Is to do nothing, may'st thou never see,
Never divine, the all that nothing costeth me.
One morning, three months later, Guy Oscard drew up in line his flying column. He was going back to England with the first consignment1 of Simiacine. During the twelve weeks that lay behind there had been constant reference made to his little body of picked men, and the leader had selected with a grave deliberation that promised well.
The lost soldier that was in him was all astir in his veins2 as he reviewed his command in the cool air of early morning. The journey from Msala to the Plateau had occupied a busy two months. Oscard expected to reach Msala with his men in forty days. Piled up in neat square cases, such as could be carried in pairs by a man of ordinary strength, was the crop of Simiacine, roughly valued by Victor Durnovo at forty thousand pounds. Ten men could carry the whole of it, and the twenty cases set close together on the ground made a bed for Guy Oscard. Upon this improvised3 couch he gravely stretched his bulk every night all through the journey that followed.
Over the whole face of the sparsely4 vegetated5 table-land the dwarf6 bushes grew at intervals7, each one in a little circle of its own, where no grass grew: for the dead leaves, falling, poisoned the earth. There were no leaves on the bushes now, for they had all been denuded8, and the twisted branches stood out naked in the morning mist. Some of the bushes had been roughly pruned9, to foster, if possible, a more bushy growth and a heavier crop of leaves near to the parent stem.
It was a strange landscape; and any passing traveller, knowing nothing of the Simiacine, must perforce have seen at once that these insignificant10 little trees were something quite apart in the vegetable kingdom. Each standing11 with its magic circle, no bird built its nest within the branches—no insect constructed its filmy home—no spider weaved its busy web from twig12 to twig.
Solitary13, mournful, lifeless the Plateau which had nearly cost Victor Durnovo his life lay beneath the face of heaven, far above the surrounding country—the summit of an unnamed mountain—a land lying in the heart of a tropic country which was neither tropic, temperate14, nor arctic. Fauna15 had it none, for it produced nothing that could sustain life. Flora16 it knew not, for the little trees, with their perennial17 fortune of brilliant brown-tinted leaves, monopolised vegetable life, and slew18 all comers. It seemed like some stray tract19 of another planet, where the condition of living things was different. There was a strange sense of having been thrown up—thrown up, as it were, into mid-heaven, there to hang for ever—neither this world nor the world to come. The silence of it all was such as would drive men mad if they came to think of it. It was the silence of the stars.
The men who had lived up here for three months did not look quite natural. There was a singular heaviness of the eyelids20 which all had noticed, though none had spoken of it. A craving21 for animal food, which could only be stayed by the consumption of abnormal quantities of meat, kept the hunters ever at work on the lower slopes of the mountain. Sleep was broken, and uncanny things happened in the night. Men said that they saw other men like trees, walking abroad with sightless eyes; and Joseph said, “Gammon, my festive22 darky—gammon!” but he, nevertheless, glanced somewhat uneasily towards his master whenever the natives said such things.
A clearing had been made on that part of the Plateau which was most accessible from below. The Simiacine trees had been ruthlessly cut away—even the roots were grubbed up and burnt—far away on the leeward23 side of the little kingdom. This was done because there arose at sunset a soft and pleasant odour from the bushes which seemed to affect the nerves, and even made the teeth chatter24. It was, therefore, deemed wise that the camp should stand on bare ground.
It was on this ground, in front of the tents, that Guy Oscard drew up his quick-marching column before the sun had sprung up in its fantastic tropical way from the distant line of virgin25 forest. As he walked along the line, making a suggestion here, pulling on a shoulder-rope there, he looked staunch and strong as any man might wish to be. His face was burnt so brown that eyebrows26 and moustache stood out almost blonde, though in reality they were only brown. His eyes did not seem to be suffering from the heaviness noticeable in others; altogether, the climate and the mystic breath of the Simiacine grove27 did not appear to affect him as it did his companions. This was probably accounted for by the fact that, being chief of the hunters, most of his days had been passed on the lower slopes in search of game.
To him came presently Jack28 Meredith—the same gentle-mannered man, with an incongruously brown face and quick eyes seeing all. It is not, after all, the life that makes the man. There are gentle backwoodsmen, and ruffians among those who live in drawing-rooms.
“Well?” said Meredith, following the glance of his friend's eye as he surveyed his men.
Oscard took his pipe from his lips and looked gravely at him.
“Don't half like it, you know,” he said in a low voice; for Durnovo was talking with a head porter a few yards away.
“Don't half like what?—the flavour of that pipe? It looks a little strong.”
“No, leaving you here,” replied Oscard.
“Oh, that's all right, old chap! You can't take me with you, you know. I intended to stick to it when I came away from home, and I am not going to turn back now.”
Oscard gave a queer little upward jerk of the head, as if he had just collected further evidence in support of a theory which chronically29 surprised him. Then he turned away and looked down over the vast untrodden tract of Africa that lay beneath them. He kept his eyes fixed30 there, after the manner of a man who has no fluency31 in personal comment.
“You know,” he said jerkily, “I didn't think—I mean you're not the sort of chap I took you for. When I first saw you I thought you were a bit of a dandy and—all that. Not the sort of man for this work. I thought that the thing was bound to be a failure. I knew Durnovo, and had no faith in him. You've got a gentle way about you, and your clothes are so confoundedly neat. But—” Here he paused and pulled down the folds of his Norfolk jacket. “But I liked the way you shot that leopard32 the day we first met.”
“Beastly fluke,” put in Meredith, with his pleasant laugh.
“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.”
He put his pipe back between his lips and turned round with a contented smile, as much as to say, “There, that is the sort of man I am! When I want to say that sort of thing I can say it with the best of you.”
“We have pulled along very comfortably, haven't we?” said Meredith; “thanks to your angelic temper. And you'll deliver that packet of letters to the governor, won't you? I have sent them in one packet, addressed to him, as it is easier to carry. I will let you hear of us somehow within the next six months. Do not go and get married before I get home. I want to be your best man.”
Oscard laughed and gave the signal for the men to start, and the long caravan34 defiled35 before them. The porters nodded to Meredith with a great display of white teeth, while the head men, the captains of tens, stepped out of the ranks and shook hands. Before they had disappeared over the edge of the plateau, Joseph came forward to say good-bye to Oscard.
“And it is understood,” said the latter, “that I pay in to your account at Lloyd's Bank your share of the proceeds?”
Joseph grinned. “Yes, sir, if you please, presumin' it's a safe bank.”
“Safe as houses.”
“'Cos it's a tolerable big amount,” settling himself into his boots in the manner of a millionaire.
“Lot of money—about four hundred pounds! But you can trust me to see to it all right.”
“No fear, sir,” replied Joseph grandly. “I'm quite content, I'm sure, that you should have the—fingering o' the dibs.”
As he finished—somewhat lamely36 perhaps—his rounded periods, he looked very deliberately37 over Oscard's shoulder towards Durnovo, who was approaching them.
Meredith walked a little way down the slope with Oscard.
“Good-bye, old chap!” he said when the parting came. “Good luck, and all that. Hope you will find all right at home. By the way,” he shouted after him, “give my kind regards to the Gordons at Loango.”
And so the first consignment of Simiacine was sent from the Plateau to the coast.
Guy Oscard was one of those deceptive38 men who only do a few things, and do those few very well. In forty-three days he deposited the twenty precious cases in Gordon's godowns at Loango, and paid off the porters, of whom he had not lost one. These duties performed, he turned his steps towards the bungalow39. He had refused Gordon's invitation to stay with him until the next day, when the coasting steamer was expected. To tell the truth, he was not very much prepossessed in Maurice's favour, and it was with a doubtful mind that he turned his steps towards the little house in the forest between Loango and the sea.
The room was the first surprise that awaited him, its youthful mistress the second. Guy Oscard was rather afraid of most women. He did not understand them, and probably he despised them. Men who are afraid or ignorant often do.
“And when did you leave them?” asked Jocelyn, after her visitor had explained who he was. He was rather taken aback by so much dainty refinement40 in remote Africa, and explained rather badly. But she helped him out by intimating that she knew all about him.
“I left them forty-four days ago,” he replied.
“And were they well?”
“She is very much interested,” reflected Oscard, upon whom her eagerness of manner had not been lost. “Surely, it cannot be that fellow Durnovo?”
“Mr. Durnovo cannot ever remain inland for long without feeling the effect of the climate.”
Guy Oscard, with the perspicacity42 of his sex, gobbled up the bait. “It IS Durnovo,” he reflected.
“Oh, he is all right,” he said; “wonderfully well, and so are the others—Joseph and Meredith. You know Meredith?”
Jocelyn was busy with a vase of flowers standing on the table at her elbow. One of the flowers had fallen half out, and she was replacing it—very carefully.
“Oh, yes,” she said, without ceasing her occupation, “we know Mr. Meredith.”
The visitor did not speak at once, and she looked up at him, over the flowers, with grave politeness.
“Meredith,” he said, “is one of the most remarkable43 men I have ever met.”
It was evident that this ordinarily taciturn man wanted to unburthen his mind. He was desirous of talking to some one of Jack Meredith; and perhaps Jocelyn reflected that she was as good a listener as he would find in Loango.
He paused, not because he found it difficult to talk to this woman, but because he was thinking of something.
“Yes.”
“That describes Meredith. He is not the man I took him for. He is so wonderfully polite and gentle and pleasant. Not the qualities that make a good leader for an African exploring expedition—eh?”
Jocelyn gave a strange little laugh, which included, among other things, a subtle intimation that she rather liked Guy Oscard. Women do convey these small meanings sometimes, but one finds that they do not intend them to be acted upon.
“And he has kept well all the time?” she asked softly. “He did not look strong.”
“Oh, yes. He is much stronger than he looks.”
“And you—you have been all right?”
“Yes, thanks.”
“Are you going back to—them?”
“No, I leave to-morrow morning early by the Portuguese46 boat. I am going home to be married.”
“Indeed! Then I suppose you will wash your hands of Africa for ever?”
“Not quite,” he replied. “I told Meredith that I would be prepared to go up to him in case of emergency, but not otherwise. I shall, of course, still be interested in the scheme. I take home the first consignment of Simiacine; we have been very successful, you know. I shall have to stay in London to sell that. I have a house there.”
“Are you to be married at once?” inquired Jocelyn, with that frank interest which makes it so much easier for a man to talk of his own affairs to a woman than to one of his own sex.
“As soon as I can arrange it,” he answered with a little laugh. “There is nothing to wait for. We are both orphans47, and, fortunately, we are fairly well off.”
He was fumbling48 in his breast-pocket, and presently he rose, crossed the room, and handed her, quite without afterthought or self-consciousness, a photograph in a morocco case.
Explanation was unnecessary, and Jocelyn Gordon looked smilingly upon a smiling, bright young face.
“She is very pretty,” she said honestly.
“Millicent,” he said after a little pause—“Millicent is her name.”
“Millicent?” repeated Jocelyn—“Millicent WHAT?”
“Millicent Chyne.”
Jocelyn folded the morocco case together and handed it back to him.
“She is very pretty,” she repeated slowly, as if her mind could only reproduce—it was incapable51 of creation.
Oscard looked puzzled. Having risen he did not sit down again, and presently he took his leave, feeling convinced that Jocelyn was about to faint.
When he was gone the girl sat wearily down.
“Millicent Chyne,” she whispered. “What is to be done?”
“Nothing,” she answered to herself after a while. “Nothing. It is not my business. I can do nothing.”
She sat there—alone, as she had been all her life—until the short tropical twilight52 fell over the forest. Quite suddenly she burst into tears.
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1
consignment
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| n.寄售；发货；委托；交运货物 | |
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veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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3
improvised
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| a.即席而作的,即兴的 | |
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sparsely
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| adv.稀疏地；稀少地；不足地；贫乏地 | |
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vegetated
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| v.过单调呆板的生活( vegetate的过去式和过去分词 )；植物似地生长；（瘤、疣等）长大 | |
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dwarf
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| n.矮子，侏儒，矮小的动植物；vt.使…矮小 | |
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7
intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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8
denuded
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| adj.[医]变光的，裸露的v.使赤裸( denude的过去式和过去分词 )；剥光覆盖物 | |
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9
pruned
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| v.修剪（树木等）( prune的过去式和过去分词 )；精简某事物，除去某事物多余的部分 | |
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10
insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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11
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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12
twig
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| n.小树枝，嫩枝；v.理解 | |
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solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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temperate
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| adj.温和的，温带的，自我克制的，不过分的 | |
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fauna
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| n.(一个地区或时代的)所有动物，动物区系 | |
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flora
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| n.(某一地区的)植物群 | |
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perennial
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| adj.终年的；长久的 | |
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slew
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| v.（使）旋转；n.大量，许多 | |
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tract
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| n.传单，小册子，大片(土地或森林) | |
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eyelids
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| n.眼睑( eyelid的名词复数 )；眼睛也不眨一下；不露声色；面不改色 | |
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craving
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| n.渴望,热望 | |
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festive
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| adj.欢宴的，节日的 | |
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leeward
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| adj.背风的；下风的 | |
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chatter
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| vi.／n.喋喋不休；短促尖叫；(牙齿)打战 | |
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virgin
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| n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的 | |
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eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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27
grove
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| n.林子，小树林，园林 | |
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jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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chronically
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| ad.长期地 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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fluency
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| n.流畅，雄辩，善辩 | |
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leopard
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| n.豹 | |
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contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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caravan
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| n.大蓬车；活动房屋 | |
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defiled
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| v.玷污( defile的过去式和过去分词 )；污染；弄脏；纵列行进 | |
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lamely
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| 一瘸一拐地，不完全地 | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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deceptive
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| adj.骗人的，造成假象的，靠不住的 | |
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bungalow
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| n.平房，周围有阳台的木造小平房 | |
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40
refinement
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| n.文雅；高尚；精美；精制；精炼 | |
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41
curtness
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| n.简短；草率；简略 | |
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42
perspicacity
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| n. 敏锐, 聪明, 洞察力 | |
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43
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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44
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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45
velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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46
Portuguese
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| n.葡萄牙人；葡萄牙语 | |
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47
orphans
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| 孤儿( orphan的名词复数 ) | |
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48
fumbling
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| n. 摸索,漏接 v. 摸索,摸弄,笨拙的处理 | |
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49
grunted
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| （猪等）作呼噜声( grunt的过去式和过去分词 )； （指人）发出类似的哼声； 咕哝着说 | |
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50
unintelligibly
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| 难以理解地 | |
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51
incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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52
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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53
sobbed
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| 哭泣，啜泣( sob的过去式和过去分词 )； 哭诉，呜咽地说 | |
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