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Updated: June 11, 2025
He was like a full-blooded horse tractable enough if kept hard at work. He was a different man up on the Plateau to what he was down at Loango. There are some men who deteriorate in the wilds, while others are better, stronger, finer creatures away from the luxury of civilisation and the softening influence of female society. Of these latter was Victor Durnovo.
He had never met man or woman possessing in so marked a degree that subtle power of going right inside the mind of another and feeling the things that are there the greatest power of all the power that rules the world; and it is only called Sympathy. "Well," said the voice of Durnovo through the darkness, "I don't mind admitting that all I want is the money.
"And I understand," he said, "that Meredith is in the same enviable position." "Indeed!" Durnovo indulged in a meaning silence. "When do you go back?" she asked carelessly. "Almost at once," in a tone that apologised for causing her necessary pain. "I must leave to-morrow or the next day. I do not like the idea of Meredith being left too long alone up there with a reduced number of men.
To this Jocelyn answered nothing. Victor Durnovo was one of her brother's closest friends a friend of his own choosing. "Miss Gordon," said Jack Meredith suddenly, with a gravity that was rare, "will you do me a favour?" "I think I should like to." "You admit that you are afraid of Durnovo now: if at any time you have reason to be more afraid, will you make use of me?
"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.
Moreover, he allowed Victor Durnovo to further inculpate himself. He led him on to discuss the position of affairs, and the half-breed displayed an intimate knowledge of the enemy's doings. There was only one inference to be drawn, namely, that Victor Durnovo had abandoned his people at Msala with the same deliberation which had characterised his cowardly faithlessness to Jack Meredith.
It was somewhat singular that he had nothing but good news to give. Durnovo heard the clatter of tongues, and Guy Oscard, smoking his contemplative pipe in a camp-chair before his hut door, noticed that the sound did not seem very welcome.
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."
"Then I should be obliged if you would mention the fact that I would rather not be left alone with that blackguard Durnovo, either up at the Platter or travelling down. That man's got on my nerves, sir; and I'm mortal afraid of doing him a injury. He's got a long neck you've noticed that, perhaps.
Durnovo had vaguely felt in the presence of either a subtle possibility of sympathy between Jocelyn Gordon and Jack Meredith. When he saw them together, for only a few minutes as it happened, the sympathy rose up and buffeted him in the face, and he hated Jack Meredith for it.
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