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Updated: May 29, 2025
Certain it is that, in twenty-seven hours from the time that he left Msala on the morning of the great storm, he presented himself before Maurice Gordon in his office at the factory at Loango. "Ah!" cried Gordon, hardly noticing the washed-out, harassed appearance of the visitor; "here you are again. I heard that the great expedition had started."
The letter is in duplicate, sent by two good messengers, who go by different routes. When Jocelyn looked up, dry-lipped, breathless, Nala was standing before her, beaming with self-importance. "Who gave you this?" "Marie at Msala." "Who is she?" "Oh Mr. Durnovo's woman at Msala. She keeps his house." "But this letter is for Mr. Durnovo," cried Jocelyn, whose fear made her unreasonably angry.
Some of the natives will leave landmarks as they come down so as to find their way back." "I don't think so!" "Why?" Oscard took his pipe from his lips. "When Durnovo came down to Msala," he explained, "he had the sleeping sickness on him. Where did he get it from?" "By God!" ejaculated Jack Meredith, "I never thought of that. He got it up at the Plateau. He left it behind him.
There was nothing for it but to establish a camp at Msala, and wait there until the builders had repaired the damaged canoes. The walls of Durnovo's house were still standing, and here Guy Oscard established himself with as much comfort as circumstances allowed.
Durnovo, informing him that the tribes have risen and are rapidly surrounding the Plateau. He must return here at once with as large an armed force as he can raise. But the most important consideration is time. He must not wait for men from elsewhere, but must pick up as many as he can in Loango and on the way up to Msala.
He elaborated and detailed to all interested, and to some whom it did not concern, many excuses for his delay in returning to his expedition, lying supine and attendant at Msala. It was by now an open secret on the coast that a great trading expedition was about to ascend the Ogowe river, with, it was whispered, a fortune awaiting it in the dim perspective of Central Africa.
Oscard contented himself with a denying shake of the head. "Of course," he continued, with obvious determination to get it all off his mind, "I know as well as you do that you are the chief of this concern have been chief since we left Msala and I never want to work under a better man."
The men of his division had all preceded him, and no one except his own boatmen knew that Msala was to be abandoned. There was in Guy Oscard a dogged sense of justice which sometimes amounted to a cruel mercilessness. When he reached the camp he deliberately withheld from Durnovo the news that the Msala household had left the river station.
"When can you leave?" He shrugged his shoulders. "Now." Jocelyn had her purse in her hand. "You can hire a dhow," she said; "and on the river you may have as many rowers as you like. You must go very quickly to Msala. There you must ask about the Englishman's Expedition. You have heard of it?" "Yes: the Englishman, Durnovo, and the soldier who laughs." "Yes. Some of the men are at Msala now.
You are a liar, as well as a coward and a traitor! Do you think that the very servants in the stable would believe you? Do you think that the incident of the small-pox at Msala is forgotten?
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