nfounded lot of the
stuff. But it was not that; they tricked Durnovo there. They wanted to
get him to themselves. In going down the river we had an accident with
two of the boats, which necessitated staying at Msala. While we were
waiting there, one night after ten o'clock the poor devil came, alone,
in a canoe. They had simply cut him in slices--a most beastly sight. I
wake up sometimes even now dreaming of it, and I am not a fanciful sort
of fellow. Joseph went into his room and was simply sick; I didn't know
that you could be made sick by anything you saw. The sleeping sickness
was on Durnovo then; he had brought it with him from the Plateau. He
died before morning."

Oscard ceased speaking and returned to his pipe. Jack Meredith, looking
haggard and worn, was leaning back in his chair.

"Poor devil!" he exclaimed. "There was always something tragic about
Durnovo. I did hate that man, Oscard. I hated him and all his works."

"Well, he's gone to his account now."

"Yes, but that does not make him any better a man while he was
alive. Don't let us cant about him now. The man was an unmitigated
scoundrel--perhaps he deserved all he got."

"Perhaps he did. He was Marie's husband."

"The devil he was!"

Meredith fell into a long reverie. He was thinking of Jocelyn and her
dislike for Durnovo, of the scene in the drawing-room of the bungalow at
Loango; of a thousand incidents all connected with Jocelyn.

"How I hate that man!" he exclaimed at length. "Thank God--he is
dead--because I should have killed him."

Guy Oscard looked at him with a slow pensive wonder. Perhaps he knew
more than Jack Meredith knew himself of the thoughts that conceived
those words--so out of place in that quiet room, from those suave and
courtly lips.

All the emotions of his life seemed to be concentrated into this one
day of Jack Meredith's existence. Oscard's presence was a comfort to
him--the presence of a calm, strong man is better than many words.

"So this," he said, "is the end of the Simiacine. It did not look like a
tragedy when we went into it."

"So far as I am concerned," replied Oscard, with quiet determination,
"it certainly is the end of the Simiacine! I have had enough of it. I,
for one, am not going to look for that Plateau again."

"Nor I. I suppose it will be started as a limited liability company by
a German in six months. Some of the natives will leave landmarks as they
come down so as to find their way back."