ay?
You called me, and I came home to your heart.

"They tell me, sir, that Missis Marie--that is, Missis Durnovo--has gone
back to her people at Sierra Leone."

Thus spoke Joseph to his master one afternoon in March, not so many
years ago. They were on board the steamer Bogamayo, which good vessel
was pounding down the West Coast of Africa at her best speed. The
captain reckoned that he would be anchored at Loango by half-past seven
or eight o'clock that evening. There were only seven passengers on
board, and dinner had been ordered an hour earlier for the convenience
of all concerned. Joseph was packing his master's clothes in the
spacious cabin allotted to him. The owners of the steamer had thought it
worth their while to make the finder of the Simiacine as comfortable as
circumstances allowed. The noise of that great drug had directed towards
the West Coast of Africa that floating scum of ne'er-do-welldom which is
ever on the alert for some new land of promise.

"Who told you that?" asked Jack, drying his hands on a towel.

"One of the stewards, sir--a man that was laid up at Sierra Leone in the
hospital."

Jack Meredith paused for a moment before going on deck. He looked out
through the open porthole towards the blue shadow on the horizon which
was Africa--a country that he had never seen three years before, and
which had all along been destined to influence his whole life.

"It was the best thing she could do," he said. "It is to be hoped that
she will be happy."

"Yes, sir, it is. She deserves it, if that goes for anything in the
heavenly reckonin'. She's a fine woman--a good woman that, sir."

"Yes."

Joseph was folding a shirt very carefully.

"A bit dusky," he said, smoothing out the linen folds reflectively, "but
I shouldn't have minded that if I had been a marryin' man, but--but I'm
not."

He laid the shirt in the portmanteau and looked up. Jack Meredith had
gone on deck.

While Maurice and Jocelyn Gordon were still at dinner that same evening,
a messenger came announcing the arrival of the Bogamayo in the roads.
This news had the effect of curtailing the meal. Maurice Gordon was
liable to be called away at any moment thus by the arrival of a steamer.
It was not long before he rose from the table and lighted a cigar
preparatory to going down to his office, where the captain of the
steamer was by this time probably awaiting him. It was a full moon, and
the glorious golden light of the equ