CHAPTER XXIII
After six weeks' incessant throbbing the great engines were still, andthe Dunottar Castle lay at anchor a mile or two from the African coastand off the town of Attra. The heat, which in motion had been hardenough to bear, was positively stifling now. The sun burned down uponthe glassy sea and the white deck till the varnish on the rails crackedand blistered, and the sweat streamed like water from the faces of thelabouring seamen. Below at the ship's side half a dozen surf boats werewaiting, manned by Kru boys, who alone seemed perfectly comfortable, andcheerful as usual. All around were preparations for landing--boxes werebeing hauled up from the hold, and people were going about in reach ofsmall parcels and deck-chairs and missing acquaintances. Trent, in whitelinen clothes and puggaree, was leaning over the railing, gazing towardsthe town, when Da Souza came up to him--
"Last morning, Mr. Trent!"
Trent glanced round and nodded.
"Are you disembarking here?" he asked.
Da Souza admitted the fact. "My brother will meet me," he said. "He isvery afraid of the surf-boats, or he would have come out to the steamer.You remember him?"
"Yes, I remember him," Trent answered. "He was not the sort of personone forgets."
"He is a very rough diamond," Da Souza said apologetically. "He haslived here so long that he has become almost half a native."
"And the other half a thief," Trent muttered.
Da Souza was not in the least offended.
"I am afraid," he admitted, "that his morals are not up to theThreadneedle Street pitch, eh, Mr. Trent? But he has made quite a greatdeal of money. Oh, quite a sum I can assure you. He sends me some overto invest!"
"Well, if he's carrying on the same old game," Trent remarked, "he oughtto be coining it! By the by, of course he knows exactly where Monty is?"
"It is what I was about to say," Da Souza assented, with a vigorous nodof the head. "Now, my dear Mr. Trent, I know that you will have yourway. It is no use my trying to dissuade you, so listen. You shall wasteno time in searching for Monty. My brother will tell you exactly wherehe is."
Trent hesitated. He would have preferred to have nothing at all to dowith Da Souza, and the very thought of Oom Sam made him shudder. On theother hand, time was valuable to him and he might waste weeks lookingfor the man whom Oom Sam could tell him at once where to find. On thewhole, it was better to accept Da Souza's offer.
"Very well, Da Souza," he said, "I have no time to spare in this countryand the sooner I get back to England the better for all of us. If yourbrother knows where Monty is, so much the better for both of us. We willland together and meet him."
Already the disembarking had commenced. Da Souza and Trent took theirplaces side by side on the broad, flat-bottomed boat, and soon they wereoff shorewards and the familiar song of the Kru boys as they bent overtheir oars greeted their ears. The excitement of the last few strokeswas barely over before they sprang upon the beach and were surrounded bya little crowd, on the outskirts of whom was Oom Sam. Trent was seizedupon by an Englishman who was representing the Bekwando Land and MiningInvestment Company and, before he could regain Da Souza, a few rapidsentences had passed between the latter and his brother in Portuguese.Oom Sam advanced to Trent hat in hand--
"Welcome back to Attra, senor?"
Trent nodded curtly.
"Place isn't much changed," he remarked.
"It is very slowly here," Oom Sam said, "that progress is made! Theclimate is too horrible. It makes dead sheep of men."
"You seem to hang on pretty well," Trent remarked carelessly. "Been upcountry lately?"
"I was trading with the King of Bekwando a month ago," Oom Sam answered.
"Palm-oil and mahogany for vile rum I suppose," Trent said.
The man extended his hands and shrugged his shoulders. The old gesture.
"They will have it," he said. "Shall we go to the hotel, Senor Trent,and rest?"
Trent nodded, and the three men scrambled up the beach, across an openspace, and gained the shelter of a broad balcony, shielded by a stripedawning which surrounded the plain white stone hotel. A Kru boy welcomedthem with beaming face and fetched them drinks upon a Brummagem tray.Trent turned to the Englishman who had followed them up.
"To-morrow," he said, "I shall see you about the contracts. My firstbusiness is a private matter with these gentlemen. Will you come up hereand breakfast with me?"
The Englishman, a surveyor from a London office, assented withenthusiasm.
"I can't offer to put you up," he said gloomily. "Living out here'sbeastly. See you in the morning, then."
He strolled away, fanning himself. Trent lit a long cigar.
"I understand," he said turning to Oom Sam, "that old Monty is alivestill. If so, it's little short of a miracle, for I left him withscarcely a gasp in his body, and I was nearly done myself.
"It was," Oom Sam said, "veree wonderful. The natives who were chasingyou, they found him and then the Englishman whom you met in Bekwando onhis way inland, he rescued him. You see that little white house with aflagstaff yonder?"
He pointed to a little one-storey building about a mile away along thecoast. Trent nodded.
"That is," Oom Sam said, "a station of the Basle Mission and old Montyis there. You can go and see him any time you like, but he will not knowyou."
"Is he as far gone as that?" Trent asked slowly.
"His mind," Oom Sam said, "is gone. One little flickering spark of lifegoes on. A day! a week! who can tell how long?"
"Has he a doctor?" Trent asked.
"The missionary, he is a medical man," Oom Sam explained. "Yet he islong past the art of medicine."
It seemed to Trent, turning at that moment to relight his cigar, thata look of subtle intelligence was flashed from one to the other of thebrothers. He paused with the match in his fingers, puzzled, suspicious,anxious. So there was some scheme hatched already between these preciouspair! It was time indeed that he had come.
"There was something else I wanted to ask," he said a moment or twolater. "What about the man Francis. Has he been heard of lately?"
Oom Sam shook his head.
"Ten months ago," he answered, "a trader from Lulabulu reported havingpassed him on his way to the interior. He spoke of visiting Sugbaroo,another country beyond. If he ventured there, he will surely neverreturn."
Trent set down his glass without a word, and called to some Kru boys inthe square who carried litters.
"I am going," he said, "to find Monty."