coloured chaps
just as good when they have once got into your ways?"

"Oh yes," muttered Durnovo. He was reading the letter. "Maurice Gordon,"
he continued, "says you are travelling for pleasure--just looking about
you. What do you think of it?"

He indicated the dismal prospect with a harsh laugh.

"A bit suggestive of Hell," he went on, "eh? How does it strike you?"

"Finer timber, I should think," suggested Jack Meredith, and Durnovo
laughed more pleasantly.

"The truth is," he explained, "that it strikes one as a bit absurd that
any man should travel up here for pleasure. If you take my advice you
will come down-stream again with me to-morrow."

He evidently distrusted him; and the sidelong, furtive glance suggested
vaguely that Victor Durnovo had something farther up this river which he
wished to keep concealed.

"I understand," answered Meredith, with a half-suppressed yawn, "that
the country gets finer farther up--more mountainous--less suggestive
of--Hell."

The proprietors of very dark eyes would do well to remember that it is
dangerous to glance furtively to one side or the other. The attention of
dark eyes is more easily felt than the glances of grey or blue orbs.

Jack Meredith's suspicions were aroused by the suspicious manner of his
interlocutor.

"There is no white man knows this river as I do, and I do not recommend
it. Look at me--on the verge of jaundice--look at this wound on my arm;
it began with a scratch and has never healed. All that comes from a
month up this cursed river. Take my advice, try somewhere else."

"I certainly shall," replied Meredith. "We will discuss it after dinner.
My chap is a first-rate cook. Have you got anything to add to the menu?"

"Not a thing. I've been living on plantains and dried elephant-meat for
the last fortnight."

"Doesn't sound nourishing. Well, we are pretty well provided, so perhaps
you will give me the pleasure of your company to dinner? Come as you
are: no ceremony. I think I will wash though. It is as well to keep up
these old customs."

With a pleasant smile he went towards the tent which had just been
erected. Joseph was very busy, and his admonishing voice was heard at
times.

"Here, Johnny, hammer in that peg. Now, old cups and saucers, stop that
grinning and fetch me some water. None of your frogs and creepy crawly
thing this time, my blonde beauty, but clean water, comprenny?"

With these and similar lightsome turns of speech was J