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Durnovo spoke from time to time, but he could see the effect that his hissing speech had upon his companion, and in time he gave it up. He told haltingly of the horrors of the Simiacine Plateau of the last grim tragedy acted there how, at last, blinded with his blood, maimed, stupefied by agony, he had been hounded down the slope by a yelling, laughing horde of torturers.
In his rough-and-ready way he doctored his master, making for him such soups and strength-giving food as he could. Once, very late in the night, when it almost seemed that the shadow of death lay over the little tent, he pounded up some of the magic Simiacine leaves and mixed them in the brandy which he administered from time to time.
He turned his head a little, and glanced, not at his father, but in his direction. "He will appreciate it, I know." "I should like to see him to-morrow." Jack winced, as if he had made a mistake. "He is not in England," he explained. "I left him behind me in Africa. He has gone back to the Simiacine Plateau." The old man's face dropped rather piteously.
He caused a temporary roof of palm-leaves to be laid on the charred beams, and within the principal room the very room where the three organisers of the great Simiacine scheme had first laid their plans he set up his simple camp furniture. Oscard was too great a traveller, too experienced a wanderer, to be put out of temper by this enforced rest. The men had worked very well hitherto.
"The sum of fifty pounds per month to be paid to Victor Durnovo, wherewith he may pay the thirty special men taken from his estate and headquarters at Msala to cultivate the Simiacine, and such corn and vegetables as may be required for the sustenance of the expedition; these men to act as porters until the plateau be reached.
"You remember the Simiacine?" he said abruptly. "Yes." "I've found it." "The devil you have! Sit down." Durnovo took the chair indicated. "Yes, sir," he said, "I've got it. I've laid my hand on it at last. I've always been on its track. That has been my little game all the time.
And now who is going with me who leaves with me to-morrow morning?" He moved away from Durnovo. "And who stays with me?" cried the half-breed, "to share and share alike in the Simiacine?" Joseph followed Oscard, and with him a certain number of the blacks, but some stayed. Some went over to Durnovo and stood beside him. The slaves spoke among themselves, and then they all went over to Durnovo.
They sat until they had closed the Simiacine account, never to be reopened. They discussed the question of renouncement, and, after due consideration, concluded that the gain was rightly theirs seeing that the risk had all been theirs. Slaves and slave-owner had both taken their cause to a Higher Court, where the defendant has no worry and the plaintiff is at rest.
Sure it was that he must have seen strange things, for no prying white man had set foot in these wilds before him; no book has ever been written of that country that lies around the Simiacine Plateau. He was not the man to worry himself over uncertainties.
That is never stale, and there are depths still unexplored, heights still unattained, warm rivers of love, cold streams of hatred, and vast plains where strange motives grow. These are our business. We have not to deal so much with the finding of the Simiacine as with the finders, and of these the chief at this time was Jack Meredith.
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