The Twelve African Novels (A Collection). Edgar WallaceЧитать онлайн книгу.
was a long silence after this, neither men talking; then Hamilton asked carelessly:
“You went to Kosumkusu of course?”
“I went — yes,” Sanders seemed reluctant to proceed.
“And Miss Glandynne, that medical missionary of ours?”
“She — oh, she was cheerful.”
Hamilton smiled.
“I sent her a wad of letters which came by the last mail,” he said; “you probably passed the mail canoe on your way down?”
Sanders nodded and there was another pause in the conversation.
“She’s rather pretty, isn’t she?” asked Hamilton.
“Very,” responded Sanders with unnecessary emphasis.
“A very nice girl indeed,” Hamilton continued absently.
Sanders made no response for a time — then: “She is a charming lady, much too good for—”
He checked himself.
“For—”
? enticed Hamilton.
“For — for that kind of life,” stammered Sanders, hot all over. He rose abruptly.
“I’ve got some letters to write,” he said and took a hurried departure. And Hamilton, watching the dapper figure stride along the path toward the residency, shook his head sorrowfully.
Sanders wrote no letters. He began many, tore them up and put the scraps in his pocket. He sat thinking till the servants came to put lights in the room. He hardly tasted his dinner, and the rest of the evening he spent on the stoep staring into the darkness, wondering, hoping, thinking. In the near-by village a wedding feast was in progress, and the mad tattoo of the drum was a fitting accompaniment to his thoughts.
Nor did the next day bring him nearer to a decision, nor the next, nor the next.
She was too good for him — he could not ask her to share his life in a country where none knew what the day would bring forth — a country filled with every known tropical disease, and populated by cannibal peoples who were never certain from day to day to retain their allegiance. It would not be fair to ask it — and yet she had said she loved the country; she was beginning to understand the people. And she could go home in the hot months — he would take his arrears of leave.
And a man ought to be married; he was getting on in years — nearly forty.
A panic seized him.
Perhaps he was too old? That was a terrible supposition. He discovered that he did not know how old he was, and spent two busy days collecting from his private documents authentic evidence. Thus three weeks passed before he wrote his final letter.
During all the period he saw little of the Houssa Captain. He thought once of telling him something of his plans, but funked it at the last.
He turned up at Hamilton’s quarters one night.
“I am going up river tomorrow,” he said awkwardly. “I leave as soon after the arrival of the homeward-bound mail as possible — I am expecting letters from the Administration.”
Hamilton nodded.
“But why this outburst of confidence?” he asked. “You do not often favour me with your plans in advance.”
“Well,” began Sanders, “I think I was going to tell you something else, but I’ll defer that.”
He spent the rest of the evening playing picquet and made remarkable blunders.
In the morning he was up before daybreak, superintending the provisioning of the Zaire, and when this was completed he awaited impatiently the coming of the mail steamer. When it was only a smudge of black smoke on the horizon, he went down to the beach, though he knew, as a reasonable man, it could not arrive for at least an hour.
He was standing on the sand, his hands behind his back, fidgeting nervously, when he saw Abiboo running toward him.
“Master,” said the orderly, “the God-woman is coming.”
Sanders’ heart gave a leap, and then he felt himself go cold.
“God-woman?” he said, “what — which God-woman?”
“Lord, she we left at the last moon at Kosumkusu.”
Sanders ran back across the beach, through the Houssa barracks to the river dock. As he reached the stage he saw the girl’s canoe come sweeping round the bend.
He went down to meet her and gave her his hand to assist her ashore.
She was, to Sanders’ eyes, a radiant vision of loveliness. Snowy white from head to foot; a pair of grave grey eyes smiled at him from under the broad brim of her topee.
“I’ve brought you news which will please you,” she said; “but tell me first, is the mail steamer gone?”
He found his tongue.
“If it had gone,” he said, and his voice was a little husky, “I should not have been here.”
Then his throat grew dry, for here was an opening did he but possess the courage to take it; and of courage he had none. His brain was in a whirl. He could not muster two consecutive thoughts. He said something which was conventional and fairly trite. “You will come up to breakfast,” he managed to say at last, “and tell me — you said I should be pleased about some news.”
She smiled at him as she had never smiled before — a mischievous, happy, human smile. Yes, that was what he saw for the first time, the human woman in her. “I’m going home,” she said.
He was making his way towards the residency, and she was walking by his side. He stopped. “Going home?” he said.
“I’m going home.” There was a sparkle in her eyes and a colour he had not seen before. “Aren’t you glad? I’ve been such a nuisance to you — and I am afraid I am rather a failure as a missionary.”
It did not seem to depress her unduly, for he saw she was happy.
“Going home?” he repeated stupidly.
She nodded. “I’ll let you into a secret,” she said, “for you have been so good a friend to me that I feel you ought to know — I’m going to be married.”
“You’re going to be married?” Sanders repeated.
His fingers were touching a letter he had written, and which lay in his pocket. He had intended sending it by canoe to her station and arriving himself a day later.
“You are going to be married?” he said again.
“Yes,” she said, “I — I was very foolish, Mr. Sanders. I ought not to have come here — I quarrelled — you know the sort of thing that happens.”
“I know,” said Sanders.
She could not wait for breakfast. The mail steamer came in and sent its pinnace ashore. Sanders saw her baggage stored, took his mail from the second officer, then came to say goodbye to her.
“You haven’t wished me — luck,” she said.
At the back of her eyes was a hint of a troubled conscience, for she was a woman and she had been in his company for nearly an hour, and women learn things in an hour.
“I wish you every happiness,” he said heartily and gripped her hand till she winced.
She was stepping in the boat when she turned back to him.
“I have often wondered—” she began, and hesitated.
“Yes?”
“It is an impertinence,”