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A Yellow God: An Idol of Africa

by H. Rider Haggard · English · Gutenberg #2857 · 524,969 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: A Yellow God: An Idol of Africa

Author: H. Rider Haggard


        
Release date: April 4, 2006 [eBook #2857]
                Most recently updated: November 8, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2857

Credits: John Bickers, Dagny, Emma Dudding and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A YELLOW GOD: AN IDOL OF AFRICA ***



Illustration]


THE YELLOW GOD


AN IDOL OF AFRICA


By H. Rider Haggard




CONTENTS


CHAPTER I. SAHARA, LIMITED.
CHAPTER II. THE YELLOW GOD.
CHAPTER III. JEEKIE TELLS A TALE.
CHAPTER IV. ALAN AND BARBARA.
CHAPTER V. BARBARA MAKES A SPEECH.
CHAPTER VI. MR. HASWELL LOSES HIS TEMPER.
CHAPTER VII. THE DIARY.
CHAPTER VIII. THE DWARF FOLK.
CHAPTER IX. THE DAWN.
CHAPTER X. BONSA TOWN.
CHAPTER XI. THE HALL OF THE DEAD.
CHAPTER XII. THE GOLD HOUSE.
CHAPTER XIII. THE FEAST OF LITTLE BONSA.
CHAPTER XIV. THE MOTHER OF JEEKIE.
CHAPTER XV. ALAN FALLS ILL.
CHAPTER XVI. WHAT THE ASIKA SHOWED ALAN.
CHAPTER XVII. THE END OF THE MUNGANA.
CHAPTER XVIII. A MEETING IN THE FOREST.
CHAPTER XIX. THE LAST OF THE ASIKI.
CHAPTER XX. THE ASIKA’S MESSAGE.




CHAPTER I.

SAHARA, LIMITED.


Sir Robert Aylward, Bart., M.P., sat in his office in the City of
London. It  was a very magnificent office, quite one of the finest that
could be found  within half a mile of the Mansion House. Its exterior
was built of Aberdeen  granite, a material calculated to impress the
prospective investor with a  comfortable sense of security. Other
stucco, or even brick-built, offices might  crumble and fall in an
actual or a financial sense, but this rock-like edifice  of granite,
surmounted by a life-sized statue of Justice with her scales,  admired
from either corner by pleasing effigies of Commerce and of Industry, 
would surely endure any shock. Earthquake could scarcely shake its
strong  foundations; panic and disaster would as soon affect the Bank of
England. That  at least was the impression which it had been designed to
convey, and not  without success.  

“There is so much in externals,” Mr. Champers-Haswell, Sir
Robert’s partner, would say in his cheerful voice. “We are all of
us influenced by them, however unconsciously. Impress the public, my
dear  Aylward. Let solemnity without suggest opulence within, and the
bread, or  rather the granite, which you throw upon the waters will come
back to you after  many days.”

Mr. Aylward, for this conversation occurred before his merits or the
depth of  his purse had been rewarded by a baronetcy, looked at his
partner in the  impassive fashion for which he was famous, and answered:

“You mix your metaphors, Haswell, but if you mean that the public are
fools who must be caught by advertisement, I agree with you. Only this
particular advertisement is expensive and I do not want to wait many
days for  my reward. However, £20,000 one way or the other is a small
matter, so tell  that architect to do the thing in granite.”

Sir Robert Aylward sat in his own quiet room at the back of this
enduring  building, a very splendid room that any Secretary of State
might have envied,  but arranged in excellent taste. Its walls were
panelled with figured teak, a  rich carpet made the footfall noiseless,
an antique Venus stood upon a marble  pedestal in the corner, and over
the mantelpiece hung a fine portrait by  Gainsborough, that of a certain
Miss Aylward, a famous beauty in her day, with  whom, be it added, its
present owner could boast no connection whatsoever.  

Sir Robert was seated at his ebony desk playing with a pencil, and the
light  from a cheerful fire fell upon his face.

In its own way it was a remarkable face, as he appeared then in his four
and  fortieth year; very pale but with a natural pallor, very well cut
and on the  whole impressive. His eyes were dark, matching his black
hair and pointed  beard, and his nose was straight and rather prominent.
Perhaps the mouth was  his weakest feature, for there was a certain
shiftiness about it, also the lips  were thick and slightly sensuous.
Sir Robert knew this, and therefore he grew a  moustache to veil them
somewhat. To a careful observer the general impression  given by this
face was such as is left by the sudden sight of a waxen mask.  “How
strong! How lifelike!” he would have said, “but of  course it isn’t
real. There may be a man behind, or there may be wood,  but that’s only
a mask.” Many people of perception had felt like  this about Sir Robert
Aylward, namely, that under the mask of his pale  countenance dwelt a
different being whom they did not know or appreciate.  

If these had seen him at this moment of the opening of our story, they
might  have held that Wisdom was justified of her children. For now in
the solitude of  his splendid office, of a sudden Sir Robert’s mask
seemed to fall from  him. His face broke up like ice beneath a thaw. He
rose from his table and  began to walk up and down the room. He talked
to himself aloud.  

“Great Heavens!” he muttered, “what a game to have played,
and it will go through. I believe that it will go through.”

He stopped at the table, switched on an electric light and made a rapid
calculation on the back of a letter with a blue pencil.

“Yes,” he said, “that’s my share, a million and
seventeen thousand pounds in cash, and two million in ordinary shares
which can  be worked off at a discount—let us say another seven hundred
and fifty  thousand, plus what I have got already—put that at only two
hundred and  fifty thousand net. Two millions in all, which of course
may or may not be  added to, probably not, unless the ordinaries boom,
for I don’t mean to  speculate any more. That’s the end of twenty years’
work, Robert  Aylward. And to think of it, eighteen months ago, although
I seemed so rich, I  was on the verge of bankruptcy—the very verge, not
worth five thousand  pounds. Now what did the trick? I wonder what did
the trick?”  

He walked down the room and stopped opposite the ancient marble, staring
at  it—

“Not Venus, I think,” he said, with a laugh, “Venus never
made any man rich.” He turned and retraced his steps to the other end of
the room, which was veiled in shadow. Here upon a second marble pedestal
stood  an object that gleamed dimly through the gloom. It was about ten
inches or a  foot high, but in that place nothing more could be seen of
it, except that it  was yellow and had the general appearance of a toad.
For some reason it seemed  to attract Sir Robert Aylward, for he halted
to stare at it, then stretched out  his hand and switched on another
lamp, in the hard brilliance of which the  thing upon the pedestal
suddenly declared itself, leaping out of the darkness  into light. It
was a terrible object, a monstrosity of indeterminate sex and  nature,
but surmounted by a woman’s head and face of extraordinary, if  devilish
loveliness, sunk back between high but grotesquely small shoulders, 
like to those of a lizard, so that it glared upwards. The workmanship of
the  thing was rude yet strangely powerful. Whatever there is cruel,
whatever there  is devilish, whatever there is inhuman in the dark
places of the world, shone  out of the jewelled eyes which were set in
that yellow female face, yellow  because its substance was of gold, a
face which seemed not to belong to the  embryonic legs beneath, for body
there was none, but to float above them. A  hollow, life-sized mask with
two tiny frog-like legs, that was the fashion of  it.  

“You are an ugly brute,” muttered Sir Robert, contemplating this
effigy, “but although I believe in nothing in heaven above or earth
below, except the abysmal folly of the British public, I am bothered if
I  don’t believe in you. At any rate from the day when Vernon brought
you  into my office, my luck turned, and to judge from the smile on your
sweet  countenance, I don’t think it is done with yet. I wonder what
those  stones are in your eyes. Opals, I suppose, from the way they
change colour.  They shine uncommonly to-day, I never remember them so
bright.  I——”

At this moment a knock came on the door. Sir Robert turned off the lamp
and  walked back to the fireplace.

“Come in,” he said, and as he spoke once more his pale face grew
impassive and expressionless.

The door opened and a clerk entered, an imposing-looking clerk with
iron-grey  hair, who wore an irreproachable frock coat and patent
leather boots. Advancing  to his master, he stood respectfully silent,
waiting to be addressed. For quite  a long while Sir Robert looked over
his head as though he did not see him; it  was a way of his. Then his
eyes rested on the man dreamily and he remarked in  his cold, clear
voice:  

“I don’t think I rang, Jeffreys.”

“No, Sir Robert,” answered the clerk, bowing as though he spoke to
Royalty, “but there is a little matter about that article in _The
Cynic_.”

“Press business,” said Sir Robert, lifting his eyebrows; “you
should know by this time that I do not attend to such details. See Mr.
Champers-Haswell, or Major Vernon.”

“They are both out at the moment, Sir Robert.”

“Go on, then, Jeffreys,” replied the head of the firm with a
resigned sigh, “only be brief. I am thinking.”

The clerk bowed again.

“The _Cynic_ people have just telephoned through about that article
we sent them. I think you saw it, sir, and you may remember it
begins——” and he read from a typewritten copy in his hand
which was headed “Sahara, Limited”:

“‘We are now privileged to announce that this mighty scheme which
will turn a desert into a rolling sea bearing the commerce of nations
and cause  the waste places of the earth to teem with population and to
blossom like the  rose, has been completed in its necessary if dull
financial details and will  within a few days be submitted to investors
among whom it has already caused so  much excitement. These details we
will deal with fully in succeeding articles,  and therefore now need
only pause to say that the basis of capitalization  strikes us as
wonderfully advantageous to the fortunate public who are asked to 
participate in its vast prospective prosperity. Our present object is to
speak  of its national and imperial aspects——’”  

Sir Robert lifted his eyes in remonstrance:

“How much more of that exceedingly dull and commonplace puff do you
propose to read, Jeffreys?” he asked.

“No more, Sir Robert. We are paying _The Cynic_ thirty guineas to
insert this article, and the point is that they say that if they have to
put in  the ‘national and imperial’ business they must have twenty
more.”

“Indeed, Jeffreys? Why?”

“Because, Sir Robert—I will tell you, as you always like to hear
the truth—their advertisement-editor is of opinion that Sahara Limited
is  a national and imperial swindle. He says that he won’t drag the
nation  and the empire into it in an editorial under fifty guineas.”

A faint smile flickered on Sir Robert’s face.

“Does he, indeed?” he asked. “I wonder at his moderation. Had
I been in his place I should have asked more, for really the style is a
little  flamboyant. Well, we don’t want to quarrel with them just
now—feed  the sharks. But surely, Jeffreys, you didn’t come to disturb
me about  such a trifle?”

“Not altogether, Sir Robert. There is something more important. _The
Daily Judge_ not only declines to put any article whatsoever, but
refuses  our advertisement, and states that it means to criticize the
prospectus  trenchantly.”

“Ah!” said his master after a moment’s thought, “that
_is_ rather serious, since people believe in the _Judge_ even when it
is wrong. Offer them the advertisement at treble rates.”

“It has been done, sir, and they still refuse.”

Sir Robert walked to the corner of the room where the yellow object
squatted on  its pedestal, and contemplated it a while, as a man often
studies one thing  when he is thinking of another. It seemed to give him
an idea, for he looked  over his shoulder and said:

“That will do, Jeffreys. When Major Vernon comes in, give him my
compliments and say that I should be obliged by a word or two with him.”

The clerk bowed and went as noiselessly as he had entered.

“Let’s see,” added Sir Robert to himself. “Old Jackson,
the editor of _The Judge_, was a great friend of Vernon’s father,
the late Sir William Vernon, G.C.B. I believe that he was engaged to be
married  to his sister years ago, only she died or something. So the
Major ought to be  able to get round him if anybody can. Only the worst
of it is I don’t  altogether trust that young gentleman. It suited us to
give him a share in the  business because he is an engineer who knows
the country, and this Sahara  scheme was his notion, a very good one in
a way, and for other reasons. Now he  shows signs of kicking over the
traces, wants to know too much, is developing a  conscience, and so
forth. As though the promoters of speculative companies had  any
business with consciences. Ah! here he comes.”  

Sir Robert seated himself at his desk and resumed his calculations upon
a  half-sheet of note-paper, and that moment a clear, hearty voice was
heard  speaking to the clerks in the outer office. Then came the sound
of a strong,  firm footstep, the door opened and Major Alan Vernon
appeared.  

He was still quite a young man, not more than thirty-two or three years
of age,  though he lacked the ultra robust and rubicund appearance which
is typical of  so many Englishmen of his class at this period of life. A
heavy bout of  blackwater fever acquired on service in West Africa,
which would have killed  anyone of weaker constitution, had robbed his
face of its bloom and left it  much sallower, if more interesting than
once it had been. For in a way there  was interest about the face; also
a certain charm. It was a good and honest  face with a rather eager,
rather puzzled look, that of a man who has  imagination and ideas and
who searches for the truth but fails to find it. As  for the charm, it
lay for the most part in the pleasant, open smile and in the  frank but
rather round brown eyes overhung by a somewhat massive forehead which 
projected a little, or perhaps the severe illness already alluded to had
caused  the rest of the face to sink. Though thin, the man was bigly
built, with broad  shoulders and well-developed limbs, measuring a
trifle under six feet in height.    

Such was the outward appearance of Alan Vernon. As for his mind, it was
able  enough in certain fashions, for instance those of engineering, and
the  soldier-like faculties to which it had been trained; frank and
kindly also, but  in other respects not quick, perhaps from its
unsuspiciousness. Alan Vernon was  a man slow to discover ill and slower
still to believe in it even when it  seemed to be discovered, a weakness
that may have gone far to account for his  presence in the office of
those eminent and brilliant financiers, Messrs.  Aylward &
Champers-Haswell. Just now he looked a little worried, like a  fish out
of water, or rather a fish which has begun to suspect the quality of 
the water, something in its smell or taste.  

“Jeffreys tells me that you want to see me, Sir Robert,” he said in
his low and pleasant voice, looking at the baronet rather anxiously.

“Yes, my dear Vernon, I wish to ask you to do something, if you kindly
will, although it is not quite in your line. Old Jackson, the editor of
_The  Judge_, is a friend of yours, isn’t he?”

“He was a friend of my father’s, and I used to know him
slightly.”

“Well, that’s near enough. As I daresay you have heard, he is an
unreasonable old beggar, and has taken a dislike to our Sahara scheme.
Someone  has set him against it and he refuses to receive
advertisements, threatens  criticisms, etc. Now the opposition of _The
Judge_ or any other paper  won’t kill us, and if necessary we can fight,
but at the same time it is  always wise to agree with your enemy while
he is in the way, and in  short—would you mind going down and explaining
his mistake to him?”  

Before answering Major Vernon walked to the window leisurely and looked
out.  

“I don’t like asking favours from family friends,” he replied
at length, “and, as you said, I think it isn’t quite my line.
Though of course if it has anything to do with the engineering
possibilities, I  shall be most happy to see him,” he added,
brightening.  

“I don’t know what it has to do with; that is what I shall be
obliged if you will find out,” answered Sir Robert with some asperity.
“One can’t divide a matter of this sort into watertight
compartments. It is true that in so important a concern each of us has
charge  of his own division, but the fact remains that we are jointly
and severally  responsible for the whole. I am not sure that you bear
this sufficiently in  mind, my dear Vernon,” he added with slow
emphasis.  

His partner moved quickly; it might almost have been said that he
shivered,  though whether the movement, or the shiver, was produced by
the argument of  joint and several liability or by the familiarity of
the “my dear  Vernon,” remains uncertain. Perhaps it was the latter,
since although the  elder man was a baronet and the younger only a
retired Major of Engineers, the  gulf between them, as any one of
discernment could see, was wide. They were  born, lived, and moved in
different spheres unbridged by any common element or  impulse.

“I think that I do bear it in mind, especially of late, Sir
Robert,” answered Alan Vernon slowly.

His partner threw a searching glance on him, for he felt that there was
meaning  in the words, but only said:

“That’s all right. My motor is outside and will take you to Fleet
Street in no time. Meanwhile you might tell them to telephone that you
are  coming, and perhaps you will just look in when you get back. I
haven’t  got to go to the House to-night, so shall be here till dinner
time, and so, I  think, will your cousin Haswell. Muzzle that old
bulldog, Jackson, somehow. No  doubt he has his price like the rest of
them, in meal or malt, and you  needn’t stick at the figure. We don’t
want him hanging on our  throat for the next week or two.”

Ten minutes later the splendid, two-thousand guinea motor brougham drew
up at  the offices of the _Judge_ and the obsequious motor-footman bowed
Major  Vernon through its rather grimy doorway. Within, a small boy in a
kind of box  asked his business, and when he heard his name, said that
the  “Guvnor” had sent down word that he was go up at once—third
floor, first to the right and second to the left. So up he went, and
when he  reached the indicated locality was taken possession of by a
worried-looking  clerk who had evidently been waiting for him, and
almost thrust through a door  to find himself in a big, worn, untidy
room. At a huge desk in this room sat an  elderly man, also big, worn,
and untidy-looking, who waved a long slip of  galley-proof in his hand,
and was engaged in scolding a sub-editor.  

“Who is that?” he said, wheeling round. “I’m busy,
can’t see anyone.”

“I beg your pardon,” answered the Major with humility, “your
people told me to come up. My name is Alan Vernon.”

“Oh! I remember. Sit down for a moment, will you, and—Mr. Thomas,
oblige me by taking away this rot and rewriting it entirely in the sense
I have  outlined.”

Mr. Thomas snatched his rejected copy and vanished through another door,
whereon his chief remarked in an audible voice:

“That man is a perfect fool. Lucky I thought to look at his stuff. Well,
he is no worse than the rest, in this weary world,” and he burst into a
hearty laugh and swung his chair round, adding, “Now then, Alan, what is
it? I have a quarter of an hour at your service. Why, bless me! I was
forgetting that it’s more than a dozen years since we met; you were
still  a boy then, and now you have left the army with a D.S.O. and
gratuity, and  turned financier, which I think wouldn’t have pleased
your old father.  Come, sit down here and let us talk.”

“I didn’t leave the army, Mr. Jackson,” answered his visitor;
“it left me; I was invalided out. They said I should never get my health
back after that last go of fever, but I did.”

“Ah! bad luck, very bad luck, just at the beginning of what should have
been a big career, for I know they thought highly of you at the War
Office,  that is, if they can think. Well, you have grown into a
fine-looking fellow,  like your father, very, and someone else too,” and
he sighed, running his  fingers through his grizzled hair. “But you
don’t remember her; she  was before your time. Now let us get to
business; there’s no time for  reminiscences in this office. What is it,
Alan, for like other people I suppose  that you want something?”

“It is about that Sahara flotation, Mr. Jackson,” he began rather
doubtfully.

The old editor’s face darkened. “The Sahara flotation! That
accursed——” and he ceased abruptly. “What have you, of
all people in the world, got to do with it? Oh! I remember. Someone told
me  that you had gone into partnership with Aylward the company
promoter, and that  little beast, Champers-Haswell, who really is the
clever one. Well, set it out,  set it out.”

“It seems, Mr. Jackson, that _The Judge_ has refused not only our
article, but also the advertisement of the company. I don’t know much
about this side of the affair myself, but Sir Robert asked me if I would
come  round and see if things couldn’t be arranged.”

“You mean that the man sent you to try and work on me because he knew
that I used to be intimate with your family. Well, it is a poor errand
and will  have a poor end. You can’t—no one on earth can, while I sit in
this  chair, not even my proprietors.”

There was silence broken at last by Alan, who remarked awkwardly:

“If that is so, I must not take up your time any longer.”

“I said that I would give you a quarter of an hour, and you have only
been here four minutes. Now, Alan Vernon, tell me as your father’s old
friend, why you have gone to herd with these gilded swine?”

There was something so earnest about the man’s question that it did not
even occur to his visitor to resent its roughness.

“Of course it is not original,” he answered, “but I had this
idea about flooding the Desert; I spent a furlough up there a few years
ago and  employed my time in making some rough surveys. Then I was
obliged to leave the  Service and went down to Yarleys after my father’s
death—it’s  mine now, you know, but worth nothing except a shooting
rent, which just pays  for the repairs. There I met Champers-Haswell,
who lives near and is a kind of  distant cousin of mine—my mother was a
Champers—and happened to  mention the thing to him. He took it up at
once and introduced me to Aylward,  and the end of it was, that they
offered me a partnership with a small share in  the business, because
they said I was just the man they wanted.”  

“Just the man they wanted,” repeated the editor after him.
“Yes, the last of the Vernons, an engineer with an old name in his
county, a clean record and plenty of ability. Yes, you would be just the
man  they wanted. And you accepted?”

“Yes. I was on my beam ends with nothing to do; I wanted to make some
money. You see Yarleys has been in the family for over five hundred
years, and  it seemed hard to have to sell it. Also—also——” and he
paused.

“Ever meet Barbara Champers?” asked Mr. Jackson inconsequently.
“I did once. Wonderfully nice girl, and very good-looking too. But of
course you know her, and she is her uncle’s ward, and their place
isn’t far off Yarleys, you say. Must be a connection of yours also.”

Major Vernon started a little at the name and his face seemed to redden.

“Yes,” he said, “I have met her and she is a
connection.”

“Will be a big heiress one day, I think,” went on Mr. Jackson,
“unless old Haswell makes off with her money. I think Aylward knows
that;  at any rate he was hanging about when I saw her.”

Vernon started again, this time very perceptibly.

“Very natural—your going into the business, I mean, under all the
circumstances,” went on Mr. Jackson. “But now, if you will take my
advice, you’ll go out of it as soon as you can.”

“Why?”

“Because, Alan Vernon, I am sure you don’t want to see your name
dragged in the dirt, any more than I do.” He fumbled in a drawer and
produced a typewritten document. “Take that,” he said, “and
study it at your leisure. It’s a sketch of the financial career of
Messrs. Aylward and Champers-Haswell, also of the companies which they
have  promoted and been connected with, and what has happened to them
and to those  who invested in them. A man got it out for me yesterday
and I’m going to  use it. As regards this Sahara business, you think it
all right, and so it may  be from an engineering point of view, but you
will never live to sail upon that  sea which the British public is going
to be asked to find so many millions to  make. Look here. We have only
three minutes more, so I will come to the point  at once. It’s Turkish
territory, isn’t it, and putting aside  everything else, the security
for the whole thing is a Firman from the  Sultan?”

“Yes, Sir Robert Aylward and Haswell procured it in Constantinople. I
have seen the document.”

“Indeed, and are you well acquainted with the Sultan’s signature? I
know when they were there last autumn that potentate was very
ill——”

“You mean——” said Major Vernon, looking up.

“I mean, Alan, that I like not the security. I won’t say any more,
as there is a law of libel in this land. But _The Judge_ has certain
sources of information. It may be that no protest will be made at once,
for  baksheesh can stop it for a while, but sooner or later the protest
or  repudiation will come, and perhaps some international bother; also
much  scandal. As to the scheme itself, it is shamelessly
over-capitalized for the  benefit of the promoters—of whom, remember,
Alan, you will appear as one.  Now time’s up. Perhaps you will take my
advice, and perhaps you  won’t, but there it is for what it’s worth as
that of a man of the  world and an old friend of your family. As for
your puff article and your  prospectus, I wouldn’t put them in _The
Judge_ if you paid me a  thousand pounds, which I daresay your friend,
Aylward, would be quite ready to  do. Good-bye. Come and see me again
sometime, and tell me what has  happened—and, I say”—this last was
shouted through the  closing door,—“give my kind regards to Miss
Barbara, for wherever  she happens to live, she is an honest woman.”




CHAPTER II.

THE YELLOW GOD.


Alan Vernon walked thoughtfully down the lead-covered stairs, hustled by
eager  gentlemen hurrying up to see the great editor, whose bell was
already ringing  furiously, and was duly ushered by the obsequious
assistant-chauffeur back into  the luxurious motor. There was an
electric lamp in this motor, and by the light  of it, his mind being
perplexed, he began to read the typewritten document  given to him by
Mr. Jackson, which he still held in his hand.  

As it chanced they were blocked for a quarter of an hour near the
Mansion  House, so that he found time, if not to master it, at least to
gather enough of  its contents to make him open his brown eyes very wide
before the motor pulled  up at the granite doorway of his office. Alan
descended from the machine, which  departed silently, and stood for a
moment wondering what he should do. His  impulse was to jump into a bus
and go straight to his rooms or his club, to  which Sir Robert did not
belong, but being no coward, he dismissed it from his  mind.

His fate hung in the balance, of that he was well aware. Either he must
disregard Mr. Jackson’s warning, confirmed as it was by many secret
fears  and instincts of his own, and say nothing except that he had
failed in his  mission, or he must take the bull by the horns and break
with the firm. To do  the latter meant not only a good deal of moral
courage, but practical ruin,  whereas if he chose the former course,
probably within a fortnight he would  find himself a rich man. Whatever
Jackson and a few others might say in its  depreciation, he was certain
that the Sahara flotation would go through, for it  was underwritten, of
course upon terms, by responsible people, moreover the  unissued
preferred shares had already been dealt in at a heavy premium. Now to 
say nothing of the allotment to which he was entitled upon his holding
in the  parent Syndicate, the proportion of cash due to him as a
partner, would amount  to quite a hundred thousand pounds. In other
words, he, who had so many reasons  for desiring money, would be
wealthy. After working so hard and undergoing so  much that he felt to
be humiliating and even degrading, why should he not take  his reward
and clear out afterwards?    

This he remembered he could do, since probably by some oversight of
Aylward’s, who left such matters to his lawyers, his deed of partnership
did not bind him to a fixed term. It could be broken at any moment. To
this  argument there was only one possible answer, that of his
conscience. If once he  were convinced that things were not right, it
would be dishonest to participate  in their profits. And he was
convinced. Mr. Jackson’s arguments and his  damning document had thrown
a flood of light upon many matters which he had  suspected but never
quite understood. He was the partner of, well, adventurers,  and the
money which he received would, in fact, be filched from the pockets of 
unsuspecting persons. He would vouch for that of which he was doubtful
and  receive the price of sharp practice. In other words he, Alan
Vernon, who had  never uttered a wilful untruth or taken a halfpenny
that was not his own, would  before the tribunal of his own mind, stand
convicted as a liar and a thief. The  thing was not to be borne. At
whatever cost it must be ended. If he were fated  to be a beggar, at
least he would be an honest beggar.    

With a firm step and a high head he walked straight into Sir Robert’s
room, without even going through the formality of knocking, to find Mr.
Champers-Haswell seated at the ebony desk by his partner’s side
examining  some document through a reading-glass, which on his
appearance, was folded over  and presently thrust away into a drawer. It
seemed, Alan noticed, to be of an  unusual shape and written in some
strange character.  

Mr. Haswell, a stout, jovial-looking little man with a florid complexion
and  white hair, rose at once to greet him.

“How do you do, Alan,” he said in a cheerful voice, for as a cousin
by marriage he called him by his Christian name. “I am just this minute
back from Paris, and you will be glad to learn that they are going to
support  us very well there; in fact I may say that the Government has
taken up the  scheme, of course under the rose. You know the French have
possessions all  along that coast and they won’t be sorry to find an
opportunity of  stretching out their hand a little further. Our
difficulties as to capital are  at an end, for a full third of it is
guaranteed in Paris, and I expect that  small investors and speculators
for the rise will gobble a lot more. We shall  plant £10,000,000 worth
of Sahara scrip in sunny France, my boy, and foggy  England has
underwritten the rest. It will be a case of ‘letters of  allotment and
regret,’ _and_ regret, Alan, financially the most  successful issue of
the last dozen years. What do you say to that?” and  in his elation the
little man puffed out his chest and pursing up his lips,  blew through
them, making a sound like that of wind among wires.  

“I don’t know, Mr. Haswell. If we are all alive I would prefer to
answer the question twelve months hence, or later, when we see whether
the  company is going to be a practical success as well, or not.”

Again Mr. Haswell made the sound of wind among wires, only this time
there was  a shriller note in it; its mellowness was gone, it was as
though the air had  suddenly been filled with frost.

“A practical success!” he repeated after him. “That is
scarcely our affair, is it? Promoters should not bother themselves with
long  views, Alan. These may be left to the investing public, the
speculative parson  and the maiden lady who likes a flutter—those props
of modern enterprise.  But what do you mean? You originated this idea
and always said that the profits  should be great.”

“Yes, Mr. Haswell, on a moderate capitalization and provided that we are
sure of the co-operation of the Porte.”

Mr. Haswell looked at him very searchingly and Sir Robert, who had been
listening, said in his cold voice:

“I think that we thrashed out these points long ago, and to tell you the
truth I am rather tired of them, especially as it is too late to change
anything. How did you get on with Jackson, Vernon?”

“I did not get on at all, Sir Robert. He will not touch the thing on any
terms, and indeed means to oppose it tooth and nail.”

“Then he will find himself in a minority when the articles come out
to-morrow. Of course it is a bore, but we are strong enough to snap our
fingers  at him. You see they don’t read _The Judge_ in France, and no
one  has ever heard of it in Constantinople. Therefore we have nothing
to  fear—so long as we stick together,” he added meaningly.

Alan felt that the crisis had come. He must speak now or for ever hold
his  peace; indeed Aylward was already looking round for his hat.

“Sir Robert and Mr. Haswell,” he broke in rather nervously,
“I have something to say to you, something unpleasant,” and he
paused.

“Then please say it at once, Vernon. I want to dress for dinner, I am
going to the theatre to-night and must dine early,” replied Aylward in a
voice of the utmost unconcern.

“It is, Sir Robert,” went on Alan with a rush, “that I do not
like the lines upon which this business is being worked, and I wish to
give up  my interest in it and retire from the firm, as I have a right
to do under our  deed of partnership.”

“Have you?” said Aylward. “Really, I forget. But, my dear
fellow, do not think that we should wish to keep you for one moment
against  your will. Only, might I ask, has that old puritan, Jackson,
hypnotized you, or  is it a case of sudden madness after influenza?”

“Neither,” answered Alan sternly, for although he might be
diffident on matters that he did not thoroughly understand, he was not a
man to  brook trifling or impertinence. “It is what I have said, no more
nor  less. I am not satisfied either as to the capitalization or as to
the guarantee  that the enterprise can be really carried out.
Further”—and he  paused,—“Further, I should like what I have never yet
been able to  obtain, more information as to that Firman under which the
concession is  granted.”

For one moment a sort of tremor passed over Sir Robert’s impassive
countenance, while Mr. Haswell uttered his windy whistle, this time in a
tone  of plaintive remonstrance.

“As you have formally resigned your membership of the firm, I do not see
that any useful purpose can be served by discussing such matters. The
fullest  explanations, of course, we should have been willing to
give——”

“My dear Alan,” broke in Mr. Champers-Haswell, who was quite upset,
“I do implore you to reflect for one moment, for your own sake. In a
single week you would have been a wealthy man; do you really mean to
throw away  everything for a whim?”

“Perhaps Vernon remembers that he holds over 1700 of the Syndicate
shares  which we have worked up to £18, and thinks it wiser to capture
the profit in  sight, generally speaking a very sound principle,”
interrupted Aylward  sarcastically.

“You are mistaken, Sir Robert,” replied Alan, flushing. “The
way that those shares have been artificially put up is one of the things
to  which I most object. I shall only ask for mine the face value which
I paid for  them.”

Now notwithstanding their experience, both of the senior partners did
for a  moment look rather scared. Such folly, or such honesty, was
absolutely  incredible to them. They felt that there must be much
behind. Sir Robert,  however, recovered instantly.

“Very well,” he said; “it is not for us to dictate to you;
you must make your own bed and lie on it. To argue or remonstrate would
only be  rude.” He put out his hand and pushed the button of an electric
bell,  adding as he did so, “Of course we understand one thing, Vernon,
namely,  that as a gentleman and a man of honour you will make no public
use of the  information which you have acquired during your stay in this
office, either to  our detriment, personal or financial, or to your own
advantage.”  

“Certainly you may understand that,” replied Vernon. “Unless
my character is attacked and it becomes necessary for me to defend
myself, my  lips are sealed.”

“That will never happen—why should it?” said Sir Robert with
a polite bow.

The door opened and the head clerk, Jeffreys, appeared.

“Mr. Jeffreys,” said Sir Robert, “please find us the deed of
partnership between Major Vernon and ourselves, and bring it here. One
moment.  Please make out also a transfer of Major Vernon’s parcel of
Sahara  Syndicate shares to Mr. Champers-Haswell and myself at par
value, and fill in a  cheque for the amount. Please remove also Major
Vernon’s name wherever it  appears in the proof prospectus, and—yes—one
thing more. Telephone  to Specton—the Right Honourable the Earl of
Specton, I mean, and say that  after all I have been able to arrange
that he shall have a seat on the Board  and a block of shares at a very
moderate figure, and that if he will wire his  assent, his name shall be
put into the prospectus. You approve, don’t  you, Haswell?—yes—then that
is all, I think, Jeffreys, only please  be as quick as you can, for I
want to get away.”  

Jeffreys, the immaculate and the impassive, bowed, and casting one swift
glance  at Vernon out of the corner of his eye, departed.

What is called an awkward pause ensued; in fact it was a very awkward
pause.  The die was cast, the matter ended, and what were the principals
to do until  the ratifications had been exchanged or, a better simile
perhaps, the _decree  nisi_ pronounced absolute. Mr. Champers-Haswell
remarked that the weather  was very cold for April, and Alan agreed with
him, while Sir Robert found his  hat and brushed it with his sleeve.
Then Mr. Haswell, in desperation, for in  minor matters he was a kindly
sort of man who disliked scenes and  unpleasantness, muttered something
as to seeing him—Alan—at his  house, “The Court,” in Hertfordshire, from
Saturday to Monday.  

“That was the arrangement,” answered Alan bluntly, “but
possibly after what has happened you will not wish that it should be
kept.”

“Oh! why not, why not?” said Mr. Haswell. “Sunday is a day of
rest when we make it a rule not to talk business, and if we did, perhaps
we  might all change our minds about these matters. Sir Robert is
coming, and I am  sure that your cousin Barbara will be very
disappointed if you do not turn up,  for she understands nothing about
these city things which are Greek to  her.”

At the mention of the name of Barbara Sir Robert Aylward looked up from
the  papers which he affected to be tidying, and Alan thought that there
was a kind  of challenge in his eyes. A moment before he had made up his
mind that no power  on earth would induce him to spend a Sunday with his
late partners at The  Court. Now, acting upon some instinct or impulse,
he reversed his opinion.  

“Thanks,” he said, “if that is understood, I shall be happy
to come. I will drive over from Yarleys in time for dinner to-morrow.
Perhaps  you will say so to Barbara.”

“She will be glad, I am sure,” answered Mr. Haswell, “for she
told me the other day that she wants to consult you about some outdoor
theatricals that she means to get up in July.”

“In July!” answered Alan with a little laugh. “I wonder where
I shall be in July.”

Then came another pause, which seemed to affect even Sir Robert’s
nerves,  for, abandoning the papers, he walked down the room till he
came to the golden  object that has been described, and for the second
time that day stood there  contemplating it.

“This thing is yours, Vernon,” he said, “and now that our
relations are at an end, I suppose that you will want to take it away.
What is  its history? You never told me.”

“Oh! that’s a long story,” answered Alan in an absent voice.
“My uncle, who was a missionary, brought it from West Africa. I rather
forget the facts, but Jeekie, my negro servant, knows them all, for as a
lad my  uncle saved him from sacrifice, or something, in a place where
they worship  these things, and he has been with us ever since. It is a
fetish with magical  powers and all the rest of it. I believe they call
it the Swimming Head and  other names. If you look at it, you will see
that it seems to swim between the  shoulders, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Sir Robert, “and I admire the beautiful beast.
She is cruel and artistic, like—like finance. Look here, Vernon, we have
quarrelled, and of course henceforth are enemies, for it is no use
mincing  matters, only fools do that. But in a way you are being hardly
treated. You  could get £10 apiece to-day for those shares of yours in a
block on the market,  and I am paying you £1. I understand your
scruples, but there is no reason why  we should not square things. This
fetish of yours has brought me luck, so  let’s do a deal. Leave it here,
and instead of a check for £1700, I will  make you one out for £17,000.”

“That’s a very liberal offer,” said Vernon. “Give me a
moment to think it over.”

Then he also walked into the corner of the room and contemplated the
golden  mask that seemed to float between the frog-like shoulders. The
shimmering eyes  drew his eyes, though what he saw in them does not
matter. Indeed he could  never remember. Only when he straightened
himself again there was left on his  mind a determination that not for
seventeen or for seventy thousand pounds  would he part with his
ownership in this very unique fetish.  

“No, thank you,” he said presently. “I don’t think I
will sell the Yellow God, as Jeekie calls it. Perhaps you will kindly
keep her  here for a week or so, until I make up my mind where to stow
her.”  

Again Mr. Champers-Haswell uttered his windy whistle. That a man should
refuse  £17,000 for a bit of African gold worth £100 or so, struck him
as miraculous.  But Sir Robert did not seem in the least surprised, only
very disappointed.  

“I quite understand your dislike to selling,” he said. “Thank
you for leaving it here for the present to see us through the
flotation,”  and he laughed.

At that moment Jeffreys entered the room with the documents. Sir Robert
handed  the deed of partnership to Alan, and when he had identified it,
took it from  him again and threw it on the fire, saying that of course
the formal letter of  release would be posted and the dissolution
notified in the _Gazette_.  Then the transfer was signed and the cheque
delivered.  

“Well, good-bye till Saturday,” said Alan when he had received the
latter, and nodding, to them both, he turned and left the room.

The passage ran past the little room in which Mr. Jeffreys, the head
clerk, sat  alone. Catching sight of him through the open door, Alan
entered, shutting it  behind him. Finding his key ring he removed from
it the keys of his desk and of  the office strongroom, and handed them
to the clerk who, methodical in  everything, proceeded to write a formal
receipt.  

“You are leaving us, Major Vernon?” he said interrogatively as he
signed the paper.

“Yes, Jeffreys,” answered Alan, then prompted by some impulse,
added, “Are you sorry?”

Mr. Jeffreys looked up and there were traces of unwonted emotion upon
his hard,  regulated face.

“For myself, yes, Major—for you, on the whole, no.”

“What do you mean, Jeffreys? I do not quite understand.”

“I mean, Major, that I am sorry because you have never tried to shuffle
off any shady business on to my back and leave me to bear the brunt of
it; also  because you have always treated me as a gentleman should, not
as a machine to  be used until a better can be found, and kicked aside
when it goes out of  order.”

“It is very kind of you to say so, Jeffreys, but I can’t remember
having done anything particular.”

“No, Major, you can’t remember what comes natural to you. But I and
the others remember, and that’s why I am sorry. But for yourself I am
glad, since although Aylward and Haswell have put a big thing through
and are  going to make a pot of money, this is no place for the likes of
you, and now  that you are going I will make bold to tell you that I
always wondered what you  were doing here. By and by, Major, the row
will come, as it has come more than  once in the past, before your
time.”  

“And then?” said Alan, for he was anxious to get to the bottom of
this man’s mind, which hitherto he had always found so secret.

“And then, Major, it won’t matter much to Messrs. Aylward and
Champers-Haswell, who are used to that kind of thing and will probably
dissolve  partnership and lie quiet for a bit, and still less to folk
like myself, who  are only servants. But if you were still here it would
have mattered a great  deal to you, for it would blacken your name and
break your heart, and then  what’s the good of the money? I tell you,
Major,” the clerk went on  with quiet intensity, “though I am nobody and
nothing, if I could afford  it I would follow your example. But I can’t,
for I have a sick wife and a  family of delicate children who have to
live half the year on the south coast,  to say nothing of my old mother,
and—I was fool enough to be taken in and  back Sir Robert’s last little
venture, which cost me all I had saved. So  you see I must make a bit
before the machine is scrapped, Major. But I tell you  this, that if I
can get £5000 together, as I hope to do out of Saharas before I  am a
month older, for they had to give me a look-in, as I knew too much, I am
 off to the country, where I was born, to take a farm there. No more of
Messrs.  Aylward & Haswell for Thomas Jeffreys. That’s my bell.
Good-bye,  Major, I’ll take the liberty to write you a line sometimes,
for I know you  won’t give me away. Good-bye and God bless you, as I am
sure He will in  the long run,” and stretching out his hand, he took
that of the  astonished Alan and wrung it warmly.  

When he was gone Alan went also, noticing that the clerks, whom some
rumour of  these events seemed to have reached, eyed him curiously
through the glass  screens behind which they sat at their desks, as he
thought not without regret  and a kind of admiration. Even the
magnificent be-medalled porter at the door  emerged from the carved teak
box where he dwelt and touching his cap asked if  he should call a cab.

“No, thank you, Sergeant,” answered Alan, “I will take a bus,
and, Sergeant, I think I forgot to give you a present last Xmas. Will
you  accept this?—I wish I could make it more,” and he presented him
with ten shillings.

The Sergeant drew himself up and saluted.

“Thank you kindly, Major,” he said. “I’d rather take
that from you than £10 from the other gentlemen. But, Major, I wish we
were out  on the West Coast again together. It’s a stinking, barbarous
hole, but  not so bad as this ’ere city.”

For once these two had served as comrades, and it was through Alan that
the  sergeant obtained his present lucrative but somewhat uncongenial
post.  

He was outside at last. The massive granite portal vanished behind him
in the  evening mists, much as a nightmare vanishes. He, Alan Vernon,
who for a year or  more had been in bondage, was a free man again. All
his dreams of wealth had  departed; indeed if anything, save in
experience, he was poorer than when first  the shadow of yonder doorway
fell upon him. But at least he was safe, safe. The  deed of partnership
which had been as a chain about his neck, was now white  ashes; his name
was erased from that fearful prospectus of Sahara Limited,  wherein
millions which someone would provide were spoken of like silver in the 
days of Solomon, as things of no account. The bitterest critic could not
say  that he had made a halfpenny out of the venture, in fact, if
trouble came, his  voluntary abandonment of the profits due to him must
go to his credit. He had  plunged into the icy waters of renunciation
and come up clean if naked. Never  since he was a boy could Alan
remember feeling so utterly light-hearted and  free from anxiety. Not
for a million pounds would he have returned to gather  gold in that
mausoleum of reputations. As for the future, he did not in the  least
care what happened. There was no one dependent on him, and in this way
or  in that he could always earn a crust, a nice, honest crust.    

He ran down the street and danced for joy like a child, yes, and
presented a  crossing-sweeper against whom he butted with a whole
sixpence in compensation.  Thus he reached the Mansion House, not
unsuspected of inebriety by the police,  and clambered to the top of a
bus crowded with weary and anxious-looking City  clerks returning home
after a long day’s labour at starvation wage. In  that cold company and
a chilling atmosphere some of his enthusiasm evaporated.  He remembered
that this step of his meant that sooner or later, within a year  or two
at most, Yarleys, where his family had dwelt for centuries, must go to 
the hammer. Why had he not accepted Aylward’s offer and sold that old 
fetish to him for £17,000? There was no question of share-dealing there,
and if  a very wealthy man chose to give a fancy price for a curiosity,
he could take  it without doubt or shame. At least it would have
sufficed to save Yarleys,  which after all was only mortgaged for
£20,000. For the life of him he could  not tell. He had acted on
impulse, a very curious impulse, and there was an end  of it perhaps; it
might be because his uncle had told him as a boy that the  thing was
unique, or perhaps because old Jeekie, his negro servant, venerated  it
so much and swore that it was “lucky.” At any rate he had  declined and
there was an end.    

But another and a graver matter remained. He had desired wealth to save
Yarleys, but he desired it still more for a different purpose. Above
everything  on earth he loved Barbara, his distant cousin and the niece
of Mr.  Champers-Haswell, who until an hour ago had been his partner.
Now she was a  great heiress, and without fortune he could not marry
her, even if she would  marry him, which remained in doubt. For one
thing her uncle and guardian  Haswell, under her father’s will, had
absolute discretion in this matter  until she reached the age of
twenty-five, and for another he was too proud.  Therefore it would seem
that, in abandoning his business, he had abandoned his  chance of
Barbara also, which was a truly dreadful thought.  

Well, it was in order that he might see her, that he had agreed to visit
The  Court on the morrow, even though it meant a meeting with his late
partners, who  were the last people with whom he desired to foregather
again so soon. Then and  there he made up his mind that before he bade
Barbara farewell, he would tell  her the whole story, so that she might
not misjudge him. After that he would go  off somewhere—to Africa
perhaps. Meanwhile he was quite tired out, as  tired as though he had
lain a week in the grip of fever. He must eat some food  and get to bed.
Sufficient unto the day was the evil thereof, yet on the whole  he
blessed the name of Jackson, editor of _The Judge_ and his  father’s old
friend.  

When Alan had left the office Sir Robert turned to Mr. Champers-Haswell
and  asked him abruptly, “What the devil does this mean?”

Mr. Haswell looked up at the ceiling and whistled in his own peculiar
fashion,  then answered:

“I cannot say for certain, but our young friend’s strange conduct
seems to suggest that he has smelt a rat, possibly even that Jackson,
the old  beast, has shown him a rat—of a large Turkish breed.”

Sir Robert nodded.

“Vernon is a fellow who doesn’t like rats; they seem to haunt his
sleep,” he said; “but do you think that having seen it, he will
keep it in the bag?”

“Oh! certainly, certainly,” answered Mr. Haswell with cheerfulness;
“the man is the soul of honour; he will never give us away. Look how he
behaved about those shares. Still, I think that perhaps we are well rid
of him.  Too much honour, like too much zeal, is a very dangerous
quality in any  business.”

“I don’t know that I agree with you,” answered Sir Robert.
“I am not sure that in the long run we should not do better for a little
more of the article. For my part, although it will not hurt us publicly,
for  the thing will never be noticed, I am sorry that we have lost
Vernon, very  sorry indeed. I don’t think him a fool, and awkward as
they may be, I  respect his qualities.”

“So do I, so do I,” answered Mr. Haswell, “and of course we
have acted against his advice throughout, which must have been annoying
to him.  The scheme as he suggested it was a fair business proposition
that might have  paid ten per cent. on a small capital, but what is the
good of ten per cent. to  you and me? We want millions and we are going
to get them. Well, he is coming  to The Court to-morrow, and perhaps
after all we shall be able to arrange  matters. I’ll give Barbara a
hint; she has great influence with him, and  you might do the same,
Aylward.”  

“Miss Champers has great influence with everyone who is fortunate enough
to know her,” answered Sir Robert courteously. “But even if she
chooses to use it, I doubt if it will avail in this case. Vernon has
been  making up his mind for a long while. I have watched him and am
sure of that.  To-night he determined to take the plunge and I do not
think that we shall see  any more of him in this office. Haswell,” he
added with sudden energy,  “I tell you that of late our luck has been
too good to last. The boom,  the real boom, came in with Vernon, and
with Vernon I think that it will  go.”

“At any rate it must leave something pretty substantial behind it this
time, Aylward, my friend. Whatever happens, within a week we shall be
rich,  really rich for life.”

“For life, Haswell, yes, for life. But what is life? A bubble that any
pin may prick. Oh! I know that you do not like the subject, but it is as
well  to look it in the face sometimes. I’m no church-goer, but if I
remember  right we were taught to pray the good Lord to deliver us
especially ‘in  all times of our wealth,’ which is followed by something
about  tribulation and sudden death, for when they wrote that prayer the
wheel of  human fortune went round just as it does to-day. There, let’s
get out of  this before I grow superstitious, as men who believe in
nothing sometimes do,  because after all they must believe in something,
I suppose. Got your hat and  coat? So have I, come on,” and he switched
off the light, so that the  room was left in darkness except for the
faint glimmering of the fire.  

His partner grumbled audibly, for in turning he had knocked his hand
against  the desk.

“Leave me my only economy, Haswell,” he answered with a hard little
laugh. “Electricity is strength and I hate to see strength burning to
waste. Why do you mind?” he went on as he stepped towards the door.
“Is it the contrast? In all times of our wealth, in all times of our
tribulation, from sickness and from sudden death——”

“Good Lord deliver us,” chimed in Mr. Haswell in a shaking voice
behind him. “What the devil’s that?”

Sir Robert looked round and saw, or thought that he saw, something very
strange. From the pillar on which it stood the golden fetish with a
woman’s face, appeared to have floated. The firelight showed it gliding
towards them across, but a few inches above the floor of the great room.
It  came very slowly, but it came. Now it reached them and paused, and
now it rose  into the air until it attained the height of Mr.
Champers-Haswell and stayed  there, staring into his face and not a
hand’s breadth away, just as  though it were a real woman glaring at
him.  

He uttered a sound, half whistle and half groan, and fell back, as it
chanced  on to a morocco-covered seat behind him. For a moment or two
the gleaming,  golden mask floated in the air. Then it turned very
deliberately, rose a little  way, and moving sidelong to where Sir
Robert stood, hung in front of _his_  face.

Presently Aylward staggered to the mantelpiece and began to fumble for
the  switch; in the silence his nails scratching at the panelling made a
sound like  to that of a gnawing mouse. He found it at last, and next
instant the office  broke into a blaze of light, showing Mr. Haswell,
his rubicund face quite pale,  his hat and umbrella on the floor,
gasping like a dying man upon the couch, and  Sir Robert himself
clinging to the mantel-shelf as a person might do who had  received a
mortal wound, while the golden fetish reposed calmly on its pillar,  to
all appearance as immovable and undisturbed as the antique Venus which 
matched it at the other end of the room. For a while there was silence.
Then  Sir Robert, recovering himself, asked:  

“Did you notice anything unusual just now, Haswell?”

“Yes,” whispered his partner. “I thought that hideous African
thing which Vernon brought here, came sliding across the floor and
stared into  my face with its glittering eyes, and in the eyes——”

“Well, what was in the eyes?”

“I can’t remember. It was a kind of picture and the meaning of it
was Sudden Death—oh Lord! Sudden Death. Tell me it was a fancy bred of
that ill-omened talk of yours?”

“I can’t tell you anything of the sort,” answered Aylward in
a hollow voice, “for I saw something also.”

“What?” asked his partner.

“Death that wasn’t sudden, and other things.”

Again the silence fell till it was broken by Aylward.

“Come,” he said, “we have been over-working—too much
strain, and now the reaction. Keep this rubbish to yourself, or they
will lock  you up in an asylum.”

“Certainly, Aylward, certainly. But can’t you get rid of that
beastly image?”

“Not on any account, Haswell, even if it haunts us all day. Here it
shall  stop until the Saharas are floated on Monday, if I have to lock
it in the  strongroom and throw the keys into the Thames. Afterwards
Vernon can take it,  as he has a right to do, and I am sure that with it
will go our luck.”  

“Then the sooner our luck goes, the better,” replied Haswell, with
a mere ghost of his former whistle. “Life is better than luck,
and—Aylward, that Yellow God you are so fond of means to murder us. We
are being fatted for the sacrifice, that is all. I remember now, that
was one  of the things I saw written in its eyes!”




CHAPTER III.

JEEKIE TELLS A TALE.


The Court, Mr. Champers-Haswell’s place, was a very fine house indeed,
of  a sort. That is, it contained twenty-nine bedrooms, each of them
with a  bathroom attached, a large number of sitting-rooms, ample
garages, stables, and  offices, the whole surrounded by several acres of
newly-planted gardens.  Incidentally it may be mentioned that it was
built in the most atrocious taste  and looked like a suburban villa seen
through a magnifying glass.  

It was in this matter of taste that it differed from Sir Robert
Aylward’s  home, Old Hall, a few miles away. Not that this was old
either, for the  original house had fallen down or been burnt a hundred
years before. But Sir  Robert, being gifted with artistic perception,
had reared up in place of it a  smaller but really beautiful dwelling of
soft grey stone, long and low, and  built in the Tudor style with many
gables.  

This house, charming as it was, could not of course compare with
Yarleys, the  ancient seat of the Vernons in the same neighbourhood.
Yarleys was pure  Elizabethan, although it contained an oak-roofed hall
which was said to date  back to the time of King John, a remnant of a
former house. There was no  electric light or other modern convenience
at Yarleys, yet it was a place that  everyone went to see because of its
exceeding beauty and its historical  associations. The moat by which it
was surrounded, the grass court within, for  it was built on three sides
of a square, the mullioned windows, the towered  gateway of red brick,
the low-panelled rooms hung with the portraits of  departed Vernons, the
sloping park and the splendid oaks that stood about,  singly or in
groups, were all of them perfect in their way. It was one of the  most
lovely of English homes, and oddly enough its neglected gardens and the 
air of decay that pervaded it, added to rather than decreased its charm.
   

But it is with The Court that we have to do at present, not with
Yarleys. Mr.  Champers-Haswell had a week-end party. There were ten
guests, all men, and with  the exception of Alan, who it will be
remembered was one of them, all rich and  in business. They included two
French bankers and three Jews, everyone a prop  of the original Sahara
Syndicate and deeply interested in the forthcoming  flotation. To
describe them is unnecessary, for they have no part in our story,  being
only financiers of a certain class, remarkable for the riches they had 
acquired by means that for the most part would not bear examination. The
riches  were evident enough. Ever since the morning the owners of this
wealth had  arrived by ones or twos in their costly motorcars, attended
by smart chauffeurs  and valets. Their fur coats, their jewelled studs
and rings, something in their  very faces suggested money, which indeed
was the bond that brought and held  them together.  

Alan did not come until it was time to dress for dinner, for he knew
that  Barbara would not appear before that meal, and it was her society
he sought,  not that of his host or fellow guests. Accompanied by his
negro servant,  Jeekie, for in a house like this it was necessary to
have someone to wait upon  him, he drove over from Yarleys, a distance
of ten miles, arriving about eight  o’clock.

“Mr. Haswell has gone up to dress, Major, and so have the other
gentlemen,” said the head butler, Mr. Smith, “but Miss Champers
told me to give you this note and to say that dinner is at half-past
eight.”

Alan took the note and asked to be shown to his room. Once there,
although he  had only five-and-twenty minutes, he opened it eagerly,
while Jeekie unpacked  his bag.

“Dear Alan,” it ran: “Don’t be late for dinner, or I
may not be able to keep a place next to me. Of course Sir Robert takes
me in.  They are a worse lot than usual this time, odious—odious!—and I
can’t stand one on the left hand as well as on the right. Yours,

“B.

“P.S. What _have_ you been doing? Our distinguished guests, to say
nothing of my uncle, seem to be in a great fuss about you. I overheard
them  talking when I was pretending to arrange some flowers. One of them
called you a  sanctimonious prig and an obstinate donkey, and another
answered—I think  it was Sir Robert —‘No doubt, but obstinate donkeys
can kick and  have been known to upset other people’s applecarts ere
now.’ Is the  Sahara Syndicate the applecart? If so, I’ll forgive you.

“P.P.S. Remember that we will walk to church together to-morrow, but
come  down to breakfast in knickerbockers or something to put them off,
and  I’ll do the same—I mean I’ll dress as if I were going to
golf. We can turn into Christians later. If we don’t—dress like
that, I mean—they’ll guess and all want to come to church, except
the Jews, which would bring the judgment of Heaven on us.

“P.P.P.S. Don’t be careless and leave this note lying about, for
the under-footman who waits upon you reads all the letters. He steams
them over  a kettle. Smith the butler is the only respectable man in
this house.”  

Alan laughed outright as he finished this peculiar and outspoken
epistle, which  somehow revived his spirits, that since the previous day
had been low enough.  It refreshed him. It was like a breath of frosty
air from an open window  blowing clean and cold into a scented,
overheated room. He would have liked to  keep it, but remembering
Barbara’s injunctions and the under-footman,  threw it onto the fire and
watched it burn. Jeekie coughed to intimate that it  was time for his
master to dress, and Alan turned and looked at him in an  absent-minded
fashion.  

He was worth looking at, was Jeekie. Let the reader imagine a very tall
and  powerfully-built negro with a skin as black as a well-polished
boot, woolly  hair as white as snow, a little tufted beard also white, a
hand like a leg of  mutton, but with long delicate fingers and pink,
filbert-shaped nails, an  immovable countenance, but set in it beneath a
massive brow, two extraordinary  humorous and eloquent black eyes which
expressed every emotion passing through  the brain behind them, that is
when their owner chose to allow them to do so.  Such was Jeekie.

“Shall I unlace your boots, Major?” he said in his full, melodious
voice and speaking the most perfect English. “I expect that the gong
will  sound in nine and a half minutes.”

“Then let it sound and be hanged to it,” answered Alan; “no,
I forgot—I must hurry. Jeekie, put that fire out and open all the
windows  as soon as I go down. This room is like a hot-house.”

“Yes, Major, the fire shall be extinguished and the sleeping-chamber
ventilated. The other boot, if you please, Major.”

“Jeekie,” said Alan, “who is stopping in this place? Have you
heard?”

“I collected some names on my way upstairs, Major. Three of the
gentlemen  you have never met before, but,” he added suddenly breaking
away from his  high-flown book-learned English, as was his custom when
in earnest,  “Jeekie think they just black niggers like the rest, thief
people. There  ain’t a white man in this house, except you and Miss
Barbara and me,  Major. Jeekie learnt all that in servant’s hall
palaver. No, not now,  other time. Everyone tell everything to Jeekie,
poor old African fool, and he  look up an answer, ‘O law! you don’t say
so?’ but keep his  eyes and ears open all the same.”

“I’ll be bound you do, Jeekie,” replied Alan, laughing again.
“Well, go on keeping them open, and give me those trousers.”

“Yes, Major,” answered Jeekie, reassuming his grand manner,
“I shall continue to collect information which may prove to your
advantage, but personally I wish that you were clear of the whole
caboodle,  except Miss Barbara.”

“Hear, hear,” ejaculated Alan, “there goes the gong. Mind you
come in and help to wait,” and hurrying into his coat he departed
downstairs.

The guests were gathered in the hall drinking sherry and bitters, a
proceeding  that to Alan’s mind set a stamp upon the house. His host,
Mr.  Champers-Haswell, came forward and greeted him with much
affectionate  enthusiasm, and Alan noticed that he looked very pale,
also that his thoughts  seemed to be wandering, for he introduced a
French banker to him as a noted  Jew, and the noted Jew as the French
banker, although the distinction between  them was obvious and the
gentlemen concerned evidently resented the mistake.  Sir Robert Aylward,
catching sight of him, came across the hall in his usual,  direct
fashion, and shook him by the hand.  

“Glad to see you, Vernon,” he said, fixing his piercing eyes upon
Alan as though he were trying to read his thoughts. “Pleasant change
this  from the City and all that eternal business, isn’t it? Ah! you are
thinking that one is not quite clear of business after all,” and he
glanced round at the company. “That’s one of your cousin
Haswell’s faults; he can never shake himself free of the thing, never
get  any real recreation. I’d bet you a sovereign that he has a
stenographer  waiting by a telephone in the next room, just in case any
opportunity should  arise in the course of conversation. That is
magnificent, but it is not wise.  His heart can’t stand it; it will wear
him out before his time. Listen,  they are all talking about the Sahara.
I wish I were there; it must be quiet at  any rate. The sands beneath,
the eternal stars above. Yes, I wish I were  there,” he repeated with a
sigh, and Alan noted that although his face  could not be more pallid
than its natural colour, it looked quite worn and old.  

“So do I,” he answered with enthusiasm.

Then a French gentleman on his left, having discovered that he was the
engineer  who had formulated the great flooding scheme, began to address
him as  “Cher maitre,” speaking so rapidly in his own language that
Alan,  whose French was none of the best, struggled after him in vain.
Whilst he was  trying to answer a question which he did not understand,
the door at the end of  the hall opened, and through it appeared Barbara
Champers.  

It was a large hall and she was a long way off, which caused her to look
small,  who indeed was only of middle height. Yet even at that distance
it was  impossible to mistake the dignity of her appearance. A slim
woman with brown  hair, cheerful brown eyes, a well-modelled face, a
rounded figure and an  excellent complexion, such was Barbara. Ten
thousand young ladies could be  found as good, or even better looking,
yet something about her differentiated  her from the majority of her
sex. There was determination in her step, and  overflowing health and
vigour in her every movement. Her eyes had a trick of  looking straight
into any other eyes they met, not boldly, but with a kind of  virginal
fearlessness and enterprise that people often found embarrassing. 
Indeed she was extremely virginal and devoid of the usual fringe of
feminine  airs and graces, a nymph of the woods and waters, who although
she was three  and twenty, as yet recked little of men save as
companions whom she liked or  disliked according to her instincts. For
the rest she was sweetly dressed in a  white robe with silver on it, and
wore no ornaments save a row of small pearls  about her throat and some
lilies of the valley at her breast.    

Barbara came straight onwards, looking neither to the right nor to the
left,  till she reached her uncle, to whom she nodded. Then she walked
to Alan and,  offering him her hand, said:

“How do you do! Why did you not come over at lunch time? I wanted to
play  a round of golf with you this afternoon.”

Alan answered something about being busy at Yarleys.

“Yarleys!” she replied. “I thought that you lived in the City
now, making money out of speculations, like everyone else that I know.”

“Why, Miss Champers,” broke in Sir Robert reproachfully, “I
asked you to play a round of golf before tea and you would not.”

“No,” she answered, “because I was waiting for my cousin. We
are better matched, Sir Robert.”

There was something in her voice, usually so soft and pleasant, as she
spoke  these words, something of steeliness and defiance that caused
Alan to feel at  once happy and uncomfortable. Apparently also it caused
Aylward to feel angry,  for he flashed a glance at Alan over her head of
which the purport could not be  mistaken, though his pale face remained
as immovable as ever. “We are  enemies. I hate you,” said that glance.
Probably Barbara saw it; at any  rate before either of them could speak
again, she said:  

“Thank goodness, there is dinner at last. Sir Robert, will you take me
in, and, Alan, will you sit on the other side of me? My uncle will show
the  rest their places.”

The meal was long and magnificent; the price of each dish of it would
have kept  a poor family for a month, and on the cost of the exquisite
wines they might  have lived for a year or two. Also the last were well
patronized by everyone  except Barbara, who drank water, and Alan, who
since his severe fever took  nothing but weak whiskey and soda and a
little claret. Even Aylward, a  temperate person, absorbed a good deal
of champagne. As a consequence the  conversation grew animated, and
under cover of it, while Sir Robert was arguing  with his neighbour on
the left, Barbara asked in a low voice:  

“What is the row, Alan? Tell me, I can’t wait any longer.”

“I have quarrelled with them,” he answered, staring at his mutton
as though he were criticizing it. “I mean, I have left the firm and have
nothing more to do with the business.”

Barbara’s eyes lit up as she whispered back:

“Glad of it. Best news I have heard for many a day. But then, may I ask
why you are here?”

“I came to see you,” he replied humbly—“thought perhaps
you wouldn’t mind,” and in his confusion he let his knife fall into
the mutton, whence it rebounded, staining his shirt front.

Barbara laughed, that happy, delightful little laugh of hers, presumably
at the  accident with the knife. Whether or no she “minded” did not
appear,  only she handed her handkerchief, a costly, lace-fringed
trifle, to Alan to  wipe the gravy off his shirt, which he took thinking
it was a napkin, and as  she did so, touched his hand with a little
caressing movement of her fingers.  Whether this was done by chance or
on purpose did not appear either. At least  it made Alan feel extremely
happy. Also when he discovered what it was, he kept  that gravy-stained
handkerchief, nor did she ever ask for it back again. Only  once in
after days when she happened to come across it stuffed away in the 
corner of a despatch-box, she blushed all over, and said that she had no
idea  that any man could be so foolish out of a book.  

“Now that _you_ are really clear of it, I am going for them,”
she said presently when the wiping process was finished. “I have only
restrained myself for your sake,” and, leaning back in her chair she
stared at the ceiling, lost in meditation.

Presently there came one of those silences which will fall upon
dinner-parties  at times, however excellent and plentiful the champagne.

“Sir Robert Aylward,” said Barbara in that clear, carrying voice of
hers, “will you, as an expert, instruct a very ignorant person? I want a
little information.”

“Miss Champers,” he answered, “am I not always at your
service?” and all listened to hear upon what point their hostess desired
to be enlightened.

“Sir Robert,” she went on calmly, “everyone here is, I
believe, what is called a financier, that is except myself and Major
Vernon,  who only tries to be and will, I am sure, fail, since Nature
made him something  else, a soldier and—what else did Nature make you,
Alan?”  

As he vouchsafed no answer to this question, although Sir Robert
muttered an  uncomplimentary one between his lips which Barbara heard,
or read, she  continued:

“And you are all very rich and successful, are you not, and are going to
be much richer and much more successful—next week. Now what I want to
ask  you is—how is it done?”

“Accepting the premises for the sake of argument, Miss Champers,”
replied Sir Robert, who felt that he could not refuse the challenge,
“the  answer is that it is done by finance.”

“I am still in the dark,” she said. “Finance, as I have heard
of it, means floating companies, and companies are floated to earn money
for  those who invest in them. Now this afternoon as I was dull, I got
hold of a  book called the Directory of Directors, and looked up all
your names in it,  except those of the gentlemen from Paris, and the
companies that you  direct—I found out about those in another book.
Well, I could not make  out that any of these companies have ever earned
any money, a dividend,  don’t you call it? Therefore how do you all grow
so rich, and why do  people invest in them?”

Now Sir Robert frowned, Alan coloured, two or three of the company
laughed  outright, and one of the French gentlemen who understood
English and had  already drunk as much as was good for him, remarked
loudly to his neighbour,  “Ah! she is charming. She do touch the spot,
like that ointment you give  me to-day. How do we grow rich and why do
the people invest? _Mon Dieu!_  why do they invest? That is the great
mystery. I say that _cette belle  demoiselle, votre nièce, est
ravissante. Elle a d’esprit, mon ami  Haswell._”

Apparently her uncle did not share these sentiments, for he turned as
red as  any turkey-cock, and said across the great round table:

“My dear Barbara, I wish that you would leave matters which you do not
understand alone. We are here to dine, not to talk about finance.”

“Certainly, Uncle,” she answered sweetly. “I stand, or rather
sit, reproved. I suppose that I have put my foot into it as usual, and
the  worst of it is,” she added, turning to Sir Robert, “that I am just
as ignorant as I was before.”

“If you want to master these matters, Miss Champers,” said Aylward
with a rather forced laugh, “you must go into training and worship at
the  shrine of”—he meant to say Mammon, then thinking that the word
sounded unpleasant, substituted—“the Yellow God as we do.”

At these words Alan, who had been studying his plate, looked up quickly,
and  her uncle’s face turned from red to white. But the irrepressible
Barbara  seized upon them.

“The Yellow God,” she repeated. “Do you mean money or that
fetish thing of Major Vernon’s with the terrible woman’s face that
I saw at the office in the City. Well, to change the subject, tell us,
Alan,  what is that yellow god of yours and where did it come from?”

“My uncle Austin, who was my mother’s brother and a missionary,
brought it from West Africa a great many years ago. He was the first to
visit  the tribe who worship it; in fact I do not think that anyone has
ever visited  them since. But really I do not know all the story. Jeekie
can tell you about  it if you want to know, for he is one of that people
and escaped with my  uncle.”

Now Jeekie having left the room, some of the guests wished to send for
him, but  Mr. Champers-Haswell objected. The end of it was that a
compromise was  effected, Alan undertaking to produce his retainer
afterwards when they went to  play billiards or cards.

Dinner was over at length and the diners, who had dined well, were
gathered in  the billiard room to smoke and amuse themselves as they
wished. It was a very  large room, sixty feet long indeed, with a wide
space in the centre between the  two tables, which was furnished as a
lounge. When the gentlemen entered it they  found Barbara standing by
the great fireplace in this central space, a little  shape of white and
silver in its emptiness.  

“Forgive me for intruding on you,” she said, “and please do
not stop smoking, for I like the smell. I have sat up expressly to hear
Jeekie’s story of the Yellow God. Alan, produce Jeekie, or I shall go to
bed at once.”

Her uncle made a movement as though to interfere, but Sir Robert said
something  to him which appeared to cause him to change his mind, while
the rest in some  way or another signified an enthusiastic assent. All
of them were anxious to  see this Jeekie and hear his tale, if he had
one to tell. So Jeekie was sent  for and presently arrived clad in the
dress clothes which are common to all  classes in England and America.
There he stood before them white-headed,  ebony-faced, gigantic,
imperturbable. There is no doubt that his appearance  produced an
effect, for it was unusual and indeed striking.  

“You sent for me, Major?” he said, addressing his master, to whom
he gave a military salute, for he had been Alan’s servant when he was in
the Army.

“Yes, Jeekie. Miss Barbara here and these gentlemen, wish you to tell
them all that you know about the Yellow God.”

The negro started and rolled his round eyes upwards till the whites of
them  showed, then began in his school-book English:

“That is a private subject, Major, upon which I should prefer not to
discourse before this very public company.”

A chorus of remonstrance arose and one of the Jewish gentlemen
approaching  Jeekie, slipped a couple of sovereigns into his great hand,
which he promptly  transferred to his pocket without seeming to notice
them.  

“Jeekie,” said Barbara, “don’t disappoint me.”

“Very well, miss, I fall in with your wishes. The Yellow God that all
these gentlemen worship, quite another god to that of which you desire
that I  should tell you. You know all about him. My god is of female
sex.”  

At this statement his audience burst into laughter while Jeekie rolled
his eyes  again and waited till they had finished. “My god,” he went on
presently, “I mean, gentlemen, the god I used to pray to, for I am a
good  Christian now, has so much gold that she does not care for any
more,” and  he paused.

“Then what does she care for?” asked someone.

“Blood,” answered Jeekie. “She is god of Death. Her name is
Little Bonsa or Small Swimming Head; she is wife of Big Bonsa or Great
Swimming  Head.”

Again there was laughter, though less general—for instance, neither Sir
Robert nor Mr. Champers-Haswell laughed. This merriment seemed to excite
Jeekie. At any rate it caused him to cease his stilted talk and relapse
into  the strange vernacular that is common to all negroes, tinctured
with a racy  slang that was all his own.

“You want to hear Yellow God palaver?” he said rapidly. “Very
well, I tell you, you cocksure white men who think you know everything,
but  know nothing at all. My people, people of the Asiki, that mean
people of  Spirits, what you call ghosts and say you no believe in, but
always look for  behind door, they worship Yellow God, Bonsa Big and
Bonsa Little, worship both  and call them one; only Little Bonsa on trip
to this country just now and sit  and think in City office. Yellow God
live long way up a great river, then turn  to the left and walk six days
through big forest where dwarf people shoot you  with poisoned arrow.
Then turn to the right, walk up stream where many wild  beasts. Then
turn to the left again and go in canoe through swamp where you die  of
fever, and across lake. Then walk over grassland and mountains. Then in 
kloof of the mountains where big black trees make a roof and river fall
like  thunder, find Asiki and gold house of the Yellow God. All that
mountain gold,  full of gold and beneath gold house Yellow God afloat in
water. She what you  call Queen, priestess, live there also, always
there, very beautiful woman  called Asika with face like Yellow God,
cruel, cruel. She take a husband every  year, and every year he die
because she always hunt for right man but never  find him.”  

“How does she kill him then?” asked Barbara.

“Oh! no, she no kill him, Miss, he kill himself at end of year, glad to
get away from Asika and go to spirits. While he live he have a very good
time,  plenty to eat, plenty wives, fine house, much gold as he like,
only nothing to  spend it on, pretty necklace, nice paint for face. But
Asika, little bit by  little bit she eat up his spirit. He see too many
ghosts. The house where he  sleep with dead men who once have his
billet, full of ghosts and every night  there come more and sit with
him, sit all round him, look at him with great  eyes, just like you look
at me, till at last when Asika finish eating up his  spirit, he go
crazy, he howl like man in hell, he throw away all the gold they  give
him, and then, sometimes after one week, sometimes after one month, 
sometimes after one year if he be strong but never more, he run out at
night  and jump into canal where Yellow God float and god get him, while
Asika sit on  the bank and laugh, ’cause she hungry for new man to eat
up his spirit  too.”  

Jeekie’s big voice died away to a whisper and ceased. There was a
silence  in the room, for even in the shine of the electric light and
through the fumes  of champagne, in more than one imagination there rose
a vision of that haunted  water in which floated the great Yellow God,
and of some mad being casting  himself to his death beneath the moon,
while his beautiful witch wife who was  “hungry for more spirits” sat
upon its edge and laughed. Although  his language was now commonplace
enough, even ludicrous at times, the negro had  undoubtedly the art of
narration. His auditors felt that he spoke of what he  knew, or had
seen, that the very recollection of it frightened him, therefore  he
frightened them.  

Again Barbara broke the silence which she felt to be awkward.

“Why do more ghosts come very night to sit with the queen’s
husband, Jeekie?” she asked. “Where do they come from?”

“Out of the dead, miss, dead husbands of Asika from beginning of the
world; what they call Munganas. Also always they make sacrifice to
Yellow God.  From far, far away them poor niggers send people to be
sacrifice that their  house or tribe get luck. Sometimes they send
kings, sometimes great men,  sometimes doctors, sometimes women what
have twin babies. Also the Asiki bring  people what is witches, or have
drunk poison stuff which blacks call  _muavi_ and have not been sick, or
perhaps son they love best to take  curse off their roof. All these come
to Yellow God. Then Asiki doctor, they  have Death-palaver. On night of
full moon they beat drum, and drum go Wow! Wow!  Wow! and doctors pick
out those to die that month. Once they pick out Jeekie,  oh! good Lord,
they pick out _me_,” and as he said the words he  gasped and with his
great hand wiped off the sweat that started from his brow.  “But Yellow
God no take Jeekie that time, no want him and I escape.”  

“How?” asked Sir Robert.

“With my master, Major’s uncle, Reverend Austin, he who come try to
make Asiki Christian. He snap his fingers, put on small mask of Yellow
God  which he prig, Little Bonsa herself, that same face which sit in
your office  now,” and he pointed to Sir Robert, “like one toad upon a
stone.  Priests think that god make herself into man, want holiday, take
me out into  forest to kill me and eat my life. So they let us go by and
we go just as  though devil kick us—fast, fast, and never see the Asiki
any more. But  Little Bonsa I bring with me for luck, tell truth I no
dare leave her behind,  she not stand that; and now she sit in your
office and think and think and make  magic there. That why you grow
rich, because she know you worship her.”  

“That’s a nice way for a baptized Christian to talk,” said
Barbara, adding, “But Jeekie, what do you mean when you say that the god
did not take you?”

“I mean this, miss; when victim offered to Big Yellow God, priest-men
bring him to edge of canal where the great god float. Then if Yellow God
want  him, it turn and swim across water.”

“Swim across water! I thought you said it was only a mask of gold?”

“I don’t know, miss, perhaps man inside the mask, perhaps spirit. I
say it swim across water in the night, always in the night, and lift
itself up  and look in victim’s face. Then priest take him and kill him,
sometimes  one way—sometimes another. Or if he escape and they not kill
him, all  same for that Johnnie, he die in about one year, always die,
no one ever live  long if Yellow God swim to him in dark and rise up and
smile in his face. No  matter if it Big Bonsa or Little Bonsa, for they
man and wife joined in holy  matrimony and either do trick.”

As these words left Jeekie’s lips Alan became aware of some unusual
movement on his left and looking round, saw that Mr. Champers-Haswell,
who  stood by him, had dropped the cigar which he held and, white as a
sheet, was  swaying to and fro. Indeed in another instant he would have
fallen had not Alan  caught him in his arms and supported him till
others came to his assistance,  when between them they carried him to a
sofa. On their way they passed a table  where spirits and soda water
were set out, and to his astonishment Alan noticed  that Sir Robert
Aylward, looking little if at all better than his partner, had  helped
himself to half a tumbler of cognac, which he was swallowing in great 
gulps. Then there was confusion and someone went to telephone the
doctor, while  the deep voice of Jeekie was heard exclaiming:  

“That Yellow God at work—oh yes, Little Bonsa on the job. Jeekie
Christian man but no doubt she very powerful fetish and can do anything
she  like to them that worship her, and you see, she sit in office of
these  gentlemen. ’Spect she make Reverend Austin and me bring her to
England  because she got eye on firm of Messrs. Aylward & Haswell,
London, E.C. Oh,  shouldn’t wonder at all, for Bonsa know everything.”

“Oh, confound you and your fetish! Be off, you old donkey,” almost
shouted Alan.

“Major,” replied the offended Jeekie, assuming his grand manner and
language, “it was not I who wished to narrate this history of
blood-stained superstitions of poor African. Mustn’t blame old Jeekie if
they make Christian gents sick as Channel steamer.”

“Be off!” repeated Alan, stamping his foot.

So Jeekie went, but outside the door, as it chanced, he encountered one
of the  Jew gentlemen who also appeared to be a little “sick.” An idea
striking him, he touched his white hair with his finger and said:

“You like Jeekie’s pretty story, sir? Well, Jeekie think that if
you make little present to him, like your brother in there, it please
Yellow  God very much, and bring you plenty luck.”

Then acting upon some unaccustomed impulse, that Jew became exceedingly
generous. In his pocket was a handful of sovereigns which he had been
prepared  to stake at bridge. He grasped them all and thrust them into
Jeekie’s  outstretched palm, where they seemed to melt.

“Thank you, sir,” said Jeekie. “Now I sure you have plenty
luck, just like your grandpa Jacob in Book when he do his brudder in
eye.”  




CHAPTER IV.

ALAN AND BARBARA.


There was no bridge or billiards at the Court that night, where
ordinarily the  play ran high enough. After Mr. Haswell had been carried
to his room, some of  the guests, among them Sir Robert Aylward, went to
bed, remarking that they  could do no good by sitting up, while others,
more concerned, waited to hear  the verdict of the doctor, who must
drive from six miles away. He came, and  half an hour later Barbara
entered the billiard room and told Alan, who was  sitting there smoking,
that her uncle had recovered from his faint, and that  the doctor, who
was to stay all night, said that he was in no danger, only  suffering
from a heart attack brought on apparently by over-work or excitement.  

When Alan woke next morning the first thing that he heard through his
open  window was the sound of the doctor’s departing dogcart. Then
Jeekie  appeared and told him that Mr. Haswell was all right again, but
that all night  he had shaken “like one jelly.” Alan asked what had been
the matter  with him, but Jeekie only shrugged his shoulders and said
that he did not  know—“perhaps Yellow God touch him up.”

At breakfast, as in her note she had said she would, Barbara appeared
wearing a  short skirt. Sir Robert, who was there, looking extremely
pale even for him  and with black rims round his eyes, asked her if she
were going to golf, to  which she answered that she would think it over.
It was a somewhat melancholy  meal, and as though by common consent no
mention was made of Jeekie’s  tale of the Yellow God, and beyond the
usual polite inquiries, very little of  their host’s seizure.

As Barbara went out she whispered to Alan, who opened the door for her,
“Meet me at half-past ten in the kitchen garden.”

Accordingly, having changed his clothes surreptitiously, Alan, avoiding
the  others, made his way by a circuitous route to this kitchen garden,
which after  the fashion of modern places was hidden behind a belt of
trees nearly a quarter  of a mile from the house. Here he wandered about
till presently he heard  Barbara’s pleasant voice behind him saying:

“Don’t dawdle so, we shall be late for church.”

So they started, somewhat furtively like runaway children. As they went
Alan  asked how her uncle was.

“All right now,” she answered, “but he has had a bad shake.
It was that Yellow God story which did it. I know, for I was there when
he was  coming to, with Sir Robert. He kept talking about it in a
confused manner,  saying that it was swimming to him across the floor,
till at last Sir Robert  bent over him and told him to be quiet quite
sternly. Do you know, Alan, I  believe that your pet fetish has been
manifesting itself in some unpleasant  fashion up there in the office?”

“Indeed. If so, it must be since I left, for I never heard of anything
of  the sort, nor are Aylward and your uncle likely people to see
ghosts. In fact  Sir Robert wished to give me about £17,000 for the
thing only the day before  yesterday, which doesn’t look as though it
had been frightening  him.”

“Well, he won’t repeat the offer, Alan, for I heard him promise my
uncle only this morning that it should be sent back to Yarleys at once.
But why  did he want to buy it for such a lot of money? Tell me quickly,
Alan, I am  dying to hear the whole story.”

So he began and told her, omitting nothing, while she listened eagerly
to every  word, hardly interrupting him at all. As he finished his tale
they reached the  door of the quaint old village church just as the
clock was striking eleven.  

“Come in, Alan,” she said gently, “and thank Heaven for all
its mercies, for you should be a grateful man to-day.”

Then without giving him time to answer she entered the church and they
took  their places in the great square pew that for generations had been
occupied by  the owners of the ancient house which Mr. Haswell pulled
down when he built The  Court. There were their monuments upon the wall
and their gravestones in the  chancel floor. But now no one except
Barbara ever sat in their pew; even the  benches set aside for the
servants were empty, for those who frequented The  Court were not
church-goers and “like master, like man.” Indeed the  gentle-faced old
clergyman looked quite pleased and surprised when he saw two 
inhabitants of that palatial residence amongst his congregation,
although it is  true that Barbara was his friend and helper.  

The simple service went on; the first lesson was read. It cried woe upon
them  that joined house to house and field to field, that draw iniquity
with cords of  vanity and sin as it were with a cart-rope; that call
evil good and good evil,  that put darkness for light and light for
darkness, that justify the wicked for  reward; that feast full but
regard not the work of the Lord, neither consider  the operation of His
hand, for of such it prophesied that their houses great  and fair should
be without inhabitant and desolate.  

It was very well read, and Alan, listening, thought that the
denunciations of  the old seer of thousands of years ago were not
inappropriate to the dwellers  in some houses great and fair of his own
day, who, whatever they did or left  undone, regarded not the work of
the Lord, neither considered the operation of  His hand. Perhaps Barbara
thought so too; at any rate a rather sad little smile  appeared once or
twice upon her sweet, firm face as the immortal poem echoed  down the
aisle.  

The peace that passeth understanding was invoked upon their heads, and
rising  with the rest of the scanty congregation they went away.

“Shall we walk home by the woods, Alan?” asked Barbara. “It
is three miles round, but we don’t lunch till two.”

He nodded, and presently they were alone in those woods, the beautiful
woods  through which the breath of spring was breathing, treading upon
carpets of  bluebell, violet, and primrose; quite alone, unaccompanied
save by the wild  things that stole across their path, undisturbed save
by the sound of the  singing birds and of the wind among the trees.

“What did you mean, Barbara, when you said that I should be a grateful
man to-day?” asked Alan presently.

Barbara looked him in the eyes in that open, virginal fashion of hers
and  answered in the words of the lesson, “‘Woe unto them that draw
iniquity with the cords of vanity and sin as it were with a cart-rope,
that lay  house to house,’” and through an opening in the woods she
pointed  to the roof of The Court standing on one hill, and to the roof
of Old Hall  standing upon another—“‘and field to field,’” and
with a sweep of her hand she indicated all the country round, “‘for
many houses great and fair that have music in their feasts shall be left
desolate.’” Then turning she said:

“Do you understand now, Alan?”

“I think so,” he answered. “You mean that I have been in bad
company.”

“Very bad, Alan. One of them is my own uncle, but the truth remains the
truth. Alan, they are no better than thieves; all this wealth is stolen,
and I  thank God that you have found it out in time before you became
one of them in  heart as well as in name.”

“If you refer to the Sahara Syndicate,” he said, “the idea is
sound enough; indeed, I am responsible for it. The thing can be done,
great  benefits would result, too long to go into.”

“Yes, yes, Alan, but you know that they never mean to do it, they only
mean to get the millions from the public. I have lived with my uncle for
ten  years, ever since my poor father died, and I know the backstairs of
the  business. There have been half a dozen schemes like this, and
although they  have had their bad times, very bad times, he and Sir
Robert have grown richer  and richer. But what has happened to those who
have invested in them? Oh! let  us drop the subject, it is unpleasant.
For myself it doesn’t matter,  because although it isn’t under my
control, I have money of my own. You  know we are a plebeian lot on the
male side, my grandfather was a draper in a  large way of business, my
father was a coal-merchant who made a great fortune.  His brother, my
uncle, in whom my father always believed implicitly, took to  what is
called Finance, and when my father died he left me, his only child, in 
his guardianship. Until I am five-and-twenty I cannot even marry or
touch a  halfpenny without his consent; in fact if I should marry
against his will the  most of my money goes to him.”  

“I expect that he has got it already,” said Alan.

“No, I think not. I found out that, although it is not mine, it is not
his. He can’t draw it without my signature, and I steadily refuse to
sign  anything. Again and again they have brought me documents, and I
have always  said that I would consider them at five-and-twenty, when I
came of age under my  father’s will. I went on the sly to a lawyer in
Kingswell and paid him a  guinea for his advice, and he put me up to
that. ‘Sign nothing,’ he  said, and I have signed nothing, so, except by
forgery nothing can have gone.  Still for all that it may have gone. For
anything I know I am not worth more  than the clothes I stand in,
although my father was a very rich man.”  

“If so, we are about in the same boat, Barbara,” Alan answered with
a laugh, “for my present possessions are Yarleys, which brings in about
£100 a year less than the interest on its mortgages and cost of upkeep,
and the  £1700 that Aylward paid me back on Friday for my shares. If I
had stuck to them  I understand that in a week or two I should have been
worth £100,000, and now  you see, here I am, over thirty years of age
without a profession, invalided  out of the army and having failed in
finance, a mere bit of driftwood without  hope and without a trade.”

Barbara’s brown eyes grew soft with sympathy, or was it tears?

“You are a curious creature, Alan,” she said. “Why
didn’t you take the £17,000 for that fetish of yours? It would have been
a fair deal and have set you on your legs.”

“I don’t know,” he answered dejectedly. “It went
against the grain, so what is the use of talking about it? I think my
old uncle  Austin told me it wasn’t to be parted with—no, perhaps it was
Jeekie. Bother the Yellow God! it is always cropping up.”

“Yes,” replied Barbara, “the Yellow God is always cropping
up, especially in this neighbourhood.”

They walked on a while in silence, till suddenly Barbara sat down upon a
bole  of felled oak and began to cry.

“What is the matter with you?” asked Alan.

“I don’t know,” she answered. “Everything goes wrong. I
live in a kind of gilded hell. I don’t like my uncle and I loathe the
men  he brings about the place. I have no friends, I scarcely know a
woman  intimately, I have troubles I can’t tell you and—I am wretched.
You  are the only creature I have left to talk to, and I suppose that
after this row  you must go away too to make your living.”

Alan looked at her there weeping on the log and his heart swelled within
him,  for he had loved this girl for years.

“Barbara,” he gasped, “please don’t cry, it upsets me.
You know you are a great heiress——”

“That remains to be proved,” she answered. “But anyway, what
has it to do with the case?”

“It has everything to do with it, at least so far as I am concerned. If
it hadn’t been for that I should have asked you to marry me a long while
ago, because I love you, as I would now, but of course it is
impossible.”  

Barbara ceased her weeping, wiped her eyes with the back of her hand,
and  looked up at him.

“Alan,” she said, “I think that you are the biggest fool I
ever knew—not but that a fool is rather refreshing when one lives among
knaves.”

“I know I am a fool,” he answered. “If I wasn’t I
should not have mentioned my misfortune to you, but sometimes things are
too  much for one. Forget it and forgive me.”

“Oh! yes,” she said; “I forgive you; a woman can generally
forgive a man for being fond of her. Whatever she may be, she is ready
to take  a lenient view of his human weakness. But as to forgetting,
that is a different  matter. I don’t exactly see why I should be so
anxious to forget, who  haven’t many people to care about me,” and she
looked at him in  quite a new fashion, one indeed which gave him
something of a shock, for he had  not thought the nymph-like Barbara
capable of such a look as that. She and any  sort of passion had always
seemed so far apart.  

Now after all Alan was very much a man, if a modest one, with all a
man’s  instincts, and therefore there are appearances of the female face
which even  such as he could not entirely misinterpret.

“You—don’t—mean,” he said doubtfully, “you
don’t really mean——” and he stood hesitating before her.

“If you would put your question a little more clearly, Alan, I might be
able to give you an answer,” she replied, that quaint little smile of
hers creeping to the corners of her mouth like sunshine through a mist
of rain.  

“You don’t really mean,” he went on, “that you care
anything about me, like, like I have cared for you for years?”

“Oh! Alan,” she said, laughing outright, “why in the name of
goodness shouldn’t I care about you? I don’t say that I do, mind,
but why shouldn’t I? What is the gulf between us?”

“The old one,” he answered, “that between Dives and
Lazarus—that between the rich and the poor.”

“Alan,” said Barbara, looking down, “I don’t know what
has come over me, but for some unexplained and inexplicable reason I am
inclined to give Lazarus a lead—across that gulf, the first one, I mean,
not the second!”

Like the glance which preceded it, this was a saying that even Alan
could not  misunderstand. He sat himself on the log beside her, while
she, still looking  down, watched him out of the corners of her eyes. He
went red, he went white,  his heart beat very violently. Then he
stretched out his big brown hand and  took her small white one, and as
this familiarity produced no remonstrance, let  it fall, and passing his
arm about her, drew her to him and embraced her, not  once, but often,
with such vigour that a squirrel which had been watching these 
proceedings from a neighbouring tree, bolted round it scandalized and
was seen  no more.  

“I love you, I love you,” he said huskily.

“So I gather,” she answered in a feeble voice.

“Do you care for me?” he asked.

“It would seem that I must, Alan, otherwise I should scarcely—oh!
you foolish Alan,” and heedless of her Sunday hat, which never recovered
from this encounter, but was kept as a holy relic, she let her head fall
upon  his shoulder and began to cry again, this time for very happiness.

He kissed her tears away; then, as he could think of nothing else to
say, asked  her if she would marry him.

“It is the general sequel to this kind of thing, I believe,” she
answered; “or at any rate it ought to be. But if you want a direct
answer—yes, I will, if my uncle will let me, which he won’t, as you
have quarrelled with him, or at any rate two years hence, when I am
five-and-twenty and my own mistress; that is if we have anything to
marry on,  for one must eat. At present our worldly possessions seem to
consist chiefly of  a large store of mutual affection, a good stock of
clothes and one Yellow God,  which after what happened last night, I do
not think you will get another chance  of turning into cash.”

“I must make money somehow,” he said.

“Yes, Alan, but I am afraid it is not easy to do—honestly. Nobody
wants people without capital whose only stock in trade is a brief but
distinguished military career, and a large experience of African fever.”

Alan groaned at this veracious but discouraging remark, and she went on
quickly:  

“I mean to spend another guinea upon my friend the lawyer at Kingswell.
Perhaps he can raise the wind, by a post-obit, or something,” she added
vaguely, “I mean a post-uncle-obit.”

“If he does, Barbara, I can’t live on your money alone, it
isn’t right.”

“Oh! don’t you trouble about that, Alan. If once I can get hold of
those dim thousands you will soon be able to make more, for unto him
that hath  shall be given. But at present they are very dim, and for all
I know may be  represented by stock in deceased companies. In short, the
financial position is  extraordinarily depressed, as they say in the
Market Intelligence in _The  Times_. But that’s no reason why we should
be depressed also.”  

“No, Barbara, for at any rate we have got each other.”

“Yes,” she answered, springing up, “we have got each other,
dear, until Death do us part, and somehow I don’t think he’ll do
that yet awhile; it comes into my heart that he won’t do that, Alan,
that  you and I are going to live out our days. So what does the rest
matter? In two  years I shall be a free woman. In fact, if the worst
comes to the worst,  I’ll defy them all,” and she set her little mouth
like a rock,  “and marry you straight away, as being over age, I can do,
even if it  costs me every halfpenny that I’ve got.”

“No, no,” he said, “it would be wrong, wrong to yourself and
wrong to your descendants.”

“Very well, Alan, then, we will wait, or perhaps luck will come our
way—why shouldn’t it? At any rate for my part I never felt so happy
in my life; for, dear Alan, we have found what we were born to find,
found it  once and for always, and the rest is mere etceteras. What
would be the use of  all the gold of the Asiki people that Jeekie was
talking about last night, to  either of us, if we had not each other? We
can get on without the wealth, but  we couldn’t get on apart, or at
least I couldn’t and I don’t  mind saying so.”

“No, my darling, no,” he answered, turning white at the very
thought, “we couldn’t get on apart—now. In fact I don’t
know how I have done it so long already, except that I was always hoping
that a  time would come when we shouldn’t be apart. That is why I went
into that  infernal business, to make enough money to be able to ask you
to marry me. And  now I have gone out of the business and asked you just
when I  shouldn’t.”

“Yes, so you see you might as well have done it a year or two ago when
perhaps things would have been simpler. Well, it is a fine example of
the  vanity of human plans, and, Alan, we must be going home to lunch.
If we  don’t, Sir Robert will be organizing a search party to look for
us; in  fact, I shouldn’t wonder if he is doing that already, in the
wrong  direction.”

The mention of Sir Robert Aylward’s name fell on them both like a blast
of cold wind in summer, and for a while they walked in silence.

“You are afraid of that man, Barbara,” said Alan presently,
guessing her thoughts.

“A little,” she answered, “so far as I can be afraid of
anything any more. And you?”

“A little also. I think that he will give us trouble. He can be very
malevolent and resourceful.”

“Resourceful, Alan; well, so can I. I’ll back my wits against his
any day. He shan’t separate us by anything short of murder, which he
won’t go in for. Men like that don’t like to break the law; they
have too much to lose. But no doubt he will make things uncomfortable
for you,  if he can, for several reasons.”

Again they walked on lost in reflections, when Barbara suddenly saw her
lover’s face brighten.

“What is it, Alan?” she asked.

“Something that is rare enough with me, Barbara—an idea. You
remember speaking about that Asiki gold just now. Well, why shouldn’t I
go and get it?”

She stared at him.

“It sounds a little speculative,” she said; “something like
one of my uncle’s companies.”

“Not half so speculative as you think. I have no doubt it is there and
Jeekie knows the way. Also I seem to remember that there is a map and an
account of the whole thing in Uncle Austin’s diaries, though to tell you
the truth the old fellow wrote such a fearful hand, that I have never
taken the  trouble to read it. You see,” he went on with enthusiasm, “it
is  the kind of business that I can do. I am thoroughly salted to fever,
I know the  West Coast, where I spent three years on that Boundary
Commission, I have  studied the natives and can talk several of their
dialects. Of course there  would be a risk, but there are risks in
everything, and like you I am not  afraid about that, for I believe that
we have got our lives before us.”  

“Read up those diaries, Alan, and we will talk the thing over again.
I’ll pump Jeekie, who will tell me anything by coaxing, and try to get
at  the truth. Meanwhile what are you going to do about my uncle?”

“Speak to him, of course, and have the row over.”

“Yes,” she answered, “that is the best and the most honest.
Of course he can turn you out, but he can’t prevent my seeing you. If he
does, go home to Yarleys and I’ll come over and call. Here we are, let
us  go in by the back door,” and she pointed to her crushed hat, and
laughed.  




CHAPTER V.

BARBARA MAKES A SPEECH.


While Alan and Barbara, on the most momentous occasion of their lives,
were  seated upon the fallen oak in the woods that thrilled with the
breath of  spring, another interview was taking place in Mr.
Champers-Haswell’s  private suite at The Court, the decorations of
which, as he was wont to inform  his visitors, had cost nearly £2000.
Sir Robert, whose taste at any rate was  good, thought them so appalling
that while waiting for his host and partner,  whom he had come to see,
he took a seat in the bow window of the sitting-room  and studied the
view that nobody had been able to spoil. Presently Mr. Haswell  emerged
from his bedroom, wrapped in a dressing gown and looking very pale and 
shaky.  

“Delighted to see you all right again,” said Sir Robert as he
wheeled up a chair into which Mr. Haswell sank.

“I am not all right, Aylward,” he answered; “I am not all
right at all. Never had such an upset in my life; thought I was going to
die  when that accursed savage told his beastly tale. Aylward, you are a
man of the  world, tell me, what is the meaning of the thing? You
remember what we thought  we saw in the office, and then—that story.”

“I don’t know,” he answered; “frankly I don’t
know. I am a man who has never believed in anything I cannot see and
test, one  who utterly lacks faith. In my leisure I have examined into
the various  religious systems and found them to be rubbish. I am
convinced that we are but  highly-developed mammals born by chance, and
when our day is done, departing  into the black nothingness out of which
we came. Everything else, that is, what  is called the higher and
spiritual part, I attribute to the superstitions  incident to the terror
of the hideous position in which we find ourselves, that  of gods of a
sort hemmed in by a few years of fearful and tormented life. But  you
know the old arguments, so why should I enter on them? And now I am 
confronted with an experience which I cannot explain. I certainly
thought that  in the office on Friday evening I saw that gold mask to
which I had taken so  strange a fancy that I offered to give Vernon
£17,000 for it because I thought  that it brought us luck, swim across
the floor of our room and look first into  your face and then into mine.
Well, the next night that negro tells his story.  What am I to make of
it?”    

“Can’t tell you,” answered Mr. Champers-Haswell with a groan.
“All I know is that it nearly made a corpse of me. I am not like you,
Aylward, I was brought up as an Evangelical, and although I haven’t
given  much thought to these matters of late years—well, we don’t shake
them off in a hurry. I daresay there is something somewhere, and when
the black  man was speaking, that something seemed uncommonly near. It
got up and gripped  me by the throat, shaking the mortal breath out of
me, and upon my word,  Aylward, I have been wishing all the morning that
I had led a different kind of  life, as my old parents and my brother
John, Barbara’s father, who was a  very religious kind of man, did
before me.”  

“It is rather late to think of all that now, Haswell,” said Sir
Robert, shrugging his shoulders. “One takes one’s line and
there’s an end. Personally I believe that we are overstrained with the
fearful and anxious work of this flotation, and have been the victims of
an  hallucination and a coincidence. Although I confess that I came to
look upon  the thing as a kind of mascot, I put no trust in any fetish.
How can a bit of  gold move, and how can it know the future? Well, I
have written to them to  clear it out of the office to-morrow, so it
won’t trouble us any more.  And now I have come to speak to you on
another matter.”  

“Not business,” said Mr. Haswell with a sigh. “We have that
all the week and there will be enough of it on Monday.”

“No,” he answered, “something more important. About your
niece Barbara.”

Mr. Haswell glanced at him with those little eyes of his which were so
sharp  that they seemed to bore like gimlets.

“Barbara?” he said. “What of Barbara?”

“Can’t you guess, Haswell? You are pretty good at it, generally.
Well, it is no use beating about the bush; I want to marry her.”

At this sudden announcement his partner became exceedingly interested.
Leaning  back in the chair he stared at the decorated ceiling, and
uttered his favourite  wind-in-the-wires whistle.

“Indeed,” he said. “I never knew that matrimony was in your
line, Aylward, any more than it has been in mine, especially as you are
always  preaching against it. Well, has the young lady given her
consent?”  

“No, I have not spoken to her. I meant to do so this morning, but she
has  slipped off somewhere, with Vernon, I suppose.”

Mr. Haswell whistled again, but on a new note.

“Pray do stop that noise,” said Sir Robert; “it gets upon my
nerves, which are shaky this morning. Listen: It is a curious thing, one
less  to be understood even than the coincidence of the Yellow God, but
at my present  age of forty-four, for the first time in my life I have
committed the folly of  what is called falling in love. It is not the
case of a successful, middle-aged  man wishing to _ranger_ himself and
settle down with a desirable  _partie_, but of sheer, stark infatuation.
I adore Barbara; the worse she  treats me the more I adore her. I had
rather that the Sahara flotation should  fail than that she should
refuse me. I would rather lose three-quarters of my  fortune than lose
her. Do you understand?”  

His partner looked at him, pursed up his lips to whistle, then
remembered and  shook his head instead.

“No,” he answered. “Barbara is a nice girl, but I should not
have imagined her capable of inspiring such sentiments in a man almost
old  enough to be her father. I think that you are the victim of a kind
of mania,  which I have heard of but never experienced. Venus—or is it
Cupid?—has netted you, my dear Aylward.”

“Oh! pray leave gods and goddesses out of it, we have had enough of them
already,” he answered, exasperated. “That is my case at any rate,
and what I want to know now is if I have your support in my suit.
Remember, I  have something to offer, Haswell, for instance, a large
fortune of which I will  settle half—it is a good thing to do in our
business,—and a  baronetcy that will be a peerage before long.”

“A peerage! Have you squared that?”

“I think so. There will be a General Election within the next three
months, and on such occasions a couple of hundred thousand in cool cash
come in  useful to a Party that is short of ready money. I think I may
say that it is  settled. She will be the Lady Aylward, or any other name
she may fancy, and one  of the richest women in England. Now have I your
support?”  

“Yes, my dear friend, why not, though Barbara does not want money, for
she has plenty of her own, in first-class securities that I could never
persuade her to vary, for she is shrewd in that way and steadily refuses
to  sign anything. Also she will probably be my heiress—and, Aylward,”
here a sickly look of alarm spread itself over his face, “I don’t
know how long I have to live. That infernal doctor examined my heart
this  morning and told me that it was weak. Weak was his word, but from
the tone in  which he said it, I believe that he meant more. Aylward, I
gather that I may  die any day.”

“Nonsense, Haswell, so may we all,” he replied, with an affectation
of cheerfulness which failed to carry conviction.

Presently Mr. Haswell, who had hidden his face in his hand, looked up
with a  sigh and said:

“Oh! yes, of course you have my support, for after all she is my only
relation and I should be glad to see her safely married. Also, as it
happens,  she can’t marry anyone without my consent, at any rate until
she is  five-and-twenty, for if she does, under her father’s will all
her property  goes away, most of it to charities, except a beggarly £200
a year. You see my  brother John had a great horror of imprudent
marriages and a still greater  belief in me, which as it chances, is a
good thing for you.”  

“Had he?” said Sir Robert. “And pray why is it a good thing
for me?”

“Because, my dear Aylward, unless my observation is at fault, there is
another Richard in the field, our late partner, Vernon, of whom, by the
way,  Barbara is extremely fond, though it may only be in a friendly
fashion. At any  rate she pays more attention to his wishes and opinions
than to mine and yours  put together.”

At the mention of Alan’s name Aylward started violently.

“I feared it,” he said, “and he is more than ten years my
junior and a soldier, not a man of business. Also there is no use
disguising  the truth, although I am a baronet and shall be a peer and
he is nothing but a  beggarly country gentleman with a D.S.O. tacked on
to his name, he belongs to a  different class to us, as she does too on
her mother’s side. Well, I can  smash him up, for you remember I took
over that mortgage on Yarleys, and  I’ll do it if necessary. Practically
our friend has not a shilling that  he can call his own. Therefore,
Haswell, unless you play me false, which I  don’t think you will, for I
can be a nasty enemy,” he added with a  threat in his voice, “Alan
Vernon hasn’t much chance in that  direction.”

“I don’t know, Aylward, I don’t know,” replied Haswell,
shaking his white head. “Barbara is a strong-willed woman and she might
choose to take the man and let the money go, and then—who can stop her?
Also I don’t like your idea of smashing Vernon. It isn’t right, and
it may come back on our own heads, especially yours. I am sorry that he
has  left us, as you were on Friday night, for somehow he was a good,
honest stick  to lean on, and we want such a stick. But I am tired now,
I really can’t  talk any more. The doctor warned me against excitement.
Get the girl’s  consent, Aylward, and we’ll see. Ah! here comes my soup.
Good-bye for the  present.”

When Sir Robert came down to luncheon he found Barbara looking
particularly  radiant and charming, already presiding at that meal and
conversing in her best  French to the foreign gentlemen, who were paying
her compliments.  

“Forgive me for being late,” he said; “first of all I have
been talking to your uncle, and afterwards skimming through the articles
in  yesterday’s papers on our little venture which comes out to-morrow.
A  cheerful occupation on the whole, for with one or two exceptions they
are all  favourable.”

“Mon Dieu,” said the French gentlemen on the right, “seeing
what they did cost, that is not strange. Your English papers they are so
expensive; in Paris we have done it for half the money.”

Barbara and some of the guests laughed outright, finding this frankness
charming.

“But where have you been, Miss Champers? I thought that we were going to
have a round of golf together. The caddies were there, I was there, the
greens  had been specially rolled this morning, but there was no You.”

“No,” she answered, “because Major Vernon and I walked to
church and heard a very good sermon upon the observance of the Sabbath.”

“You are severe,” he said. “Do you think it wrong for men who
work hard all the week to play a harmless game on Sunday?”

“Not at all, Sir Robert.” Then she looked at him and, coming to a
sudden decision, added, “If you like I will play you nine holes this
afternoon and give you a stroke a hole, or would you prefer a foursome?”

“No, let us fight alone and let the best player win.”

“Very well, Sir Robert; but you mustn’t forget that I am
handicapped.”

“Don’t look angry,” she whispered to Alan as they strolled
out into the garden after lunch, “I must clear things up and know what
we  have to face. I’ll be back by tea-time, and we will have it out with
my  uncle.”

The nine holes had been played, and by a single stroke Barbara had won
the  match, which pleased her very much, for she had done her best, and
with such  heavy odds in his favour Sir Robert, who had also done his
best, was no mean  opponent, even for a player of her skill. Indeed the
fight had been quite  earnest, for each party knew that it was but a
prelude to another and more  serious fight, and looked upon the result
as in some sense an omen.  

“I am conquered,” he said in a voice in which vexation struggled
with a laugh, “and by a woman over whom I had an advantage. It is
humiliating, for I confess I do not like being beaten.”

“Don’t you think that women generally win if they mean to?”
asked Barbara. “I believe that when they fail, which is often enough, it
is because they don’t care, or can’t make up their minds. A woman
in earnest is a dangerous antagonist.”

“Yes,” he answered, “or the best of allies.” Then he
gave the clubs and half-a-crown to the caddies, and when they were out
of  hearing, added, “Miss Champers, I have been wondering for some time
whether it is possible that you would become such an ally to me.”

“I know nothing of business, Sir Robert; my tastes do not lie that
way.”

“You know well that I was not speaking of business, Miss Champers. I was
speaking of another kind of partnership, that which Nature has ordained
between  men and women—marriage. Will you accept me as a husband?”

She opened her lips to speak, but he lifted his hand and went on.
“Listen  before you give that ready answer which it is so hard to
recall, or smooth  away. I know all my disadvantages, my years, which to
you may seem many; my  modest origin; my trade, which, not altogether
without reason, you despise and  dislike. Well, the first two cannot be
changed except for the worse; the second  can be, and already is, buried
beneath the gold and ermine of wealth and  titles. What does it matter
if I am the son of a City clerk who never earned  more than £2 a week
and was born in a tenement at Battersea, when I am one of  the rich men
of this rich land and shall die a peer in a palace, leaving  millions
and honours to my children? As for the third, my occupation, I am 
prepared to give it up. It has served my turn, and after next week I
shall have  earned the amount that years ago I determined to earn.
Thenceforth, set above  the accidents of fortune, I propose to devote
myself to higher aims, those of  legitimate ambition. So far as my time
would allow I have already taken some  share in politics as a worker; I
intend to continue in them as a ruler which I  still have the health and
ability to do. I mean to be one of the first men in  this Empire, to
ride to power over the heads of all the nonentities whose only  claim
upon the confidence of their countrymen is that they were born in a 
certain class, with money in their pockets and without the need to spend
the  best of their manhood in work. With you at my side I can do all
these things  and more, and such is the future that I have to offer
you.”      
Again she would have broken in upon his speech and again he stopped her,
reading the unspoken answer on her lips.

“Listen: I have not told you all. Perhaps I have put first what should
have come last. I have not told you that I love you earnestly and
sincerely,  with the settled, unalterable love that sometimes comes to
men in middle-age  who have never turned their thought that way before.
I will not attempt the  rhapsodies of passion which at my time of life
might sound foolish or out of  place; yet it is true that I am filled
with this passion which has descended on  me and taken possession of me.
I who often have laughed at such things in other  men, adore you. You
are a joy to my eyes. If you are not in the room, for me it  is empty. I
admire the uprightness of your character, and even your prejudices,  and
to your standard I desire to approximate my own. I think that no man can
 ever love you quite so well as I do, Barbara Champers. Now speak. I am
ready to  meet the best or the worst.”  

After her fashion Barbara looked him straight in the face with her
steady eyes,  and answered gently enough, for the man’s method of
presenting his case,  elaborate and prepared though it evidently was,
had touched her.  

“I fear it is the worst, Sir Robert. There are hundreds of women
superior  to myself in every way who would be glad to give you the help
and companionship  you ask, with their hearts thrown in. Choose one of
them, for I cannot do  so.”

He heard and for the first time his face broke, as it were. All this
while it  had remained masklike and immovable, even when he spoke of his
love, but now it  broke as ice breaks at the pressure of a sudden flood
beneath, and she saw the  depths and eddies of his nature and understood
their strength. Not that he  revealed them in speech, angry or pleading,
for that remained calm and measured  enough. She did not hear, she saw,
and even then it was marvellous to her that  a mere change in a man’s
expression could explain so much.  

“Those are very cruel words,” he said. “Are they
unalterable?”

“Quite. I do not play in such matters, it would be wicked.”

“May I ask you one question, for if the answer is in the negative, I
shall still continue to hope? Do you care for any other man?”

Again she looked at him with her fearless eyes and answered:

“Yes, I am engaged to another man.”

“To Alan Vernon?”

She nodded.

“When did that happen? Some years ago?”

“No, this morning.”

“Great Heavens!” he muttered in a hoarse voice turning his head
away, “this morning. Then last night it might not have been too late,
and  last night I should have spoken to you, I had arranged it all. Yes,
if it had  not been for the story of that accursed fetish and your
uncle’s illness,  I should have spoken to you, and perhaps succeeded.”

“I think not,” she said.

He turned upon her and notwithstanding the tears in his eyes they burned
like  fire.

“You think—you think,” he gasped, “but I know. Of
course after this morning it was impossible. But, Barbara, I say that I
will  win you yet. I have never failed in any object that I set before
myself, and do  not suppose that I shall fail in this. Although in a way
I liked and respected  him, I have always felt that Vernon was my enemy,
one destined to bring grief  and loss upon me, even if he did not intend
to do so. Now I understand why, and  he shall learn that I am stronger
than he. God help him! I say.”  

“I think He will,” Barbara answered, calmly. “You are
speaking wildly, and I understand the reason and hope that you will
forget your  words, but whether you forget or remember, do not suppose
that you frighten me.  You men who have made money,” she went on with
swelling indignation,  “who have made money somehow, and have bought
honours with the moneys  somehow, think yourselves great, and in your
little day, your little, little  day that will end with three lines in
small type in _The Times_, you are  great in this vulgar land. You can
buy what you want and people creep round you  and ask you for doles and
favours, and railway porters call you ‘my  Lord’ at every other step.
But you forget your limitations in this world,  and that which lies
above you. You say you will do this and that. You should  study a book
which few of you ever read, where it tells you that you do not  know
what you will be on the morrow; that your life is even as a vapour 
appearing for a little time and then vanishing away. You think that you
can  crush the man to whom I have given my heart because he is honest
and you are  dishonest, because you are rich and he is poor, and because
he chances to have  succeeded where you have not. Well, for myself and
for him I defy you. Do your  worst and fail, and when you have failed,
in the hour of your extremity  remember my words to-day. If I have given
you pain by refusing you it is not my  fault and I am sorry, but when
you threaten the man who has honoured me with  his love and whom I
honour above every creature upon the earth, then I threaten  back, and
may the Power that made us all judge between you and me, as judge it 
will,” and bursting into tears she turned and left him.    

Sir Robert watched her go.

“What a woman!” he said meditatively, “what a woman—to
have lost. Well she has set the stakes and we will play out the game.
The cards  all seem to be in my hands, but it would not in the least
surprise me if she  won the rubber, for the element that I call Chance
and she would call something  else, may come in. Still, I never refused
a challenge yet and we will play the  game out without pity to the
loser.”  

That night the first trick was played. When he got back to The Court Sir
Robert  ordered his motorcar and departed on urgent business, either to
his own place,  Old Hall, or to London, saying only that he had been
summoned away by telegram.  As the 70-horse-power Mercedes glided out of
the gates a pencilled note was put  into Mr. Haswell’s hand.

It ran: “I have tried and failed—for the present. By ill-luck A.V.
had been before me, only this morning. If I had not missed my chance
last night  owing to your illness, it would have been different. I do
not, however, in the  least abandon my plan, in which of course I rely
on and expect your support.  Keep V. in the office or let him go as you
like. Perhaps it would be better if  you could prevail upon him to stop
there until after the flotation. But  whatever you say at the moment, I
trust to you to absolutely veto any  engagement between him and your
niece, and to that end to use all your powers  and authority as her
guardian. Burn this note.  




CHAPTER VI.

MR. HASWELL LOSES HIS TEMPER.


Alan and Barbara sat in Mr. Champers-Haswell’s private sitting-room with
the awful decorations, and before them by the fire Mr. Champers-Haswell
reclined upon his couch. Alan in a few, brief, soldier-like words had
just  informed him of his engagement to Barbara. During the recital of
this  interesting fact Barbara said nothing, but Mr. Haswell had
whistled several  times. Now at length he spoke, in that tone of forced
geniality which he  generally adopted towards his cousin.

“You are asking for the hand of a considerable heiress, Alan my
boy,” he said, “but you have neglected to inform me of your own
position.”

“Where is the use of telling you what you know already, Mr. Haswell? I
have left the firm, therefore I have practically nothing.”

“You have practically nothing, and yet——Well, in my young
days men were more delicate, they did not like being called
fortune-hunters,  but of course times have changed.”

Alan bit his lip and Barbara sat up quite straight in her chair,
observing  which indications, Mr. Haswell went on hurriedly:

“Now if you had stopped in the firm and earned the very handsome
competence in a small way which would have become due to you this week,
instead  of throwing us over at the last moment for some quixotic
reasons of your own,  it might have been a different matter. I do not
say it would have been, I say  it might have been, and you may remember
a proverb about winks and nods and  blind horses. So I ask you whether
you are inclined to withdraw that  resignation of yours and bring up
this question again let us say, next  Sunday?”

Alan thought a while before he answered. As he understood Mr. Haswell
practically was promising to assent to the engagement upon these terms.
The  temptation was enormously great, the fiercest that he had ever been
called upon  to face. He looked at Barbara. She had closed her eyes and
made absolutely no  sign. For some reason of her own she had elected
that he should determine this  vital point without the slightest
assistance from her. And it must be  determined at once; procrastination
was impossible. For a moment he hesitated.  On the one side was Barbara,
on the other his conscience. After long doubts he  had come to a certain
conclusion which he quite understood to be inconvenient  to his
partners. Should he throw it over now? Should he even try to make a sure
 and certain bargain as the price of his surrender? Probably he would
not suffer  if he did. The flotation was underwritten and bound to go
through; the scandal  would come afterwards, months or years hence, long
before which he might get  out, as most of the others meant to do. No,
he could not. His conscience was  too much for him.  

“I do not see any use in reconsidering that question, Mr. Haswell,”
he said quietly; “we settled it on Friday night.”

Barbara reopened her brown eyes and stared amiably at the painted
ceiling, and  Mr. Haswell whistled.

“Then I am afraid,” he said, “that I do not see any use in
discussing your kind proposal for my niece’s hand. Listen—I will be
quite open with you. I have other views for Barbara, and as it happens I
have  the power to enforce them, or at any rate to prevent their
frustration by you.  If Barbara marries against my will before she is
five-and-twenty, that is  within the next two years, her entire fortune,
with the exception of a  pittance, goes elsewhere. This I am sure is a
fact that will influence you, who  have nothing and even if it did not,
I presume that you are scarcely so selfish  as to wish to beggar her.”

“No,” answered Alan, “you need not fear that, for it would be
wrong. I understand that you absolutely refuse to sanction my suit on
the  ground of my poverty, which under the circumstances is perhaps not
wonderful.  Well, the only thing to do is to wait for two years, a long
time, but not  endless, and meanwhile I can try to better my position.”

“Do what you will, Alan,” said Mr. Haswell harshly, for now all his
_faux bonhomme_ manner had gone, leaving him revealed in his true
character of an unscrupulous tradesman with dark ends of his own to
serve.  “Do what you will, but understand that I forbid all
communication between  you and my niece, and that the sooner you cease
to trespass upon a hospitality  which you have abused, the better I
shall be pleased.”  

“I will go at once,” said Alan, rising, “before my temper
gets the better of me and I tell you some truths that I might regret,
for after  all you are Barbara’s uncle. But on your part I ask you to
understand  that I refuse to cut off from my cousin, who is of full age
and has promised to  be my wife,” and he turned to go.

“Stop a minute, Alan,” said Barbara, who all this while had sat
silent. “I have something to say which I wish you to hear. You told us
just now, uncle, that you have other views for me, by which you meant
that you  wish me to marry Sir Robert Aylward, whom, as you are probably
aware, I refused  definitely this afternoon. Now I wish to make it clear
at once that no earthly  power will induce me to take as a husband a man
whom I dislike, and whose  wealth, of which you think so much, has in my
opinion been dishonestly  acquired.”

“What are you saying?” broke in her uncle furiously. “He has
been my partner for years, you are reflecting upon me.”

“I am sorry, uncle, but I withdraw nothing. Even if Alan here were dead,
I would not marry that man, and perhaps you will make him understand
this,” she added with emphasis. “Indeed I had sooner die myself.
You told us also that if I marry against your will, you can take away
all the  property that my father left to me. Uncle, I shall not give you
that  satisfaction. I shall wait until I am twenty-five and do what I
please with  myself and my fortune. Lastly, you said that you forbade us
to see each other  or to correspond. I answer that I shall both write to
and see Alan as often as  I like. If you attempt to prevent me from
doing so, I shall go to the Court of  Chancery, lay all the facts before
it, as I have been advised that I can  do—not by Alan—please remember,
_all_ the facts, and ask for  its protection and for a separate
maintenance out of my estate until I am  twenty-five. I am sure that the
Court would grant me this and would declare  that considering his
distinguished family and record Alan is a perfectly proper  person to be
my affianced husband. I think that is all I have to say.”  

“All you have to say!” gasped Mr. Haswell, “all you have to
say, you impertinent and ungrateful minx!” Then he fell into a furious
fit of rage and in language that need not be repeated, poured a stream
of  threats and abuse upon Alan and herself. Barbara waited until he
ceased from  exhaustion.

“Uncle,” she said, “you should remember that your heart is
weak and you must not overexcite yourself, also when you are calmer,
that if  you speak to me like that again, I shall go to the Court at
once, for I will  not be sworn at by you or by any other man. I
apologize to you, Alan; I am  afraid I have brought you into strange
company. Come, my dear, we will go and  order your dogcart,” and putting
her arm affectionately through his, she  went with him from the room.

“I wonder who put her up to all this?” gasped Haswell, as the door
closed behind them. “Some infernal lawyer, I’ll be bound. Well, she
has got the whip hand of me, and I can’t face an investigation in
Chancery, especially as the only thing against Vernon is that the value
of his  land has fallen. But I swear that she shall never marry him
while I  live,” he ended in a kind of shout and the domed and painted
ceiling  echoed back his words—“_while I live_” after which the
room was silent, save for the heavy thumping of his heart.

When Alan reached home that night after his ten-mile drive he sent
Jeekie to  tell the housekeeper to find him some food. In his mysterious
African fashion  the negro had already collected much intelligence as to
the events of the day,  mostly in the servants’ hall, and more
particularly from the two  golf-caddies, sons of one of the gardeners,
who it seemed instead of retiring  with the clubs, had taken shelter in
some tall whins and thence followed the  interview between Barbara and
Sir Robert with the intensest interest.  Reflecting that this was not
the time to satisfy his burning curiosity, Jeekie  went and in due
course returned with some cold mutton and a bottle of claret.  Then came
his chance, for Alan could scarcely touch the mutton and demanded  toast
and butter.  

“Very inferior chop”—that was his West African word for
food—“for a gentleman, Major,” he said, shaking his white
head sympathetically and pointing to the mutton,—“specially when he
has unexpectedly departed from magnificent eating of The Court. Why did
you not  wait till after dinner, Major, before retiring?”

Alan laughed at the man’s inflated English, and answered in a more
nervous and colloquial style:

“Because I was kicked out, Jeekie.”

“Ah! I gathered that kicking was in the wind, Major. Sir Robert Aylward,
Bart., he also was kicked out, but by smaller toe.”

Again Alan laughed and, as it was a relief to talk even to Jeekie, asked
him:  

“How do you know that?”

“I gathered it out of atmosphere, Major; from Sir Robert’s
gentleman, from two youths who watch Sir Robert and Miss Barbara talking
upon  golf green No. 9, from the machine driver of Sir Robert whose eyes
he damn in  public, and last but not least from his own noble
countenance.”  

“I see that you are observant, Jeekie.”

“Observation, Major, it is art of life. I see Miss Barbara’s eyes
red like morning sky and I deduct. I see you shot out and gloomy like
evening  cloud, and I deduct. I listen at door of Mr. Haswell’s room, I
hear him  curse and swear like holy saint in Book, and you and Miss
Barbara answer him  not like saint, though what you speak I cannot hear,
and I deduct. Jeekie  deduct this—that you make love to Miss Barbara in
proper gentlemanlike,  ’nogamous, Christian fashion such as your late
Reverend Uncle approve,  and Miss Barbara, she make love to you with ten
per cent. compound interest,  but old gent with whistle, he _not_
approve; he say, ‘Where  corresponding cash!’ He say ‘Noble Sir Robert
have much cash and  interested in identical business. I prefer Sir
Robert. Get out, you  Cashless.’ Often I see this same thing when boy in
West Africa, very  common wherever sun shine. I note all these matters
and I deduct—that  Jeekie’s way and Jeekie seldom wrong.”

Alan laughed for the third time, until the tears ran down his face
indeed.  

“Jeekie,” he said, “you are a great
rascal——”

“Yes, yes,” interrupted Jeekie, “great rascal. Best thing to
be in this world, Major. Honourable Sir Robert, Bart., M.P., and Mr.
Champers-Haswell, D.L., J.P., they find that out long ago and sit on top
of  tree of opulent renown. Jeekie great rascal and therefore have
Savings Bank  account—go on, Major.”

“Well, Jeekie, because if you are a rascal you are kind-hearted and
because I believe that you care for me——”

“Oh! Major,” broke in Jeekie again, “that most
’utterably true. Honour bright I love you, Major, better than anyone on
earth, except my late old woman, now happily dead, gone and forgotten in
best  oak coffin, £4 10 without fittings but polished, and perhaps your
holy uncle,  Reverend Mr. Austin, also coffined and departed, who saved
me from early  extinction in a dark place. Major, I no like graves, I
see too much of them,  and can’t tell what lie on other side. Though
everyone say they know,  Jeekie not quite sure. May be all light and
crowns of glory, may be damp black  hole and no way out. But this at
least true, that I love you better, yes,  better than Miss Barbara, for
love of woman very poor, uncertain thing, quick  come, quick go. Jeekie
find that out—often. Yes, if need be, though death  most nasty, if need
be I say I die for you, which great unpleasant  sacrifice,” and Jeekie
in the genuine enthusiasm of his warm heart,  throwing himself upon his
knees after the African fashion, seized his  master’s hand and kissed
it.  

“Thanks, Jeekie,” said Alan, “very kind of you, I am sure.
But we haven’t come to that yet, though no one knows what may happen
later on. Now sit upon that chair and take a little whisky—not too
much—for I am going to ask your advice.”

“Major,” said Jeekie, “I obey,” and seizing the whisky
bottle in a casual manner, he poured out half a tumbler full, for Jeekie
was  fond of whisky. Indeed before now this taste had brought him into
conflict with  the local magistrates.

“Put back three parts of that,” said Alan, and Jeekie did so.
“Now,” he went on, “listen: this is the case, Miss Barbara
and I are——” and he hesitated.

“Oh! I know; like me and Mrs. Jeekie once,” said Jeekie, gulping
down some of the neat whisky. “Go on, Major.”

“And Sir Robert Aylward is——”

“Same thing, Major. Continue.”

“And Mr. Haswell has——”

“Those facts all ascertained, Major,” said Jeekie, contemplating
his glass with a mournful eye. “Now come to the point, Major.”

“Well, the point is, Jeekie, that I am what you called just now
cashless,  and therefore——”

“Therefore,” interrupted Jeekie again, “stick fast in
honourable intention towards Miss Barbara owing to obstinate opposition
of Mr.  Haswell, legal uncle with control of property fomented by noble
Sir Robert who  desire same girl.”

“Quite right, Jeekie, but if you would talk a little less and let me
talk  a little more, we might get on better.”

“I henceforth silent, Major,” and lifting his empty tumbler Jeekie
looked through it as if it were a telescope, a hint that Alan ignored.

“Jeekie, you infernal old fool, I want money.”

“Yes, Major, I understand, Major. Forgive me for breaking conspiracy of
silence, but if £500 in Savings Bank any use, very much at your service,
Major;  also £20 more extracted last night from terror of wealthy Jew
who fear  fetish.”

“Jeekie, you old donkey, I don’t want your £500; I want a great
deal more, £50,000 or £500,000. Tell me how to get it.”

“City best place, Major. But you chuck City, too much honest man, great
mistake to be honest in this terrestrial sphere. Often notice that in
West  Africa.”

“Perhaps, Jeekie, but I have done with the City. As you would say, for
me  it is ‘wipe out, finish.’”

“Yes, Major, too much pickpocket, too much dirt. Bottom always drop out
of bucket shop at last. I understand, end in police court and severe
magistrate, or perhaps even ‘Gentlemen of Jury’; etcetera.”

“Well, Jeekie, then what remains? Now last night when you told us that
amazing yarn of yours, you said something about a mountain full of gold,
and  houses full of gold, among your people. Jeekie, do you
think——” and he paused, looking at him.

Jeekie rolled his black eyes round the room and in a fit of
absentmindedness  helped himself to some more whisky.

“Do I think, Major, that this useless lucre could be converted into coin
of gracious King Edward? Not at all, Major, by no one, Major, by no one
whatsoever, except possibly by Major Alan Vernon, D.S.O., and by one,
Jeekie,  Christian surname Smith.”

“Proceed, Jeekie,” said Alan, removing the whisky bottle,
“proceed and explain.”

“Major, thus: The Asiki tribe care nothing about all that gold, it no
good to them. Dead people who live long, long ago, no one know when, dig
it up  and store it there and make the great fetish which they call
Bonsa to keep away  enemy who want to steal. Also old custom when any
one in country round find big  nugget, or pretty stone, like ladies wear
on bosom, to bring it as offering to  Bonsa, so that there now great
plenty of all this stuff. But no one use it for  anything except to set
on walls of house of Asiki, or to make basin, stool,  table and pot to
cook with. Once Arab come there and I see the priests give him  weight
in gold for iron hoe, though afterwards they murder him, not for the 
gold, but lest he go away and tell their secret.”  

“One might trade with them then, Jeekie?”

He shook his white head doubtfully.

“Yes, perhaps, if you find anything they want buy and can carry it
Asiki-Land. But I think there only one thing they want, and you got
that,  Major.”

“I, Jeekie! What have I got?”

The negro leant forward and tapped his master on the knee, saying in a
portentous whisper:

“You got Little Bonsa, which much more holy than anything, even than Big
Bonsa her husband, I mean greater, more powerful devil. That Little
Bonsa sit  in front room Asika’s house, and when she want see things,
she put it in  big basin of gold, but I no tell you what it float in.
Also once or twice every  year they take out Little Bonsa; Asika wear it
on head as mask, and whoever  they meet they kill as offering to Little
Bonsa, so that spirit come back to  world to be priest of Bonsa. I tell
you, Major, that Yellow God see many  thousand of people die.”

“Indeed,” said Alan. “A pleasing fetish truly. I should think
that the Asiki must be glad it is gone.”

“No, not glad, very sorry. No luck for them when Little Bonsa go away,
but plenty luck for those who got her. That why firm Aylward & Haswell
make  so much money when you join them and bring her to office. She drop
green in eye  of public so they no smell rat. That why you so lucky, not
die of blackwater  fever when you should; get safe out of den of thieves
in City with good name;  win love of sweet maiden, Miss Barbara. Little
Bonsa do all those things for  you, and by and by do plenty more, as
Little Bonsa bring my old master, your  holy uncle, safe out of that
country because all the Asiki run away when they  see him wear her on
head, for they think she come sacrifice them after she eat  up my life.”

“I don’t wonder that they ran,” said Alan, laughing, for the
vision of a missionary with Little Bonsa on his head caught his fancy.
“But come to the point, you old heathen. What do you mean that I should
do?”

“Jeekie not heathen now, Major, but plenty other things true in this
world, besides Christian religion. I no want you do anything, but I say
this—you go back to Asiki wearing Little Bonsa on head and dressed like
Reverend uncle whom you very like, for he just your age then thirty
years ago,  and they give you all the gold you want, if you give them
back Little Bonsa  whom they love and worship for ever and ever, for
Little Bonsa very, very  old.”

Alan sat up in his chair and stared at Jeekie, while Jeekie nodded his
head at  him.

“There is something in it,” he said slowly, speaking more to
himself than to the negro, “and perhaps that is why I would not sell the
fetish, for as you say, there are plenty of true things in the world
besides  those which we believe. But, Jeekie, how should I find the
way?”  

“No trouble, Major, Little Bonsa find way, want to get back home, very
hungry by now, much need sacrifice. Think it good thing kill pig to
Little  Bonsa—or even lamb. She know you do your best, since human being
not to  be come at in Christian land, and say ‘thank you for life of
pig.’”

“Stop that rubbish,” said Alan. “I want a guide; if I go,
will you come with me?”

At this suggestion the negro looked exceedingly uncomfortable.

“Not like to, not like to at all,” he said, rolling his eyes.
“Asiki-land very funny place for native-born. But,” he added sadly,
“if you go Jeekie must, for I servant of Little Bonsa and if I stay
behind, she angry and kill me because I not attend her where she walk.
But  perhaps if I go and take her to Gold House again, she pleased and
let me off.  Also I able help you there. Yes, if you and Little Bonsa
go, think I go  too.”

After this announcement Jeekie rose and walked down the room, carrying
the cold  mutton in his hand. Then he returned, replaced it on the table
and standing in  front of Alan, said earnestly:

“Major, I tell you all truth, just this once. Jeekie believe he
_got_ go with you to Asiki-land. Jeekie have plenty bad dream lately,
Little Bonsa come in middle of the night and sit on his stomach and
scratch his  face with her gold leg, and say, ‘Jeekie, Jeekie, you son
of Bonsa, you  get up quick and take me back Bonsa Town, for I darned
tired of City fog and  finished all I come here to do. Now I want jolly
good sacrifice and got plenty  business attend to there at home, things
you not understand just yet. You take  me back sharp, or I make you sit
up, Jeekie, my boy;’” and he  paused.

“Indeed,” said Alan; “and did she tell you anything else in
her midnight visitations?”

“Yes, Major. She say, ‘You take that white master of yours along
also, for I want come back Asiki-land on his head, and someone wish see
him  there, old pal what he forgot but what not forget him. You tell him
Little  Bonsa got score she wants settle with that party and wish use
him to square  account. You tell him too that she pay him well for trip;
he lose nothing if he  play her game ’cause she got no score against
him. But if he not go, that  another matter, then he look out, for
Little Bonsa very nasty customer if she  riled, as his late partners
find out one day.’”  

“Oh! shut up, Jeekie. What’s the use of wasting time telling me
your nightmares?”

“Very well, Major, just as you like, Major. But I got other reasons why
I  willing go. Jeekie want see his ma.”

“Your ma? I never heard you had a ma. Besides she must be dead long
ago.”

“No, Major, ’cause she turn up in dream too, very much alive, swear
at me ’cause I bag her blanket. Also she tough old woman, take lot kill
her.”

“Perhaps you have a pa too,” suggested Alan.

“Think not, Major, my ma always say she forget him. What she mean, she
not like talk about him, he such a swell. Why Jeekie so strong, so
clever and  with such beautiful face? No doubt because he is son of very
great man. All  this true reason why he want to go with you, Major.
Still, p’raps poor  old Jeekie make mistake, p’raps he dream ’cause he
eat too much  supper, p’raps his ma dead, after all. If so, p’raps
better stay at  home—not know.”

“No,” answered Alan, “not know. What between Little Bonsa and
one thing and another my head is swimming—like Little Bonsa in the
water.”

“Big Bonsa swim in water,” interrupted Jeekie. “Little Bonsa
swim in gold tub.”

“Well, Big Bonsa, or Little Bonsa, I don’t care which. I’m
going to bed and you had better clear away these things and do the same.
But,  Jeekie, if you say a word of our talk to anyone, I shall be very
angry. Do you  understand?”

“Yes, Major, I understand. I understand that if I tell secrets of Little
Bonsa to anyone except you with whom she live in strange land far away
from  home, Little Bonsa come at me like one lion, and cut my throat. No
fear Jeekie  split on Little Bonsa, oh! no fear at all,” and still
shaking his head  solemnly, for the second time he seized the cold
mutton and vanished from the  room.

“A farrago of superstitious nonsense,” thought Alan to himself when
he had gone. “But still there may be something to be made out of it.
Evidently there is lots of gold in this Asiki country, if only one can
persuade  the people to deal.”

Then weary of Jeekie and his tribal gods, Alan lit his pipe and sat a
while  thinking of Barbara and all the events of that tumultuous day.
Notwithstanding  his rebuff at the hands of Mr. Haswell and the
difficulties and dangers which  threatened, he felt even then that it
had been a happy and a fortunate day. For  had he not discovered that
Barbara loved him with all her heart and soul as he  loved Barbara? And
as this was so, he did not care a—Little Bonsa about  anything else. The
future must look to itself, sufficient to the day was the  abiding joy
thereof.  

So he went to bed and for a while to sleep, but he did not sleep very
long, for  presently he fell to dreaming, something about Big Bonsa and
Little Bonsa which  sat, or rather floated on either side of his couch
and held an interminable  conversation over him, while Jeekie and Sir
Robert Aylward, perched  respectively at its head and its foot, like the
symbols of the good and evil  genii on a Mohammedan tomb, acted as a
kind of insane chorus. He struck his  repeater, it was only one o’clock,
so he tried to go to sleep again, but  failed utterly. Never had he been
more painfully awake.  

For an hour or more Alan persevered, then at last in despair he jumped
out of  bed wondering what he could do to occupy his mind. Suddenly he
remembered the  diary of his uncle, the Rev. Mr. Austin, which he had
inherited with the Yellow  God and a few other possessions, but never
examined. They had been put away in  a box in the library about fifteen
years before, just at the time he entered  the army, and there doubtless
they remained. Well, as he could not sleep, why  should he not examine
them now, and thus get through some of this weary night?  

He lit a candle and went down to the library, an ancient and beautiful
apartment with black oak panelling between the bookcases, set there in
the time  of Elizabeth. In this panelling there were cupboards, and in
one of the  cupboards was the box he sought, made of teak wood. On its
lid was painted,  “The Reverend Henry Austin. Passenger to Acra,”
showing that it had  once been his uncle’s cabin box. The key hung from
the handle, and having  lit more candles, Alan drew it out and unlocked
it, to be greeted by a smell of  musty documents done up in great
bundles. One by one he placed them on the  floor. It was a dreary
occupation alone there in that great, silent room at the  dead of night,
one indeed with which he was soon satisfied, for somehow it  reminded
him of rifling coffins in a vault. Before him so carefully put away  lay
the records of a good if not a distinguished life, and until this moment
he  had never found the energy even to look through them.  

At length he came to the end of the bundles and saw that beneath lay a
number  of manuscript books packed closely with their backs upwards,
marked—“Journal”—and with the year and sometimes the
place of the author’s residence. As he glanced at them in dismay, for
they were many, his eye caught the title of one inscribed—as were
several  others—“West Africa,” and written in brackets
beneath—“This vol. contains all that is left of the notes of my
escape with Jeekie from the Asiki Devil-worshippers.”

Alan drew it out, and having refilled and closed the box, bore it off to
his  room, where he proceeded to read it in bed. As a matter of fact he
found that  there was not very much to read, for the reason that most of
the  closely-written volume had been so damaged by water, that the
pencilled writing  had run and become utterly illegible. The centre
pages, however, not having  been soaked, could still be deciphered, at
any rate in part, also there was a  large manuscript map, executed in
ink, apparently at a later date, on the back  of which was written: “I
purpose, D.V., to re-write at some convenient  time all the history of
my visit to the unknown Asiki people, as my original  notes were
practically destroyed when the canoe overset in the rapids and most  of
our few possessions were lost, except this book and the gold fetish mask
 which is called Little Bonsa or Small Swimming Head. This I think I can
do with  the aid of Jeekie from memory, but as the matter has only a
personal and no  religious interest, seeing that I was not able even to
preach the Word among  those benighted and bloodthirsty savages in whose
country, as I verily  believe, the Devil has one of his principal
habitations, it must stand over  till a convenient season, such as the
time of old age or sickness. H.A.”    

“P.S. I ought to add with gratitude that even out of this hell fire I
was  enabled to snatch one brand from the burning, namely, the negro
lad, Jeekie, to  whose extraordinary resource and faithfulness I owe my
escape. After a long  hesitation I have been able to baptize him,
although I fear that the taint of  heathenism still clings to him. Thus
not six months ago I caught him  sacrificing a white cock to the image,
Little Bonsa, in gratitude, as to my  horror he explained, for my having
been appointed an Honorary Canon of the  Cathedral. I have told him to
take that ugly mask which has been so often  soaked in human blood, and
melt it down over the kitchen stove, after picking  out the gems in the
eyes, that the proceeds may be given to the poor.  _Note._ I had better
see to this myself, as where Little Bonsa is  concerned, Jeekie is not
to be trusted. He says (with some excuse) that it has  magic, and that
if he melts it down, he will melt down too, and so shall I. How  dark
and ridiculous are the superstitions of the heathen! Perhaps, however, 
instead of destroying the thing, which is certainly unique, I might sell
it to  a museum, and thus spare the feelings of that weak vessel,
Jeekie, who  otherwise would very likely take it into his head to waste
away and die, as  these Africans do when their nerves are affected by
terror of their  fetish.”  




CHAPTER VII.

THE DIARY.


Reflecting that time evidently had made little change in Jeekie, Alan
studied  this route map with care, and found that it started from Old
Calabar, in the  Bight of Biafra, on the west coast of Africa, whence it
ran up to the Great Qua  River, which it followed for a long way. Then
it struck across country marked  “dense forest,” northwards, and came to
a river called Katsena,  along the banks of which the route went
eastwards. Thence it turned northward  again through swamps, and ended
in mountains called Shaku. In the middle of  these mountains was written
“Asiki People live here on Raaba River.”  

The map was roughly drawn to scale, and Alan, who was an engineer
accustomed to  such things, easily calculated that the distance of this
Raaba River from Old  Calabar was about 350 miles as the crow flies,
though probably the actual route  to be travelled was nearer five
hundred miles.  

Having mastered the map, he opened the water-soaked diary. Turning page
after  page, only here and there could he make out a sentence, such as
“so I  defied that beautiful but terrific woman. I, a Christian
minister, the husband  of a heathen priestess! Perish the thought.
Sooner would I be sacrificed to  Bonsa.”

Then came more illegible pages and again a paragraph that could be
read—“They gave me ‘The Bean’ in a gold cup, and
knowing its deadly nature I prepared myself for death. But happily for
me my  stomach, always delicate, rejected it at once, though I felt
queer for days  afterwards. Whereon they clapped their hands and said I
was evidently innocent  and a great medicine man.”

And again, further on—“never did I see so much gold whether in
dust, nuggets, or worked articles. I imagine it must be worth millions,
but at  that time gold was the last thing with which I wished to trouble
myself.”  

After this entry many pages were utterly effaced.

The last legible passage ran as follows—“So guided by the lad
Jeekie, and wearing the gold mask, Little Bonsa, on my head, I ran
through them  all, holding him by the hand as though I were dragging him
away. A strange  spectacle I must have been with my old black
clergyman’s coat buttoned  about me, my naked legs and the gold mask, as
pretending to be a devil such as  they worship, I rushed through them in
the moonlight, blowing the whistle in  the mask and bellowing like a
bull. . . . Such was the beginning of my dreadful  six months’ journey
to the coast. Setting aside the mercy of Providence  that preserved me
for its own purposes, I could never have lived to reach it  had it not
been for Little Bonsa, since curiously enough I found this fetish  known
and dreaded for hundreds of miles, and that by people who had never seen
 it, yes, even by the wild cannibals. Whenever it was produced food,
bearers,  canoes, or whatever else I might want were forthcoming as
though by magic.  Great is the fame of Big and Little Bonsa in all that
part of West Africa,  although, strange as it may seem, the outlying
tribes seldom mention them by  name. If they must speak of either of
these images which are supposed to be man  and wife, they call it the
‘Yellow-God-who-lives-yonder.’”    

Not another word of all this strange history could Alan decipher, so
with  aching eyes he shut up the stained and tattered volume, and at
last, just as  the day was breaking, fell asleep.

At eleven o’clock on that same morning, for he had slept late, Alan rose
from his breakfast and went to smoke his pipe at the open door of the
beautiful  old hall in Yarleys that was clad with brown Elizabethan oak
for which any  dealer would have given hundreds of pounds. It was a
charming morning, one of  those that comes to us sometimes in an English
April when the air is soft like  that of Italy and the smell of the
earth rises like that of incense, and little  clouds float idly across a
sky of tender blue. Standing thus he looked out upon  the park where the
elms already showed a tinge of green and the ash-buds were  coal black.
Only the walnuts and the great oaks, some of them pollards of a 
thousand years of age, remained stark and stern in their winter dress.  

Alan was in a reflective mood and involuntarily began to wonder how many
of his  forefathers had stood in that same spot upon such April mornings
and looked out  upon those identical trees wakening in the breath of
spring. Only the trees and  the landscape knew, those trees which had
seen every one of them borne to  baptism, to bridal and to burial. The
men and women themselves were forgotten.  Their portraits, each in the
garb of his or her generation, hung here and there  upon the walls of
the ancient house which once they had owned or inhabited, but  who
remembered anything of them to-day? In many cases their names even were 
lost, for believing that they, so important in their time, could never
sink  into oblivion, they had not thought it necessary to record them
upon their  pictures.  

And now the thing was coming to an end. Unless in this way or in that he
could  save it, what remained of the old place, for the outlying lands
had long since  been sold, must go to the hammer and become the property
of some pushing and  successful person who desired to found a family,
and perhaps in days to be  would claim these very pictures that hung
upon the walls as those of his own  ancestors, declaring that he had
brought in the estate because he was a  relative of the ancient and
ruined race.  

Well, it was the way of the world, and perhaps it must be so, but the
thought  of it made Alan Vernon sad. If he could have continued that
business, it might  have been otherwise. By this hour his late partners,
Sir Robert Aylward and Mr.  Champers-Haswell, were doubtless sitting in
their granite office in the City,  probably in consultation with Lord
Specton, who had taken his place upon the  Board of the great Company
which was being subscribed that day. No doubt  applications for shares
were pouring in by the early posts and by telegram, and  from time to
time Mr. Jeffreys respectfully reported their number and amount,  while
Sir Robert looked unconcerned and Mr. Haswell rubbed his hands and 
whistled cheerfully. Almost he could envy them, these men who were
realizing  great fortunes amidst the bustle and excitement of that
fierce financial life,  whilst he stood penniless and stared at the
trees and the ewes which wandered  among them with their lambs, he who,
after all his work, was but a failure.  With a sigh he turned away to
fetch his cap and go out walking—there was  a tenant whom he must see, a
shifty, new-fangled kind of man who was always  clamouring for fresh
buildings and reductions in his rent. How was he to pay  for more
buildings? He must put him off, or let him go.    

Just then a sharp sound caught his ear, that of an electric bell. It
came from  the telephone which, since he had been a member of a City
firm, he had caused  to be put into Yarleys at considerable expense in
order that he might be able  to communicate with the office in London.
“Were they calling him up from  force of habit?” he wondered. He went to
the instrument which was fixed  in a little room he used as a study, and
took down the receiver.  

“Who is it?” he asked. “I am Yarleys. Alan Vernon.”

“And I am Barbara,” came the answer. “How are you, dear? Did
you sleep well?”

“No, very badly.”

“Nerves—Alan, you have got nerves. Now although I had a worse day
than you did, I went to bed at nine, and protected by a perfect
conscience,  slumbered till nine this morning, exactly twelve hours.
Isn’t it clever  of me to think of this telephone, which is more than
you would ever have done?  My uncle has departed to London vowing that
no letter from you shall enter this  house, but he forgot that there is
a telephone in every room, and in fact at  this moment I am speaking
round by his office within a yard or two of his head.  However, he can’t
hear, so that doesn’t matter. My blessing be on  the man who invented
telephones, which hitherto I have always thought an awful  nuisance. Are
you feeling cheerful, Alan?”  

“Very much the reverse,” he answered; “never was more gloomy
in my life, not even when I thought I had to die within six hours of
blackwater  fever. Also I have lots that I want to talk to you about and
I can’t do  it at the end of this confounded wire that your uncle may be
tapping.”  

“I thought it might be so,” answered Barbara, “so I just rang
you up to wish you good-morning and to say that I am coming over in the
motor  to lunch with my maid Snell as chaperone. All right, don’t
remonstrate, I  _am coming_ over to lunch—I can’t hear you—never mind
what people will say. I am coming over to lunch at one o’clock, mind you
are in. Good-bye, I don’t want much to eat, but have something for Snell
and the chauffeur. Good-bye.”

Then the wire went dead, nor could all Alan’s “Hello’s”
and “Are you there’s?” extract another syllable.

Having ordered the best luncheon that his old housekeeper could provide
Alan  went off for his walk in much better spirits, which were further
improved by  his success in persuading the tenant to do without the new
buildings for  another year. In a year, he reflected, anything might
happen. Then he returned  by the wood where a number of new-felled oaks
lay ready for barking. This was  not a cheerful sight; it seemed so
cruel to kill the great trees just as they  were pushing their buds for
another summer of life. But he consoled himself by  recalling that they
had been too crowded and that the timber was really needed  on the
estate. As he reached the house again carrying a bunch of white violets 
which he had plucked in a sheltered place for Barbara, he perceived a
motor  travelling at much more than the legal speed up the walnut avenue
which was the  pride of the place. In it sat that young lady herself,
and her maid, Snell, a  middle-aged woman with whom, as it chanced, he
was on very good terms, as once,  at some trouble to himself, he had
been able to do her a kindness.    

The motor pulled up at the front door and out of it sprang Barbara,
laughing  pleasantly and looking fresh and charming as the spring
itself.  

“There will be a row over this, dear,” said Alan, shaking his head
doubtfully when at last they were alone together in the hall.

“Of course, there’ll be a row,” she answered. “I mean
that there shall be a row. I mean to have a row every day if necessary,
until  they leave me alone to follow my own road, and if they won’t, as
I said,  to go to the Court of Chancery for protection. Oh! by the way,
I have brought  you a copy of _The Judge_. There’s a most awful article
in it about  that Sahara flotation, and among other things it announces
that you have left  the firm and congratulates you upon having done so.”

“They’ll think I have put it in,” groaned Alan as he glanced
at the head lines, which were almost libellous in their vigour, and the
summaries of the financial careers of Sir Robert Aylward and Mr.
Champers-Haswell. “It will make them hate me more than ever, and I say,
Barbara, we can’t live in an atmosphere of perpetual warfare for the
next  two years.”

“I can, if need be,” answered that determined young woman.
“But I admit that it would be trying for you, if you stay here.”

“That’s just the point, Barbara. I must not stay here, I must go
away, the further the better, until you are your own mistress.”

“Where to, Alan?”

“To West Africa, I think.”

“To West Africa?” repeated Barbara, her voice trembling a little.
“After that treasure, Alan?”

“Yes, Barbara. But first come and have your lunch, then we will talk. I
have got lots to tell and show you.”

So they lunched, speaking of indifferent things, for the servant was
there  waiting on them. Just as they were finishing their meal Jeekie
entered the room  carrying a box and a large envelope addressed to his
master, which he said had  been sent by special messenger from the
office in London.  

“What’s in the box?” asked Alan, looking somewhat nervously
at the envelope, which was addressed in a writing that he knew.

“Don’t know for certain, Major,” answered Jeekie, “but
think Little Bonsa; think I smell her through wood.”

“Well, look and see,” replied Alan, while he broke the seal of the
envelope and drew out its contents. They proved to be sundry documents
sent by  the firm’s lawyers, among which were a notice of the formal
dissolution  of partnership to be approved by him before it appeared in
the _Gazette_,  a second notice calling in a mortgage for fifteen
thousand and odd pounds on  Yarleys, which as a matter of business had
been taken over by the firm while he  was a partner; a cash account
showing a small balance against him, and finally  a receipt for him to
sign acknowledging the return of the gold image that was  his property.

“You see,” said Alan with a sigh, pushing over the papers to
Barbara, who read them carefully one by one.

“I see,” she answered presently. “It is war to the knife.
Alan, I hate the idea of it, but perhaps you had better go away. While
you are  here they will harass the life out of you.”

Meanwhile with the aid of a big jack-knife and the dining-room poker,
Jeekie  had prised off the lid of the box. Chancing to look round
Barbara saw him on  his knees muttering something in a strange tongue,
and bowing his white head  until it touched an object that lay within
the box.  

“What are you doing, Jeekie?” she asked.

“Make bow to Little Bonsa, Miss Barbara, tell her how glad I am see her
come back from town. She like feel welcome. Now you come bow too, Little
Bonsa  take that as compliment.”

“I won’t bow, but I will look, Jeekie, for although I have heard so
much about it I have never really examined this Yellow God.”

“Very good, you come look, miss,” and Jeekie propped up the case
upon the end of the dining-room table. As from its height and position
she  could not see its contents very well whilst standing above it,
Barbara knelt  down to get a better view of it.

“My goodness!” she exclaimed, “what a terrible face,
beautiful too in its way.”

Hardly had the words left her lips when for some reason unexplained that
probably had to do with the shifting of the centre of gravity, Little
Bonsa  appeared to glide or fall out of her box with a startling
suddenness, and  project herself straight at Barbara, who, with a faint
scream, fearing lest the  precious thing should be injured, caught it in
her arms and for a moment hugged  it to her breast.

“Saved!” she exclaimed, recovering herself and placing it on the
table, whereon Jeekie, to their astonishment, began to execute a kind of
war  dance.

“Oh! yes,” he said, “saved, very much saved. All saved, most
magnificent omen. Lady kneel to Little Bonsa and Little Bonsa nip out of
box,  make bow and jump in lady’s arms. That splendid, first-class luck,
for  miss and everybody. When Little Bonsa do that need fear nothing no
more. All  come right as rain.”

“Nonsense,” said Barbara, laughing. Then from a cautious distance
she continued her examination of the fetish.

“See,” said Jeekie, pointing to the misshapen little gold legs
which were yet so designed that it could be stood up upon them, “when
anyone wear Little Bonsa, tie her on head behind by these legs; look,
here same  old leather string. Now I put her on, for she like to be worn
again,” and  with a quick movement he clapped the mask on to his face,
manipulated the  greasy black leather thongs and made them fast. Thus
adorned the great negro  looked no less than terrific.

“I see you, miss,” he said, turning the fixed eyes of opal-like
stone, bloodshot with little rubies, upon Barbara, “I see you, though
you no see me, for these eyes made very cunning. But listen, you hear
me,” and suddenly from the mask, produced by some contrivance set within
it, there proceeded an awful, howling sound that made her shiver.

“Take that thing off, Jeekie,” said Alan, “we don’t
want any banshees here.”

“Banshees? Not know him, he poor English fetish p’raps,” said
Jeekie, as he removed the mask. “This real African god, howl banshee and
all that sort into middle of next week. This Little Bonsa and no
mistake, ten  thousand years old and more, eat up lives, so many that no
one can count them,  and go on eating for ever, yes unto the third and
fourth generation, as Ten  Commandments lay it down for benefit of
Christian man, like me. Look at her  again, Miss Barbara.”

Miss Barbara took the hateful, ancient thing in her hands and studied
it. No  one could doubt its antiquity, for the gold plate of which it
was made was  literally worn away wherever it had touched the foreheads
of the high priests  or priestesses who donned it upon festive occasions
or days of sacrifice,  showing that hundreds and hundreds of them must
have used it thus in  succession. So was the vocal apparatus within the
mouth, and so were the little  toad-like feet upon which it was stood
up. Also the substance of the gold  itself was here and there pitted as
though with acid or salts, though what  those salts were she did not
inquire. And yet, so consummate was the art with  which it had
originally been fashioned, that the battered beautiful face of  Little
Bonsa still peered at them with the same devilish smile that it had worn
 when it left the hands of its maker, perhaps before Mohammed preached
his holy  war, or even earlier.  

“What is all that writing on the back of it?” asked Barbara,
pointing to the long lines of rune-like characters which were inscribed
within  it.

“Not know, miss, think they dead tongue cut in the beginning when black
men could write. But Asiki priests swear they remember every one of
them, and  that why no one can copy Little Bonsa, for they look inside
and see if marks  all right. They say they names of those who died for
Little Bonsa, and when  they all done, Little Bonsa begin again, for
Little Bonsa never die. But  p’raps priests lie.”

“I daresay,” said Barbara, “but take Little Bonsa away, for
however lucky she may be, she makes me feel sick.”

“Where I put her, Major?” asked Jeekie of Alan. “In box in
library where she used to live, or in plate-safe with spoons? Or under
your bed  where she always keep eye on you?”

“Oh! put her with the spoons,” said Alan angrily, and Jeekie
departed with his treasure.

“I think, dear,” remarked Barbara as the door closed behind him,
“that if I come to lunch here any more, I shall bring my own christening
present with me, for I can’t eat off silver that has been shut up with
that thing. Now let us get to business—show me the diary and the
map.”

“Dearest Alan,” wrote Barbara from The Court two days later,
“I have been thinking everything over, and since you are so set upon it,
I suppose that you had better go. To me the whole adventure seems
perfectly  mad, but at the same time I believe in our luck, or rather in
the Providence  which watches over us, and I don’t believe that you, or
I either, will  come to any harm. If you stop here, you will only eat
your heart out and  communication between us must become increasingly
difficult. My uncle is  furious with you, and since he discovered that
we were talking over the  telephone, to his own great inconvenience he
has had the wires cut outside the  house. That horrid letter of his to
you saying that you had  ‘compromised’ me in pursuance of a ‘mercenary
scheme’  is all part and parcel of the same thing. How are you to stop
here and submit  to such insults? I went to see my friend the lawyer,
and he tells me that of  course we can marry if we like, but in that
case my father’s will, which  he has consulted at Somerset House, is
absolutely definite, and if I do so in  opposition to my uncle’s wishes,
I must lose everything except £200 a  year. Now I am no money-grubber,
but I will not give my uncle the satisfaction  of robbing me of my
fortune, which may be useful to both of us by and by. The  lawyer says
also that he does not think that the Court of Chancery would  interfere,
having no power to do so as far as the will is concerned, and not  being
able to make a ward of a person like myself who is over age and has the 
protection of the common law of the country. So it seems to me that the
only  thing to do is to be patient, and wait until time unties the knot.
   

“Meanwhile, if you can make some money in Africa, so much the better. So
go, Alan, go as soon as you like, for I do not wish to prolong this
agony, or  to see you exposed daily to all you have to bear. Whenever
you return you will  find me waiting for you, and if you do not return,
still I shall wait, as you  in like circumstances will wait for me. But
I think you will return.”  

Then followed much that need not be written, and at the end a postscript
which  ran:

“I am glad to hear that you have succeeded in shifting the mortgage on
Yarleys, although the interest is so high. Write to me whenever you get
a  chance, to the care of the lawyer, for then the letters will reach
me, but  never to this house, or they may be stopped. I will do the same
to you to the  address you give. Good-bye, dearest Alan, my true and
only lover. I wonder  where and when we shall meet again. God be with us
both and enable us to bear  our trial.

“P.P.S. I hear that the Sahara flotation was _really_ a success,
notwithstanding the _Judge_ attacks. Sir Robert and my uncle have made
millions. I wonder how long they will keep them.”

A week after he received this letter Alan was on the seas heading for
the  shores of Western Africa.




CHAPTER VIII.

THE DWARF FOLK.


It was dawn at last. All night it had rained as it can rain in West
Africa,  falling on the wide river with a hissing splash, sullen and
continuous. Now,  towards morning, the rain had ceased and everywhere
rose a soft and pearly mist  that clung to the face of the waters and
seemed to entangle itself like strands  of wool among the branches of
the bordering trees. On the bank of the river at  a spot that had been
cleared of bush, stood a tent, and out of this tent  emerged a white man
wearing a sun helmet and grey flannel shirt and trousers.  It was Alan
Vernon, who in these surroundings looked larger and more commanding 
than he had done at the London office, or even in his own house of
Yarleys.  Perhaps the moustache and short brown beard which he had
grown, or his skin,  already altered and tanned by the tropics, had
changed his appearance for the  better. At any rate it was changed. So
were his manner and bearing, whereof all  the diffidence had gone. Now
they were those of a man accustomed to command who  found himself in his
right place.    

“Jeekie,” he called, “wake up those fellows and come and
light the oil-stove. I want my coffee.”

Thereon a deep voice was heard speaking in some native tongue and
saying:  

“Cease your snoring, you black hogs, and arouse yourselves, for your
lord  calls you,” an invocation that was followed by the sound of kicks,
thumps, and muttered curses.

A minute or two later Jeekie himself appeared, and he also was much
changed in  appearance, for now instead of his smart, European clothes,
he wore a white  robe and sandals that gave him an air at once dignified
and patriarchal.  

“Good-morning, Major,” he said cheerfully. “I hope you sleep
well, Major, in this low-lying and accursed situation, which is more
than we do  in boat that half full of water, to say nothing of smell of
black man and  prevalent mosquito. But the rain it over and gone, and
presently the sun shine  out, so might be much worse, no cause at all
complain.”  

“I don’t know,” answered Alan, with a shiver. “I
believe that I am fever proof, but otherwise I should have caught it
last  night, and—just give me the quinine, I will take five grains for
luck.”

“Yes, yes, for luck,” answered Jeekie as he opened the medicine
chest and found the quinine, at the same time glancing anxiously out of
the  corner of his eye at his master’s face, for he knew that the spot
where  they had slept was deadly to white men at this season of the
year. “You  not catch fever, Little Bonsa,” here he dropped his voice
and looked down  at the box which had served Alan for a pillow, “see to
that. But quinine  give you appetite for breakfast. Very good chop this
morning. Which you like  best? Cold ven’son, or fish, or one of them
ducks you shoot  yesterday?”

“Oh! some of the cold meat, I think. Give the ducks to the boatmen, I
don’t fancy them in this hot place. By the way, Jeekie, we leave the Qua
River here, don’t we?”

“Yes, yes, Major, just here. I ’member spot well, for your uncle he
pray on it one whole hour; I pretend pray too, but in heart give thanks
to  Little Bonsa, for heathen in those days, quite different now. This
morning we  begin walk through forest where it rather dark and cool and
comfortable, that  is if we no see dwarf people from whom good Lord
deliver us,” and he  bowed towards the box containing Little Bonsa.

“Will those four porters come with us through the forest, Jeekie, as
they  promised?”

“Yes, yes, they come. Last night they say they not come, too much afraid
of dwarf. But I settle their hash. I tell them I save up bits of their
hair and  toe nails when they no thinking, and I mix it with medicine,
and if they not  come, they die every one before they get home. They
think me great doctor and  they believe. Perhaps they die if they go on.
If so, I tell them that because  they want show white feather, and they
think me greater doctor still. Oh! they  come, they come, no fear, or
else Jeekie know reason why. Now, here coffee,  Major. Drink him hot
before you go take tub, but keep in shallow water, because  crocodile he
very early riser.”  

Alan laughed, and departed to “take tub.” Notwithstanding the
mosquitoes that buzzed round him in clouds, the water was cool and
pleasant by  comparison with the hot, sticky air, and the feel of it
seemed to rid him of  the languor resulting from his disturbed night.

A month had passed since he had left Old Calabar, and owing to the
incessant  rains the journeying had been hard. Indeed the white men
there thought that he  was mad to attempt to go up the river at this
season. Of course he had said  nothing to them of the objects of his
expedition, hinting only that he wished  to explore and shoot, and
perhaps prospect for mines. But knowing as they did,  that he was an
Engineer officer with a good record and much African experience,  they
soon made up their minds that he had been sent by Government upon some 
secret mission that for reasons of his own he preferred to keep to
himself.  This conclusion, which Jeekie zealously fostered behind his
back, in fact did  Alan a good turn, since owing to it he obtained
boatmen and servants at a  season when, had he been supposed to be but a
private person, these would  scarcely have been forthcoming at any
price. Hitherto his journey had been one  long record of mud,
mosquitoes, and misery, but otherwise devoid of incident,  except the
eating of one of his boatmen by a crocodile which was a particularly 
“early riser,” for it had pulled the poor fellow out of the canoe  in
which he lay asleep at night. Now, however, the real dangers were about
to  begin, since at this spot he left the great river and started
forward through  the forest on foot with Jeekie and the four bearers
whom he had paid highly to  accompany him.    

He could not conceal from himself that the undertaking seemed somewhat
desperate. But of this he said nothing in the long letter he had written
to  Barbara on the previous night, sighing as he sealed it, at the
thought that it  might well be the last which would ever reach her from
him, even if the boatmen  got safely back to Calabar and remembered to
put it in the post. The enterprise  had been begun and must be carried
through, until it ended in success—or  death.

An hour later they started. First walked Alan as leader of the
expedition,  carrying a double-barrelled gun that could be used either
for ball or shot,  about fifty cartridges with brass cases to protect
them from the damp, a  revolver, a hunting-knife, a cloth mackintosh,
and lastly, strapped upon his  back like a knapsack, a tin box
containing the fetish, Little Bonsa, which was  too precious to be
trusted to anyone else. It was quite a sufficient load for  any white
man in that climate, but being very wiry, Alan did not feel its  weight,
at any rate at first.  

After him in single file came the four porters, laden with a small tent,
some  tinned provisions and brandy, ammunition, a box containing beads,
watches, etc.  for presents, blankets, spare clothing and so forth.
These were stalwart  fellows enough, who knew the forest, but their
dejected air showed that now  they had come face to face with its
dangers, they heartily wished themselves  anywhere else. Indeed,
notwithstanding their terror of Jeekie’s medicine,  at the last moment
they threw down their loads intending to make a wild rush  for the
departing boat, only to be met by Jeekie himself who, anticipating some 
such move, was waiting for them on the bank with a shotgun. Here he
remained  until the canoe was too far out in the stream for them to
reach it by swimming.  Then he asked them if they wished to sit and
starve there with the devils he  would leave them for company, of if
they would carry out their bargain like  honest men?  

The end of it was they took up their loads again and marched, while
behind them  walked the terrible and gigantic Jeekie, the barrels of the
shotgun which he  carried at full cock and occasionally used to prod
them, pointing directly at  their backs. A strange object he looked
truly, for in addition to the weapons  with which he bristled, several
cooking-pots were slung about him, to say  nothing of a cork mattress
and a mackintosh sheet tied in a flat bundle to his  shoulders, a box
containing medicines and food which he carried on his head,  and
fastened to the top of it with string like a helmet on a coffin, an 
enormous solar-tope stuffed full of mosquito netting, of which the ends
fell  about him like a green veil. When Alan remonstrated with him as to
the cork  mattress, suggesting that it should be thrown away as too hot
to wear, Jeekie  replied that he had been cold for thirty years, and
wished to get warm again.  Guessing that his real reason for declining
to part with the article, was that  his master should have something to
lie on, other than the damp ground, Alan  said no more at the time,
which, as will be seen, was fortunate enough for  Jeekie.  

For a mile or more their road ran through fantastic-looking mangrove
trees  rooted in the mud, that in the mist resembled, Alan thought,
many-legged  arboreal octopi feeling for their food, and tall reeds on
the tops of which sat  crowds of chattering finches. Then just as the
sun broke out, strongly,  cheering them with its warmth and sucking up
the vapours, they entered sparse  bush with palms and great cotton trees
growing here and there, and so at length  came to the borders of the
mighty forest.  

Oh! dark, dark was that forest; he who entered it from the cheerful
sunshine  felt as though suddenly and without preparation he had
wandered out of the  light we know into some dim Hades such as the old
Greek fancy painted, where  strengthless ghosts flit aimlessly, mourning
the lost light. Everywhere the  giant boles of trees shooting the height
of a church tower into the air without  a branch; great rib-rooted
trees, and beneath them a fierce and hungry growth  of creepers. Where a
tree had fallen within the last century or so, these  creepers ramped
upwards in luxuriance, their stems thick as the body of a man,  drinking
the shaft of light that pierced downwards, drinking it with eagerness 
ere the boughs above met again and starved them. Where no tree had
fallen the  creepers were thin and weak; from year to year they lived on
feebly, biding  their time, but still they lived, knowing that some day
it would come. And  always it was coming to those expectant parasites,
since from minute to minute,  somewhere in the vast depths, miles and
miles away perhaps, a great crash  echoed in the stillness, the crash of
a tree that, sown when the Saxons ruled  in England, or perhaps before
Cleopatra bewitched Anthony, came to its end at  last.  

On the second day of their march in the forest Alan chanced to see such
a tree  fall, and the sight was one that he never could forget. As it
happened, owing  to the vast spread of its branches which had killed out
all rivals beneath, for  in its day it had been a very successful tree
embued with an excellent  constitution by its parent, it stood somewhat
alone, so that from several  hundred yards away as these six human
beings crept towards it like ants towards  a sapling in a cornfield, its
mighty girth and bulk set upon a little mound and  the luxuriant
greenness of its far-reaching boughs made a kind of landmark.  Then in
the hot noon when no breath of wind stirred, suddenly the end came. 
Suddenly that mighty bole seemed to crumble; suddenly those far-reaching
arms  were thrown together as their support failed, gripping at each
other like  living things, flogging the air, screaming in their last
agony, and with an  awful wailing groan sinking, a tumbled ruin, to the
earth.    

Silence again, and in the midst of the silence Jeekie’s cheerful voice.

“Old tree go flop! Glad he no flop on us, thanks be to Little Bonsa. Get
on, you lazy nigger dog. Who pay you stand there and snivel? Get on or I
blow  out your stupid skull,” and he brought the muzzle of the
full-cocked,  double-barrelled gun into sharp contact with that part of
the terrified  porter’s anatomy.

Such was the forest. Of their march through it for the first four days,
there  is nothing to tell. Its depths seemed to be devoid of life,
although  occasionally they heard the screaming of parrots in the
treetops a couple of  hundred feet above, or caught sight of the dim
shapes of monkeys swinging  themselves from bough to bough. That was in
the daytime, when, although they  could not see it, they knew that the
sun was shining somewhere. But at night  they heard nothing, since
beasts of prey do not come where there is no food.  What puzzled Alan
was that all through these impenetrable recesses there ran a  distinct
road which they followed. To the right and left rose a wall of 
creepers, but between them ran this road, an ancient road, for nothing
grew on  it, and it only turned aside to avoid the biggest of the trees
which must have  stood there from time immemorial, such a tree as that
which he had seen fall;  indeed it was one of those round which the road
ran.    

He asked Jeekie who made the road.

“People who come out Noah’s Ark,” answered Jeekie, “I
think they run up here to get out of way of water, and sent them two
elephants  ahead to make path. Or perhaps dwarf people make it. Or
perhaps those who go up  to Asiki-land to do sacrifice like old Jews.”

“You mean you don’t know,” said Alan.

“No, of course don’t know. Who know about forest path made before
beginning of world. You ask question, Major, I answer. More lively
answer than  to shake head and roll eyes like them silly fool porters.”

It was on the fourth night that the trouble began. As usual they had lit
a huge  fire made of the fallen boughs and rotting tree trunks that lay
about in  plenty. There was no reason why the fire should be so large,
since they had  little to cook and the air was hot, but they made it so
for the same reason  that Jeekie answered questions, for the sake of
cheerfulness. At least it gave  light in the darkness, leaping up in red
tongues of flame twenty or thirty feet  high, and its roar and crackle
were welcome in the primeval silence.  

Alan lay upon the cork mattress in the open, for here there was no need
to  pitch the tent; if any rain fell above, the canopy of leaves
absorbed it. He  was amusing himself while he smoked his pipe with
watching the reflection of  the fire-light against a patch of darkness
caused probably by some bush about  twenty yards away, and by picturing
in his own mind the face of Barbara, that  strong, pleasant English
face, as it might appear on such a background.  Suddenly there, on the
identical spot he did see a face, though one of a very  different
character. It was round and small and hideous, resembling in its 
general outline that of a bloated child. At this distance he could not 
distinguish the features, except the lips, which were large and
pendulous, and  between them the flash of white teeth.  

“Look here,” he whispered to Jeekie in English, and Jeekie looked,
then without saying a word, lifted the shotgun that lay at his side and
fired  straight at the bush. Instantly there arose a squeaking noise,
such as might be  made by a wounded animal, and the four porters sprang
up in alarm.  

“Sit down,” said Jeekie to them in their own tongue, “a
leopard was stalking us and I fired to frighten it away. Don’t go near
the place, as it may be wounded and angry, but drag up some boughs and
make a  fence round the fire, for fear of others.”

The men who dreaded leopards, looking on these animals, indeed, with
superstitious reverence, obeyed readily enough, and as there was plenty
of wood  lying within a few yards, soon constructed a _boma_ fence that,
rough as  it was, would serve for protection.

“Jeekie,” said Alan presently as they laboured at the fence,
“that was not a leopard, it was a man.”

“No, no, Major, not man, little dwarf devil, him that have poisoned
arrow. I shoot at once to make him sit up. Think he no come back
to-night, too  much afraid of shot fetish. But to-morrow, can’t say. Not
tell those  fellows anything,” and he nodded towards the porters, “or
perhaps  they bolt.”

“I think you would have done better to leave the dwarf alone,” said
Alan, “and they might have left us alone. Now they will have a blood
feud  against us.”

“Not agree, Major, only chance for us put him in blue funk. If I not
shoot, presently he shoot,” and he made a sound that resembled the
whistling of an arrow, then added, “Now you go sleep. I not tired, I
watch, my eyes see in dark better than yours. Only two more days of this
damn  forest, then open land with tree here and there, where dwarf no
come because he  afraid of lion and cannibal man, who like eat him.”

As there was nothing else to be done Alan took Jeekie’s advice and in
time fell fast asleep, nor did he wake again till the faint light which,
for the  want of a better name, they called dawn, was filtering down to
them through the  canopy of boughs.

“Been to look,” said Jeekie as he handed him his coffee. “Hit
that dwarf man, see his blood, but think others carry him away. Jeekie
very  good shot, stone, spear, arrow, or gun, all same to him. Now get
off as quick  as we can before porters smell a rat. You eat chop, Major,
I pack.”  

Presently they started on their trudge through those endless trees, with
Fear  for a companion. Even the porters, who had been told nothing,
seemed more  afraid than usual, though whether this was because they
“smell  rat,” as Jeekie called it, or owing to the progressive breakdown
of their  nervous systems, Alan did not know. About midday 

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