ck
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. K