year or two at the most, and I promise you, Mr. Scarlett Trent, my most estimable young companion, that, during that year, I will live more than you in your whole lifetime. I will drink deep of pleasures which you know nothing of, I will be steeped in joys which you will never reach more nearly than the man who watches a change in the skies or a sunset across the ocean! To you, with boundless wealth, there will be depths of happiness which you will never probe, joys which, if you have the wit to see them at all, will be no more than a mirage to you.”
Trent laughed outright, easily and with real mirth. Yet in his heart were sown already the seeds of a secret dread. There was a ring of passionate truth in Monty's words. He believed what he was saying. Perhaps he was right. The man's inborn hatred of a second or inferior place in anything stung him. Were there to be any niches after all in the temple of happiness to which he could never climb? He looked back rapidly, looked down the avenue of a squalid and unlovely life, saw himself the child of drink-sodden and brutal parents, remembered the Board School with its unlovely surroundings, his struggles at a dreary trade, his running away and the fierce draughts of delight which the joy and freedom of the sea had brought to him on the morning when he had crept on deck, a stowaway, to be lashed with every rope-end and to do the dirty work of every one. Then the slavery at a Belgian settlement, the job on a steamer trading along the Congo, the life at Buckomari, and lastly this bold enterprise in which the savings of years were invested. It was a life which called aloud for fortune some day or other to make a little atonement. The old man was dreaming. Wealth would bring him, uneducated though he was, happiness enough and to spare.
A footstep fell softly upon the turf outside. Trent sprang at once into an attitude of rigid attention. His revolver, which for four days had been at full cock by his side, stole out and covered the approaching shadow stealing gradually nearer and nearer. The old man saw nothing, for he slept, worn out with excitement and exhaustion.
CHAPTER II
A fat, unwholesome-looking creature, half native, half Belgian, waddled across the open space towards the hut in which the two strangers had been housed. He was followed at a little distance by two sturdy natives bearing a steaming pot which they carried on a pole between them. Trent set down his revolver and rose to his feet.
“What news, Oom Sam?” he asked. “Has the English officer been heard of? He must be close up now.”
“No news,” the little man grunted. “The King, he send some of his own supper to the white men. 'They got what they want,' he say. 'They start work mine soon as like, but they go away from here.' He not like them about the place! See!”
“Oh, that be blowed!” Trent muttered. “What's this in the pot? It don't smell bad.”
“Rabbit,” the interpreter answered tersely. “Very good. Part King's own supper. White men very favoured.”
Trent bent over the pot which the two men had set upon the ground. He took a fork from his belt and dug it in.
“Very big bones for a rabbit, Sam,” he remarked doubtfully.
Sam looked away. “Very big rabbits round here,” he remarked. “Best keep pot. Send men away.”
Trent nodded, and the men withdrew.
“Stew all right,” Sam whispered confidentially. “You eat him. No fear. But you got to go. King beginning get angry. He say white men not to stay. They got what he promised, now they go. I know King—know this people well! You get away quick. He think you want be King here! You got the papers—all you want, eh?”
“Not quite, Sam,” Trent answered. “There's an Englishman, Captain Francis, on his way here up the Coast, going on to Walgetta Fort. He must be here to-morrow. I want him to see the King's signature. If he's a witness these niggers can never back out of the concession. They're slippery devils. Another chap may come on with more rum and they'll forget us and give him the right to work the mines too. See!”
“I see,” Sam answered; “but him not safe to wait. You believe me. I know these tam niggers. They take two days get drunk, then get devils, four—raving mad. They drunk now. Kill any one to-morrow—perhaps you. Kill you certain to-morrow night. You listen now!”
Trent stood up in the shadow of the overhanging roof. Every now and then came a wild, shrill cry from the lower end of the village. Some one was beating a frightful, cracked drum which they had got from a trader. The tumult was certainly increasing. Trent swore softly, and then looked irresolutely over his shoulder to where Monty was sleeping.
“If the worst comes we shall never get away quickly,” he muttered. “That old carcase can scarcely drag himself along.”
Sam looked at him with cunning eyes.
“He not fit only die,” he said softly. “He very old, very sick man, you leave him here! I see to him.”
Trent turned away in sick disgust.
“We'll be off to-morrow, Sam,” he said shortly. “I say! I'm beastly hungry. What's in that pot?”
Sam spread out the palms of his hands.
“He all right, I see him cooked,” he declared. “He two rabbits and one monkey.”
Trent took out a plate and helped himself.
“All right,” he said. “Be off now. We'll go to-morrow before these towsly-headed beauties are awake.”
Sam nodded and waddled off. Trent threw a biscuit and hit his companion on the cheek.
“Here, wake up, Monty!” he exclaimed. “Supper's come from the royal kitchen. Bring your plate and tuck in!”
Monty struggled to his feet and came meekly towards where the pot stood simmering upon the ground.
“I'm not hungry, Trent,” he said, “but I am very thirsty, very thirsty indeed. My throat is all parched. I am most uncomfortable. Really I think your behaviour with regard to the brandy is most unkind and ungenerous; I shall be ill, I know I shall. Won't you—”
“No, I won't,” Trent interrupted. “Now shut up all that rot and eat something.”
“I have no appetite, thank you,” Monty answered, with sulky dignity.
“Eat something, and don't be a silly ass!” Trent insisted. “We've a hard journey before us, and you'll need all the strength in your carcase to land in Buckomari again. Here, you've dropped some of your precious rubbish.”
Trent stooped forward and picked up what seemed to him at first to be a piece of cardboard from the ground. He was about to fling it to its owner, when he saw that it was a photograph. It was the likeness of a girl, a very young girl apparently, for her hair was still down her back and her dress was scarcely of the orthodox length. It was not particularly well taken, but Trent had never seen anything like it before. The lips were slightly parted, the deep eyes were brimming with laughter, the pose was full of grace, even though the girl's figure was angular. Trent had seen as much as this, when he felt the smart of a sudden blow upon the cheek, the picture was snatched from his hand, and Monty—his face convulsed with anger—glowered fiercely upon him.
“You infernal young blackguard! You impertinent meddling blockhead! How dare you presume to look at that photograph! How dare you, sir! How dare you!”
Trent was too thoroughly astonished to resent either the blow or the fierce words. He looked up into his aggressor's face in blank surprise.
“I only looked at it,” he muttered. “It was lying on the floor.”
“Looked at it! You looked at it! Like your confounded impertinence, sir! Who are you to look at her! If ever I catch you prying into my concerns again, I'll shoot you—by Heaven I will!”
Trent