And at the other end of the passage, in her room with the door
locked, Jocelyn Gordon was sitting, hard-eyed, motionless. She had
probably saved the life of Jack Meredith, and in doing so had only
succeeded in sending him away from her.
CHAPTER XXXIII. DARK DEALING
Only an honest man doing his duty.
When Jack Meredith said that there was not another man in Africa who
could make his way from Loango to the Simiacine Plateau he spoke no
more than the truth. There were only four men in all the world who
knew the way, and two of them were isolated on the summit of a lost
mountain in the interior. Meredith himself was unfit for the
journey. There remained Joseph.
True, there were several natives who had made the journey, but they
were as dumb and driven animals, fighting as they were told,
carrying what they were given to carry, walking as many miles as
they were considered able to walk. They hired themselves out like
animals, and as the beasts of the field they did their work--
patiently, without intelligence. Half of them did not know where
they were going--what they were doing; the other half did not care.
So much work, so much wage, was their terse creed. They neither
noted their surroundings nor measured distance. At the end of their
journey they settled down to a life of ease and leisure, which was
to last until necessity drove them to work again.
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