horse could lay legs to the ground.

Jocelyn Gordon was one of those women who rise slowly to the occasion,
and the limit of their power seems at times to be only defined by the
greatness of the need.

CHAPTER XXIII. MERCURY

So cowards never use their might
But against such that will not fight.

On nearing the bungalow, Jocelyn turned aside into the forest where a
little colony of huts nestled in a hollow of the sand-dunes.

"Nala," she cried, "the paddle-maker. Ask him to come to me."

She spoke in the dialect of the coast to some women who sat together
before one of the huts.

"Nala--yes," they answered. And they raised their strident voices.

In a few moments a man emerged from a shed of banana-leaves. He was a
scraggy man--very lightly clad--and a violent squint handicapped him
seriously in the matter of first impressions. When he saw Jocelyn he
dropped his burden of wood and ran towards her. The African negro does
not cringe. He is a proud man in his way. If he is properly handled, he
is not only trustworthy--he is something stronger. Nala grinned as he
ran towards Jocelyn.

"Nala," she said, "will you go a journey for me?"

"I will go at once."

"I came to you," said Jocelyn, "because I know that you are an
intelligent man and a great traveller."

"I have travelled much," he answered, "when I was younger."

"Before you were married?" said the English girl. "Before little Nala
came?"

The man grinned.

He looked back over his shoulder towards one of the huts, where a
scraggy infant with a violent squint lay on its diaphragm on the sand.

"Where do you wish me to go?" asked the proud father.

"To Msala on the Ogowe river."

"I know the Ogowe. I have been at Msala," with the grave nod of a great
traveller.

"When can you leave?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Now."

Jocelyn had her purse in her hand.

"You can hire a dhow," she said; "and on the river you may have as many
rowers as you like. You must go very quickly to Msala. There you must
ask about the Englishman's Expedition. You have heard of it?"

"Yes: the Englishman, Durnovo, and the soldier who laughs."

"Yes. Some of the men are at Msala now. They were going up-country
to join the other Englishman far away--near the mountains. They have
stopped at Msala. Find out why they have not gone on, and come back very
quickly to tell me. You understand, Nala?"

"Yes."

"And I can trust you?"

"Yes: because you