ile the
manner and attitude of the man in the bows suggested the servitude of a
disciplined soldier slightly relaxed by abnormal circumstances.

"Who fired that shot?" inquired Durnovo, when there was no longer any
necessity to shout.

"Joseph," replied the man in the stern of the boat, indicating his
companion. "Was it a near thing?"

"About as near as I care about--it threw up the dust between my legs."

The man called Joseph grinned. Nature had given him liberally of the
wherewithal for indulgence in that relaxation, and Durnovo smiled rather
constrainedly. Joseph was grabbing at the long reedy grass, bringing
the canoe to a standstill, and it was some moments before his extensive
mouth submitted to control.

"I presume you are Mr. Durnovo," said the man in the stern of the
boat, rising leisurely from his recumbent position and speaking with a
courteous savoir-faire which seemed slightly out of place in the wilds
of Central Africa. He was a tall man with a small aristocratic head and
a refined face, which somehow suggested an aristocrat of old France.

"Yes," answered Durnovo.

The tall man stepped ashore and held out his hand.

"I am glad we have met you," he said; "I have a letter of introduction
to you from Maurice Gordon, of Loango."

Victor Durnovo's dark face changed slightly; his eyes--bilious,
fever-shot, unhealthy--took a new light.

"Ah!" he answered, "are you a friend of Maurice Gordon's?"

There was another question in this, an unasked one; and Victor Durnovo
was watching for the answer. But the face he watched was like a
delicately carved piece of brown marble, with a courteous, impenetrable
smile.

"I met him again the other day at Loango. He is an old Etonian like
myself."

This conveyed nothing to Durnovo, who belonged to a different world,
whose education was, like other things about him, an unknown quantity.

"My name," continued the tall man, "is Meredith--John
Meredith--sometimes called Jack."

They were walking up the bank towards the dusky and uninviting tent.

"And the other fellow?" inquired Durnovo, with a backward jerk of the
head.

"Oh--he is my servant."

Durnovo raised his eyebrows in somewhat contemptuous amusement, and
proceeded to open the letter which Meredith had handed him.

"Not many fellows," he said, "on this coast can afford to keep a
European servant."

Jack Meredith bowed, and ignored the irony.

"But," he said courteously, "I suppose you find these