"The Ogowe?" and again Guy Oscard's eyes lighted up.

"Yes, I do not mind telling you that much. To begin with, I trust you;
secondly, no one could get there without me to lead the way."

Guy Oscard looked at him with some admiration, and that sympathy which
exists between the sons of Ishmael. Durnovo looked quite fit for the
task he set himself. He had regained his strength on the voyage, and
with returning muscular force his moral tone was higher, his influence
over men greater. Amidst the pallid sons of the pavement among whom
Guy Oscard had moved of late, this African traveller was a man apart--a
being much more after his own heart. The brown of the man's face and
hands appealed to him--the dark flashing eyes, the energetic carriage
of head and shoulders. Among men of a fairer skin the taint that was
in Victor Durnovo's blood became more apparent--the shadow on his
finger-nails, the deep olive of his neck against the snowy collar, and
the blue tint in the white of his eyes.

But none of these things militated against him in Oscard's mind. They
only made him fitter for the work he had undertaken.

"How long will it take?" asked Guy.

Durnovo tugged at his strange, curtain-like moustache. His mouth was
hidden; it was quite impossible to divine his thoughts.

"Three months to get there," he answered at length. "One month to pick
the leaf, and then you can bring the first crop down to the coast and
home, while Meredith and I stay on at the plateau."

"I could be home again in eight months?"

"Certainly! We thought that you might work the sale of the stuff in
London, and in a couple of years or so, when the thing is in swing,
Meredith will come home. We can safely leave the cultivation in native
hands when once we have established ourselves up there, and made
ourselves respected among the tribes."

A significance in his tone made Guy Oscard look up inquiringly.

"How?"

"You know my way with the natives," answered Durnovo with a cruel smile.
"It is the only way. There are no laws in Central Africa except the laws
of necessity."

Oscard was nothing if not outspoken.

"I do not like your way with the natives," he said, with a pleasant
smile.

"That is because you do not know them. But in this affair you are to
be the leader of the fighting column. You will, of course, have carte
blanche."

Oscard nodded.

"I suppose," he said, after a pause, "that there is the question of
money?"

"Yes; Meredith and