Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 14, 2025
It was midday before the new-comers were espied making their way painfully up the slope, and Joseph's welcome was not so much in Durnovo's handshake, in Guy Oscard's silent approval, as in the row of grinning, good-natured black faces behind Durnovo's back. That night laughter was heard in the men's camp for the first time for many weeks nay, several months.
"It is all very well for you," said the half-caste in a lower voice. "You have not so much at stake. It is likely that the happiness of my whole life depends upon this venture." A curious smile passed across Jack Meredith's face. Without turning his head, he glanced sideways into Durnovo's face through the gloom.
So the crop received due attention; but the two leaders of the men he who led by fear and he who commanded by love were watching each other. One evening, when the work was done, Oscard's meditations were disturbed by the sound of angry voices behind the native camp. He turned naturally towards Durnovo's tent, and saw that he was absent.
Despite disquieting rumours, the expedition was allowed to depart from the river-camp unmolested. For two days they marched through the gloomy forest with all speed. On the third day one of the men of Durnovo's division captured a native who had been prowling on their heels in the line of march.
It did not sound as if further inquiries would be welcome, and so the subject was dropped with a silent tribute to the culinary powers of Durnovo's housekeeper at the Msala Station.
Guy Oscard said nothing, but he stretched out his right hand suddenly. His fingers closed in the collar of Victor Durnovo's coat, and that parti-coloured scion of two races found himself feebly trotting through the one street of Loango. "Le' go!" he gasped. But the hand at his neck neither relinquished nor contracted.
Gordon saw at once that the rumour was true. There was a hunted unwholesome look in Durnovo's eyes. He looked shaken, and failed to convey a suggestion of personal dignity. "Hulloa!" exclaimed the proprietor of the decanter. "You look a bit chippy. I have been told there is small-pox up at Msala." "So have I. I've just heard it from Meredith." "Just heard it is Meredith down here too?"
The brown of the man's face and hands appealed to him the dark flashing eyes, the energetic carriage of head and shoulders. Among men of a fairer skin the taint that was in Victor Durnovo's blood became more apparent the shadow on his finger-nails, the deep olive of his neck against the snowy collar, and the blue tint in the white of his eyes.
Durnovo was sitting up, and he grabbed at Oscard's arm. "For God's sake!" he cried. "For God's sake, man, don't let me go to sleep!" "What do you mean?" asked Oscard. They both thought that he had gone mad. Sleep had nothing more to do with Durnovo's eyes protruding, staring, terrible to look at. "Don't let me go to sleep," he repeated. "Don't! Don't!"
Word Of The Day
Others Looking