f moisture round the summit of the mountain--that down in the valleys
it was clear, and that half an hour's sunshine would disperse all. He
was waiting for this result when he heard a rifle-shot far away in the
haze beneath him; and he knew that it was Joseph--probably making one of
those marvellous long shots of his which roused a sudden sigh of envy in
the heart of this mighty hunter whenever he witnessed them.

Oscard immediately went to his tent and came out with his
short-barrelled, evil-looking rifle on his arm. He fired both barrels
in quick succession and waited, standing gravely on the edge of the
Plateau. After a short silence two answering reports rose up through the
mist to his straining ears.

He turned and found Victor Durnovo standing at his side.

"What is that?" asked the half-breed.

"It must be Joseph," answered Guy, "or Meredith. It can be nobody else."

"Let us hope that it is Meredith," said Durnovo with a forced laugh,
"but I doubt it."

Oscard looked down in his sallow, powerful face. He was not quick at
such things, but at that moment he felt strangely certain that Victor
Durnovo was hoping that Meredith was dead.

"I hope it isn't," he answered, and without another word he strode away
down the little pathway from the summit into the clouds, loading his
rifle as he went.

Durnovo and his men, working among the Simiacine bushes, heard from time
to time a signal shot as the two Englishmen groped their way towards
each other through the everlasting night of the African forest.

It was midday before the new-comers were espied making their way
painfully up the slope, and Joseph's welcome was not so much in
Durnovo's handshake, in Guy Oscard's silent approval, as in the row of
grinning, good-natured black faces behind Durnovo's back.

That night laughter was heard in the men's camp for the first time for
many weeks--nay, several months. According to the account that Joseph
gave to his dusky admirers, he had been on terms of the closest
familiarity with the wives, and families of all who had such at Loango
or on the Coast. He knew the mother of one, had met the sweetheart of
another, and confessed that it was only due to the fact that he was not
"a marryin' man" that he had not stayed at Loango for the rest of his
life. It was somewhat singular that he had nothing but good news to
give.

Durnovo heard the clatter of tongues, and Guy Oscard, smoking his
contemplative pipe in a camp-chair be