its whereabouts. More than once they remained thus for nearly five minutes, peering at each other through the heavy leaf.a.ge. It was distinctly unpleasant, for Meredith felt that the animal was not afraid of him, and did not fully understand the situation. The respective positions of hunter and hunted were imperfectly defined. He had hitherto confined his attentions to such game as showed a sporting readiness to run away, and there was a striking novelty in this unseen beast of the forest, fresh, as it were, from the hands of its Creator, that entered into the fun of the thing from a totally mistaken standpoint.
Once Meredith was able to decide approximately the whereabouts of his prey by the momentary shaking of a twig. He raised his rifle and covered that twig steadily; his forefinger played tentatively on the trigger; but on second thoughts he refrained. He was keenly conscious of the fact that the beast was doing its work with skill superior to his own. In comparison to his, its movements were almost noiseless. Jack Meredith was too clever a man to be conceited in the wrong place, which is the habit of fools. He recognised very plainly that he was not distinguishing himself in this new field of glory; he was not yet an accomplished big-game hunter.
Twice he raised his rifle with the intention of firing at random into the underwood on the remote chance of bringing his enemy into the open.
But the fascination of this duel of cunning was too strong, and he crept onwards with bated breath.
It was terrifically hot, and all the while Night was stalking westward on the summits of the trees with stealthy tread.
While absorbed in the intricacies of pursuit--while anathematising tendrils and condemning thorns to summary judgment--Jack Meredith was not losing sight of his chance of getting back to the little village of Msala. He knew that he had only to follow the course of the stream downwards, retracing his steps until a junction with the Ogowe river was effected. In the meantime his lips were parted breathlessly, and there was a light in the quiet eyes which might have startled some of his well-bred friends could they have seen it.
At last he came to an open s.p.a.ce made by a slip of the land into the bed of the river. When Jack Meredith came to this he stepped out of the thicket and stood in the open, awaiting the approach of his stealthy prey. The sound of its footfall was just perceptible, slowly diminishing the distance that divided them. Then the trees were parted, and a tall, fair man stepped forward on to the opposite bank.
Jack Meredith bowed gravely, and the other sportsman, seeing the absurdity of the situation, burst into hearty laughter. In a moment or two he had leapt from rock to rock and come to Meredith.
"It seems," he said, "that we have been wasting a considerable amount of time."
"I very nearly wasted powder and shot," replied Jack, significantly indicating his rifle.
"I saw you twice, and raised my rifle; your breeches are just the colour of a young doe. Are you Meredith? My name is Oscard."
"Ah! Yes, I am Meredith. I am glad to see you."
They shook hands. There was a twinkle in Jack Meredith"s eyes, but Oscard was quite grave. His sense of humour was not very keen, and he was before all things a sportsman.
"I left the canoes a mile below Msala, and landed to shoot a deer we saw drinking, but I never saw him. Then I heard you, and I have been stalking you ever since."