that boat--so damned cool and self-possessed.
You're the right sort, Mr. Meredith."

"Possibly--for some things. For sitting about and smoking first-class
cigars and thinking second-class thoughts I am exactly the right sort.
But for making money, for hard work and steady work, I am afraid, Mr.
Durnovo, that I am distinctly the wrong sort."

"Now you're chaffing again. Do you always chaff?"

"Mostly; it lubricates things, doesn't it?"

There was a little pause. Durnovo looked round as if to make sure that
Joseph and the boatmen were out of earshot.

"Can you keep a secret?" he asked suddenly.

Jack Meredith turned and looked at the questioner with a smile. His hat
had slipped to the back of his head, the light of the great yellow moon
fell full upon his clean-cut, sphinx-like face. The eyes alone seemed
living.

"Yes! I can do that."

He was only amused, and the words were spoken half-mockingly; but his
face said more than his lips. It said that even in chaff this was no
vain boast that he was uttering. Even before he had set foot on African
soil he had been asked to keep so many secrets of a commercial nature.
So many had begun by imparting half a secret, to pass on in due course
to the statement that only money was required, say, a thousand pounds.
And, in the meantime, twenty-five would be very useful, and, if not
that, well, ten shillings. Jack Meredith had met all that before.

But there was something different about Durnovo. He was not suitably
got up. Your bar-room prospective millionaire is usually a jolly fellow,
quite prepared to quench any man's thirst for liquor or information
so long as credit and credulity will last. There was nothing jolly or
sanguine about Durnovo. Beneath his broad-brimmed hat his dark eyes
flashed in a fierce excitement. His hand was unsteady. He had allowed
the excellent cigar to go out. The man was full of quinine and fever, in
deadly earnest.

"I can see you're a gentleman," he said; "I'll trust you. I want a man
to join me in making a fortune. I have got my hand on it at last. But
I'm afraid of this country. I'm getting shaky; look at that hand. I've
been looking for it too long. I take you into my confidence, the
first comer, you'll think. But there are not many men like you in this
country, and I'm beastly afraid of dying. I'm in a damned funk. I want
to get out of this for a bit, but I dare not leave until I set things
going."

"Take your time," said Meredith, qui