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 http://www.archive.org/details/withedgedtools01merr
 
 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 BY 
 
 HEXEY SETOX MEREBIAN 
 
 ArxHon OF 'Till-; sl.\.ve of the lamp' 
 
 ' Vf tht same flap he maketh both the vessels tliut serve for 
 dean uses, and likewise also such as serve to the contrary: hu! 
 uhat is the use of either tort, the potter himself is the judge'' 
 
 IX THREE VOLUMES 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 
 
 1894 
 
 \_All rights referred'^
 
 ^ 
 
 so 
 
 [ 
 
 i 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 TO 
 
 JAMES PAYN 
 
 A TOKEN OF SINCERE REGARD
 
 UrW
 
 CONTEXTS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE FIRST VOLUME 
 
 i;h.vptf.r p\<^r 
 
 I. Two GENERATION'S 1 
 
 II. Over the Old Ground 18 
 
 III. A Farewell 88 
 
 IV. A Tragedy 50 
 
 V. With Edged Tools ..... 74 
 
 VI. Under the Line 88 
 
 Yll. The Secret of the Simiacene .... 10(3 
 
 Viri. A Recruit 1-25 
 
 IX. To Pass the Time 142 
 
 X. LOANGO 160 
 
 XI. A Compact I79 
 
 XII. A Meeting 197 
 
 XIII. In Black and Vhite 214 
 
 XIV. Panic-stricken 2o4 
 
 XV. A Confidence 252
 
 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 CHAPTEE I 
 
 TWO G E N E E A T I X S 
 
 Why all delights are vain, but that most rain 
 Which with pain purchased doth inherit pain. 
 
 ' My dear — Madam — what you call heart 
 does not come into the question at alh' 
 
 Sir John Meredith was sitting shghtly 
 behind Lady Cantourne, leaning towards her 
 with a somewhat stiffened replica of his 
 former oTace. But he was not lookins^ at 
 her — and she knew it. 
 
 They were both watching a group at the 
 other side of the ijreat ballroom. 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 A WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 'Sir John Meredith on Heart,' said the 
 old lady, with a depth of significance in her 
 voice. 
 
 ' And wdiy not ? ' 
 
 ' Yes, indeed. Why not ? ' 
 
 Sir John smiled with that well-bred cynic- 
 ism which a new school has not yet suc- 
 ceeded in imitating. They were of the old 
 school, these two ; and their worldhness, their 
 cynicism, their conversational attitude, be- 
 longed to a bygone period. It was a cleaner 
 period in some ways — a period devoid of 
 slums. Ours, on the contrary, is an age of 
 slums wherein we all dabble to the detriment 
 of our hands — mental, literary, and theo- 
 logical. 
 
 Sir John moved slightly in his chair, lean- 
 ing one hand on one knee. His back was 
 very flat, his clothes were perfect, his hair
 
 TWO GENERATIONS 3 
 
 was not his own, nor yet his teeth. But his 
 manners were entirely his own. His face was 
 eighty years old, and yet he smiled his keen 
 society smile with the best of them. There 
 was not a young man in the room of whom 
 he was afraid, conversationally. 
 
 ' No, Lady Cantourne,' he repeated, ' Your 
 charming niece is heartless. She will get 
 on.' 
 
 Lady Cantourne smiled, and drew the 
 glove further up her stout and motherly right 
 arm. 
 
 ' She will get on,' she admitted. ' As to 
 the other, it is early to give an opinion.' 
 
 ' She has had the best of trainings ,' 
 
 he murmured. And Lady Cantourne turned 
 on him wdth a twinkle amidst tlie wrinkles. 
 
 ' For which ? ' she asked. 
 
 ' Choisissez ! ' he answered, with a bow. 
 
 B 2
 
 4 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 One sees a veteran swordsman take up the 
 foil with a tentative turn of the wrist, lunmn^ 
 at thin air. His zest for the game has gone ; 
 but the skill lingers, and at times he is 
 tempted to show the younger blades a pass 
 or two. These were veteran fencers with a 
 skill of their own, which they loved to dis- 
 play at times. The zest was that of remem- 
 brance ; the sword-play of words was above 
 the head of a younger generation given to 
 slang and music-hall airs ; and so these two 
 had little bouts for their own edification, and 
 enjoyed the glitter of it vastly. 
 
 Sir John's face relaxed into the only re- 
 pose he ever allowed it ; for he had a habit 
 of twitching and moving his lips such as some 
 old men have. And occasionally, in an ac- 
 cess of further senility, he fumbled with his 
 fingers at his mouth. He was clean shaven,
 
 TWO GENERATIONS 5 
 
 and even in his old age lie was handsome 
 beyond other men — standing an upright six 
 feet two. 
 
 The object of his attention was the belle 
 of tliat ball, Miss Miliicent Cliyne, who was 
 hemmed into a corner by a group of eager 
 dancers anxious to insert their names in some 
 corner of her card. She was the fashion at 
 that time. And she probably did not know 
 that at least half of the men crowded round 
 because the other half were there. Nothinsf 
 succeeds like the success that knows how to 
 draw a crowd. 
 
 She received the ovation self-possessedly 
 enough, but without that hauteur affected by 
 belles of balls — in books. She seemed to 
 have a fresh smile for each new applicant — a 
 smile which conveyed to each in turn the fact 
 that she had been attempting all along to get
 
 6 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 her programme safely into his hands. A halt- 
 ing masculine pen will not be expected to 
 explain how she compassed this, beyond a 
 gentle intimation that masculine vanity had a 
 good deal to do with her success. 
 
 ' She is having an excellent time,' said Sir 
 John, weighing on the modern phrase with 
 a subtle sarcasm. He was addicted to the 
 use of modern phraseology, spiced with a 
 cynicism of his own. 
 
 'Yes, I cannot help sympathising with 
 her — a little,' answered the lady. 
 
 ' Nor I. It will not last.' 
 
 ' Well, she is only gathering the rose- 
 buds/ 
 
 ' Wisely so, your ladyship. They at least 
 look as if they were going to last. The full- 
 blown roses do not.' 
 
 Lady Cantourne gave a little sigh. This 
 
 ^
 
 TWO GENERATIONS 7 
 
 was the difference between them. She could 
 not watch without an occasional thought for 
 a time that was no more. The man seemed 
 to be content that the past had been lived 
 through and would never renew itself. 
 
 ' After all,' she said, ' she is my sister's 
 child- The sympathy may only be a matter 
 of blood. Perhaps I was like that myself 
 once. Was I ? You can tell me.' 
 
 She looked slowly round the room and 
 his face hardened. He knew that she was 
 reflecting that there was no one else who 
 could tell her ; and he did not like it. 
 
 ^ No,' he answered readily. 
 
 * And what was the difference P ' 
 
 She looked straight in front of her with a 
 strange old-fashioned demureness. 
 
 ' Their name is legion, for they are 
 many.'
 
 8 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 ' Name a few. Was I aB good-looking as 
 that, for, instance ? ' 
 
 He smiled — a wise, old, woman-searching 
 smile. 
 
 'You were better looking than that,' he 
 said, with a glance beneath his lashless lids. 
 ' Moreover, there was more of the grand lady 
 about you. You behaved better. There was 
 less shaking hands with your partners, less 
 nodding and becking, and none of that 
 modern forwardness which is called, I believe, 
 c%maraderieJ 
 
 'Thank you. Sir John,' she answered, 
 looking at him frankly with a pleasant smile. 
 ' But it is probable that we had the faults of 
 our age.' 
 
 He fumbled at his lips, having reasons of 
 his own for disliking too close a scrutiny of 
 his face.
 
 TWO GENERATIONS 9 
 
 ' That is more than probable,' he an- 
 swered, rather indistinctly. 
 
 ' Then,' she said, tapping the back of his 
 gloved hand with her fan, ' we ought to be 
 merciful to the faults of a succeeding genera- 
 tion. Tell me who is that young man with 
 the long stride who is getting himself intro- 
 duced now.' 
 
 ' That,' answered Sir John, who prided 
 himself upon knowing every one — knowing 
 who they were and who they w^ere not — ' is 
 young Oscard.' 
 
 ' Son of the eccentric Oscard ? ' 
 
 ^ Son of the eccentric Oscard.' 
 
 ' And where did he get that brown face ? ' 
 
 ' He got that in Africa, wdiere he has 
 been shooting. He forms part of someone 
 else's bag at the present moment.' 
 
 ' What do you mean ? '
 
 10 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 ' He has been apportioned a dance. Your 
 fair niece has bagged him.' 
 
 If he had only known it, Guy Oscard 
 won the privilege of a waltz by the same 
 brown face which Lady Cantourne had so 
 promptly noted. Coupled with a sturdy up- 
 rif^htness of carriao^e, this raised him at a 
 bound above the pallid habitues of ballroom 
 and pavement. It was, perhaps, only natural 
 that MilHcent Chyne should have noted this 
 man as soon as he crossed the threshold. He 
 was as remarkable as some free and dignified 
 denizen of the forest in the midst of domestic 
 animals. She mentally put him down for a 
 waltz, and before ^Ye minutes had elapsed he 
 wa^ bowing before her while a mutual friend 
 murmured his name. One does not know 
 how young ladies manage these little affairs, 
 but the fact remains that they are managed.
 
 TWO GENERATIONS 11 
 
 Moreover, it is a singular thing that the 
 young persons who succeed in the ballroom 
 rarely succeed on the larger and rougher 
 floor of hfe. Your belle of the ball, 
 like your Senior Wrangler, never seems 
 to do much afterwards — and Afterwards is 
 Life. 
 
 The other young men rather fell back 
 before Guy Oscard — scared, perhaps, by his 
 long stride, and afraid that he might crush 
 their puny toes. This enabled Miss Chyne to 
 give him the very next dance, of which the 
 music was commencing. 
 
 ' I feel rather out of all this,' said Oscard 
 as they moved away together. ' You must 
 excuse uncouthness.' 
 
 ' I see no signs of it,' laughed Millicent. 
 ' You are behaving very nicely. You cannot 
 help being larger and stronger than — the
 
 12 WITU EDGED TOOLS 
 
 Others. I should say it was an advantage 
 and something to be proud of.' 
 
 ' Oh, it is not that,' rephed Oscard ; ' it is 
 a feehng of unkemptness and want of smart- 
 ness among these men who look so clean and 
 correct. Shall we dance ? ' 
 
 He looked down at her with an admiration 
 which almost amounted to awe, as if afraid of 
 entering the throng with such a dainty and 
 wonderful charge upon his powers of steering. 
 jVIillicent Chyne saw the glance and liked it. 
 It was different from the others, quite devoid 
 of criticism, rather simple and full of honest 
 admiration. She was so beautiful that she 
 could hardly be expected to be unaware of 
 the fact. She had merely to make compari- 
 sons, to look in the mirror and see that her 
 hair was fairer and softer, that her complexion 
 was more delicately perfect, that her slight,
 
 TWO GEXERATIOXS lo 
 
 rounded figure was more graceful than any 
 around her. Added to this, she knew that 
 she had more to say tlian other girls — a larger 
 stock of those little frivolous, advice-seeking, 
 aid-demanding nothings than her compeers 
 seemed to possess. 
 
 She knew that in saying them she could 
 look brighter and prettier and more intelli- 
 gent than her competitors. 
 
 ' Yes,' she said, ' let us dance by all 
 means.' 
 
 Here also she knew her own proficiency, 
 and in a few seconds she found that her 
 partner was worthy of her skill. 
 
 ' Where have you been ? ' she asked 
 presently. ' I am sure you have been away 
 somewhere, exploring or something.' 
 
 ' I have only been in Africa, shoot- 
 ino-.'
 
 14 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 ' Oh, how interesting ! You must tell me 
 all about it 1 ' 
 
 ' I am afraid,' replied Guy Oscard, with 
 a somewhat shy laugh, ' that that would not 
 be interesting. Besides, I could not tell you 
 now.' 
 
 ' No, but some other time. I suppose you 
 are not going back to Africa to-morrow, Mr. 
 Oscard ? ' 
 
 ' Not quite. And perhaps we may meet 
 somewhere else.' 
 
 ' I hope so,' replied Miss Chyne. ' Besides, 
 you know my aunt, Lady Cantourne. I live 
 with her, you know.' 
 
 ' I know her slightly.' 
 
 * Then take an opportunity of improving 
 the acquaintanceship. She is sitting under 
 the ragged banner over there.' 
 
 Millicent Chyne indicated the direction
 
 TWO GENEKATIONS 15 
 
 with a nod of the head, and while he looked 
 she took the opportunity of glancing hastily 
 round the room. She was seeking someone. 
 
 ' Yes,' said Oscard, ' I see her, talking to 
 an old gentleman who looks like Voltaire. 
 I shall give her a chance of recognising me 
 before the evening is out. I don't mind 
 being snubbed if ' 
 
 He paused and steered neatly through 
 a narrow place. 
 
 ' If what ? ' she asked, when they were in 
 swing again. 
 
 ' If it means seeing you again,' he answered 
 bluntly — more bluntly than she was accus- 
 tomed to. But she hked it. It was a 
 novelty after the smaller change of ballroom 
 compliments. 
 
 She was watching the door all the while. 
 
 Presently the music ceased and they made
 
 16 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 their way back to the spot whence he had 
 taken her. She led the way thither by an 
 almost imperceptible pressure of her fingers 
 on his arm. There were several men waiting 
 there, and one or two more entering the room 
 and looking languidly round. 
 
 ' There comes the favoured one,' Lady 
 Cantourne muttered, with a veiled glance 
 towards her companion. 
 
 Sir John's grey eyes followed the direction 
 of her glance. 
 
 ' My bright boy ? ' he inquired, with 
 a wealth of sarcasm on the adjective. 
 
 ' Your bright boy,' she replied. 
 
 ' I hope not,' he said curtly. 
 
 They were watching a tall fair man in the 
 doorway who seemed to know everybody, so 
 slow was his progress into the room. The 
 most remarkable thin£r about this man was
 
 TAVO GEXERATIOXS 17 
 
 a certain grace of movement. He seemed to 
 be specially constructed to live in narrow, 
 hampered places. He was above six feet ; 
 but, being of slight build, he moved with 
 a certain languidness which saved him from 
 that unwieldiness usually associated with large 
 men in a drawing-room. 
 
 Such was Jack Meredith, one of the best- 
 known figures in London society. He had 
 hitherto succeeded in moving; throuorh the 
 mazes of that coterie, as he now moved 
 through this room, without jarring against 
 an3^one. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 I 8 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 CHAPTEE II 
 
 OVER THE OLD GROUND 
 
 A man -^lio never makes mistakes never makes any tiling 
 else either. 
 
 Miss MiLLiCENT Chyne was vaguely conscious 
 of success — and such a consciousness is apt to 
 make the best of us a trifle elated. It was 
 certainly one of the best balls of the season, 
 and Miss Chyne's dress was, without doubt, 
 one of the most successful articles of its sort 
 there. 
 
 Jack Meredith saw that fact and noted it 
 as soon as he came into the room. Moreover, 
 it gratified him, and he was pleased to reflect 
 that he was no mean critic in such matters.
 
 OVER THE OLD GROUND 19 
 
 There could be no doubt about it, because lie 
 knew as well as any woman there. He knew 
 that Millicent Chyne was dressed in the latest 
 fashion — no furbished-up gown from the hands 
 of her maid, but a unique creation from Bond 
 Street. 
 
 ' Well,' she asked in a low voice as she 
 handed him her programme, ' are you pleased 
 with it ? ' 
 
 ' Eminently so.' 
 
 She glanced down at her own dress. It 
 was not the nervous glance of the debutante^ 
 but the practised flash of experienced eyes 
 which see without appearing to look. 
 
 ' I am glad,' she murmured. 
 
 He handed her back the card with the 
 orthodox smile and bow of gratitude, but 
 there was something more in his eyes. 
 
 c 2
 
 20 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 ' Is tliat what you did it for ? ' he inquired. 
 
 ' Of course,' with a gLance half coquettish, 
 half humble. 
 
 She took the card and allowed it to drop 
 pendent from her fan without looking at it. 
 He had written nothim^ on it. This was all a 
 form. The dances that were his had been 
 inscribed on the ens^acrement-card loniz before 
 by smaller fingers than his. 
 
 She turned to take her attendant partner's 
 arm with a little flaunt — a little movement 
 of the hips to bring her dress, and possibly 
 herself, more prominently beneath Jack 
 Meredith's notice. His eyes followed her with 
 that incomparably pleasant society-smile which 
 he had no doubt inherited from his father. 
 Then he turned and mingled with the w^ell- 
 dressed throng, bowing where he ought to 
 bow — asking with fervour for dances in plain
 
 OVER THE OLD GKOUXD 21 
 
 but influential quarters where dances were to 
 be easily obtained. 
 
 And all the while his father and Lady 
 Cantourne watched. 
 
 ' Yes, I think J the lady was saying, ' that 
 that is the favoured one.' 
 
 ' I fear so.' 
 
 ' I notice,' observed Lady Cantourne, ' that 
 he asked for a dance.' 
 
 ' And apparently got one — or more.' 
 
 * Apparently so. Sir John.' 
 
 ' Moreover ' 
 
 Lady Cantourne turned on him with her 
 usual vivacity. 
 
 ' Moreover ? ' she repeated. 
 
 ' He did not need to write it down on the 
 card ; it was written there already.' 
 
 She closed her fan with a faint smile. 
 
 ' I sometimes wonder,' she said, ' whether,
 
 22 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 in our young days, you were so preter- 
 naturally observant as you are now.' 
 
 'No,' he answered, ' I was not. I affected 
 scales of the very opaquest description, hke 
 the rest of my kind/ 
 
 In the meantime this man's son was going 
 about his business with a leisurely savoir-faire 
 which few could rivaL Jack Meredith was 
 the beau-ideal of the society man in the best 
 acceptation of the word. One met him wher- 
 ever the best people congregated, and he 
 invariably seemed to know what to do and 
 how to do it better than his compeers. If it 
 was dancing in the season. Jack Meredith 
 danced, and no man rivalled him. If it was 
 grouse shooting. Jack Meredith held his gun 
 as straight as any man. All the polite accom- 
 plishments in their season seemed to come 
 to him without effort ; but there was in all
 
 OVEE THE OLD GROUI^^D 23 
 
 the same lack of heart — that utter want of 
 enthusiasm which imparted to his presence a 
 subtle suggestion of boredom. The truth was 
 that he was over- educated. Sir John had 
 taught him how to live and move and have 
 his being with so minute a care, so keen an 
 insight, that existence seemed to be nothing 
 but an habitual observance of set rules. 
 
 Sir John called him sarcastically his 
 ' bright boy,' his ' hopeful offspring,' the 
 ' pride of his old age ' ; but somewhere in his 
 shrivelled old heart there nestled an un- 
 bounded love and admiration for his son. 
 Jack had assimilated his teaching with a 
 wonderful aptitude. He had as nearly as 
 possible realised Sir John Meredith's idea of 
 what an English gentleman should be, and the 
 old aristocrat's standard was uncompromisingly 
 high. Public school, University, and two
 
 24 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 years on the Continent had produced a finished 
 man, educated to the finger-tips, deeply read, 
 clever, bright, and occasionally witty ; but 
 Jack Meredith was at this time nothing more 
 than a brilliant conglomerate of possibilities. 
 He had obeyed his father to the letter with a 
 conscientiousness bred of admiration. He had 
 always felt that his father knew best. And 
 now he seemed to be waiting — possibly for 
 further orders. He was suggestive of a 
 perfect piece of mechanism standing idle for 
 want of work delicate enough to be manipu- 
 lated by its delicate craft. Sir John had 
 impressed upon him the desirability of being 
 independent, and he had promptly cultivated 
 that excellent quality, taking kindly enough 
 to rooms of his own in a fashionable quarter. 
 But upon the principle of taking a horse 
 to the water and being unable to make him
 
 OVER THE OLD GROUXD 25 
 
 drink, Sir John had not hitherto succeeded 
 in making Jack take the initiative. He had 
 turned out such a finished and pohshed 
 Enghsh gentleman as his soul delighted in, 
 and now he waited in cynical silence for 
 Jack Meredith to take his hfe into his own 
 hands and do something? brilliant with it. 
 All that he had done up to now had been 
 to prove that he could attain to a greater 
 social popularity than any other man of his 
 age and station ; but this was not exactly the 
 success that Sir John Meredith coveted for 
 his son. He had tasted of this success him- 
 self, and knew its thinness of flavour — its 
 fleeting value. 
 
 Behind his keen old eyes such thoughts 
 as these were passing while he watched Jack 
 go up and claim his dance at the hands of 
 Miss Millicent Chyne. He could almost guess
 
 26 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 what they said ; for Jack was grave and she 
 smiled demurely. They began dancing at 
 once, and as soon as the floor became crowded 
 they disappeared. 
 
 Jack Meredith was an adept at such 
 matters. He knew a seat at the end of a 
 long passage where they could sit, the beheld 
 of all beholders who happened to pass ; but 
 no one could possibly overhear their conver- 
 sation — no one could surprise them. It was 
 essentially a strategical position. 
 
 'Well,' inquired Jack, with a peculiar 
 breathlessness, when they were seated, ' have 
 you thought about it ? ' 
 
 She gave a little nod. 
 
 They seemed to be taking up some con- 
 versation at a point where it had been 
 dropped on a previous occasion. 
 
 ^ And ? ' he inquired suavely. The society 
 
 I
 
 OVER THE OLD GROUND 27 
 
 polish was very thickly coated over the man ; 
 but his eyes had a hungry look. 
 
 By way of reply her gloved hand crept 
 out towards his, which rested on tlie chair 
 at his side. 
 
 ' Jack ! ' she whispered ; and that was all. 
 
 It was very prettily done, and quite 
 naturally. He was a judge of such matters, 
 and appreciated the girhsh simplicity of the 
 action. 
 
 He took the small gloved hand and pressed 
 it lovingly. The thoroughness of his social 
 training prevented any further display of 
 affection. 
 
 ' Thank Heaven ! ' he murmured. 
 
 They were essentially of the nineteenth 
 century — these two. At a previous dance 
 he had asked her to marry him ; she had 
 deferred her answer, and now she had given
 
 28 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 it. These little matters are all a question of 
 taste. We do not kneel nowadays, either 
 physically or morally. If we are a trifle 
 offhand, it is the women who are to blame. 
 They should not write in magazines of a 
 doubtful reputation in language devoid of the 
 benefit of the doubt. They are equal to us. 
 Bien I One does not kneel to an equal. A 
 better writer than any of us says that men 
 serve women kneeling, and when they get to 
 their feet they go away. We are being 
 hauled up to our feet now. 
 
 ' But ? ' becran the mi\ and went no 
 
 further. 
 
 'But what?' 
 
 ' There will be difficulties.' 
 
 ' Xo doubt,' he answered with quiet 
 mockery. ' There always are. I will see to 
 them. Difficulties are not without a cer-
 
 OVER THE OLD GROUXD 29 
 
 tain advantage. They ' keep one on the 
 -alert.' 
 
 'Your father,' said the girl. ' Sir John — 
 he will object.' 
 
 Jack Meredith reflected for a moment, 
 lazily, with that leisureliness which gave a 
 sense of repose to his presence. 
 
 ' Possibly,' he admitted gravely. 
 
 'He dishkes me,' said the girl. 'He is 
 one of my failures.' 
 
 ' I did not know you had any. Have you 
 tried ? I cannot quite admit the possibility 
 of failure.' 
 
 Milhcent Chyne smiled. He had empha- 
 sised the last remark with lover-like glance 
 and tone. She was young enough ; her own 
 beauty was new enough to herself to blind 
 her to the possibility mentioned. She had not 
 even got to the stage of classifying as dull all
 
 9 
 
 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 men who did not fall in love with her at first 
 sight. It was her first season, one must re- 
 member. 
 
 'I have not tried very hard,' she said. 
 ' But I don't see why I should not fail.' 
 
 ' That is easily explained.' 
 
 *Why?' 
 
 'Xo looking-glass about.' 
 
 She gave a little pout, but she liked 
 it. 
 
 The music of the next dance was beginning, 
 and, remembering their social obligations, 
 thev both rose. She laid her hand on his 
 arm, and for a moment his fingers pressed 
 hers. He smiled down into her upturned 
 eyes with love, but without passion. He 
 never for a second risked the ' gentleman ' 
 and showed the ' man.' He was suggestive 
 of a forest pool with a smiling rippled surface.
 
 OVEE. THE OLD GROUND 31 
 
 There might be depth, but it was yet un- 
 penetrated. 
 
 ' Shall we go now/ he said, ' and say a few 
 words in passing to my redoubtable father ? 
 It might be effective.' 
 
 ' Yes, if you like,' she answered promptly. 
 Til ere is no more confident being on eartli 
 than a pretty girl in a successful dress. 
 
 They met Sir John at the entrance of the 
 ballroom. He was wanderincr about, taking 
 in a vast deal of detail. 
 
 ' Well, young lady,' he said, with an old- 
 world bow, ' are you having a successful 
 evening ? ' 
 
 Millicent laughed. She never knew quite 
 how to take Sir John. 
 
 ' Yes, I think so, thank you,' she answered, 
 with a pretty smile. ' I am enjoying myself 
 verv much.'
 
 dZ WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 There was just tlie least suggestion of 
 shyness in her manner, and it is just possible 
 that this softened the old cynic's heart, for his 
 manner was kinder and almost fatherly when 
 he spoke again. 
 
 ' Ah ! 'he said, ' at your time of life you 
 do not want much — plenty of partners and a 
 few ices. Both easily obtainable.' 
 
 The last words were turned mto a comph- 
 ment by the courtly inclination of the head 
 that accompanied them. 
 
 The exigencies of the moment forced the 
 young people to go with the stream. 
 
 ' Jack,' said Sir John, as they passed on, 
 ' when you have been deprived of Miss 
 Ohyne's society, come and console yourself 
 with a glass of sherry.' 
 
 The dutiful son nodded a semi-indiflerent 
 acquiescence and disappeared.
 
 OVER THE OLD GROUXD 33 
 
 ' Wonderful thing, sherry ! ' observed 
 Sir John Meredith for his own edifica- 
 tion. 
 
 He waited there until Jack returned, and 
 then they set off in search of refreshment. 
 The son seemed to know his whereabouts 
 better than the father. 
 
 ' This way,' he said, ' through the con- 
 servatory.' 
 
 Amidst the palms and tropical ferns Sir 
 John paused. A great deal of care had been 
 devoted to this conservatory. Half hidden 
 among languorous scented flowers were a 
 thousand tiny lights, while overhead in the 
 gloom towered graceful palms and bananas. 
 A fountain murmured pleasantly amidst a 
 cluster of maidenhairs. The music from the 
 ballroom fell softly over all. 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 Sir John Meredith and his son stood in 
 silence, looking around them. Finally their 
 eyes met. 
 
 ' Are you in earnest with that girl ? ' asked 
 Sir John abruptly. 
 
 ' I am,' replied Jack. He was smiling 
 pleasantly. 
 
 ' And you think there is a chance of her 
 marrying you — unless, of course, something 
 better turns up ? ' 
 
 ' With all due modesty T do/ 
 
 Sir John's hand was at his mouth. He 
 stood up his full six feet two and looked hard 
 at his son, whose eyes were level with his 
 own. They were ideal representatives of their 
 school. 
 
 ' And what do you propose marrying 
 upon? She, I understand, has about eight 
 hundred a year. I respect you too much to
 
 OVER THE OLD GROUJ^D 35 
 
 suspect any foolish notions of love in a 
 cottage.' 
 
 Jack Meredith made no reply. He was 
 entirely dependent upon his father. 
 
 ' Of course,' said Sir John, ' when I die you 
 will be a baronet, and there will be enough 
 to live on like a gentleman. You had better 
 tell Miss Chyne that. She may not know it. 
 Girls are so innocent. But I am not dead yet, 
 and I shall take especial care to live some 
 time.' 
 
 ' In order to prevent my marriage ? ' 
 suggested Jack. He was still smiling, and 
 somehow Sir John felt a little uneasy. He 
 did not understand that smile. 
 
 ' Precisely so,' he said, rather indistinctly. 
 
 ' What is your objection ? ' inquired Jack 
 Meredith, after a httle pause. 
 
 ' I object to the girl.' 
 
 D 2
 
 6 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 * Upon what grounds ? ' 
 
 ' I should prefer you to marry a woman 
 of heart.' 
 
 ' Heart ? ' repeated Jack, with a suspicion 
 of hereditary cynicism. ' I do not think heart 
 is of much consequence. Besides, in this 
 case, surely that is my province I you would 
 not have her wear it on her sleeve ? ' 
 
 'She could not do that: not enough 
 sleeve.' 
 
 Sir John Meredith had his own views on 
 ladies' dress. 
 
 ' But,' he added, ' we will not quarrel. 
 Arrange matters with the young lady as best 
 you can. I shall never approve of such a 
 match, and without my approval you cannot 
 well marry.' 
 
 ' I do not admit that.' 
 
 ' Indeed ! '
 
 OVER THE OLD GROUND 37 
 
 ' Your approval means money/ explained 
 this dutiful son politely. ' I might manage to 
 make the money for myself.' 
 
 Sir John moved away. 
 
 ' You might,' he admitted, looking back. 
 ' I should be very glad to see you doing so. 
 It is an excellent thing — money.' 
 
 And he walked leisurely away.
 
 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 CHAPTER ni 
 
 A FAKEWELL 
 
 Since called 
 The Paradise of Fools, to few unknown. 
 
 Hayixg been taught to take all the chances 
 and changes of life with a well-bred calmness 
 of demeanour, Jack Meredith turned the 
 teaching against the instructor. He pursued 
 the course of his social duties without ap- 
 pearing to devote so much as a thought to 
 the quarrel which had taken place in the 
 conservatory. His smile was as ready as 
 ever, his sight as keen where an elderly lady 
 looked hungry, his laughter as near the sur- 
 face as society demands. It is probable that
 
 A FAREWELL o9 
 
 Sir John suffered more, though he betrayed 
 nothing. Youth has the upper hand in these 
 cases, for hfe is a larger thing when we are 
 young. As we get on in years, our eggs, 
 to use a homely simile, have a way of ac- 
 cumulating into one basket. 
 
 At eleven o'clock the next morning Sir 
 John Meredith's valet intimated to his master 
 that Mr. Meredith was waiting in the break- 
 fast-room. Sir John was in the midst of his 
 toilet — a complicated affair, which, like other 
 works of art, would not bear contemplation 
 when incomplete. 
 
 'Tell him,' said the uncompromising old 
 gentleman, ' that I will come down when I 
 am ready.' 
 
 He made a more careful toilet than usual, 
 and finally came down in a gay tweed suit, 
 of which the general effect was distinctly
 
 40 "WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 heightened by a pair of white gaiters. He 
 was upright, trim, and perfectly determined. 
 Jack noted that his clothes looked a little 
 emptier than usual — that was alL 
 
 ' Well,' said the father, ' I suppose we 
 both made fools of ourselves last night.' 
 
 ' I have not yet seen you do that,' replied 
 the son, laying aside the morning paper 
 which he had been reading. 
 
 Sir John smiled grimly. He hoped that 
 Jack was right. 
 
 ' Well,' he added, ' let us call it a differ- 
 ence of opinion.' 
 
 ' Yes.' 
 
 Something in the monosyllable made the 
 old gentleman's lips twitch nervously. 
 
 ' I may mention,' he said, with a dan- 
 gerous suavity, ' that I still hold to my 
 opinion.'
 
 A FAREWELL 41 
 
 Jack Meredith rose, without haste. This, 
 like the interview of the previous night, was 
 conducted upon strictly high-bred and gentle- 
 manly lines. 
 
 ' And I to mine,' he said. ' That is why 
 I took the hberty of calling at this early 
 hour. I thought that perhaps we might 
 effect some sort of a compromise.' 
 
 ' It is very good of you to make the pro- 
 posal.' Sir John kept his fingers away from 
 his lips by an obvious exercise of self-control. 
 ' I am not partial to compromises : they 
 savour of commerce.' 
 
 Jack gave a queer, curt nod, and moved 
 towards the door. Sir John extended his 
 unsteady hand and rang the bell. 
 
 ' Good-morning,' he said. 
 
 'Graves,' he added, to the servant who 
 stood in the doorway, ' when you have closed
 
 42 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 the door behind Mr. Meredith, bring up 
 breakfast, if you please.' 
 
 On the doorstep Jack Meredith looked at 
 his watch. He had an appointment with 
 Millicent Chyne at half-past eleven — an hour 
 when Lady Cantourne might reasonably be 
 expected to be absent at the weekly meeting 
 of a society which, under the guise and 
 nomenclature of friendship, busied itself in 
 making servant girls discontented with their 
 situations. 
 
 It was only eleven o'clock. Jack turned 
 to the left, out of the quiet but fashionable 
 street, and a few steps took him to Piccadilly. 
 He went into the first jeweller's shop he saw, 
 and bought a plain diamond ring. Then he 
 walked on to keep his appointment with his 
 affianced wife. 
 
 Miss Millicent Chyne was waiting for him
 
 A FAREWELL 43 
 
 with that mixture of maidenly feehngs of 
 which the discreet novehst only details a 
 selection. It is not customary to dwell upon 
 thoughts of vague regret at the approaching 
 withdrawal of a universal admiration — at the 
 future necessity for discreet and humdrum 
 behaviour quite devoid of the excitement 
 that lurks in a double meaning. Let it, 
 therefore, be ours to note the outward signs 
 of a very natural emotion. Miss Chyne 
 noted them herself with care, and not with- 
 out a few deft touches to hair and dress. 
 When Jack Meredith entered the room she 
 was standing near the window, holding back 
 the curtain with one hand and watching, 
 half shyly, for his advent. 
 
 What struck her at once was his gravity ; 
 and he must have seen the droop in her eyes, 
 for he immediately assumed the pleasant, half-
 
 44 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 reckless smile which the world of London 
 society had learnt to associate with his name. 
 He played the lover rather well, with that 
 finish and absence of self-consciousness which 
 only comes from sincerity ; and when Miss 
 Chyne found opportunity to look at him a 
 second time she was fully convinced that she 
 loved him. She was, perhaps, carried off 
 her feet a little — metaphorically speaking, of 
 course — by his evident sincerity. At that 
 moment she would have done anything that 
 he had asked her. The pleasures of society, 
 the social amenities of aristocratic life, seemed 
 to have vanished suddenly into thin air, and 
 only love was left. She had always known 
 that Jack Meredith was superior in a thousand 
 ways to all her admirers. More gentlemanly, 
 more truthful, honester, nobler, more worthy 
 of love. Beyond that, he was cleverer, de-
 
 A FAREWELL 45 
 
 spite a certain laziness of disposition — more 
 brilliant and more amusing. He had always 
 been to a great extent tlie cliosen one ; and 
 yet it was with a certain surprise and sense 
 of unreality that she found what she had 
 drifted into. She saw the diamond ring, and 
 looked upon it with the beautiful emotions 
 aroused by those small stones in the female 
 breast ; but she did not seem to recognise her 
 own finger within the golden hoop. 
 
 It was at this moment — while she dwelt 
 in this new unreal world — tliat he elected to 
 tell her of his quarrel with his father. And 
 when one walks through a maze of unrealities 
 nothing seems to come amiss or to cause 
 surprise. He detailed the very words they 
 had used, and to Milhcent Chyne it did not 
 sound like a real quarrel such as might affect 
 two Hves to their very end. It was not
 
 46 WITH EEGED TOOLS 
 
 important. It did not come into her life ; for 
 at that moment she did not know what her 
 life was. 
 
 * And so,' said Jack Meredith, finishing his 
 story, ' we have begun badly — as badly as 
 the most romantic might desire.' 
 
 ' Yes, theoretically it is consoling. But I 
 am sorry. Jack, very sorry. I hate quarrel- 
 ling with anybody.' 
 
 ' So do I. I haven't time as a rule. But 
 the old gentleman is so easy to quarrel with, 
 he takes all the trouble.' 
 
 'Jack,' she said, with pretty determina- 
 tion, ' you must go and say you are sorry. 
 Go now ! I wish I could go with you.' 
 
 But Meredith did not move. He was 
 smiling at her in evident admiration. She 
 looked very pretty with that determined little 
 pout of the lips, and perhaps she knew it.
 
 A FAREWELL 47 
 
 Moreover, he did not seem to attach so much 
 importance to the thought as to the result — 
 to the mind as to the hps. 
 
 ' Ah ! ' he said, ' you do not know the old 
 gentleman. That is not our way of doing 
 things. We are not expansive.' 
 
 His face was grave again, and she noticed 
 it with a sudden throb of misgiving. She 
 did not want to begin taking life seriously so 
 soon. It was like going back to school in the 
 middle of the holidays. 
 
 ' But it will be all right in a day or two, 
 will it not ? It is not serious,' she said. 
 
 ' I am afraid it is serious, Millicent.' 
 
 He took her hand with a gravity which 
 made matters worse. 
 
 ' What a pity ! ' she exclaimed ; and some- 
 how both the words and the speaker rang 
 shallow. She did not seem to grasp the
 
 48 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 situation, which was perhaps beyond her 
 reach. But she did the next best thing. She 
 looked puzzled, pretty and helpless. 
 
 ' What is to be done. Jack ? ' she said, 
 laying her two hands on his breast and look- 
 ing up pleadingly. 
 
 There was something in the man's clear- 
 cut face — something beyond aristocratic 
 repose — as he looked down into her eyes — 
 something which Sir John Meredith might 
 perhaps have liked to see there. To all men 
 comes, soon or late, the moment wherein 
 their lives are suddenly thrust into their own 
 hands to shape or spoil, to make or mar. It 
 seemed that where a clever man had failed, 
 this light-hearted girl was about to succeed. 
 Two small clinging hands on Jack Meredith's 
 breast had apparently wrought more than 
 all Sir John's care and foresight. At last the
 
 A FAREWELL 49 
 
 light of energy gleamed in Jack Meredith's 
 lazy eyes. At last he faced the ' initiative,' 
 and seemed in no wise abashed. 
 
 ' There are two things,' he answered ; ' a 
 small choice.' 
 
 ' Yes.' 
 
 ' The first and the simplest,' he went on in 
 the tone of voice which she had never quite 
 fathomed — half cynical, half amused — ' is to 
 pretend that last night — never was.' 
 
 He waited for her verdict. 
 
 ' We will not do that,' she replied softly ; 
 ' we will take the other alternative, what- 
 ever it is.' 
 
 She glanced up half shyly beneath her 
 lashes, and he felt that no difficulty couJd 
 affright him. 
 
 ' The other is generally supposed to be 
 very difficult,' he said. ' It means — waiting.' 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 'Oh,' she answered cheerfully, 'there is 
 no hurry. I do not want to be married yet.' 
 
 ' Waiting perhaps for years,' he added — 
 and he saw her face drop. 
 
 'Why?' 
 
 ' Because I am dependent on my father 
 for everything. We could not marry without 
 his consent.' 
 
 A peculiar, hard look crept into her eyes, 
 and in some subtle way it made her look 
 older. After a little pause she said : 
 
 'But we can surely get that — between 
 
 us : 
 
 ' I propose doing without it.'* 
 
 She looked up — past him — out of the 
 window. All the youthfulness seemed to 
 have left her face, but he did not appear to 
 see that. 
 
 ' How can you do so ? '
 
 A FAREWELL 51 
 
 ' Well, I can work. I suppose I must be 
 good for sometliing — a bountiful Providence 
 must surely have seen to that. The difficulty 
 is to find out what it intends me for. We 
 are not called in the night nowadays to a 
 special mission — we have to find it out for 
 ourselves.' 
 
 ' Do you know what I should like you to 
 be ? ' she said, with a bright smile and one of 
 those sudden descents into shallowness which 
 he appeared to like. 
 
 ' What ? ' 
 
 'A politician.' 
 
 ' Then I shall be a politician,' he answered 
 with lover- like promptness. 
 
 ' That would be very nice,' she said ; and 
 the castles she at once began to build were 
 not entirely aerial in their structure. 
 
 This was not a new idea. They had 
 
 E 2 
 
 *^ OF ILL Lia
 
 52 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 talked of politics before as a possible career 
 for himself. They had moved in a circle 
 where politics and politicians held a first 
 place — a circle removed above the glamour 
 of art, and wherein Bohemianism was not 
 reckoned an attraction. She knew that be- 
 hind his listlessness of manner he possessed a 
 certain steady energy, perfect self-command, 
 and that combination of self-confidence and 
 indifference which usually attains success in 
 the world. She was ambitious not only for 
 herself, but for him, and she was shrewd 
 enough to know that the only safe outlet for 
 a woman's ambition is the channel of a 
 husband's career. 
 
 ' But,' he said, ' it will mean waiting.' 
 He paused, and then the worldly wisdom 
 which he had learnt from his father— that 
 worldly wisdom which is sometimes called
 
 A FAREWELL 53 
 
 cynicism — prompted liim to lay the matter 
 before her in its worst lio'lit. 
 
 ' It will mean waiting for a couple of 
 years at least. And for you it will mean the 
 dulness of a long engagement, and the 
 anomalous position of an engaged girl with- 
 out her rightful protector. It w^ill mean that 
 your position in society will be quite dif- 
 ferent — that half the world will pity you, 
 while the other half thinks you — well, a fool 
 for your pains.' 
 
 'I don't care,' she answered. 
 
 ' Of course,' he went on, ' I must go away. 
 That is the only way to get on in politics in 
 these days. I must go away and get a 
 speciality. I must know more about some 
 country than any other man ; and when I 
 come back I must keep that country ever 
 before the eye of the intelligent British work-
 
 54 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 man who reads the halfpenny evening paper. 
 That is fame — those are pohtics.' 
 
 She laughed. There seemed to be no fear 
 of her taking life too seriously yet. And, 
 truth to tell, he did not appear to wish her 
 to do so. 
 
 ' But you must not go very far,' she said 
 sweetly. 
 
 ' Africa.' 
 
 ' Africa ? That does not sound interesting.' 
 
 ' It is interesting : moreover, it is the 
 coming country. I may be able to make 
 money out there, and money is a necessity at 
 present.' 
 
 ' I do not like it. Jack,' she said in a 
 foreboding voice. ' When do you go ? ' 
 
 ' At once — in fact, I came to say good- 
 bye. It is better to do these things very 
 promptly — to disappear before the onlookers
 
 A FAREWELL 55 
 
 have quite understood what is happening. 
 When they begin to understand, they begin 
 to interfere. They cannot help it. I will 
 write to Lady Canto urne if you like.' 
 
 ' No, I will tell her.' 
 
 So he bade her good-bye, and those 
 things that lovers say were duly said ; but 
 they are not for us to chronicle. Such words 
 are better left to be remembered or forgotten 
 as time and circumstance and result may 
 decree. For one may never tell what words 
 will do when they are laid within the years 
 like the little morsel of leaven that leaveneth 
 the whole.
 
 56 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 CHAPTEE lY 
 
 A TRAGEDY 
 
 Who knows ? the man is proven by the hour. 
 
 In his stately bedroom on the second floor 
 of the quietest house in Eussell Square Mr. 
 Thomas Oscard — the eccentric Oscard — lay, 
 perhaps, a-dying. 
 
 Thomas Oscard had written the finest his- 
 tory of an extinct people that had ever been 
 penned ; and it has been decreed that he who 
 writes a fine history or paints a fine picture 
 can hardly be too eccentric. Our business, 
 however, does not lie in the life of this his- 
 torian — a life v/hich certain grave wiseacres 
 from the West End had shaken their heads
 
 A TRAGEDY 57 
 
 over a few hours before we find liira lying 
 prone on a four-poster, counting for the thou- 
 sandth time the number of tassels fringing the 
 roof of it. In bold contradiction to the medi- 
 cal opinion, the nurse was, however, hopeful. 
 Whether this comforting condition of mind 
 arose from long experience of the ways of 
 doctoi^s, or from an acquired philosophy, it is 
 not our place to inquire. But that her opinion 
 was sincere is not to be doubted. She had, 
 as a matter of fact, gone to the pantomime, 
 leaving the patient under the immediate eye 
 of his son, Guy Oscard 
 
 The temporary nurse was sitting in a cre- 
 tonne-covered arm-chair, with a book of travel 
 on his knee, and thoughts of Millicent Chyne 
 in his mind. The astute have no doubt dis- 
 covered ere this that the mind of Mr. Guy 
 Oscard was a piece of mental mechanism more
 
 58 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 noticeable for solidity of structure than brilli- 
 ancy or rapidity of execution. Thoughts and 
 ideas and principles had a strange way of 
 getting mixed up with the machinery, and 
 sticking there. Guy Oscard had, for instance, 
 concluded some years before that the Win- 
 chester rifle was, as he termed it, ' no go ' ; 
 and, if the Pope of Eome and the patentee of 
 the firearm in question had crossed Europe 
 upon their bended knees to persuade him to 
 use a Winchester rifle, he would have received 
 them with a pleasant smile and an ofier of re- 
 freshment. He would have listened to their 
 arguments with that patience of manner which 
 characterises men of large stature, and for the 
 rest of his days he would have continued to 
 follow big game with an ' Express ' double- 
 barrelled rifle as heretofore. Men who decide 
 such smaller matters as these for themselves.
 
 A TEAGEDY 59 
 
 after mature and somewhat slow consideration, 
 have a way of also deciding the large issues 
 of life without pausing to consider either ex- 
 pediency or the experience of their neigh- 
 bours. 
 
 During the last forty-eight hours Guy 
 Oscard had made the decision that life without 
 Milhcent Chyne would not be worth having, 
 and in the hush of the great house he was 
 pondering over this new feature in his exist- 
 ence. Like all deliberate men, he was placidly 
 sanguine. Something in the life of savage 
 sport that he had led had no doubt taught 
 him to rely upon his own nerve and capacity 
 more than do most men. It is the indoor 
 atmosphere that contains the germ of pessi- 
 mism. 
 
 His thoughts cannot have been disturbing, 
 for presently his eyes closed and he appeared
 
 60 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 to be slumbering. If it was sleep, it was the 
 light unconsciousness of the traveller ; for a 
 sound so small, that waking ears could scarce 
 have heard it, caused him to hft his lashes 
 cautiously. It was the sound of bare feet on 
 carpet. 
 
 Through his lashes Guy Oscard saw his 
 father standing on the hearthrug within two 
 yards of him. There was something strange, 
 something unnatural and disturbing, about 
 the movements of the man that made Guy 
 keep quite still — watching him. 
 
 Upon the mantlepiece the medicine bottles 
 were arranged in a row, and the ' eccentric 
 Oscard ' was studying the labels with a fever- 
 ish haste. One bottle — a blue one — bore two 
 labels : the smaller, of brilhant orange colour, 
 with the word ' Poison ' in startling simplicity. 
 He took this up and slowly drew the cork.
 
 A TKAGEDY 61 
 
 It was a liniment for neuralgic pains in an 
 overwrought head— belladonna. He poured 
 some into a medicine -glass, carefully measur- 
 ing two tablespoonsful. 
 
 Then Guy Oscard sprang up and wrenched 
 the glass away from him, throwing the con- 
 tents into the fire, which flared up. Quick 
 as thought, the bottle was at the sick man's 
 lips. He was a heavily biult man with power- 
 ful hmbs. Guy seized his arm, closed with 
 him, and for a moment there was a deadly 
 struggle, while the pungent odour of the 
 poison filled the atmosphere. At last Guy 
 fell back on art : he tripped his father cleverly, 
 and they both rolled on the fioor. 
 
 The sick man still gripped the bottle, but 
 he could not get it to his hps. He poured 
 some of the stuff over his son's face, but for- 
 tunately missed his eyes. They struggled on
 
 62 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 the floor in the dim light, panting and gasping, 
 but speaking no word. The strength of the 
 elder man was unnatural — -it frightened the 
 younger and stronger combatant. 
 
 At last Guy Oscard got his knee on his 
 father's neck, and bent his wrist back until he 
 was forced to let go his hold on the bottle. 
 
 ' Get back to bed ! ' said the son breath- 
 lessly. ' Get back to bed.' 
 
 Thomas Oscard suddenly changed his 
 tactics. He whined and cringed to his own 
 oflspring, and begged him to give him the 
 bottle. He dragged across the floor on his 
 knees — three thousand pounds a year on its 
 knees to Guy Oscard, who wanted that 
 money because he knew that he would never 
 get Millicent Chyne without it. 
 
 ' Get back to bed,' repeated Guy sternly.
 
 A TRAGEDY 63 
 
 and at last the man crept sullenly between the 
 rumpled sheets. 
 
 Guy put things straight in a simple, man- 
 like way. The doctor's instructions were 
 quite clear. If any sign of excitement or 
 mental unrest manifested itself, the sleeping- 
 draught contained in a small bottle on the 
 mantlepiece was to be administered at once, 
 or the consequences would be fatal. But 
 Thomas Oscard refused to take it. He seemed 
 determined to kill himself. The son stood 
 over him and tried threats, persuasion, 
 prayers ; and all the while there was in his 
 heart the knowledge that, unless his father 
 could be made to sleep, the reputed three 
 thousand a year would be his before the 
 morning. 
 ^ It was worse than the actual physical
 
 64 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 struggle on the floor. The temptation was 
 almost too strong. 
 
 After awhile the sick man became quieter, 
 but he still refused to take the opiate. He 
 closed his eyes and made no answer to Guy's 
 repeated supphcation. Finally he ceased 
 shaking his head in negation, and at last 
 breathed regularly like a child asleep. 
 
 Afterwards Guy Oscard reproached himself 
 for suspecting nothing. But he knew nothing 
 of brain diseases — those strange maladies that 
 kill the human in the human being. He 
 knew, however, why his father had tried to 
 kill himself. It was not the first time. It 
 was panic. He was afraid of going mad, of 
 dying mad like his father before him. People 
 called him eccentric. Some said that he was 
 mad. But it was not so. It was only fear of 
 madness. He was still asleep when the nurse
 
 A TRAGEDF 6o 
 
 came back from tlie pantomime in a cab, and 
 Guy crept softly downstairs to let her in. 
 
 They stood in the hall for some time while 
 Guy told her in whispers about the belladonna 
 liniment. Then they went upstairs together 
 and found Thomas Oscard — the great his- 
 torian — dead on the floor. The liniment 
 bottle,- which Guy had left on the mantle- 
 piece, was in his hand — empty. He had 
 feigned sleep in order to carry out his purpose. 
 He had preferred death, of which the meaning 
 was unknown to him, to the possibility of 
 that living death in which his father had 
 lingered for many years. And who shall 
 say that his thoughts were entirely selfish ? 
 There may have been a father's love some- 
 where in this action. Thomas Oscard, the 
 eccentric savant^ had always been a strong 
 man, independent of the world's opinion. He 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 66 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 had done this thing deliberately, of mature 
 thought, going straight to his Creator with 
 his poor human brain full of argument and 
 reason to prove himself right before the Judge. 
 
 They picked him up and laid him re- 
 verently on the bed, and then Guy went for 
 the doctor. 
 
 ' I could,' said the attendant of Death, 
 when he had heard the whole story — 'I could 
 give you a certificate. I could reconcile it, 
 I mean, with my professional conscience and 
 my — other conscience. He could not have 
 lived thirty hours — there was an abscess on 
 his brain. But I should advise you to face 
 the inquest. It might be ' — he paused, looking 
 keenly into the young fellow's face — ' it might 
 be that at some future date, when you are 
 quite an old man, you may feel inclined to 
 tell this story.'
 
 A TRAGEDY 67 
 
 Again the doctor paused, glancing with a 
 vague smile towards the woman who stood 
 
 beside them. ' Or even nurse ' he added, 
 
 not troubling to finish his sentence. ' We all 
 have our moments of expansiveness. And it 
 is a story that might easily be — discredited.' 
 
 So the ' eccentric Oscard ' finished his 
 earthly career in the intellectual atmosphere 
 of a coroner's jury. And the world rather liked 
 it than otherwise. The world, one finds, does 
 like novelty, even in death. Some day an 
 American will invent a new funeral, and if 
 he can only get the patent, will make a 
 fortune. 
 
 The world was, moreover, pleased to pity 
 Guy Oscard with that pure and simple sym- 
 pathy which is ever accorded to the wealthy 
 in affliction. Every one knew that Thomas 
 Oscard had enjoyed affluence during his life- 
 
 p 2
 
 6S WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 time, and there was no reason to suppose 
 that Guy would not step into very com- 
 fortably lined shoes. It was unfortunate that 
 he should lose liis father in such a tragic 
 way, and the keen eye of the world saw the 
 weak point in his story at once. But the 
 coroner's jury was respectful, and the rest 
 of society never so much as hinted at the 
 possibility that Guy had not tried his best 
 to keep his father ahve. 
 
 Among the letters of sympathy the young 
 fellow received a note from Lady Cantourne, 
 whose acquaintance he had successfully re- 
 newed, and in due course he called at her 
 house in Yere Gardens to express somewhat 
 lamely his gratitude. 
 
 Her ladyship was at home, and Guy 
 Oscard was ushered into her presence. He 
 looked round the room, with a half-sup-
 
 A TEAGEDY 69 
 
 pressed gleam of searching which was not 
 overlooked by Millicent Chyne's aunt. 
 
 ' It is very good of you to call,' she said, 
 ' so soon after your poor father's death. You 
 must have had a great deal of trouble and 
 worry. IMillicent and I have often talked of 
 you, and sympathised with you. She is out 
 at the moment, but I expect her back almost 
 at once. Will you sit down ? ' 
 
 ' Thanks,' he said ; and after he had 
 drawn forward a chair, he repeated the word 
 vaguely and compreliensively — ' Thanks ' — as 
 if to cover as many demands for gratitude as 
 she could make. 
 
 ' I knew your father very well,' continued 
 the lady, ' when we were young. Great 
 things were expected of him. Perhaps he 
 expected them himself That may have ac- 
 counted for a tone of pessimism that always
 
 70 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 seemed to pervade his life Now, you are 
 quite different. You are not a pessimist 
 —eh ? ' 
 
 Guy gravely examined the back of his 
 gloved hand, ' Well, I am afraid I have not 
 given much thought to the question.' 
 
 Lady Cantourne gave him the benefit of 
 a very wise smile. She was unrivalled in 
 the art of turning a young man's mind inside 
 out and shaking it. 
 
 ' No ! you need not apologise. I am glad 
 you have given no thought to it. Thought 
 is the beginning of pessimism, especially with 
 young men ; for if they tliink at all, they 
 naturally think of themselves.' 
 
 ' Well, I suppose I think as much of 
 myself as other people.' 
 
 ' Possibly ; but I doubt it. Will you 
 ring the bell ? We will have some tea.'
 
 A TRAGEDY 71 
 
 He obeyed, and she watclied him with 
 approval. For some reason — possibly be- 
 cause he had not sought it — Lady Cantourne 
 had bestowed her entire approval on this 
 young man. She had been duly informed, a 
 few weeks before this visit, that Miss ]\iillicent 
 Chyne had engaged herself to be married to 
 Jack Meredith whenever that youth should 
 find himself in a position to claim the fulfil- 
 ment of her promise. She said nothing 
 against the choice or the decision, merely 
 observing that she was sorry that Jack had 
 quarrelled with his father. By way of 
 counsel she advised strongly that the eugage- 
 ment be kept as much in the background 
 as possible. She did not, she said, want 
 ]\Iillicent to be a sort of red rag to Sir John, 
 and there was no necessity to publish abroad 
 the lamentable fact that a quarrel had re-
 
 72 TTITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 suited from a very natural and convenient 
 attacliment. Sir John was a faddist, and, 
 like the rest of his kind, eminently pig- 
 headed. It was more than likely that in a 
 few months he would recall his son, and, in 
 the meantime, it never did a girl any good 
 to be quarrelled over. 
 
 Lady Cantourne was too clever a woman 
 to object to the engagement. On the con- 
 trary, she allowed it to be understood that 
 such a match was in many ways entirely 
 satisfactory. At the same time, however, 
 she encouraged Guy Oscard to come to the 
 house, know^ing quite well that he was en- 
 tirely unaware of the existence of Jack 
 Meredith. 
 
 ' I am,' she was in the habit of saying, 
 ' a great advocate for allowing young people 
 to manage their aflairs themselves. One
 
 A TRAGEDY 73 
 
 young man, if he be the right one, has 
 more influence with a girl than a thousand 
 old women ; and it is just possible that he 
 knows better than they do what is for her 
 happiness. It is the interference that makes 
 mischief.' 
 
 So she did not interfere. She merely in- 
 vited Guy Oscard to stay to tea.
 
 74 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 Do not give dalliance 
 Too much the rein ; the strongest oaths are straw 
 To the fire i' the blood. 
 
 ' AxD what do you intend to do with yourself? ' 
 asked Lady Cantourne when she had poured 
 out tea. ' You surely do not intend to mope 
 in that dismal house in Eussell Square ? ' 
 
 ' No, I shall let it if I can.' 
 
 ' Oh, you will have no difficulty in doing 
 that. People live in Eussell Square again 
 now, and try to make one believe that it is a 
 fashionable quarter. Your father stayed on 
 there because the carpets fitted the rooms, 
 and on account of other ancestral conve-
 
 WITH EDGED TOOLS 75 
 
 niences. He did not live there — he knew 
 nothing of his immediate environments. He 
 lived in Phoenicia.' 
 
 ' Then,' continued Guy Oscard, ' I shall go 
 abroad.' 
 
 ' Ah ! Will you have a second cup ? Why 
 will you go abroad ? ' 
 
 Guy Oscard paused for a moment. ' I 
 know an old hippopotamus in a certain 
 African river who has twice upset me. I 
 want to go back and shoot him.' 
 
 ' Don't go at once ; that would be running 
 away from it — not from the hippopotamus — 
 from the inquest. It does not matter being 
 upset in an African river ; but you must not 
 be upset in London by — an inquest.' 
 
 ' I did not propose going at once,' replied 
 Guy Oscard, with a peculiar smile which 
 Lady Cantourne thought she understood. ' It
 
 76 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 will take me some time to set my affairs in 
 order — the will, and all that.' 
 
 Lady Cantourne waited with perfectly 
 suppressed curiosity, and while she was 
 waiting Millicent Chyne came into the room. 
 The girl was dressed with her habitual perfect 
 taste and success, and she came forward with 
 a smile of genuine pleasure, holding out a 
 small hand neatly gloved in Suede. Her 
 ladyship was looking not at Millicent, but at 
 Guy Oscard. 
 
 Millicent was glad that he had called, and 
 said so. She did not add that during the three 
 months that had elapsed since Jack Meredith's 
 sudden departure she had gradually recog- 
 nised the approaching ebb of a very full tide 
 of popularity. It was rather dull at times, 
 when Jack's letters arrived at intervals of two 
 and sometimes of three weeks — when her girl
 
 TTITH EDGED TOOLS 77 
 
 friends allowed her to see somewhat plainly 
 that she was no longer to be counted as one 
 of themselves. An engagement sits as it were 
 on a young lady like a weak heart on a 
 schoolboy, setting her apart in work and play, 
 debarring her from participation in that game 
 of life which is ever going forward where 
 young folks do congregate. 
 
 Moreover, she Hked Guy Oscard. He 
 aroused her curiosity. There was something 
 in him — something which she vaguely sus- 
 pected to be connected with herself — which 
 she wanted to drag out and examine. She 
 possessed more than the usual allowance of 
 curiosity — which is saying a good deal ; for 
 one may take it that the beginning of all 
 things in the feminine mind is curiosity. They 
 want to know what is inside Love before they 
 love. Guy Oscard was a new specimen of
 
 78 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 the genus liomo ; and while remaining per- 
 fectly faithful to Jack, Miss Millicent Chyne 
 saw no reason why she should not pass the 
 time by studying him, merely, of course, 
 in a safe and innocent manner. She was 
 one of those intelligent young ladies who 
 think deeply — about young men. And such 
 thinking usually takes the form of speculation 
 as to how the various specimens selected will 
 act under specified circumstances. The cir- 
 cumstances need hardly be mentioned. Young 
 men are only interesting to young women in 
 circumstances strictly personal to and bearing 
 upon themselves. In a word, maidens of a 
 speculative mind are always desirous of finding 
 out how different men will act when they are 
 in love ; and we all know and cannot fail to 
 applaud the assiduity with which they pursue 
 their studies.
 
 WITH EDGED TOOLS 79 
 
 ' Ah ! ' said ]\Iiss Chyne, ' it is very good of 
 you to take pity upon two lone females. I 
 was afraid that you had gone off to the wilds 
 of America or somewhere in search of bigr 
 game. Do you know, Mr. Oscard, you are 
 quite a celebrity ? I heard you called the 
 " big-game man " the other day, also the 
 " travelling fellow." ' 
 
 The specimen smiled happily under this 
 delicate handling. 
 
 ' It is not,' he said modestly, ' a very lofty 
 fame. Anybody could let off a rifle.' 
 
 ' I am afraid I could not,' replied Millicent, 
 with a pretty little shudder of horror, ' if 
 anything growled.' 
 
 ' Mr. Oscard has just been telling me,' 
 interposed Lady Cantourne conversationally, 
 ' that he is thinking of going off to the wilds 
 again.'
 
 80 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 ' Then it is very disappointing of him,' 
 said Milhcent, with a httle droop of the eye- 
 hds which went home. ' It seems to be only 
 the uninteresting people who stay at home 
 and live humdrum lives of enormous dura- 
 tion.' 
 
 ' He seems to think that his friends are 
 going to cast him oif because his poor father 
 died without the assistance of a medical man,' 
 continued the old lady meaningly. 
 
 ' Xo — I never said that, Lady Cantourne.' 
 
 ' But you imphed it.' 
 
 Guy Oscard shook his head. ' I hate 
 being a notoriety,' he said. ' I like to pass 
 through with the crowd. If I go away for 
 a little while I shall return a nonentity.' 
 
 At this moment another visitor was an- 
 nounced, and presently made his appearance. 
 He was an old gentleman of no personality
 
 WITH EDGED TOOLS 81 
 
 whatever, who was nevertheless welcomed 
 effusively, because two people in the room 
 had a distinct use for him. Lady Cantourne 
 was exceedingly gracious. She remembered 
 instantly that horticulture was among his 
 somewhat antiquated accomplishments, and 
 she was immediately consumed with a desire 
 to show him the conservatory which she had 
 had built outside the drawing-room window. 
 She took a genuine interest in this abode of 
 flowers, and watered the plants herself with 
 much enthusiasm — when she remembered. 
 
 Added to a number of positive virtues the 
 old gentleman possessed that of abstaining 
 from tea, which enabled the two horticul- 
 turists to repair to the conservatory at once, 
 leaving the young people alone at the other 
 end of the drawing-room. 
 
 Millicent smoothed her gloves with down- 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 cast eyes and that demure air by which the 
 talented fair imply the consciousness of being 
 alone and out of others' earshot with an 
 interesting member of the stronger sex. 
 
 Guy sat and watched the Suede gloves 
 with a certain sense of placid enjoyment. 
 Then suddenly he spoke, continuing his re- 
 marks where they had been broken off by 
 the advent of the useful old gentleman. 
 
 ' You see,' he said, ' it is only natural that 
 a great many people should give me the 
 cold shoulder. My story was a little lame. 
 There is no reason why they should believe 
 in me.' 
 
 ' I believe in you,' she answered. 
 
 ' Thank you.' 
 
 He looked at her in a strange way, as if 
 he liked her terse creed, and would fain have 
 heard it a second time. Then suddenly he
 
 WITH EDGED TOOLS 83 
 
 leant back with liis head against a corner of 
 the piano. The fronds of a maidenhair fern 
 hanging in dehcate profusion ahnost hid his 
 face. He was essentially muscular in his 
 thoughts, and did not make the most of 
 his dramatic effects. The next remark was 
 made by a pair of long legs ending off with 
 patent-leather boots which were not quite 
 new. The rest of him was invisible. 
 
 ' It was a very unpleasant business,' he 
 said, in a jerky, self-conscious voice. ' I 
 didn't know that I was that sort of fellow. 
 The temptation was very great. I nearly 
 gave in and let him do it. He was a 
 stronger man than I. You know — we did 
 not get on well together. He always hoped 
 that I would turn out a literary sort of 
 fellow, and I suppose he was disappointed. 
 I tried at one time, but I found it was no 
 
 g2
 
 84 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 good. From indifference it turned almost to 
 hatred. He disliked me intensely, and I 
 am afraid I did not care for liim very 
 much.' 
 
 She nodded her head, and he went on. 
 Perhaps he could see her through the 
 maidenhair fern. She was getting more and 
 more interested in this man. He obviously 
 disliked talking of himself — a pleasant change 
 which aroused her curiosity. He w^as so 
 unlike other men, and his life seemed to be 
 different from the lives of the men wdiom 
 she had known — stronger, more intense, and 
 of greater variety of incident. 
 
 ' Of course,' he went on, ' his death was 
 really of enormous advantage to me. They 
 say that I shall have two or three thousand 
 a year, instead of five hundred, paid quarterly 
 at Cox's. He could not prevent it coming
 
 WITH EDGED TOOLS 85 
 
 to me. It was my mother's money. He 
 would have done so if lie could, for we never 
 disguised our antipathy for each other. Yet 
 we lived together, and — and I had the 
 nursing of him.' 
 
 Millicent was listening gravely without in- 
 terrupting — like a man. She had the gift of 
 adapting herself to her environments in a 
 marked degree. 
 
 ' And,' he added curtly, ' no one knows 
 how much I wanted that three thousand a 
 year.' 
 
 The girl moved uneasily, and glanced to- 
 wards the conservatory. 
 
 ' He was not an old man,' Guy Oscard 
 went on. ' He was only forty-nine. He might 
 have lived another thirty years,' 
 
 She nodded, understanding the significance 
 of his tone.
 
 86 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 ' There,' he said with an awkward laugh, 
 ' do you still believe in me ? ' 
 
 ' Yes,' she answered, still looking away. 
 
 There was a little pause. They were both 
 sitting forward in their chairs looking towards 
 the conservatory. 
 
 ' It was not the money that tempted me,' 
 said Guy very deliberately ; ' it was you.' 
 
 She rose from her chair as if to join her 
 aunt and the horticultural old gentleman. 
 
 ' You must not say that,' she said in little 
 more than a whisper, and without looking 
 round she went towards Lady Cantourne. 
 Her eyes were gleaming with a singular sup- 
 pressed excitement, such as one sees in the eyes 
 of a man fresh from a mad run across country. 
 
 Guy Oscard rose also, and followed more 
 deliberately. There was nothing for him to 
 do but to take his leave.
 
 WITH EDGED TOOLS 87 
 
 ' But,' said Lady Cantourne graciously, ' if 
 you are determined to go away you must at 
 least come and say good-bye before you 
 leave.' 
 
 ' Thanks ; I should like to do so, if I 
 may.' 
 
 ' We shall be deeply disappointed if you 
 forget,' said Millicent, holding out her hand, 
 with a smile full of light-heartedness and 
 innocent girlish friendship.
 
 SS WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 CHAPTEE YI 
 
 UNDER THE LII^E 
 
 Enough of simpering and grimace, 
 Enough of Tacuity, trimmed •^ith lace. 
 
 ' Curse this country ! Curse it — curse it ! ' 
 The man spoke aloud, but there was no one 
 near to hear. He shook his skinny yellow^ 
 hst out over the broad river that crept 
 greasily down to the equatorial sea. 
 
 All around him the vegetable kingdom 
 had asserted its sovereignty. At his back 
 loomed a dense forest, impenetrable to the 
 foot of man, defying his jniny hand armed 
 with axe or saw. The trees were not high, 
 few of them being above twenty feet, but
 
 UXDER THE LINE 89 
 
 from their brandies creepers and parasites 
 hung in tangled profusion, interlaced, joining 
 tree to tree for acres, nay for miles. 
 
 As far as the eye could reach either bank 
 of the slow river was thus covered with rank 
 vegetation — mile after mile without variety, 
 without hope. The glassy surface of the 
 water was broken here and there by certain 
 black forms floating hke logs half hidden be- 
 neath the wave. These were crocodiles. The 
 river was the Ogowe, and the man who cursed 
 it was Victor Durnovo, employe of the Loango 
 Trading Association, whose business it was at 
 that season to travel into the interior of 
 Africa to buy, barter, or steal ivory for his 
 masters. 
 
 He was a small-faced man, with a squarely 
 aquiline nose and a black moustache, which 
 hung like a valance over his mouth. From
 
 90 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 the growth of that curtam-hke moustache 
 Victor Durnovo's worldly prosperity might 
 have been said to date. JSTo one seeing his 
 mouth had before that time been prevailed 
 upon to trust him. Nature has a way of 
 hanging out signs and then covering them 
 up, so that the casual fail to see. He was a 
 man of medium height, with abnormally long 
 arms and a somewhat truculent way of walk- 
 ing, as if his foot was ever ready to kick 
 anything or any person who might come in 
 his way. 
 
 His movements were nervous and restless, 
 although he was tired out and half-starved. 
 The irritability of Africa was upon him — had 
 hold over him — gripped him remorselessly. 
 No one knows what it is, but it is there, and 
 sometimes it is responsible for murder. It 
 makes honourable European gentlemen com-
 
 UNDER THE LIXE 91 
 
 mit crimes of which they blush to think in 
 after days. The Powers may draw up 
 treaties and sign the same, but there will 
 never be a peaceful division of the great 
 wasted land so near to Southern Europe. 
 There may be peace in Berlin, or Brussels, 
 or London, but because the atmosphere of 
 Africa is not the same as that of the great 
 cities, there will be no peace beneath the 
 Equator. From the West Coast of Africa to 
 the East men will fight and quarrel and 
 bicker so lono- as human nerves are human 
 nerves. The irritability lurks in the shades 
 of boundless forests where men may starve 
 for want of animal sustenance ; it hovers over 
 the broad bosoms of a hundred slow rivers 
 haunted by the mysterious crocodile, the 
 weird hippopotamus. It is everywhere, and 
 by reason of it men quarrel about trifles and
 
 92 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 descend *to brutal passion over a futile dis- 
 cussion. 
 
 Victor Durnovo had sent his boatmen into 
 the forest to find a few bananas, a few hands- 
 ful of firewood, and while they were absent 
 he gave vent to that wild unreasoning passion 
 which is inhaled into the white man's lungs 
 witli the air of equatorial Africa. For there 
 are moral microbes in the atmosphere of 
 different countries, and we must not judge 
 one land by the laws of another. There is 
 the fatahsm of India, the restlessness of New 
 York, the fear of the Arctic, the irrita- 
 bility of Africa. 
 
 ' Curse this country ! ' he shouted, ' curse 
 it — curse it ! Eiver and tree — man and 
 beast ! ' 
 
 He rose and slouched down to his boat, 
 which lay moored to a siiag alongside the
 
 UKDER THE LINE 93 
 
 bank, trodden hard to the consistency of 
 asphalte by a hundred bare feet. He 
 stepped over the gunwale and made his 
 way aft with a practised balancing step. 
 The after part of the canoe was decked in 
 and closed with lock and key. The key 
 hung at bis watch-chain — a large chain with 
 square links and a suggestive doubtfulness of 
 colour. It might have been gold, but the 
 man who wore it somehow imparted to it a 
 suggestion of baser metal. 
 
 He opened the locker and took from it a 
 small chest. From this he selected a bottle, 
 and, rummaging in the recesses of the locker, 
 he found an unwashed tumbler. Into half a 
 glass of water he dropped a minute quantity 
 from the bottle and drank off the mixture. 
 The passion had left him now, and quite 
 suddenly he looked yellow and very weak.
 
 94 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 He was treating himself scientifically for the 
 irritability to which he had given way. 
 Then he returned to the bank and laid down 
 at full length. The skin of his face must 
 have been giving him great pain, for it was 
 scarlet in places and exuding from sun- 
 blisters. He ]iad long ago given up wiping 
 the perspiration from his brow, and evidently 
 did not care to wash his face. 
 
 Presently a peacefulness seemed to come 
 over him, for his eyes lost their glitter and 
 his heavy lids drooped. His arms were 
 crossed behind his head — before him lay the 
 river. 
 
 Suddenly he sat upright, all eagerness 
 and attention. Xot a leaf stirred. It was 
 about five o'clock in the evening, the stillest 
 hour of the twenty-four. In such a silence the 
 least sound would travel almost any distance,
 
 UXDER THE LIXE 95 
 
 and there was a sound travelling over the 
 water to him. It was nothing but a thud 
 repeated with singular regularity ; but to his 
 practised ears it conveyed much. He knew 
 that a boat was approaching, as yet hidden 
 by some distant curve in the river. The 
 thud was caused by the contact of six 
 paddles with the gunwale of the canoe as 
 the paddlers withdrew them from the water. 
 
 Victor Durnovo rose again and brought 
 from the boat a second rifle, which he laid 
 beside the double-barrelled Eeilly which was 
 never more than a yard away from him, 
 waking or sleeping. Then he waited. He 
 knew that no boat could reach the bank 
 without his full permission, for every rower 
 would be dead before they got within a 
 hundred yards of his rifle. He was pro- 
 bably the best rifle-shot but one in that
 
 96 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 country — and the other, the very best, hap- 
 pened to be in the approaching canoe. 
 
 After the space of ten minutes the boat 
 came in sis^ht — a lonsr black form on the 
 still waters. It was too far away for him to 
 distinguish anything beyond the fact that it 
 was a native boat. 
 
 ' Eight hundred yards,' muttered Durnovo 
 over the sight of his rifle. 
 
 He looked upon this river as his own, 
 and he knew the native of equatorial Africa. 
 Therefore he dropped a bullet into the water, 
 under the bow of the canoe, at eight hundred 
 yards. 
 
 A moment later there was a sound which 
 can only be written ' P-ttt ' between his legs, 
 and he had to wipe a shower of dust from 
 his eyes. A puff of blue smoke rose slowly 
 over the boat and a sharp report broke the 
 silence a second time.
 
 UNDER THE LINE 97 
 
 Then Victor Durnovo leapt to his feet and 
 waved his hat in the air. From the canoe 
 there was an answering greeting, and the 
 man on the bank went to the water's ed^e, 
 still carrying the rifle from which he was 
 never parted. 
 
 Durnovo was the first to speak when tie 
 boat came within hail. 
 
 ' Very sorry,' he shouted. * Thought you 
 were a native boat. Must establish a funk — 
 get in the first shot, you know.' 
 
 ' All right,' replied one of the Europeans 
 in the approaching craft, with a courteous 
 wave of the hand, ' no harm done.' 
 
 There were two white men and six blacks 
 in the long and clumsy boat. One of the 
 Europeans lay in the bows while the other 
 was stretched at his ease in the stern, reclin- 
 ing on the canvas of a neatly-folded tent. 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 WITU EDGED TOOLS 
 
 The last-named was evidently the leader of 
 the little expedition, while the manner and 
 attitude of the man in the bows suggested the 
 servitude of a disciphned soldier slightly re- 
 laxed by abnormal circumstances. 
 
 ' Who fired that shot ? ' inquired Durnovo, 
 wlien there was no longer any necessity to 
 sliout. 
 
 'Joseph,' replied the man in the stern of 
 !:he 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, bring- 
 inc^ the canoe to a standstill, and it was some
 
 UNDER THE LIXE 99 
 
 moments before his extensive mouth sub- 
 mitted to control 
 
 'I presume you are j\Ir. Durnovo,' said 
 the man in the stern of the boat, rising 
 leisurely from his recumbent position and 
 speaking with a courteous savoir-faire whicli 
 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 intrcduction to you from 
 Maurice Gordon, of Loango.' 
 
 Victor Durnovo's dark face chanored 
 
 H 2
 
 100 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 slightly ; his eyes — bilious, fever-shot, un- 
 healthy — 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, impene- 
 trable smile. 
 
 ' I met liim 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 educa- 
 tion was, like other things about him, an 
 unknown quantity. 
 
 ' My name,' continued the tall man, ' is 
 Meredith — John Meredith — sometimes called 
 Jack.'
 
 UNDER THE LINE 101 
 
 They Avere 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. 
 
 ' jSot 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 coloured chaps just as good when 
 they have once got into your ways ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, yes,' muttered Durnovo. He was 
 reading the letter. ' Maurice Gordon,' he 
 continued, ' says you are travelHng for plea-
 
 102 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 sure — just looking about 5^ou. What do you 
 think of it ? ' 
 
 He indicated the dismal prospect with a 
 liarsli laugh. 
 
 ' A bit suggestive of Hell,' he went on, 
 ' eh ? How does it strike you ? ' 
 
 ' Finer timber, I should think,' suggested 
 Jack Meredith, and Durnovo laughed more 
 pleasantly. 
 
 ' The truth is,' he explained, ' that it 
 strikes one as a bit absurd that any man 
 should travel up here for pleasure. If you 
 take my advice you will come down-stream 
 again with me to-morrow.' 
 
 He evidently distrusted him ; and the 
 sidelong, furtive glance suggested vaguely 
 that Victor Durnovo had something farther 
 up this river which he wished to keep 
 concealed.
 
 UNDER THE LINE 10:; 
 
 ' I understand,' answered Meredith with r, 
 half-suppressed yawn, ' that the country gets 
 finer farther up — more mountainous — less 
 suggestive of — Hell.' 
 
 The proprietors of very dark eyes would 
 do well to remember that it is dangerous to 
 glance furtively to one side or the other. 
 The attention of dark eyes is more easily felt 
 than the glances of grey or blue orbs. 
 
 Jack Mereditli's suspicions were aroused 
 by the suspicious manner of his interlocutor. 
 
 ' There is no white man knows this river 
 as I do, and I do not recommend it. Look at 
 me — on the verge of jaundice — look at this 
 wound on my arm ; it began with a scratch 
 and has never healed. All that comes from 
 a month up this cursed river. Take my ad- 
 vice, try somewhere else.' 
 
 ' I certainly shall,' replied Meredith. ' We
 
 ]04 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 will discuss it after dinner. My chap is a first- 
 rate cook. Have you got anything to add to 
 the menu ? ' 
 
 ' Not a thing. I've been living on plan- 
 tains and dried elephant-meat for the last 
 fortnight.' 
 
 ' Doesn't sound nourishing. Well, we are 
 pretty well provided, so perhaps you will give 
 me the pleasure of your company to dinner ? 
 Come as you are : no ceremony. I think I 
 will wash though. It is as well to keep up 
 these old customs/ 
 
 With a pleasant smile he went towards 
 the tent which had just been erected. Joseph 
 was very busy, and his admonishing voice was 
 heard at times. 
 
 ' Here, Johnny, hammer in that peg. Now, 
 old cups and saucers, stop that grinning and 
 fetch me some water. None of your frogs and
 
 UNDER THE LINE 105 
 
 creepy crawly things this time, my blonde 
 beauty, but clean water, comprenny ? ' 
 
 With these and similar lightsome turns of 
 speech was Joseph in the habit of keeping his 
 men up to the mark. The method was emi 
 nently successful. His coloured compeers 
 crowded round him ' all of a grin,' as he him- 
 self described it, and eager to do his slightest 
 behest. From the throne to the back-kitchen 
 the secret of success is the art of managing 
 men — and women.
 
 106 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE SECRET OF THE SIMIACINE 
 
 Surtout, MessieupF, pas de zele. 
 
 StrcH was the meeting of Victor Durnovo and 
 Jack Meredith. Two men with absolutely 
 nothing in common — no taste, no past, no 
 kinship — nothing but the future. Such men 
 as Fate loves to brincr tO(?ether for her own 
 strange purposes. What these purposes are 
 none of us can tell. Some hold that Fate is 
 wise. She is not so yet, but she cannot fail 
 to acquire wisdom some day, because she ex- 
 periments so industriously. She is ever bring- 
 ing about new combinations, and one can only 
 trust that she, the experimenter, is as keenly
 
 THE SECRET OF THE SIMIACIXE 107 
 
 disappointed in the result as are we, the ex- 
 perimented. 
 
 To Jack Meredith Victor Durnovo conveyed 
 the impression of little surprise and a slight 
 local interest. He was a man who was not 
 quite a gentleman ; but for himself Jack did 
 not give great heed to this. He had associ- 
 ated with many such ; for, as has been previ- 
 ously intimated, he had moved in London 
 society where there are many men wiio are 
 not quite gentlemen. The difference of a good 
 coat and that veiled insolence which passes in 
 some circles for the ease of good breeding, 
 had no weight with the keen son of Sir John 
 Meredith, and Victor Durnovo fared no worse 
 in his companion's estimation because he wore 
 a rough coat and gave small attention to 
 his manners. He attracted and held Jack's 
 attention by a certain open-air manliness which
 
 108 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 was in keeping with the situation and with 
 his life. Sportsmen, explorers and wanderers 
 were not new to Jack ; for nowadays one 
 may never know what manner of man is inside 
 a faultless dress-suit. It is an age of disap- 
 pearing, via Charing Cross station in a first- 
 class carriage, to a life of backwooding, living 
 from hand to mouth, starving in desert, 
 prairie, pampas or Arctic wild, with, all the 
 while, a big balance at Cox's. And most of 
 us come back again and put on the dress-suit 
 and the white tie with a certain sense of rest- 
 fulness and comfort. 
 
 Jack Meredith had known many such. 
 He had, in a small way, done the same himself. 
 But he had never met one of the men who do 
 not go home — who possess no dress-coat and 
 no use for it — whose business it is to go about 
 with a rifle in one hand and their life in the
 
 THE SECRET OF THE SIMIACINE 109 
 
 other — who risk their lives because it is their 
 trade and not their pleasure. 
 
 Durnovo could not understand the new- 
 comer at ail. He saw at once that this was 
 one of those British aristocrats who do strange 
 things in a very strange way. In a degree 
 Meredith reminded him of Maurice Gordon, 
 the man whose letter of introduction was at 
 that moment serving to light the camp fire. 
 But it was Maurice Gordon without that semi- 
 sensual weakness of purpose which made him 
 the boon companion of Tom, Dick, or Harry, 
 provided that one of those was only with him 
 long enough. There was a vast depth of 
 reserve — of indefinable possibilities, which 
 puzzled Durnovo, and in some subtle way 
 inspired fear. 
 
 In that part of Africa which lies within 
 touch of the Equator, life is essentially a
 
 110 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 strii^^o-le. There is liiiiio'er about, and where 
 hunger is the emotions will be found also. 
 NoAV, Jack Meredith was a past-master in the 
 concealment of these, and, as such, came to 
 Victor Durnovo in the guise of a new 
 creation. lie had lived the latter and the 
 larger part of his life among men who said, 
 in action if not in words, I am hungry, or I 
 am thirsty ; I want this, or I want that ; and 
 if you are not strong enough to keep it, I 
 will take it from you. 
 
 This man was different ; and Victor Dur- 
 novo did not know — could not find out — what 
 he wanted. 
 
 lie had at first been inchned to laugh at 
 him. What struck him most forcibly was 
 Joseph, tlie servant. The idea of a man 
 swaggering up an African river with a 
 European man-servant was so preposterous
 
 THE SECRET OF THE SIMIACIXE 111 
 
 that it could only be met with ridicule ; but 
 the thing seemed so natural to Jack Meredith, 
 he accepted the servitude of Joseph so much 
 as a matter of course, that after a time Durnovo 
 accepted him also as part and parcel of Meredith . 
 
 Moreover, he immediately began to realise 
 the benefit of being waited upon by an intelli- 
 gent European, for Joseph took off his coat, 
 turned up his sleeves, and proceeded to cook 
 such a dinner as Durnovo had not tasted for 
 many months. There was wine also, and 
 afterwards a cigar of such quality as appealed 
 strongly to Durnovo's West Indian palate. 
 
 The night settled down over the land while 
 they sat there, and before them the great 
 yellow equatorial moon rose slowly over tlie 
 trees. With the darkness came a greater 
 silence, for the myriad insect life was still. 
 This s^reat silence of Central Africa is wonder-
 
 112 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 fully characteristic. The country is made for 
 silence, the natives are created to steal, spirit- 
 ridden, devil-haunted, through vast tracts of 
 lifeless forest where nature is oppressive in her 
 grandeur. Here man is put into his right place 
 — a puny, insignificant, helpless being in a 
 world that is too large for him. 
 
 ' So,' said Durnovo, returning to the sub- 
 ject which had never really left his thoughts, 
 ' you have come out here for pleasure ? ' 
 
 ' Not exactly. I came chiefly to make 
 money, partly to dispel some of the illusions 
 of my youth, and I am getting on very well. 
 Picture-book illusions they were. The man 
 who drew the pictures had never seen Africa.' 
 
 ' This is no country for illusions. Things 
 go naked here — damned naked.' 
 
 ' And only language is adorned ? ' 
 
 Durnovo laughed. He had to be alert to
 
 THE SECRET OF THE SIMIACIXE 113 
 
 keep up with Jack Meredith — to understand 
 his speech ; and he rather hked the neces- 
 sity, which was a change after the tropic 
 indolence in which he had moved. 
 
 ' Swearing you mean,' he repHed. ' Hope 
 you don't mind it ? ' 
 
 ' Xot a bit ! Do it myself.' 
 
 At this moment Joseph, the servant, 
 brought coffee served up in tin cups. 
 
 ' First-class dinner,' said Durnovo. ' TJie 
 best dinner I have had for years. Clever 
 chap, your man ! ' 
 
 The last remark was made as much for 
 the servant's edification as for the master's, 
 and it was accompanied by an inviting smile 
 directed towards Joseph. Of this the man 
 took no notice whatever. He came from a 
 world where masters and masters' guests know 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 tlieir place and keep it, even after a good 
 dinner. 
 
 The evening had turned out so very 
 differently from what he had expected that 
 Durnovo was a little off his balance. Things 
 were so sociable and pleasant in comparison 
 with the habitual loneliness of his life. The 
 fire crackled so cheerily, the moon shone 
 down on the river so grandly, the subdued 
 cliatter of the boatmen imparted such a feel- 
 ing of safety and comfort to the scene, that 
 he gave way to tliat impulse of expansiveness 
 which ever lurks in West Indian blood. 
 
 'I say,' he said, ' when you told me that 
 you w^anted to make money, were you in 
 earnest ? ' 
 
 ' In the deadliest earnest,' replied Jack 
 Meredith, in the half-mocking tone which he 
 never wholly learnt to lay aside.
 
 THE SECRET OF THE SIAflACIXE 115 
 
 ' Then I think I can put you in the way 
 of it. Oh, I know it seems a bit premature — 
 not known 5'ou long enough, and all that. 
 But in this country we don't hold much ])y 
 the formalities. I like you. I liked the look 
 of you when you got out of that boat — so 
 damned cool and self-possessed. You're the 
 right sort, Mr. Meredith.' 
 
 ' Possibly — for some things. For sitting 
 about and smokin^? first-class cigars and 
 thinking second-class thoughts I am exactly 
 the right sort. But for making money, for 
 hard work and steady work, I am afraid, 
 Mr. Durnovo, that I am distinctly the wrong 
 sort.' 
 
 ' Xow you're chaffing again. Do you 
 always chaff? ' 
 
 * Mostly ; it lubricates things, doesn't it ? ' 
 
 There wcs £ httle pause. Durrovo looked 
 
 i2
 
 116 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 round as if to make sure that Joseph and the 
 boatmen were out of earshot. 
 
 ' Can you keep a secret ? ' he asked 
 suddenly. 
 
 Jack Meredith turned and looked at the 
 questioner witli a smile. His hat had slipped 
 to the back of his head, the hght of the great 
 yellow moon fell full upon his clean cut 
 sphinx-like face. The eyes alone seemed 
 living. 
 
 ' Yes ! I can do that.' 
 
 He was only amused, and the words were 
 spoken half-mockingly ; but his face said 
 more than his hps. It said that even in chaff 
 this was no vain boast that he was uttering. 
 Even before he had set foot on African soil 
 he had been asked to keep so many secrets of 
 a commercial nature. So many had begun 
 by imparting half a secret, to pass on in due
 
 THE SECRET OF THE SIMIACINE 117 
 
 course to the statement that only money was 
 required, say, a thousand pounds. And, in 
 the meantime, twenty- five would be very 
 useful, and, if not that, well, ten shillings. 
 Jack Meredith had met all that before. 
 
 But there was something different about 
 Durnovo. He was not suitably got up. 
 Your bar-room prospective millionaire is 
 usually a jolly fellow, quite prepared to 
 quench any man's thirst for liquor or informa- 
 tion so long as credit and credulity will last. 
 There was nothing jolly or sanguine about 
 Durnovo. Beneath his broad-brimmed hat 
 his dark eyes flashed in a fierce excitement. 
 His hand was unsteady. He had allowed the 
 excellent cigar to go out. The man was full 
 of quinine and fever, in deadly earnest. 
 
 ' I can see you're a gentleman,' he said ; 
 ' I'll trust you. I want a man to join me in
 
 118 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 making a fortune. I have got my hand on it 
 at last. But I'm afraid of this country. I'm 
 getting shaky ; look at that hand. I've been 
 looking for it too long. I take you into my 
 confidence, the first comer, you'll think. 
 But there are not many men like you in this 
 country, and I'm beastly afraid of dying. 
 I'm in a damned funk, I want to get out of 
 this for a bit, but I dare not leave until I set 
 things going.' 
 
 ' Take your time,' said Meredith, quietly 
 and soothingly ; ' light that cigar again and 
 lie down. There is no hurry.' 
 
 Durnovo obeyed him meekly. 
 
 ' Tell me,' he said, ' have you ever heard 
 of Simiacine ? ' 
 
 ' I cannot say that I have,' replied Jack. 
 ' What is it for, brown boots or spasms ? ' 
 
 ' It is a drug, the most expensive drug in
 
 THE SECEET OF THE SIMIACINE 119 
 
 the market, x- nd they must have it, they 
 cannot do without it, and they cannot find 
 a substitute. It is the leaf of a shrub, and 
 your hatful is worth a thousand pounds.' 
 
 ' Where is it to be found ? ' asked Jack 
 Meredith. ' I should like some — in a sack.' 
 
 ' Ah, you may laugh now, but you won't 
 when you hear all about it. The scientific 
 chaps called it Simiacine, because of an old 
 African legend which, hke all those things, 
 has a grain of truth in it. Tlie legend is, that 
 the monkeys first found out the properties of 
 the leaf, and it is because they live on it that 
 they are so strong. Do you know that a 
 gorilla's arm is not half so thick as yours, 
 and yet he would take you and snap your 
 backbone across his knee ; he woukl bend 
 a gun-barrel as you would bend a cane, 
 merely by the turn of his wrist ? That is
 
 ]20 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 Simiacine. He can hang on to a tree with 
 one leg and tackle a leopard with his bare 
 hands — that's Simiacine. At home, in Eng- 
 land and in Germany, they are only just 
 beginning to find out its properties ; it seems 
 that it can bring a man back to life when he 
 is more than half dead. There is no knowing 
 what children that are brought up on it may 
 turn out to be ; it may double the power of 
 the human brain — some think it will.' 
 
 Jack Mereditli was leaning forward, watch- 
 ing with a certain sense of fascination the 
 wild, disease-stricken face, listening to the 
 man's breathless periods. It seemed that the 
 fear of death, which had gotten hold of him, 
 gave Yictor Durnovo no time to pause for 
 breath. 
 
 ' Yes,' said the Englishman, ' yes, go on.' 
 ' There is practically no limit to the
 
 THE SECRET OF THE SIMIACIXE 121 
 
 demand that there is for it. At present the 
 only way of obtaining it is through the 
 natives, and you know their manner of 
 trading. They send a httle packet down 
 from the interior, and it very often takes two 
 months and more to reach the buyer's hands. 
 The money is sent back the same way, and 
 each man who fingers it keeps a Httle. The 
 natives find the leaf in the forests by the aid 
 of trained monkeys, and only in very small 
 quantities. Do you follow me ? ' 
 
 ' Yes, I follow you.' 
 
 Victor Durnovo leant forward until his 
 face was within three inches of Meredith, and 
 the dark wild eyes flashed and glared into 
 the Englishman's steady glance. 
 
 ' What,' he hissed, ' what if I know where 
 Simiacine grows like a weed ? What if I 
 could supply the world with Simiacine at my
 
 122 Wiril EDGED TOOLS 
 
 own price? Eh — h — h! What of that, Mr. 
 Meredith ? ' 
 
 He threw himself suddenly back and wiped 
 his dripping face. There w^as a silence, the 
 great African silence that drives educated men 
 mad, and fills the imagination of the poor 
 heathen with wild tales of devils and spirits. 
 
 Then Jack Meredith spoke, without moving. 
 
 ' I'm your man,' he said, ' with a few more 
 details.' 
 
 Victor Durnovo was lying back at full 
 length on the hard dry mud, his arms beneath 
 his head. Without altering his position he 
 gave the details, speaking slowly and much 
 more quietly. It seemed as if he spoke the 
 result of long pent-up thought. 
 
 ' We shall want,' he said, ' two thousand 
 pounds to start it. For we must have an 
 armed force of our own. We have to penetrate
 
 THE SECEET OF THE SIMIACIJS^E 123 
 
 through a cannibal country, of the fiercest 
 devils in Africa. It is a plateau, a little 
 plateau of two square miles, and the niggers 
 think that it is haunted by an evil spirit. 
 When we get there we shall have to hold it ' 
 by force of arms, and when we send the stuff 
 down to the coast we must have an escort of 
 picked men. The bushes grow up there as 
 thick as gooseberry bushes in a garden at 
 home. With a little cultivation they will 
 yield twice as much as they do now. We 
 shall want another partner. I know a man, 
 a soldierly fellow full of fight, who knows the 
 natives and the country. I will undertake to 
 lead you there, but you will have to take 
 great care of me. You will have to have me 
 carried most of the way. I am weak, devilish 
 weak, and I am afraid of dying ; but I know 
 the way there, and no other man can say as
 
 124 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 much ! It is in my head here ; it is not 
 written down. It is only in my head, and no 
 one can get it out of there.' 
 
 ' No,' said Meredith, in his quiet, refined 
 voice, ' no, no one can get it out. Come, let 
 us turn in. To-morrow I will go down the 
 river with you. I will turn back, and we can 
 talk it over as we go down- stream.'
 
 125 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 A RECRUIT 
 
 Said the Engine from the East, 
 
 * They who work best talk the least.' 
 
 It is not, of course, for a poor limited mas- 
 culine mind to utter heresies regarding the 
 great question of woman's rights. But as 
 things stand at present, as in fact the fore- 
 named rights are to-day situated, women have 
 not found comprehension of the dual life. 
 The dual life is led solely by men, and until 
 women have found out its full compass and 
 meaning, they can never lead in the world. 
 There is the public life and the private ; and 
 the men who are most successful in the former
 
 126 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 are the most exclusive in the latter. Wome: 
 have only learned to lead one life ; they must 
 be all public or all private, there is no medium. 
 Those who give up the private life for which 
 Providence destined them, to assume the 
 public existence to which their own conceit 
 urges them, have their own reward. They 
 taste all the bitterness of fame and never 
 know its sweets, because the bitterness is 
 public and the sweets are private. 
 
 Women cannot understand that part of a 
 man's hfe which brings him into daily contact 
 with men whom he does not bring home to 
 dinner. One woman does not know another 
 without bringing her in to meals and showing 
 her her new hat. It is merely a matter of 
 custom. Men are in the habit of associating 
 in daily, almost hourly, intercourse with others 
 who are never really their friends and are
 
 A RECRUIT 127 
 
 always held at a distance. It is useless 
 attempting to explain it, for we are merely 
 reprimanded for unfriendliness, stiffness, and 
 stupid pride. SoitI Let it go. Some of us, 
 perhaps, know our own business best. And 
 there are, thank Heaven ! amidst a multitude 
 of female doctors, female professors, female 
 wranglers, a few female women left. 
 
 Jack Meredith knew quite well what he 
 was about when he listened with a favourable 
 ear to Durnovo's scheme. He knew that this 
 man was not a gentleman, but his own position 
 was so assured that he could afford to associate 
 with anyone. Here, again, men are safer. A 
 woman is too delicate a social flower to be 
 independent of environments. She takes the 
 tone of her surroundings. It is, one notices, 
 only the ladies who protest that the barmaid 
 married in haste and repented of at leisure
 
 128 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 can raise herself to her husband's level. The 
 husband's friends keep silence, and perhaps, 
 like the mariner's bird, they meditate all the 
 more. 
 
 What Meredith proposed to do was to 
 enter into a partnership with Victor Durnovo, 
 and when the purpose of it was accomphshed, 
 to let each man go his way. Such partnerships 
 are entered into every day. Men have carried 
 through a brilHant campaign — a world-afFect- 
 ing scheme, side by side, working with one 
 mind and one heart ; and when the result has 
 been attained they drop out of each other's 
 lives for ever. They are created so, for a 
 very good purpose, no doubt. But sometimes 
 Providence step in and turns the little point 
 of contact into the leaven that leaveneth the 
 whole lump. Providence, it seems — or let us 
 call it Fate — was hovering over that lone
 
 A HECRUIT 129 
 
 African river, wliere two men, sitting in tlie 
 stern of a native canoe, took it upon tliem- 
 selves to pre-arrange their lives. 
 
 A month later Victor Darnovo was in 
 London. He left behind him in Africa Jack 
 Meredith, whose capacities for organisation 
 were developing very quickly. 
 
 There was plenty of work for each to do. 
 In Africa, Meredith had undertaken to get 
 together men and boats, while Durnovo went 
 home to Europe for a threefold purpose. 
 Firstly, a visit to Europe was absolutely 
 necessary for his health, shattered as it was 
 by too loug a sojourn in the fever-ridden 
 river beds of the West Coast. Secondly, 
 there were rifles, ammunition, and stores to 
 be purchased, and packed in suitable cases. 
 And, lastly, he was to find and enlist the 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 third man, ' the soldierly fellow full of fight,' 
 who knew the natives and the country. 
 
 This, indeed, was his first care on reaching 
 London, and before his eyes and brain were 
 accustomed to the roar of the street life he 
 took a cab to Eussell Square, giving the 
 number affixed to the door of a gloomy house 
 in the least frequented corner of the stately 
 quadrangle. 
 
 ' Is Mr. Guy Oscard at home ? ' lie inquired 
 of the o'rave man-servant. 
 
 ' He is, sir,' replied the butler, stepping 
 aside. 
 
 Victor Durnovo thought that a momentary 
 hesitation on the part of the butler was caused 
 by a very natural and proper feeling of ad- 
 miration for the new clothes and hat which 
 he had purchased out of the money advanced 
 by Jack Meredith for the outfit of the expe-
 
 A KECRUIT 131 
 
 dition. In reality the man was waiting for 
 the visitor to throw away his cigar before 
 crossing the threshold. But he waited in 
 vain, and Durnovo stood, cigar in mouth, 
 in the dining-room until Guy Oscard came 
 to him. 
 
 At first Oscard did not recognise him, and 
 conveyed this fact by a distant bow and an 
 expectant silence. 
 
 ' You do not seem to recognise me,' said 
 Durnovo with a laugh, which lasted until 
 the servant had closed the door. ' Victor 
 Durnovo ! ' 
 
 ' Oh — yes — how are you ? ' 
 
 Oscard came forward and shook hands. 
 His manner was not exactly effusive. The 
 truth was that their acquaintanceship in 
 Africa had been of the slightest, dating from 
 some trivial services which Durnovo had been 
 
 K 2
 
 132 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 able and very eager to render to the sports- 
 man. 
 
 ' I'm all right, thanks,' replied Durnovo. 
 ' I only landed at Liverpool yesterday. I'm 
 home on business. I'm buying rifles and 
 stores.' 
 
 Guy Oscard's honest face lighted up at 
 once — the curse of Ishmael was on him in its 
 full force. He was destined to be a wanderer 
 on God's earth, and all things appertaining to 
 the wild life of the forests were music in his 
 ears. 
 
 Durnovo was no mean diplomatist. He 
 had learnt to know man, within a white or 
 coloured skin. The effect of his words was 
 patent to him. 
 
 ' You remember the Simiacine ? ' he said 
 abruptly. 
 
 ' Yes.'
 
 A RECRUIT 133 
 
 ' I've found it' 
 
 ' The devil you have ! Sit down.' 
 
 Durnovo took the chair indicated. 
 
 ' Yes, sir,' he said, ' I've got it. I've laid 
 my hand on it at last. I've always been 
 on its track. That has been my little game 
 all the time. I did not tell you when we met 
 out there, because I was afraid I should never 
 find it, and because I wanted to keep quiet 
 about it.' 
 
 Guy Oscard was looking out of the window 
 across to the dull houses and chimneys that 
 formed his horizon, and in his eyes there was 
 the longing for a vaster horizon, a larger 
 life. 
 
 ' I have got a partner,' continued Durnovo, 
 ' a good man — Jack Meredith, son of Sir John 
 Meredith. You have, perhaps, met him.' 
 
 ' iJs'o,' answered Oscar ; ' but I have heard
 
 134 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 his name, and I have met Sir John — the 
 father — once or twice.' 
 
 ' He is out there,' went on Durnovo, 
 ' getting things together quietly. I have 
 come home to buy rifles, ammunition, and 
 stores.' 
 
 He paused, watching the eager, simple 
 face. 
 
 ' We want to know,' he said quietly, ' if 
 you will organise and lead the fighting men.' 
 
 Guy Oscard drew a deep breath. There 
 are some Enodishmen left, thank Heaven ! 
 who love fighting for its own sake, and not 
 only for the gain of it. Such men as this 
 lived in the old days of chivalry, at which 
 modern puny carpet-knights make bold to 
 laugh, while inwardly thanking their stars 
 that they live in the peaceful age of the 
 policeman. Such men as this ran their thick
 
 A RECRUIT lo5 
 
 simple Leads against many a windmill, couched 
 lance over many a far-fetched insult, and 
 swung a sword in honour of many a worthless 
 maid ; but they made England, my masters. 
 Let us remember that they made England. 
 
 ' Then there is to be fighting ? ' 
 
 ' Yes,' said Durnovo, ' there w^ill be fight- 
 ing. "We must fight our way there, and w^e 
 must hold it when we get there- But so far 
 as the world is concerned, we are only a 
 private expedition exploring the source of the 
 Ogowe.' 
 
 ' The Ogowe ? ' and again Guy Oscard's 
 eyes lighted up. 
 
 ' Yes, I do not mind telling you that 
 much. To begin with, I trust you ; secondly, 
 no one could get there without me to lead the 
 way.' 
 
 Guy Oscard looked at him with some
 
 136 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 admiration, and tliat sympathy which exists 
 between the sons of IshmaeL Durnovo looked 
 quite fit for the task he set himself. He had 
 regained his strength on the voyage, and with 
 returning muscular force his moral tone was 
 higher, his influence over men greater. 
 Amidst the pallid sons of the pavement among 
 whom Guy Oscard had moved of late, this 
 African traveller was a man apart — a being 
 much 'more after his own heart. The brown 
 of the man's face and hands appealed to 
 him — the dark flashing eyes, the energetic 
 carriage of head and shoulders. Among men 
 of a fairer skin the taint that was in Victor 
 Durnovo's blood became more apparent — the 
 shadow on his finger-nails, the deep olive of 
 his neck against the snowy collar, and the 
 blue tint in the whites of his eyes. 
 
 But none of these thine^s militated afjainst
 
 A RECRUIT 137 
 
 him in Oscard's mind. They only made him 
 fitter for the work he had undertaken. 
 
 ' How long will it take ? ' asked Guy. 
 
 Durnovo tugged at his strange, curtain- 
 like moustache. His mouth was hidden ; it 
 was quite impossible to divine his thoughts. 
 
 ' Three months to get there,' he answered 
 at length. ' One month to pick the leaf, and 
 then you can bring the first crop down to the 
 coast and home, while Meredith and I stay on 
 at the plateau.' 
 
 ' I could be home again in eif^lit 
 months? ' 
 
 ' Certainly ! We thought that you might 
 work the sale of the stuff in London, and in 
 a couple of years or so, when the thing is in 
 swing, Meredith will come home. We can 
 safely leave the cultivation in native hands 
 when once we have established ourselves up
 
 138 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 there, and made ourselves respected among 
 the tribes.' 
 
 A significance in his tone made Guy 
 Oscard look up inquiringly. 
 
 'How?' 
 
 ' You know my way with the natives,' 
 answered Durnovo with a cruel smile. ' It is 
 the only way. There are no laws in Central 
 Africa except the laws of necessity.' 
 
 Oscard was nothing if not outspoken. 
 
 ' I do not like your way w^ith the natives,' 
 he said, with a pleasant smile. 
 
 ' That is because you do not know them. 
 But in this affair you are to be the leader of 
 the fighting column. You will, of course, 
 have carte blanche.'' 
 
 Oscard nodded. 
 
 ' I suppose,' he said, after a pause, ' that 
 til ere is the question of money ? '
 
 A RECRUIT 139 
 
 ' Yes ; Meredith and I have talked that 
 over. The plan we fixed upon was that you 
 and he each put a thousand pounds into it ; I 
 put five hundred. For the first two years we 
 share the profits equally. After that we must 
 come to some fresh arrangement, should you 
 or Meredith wish to give up an active part in 
 the affair. I presume you would not object 
 to coming up at the end of a year, with a 
 handy squad of men to bring down the crop 
 under escort ? ' 
 
 ' Xo,' replied Oscard after a moment's 
 reflection. ' I should probably be able to do 
 that.' 
 
 ' I reckon,' continued the other, ' that the 
 journey down could be accomphshed in two 
 months, and each time you do the trip you 
 will reduce your time.' 
 
 ' Yes.'
 
 140 TTJTH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 ' Of course,' Durnovo went on, with the 
 details Avhich he knew were music in Oscard's 
 ears, ' of course we shall be a clumsy party- 
 going up. We shall have heavy loads of 
 provisions, ammunition, and seeds for culti- 
 vating the land up there.' 
 
 ' Yes,' replied Guy Oscard absently. In 
 
 his ears there rang already the steady plash 
 
 of the paddle, the weird melancholy song of 
 
 he boatmen, the music of the wind amidst 
 
 the forest trees. 
 
 Durnovo rose briskly. 
 
 ' Then,' he said, ' you will join us ? I may 
 telegraph out to Mereditli that you will join 
 us ? ' 
 
 ' Yes,' replied Oscar simply. ' You may do 
 that.' 
 
 ' There is no time to be lost,' Durnovo 
 went on. ' Every moment wasted adds to 
 the risk of our being superseded. I sail for
 
 A RECRUIT 141 
 
 LoancTO in a fortnis^lit ; will you come with 
 me?' 
 
 ' Yes.' 
 
 ' Shall I take a passage for you ? ' 
 
 ' Yes.' 
 
 Durnovo held out his hand. 
 
 ' Good-bye,' he said. ' Shall I always find 
 you here when I want you ? ' 
 
 'Yes — stay, though ! I shall be going 
 away for a few days. Come to-morrow to 
 luncheon, and we will settle the prehminaries.' 
 
 ' Eight — one o'clock ? ' 
 
 ' One o'clock.' 
 
 When Durnovo had gone Guy sat down 
 and wrote to Lady Cantourne accepting her 
 invitation to spend a few days at Cantourne 
 Place, on the Solent. He explained that his 
 visit woidd be in the nature of a farewell, as 
 he was about to leave for Africa for a little 
 big- game hunting.
 
 142 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 CHAPTEE IX 
 
 TO PASS THE TIME 
 Quand on n'a pas ce que Ton aime, il faut aimer ce que Ton a. 
 
 ' Your energy, my dear lady, is not the least 
 of many attributes.' 
 
 Lady Cantourne looked up from her 
 writincr-desk with her bric^htest smile. Sir 
 John Meredith was standing by the open 
 window, leaning against the jamb thereof 
 with a grace that had lost its youthful re- 
 pose. He was looking out, across a sloping 
 lawn, over the Solent, and for that purpose 
 he had caused himself to be clad in a suit 
 of blue serge. He looked the veteran yachts- 
 man to perfection — he could look anything
 
 TO PASS THE TIME 143 
 
 ill its season — but lie did his yachting from 
 the shore — by preference from the drawing- 
 room window. 
 
 ' One must keep up with the times, John,' 
 replied the lady, daintily dipping her quill. 
 ► ' And " the times " fills its house from 
 roof to cellar with people who behave as if 
 they were in a hotel. Some of them — say 
 number five on the first floor, number eleven 
 on the second, or some of the atticated 
 relatives — announce at breakfast that they 
 will not be home to lunch. Another says 
 he cannot possibly return to dinner at half- 
 past seven and so on. " The dmes " expects 
 a great deal for its money, and does not 
 even allow one to keep the small change of 
 civility.' 
 
 Lady Cantourne was blotting vigorously. 
 
 ' I admit,' she answered, * that the reac-
 
 144 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 tion is rather strong ; reactions are always 
 stronger than they intend to be. In our 
 early days the formalities were made too 
 
 much of ; now they are ' 
 
 ' Made into a social hash,' he suggested, 
 when she paused for a word, ' where the 
 prevailing flavour is the common onion of 
 commerce ! Now, I'll wager any sum that 
 that is an invitation to some one you do not 
 care a screw about.' 
 
 ' It is. But, Sir John, the hash must be 
 kept moving ; cold hash is not palatable. I 
 will tell you at once, I am inviting young 
 Semoor to fill the vacancy caused by Mr. 
 Oscard's departure.' 
 
 ' Ah ! Mr. Oscard proposes depriving us 
 of his — society.' 
 
 ' He leaves to-morrow. He only came 
 to say good-bye.'
 
 TO PASS THE TIME 145 
 
 ' He moves on — -to some other hostelry ? ' 
 
 ' No ! He is croing^ to ' 
 
 She paused, so that Sir John was forced 
 to turn in courteous inquhy and look her 
 in the face. 
 
 ' Africa ! ' she added sharply, never takiiK/ 
 her bright eyes from his face. 
 
 She saw the twitching of the aged lips 
 before his hand got there to hide them, 
 She saw his eyes fall before her steady gaze, 
 and she pitied him while she admired his 
 uncompromising pride. 
 
 ' Indeed ! ' he said. ' I have reason to 
 believe,' he added, turning to the window 
 again, ' that there is a great future before 
 that country ; all the intellect of Great 
 Britain seems to be converging in its 
 direction.' 
 
 Since his departure Jack's name had 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 never been mentioned, even between these 
 two whose friendship dated back a generation. 
 Once or twice Sir John had made a subtle 
 passing reference to him, such as perhaps 
 no other woman but Lad}^ Cantourne could 
 have understood ; but Africa was, so to speak, 
 blotted out of Sir John Meredith's map of 
 the w^orld. It was there that he kept his 
 skeleton — the son who had been his greatest 
 pride and his deepest humiliation — his 
 highest hope in hfe — almost the only failure 
 of his career. 
 
 He stood there by the window, looking 
 out with that well-bred interest in details of 
 sport and pastime which was part of his 
 creed. He braved it out even before the 
 woman who had been a better friend to him 
 than his dead wife. Not even to her would 
 he confess that any event of existence could
 
 TO PASS THE TIME 147 
 
 reach liim through the impenetrable mask 
 he wore before the world. Not even she 
 must know that aught in his life could 
 breathe of failure or disappointment. As it is 
 given to the best of women to want to take 
 their sorrows to another, so the strongest 
 men instinctively deny their desire for sym- 
 pathy. 
 
 Lady Cantourne, pretending to select 
 another sheet of note-paper, glanced at him 
 with a pathetic little smile. Although they 
 had never been anything to each other, these 
 two people had passed through many of the 
 trials to which humanity is heir almost side 
 by side. But neither had ever broken down. 
 Each acted as a sort of mental tonic on the 
 other. They had tacitly agreed, years 
 before, to lauo^h at most thincrs. She saw, 
 
 " O CD ' 
 
 more distinctly than any, the singular empti- 
 
 l2
 
 148 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 ]iess of his clothes, as if the man was shrink- 
 ing, and she knew that the emptiness was of 
 the heart. 
 
 Sir John Meredith had taught his son that 
 Self and Self alone reigns in the world. He 
 had taught him that the thing called Love, 
 with a capital L, is nearly all self, and that 
 it finally dies in the arms of Self. He 
 had told him that a father's love, or a 
 son's, or a mother's, is merely a matter of 
 convenience, and vanishes when Self asserts 
 itself. 
 
 Upon this principle they were both 
 acting now, with a strikingly suggestive 
 similarity of method. Neither was willing to 
 admit to the world in general, and to the 
 other in particular, that a cynical theory 
 could possibly be erroneous. 
 
 ' I am sorry that our young friend is
 
 TO PASS THE TIME ] 49 
 
 going to leave us,' said Sir John, taking u|_ 
 and unfolding the morning paper. ' He i^ 
 honest and candid, if he is nothing else.' 
 
 This meant that Guy Oscard's admiratior 
 for Milhcent Chyne had never been concealed 
 for a moment, and Lady Cantourne knew it. 
 
 ' He interests me,' went on the old aristo 
 crat, studying the newspaper ; and his hearei 
 knew the inner significance of the remark. 
 
 At times she was secretly ashamed of her 
 niece, but that esprit de corps which binde 
 women together prompted her always to 
 defend Millicent. The only defence at the 
 moment was silence, and an assumed density 
 which did not deceive Sir John — even she 
 could not do that. 
 
 In the meantime Miss Millicent Chyne was 
 walking on the sea-wall at the end of the 
 garden with Guy Oscard. One of the neces-
 
 150 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 sary acquirements of a modern educational 
 outfit is the power of looking perfectly at 
 home in a score of different costumes during 
 the year, and, needless to say, Miss Chyne was 
 finished in this art. The manner in which 
 she wore her sailor-hat, her blue serge, and 
 her neat brown shoes conveyed to the on- 
 looker, and especially the male of that species 
 (we cannot in conscience call them observers), 
 the impression that she was a yachtswoman 
 born and bred. Her dehcate complexion was 
 enhanced by the faintest suspicion of sunburn 
 and a few exceedingly becoming freckles. 
 There was a freedom in her movements which 
 had not been observable in London drawini^- 
 
 o 
 
 rooms. This was Diana-like and in perfect 
 keeping with the dainty sailor outfit ; more- 
 over, nine men out of ten would fail to attri-
 
 TO PASS THE TIME 151 
 
 bute the difference to sundry cunning strings 
 within the London skirt. 
 
 ' It is sad,' Millicent was saying, ' to think 
 that we shall have no more chances of saihng. 
 The wind has quite dropped, that horrid tide 
 is running, and — this is your last day.' 
 
 She ended with a little laugh, knowing 
 full well that there was little sentiment in the 
 big man by her side. 
 
 ' Eeally,' she went on, * I think I should 
 be able to manage a boat in time, don't you 
 think so ? Please encourage me. I am sure 
 I have tried to learn.' 
 
 But he remained persistently grave. She 
 did not like that gravity ; she had met it before 
 in the course of her experiments. One of 
 the grievances harboured by Miss Millicent 
 Chyne against the opposite sex was that
 
 152 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 they could not settle down into a harmless, 
 honest flirtation. Of course, this could be 
 nothing? but a flirtation of the liii^htest and 
 most evanescent description. She w-as en- 
 gaged to Jack Meredith — poor Jack, who was 
 working for her, ever so hard, somewhere 
 near the Equator — and if Guy Oscard did 
 not know this he had only himself to blame. 
 There were plenty of people ready to tell 
 him. He had only to ask. 
 
 Millicent Chyne, like Guy, was hampered 
 at the outset of life by theories upon it. 
 Experience, the fashionable novel, and 
 modern cynicism had taught her to expect 
 little from human nature — a dangerous 
 lesson, for it eases responsibility, and re- 
 sponsibility is the ten commandments rolled 
 into a compact whole, suitable for the 
 pocket.
 
 TO PASS THE TIME 153 
 
 She expected of no man — not even of 
 Jack — that perfect faithfulness m every 
 Avorcl and thouc^ht which is read of in 
 books. And it is one of the theories of 
 the day that what one does not expect 
 one is not called upon to give. Jack, she 
 reflected, was too much a man of the 
 world to expect her to sit and mope 
 alone. She was apparently incapable of 
 seeing the difference between that pastime 
 and sitting on the sea-wall behind a large 
 flowering currant-tree with a man who did 
 not pretend to hide the fact that he was 
 in love with her. Some women are thus. 
 
 ' I do not know if you have learnt much,* 
 he answered. ' But I have.' 
 
 ' What have you learnt ? ' she asked in 
 a low voice, half-fascinated by the danger 
 into she knew that she was running.
 
 154 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 ' That I love you,' lie answered, standing 
 squarely in front of her, and announcing the 
 fact with a deliberate honesty which was 
 rather startling. ' I was not sure of it be- 
 fore, so I stayed away from you for three 
 weeks ; but now I know for certain.' 
 
 ' Oh, you mustn't say that ! ' 
 
 She rose hastily and turned away from 
 him. There was in her heart a sudden feeling 
 of regret. It was the feelincr that the keenest 
 sportsman sometimes has when some majestic 
 monarch of the forest falls before liis merci- 
 less rifle — a sudden passing desire that it 
 might be undone. 
 
 'Why not?' he asked. He was des- 
 perately in earnest, and that which made him 
 a good sportsman — an unmatched big game 
 hunter, calm and self-possessed in any strait — 
 gave him a strange deliberation now, which
 
 TO PASS THE TIME 155 
 
 Millicent Chyne could not understand. ' Why 
 not?' 
 
 ' I do not know — because you mustn't/ 
 
 And in her heart she wanted hmi to say it 
 ac^ain. 
 
 ' I am not ashamed of it,' he said, ' and I 
 do not see why I should not say it to you — or 
 to any one else, so far as that goes.' 
 
 ' No, never ! ' she cried, really frightened . 
 ' To me it does not matter so much. But to 
 no one else — no, never ! Aunt Marian must 
 not know it — nor Sir John.' 
 
 ' I cannot see that it is any business of Sir 
 John's. Of course, Lady Cantourne would 
 have hked you to marry a title ; but if you 
 cared for me she would be ready to listen to 
 reason.' 
 
 In which judgment of the good lady he 
 was no doubt right — especially if reason spoke
 
 156 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 with the voice of three thousand pounds per 
 annum. 
 
 ' Do you care for me ? ' he asked, coming 
 a httle closer. 
 
 There was a whole world of gratified 
 vanity and ungratified curiosity for her in the 
 presence of this strong man at her elbow. It 
 was one of the supreme triumphs of her life, 
 because he was different from the rest. He 
 was for her, what his first tiger had been for 
 him. The danger that he might come still 
 nearer had for her a sense of keen pleasure. 
 She was thoroughly enjoying herself, and the 
 nearest approach that men can experience to 
 the joy that was hers is the joy of battle. 
 
 ' I cannot answer that — not now.' 
 
 And the little half-shrinking glance over 
 her shoulder was a low-minded, unmaidenly 
 invitation. But he was in earnest, and he
 
 TO PASS THE TLME 157 
 
 was, above all, a gentleman. He stood his 
 ground a yard away from her. 
 
 ' Then when,' he asked — ' when will you 
 answer me ? ' 
 
 She stood with her back turned towards 
 him, looking out over the smooth waters of 
 the Solent, where one or two yachts and a 
 heavy black schooner were creeping up on 
 the tide before the morning breeze. She 
 drummed reflectively with her fingers on the 
 low stone walL Beneath them a few gulls 
 whirled and screamed over a shoal of little 
 fish. One of the birds had a singular cry, as 
 if it were laughing to itself 
 
 ' You said just now,' Millicent answered at 
 length, ' that you were not sure yourself — 
 not at first — and therefore you cannot expect 
 me to know all at once.' 
 
 ' You would know at once,' he argued
 
 158 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 gravely, ' if it was going to be no. If you 
 do not say no now, I can only think that it 
 may be yes some day. And ' — he came 
 closer — he took the hand that hung at her 
 side — conveniently near — ' and I don't want 
 you to say no now. Don't say no ! I will 
 wait as long as you like for yes. Millicent, I 
 would rather go on waiting, and thinking that 
 it is going to be yes, even if it is no after 
 all.' 
 
 She said nothing, but she left her hand in 
 his. 
 
 ' May I go on thinking that it will be yes 
 until I come back ? ' 
 
 ' I cannot prevent your thinking, can I ? ' 
 she whispered with a tender look in her 
 eyes. 
 
 ' And may I write to you ? ' 
 
 She shook her head.
 
 TO PASS THE TIME 159 
 
 'Well— I— I Now and then,' he 
 
 pleaded. ' Not often. Just to remind you 
 of my existence.' 
 
 She gave a little laugh, which he liked 
 exceedingly, and remembered afterwards. 
 
 ' If you like,' she answered. 
 
 At this moment Lady Cantourne's voice 
 was heard in the distance, calling them. 
 
 ' There ! ' exclaimed Millicent. ' We must 
 go at once. And no one — no one, mind — 
 must know of this.' 
 
 ' No one shall know of it,' he answered.
 
 IGO WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 LOANGO 
 
 Faithful and hopeful, wise in charity, 
 Strong in grave peace, in pity circumspect. 
 
 TnosE who for their sins have been to Loansfo 
 will scarcely care to have its beauties recalled 
 to memory. And to such as have not yet 
 visited the spot one can only earnestly recom- 
 mend a careful avoidance. 
 
 Suffice it to say, tlierefore, that there is 
 such a place, and the curious may lind it 
 marked in larger type than it deserves on the 
 map of Africa, on the West Coast of that 
 country, and within an inch or so of tlie 
 Equator.
 
 LOAXGO 161 
 
 Loango lias a bar, and outside of that 
 mysterious and somewhat suggestive nautical 
 hindrance the coasting steamers anchor, while 
 the smaller local fry find harbour nearer to 
 the land. The passenger is not recommended 
 to go ashore — indeed, many difficulties are 
 placed in his way, and he usually stays on 
 board while the steamer receives or discharges 
 a scanty cargo, rolling ceaselessly in the 
 Atlantic swell. The roar of the surf may be 
 heard, and at times some weird cry or song. 
 There is nothing to tempt even the most 
 adventurous through that surf. A moderately 
 large white building attracts the eye, and 
 usually brings upon itself a contemptuous 
 stare, for it seems to be the town of Loancro, 
 marked so bravely on tlie map. As a matter 
 of fact the town is five miles inland, and the 
 
 VOL. I, M
 
 162 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 white building is only a factory or trading 
 establishment. 
 
 Loango is the reverse of cheerful. To 
 begin with, it is usually raining there. Tlie 
 roar of the surf — than which there are few 
 sadder sounds on earth — fills the atmosphere 
 with a never-ceasing melancholy. The country 
 is over- wooded ; the tropical vegetation, the 
 huge tangled African trees, stand almost in 
 the surf; and inland the red serrated hills 
 mount guard in gloomy array. For Europeans 
 this country is accursed. From the mysterious 
 forest-land there creeps down a subtle, tainted 
 air that poisons the white man's blood, and 
 either strikes him down in a fever or terrifies 
 him by strange unknown symptoms and sudden 
 disfiguring disease. The Almighty speaks very 
 plainly sometimes and in some places — no- 
 \Yhere more plainly than on the West Coast
 
 LOANGO 163 
 
 of Africa, which land He evidently wants for 
 the black man. We of the fairer skin have 
 Australia now ; we are taking America, we 
 are dominant in Asia ; but somehow we don't 
 get on in Africa. The Umpire is there, and 
 He insists on fair play. 
 
 ' This is not cheery,' Jack Meredith ob- 
 served to his servant as they found themselves 
 deposited on the beach within a stone's throw 
 of the French factory. 
 
 'Xo, su% not cheery, sir,' replied Joseph. 
 He was very busy attending to the landing of 
 their personal effects, and had only time to 
 be respectful. It was Joseph's way to do 
 only one thing at a time, on the principle, no 
 doubt, that enough for the moment is the evil 
 thereof. His manner implied that, when 
 those coloured crentlemen had orot the baij- 
 
 O CO 
 
 gage safely conveyed out of the boats on to 
 
 M 2
 
 164 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 the beacli, it would be time enough to think 
 about Loango. 
 
 Moreover, Joseph was in his way rather a 
 dauntless person. He held that there were 
 few difficulties which he and his master, each 
 in his respective capacity, were unable to 
 meet. This African mode of life was certainly 
 not one for which he had bargained w^hen 
 taking service ; but he rather enjoyed it than 
 otherwise, and he was consoled by the reflec- 
 tion that what was good enough for his master 
 was good enough for him. Beneath the im- 
 penetrable mask of a dignified servitude lie 
 knew that this was ' all along of that Chyne 
 girl,' and rightly conjectured that it would 
 not last for ever. He had an immense respect 
 for Sir John, whom he tersely described as a 
 ' game one,' but his knowledge of the world 
 went towards the supposition that headstrong
 
 LOAXGO 165 
 
 age would finally bow before headstrong youth. 
 He did not, however, devote much considera- 
 tion to these matters, being a young man, 
 although an old soldier, and taking a lively 
 interest in the present. 
 
 It had been arranged by letter that Jack 
 Meredith should put up, as his host expressed 
 it, at the small bungalow occupied by Maurice 
 Gordon and his sister. Gordon was the local 
 head of a large trading association somewhat 
 after the style of the old East India Company, 
 and his duties partook more of the glory of a 
 governor than of the routine of a trader. 
 
 Of Maurice Gordon's past Meredith knew 
 nothing beyond the fact that they were 
 schoolfellows strangely brought together 
 again on the deck of a coasting steamer. 
 Maurice Gordon was not a reserved person, 
 and it was rather from a lack of opportunity
 
 166 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 than from an excess of caution tliat he 
 allowed his new-found friend to go up the 
 Ogowe Eiver, knowing so little of himself, 
 Maurice Gordon, of Loango. 
 
 There were plenty of willing guides and 
 porters on the beach ; for in this part of 
 Africa there is no such thing as continued 
 and methodical labour. The entire popula- 
 tion considers the lilies of the field to obvious 
 purpose. 
 
 Joseph presently organised a considerable 
 portion of this population into a procession, 
 headed triumphantly by an old white- woolled 
 neoTO whose son cleaned Maurice Gordon's 
 boots. This man Joseph selected — not with- 
 out one or two jokes of a somewhat personal 
 nature — as a fitting guide to the Gordons' 
 house. As they neared the little settlement 
 on the outskirts of the black-town where the
 
 LOAXGO ] 67 
 
 mission and otlier European residences are situ- 
 ated, tlie veteran cfuide sent on couriers to an- 
 nounce the arrival of the great gentleman, who 
 had for body-servant the father of laughter. 
 
 On finally reaching the bungalow Meredith 
 was pleasantly surprised. It was pretty and 
 homelike — surrounded by a garden wherein 
 grew a strange profusion of homely English 
 vegetables and tropical flowers. 
 
 Joseph happened to be in front, and, as 
 he neared the verandah, he suddenly stopped 
 at the salute ; moreover, he began to wonder 
 in which trunk he had packed his master's 
 dress-clothes. 
 
 An English lady was coming out of the 
 drawing-room window to meet the travellers 
 — a lady whose presence diffused that sense 
 of refinement and peace into the atmosphere 
 which has done as much towards the ex-
 
 168 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 pansion of our piecemeal empire as ev^er did 
 the strong right arm of Thomas Atkins. It 
 is because — sooner or later — these ladies 
 come with us that we have learnt to mingle 
 peace with war — to make friends of whilom 
 enemies. 
 
 She nodded in answer to the servant's 
 salutation, and passed on to greet the master. 
 
 ' My brother has been called away sud- 
 denly,' she said. ' One of his sub-agents has 
 been o^ettinor into trouble with the natives. 
 Of course you are Mr. Meredith ? ' 
 
 ' I am,' replied Jack, taking the hand she 
 held out ; it was a small wliite hand — small 
 without being frail or diaphanous. ' And you 
 are Miss Gordon, I suppose ? I am sorry 
 Gordon is away, but no doubt we shall be 
 able to find somewhere to put up.' 
 
 ' You need not do that,' she said quietly.
 
 LOANGO 169 
 
 ' This is Africa, you know. You can quite 
 well stay with us, although Maurice is away 
 until to-morrow.' 
 
 ' Sure ? ' he asked. 
 
 ' Quite ! ' she answered. 
 
 She was tall and fair, with a certain state- 
 liness of carriage which harmonised wonder- 
 fully with a thoughtful and pale face. She 
 was not exactly pretty, but gracious and 
 womanly, with honest blue eyes that looked 
 on men and women alike. She was probably 
 twenty-eight years of age ; her manner was 
 that of a woman rather than of a girl — of one 
 who was in life and not on the outskirts. 
 
 ' We rather pride ourselves,' she said, 
 leading the way into the drawing-room, 
 ' upon having the best house in Loango. 
 You will, I think, be more comfortable here 
 than anywhere.'
 
 170 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 She turned and looked at him with a slow, 
 grave smile. She was noticing that, of the 
 men who had been in this drawing-room, 
 none had seemed so entirely at his ease as 
 this one. 
 
 ' I must ask you to believe that I was 
 thinking of your comfort and not of my own.' 
 
 ' Yes, I know you were,' she answered. 
 ^ Our circle is rather limited, as you will find, 
 and very few of the neighbours have time 
 to think of their houses. Most of them are 
 missionaries, and they are so busy ; they have 
 a large field, you see.' 
 
 ' Very — and a weedy one, I should think.' 
 
 He was looking round, noting with well- 
 trained glance the thousand little indescribable 
 touches that make a charming room. He 
 knew his ground. He knew the date and the 
 meaning of every little ornament — the title
 
 LOAXGO 171 
 
 and the writer of each book — the very 
 material with which the chairs were covered ; 
 and he knew that all was good — all arranged 
 with that art which is the difference between 
 ignorance and knowledge. 
 
 ' I see you have all the new books.' 
 
 ' Yes, we have books and magazines ; but, 
 of course, we live quite out of the world.' 
 
 She paused, leaving the conversation with 
 him as in the hands of one who knew his 
 business. 
 
 ' I,' he said, filling up the pause, ' have 
 hitherto lived in the world — right in it. 
 There is a lot of dust and commotion ; the 
 dust gets into people's eyes and blinds them ; 
 the commotion wears them out ; and perhaps, 
 after all, Loango is better ! ' 
 
 He spoke with the easy independence of 
 the man of the world, accustomed to feel his
 
 172 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 way in strange places — not heeding what 
 opinion he might raise — what criticism he 
 might brave. He was glancing round him 
 all the while, noting things, and wondering 
 for whose benefit this pretty room had been 
 evolved in the heart of a savage country. 
 Perhaps he had assimilated erroneous notions 
 of womankind in the world of which he 
 spoke ; perhaps he had never met any of 
 those women whose natural refinement urges 
 them to surround themselves, even in solitude, 
 with j)retty things, and prompts them to 
 dress as neatly and becomingly as their 
 circumstances allow for the edification of no 
 man. 
 
 ' I never abuse Loango,' she answered ; 
 ' such abuse is apt to recoil. To call a place 
 dull is often a confession of dulness.' 
 
 He laughed — still in that somewhat un-
 
 LOANGO 173 
 
 natural manner, as if desirous of filling up 
 time. He had spent the latter years of his 
 life in doincr nothino- else. The man's method 
 was so different to what Jocelyn Gordon had 
 met with in Loango, where men were all in 
 deadly earnest, pursuing souls or wealth, that 
 it struck her forcibly, and she remembered 
 it loner after Meredith had fororotten its use. 
 
 ' I have no idea,' she continued, ' how the 
 place strikes the passing traveller ; he usually 
 passes by on the other side ; but I am afraid 
 there is nothing to airouse the smallest in- 
 terest.' 
 
 ' But, Miss Gordon, I am not the passing 
 traveller.' 
 
 She looked up with a sudden interest. 
 
 ' Indeed ! I understood from Maurice 
 that you were travelUng down the coast 
 without any particular object.'
 
 174 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 ' I have an object — estimable, if not quite 
 original.' 
 
 'Yes?' 
 
 ' I want to make some money. I have 
 never made any yet, so there is a certain 
 novelty in the thought which is pleasant.' 
 
 She smiled with the faintest suspicion of 
 incredulity. 
 
 ' I know what you are thinking,' he said ; 
 ' that I am too neat and tidy — too namby- 
 pamby to do anything in this country. That 
 my boots are too narrow in the toe, my liair 
 too short and my face too clean. I cannot 
 help it. It is the fault of the individual you 
 saw outside — Joseph. He insists on a strict 
 observance of the social duties.' 
 
 ' We are rougher here,' she answered. 
 
 ' I left England,' he explained, ' in rather 
 a hurry. I had no time to buy uncomfort-
 
 LOANGO 175 
 
 able boots, or anything like that. I know 
 it was wrong. Tlie ordinary young man of 
 society who goes morally to the clogs and 
 physically to the colonies always has an out- 
 fit. His friends buy him an outfit, and cer- 
 tain enterprising haberdashers make a study 
 of such things. I came as I am.' 
 
 While he was speaking she had been 
 watching him — studying him more closely 
 than she had hitherto been able to do. 
 
 * I have heard of a Sir John Meredith,' 
 she said suddenly. 
 
 'My father.' 
 
 He paused, drawing in his legs, and ap- 
 parently studying the neat brown boots of 
 which there had been question. 
 
 ' Should you meet liim again,' he went 
 on, ' it would not be advisable to mention 
 my name. He might not care to hear it.
 
 176 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 We have had a shght difference of opinion. 
 With me it is different. I am. always glad 
 to hear about him. I have an immense 
 respect for him.' 
 
 She listened gravely, with a sympathy 
 that did not attempt to express itself in 
 words. On such a short acquaintance she 
 had not learnt to expect a certain lightness 
 of conversational touch which he always 
 assumed when speaking of himself, as if his 
 own thoughts and feelings were matters for 
 ridicule. 
 
 ' Of course,' he went on, * I was in the 
 wrong. I know that. But it sometimes 
 happens that a man is not in a position to 
 admit that he is in the wrong — when, for 
 instance, another person would suffer by such 
 an admission.' 
 
 ' Yes,' answered Jocelyn ; ' I understand.'
 
 LOANGO 177 
 
 At this moment a servant came in with 
 lamps and proceeded to close the windows. 
 She was quite an old woman — an English- 
 woman — and as she placed the lamps npon 
 the table she scrutinised the guest after the 
 manner of a privileged servitor. When she 
 had departed Jack Meredith continued his 
 narrative with a sort of deliberation which 
 was explained later on. 
 
 ' And,' he said, ' that is why I came to 
 Africa — that is why I want to make money, 
 I do not mind confessing to a low greed of 
 gain, because I think T have the best motive 
 that a man can have for wanting to make 
 money.' 
 
 He said this meaningly, and watched her 
 face all the while. 
 
 'A motive which any lady ought to ap- 
 prove of.' 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 She smiled sympathetically. 
 ' I approve and I admire your spirit.' 
 She rose as she spoke, and moved towards 
 a side table, where two lighted candles had 
 been placed. 
 
 ' My motive for talking so barefacedly 
 about myself,' he said, as they moved to- 
 wards the door together, ' was to let you 
 know exactly who I am and why I am here. 
 It was only due to you on accepting your 
 hospitality. I might have been a criminal, 
 or an escaped embezzler. There were two 
 on board the steamer coming out, and several 
 other shady characters.' 
 
 ' Yes,' said the girl ; ' I saw your motive.' 
 They were now in the hall, and the aged 
 servant was waiting to show him his room.
 
 179 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 A COMPACT 
 Drifting, slow drifting down a wizard stream. 
 
 ' No one knows,' Victor Durnovo was in the 
 habit of saying, ' what is going on in the 
 middle of Africa.' 
 
 And on this principle he acted. 
 
 ' Ten miles above the camping-ground 
 where we first met,' he had told Meredith, 
 ' you will find a village where I have my 
 head-quarters. There is quite a respectable 
 house there, with — a — a woman to look after 
 your wants. When you have fixed things up 
 at Loango, and have arranged for the dhows 
 
 N 2
 
 180 WiTH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 to meet my steamer, take up all your men to 
 this village — Msala is the name — and send the 
 boats back. Wait there till we come.' 
 
 In due time the telegram came, vid St. 
 Paul de Loanda, announcing the fact that 
 Oscard had agreed to join the expedition, and 
 that Durnovo and he might be expected at 
 Msala in one month from that time. It was 
 not without a vague feeling of regret that 
 Jack Meredith read this telegram. To be at 
 Msala in a month with forty men and a vast 
 load of provisions meant leaving Loango 
 almost at once. And, strange though it may 
 seem, he had become somewhat attached to 
 the dreary West African town. The singular 
 cosmopolitan society was entirely new to him ; 
 the life, taken as a life, almost unique. He 
 knew that he had not outstayed his welcome. 
 Maurice Gordon liad taken care to assui'e him
 
 A COMPACT 181 
 
 of that in his boisterous, hearty manner, 
 savouring more of Harrow than of Eton, 
 every morning at breakfast. 
 
 ' Confound Durnovo ! ' he cried, when tlie 
 telegram had been read aloud. ' Confound 
 him, with his energy and his business-like 
 habits ! That means that you will have to 
 leave us before long ; and somehow it has got 
 to be quite natural to see you come lounging 
 in ten minutes late for most things, with an 
 apology for Jocelyn, but none for me. We 
 shall miss you, old chap.' 
 
 ' Yes,' added Jocelyn, ' we shall.' 
 
 She was busy with the cups, and spoke 
 rather indifferently. 
 
 'So you've got Oscard ?' continaed Maurice. 
 ' 1 imagine he is a good man — tip-top shot and 
 all that. I've never met him, but I have 
 heard of him.'
 
 182 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 'He is a gentleman, at all events,' said 
 Meredith quietly ; ' I know that.' 
 
 Jocelyn was looking at him between the 
 hibiscus flowers decorating the table. 
 
 ' Is Mr. Durnovo going to be leader of the 
 expedition ? ' she inquired casually, after a 
 few moments' silence ; and Jack, looking up 
 with a queer smile, met her glance for a 
 moment. 
 
 'No,' he answered. 
 
 Maurice Gordon's hearty laugh interrupted. 
 
 ' Ha, ha ! ' he cried. ' I wonder where the 
 dickens you men are e^oincr to ? ' 
 
 ' Up the Ogowe river,' replied Jack. 
 
 ' No doubt. But what for ? There is 
 something mysterious about that river. Dur- 
 novo keeps his poor relations there, or 
 something of that kind.' 
 
 ' We are not going to look for them.'
 
 A COMPACT 183 
 
 ' I suppose,' said Maurice, helping himself 
 to marmalade, ' that he has dropped upon 
 some large deposit of ivory ; that will turn 
 out to be the solution of the mystery. It is 
 the solution of most mysteries in this country. 
 I wish I could solve the mj'steries of ways and 
 means and drop upon a large deposit of ivory, 
 or spice, or precious stones. We should soon 
 be out of this country, should we not, old 
 girl ? ' 
 
 ' I do not think we have much to complain 
 of,' answered Jocelyn. 
 
 ' No ; you never do. Moreover, I do not 
 suppose you would do so if you had the 
 excuse.' 
 
 ' Oh yes, I should, if I thought it would 
 do any good.' 
 
 'Ah!' put in Meredith. 'There speaks 
 Philosophy — jam, please.'
 
 184 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 ' Or Eesignation — that is strawberry and 
 this is black currant.' 
 
 ' Thanks, black currant. No — Philosophy, 
 Eesignation is the most loathsome of the 
 virtues.' 
 
 ' I can't say I care for any of them very 
 much,' put in Maurice. 
 
 ' No ; I thought you seemed to shun 
 them,' said Jack, like a flash. 
 
 ' Sharp ! very sharp ! Jocelyn, do you 
 know what we called him at school ? — the 
 French nail , he was so very long and thin 
 and sharp ! I might add polished and strong, 
 but we were not so polite in those days. 
 Poor old Jack ! he gave as good as he got. 
 But I must be off — the commerce of Western 
 Africa awaits me. You'll be round at the 
 office presently, I suppose. Jack ? ' 
 
 ' Yes ; I have an appointment there with
 
 A COMPACT 185 
 
 a coloured person who is a liar by nature 
 and a cook by trade.' 
 
 Maurice Gordon usually went off like this 
 — at a moment's notice. He was one of 
 those loud-speaking, quick-actioned men, who 
 often get a reputation for energy and capacity 
 without fully deserving it. 
 
 Jack, of a more meditative habit, rarely 
 followed his host with the same obvious 
 haste. He finished his breakfast calmly, and 
 then asked Jocelyn whether she was coming 
 out on to the verandah. It was a habit 
 they had unconsciously dropped into. The 
 verandah was a very important feature of the 
 house, thickly overhung as it was with palms, 
 bananas, and other tropical verdure. Africa 
 is the land of creepers, and all around this 
 verandah, over the trellis-work, around the 
 supports, hanging in festoons from the roof,
 
 186 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 were a thousand different creeping flowers. 
 The legend of the house — for, as in India, 
 ahnost every bungalow on the West Coast 
 has its tale — was that one of the early mis- 
 sionaries had built it, and, to beguile the 
 long months of the rainy season had carefully 
 collected these creepers to beautify the place 
 against the arrival of his young wife. She 
 never came. A telegram sto2:)ped her. A 
 snake interruj)ted his labour of love. 
 
 Jack took a seat at once, and began to 
 search for his cigar-case in the pocket of his 
 jacket. In this land of flies and moths, men 
 need not ask permission before they smoke. 
 Jocelyn did not sit down at once. She went 
 to the front of the verandah and watched 
 her brother mount his horse. She was a 
 year older than Maurice Gordon, and exer-
 
 A COMPACT - 187 
 
 cised a larger influence over his life than 
 either of them suspected. 
 
 Presently he rode past the verandah, 
 waving his hand cheerily. He was one of 
 those large, hearty Englishmen who seem to 
 be all appetite and laughter — men who may 
 be said to be manly, and beyond tliat no- 
 thing. Their manliness is so overpowering 
 that it swallows up many other qualities 
 which are not out of place in men, such as 
 tact and thoughtfulness, and 'perhqis intel- 
 lectuality and the power to take some interest 
 in those gentler things that interest women. 
 
 When Jocelyn came to the back of the 
 verandah she was thinking about her brother 
 Maurice, and it never suggested itself to her 
 that she should not speak her thoughts to 
 Meredith, whom she had not seen until three
 
 188 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 weeks ago. She had never spoken of Maurice 
 behind his back to any man before. 
 
 ' Does it ever strike you/ she said, ' that 
 Maurice is the sort of man to be led astray 
 by evil influence ? ' 
 
 ' Yes ; or to be led straight by a good 
 influence, such as yours.' 
 
 He did not meet her thoughtful gaze. He 
 was apparently watching the retreating form 
 of the horse through the tangle of flower and 
 leaf and tendril. 
 
 ' I am afraid,' said the girl, ' that my 
 influence is not of much account.' 
 
 ' Do you really believe that ? ' asked 
 Meredith, turning upon her with a half- 
 cynical smile. 
 
 ' Yes,' she answered simply. 
 
 Before speaking again he took a pull at 
 his cigar.
 
 A COMPACT 189 
 
 ' Your influence,' he said, ' appears to me 
 to be the making of Maurice Gordon. I 
 frequently see serious flaws in the policy of 
 Providence ; but I suppose there is wisdom 
 in making the strongest influence that which 
 is unconscious of its power.' 
 
 ' I am glad you think I have some power 
 over him,' said Jocelyn ; ' but, at the same 
 time, it makes me uneasy, because it only 
 confirms my conviction that he is very easily 
 led. And suppose my influence — such as it 
 is— was withdrawn ? Suppose that I were to 
 die, or, what appears to be more likely, 
 suppose that he should marry ? ' 
 
 ' Then let us hope that he will marry the 
 right person. People sometimes do, you 
 know.' 
 
 She smiled with a strange little flicker of 
 the eyelids. Tliey had grown wonderfully
 
 190 ^ITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 accustomed to each other during the last 
 three weeks. Here, it would appear, was one 
 of those friendships between man and woman 
 that occasionally set the world agog with 
 curiosity and scepticism. But there seemed 
 to be no doubt about it. He was over thirty, 
 she verging on that prosaic age. Both had 
 lived and moved in the world ; to both life 
 was an open book, and they had probably 
 discovered, as most of us do, that the larger 
 number of the leaves are blank. He had 
 almost told her that he was engaged to be 
 married, and she had quite understood. 
 There could not possibly be any misappre- 
 hension ; there was no room for one of those 
 little mistakes about which people write 
 novels and fondly hope that some youthful 
 reader may be carried away by a very faint 
 resemblance to that which they hold to be
 
 A COMPACT 191 
 
 life. Moreover, at thirty, one leaves the first 
 romance of youth behind. 
 
 There was something in her smile that 
 suggested that she did not quite believe in his 
 cynicism. 
 
 ' Also,' she said gravely, ' some stronger 
 influence might appear — an influence which 
 I could not counteract.' 
 
 Jack Meredith turned in his lon^^ chair 
 and looked at her searchingiy. 
 
 ' I have a vague idea.' he said, ' that you 
 are thinking of Durnovo.' 
 
 ' I am,' she admitted with some surprise. 
 ' I wonder how you knew ? I am afraid of 
 him.' 
 
 'I can reassure you on that score,' said 
 Meredith. ' For the next two years or so 
 Durnovo will be in daily intercourse with 
 me. He will be under my immediate eye.
 
 ]92 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 I did not anticipate much pleasure from his 
 society. But now I do.' 
 
 ' Why ? ' she asked, rather mystified. 
 
 ' Because I shall have the daily satisfac- 
 tion of knowing that I am relieving you of 
 an anxiety.' 
 
 ' It is very kind of you to put it in that 
 way,' said Jocelyn. ' But I should not like 
 you to sacrifice yourself to what may be a 
 foolish prejudice on my part.' 
 
 ' It is not a foolish prejudice. Durnovo 
 is not a gentleman either by birth or inclina- 
 tion. He is not fit to associate with you.' 
 
 To this Jocelyn answered nothing. 
 Victor Durnovo was one of her brother's 
 closest friends — a friend of his own choosing. 
 
 'Miss Gordon,' said Jack Meredith sud- 
 denly, with a gravity that was rare, ' will you 
 do me a favour ? '
 
 A COMPACT 193 
 
 ' I think I should hke to.' 
 
 ' You admit that you are afraid of Durnovo 
 now : if at any time you have reason to be 
 more afraid, will you make use of me ? Will 
 you write or come to me and ask my help ? ' 
 
 ' Thank j^ou,' she said hesitatingly. 
 
 'You see,' he went on in a hghter tone, 
 ' I am not afraid of Durnovo. I have met 
 Durnovos before. You may have observed 
 that my locks no longer resemble the raven's 
 wing. There is a little grey — just here — 
 above the temple. I am getting on in life, 
 and I know how to deal with Durnovos.' 
 
 'Thank you,' said the girl, with a little 
 sigh of relief. ' The feeling that I have 
 someone to turn to will be a great relief. 
 You see how I am placed here. The mis- 
 sionaries are very kind and well-meaning, 
 but there are some things which they do not 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 194 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 quite understand. They may be gentlemen — 
 some of tliem are ; but tliey are not men of 
 the world. I have no definite thought or 
 fear, and very good persons, one finds, are 
 occasionally a little dense. Unless things 
 are very definite, they do not understand.' 
 
 ' On the other hand,' pursued Jack in the 
 same reflective tone, as if taking up her 
 thought, 'persons who are not good have a 
 perception of the indefinite. I did not think 
 of it in that light before.' 
 
 Jocelyn Gordon laughed softly, without 
 attempting to meet his ligliter vein. 
 
 ' Do you know,' she said, after a little 
 silence, ' that I was actually thinking of 
 warning you against Mr. Durnovo ? Now I 
 stand aghast at my own presumption.' 
 
 ' It was kind of you to give the matter any 
 thought whatever.'
 
 A COMPACT 195 
 
 He rose and threw away the end of his 
 cigar. Joseph was already before the door, 
 leading the horse which Maurice Gordon had 
 placed at his visitor's disposal. 
 
 ' I will lay the warning to heart,' he said, 
 standing in front of Jocelyn and looking 
 down at her as she lay back in the deep 
 basket-chair. She was simply dressed in 
 white — as was her wont, for it must be 
 remembered that they were beneath the 
 Equator — a fair English maiden, whose 
 thoughts were hidden behind a certain 
 gracious, impenetrable reserve. ' I will lay 
 it to heart, although you have not uttered it. 
 But I have always known with what sort of 
 man I was dealing. We serve each otlier's 
 purpose, that is all ; and he knows that as 
 well as I do.' 
 
 2
 
 196 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 ' I am glad Mr. Oscard is going with you,' 
 she answered guardedly. 
 
 He waited a moment. It seemed as if 
 she had not done speaking — as if there was 
 another thought near the surface. But she 
 did not give voice to it and he turned away. 
 The sound of the horse's feet on the gravel 
 did not arouse her from a reverie into which 
 she had fallen ; and long after it had died 
 away, leaving only the hum of insect life and 
 the distant ceaseless song of the surf, Jocelyn 
 Gordon sat apparently watching the dancing 
 shadows on the floor as the creepers waved 
 in the breeze.
 
 197 
 
 CHAPTEE XII 
 
 A MEETING 
 
 No one can be more wise than destiny. 
 
 The sliort equatorial twiliglit was drawing to 
 an end, and all Xature stood in silence, while 
 Night crept up to claim the land where her 
 reign is more autocratic than elsewhere on 
 earth. There is a black night above the trees, 
 and a blacker beneath. In an hour it would 
 be dark, and, in the meantime, the lowering 
 clouds were tinged with a pink glow that 
 filtered through from above. There was rain 
 coming, and probably thunder. Moreover, 
 the trees seemed to know it, for there was a 
 limpness in their attitude, as if they were
 
 198 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 tucking their heads into their shoulders in 
 anticipation of the worst. The insects were 
 certainly possessed of a premonition. They 
 had crept away. 
 
 It was distinctly an unlikely evening for 
 the sportsman. The stillness was so complete 
 that the faintest rustle could be heard at a 
 great distance. Moreover, it was the sort of 
 evening when Nature herself seems to be 
 glancing over her shoulder with timorous 
 restlessness. 
 
 Nevertheless, a sportsman was abroad. 
 He was creeping up the right-hand bank of a 
 stream, his only chance lying in the noise of 
 the waters which miofht serve to deaden the 
 sound of broken twig or rustling leaf. 
 
 This sportsman was Jack Meredith, and it 
 was evident that he was bringing to bear 
 upon the matter in hand that intelligence and
 
 A MEETING 199 
 
 keenness of perception which had made him a 
 person of some prominence in other scenes 
 where Xature has a less assured place. 
 
 It would appear that he was not so much 
 at home in the tangle of an African forest as 
 in the crooked paths of London society ; for 
 liis clothes were torn in more than one place ; 
 a mosquito, done to sudden death, adhered 
 sanguinarily to the side of his aristocratic 
 nose, while heat and mental distress had drawn 
 damp stripes down his countenance. His 
 hands were scratched and inclined to bleed, 
 and one leg had apparently been in a morass. 
 Added to these physical drawbacks there was 
 no visible sign of success, which was probably 
 the worst part of Jack Meredith's phght. 
 
 Since sunset he had been crawling, scram- 
 bling, stumbling up the bank of this stream 
 in relentless pursuit of some large animal
 
 200 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 which persistently kept hidden in the tangle 
 across the bed of the river. The strange part 
 of it was that when he stopped to peep through 
 the branches the animal stopped too, and he 
 found no way of discovering its wdiereabouts. 
 More than once they remained thus for nearly 
 five minutes, peering at each other through 
 the heavy leafage. It was distinctly unplea 
 sant, for Meredith felt that the animal w^as not 
 afraid of him, and did not fully understand 
 the situation. The respective positions of 
 hunter and hunted were imperfectly defined. 
 He had hitherto confined his attentions to 
 such game as show^ed a sporting readiness to 
 run away, and there w^as a striking novelty in 
 this unseen beast of the forest, fresh, as it 
 were, from the hands of its Creator, that 
 entered into the fun of the thing from a totally 
 mistaken stand- point.
 
 A MEETING 201 
 
 Once Meredith was able to decide approxi- 
 mately the Avhereabouts of his prey by the 
 momentary shaking of a twig. lie raised his 
 rifle and covered that twig steadily ; his 
 forefinger played tentatively on the trigger ; 
 but on second thouo'hts he refrained. He 
 was keenly conscious of the fact that the beast 
 was doing its work with skill superior to his 
 own. In comparison to his, its movements 
 were almost noiseless. Jack Meredith was 
 too clever a man to be conceited in the wrong 
 place, which is the habit of fools. He 
 recognised very plainly that he was not dis- 
 tinguishing himself in this new field of glory ; 
 he was not yet an accomplished big-game 
 hunter. 
 
 Twice he raised his rifle with the intention 
 of firing at random into the underwood on 
 the remote chance of bringing his enemy into
 
 202 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 the open. But the fascmation of this duel of 
 cunning was too strong, and he crept onwards 
 w^ith bated breath. 
 
 It was terrifically hot, and all the while 
 Niorht was stalkinoj westward on the summits 
 of the trees with stealthy tread. 
 
 While absorbed in the intricacies of pursuit 
 — while anathematisinor tendrils and condemn- 
 ing thorns to summary judgment — Jack Mere- 
 dith was not losing sight of his chance of 
 getting back to the little village of Msala. 
 He knew that he had only to follow the course 
 of the stream downwards, retracing his steps 
 until a junction with the Ogowe river was 
 effected. In the meantime his lips w^ere 
 parted breathlessl}', and there was a light in 
 the quiet eyes which might have startled 
 some of his well-bred friends could they have 
 seen it.
 
 A MEETING 203 
 
 At last he came to an open space made by 
 a slip of the land into the bed of the river. 
 When Jack Meredith came to this he stepped 
 out of the thicket and stood in the open, 
 awaiting the approach of his stealtliy prey. 
 The sound of its footfall was just perceptible, 
 slowly diminishing the distance that divided 
 them. Then the trees were parted, and a tall, 
 fair man stepped forward on to the opposite 
 bank. 
 
 Jack Meredith bowed gravely, and tlie 
 other sportsman, seeing the absurdity of the 
 situation, burst into hearty laughter. In a 
 moment or two he had leapt from rock to 
 rock and come to Meredith. 
 
 ' It seems,' he said, ' that we have been 
 wasting a considerable amount of time.' 
 
 ' I very nearly wasted powder and shot,' 
 replied Jack, significantly indicating his rifle.
 
 204 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 ' I saw you twice, and raised my rifle ; 
 3^our breeches are just the colour of a young 
 doe. Are you Meredith. My name is 
 Oscard.' 
 
 ' Ah ! Yes, I am Meredith. I am glad 
 to see you.' 
 
 They shook hands. There was a twinkle 
 in Jack Meredith's eyes, but Oscard was quite 
 grave. His sense of humour was not very 
 keen, and he was before all things a sports- 
 man. 
 
 ' I left the canoes a mile below Msala, 
 and landed to shoot a deer we saw drinking, 
 but I never saw him. Then I heard 
 you, and I have been stalking you ever 
 since.' 
 
 'But I never expected you so soon ; you 
 were not due till — look ! ' Jack whispered 
 suddenly.
 
 A MEETING 205 
 
 Oscard turned on his heel, and the next 
 instant their two rifles rang out through the 
 forest stillness in one sharp crack. Across 
 the stream, ten yards behind the spot where 
 Oscard had emerged from the bush, a leopard 
 sprang into the air, five feet from the ground, 
 with head thrown back, and paws clawing at 
 the thinness of space with grand free sweeps. 
 The beast fell with a thud, and lay still — 
 dead. 
 
 The two men clambered across the rocks 
 again, side by side. While they stood over 
 the prostrate form of the leopard — beautiful, 
 incomparably graceful and sleek even in 
 death — Guy Oscard stole a sidelong glance 
 at his companion. He was a modest man, 
 and yet he knew that he was reckoned among 
 the big game hunters of the age. This man 
 had fired as quickly as himself, and there
 
 206 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 were two small trickling holes in the animal's 
 head. 
 
 While he was being quietly scrutinised 
 Jack Meredith stooped down, and, taking the 
 leopard beneath the shoulders, lifted it bodily 
 back from the pool of blood. 
 
 ' Pity to spoil the skin,' he explained, as 
 he put a fresh cartridge into his rifle. 
 
 Oscard nodded in an approving way. He 
 knew the weight of a full-grown male leopard, 
 all muscle and bone, and he was one of those 
 old-fashioned persons mentioned in the Scrip- 
 tures as taking a dehght in a man's legs — or 
 his arms, so long as they were strong. 
 
 ' I suppose,' he said quietly, 'we had better 
 skin him here.' 
 
 As he spoke he drew a long hunting-knife, 
 and, slashing down a bunch of the maiden- 
 hair fern that otcw hke nettles around them,
 
 A MEETING 207 
 
 he wiped the blood gently, almost affection- 
 ately, from the leopard's cat-like face. 
 
 There was about these two men a strict 
 attention to the matter in hand, a mutual and 
 common respect for all things pertaining to 
 sport, a quiet sense of settling down without 
 delay to the regulation of necessary detail 
 that promised well for any future interest 
 they might have in common. 
 
 So these highly-educated young gentle- 
 men turned up their sleeves and steeped 
 themselves to the elbow in gore. Moreover, 
 they did it with a certain technical skill and 
 a distinct sense of enjoyment. Truly, tlie 
 modern Enodish o-entleman is a strano^e beinor. 
 There is nothing his soul takes so much de- 
 light in as the process of getting hot and 
 very dirty, and, if convenient, somewhat 
 sanguinary. You cannot educate the manli-
 
 208 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 ness out of liim, try as you will ; and for such 
 blessings let us in all humbleness give thanks 
 to Heaven. 
 
 This was the bringing together of Jack 
 Meredith and Guy Oscard — two men who 
 loved the same woman. They knelt side by 
 side, and Jack Meredith — the older man, the 
 accomplished, gifted gentleman of the world, 
 who stood second to none in that varied 
 knowledge required nowadays of the success- 
 ful societarian — Jack Meredith, be it noted, 
 humbly dragged the skin away from the body 
 while Guy Oscard cut the clinging integu- 
 ments with a delicate touch and finished 
 skill. 
 
 Tliey laid the skin out on the trampled 
 maidenhair, and contemplated it with silent 
 satisfaction. In tlie course of their inspection 
 they both arrived at the head at the same
 
 A MEETING 209 
 
 moment. The two holes m the hide, just 
 above the eyes, came under their notice at 
 the same moment, and they turned and 
 smiled gravely at each other, thinking the 
 same thought — the sort of thought that 
 Englishmen rarely put into intelligible Eng- 
 lish. 
 
 ' I'm glad we did that,' said Guy Oscard 
 at length, suddenly. ' Whatever comes of 
 this expedition of ours — if we fight like hell, 
 as we probably shall, before it is finished — 
 if we hate each other ever afterwards, that 
 skin ought to remind us that we are much of 
 a muchness.' 
 
 It might have been put into better 
 English ; it might almost have sounded like 
 poetry had Guy Oscard been possessed of the 
 poetic soul. But this, fortunately, was not 
 his ; and all that might have been said was 
 
 VOL. I. P
 
 210 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 left to the imagination of Meredith. What 
 he really felt was that there need be no 
 rivalry, and that he for one had no thought 
 of such ; that in the quest which they were 
 about to undertake there need be no question 
 of first and last ; that they were merely two 
 men, good or bad, competent or incompetent, 
 but through all equal. 
 
 Neither of them suspected that the friend- 
 ship thus strangely inaugurated at the rifle's 
 mouth was to run through a longer period 
 than the few months required to reach the 
 plateau — that it was, in fact, to extend 
 through that long expedition over a strange 
 country that we call Life, and that it was 
 to stand the greatest test that friendship has 
 to meet with here on earth. 
 
 It was almost dark when at last they 
 turned to go. Jack Meredith carrying the skin
 
 A MEETING 211 
 
 over his shoulder and leading the way- 
 There was no opportunity for conversation, as 
 their progress was necessarily very difficult. 
 Only by the prattle of the stream were they 
 able to make sure of keeping in the right 
 direction. Each had a thousand questions 
 to ask the other. They were total strangers ; 
 but it is not, one finds, by conversation 
 that men get to know each other. A common 
 danger, a common pleasure, a common pur- 
 suit — these are the touches of Xature by 
 which men are drawn together into tlie 
 kinship of mutual esteem. 
 
 Once they gained the banks of the Ogowe 
 their progress was quicker, and by nine 
 o'clock they reached the camp at Msala. 
 Victor Durnovo was still at work superin- 
 tendincr the discharge of the ba2f<?a^e and 
 
 Stores from the large trading-canoes. They 
 
 p 2
 
 212 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 heard tlie shouting and chattering before 
 coming in sight of the camp, and one voice 
 raised angrily above the others. 
 
 ' Is that Durnovo's voice ? ' asked Mere- 
 dith. 
 
 ' Yes,' answered his companion curtly. 
 
 It was a new voice which Meredith had 
 not heard before. When they shouted to 
 announce their arrival it was suddenly 
 hushed, and presently Durnovo came forward 
 to greet them. 
 
 Meredith hardly knew him, he was so 
 much stronger and healthier in appearance. 
 Durnovo shook hands heartily. 
 
 'No need to introduce you two,' he said, 
 lookinfy from one to the other. 
 
 ' No ; after one mistake we discovered 
 each other's identity in the forest,' answered 
 Meredith.
 
 A MEETING 213 
 
 Durnovo smiled ; but there was soniethiiKr 
 behind the smile. He did not seem to 
 approve of their meeting without his inter- 
 vention.
 
 2H WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 CHAPTEE XIII 
 
 IN BLACK AND WHITE 
 
 A little lurking secret of tlie blood, 
 A little serpent secret rankling keen. 
 
 The three men walked up towards the house 
 toa'ether. It was a fair-sized house, with a 
 heavy thatched roof that overhung the walls 
 like the crown of a mushroom. The walls 
 were only mud, and the thatching was nothing 
 else than banana leaves ; but there was 
 evidence of European taste in the garden 
 surrounding the structure, and in the glazed 
 windows and wooden door. 
 
 As they approached the open doorway three 
 Httlc chiklren, clad in very little more than
 
 IN BLACK AXD WHITE 215 
 
 their native modesty, ran gleefully out, and 
 proceeded to engage seats on Jack Meredith's 
 boots, looking upon him as a mere public 
 conveyance. They took hardly any notice 
 of him, but chattered and quarrelled among 
 themselves, sometimes in baby English, some- 
 times in a dialect unknown to Oscard and 
 Meredith. 
 
 ' These,' said the latter, when they were 
 seated, and clinging with their little dusky 
 arms round his legs, ' are the very rummest 
 little kids I ever came across.' 
 
 Durnovo gave an impatient laugh, and 
 w^ent on towards the house. But Guy Oscard 
 stopped, and walked more slowly beside 
 Meredith as he laboured along heavy-footed. 
 
 ' They are the j oiliest little souls imagin- 
 able,' continued Jack Meredith. ' There,' he 
 said to them when thev had reached the
 
 216 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 doorstep, ' run away to your mother — very 
 fine ride — no ! no more to-niglit ! I'm aweary 
 — you understand — aweary ! ' 
 
 'Aweary — awe-e-e-ary! ' repeated the Httle 
 things, standing before him in infantile 
 nude rotundity, looking up with bright 
 eyes. 
 
 ' Aweary — that is it. Good niglit, Epami- 
 nondas — good night, Xantippe ! Give ye 
 good liap, most stout Nestorius ! ' 
 
 He stooped and gravely shook hands with 
 each one in turn, and, after forcing a like 
 ceremonial upon Guy Oscard, they reluctantly 
 withdrew. 
 
 ' They have not joined us, I suppose ? ' 
 said Oscard, as he followed his companion into 
 the house. 
 
 ' Xot yet. They live in this place. Nes- 
 torius, I understand, takes care of his mother,
 
 IN BLACK AND WHITE 217 
 
 who, in her turn, takes care of this house. He 
 is one and a half.' 
 
 Guy Oscard seemed to have inherited the 
 mind inquisitive from liis learned father. He 
 asked another question later on. 
 
 ' Who is that woman ? ' he said during 
 dinner, witli a little nod towards the doorway, 
 through which the object of his curiosity had 
 passed with some plates. 
 
 ' That is the mother of the stout Nes- 
 torius,' answered Jack — ' Durnovo's house- 
 keeper.' 
 
 He spoke quietly, looking straight in front 
 of him ; and Joseph, who was drawing a cork 
 at the back of the room, was watching his 
 face. 
 
 There was a little pause, during which 
 Durnovo drank slowly. Then Guy Oscard 
 spoke again.
 
 ^18 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 ' If she cooked tlie dinner,' lie said, ' she 
 knows her business.' 
 
 ' Yes,' answered Durnovo, ' she is a good 
 cook — if she is nothing else.' 
 
 It did not sound as if further inquiries 
 would be welcome, and so the subject was 
 dropped with a silent tribute to the culinary- 
 powers of Durnovo's housekeeper at the Msala 
 Station. 
 
 The woman had only appeared for a 
 moment, bringing in some dishes for Joseph — 
 a tall, stately woman, with great dark eyes, 
 in which the patience of motherhood had 
 succeeded to the soft fire of West Indian 
 love and youth. She had the graceful, slow 
 carriage of the Creole, although her skin was 
 darker than that of those dangerous sirens. 
 That Spanish blood ran in her veins could be 
 seen by the intelligence of her eyes ; for there
 
 IN BLACK AXD WHITE 219 
 
 is an intelligence in Spanish eyes which stands 
 apart. In the men it seems to refer to the 
 past or the future, for their incorrigible 
 leisureliness prevents the present rendering of 
 a full justice to their powers. In the women 
 it belongs essentially to the present ; for there 
 is no time like the present for love and other 
 things. 
 
 ' They call me,' she had said to Jack 
 Meredith, in her soft, mumbled English, a 
 fortnight earlier, ' they call me Marie.' 
 
 The children he had named after his ow^n 
 phantasy, and wdien she had once seen him 
 with them tliere was a notable change in her 
 manner. Her eyes rested on him with a sort 
 of wondering attention, and when she cooked 
 his meals or touched anything that was his 
 there was something in her attitude tliat 
 denoted a special care.
 
 220 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 Joseph called her ' Missis,' with a sort of 
 friendliness in his voice, which never rose to 
 badinage nor descended to familiarity. 
 
 ' Seems to me. missis,' he said, on the third 
 evening after the arrival of the advance 
 column, ' that the guv'nor takes uncommon 
 kindly to them little 'uns of yours.' 
 
 They were washing up together after 
 dinner in tliat part of the garden which was 
 used for a sculler}^, and Joseph was enjoj^ing 
 a post-prandial pipe. 
 
 ' Yes,' she said simply, following the 
 direction of Joseph's glance. Jack Meredith 
 was engaged in teaching Epaminondas the 
 intellectual game of bowls with a rounded 
 pebble and a beer-bottle. Xestorius, whose 
 person seemed more distended than usual, 
 stood gravely by, engaged in dental en- 
 deavours on a coik, while Xantippe joined
 
 IN BLACK AND WHITE 221 
 
 noisily in the game. Their lack of dress was 
 essentially native to the country, while their 
 mother affected a simple European style of 
 costume. 
 
 ' And,' added Joseph, on politeness bent, 
 ' it don't surprise me. I'm wonderfully fond 
 of the little nig — nippers already. I am — 
 straight.' 
 
 The truth was that the position of this 
 grave and still comely woman was ambiguous. 
 Neither Joseph nor his master called her by 
 the name she had offered for their use. 
 Joseph compromised by the universal and 
 elastic ' Missis ' ; his master simply avoided all 
 names. 
 
 Ambiguity is one of those intangible 
 nothings that get into the atmosphere and 
 have a trick of remaining there. Marie 
 seemed in some subtle way to pervade the
 
 222 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 atmosphere of Msala. It would seem that 
 Guy Oscard, in his thick-headed way, was 
 conscious of this mystery in the air ; for he 
 had not been two hours in Msala before 
 he asked ' Who is that woman ? ' and 
 received the reply which has been re- 
 corded 
 
 After dinner they passed out on to the 
 little terrace overlooking the river, and it was. 
 here that the great Simiacine scheme was 
 pieced together. It was here, beneath the 
 vast palm trees that stood like two beacons 
 towering over the surrounding forest, that 
 three men dehberately staked their own lives 
 and the lives of others against a fortune. 
 Nature has a strange way of hiding her gifts. 
 Many of the most precious have lain unheeded 
 for hundreds of years in barren plains, 
 on inaccessible mountains, or beneath the
 
 IX BLACK AXD WHITE 223 
 
 wave, while others are thrown at the feet of 
 savages who know no use for them. 
 
 The man who had found the Smhacine was 
 eager, restless, full of suspicion. To the 
 others the scheme obviously presented itself 
 in a different light. Jack Meredith was 
 dilettante^ light-hearted, and unsatisfactory. 
 It was impossible to arouse any enthusiasm in 
 Inm — to make liim take it seriously. Guy 
 Oscar d was gravely indifferent. He wanted 
 to get rid of a certain space of time, and the 
 African forest, containing as it did the only 
 excitement that his large heart knew, was as 
 good a place as any. The Simiacine was, in 
 his mind, relegated to a distant place behind 
 weeks of sport and adventure such as his soul 
 loved. He scarcely took Victor Durnovo au 
 pied de la lettre. Perhaps he knew too much 
 about him for that. Certain it is that neither
 
 224 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 of the two realised at that moment the im- 
 portance of the step that they were taking. 
 
 ' You men,' said Durnovo eagerly, ' don't 
 seem to take the thing seriously.' 
 
 ' I,' answered Meredith, ' intend at all 
 events to take the profits very seriously. 
 When they begin to come in, J. Meredith will 
 be at the above address, and trusts by a 
 careful attention to business to merit a con- 
 tinuance of your kind patronage.' 
 
 Durnovo laughed somewhat nervously. 
 Oscard did not seem to hear. 
 
 ' It is all very well for you,' said the half- 
 caste in a lower voice. ' You have not so 
 much at stake. It is likely that the happiness 
 of my whole life depends upon this venture.' 
 
 A curious smile passed across Jack Mere- 
 dith's face. Without turning his head, he 
 glanced sideways into Durnovo's face through
 
 IN BLACE. AND WHITE 225 
 
 the gloom. But he said nothing, and it was 
 Oscard who broke the silence by saying simply : 
 
 ' The same may possibly apply to me.' 
 
 There was a little pause, during which he 
 lighted his pipe. 
 
 ' To a certain extent,' he said in emenda- 
 tion. ' Of course, my real object, as you no 
 doubt know, is to get away from England 
 until my father's death has been forgotten. 
 My own conscience is quite clear, but ' 
 
 Jack Meredith drew in his legs and leant 
 forward. 
 
 ' But,' he said, interrupting, and yet not 
 interrupting — ' but the public mind is an 
 unclean sink. Everything that goes into it 
 comes out tainted. Therefore it is best only 
 to let the public mind have the scourings, 
 as it were, of one's existence. If they get 
 anything better — anything more important — 
 
 VOL. J. Q
 
 226 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 it is better to skedaddle until it lias run 
 through and been swept away by a flow of 
 social garbage.' 
 
 Guy Oscard grunted with his pipe be- 
 tween his teeth, after the manner of the stoic 
 American-Indian — a grunt that seemed to 
 say, ' My pale-faced brother has spoken well ; 
 he expresses my feelings.' Then he gave 
 further vent to the deliberate expansiveness 
 which was his. 
 
 ' What I cannot stand,' he said, ' are the 
 nudges and the nods and the surreptitious 
 glances of the silly women who think that 
 one cannot see them looking. I hate being 
 pointed out.' 
 
 ' Together with the latest skirt-dancing 
 girl, and the last female society-detective, 
 with the blushing honours of the witness box 
 thick upon her,' suggested Jack Meredith.
 
 IN BLACK AND WHITE 227 
 
 ' Yes,' muttered Guy. He turned with a 
 sort of simple wonder, and looked at Mere- 
 dith curiously. He had never been under- 
 stood so quickly before. He had never met 
 man or woman possessing in so marked a 
 degree that subtle power of going right inside 
 the mind of another and feeling the thinofs 
 that are there — the greatest power of all — 
 the power that rules the world ; and it is 
 only called Sympathy. 
 
 ' Well,' said the voice of Durnovo through 
 the darkness, ' I don't mind admitting that 
 all I want is the money. I want to get out 
 of this confounded country ; but I don't want 
 to leave till I have made a fortune.' 
 
 The subtle influence that Meredith wielded 
 seemed to have reached him too, warming 
 into expansiveness his hot Spanish blood. 
 His voice was full of confidence. 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 ' Very right and proper,' said Meredith, 
 ' Got a grudge against the country ; make 
 the country pay for it in cash/ 
 
 ' That's what I intend to do ; and it shall 
 pay heavily. Then, when I've got the money, 
 I'll know what to do with it. I know where 
 to look, and I do not think that I shall look 
 in vain/ 
 
 Guy Oscard shuffled uneasily in his camp- 
 chair. He had an Englishman's horror of 
 putting into speech those things which we 
 all think, while only Frenchmen and Italians 
 say them. The Spaniards are not so bad, 
 and Victor Durnovo had enough of their 
 blood in him to say no more. 
 
 It did not seem to occur to any of them 
 that the only person whose individuality was 
 still veiled happened to be Jack Meredith. 
 He alone had said nothing, had imparted no
 
 IN BLACK AND WHITE 229 
 
 confidence. He it was who spake first, after 
 a proper period of silence. He was too 
 much of an adept to betray haste, and thus 
 admit his debt of mutual confidence. 
 
 ' It seems to me,' he said, ' that we have 
 all the technicalities arranged now. So far 
 as the working of the expedition is concerned, 
 we know our places, and the difficulties will 
 be met as they present themselves. But 
 there is one thing which I think we should 
 set in order now. I have been thinking 
 about it while I have been waiting here 
 alone.' 
 
 The glow of Victor Durnovo's cigar died 
 away as if in his attention he was forgetting 
 to smoke ; but he said nothing. 
 
 ' It seems to me,' Jack went on, ' that 
 before we leave here we should draw up 
 and sign a sort of deed of partnership. Of
 
 230 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 course, we trust each other perfectly — there 
 is no question of that. But hfe is an uncer- 
 tain thing, as some earher philosopher said 
 before me ; and one never knows what may 
 happen. I have drawn up a paper in tripli- 
 cate. If you have a match, I will read it 
 to you.' 
 
 Oscard produced a match, and, striking 
 it on his boot, sheltered it with the hollow 
 of his hand, while Jack read : 
 
 ' We, the undersigned, hereby enter into 
 })artnership to search for and sell, to our 
 mutual profit, the herb known as Simiacine, 
 the profits to be divided into three equal por- 
 tions, after the deduction of one-hundredth 
 })art to be handed to the servant. Joseph 
 Atkinson. Any further expenses that may 
 be incurred to be borne in the same pro- 
 portion as the original expense of fitting out
 
 IN BLACK AND WHITE 231 
 
 the expedition, namely, two-fifths to be paid 
 by Guy Cravener Oscard, two-fifths by John 
 Meredith, one-fifth by Victor Durnovo. 
 
 ' The sum of fifty pounds per month to 
 be paid to Victor Durnovo, wherewith he 
 may pay the thirty special men taken from 
 his estate and head-quarters at Msala to cul- 
 tivate the Simiacine, and such corn and 
 vegetables as may be required for the sus- 
 tenance of tlie expedition ; these men to act 
 as porters until the plateau be reached. 
 
 ' The opinion of two of the three leaders 
 against one to be accepted unconditionally 
 in all questions where controversy may arise. 
 In case of death each of us undertakes 
 hereby to hand over to the executors of 
 the dead partner or partners such moneys 
 as shall belons" to him or them.'
 
 232 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 At this juncture there was a Httle pause 
 while Guy Oscard lighted a second match. 
 
 ' And,' continued Jack, ' we hereby un- 
 dertake severally, on oath, to hold the 
 whereabouts of the Simiacine a strict secret, 
 which secret may not be revealed by any one 
 of us to whomsoever it may be without the 
 sanction, in writing, of the other two 
 partners.' 
 
 ' There,' concluded Jack Meredith, ' I am 
 rather pleased with that literary production : 
 it is forcible and yet devoid of violence. I 
 feel that in me the commerce of the century 
 has lost an ornament. Moreover, I am ready 
 to swear to the terms of the agreement.' 
 
 There was a little pause. Guy Oscard 
 took his pipe from his mouth, and while he 
 knocked the ashes out against the leg of his
 
 IN BLACK AxVD WHITE 233 
 
 chair he mumbled, ' I swear to hold that 
 agreement.' 
 
 Victor Durnovo took off his hat with a 
 sweep and a flourish, and, raising his bared 
 brow to the stars, he said, ' I swear to hold to 
 that agreement. If I fail, may God strike me 
 dead ! '
 
 234 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 CHAPTER XrV 
 
 PANIC-STRICKEN 
 
 Is this reason ? Is this humanity ? Alas ! it is man. 
 
 The next morning Jack Meredith was 
 awakened by his servant Joseph before it 
 was fully light. It Avould appear as if Joseph 
 had taken no means of awakening him, for 
 Meredith awoke quite quietly to find Joseph 
 standing by his bed. 
 
 ' Holloa ! ' exclaimed the master, fully 
 awake at once, as townsmen are. 
 
 Joseph stood at attention by the bedside. 
 
 ' Woke you before yer time, sir,' he said. 
 ' There's something wrong among these 'ere 
 darkie fellers, sir.'
 
 PAXIC-STRICKEN 235 
 
 ' Wrong ! what do you mean ? ' 
 
 Meredith was already lacing his shoes. 
 
 ' Not rebellion ? ' he said curtly, looking 
 towexrds his firearms. 
 
 'No, sir, not that. It's some mortual 
 sickness. I don't know what it is. I've been 
 up half the night with them. It's spreading 
 too.' 
 
 ' Sickness ! what does it seem hke ? Just 
 give me that jacket. Not that sleeping sick- 
 ness ? ' 
 
 ' No, sir. It's not that. Missis Marie was 
 telling me about that — awful scourge that, 
 sir. No, the poor chaps are wide-awake 
 enough. Groanin', and off their heads too, 
 mostly.' 
 
 ' Have you called Mr. Oscard ? ' 
 
 ' No, sir.' 
 
 ' Call him and Mr. Durnovo.'
 
 236 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 ' Met Mr. Durnovo, sir, goin' out as I 
 came in.' 
 
 In a few moments Jack joined Durnovo 
 and Oscard, who were talking together on the 
 terrace in front of the house. Guy Oscard 
 was still in his pyjamas, which he had tucked 
 into top-boots. He also wore a sun-helmet, 
 which added a finish to his costume. They 
 got quite accustomed to this get-up during 
 the next three days, for he never had time 
 to change it ; and, somehow, it ceased to 
 be humorous long before the end of that 
 time. 
 
 ' Oh, it's nothing,' Durnovo was saying, 
 with a singular eagerness. ' I know these 
 chaps. They have been paid in advance. 
 They are probably shamming, and if they are 
 not they are only suffering from the effects of 
 a farewell glorification. They want to delay
 
 PANIC-STRICKEN 237 
 
 our start. That is their httle game. It will 
 give them a better chance of deserting.' 
 
 ' At any rate, we had better go and see 
 them,' suggested Jack. 
 
 ' No, don't ! ' cried Durnovo eagerly, de- 
 taining him with both hands. ' Take my 
 advice, and don't. Just have breakfast in 
 the ordinary way and pretend there is 
 nothing wrong. Then afterwards you can 
 lounge casually into the camp.' 
 
 ' All right,' said Jack, rather unwilHngly. 
 
 ' It has been of some use — this scare,' said 
 Durnovo, turning and looking towards the 
 river. ' It has reminded me of something. 
 We have not nearly enough quinine. I will 
 just take a quick canoe, and run down to 
 Loango to fetch some.' 
 
 He turned quite away from them, and 
 stooped to attach the lace of his boot.
 
 238 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 ' I can travel night and clay, and be back 
 here in three days,' he added. ' In the mean- 
 time you can be getting on with the loading 
 of the canoes, and we Avill start as soon as I 
 get back.' 
 
 He stood upright and looked around with 
 weather-wise, furtive eyes. 
 
 'Seems to me,' he said, ' there's thunder 
 coming. I think I had better be off at once.' 
 
 In the course of his inspection of the 
 lowering clouds which hung, black as ink, 
 just above the trees, his eyes lighted on 
 Joseph, standing within the door of the 
 cottage, watching him with a singular half- 
 suppressed smile. 
 
 ' Yes,' he said hurriedly, ' I will start at 
 once. I can eat some sort of a breakfast 
 when we are under way.' 
 
 He looked beneath his lashes quickly from
 
 PANIC-STRICKEN 239 
 
 Jack to Guy and back again. Their silent 
 acquiescence was not quite satisfactory. 
 Then he called his own men, and spoke to 
 them in a tongue unknown to the English- 
 men. He hurried forward their preparations 
 with a feverish irritability which made Jack 
 Meredith think of the first time he had ever 
 seen Durnovo — a few miles farther down the 
 river — all palpitating and tremblmg with 
 climatic nervousness. His face was quite 
 yellow, and there was a line drawn diagonally 
 from the nostrils down each cheek, to lose it- 
 self ultimately in the heavy black moustache. 
 Before he stepped into his canoe the 
 thunder was rumbling in the distance, and 
 the air was still as death. Breathing was an 
 effort ; the inhaled air did not satisfy the 
 lungs, and seemed powerless to expand them. 
 Overhead the clouds, of a blue-black
 
 240 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 intensity, seemed almost to touch the trees ; 
 the river was of ink. The rowers said 
 nothing, but they hngered on the bank and 
 watched Durnovo's face anxiously. When he 
 took his seat in the canoe they looked 
 protestingly up to the sky. Durnovo said 
 something to them rapidly, and they laid 
 their paddles to the water. 
 
 Scarcely had the boat disappeared in the 
 bend of the river before the rain broke. It 
 came with the rush of an express train — the 
 trees bending before the squall like reeds. 
 The face of the river was tormented into a 
 white fury by the drops which splashed up 
 asrain a foot in height. The lashincr of the 
 
 «— o O 
 
 water on the bare backs of the negroes was 
 distinctly audible to Victor Durnovo. 
 
 Then the black clouds split up like a rent 
 cloth, and showed behind them, not Heaven,
 
 PANIC-STRICKEN 241 
 
 but the living fire of Hell. The thunder 
 crashed out in sharp reports like file- firing at 
 a review. With one accord the men ceased 
 rowing and cr^^uched down in the canoe. 
 
 Durnovo shouted to tliem, his face livid 
 with fury. But for some moments his voice 
 was quite lost. The lightning ran over the 
 face of the river hke will-o'-the-wisps ; the 
 whole heaven was streaked continuously 
 with it. 
 
 Suddenly the negroes leaped to their 
 paddles and rowed with bent backs and wild 
 staring eyes, as if possessed. They were 
 covered by the muzzle of Durnovo's revolver. 
 
 Behind the evil-looking barrel of blue 
 steel, the half-caste's dripping face looked 
 forth, peering into the terrific storm. There 
 was no question of fending ofi' such torrents 
 of rain, nor did he attempt it. Indeed, he 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 242 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 seemed to court its downfall. lie held out 
 his arms and stretched forth his legs, giving 
 free play to the water which ran off him in a 
 continual stream, washing his thin khaki 
 clothing on his limbs. He raised his face to 
 the sky, and let the water beat upon his 
 brow and hair. 
 
 The roar of the thunder, which could be 
 felt, so great was the vibration of the laden 
 air, seemed to have no fear for him. The 
 h^htning, ever shooting athwart the sky, 
 made him blink as if dazzled, but he looked 
 upon it without emotion. 
 
 He knew that behind him he had left a 
 c^reater danger than this, and he stretched 
 out his limbs to the cleansing torrent with 
 an exulting relief to be washed from the 
 dread infection. Small-pox had laid its hand 
 on the camp at Msala ; and from the curse
 
 PAXIC-STRICKEN 243 
 
 of it Victor Durnovo was flying in a mad 
 chattering panic through all the anger of tlie 
 tropic elements, holding death over his half- 
 stunned crew, not daring to look behind him 
 or pause in his coward's flight. 
 
 It is still said on the Ogowe river that no 
 man travels like Victor Durnovo. Certain it 
 is that, in twenty-seven hours from the time 
 that he left Msala on the morning of the 
 great storm, he presented himself before 
 Maurice Gordon in his oflace at the factory at 
 Loango. 
 
 ' Ah ! ' cried Gordon, hardly noticing the 
 washed-out, harassed appearance of the 
 visitor ; ' here you are again. I heard that 
 the great expedition had started.' 
 
 'So it has, but I have come back to get 
 one or two things we have forgotten. Got 
 any sherry handy ? ' 
 
 R 2
 
 244 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 ' Of course,' replied Gordon with perfect 
 adhesion to the truth. 
 
 He laid aside his pen and, turning in his 
 chair, drew a decanter from a small cupboard 
 which stood on the ground at his side. 
 
 ' Here you are,' he continued, pouring out 
 a full glass with practised, but slightly un- 
 steady, hand. 
 
 Durnovo drank the wine at one gulp and 
 set the glass down. 
 
 ' Ah ! ' he said, ' that does a chap good.' 
 
 'Does it now?' exclaimed Maurice Gordon 
 with mock surprise. 'Well, I'll just try.' 
 
 The manner in which he emptied his glass 
 was quite different, with a long, slow draw- 
 ing-out of the enjoyment, full of significance 
 for the initiated. 
 
 'Will you be at home to-night?' asked 
 Durnovo, gently pushing aside the hospitable
 
 PANIC-STRICKEN- 245 
 
 decanter. ' I have got a lot of work to do 
 to-day, but I should like to run in and see 
 you this evening.' 
 
 ' Yes, come and dine.' 
 
 Durnovo shook his head and looked down 
 at his wrinkled and draggled clothing. 
 
 ' No, I can't do that, old man. Not in 
 this trim.' 
 
 ' Bosh ! What matter ? Jocelyn doesn't 
 mind.' 
 
 ' No, but I do.' 
 
 It was obvious that he wanted to accept 
 the invitation, although the objection he 
 raised was probably honest. For that taint 
 in the blood that cometh from the subtle 
 tar-brush brings with it a vanity that has its 
 equal in no white man's heart. 
 
 ' Well, I'll lend you a black coat ! Seven 
 o'clock sharp ! '
 
 246 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 Durnovo hurried away with a gleam of 
 excitement in his dark eyes. 
 
 Maurice Gordon did not resume his work 
 at once. He sat for some time idly drumming 
 with his fingers on the desk. 
 
 * If I can only get her to be civil to him,' 
 he reflected aloud, ' I'll get into this business 
 yet.' 
 
 At seven o'clock Durnovo appeared at the 
 Gordons' house. He had managed to borrow 
 a dress-suit, and wore an orchid in his button- 
 hole. It was probably the first time that 
 Jocelyn had seen him in this garb of civili- 
 sation, which is at the same time the most 
 becoming and the most trying variety of 
 costume left to sensible men in these days. 
 A dress-suit finds a man out sooner than any- 
 thing except speech. 
 
 Jocelyn was civil in her reception — more
 
 PANIC STRICKEN 247 
 
 SO, indeed, tlian Maurice Gordon had hoped 
 for. She seemed almost glad to see Durnovo, 
 and evinced quite a kindly intei'est in his 
 movements. Durnovo attributed this to tlie 
 dress-suit, while Maurice concluded that liis 
 obvious hints, thrown out before dinner, had 
 fallen on fruitful ground. 
 
 At dinner Victor Durnovo was quite 
 charmed with the interest that Jocelyn took 
 in the expedition, of which, he gave it to 
 be understood, he was the chief. So also 
 was Maurice, because Durnovo's evident ad- 
 miration of Jocelyn somewhat overcame his 
 natural secrecy of character. 
 
 ' You'll hear of me. Miss Gordon, never 
 fear, before three months are past,' said 
 Durnovo in reply to a vague suggestion that 
 his absence might extend to several months. 
 ' I am not the sort of man to come to grief
 
 248 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 by a foolish mistake or any unnecessary 
 risk.' 
 
 To which sentiment two men at Msala 
 bore generous testimony later on. 
 
 The simple dinner was almost at an end, 
 and it was at this time that Jocelyn Gordon 
 began once more to dislike Durnovo. At 
 first she had felt drawn towards him. Al- 
 though he wore the dress-clothes rather 
 awkwardly, there was something in his man- 
 ner which reminded her vaguely of a gen- 
 tleman. It was not that he was exactly 
 gentlemanly, but there w^as the reflection of 
 good breeding in his bearing. Dark-skinned 
 people, be it noted, have usually the imitative 
 faculty. As the dinner and the wine warmed 
 his heart, so by degrees he drew on his old 
 self like a glove. He grew bolder and less 
 guarded. His opinion of himself rose mo-
 
 PANIC-STKICKEX 249 
 
 mentarily, and with it a certain gleam in his 
 eyes increased as they rested on Jocelyn. 
 
 It was not long before she noted this, and 
 quite suddenly her ancient dislike of the man 
 was up in arms with a new intensity gathered 
 she knew not whence. 
 
 ' And,' said Maurice, when Jocelyn had 
 left them, ' I suppose you'll be a millionaire 
 in about six months ? ' 
 
 He gently pushed the wine towards him 
 at the same time. Durnovo had not slept 
 for forty hours. The excitement of his escape 
 from the plague -ridden camp had scarcely 
 subsided. The glitter of the silver on the 
 table, the shaded candles, the subtle sen- 
 suality of refinement and daintiness appealed 
 to his hot-blooded nature. He was a little 
 off his feet perhaps. He took the decanter
 
 250 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 and put it to the worst use he could have 
 selected. 
 
 ' Not so soon as that,' he said ; ' but in 
 time — in time.' 
 
 ' Lucky beggar! ' muttered Maurice Gordon 
 with a little sigh. 
 
 ' I don't mind telling you,' said Durnovo 
 with a sudden confidence begotten of Madeira, 
 ' that it's Simiacine — that's what it is. I can't 
 tell you more.' 
 
 ' Simiacine,' repeated Gordon, fingering 
 the stem of his wine-glass and looking at 
 him keenly between the candle -shades. ' Yes. 
 You've always been on its track, haven't 
 you? ' 
 
 ' In six months your go-downs will be full 
 of it — my Simiacine, my Simiacine.' 
 
 ' By God, I wish I had a hand in it.'
 
 PANIC-STKICKEN 251 
 
 Maurice Gordon pushed the decanter 
 again — gently, almost surreptitiously. 
 
 ' And so you may, some day. You help 
 me and I'll help you — that is my ticket. 
 Eeciprocity — reciprocity, my dear Maurice.' 
 
 ' Yes, but how ? ' 
 
 ' Can't tell you now, but I will in good 
 time — in my own time. Come, let's join the 
 ladies — eh ? halia ! ' 
 
 But at this moment the servant brouoht in 
 
 o 
 
 coffee, saying in his master's ear that Miss 
 Jocelyn had gone to bed with a slight head- 
 ache.
 
 252 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 A CONFIDENCE 
 
 The spirits 
 Of coming things stride on before their issues. 
 
 There is nothing that brings men so close to 
 each other as a common grievance or a com- 
 mon danger. Men who find pleasure in the 
 same game or the same pursuit are drawn 
 together by a common taste ; but in the in- 
 dulgence of it there is sure to arise, sooner 
 or later, a spirit of competition. Now, this 
 spirit, which is in most human affairs, is a 
 new bond of union when men are fi^htin^ 
 side by side against a common foe. 
 
 During the three days that followed
 
 A CONFIDENCE 253 
 
 Durnovo's departure from Msala, Jack Mere- 
 dith aDd Oscard learnt to know each other. 
 These three days were as severe a test as 
 could well be found ; for courage, humanity, 
 tenderness, loyalty, were by turns called forth 
 by circumstance. Small-pox rages in Africa 
 as it rages nowhere else in these days. The 
 natives fight it or bow before it as before 
 an ancient and deeply dreaded foe. It was 
 nothing new to them ; and it would have 
 been easy enough for Jack and Oscard to 
 prove to their own satisfaction that the pre- 
 sence of three white men at Msala was a 
 danger to themselves and no advantage to 
 the natives. It would have been very simple 
 to abandon the river station, leaving there 
 such men as were stricken down to care for 
 each other. But such a thought never 
 seemed to suggest itself.
 
 254 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 The camp was moved across the river, 
 where all who seemed strong and healthy 
 were placed under canvas, awaiting further 
 developments. 
 
 The infected were carried to a special 
 camp set apart and guarded, and this work 
 was executed almost entirely by the three 
 Englishmen, aided by a few natives who had 
 had the disease. 
 
 For three days these men went about 
 with their lives literally in their hands, tend- 
 ing the sick, cheering the despondent, fright- 
 ening the cowards into some semblance of 
 self-respect and dignity. And during these 
 three days, wherein they never took an 
 organised meal or three consecutive hours 
 of rest, Joseph, Meredith, and Oscard rose 
 together to that height of manhood where 
 master and servant, educated man and
 
 A CONFIDENCE 255 
 
 common soldier, stand equal before their 
 Maker. 
 
 Owing to the promptness with whicli 
 measures had been taken for isolating the 
 affected, the terrible sickness did not spread. 
 In all eleven men were stricken, and of these 
 ten died within three days. The eleventh 
 recovered, but eventually remained at 
 Msala. 
 
 It was only on the evening of the third 
 day that Jack and Guy found time to talk of 
 the future. They had never left Durnovo's 
 house, and on this third day they found time 
 to dine together. 
 
 ' Do you think,' Oscard asked bluntly, 
 when they were left alone to smoke, ' that 
 Durnovo knew what was the matter ? ' 
 
 'I am afraid that I have not the slightest 
 doubt of it,' replied Jack lightly.
 
 256 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 * And bolted ? ' suggested Oscard. 
 
 'And bolted.' 
 
 Guy Oscard gave a contemptuous little 
 laugh, which had a deeper insult in it than 
 he could have put into words. 
 
 ' And what is to be done ? ' he in- 
 quired. 
 
 ' Nothing. People in books would mount 
 on a very high pinnacle of virtue and cast off 
 Mr. Durnovo and all his works ; but it is 
 much more practical to make what use we 
 can of him. That is a worldly-wise, nine- 
 teenth-century way of looking at it ; we 
 cannot do without him.' 
 
 The contemplativeness of nicotine was 
 upon Guy Oscard. 
 
 ' Umph ! ' he grunted. ' It is rather dis- 
 gusting,' he said, after a pause ; ' I hate 
 dealing with cowards.'
 
 A COXFIDEXCE 257 
 
 ' And T with fools. For everyday use, 
 give me a coward by preference.' 
 
 ' Yes, there is something in that. Still, I"d 
 throw up the whole thing if ' 
 
 ' So would I,' said Jack, turning sharply 
 in his chair, ' if ' 
 
 Oscard laughed curtly and waited. 
 
 'If,' continued Jack, ' I could. But I am 
 more or less bound to go on now. Such 
 chances as this do not turn up every day ; I 
 cannot afford to let it go by. Truth is, I told 
 — someone who shall be nameless — that I 
 would make money to keep her in that state 
 of life wherein her godfathers, &c., liave 
 placed her ; and make that money I must.' 
 
 ' That is about my position too,' said Guy 
 Oscard, somewhat indistinctly, owing to the 
 fact that he habitually smoked a thick- 
 stemmed pipe. 
 
 VOL. I. s
 
 258 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 'Is it ? I'm glad of that. It gives us 
 something in common to work for.' 
 
 ' Yes/ Guy paused, and made a huge 
 effort, finally conquering that taciturnity 
 which was almost an affliction to hira. ' The 
 reason I gave the other night to you and that 
 chap Durnovo was honest enough, but I have 
 another. I want to lie low for a few months, 
 but I also want to make money. I'm as good 
 as engaged to be married, and I find that I 
 am not so well off as I thought I was. People 
 told me that I should have three thousand a 
 year when the guv'nor died, but I find that 
 people know less of my affairs than I thought.' 
 
 ' They invariably do,' put in Jack en- 
 couragingly.. 
 
 ' It is barely two thousand, and — and she 
 has been brought up to something better than 
 that.'
 
 A CONFIDENCE 259 
 
 * Um ! they mostly are. Mine has been 
 brought up to something better than that too. 
 That is the worst of it.' 
 
 Jack Meredith leant back in his folding 
 chair, and gazed practically up into the 
 heavens. 
 
 ' Of course,' Guy went on, doggedly ex- 
 pansive now that he had once plunged, ' two 
 thousand a year sounds pretty good, and it is 
 not bad to start upon. But there is no chance 
 of its increasing ; in fact, the lawyer fellows 
 say it may diminish. I know of no other 
 way to make money — had no sort of training 
 for it. I'm not of a commercial turn of 
 mind. Fellows go into the City and brew 
 beer or float companies, whatever that 
 may be.' 
 
 ' It means they sink other people's funds,' 
 explained Jack. 
 
 s 2
 
 260 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 ' Yes, I suppose it does. The guv'nor, 
 y' know, never taught me how to make a 
 livehliood ; wouldn't let me be a soldier ; sent 
 me to college, and all that ; wanted me to be 
 a litterateur. Now I'm not literary.' 
 
 ' No, I shouldn't think you were.' 
 
 ' Eemains Africa. I am not a clever chap 
 like you, Meredith.' 
 
 ' For which you may thank a gracious 
 Providence,' interposed Jack. ' Chaps like 
 me are wdiat some people call " fools " in their 
 uncouth way.' 
 
 ' But I know a little about Africa, and I 
 know something about Durnovo. That man 
 has got a mania, and it is called Simiacine. 
 He is quite straight upon that point, whatever 
 he may be upon others. He knows this country, 
 and he is not making any mistake about the 
 Simiacine, whatever '
 
 A COXFIDEXCE 261 
 
 ' His powers of sick-nursing may be,' 
 suggested Jack. 
 
 ' Yes, that's it. We'll put it that way if 
 you like.' 
 
 ' Thanks, I do prefer it. Any fool could 
 call a spade a spade. The natural ambition 
 would be to find something more flowery and 
 yet equally descriptive.' 
 
 Guy Oscard subsided into a monosyllabic 
 sound. 
 
 ' I believe implicitly in this scheme,' he 
 went on, after a pause. ' It is a certain fact 
 that the men who can supply pure Simiacine 
 have only to name their price for it. They 
 will make a fortune, and I believe that 
 Durnovo knows where it is growing in 
 quantities.' 
 
 ' I cannot see how it would pay him to 
 deceive us in the matter. That is the best
 
 262 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 way of looking at it,' murmured Jack reflec- 
 tively. ' When I first met him, the man 
 thought he was dying, and for the time I 
 really believe that he was honest. Some men 
 are honest when they feel unwell. There was 
 so little doubt in my mind that I went into 
 the thing at once.' 
 
 ' If you will go on with it I will stand by 
 you,' said Oscard shortly. 
 
 ' All riorht : I think we two toorether are 
 as good as any half-bred sharper on this coast, 
 to put it gracefully.' 
 
 Jack Meredith hghted a fresh cigarette, 
 and leant back with the somewhat exaggerated 
 grace of movement which was in reality partly 
 attributable to natural litheness. For some 
 time they smoked in silence, subject to the 
 influence of the dreamy tropic night. Across 
 the river some belated bird was calling con-
 
 A CO^^FIDEXCE 263 
 
 tinuously and cautiously for its mate. At 
 
 times the splashing movements of a crocodile 
 broke the smooth silence of the water. Over- 
 head the air was luminous with that night- 
 glow which never speaks to the senses in 
 latitudes above the teens. 
 
 There is something in man's nature that 
 inclines him sympathetically — almost respect- 
 fully — towards a mental inferior. Moreover, 
 tlie feeling, whatever it may be, is rarely, if 
 ever, found in women. A man does not 
 openly triumph in victory, as do women. One 
 sees an easy victor — at lawn tennis, for in- 
 stance — go to his vanquished foe, wiping 
 vigorously a brow that is scarcely damp, 
 and explaining more or less lamely how it 
 came about. But the same rarely happens in 
 the ' ladies' singles.' What, to quote another 
 instance, is more profound than the contempt
 
 264 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 bestowed by the girl wdtli the good figure 
 upon her wdio has no figure at all ? Without 
 claiming the virtue of a greater generosity for 
 the sex, one may, perhaps, assume that men 
 learn by experience the danger of despising 
 any man. The girl w^ith the good figure is 
 sometimes — nay, often — found blooming alone 
 in her superiority, while the despised com- 
 petitor is a happy mother of children. And 
 all this to explain that Jack Meredith felt 
 draw^n towards his great hulking companion 
 b}^ something that was not a mere respect of 
 mind for matter. 
 
 As Jove is inexplicable, so is friendship. 
 No man can explain why Saul held Jonathan 
 in such high esteem. Between men it would 
 appear that admiration is no part of friendship. 
 And such as have the patience to follow the 
 lives of the tw^o Englishmen thus brought to-
 
 A COXFIDEXCE 265 
 
 gether by a series of chances will perhaps be 
 able to discover in this record of a great 
 scheme the reason why Jack Meredith, the 
 brilliant, the gifted, should bestow upon Guy 
 Oscard such a wealth of love and esteem as 
 he never received in return. 
 
 During the silence Jack was apparently 
 meditating over the debt of confidence which 
 he still owed to his companion ; for he spoke 
 first, and spoke seriously, about himself, which 
 was somewhat against his habit. 
 
 'I dare say you have heard,' he said, 'that 
 I had a — a disagreement with my father.' 
 
 ' Yes. Heard something about it,' replied 
 Oscard, in a tone which seemed to imply that 
 the ' something ' was quite sufficient for his 
 requirements. 
 
 ' It was about my engagement,' Jack went 
 on dehberately. ' I do not know how it was,
 
 266 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 but they did not hit it off together. She was 
 too honest to throw herself at his head, I 
 suppose ; for I imagine a pretty girl can 
 usually do what she likes with an old man if 
 she takes the trouble.' 
 
 'Not with him, I think. Seemed to be 
 rather down on girls in general,' said Oscard 
 coolly. 
 
 ^ Then you know him ? ' 
 
 'Yes, a little. I have met him once or 
 twice, out, you know. I don't suppose he 
 would know me again if he saw me.' 
 
 Which last remark does not redound to 
 the credit of Guy's powers of observation. 
 
 They paused. It is wonderful how near 
 we may stand to the brink and look far away 
 beyond the chasm. Years afterwards they 
 remembered this conversation, and it is pos- 
 sible that Jack Meredith wondered then what
 
 A COXFIDE>TE 267 
 
 instinct it was that made him chancre tlie 
 direction of their thoughts. 
 
 ' K it is agreeable to you,' he said, '• I 
 think it would be wise for me to go down to 
 Loango, and gently intimate to Durnovo that 
 we should be glad of his services.' 
 
 ' Certainly.' 
 
 ' He cannot be buying quinine all this 
 time, you know. He said he would travel 
 night and day.' 
 
 Oscard nodded gravely. 
 
 ' How will you put it ? ' he asked. 
 
 ' I thought I would simply say that his 
 non-arrival caused us some anxiety, and that 
 I had come down to see if anything was 
 wrong.' 
 
 Jack rose and threw away the end of his 
 cigarette. It was quite late, and across the 
 river the gleam of the moonlight on fixed
 
 268 WITH EDGED TOOLS 
 
 bayonets told that only the sentries were 
 astir. 
 
 ' And what about the small-pox ? ' pur- 
 sued Oscard, more with the desire to learn 
 than to amend. 
 
 'Don't think I shall say anything about 
 that. The man wants careful handling.' 
 
 ' You will have to tell him that we have 
 got it under.' 
 
 ' Yes, I'll do that. Good-night, old fellow ; 
 I shall be off by dayliglit.' 
 
 By seven o'clock the next morning the 
 canoe was ready, with its swarthy rowers in 
 their places. The two Englishmen break- 
 fasted together, and tlien walked down to the 
 landing-stage side by side. 
 
 It was raining steadily, and the atmo- 
 sphere had that singular feeling of total 
 relaxation and limpness which is only to
 
 A COXFIDE^X•E 2G9 
 
 be felt in the rain-ridden districts of Central 
 Africa. 
 
 ' Take care of yourself,' said Oscard gruffly 
 as Jack stepped into the canoe. 
 
 " All right.' 
 
 ' And bring back Durnovo with you.' 
 
 Jack Meredith looked up with a vague 
 smile. 
 
 ' That man,' he said hghtly, ' is going to 
 the plateau if I have to drag him there by the 
 scruff of the neck.' 
 
 And he believed that he was thinking of 
 the expedition only. 
 
 THE END OF THE FIRST VOLUME 
 
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 MARY BARTON. 
 
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 RUTH. 
 
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