 Chapter 23 of Sons of Fire by Mary Elizabeth Braden. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. That way, madness lies. It would have taken a very respectable earthquake to have made as much sensation in a rural neighborhood as was made in the village, and neighborhood of mansion by the cancelment of Alan Carew's engagement to General Vincent's daughter. The fact that no visitors had been bitten to the wedding seemed to make no difference in the rapid dissemination of the news. People from 20 miles round had been interested. People from 20 miles round had come up to be taxed and had sent pepper pots and hairbrushes, paper knives and scent bottles, and candlesticks, all of which were now returned to the givers in the very tissue paper and cardboard boxes in which they had been sent from shops or stores accompanied by a formal little note of apology. The marriage had been deferred indefinitely, and at his daughter's request, General Vincent begged to return the gifts with sincere thanks for the kindly feeling which had prompted, etc. It will do for someone else. That was the almost inevitable exclamation when the tissue paper was unfolded and the gift appeared untarnished and undamaged by the double transit. Then followed speculations as to the meaning of those words deferred indefinitely. Indefinitely means never pronounced Mrs. Roebuck. There's no doubt upon that point he has jilted her. I thought he would begin to look about him after his father's death. I dare say he will have a house in town next season up here, out there, near Park Lane, and go into society instead of vegetating among these beotians. He must feel himself thrown away in such a hole. I thought he was devoted to Miss Vincent. Nonsense! How could any man be devoted to an insignificant Frenchified jit without style or savoir-faire? She has a pretty picante little face, murmured Mr. Roebuck meekly, not liking to be enthusiastic about beauty which was the very opposite of his wife's Roman nose and flaxen-haired style. Upon Mrs. Mornington the blow fell far more heavily than on Suzette's father, who was very glad to keep his daughter at home, albeit regretful that she should have treated a faithful lover so scurvelly. If the poor child did not know her own mind at the beginning, it is a blessed thing she found out her mistake before it was too late, pleaded the general to his irate sister. It is too late for respectability, too late for common humanity, to lead a young man on for over a year almost to the steps of the altar, and then to throw him off. It is simply shameful to make a fool of him and herself before the whole neighborhood to belittle herself as much as she has belittled him. No doubt all the women will say that he has jilted her. Let them, that cannot hurt her. But it can hurt me, her aunt, I feel inclined to slap my most intimate friends when they ask me leading questions evidently longing to hear that Alan has acted badly, and when I assure them that my niece is alone to blame, I can see in their faces that they don't or won't believe me. Why should they believe me? Could any girl not an idiot throw over such a match as Alan has become since his father's death? I hope you don't mean to say that my girl is an idiot. I say that she has acted like an idiot in this affair, and I say that she has acted like an honest woman. I shall never be able to look Lady Emily Carew in the face again. Don't be alarmed about Lady Emily. She will be no more sorry to keep her son to herself than I am to keep my daughter. She won't have him long. He'll be going off and marrying some horrid end-of-the-century girl in a fit of peak. I don't believe he is such a fool. Matchum might talk its loudest and dispute almost to blows as to which was the jiltor and which the jilted. The principal performers in the tragedy were well out of earshot. Alan at Fendike with Lady Emily, Suzette at Bournemouth with an old convent friend and her invalid mother, people who had no connection with Matchum, and in whose society the girl could not be reminded of her own wrongdoing. The invitation to the villa at Branksum had been repeated very often, and on a renewal of it arriving just after that painful scene at Discomb, Suzette had written promptly to accept. If you don't mind my coming to you out of spirits and altogether, troubled in mind, Cherie, she wrote, and the girl who was a very quiet piece of amiability and who had worshipped her lively school fellow, who replied delightedly, your low spirits must be brighter than other people's gaiety. Come and let the sea and the downs console you. Bournemouth is lovely in September. Mother has given me the charmingest pony, and I have been carefully taught by our old coachman, who is a whip in a thousand, so you need not be afraid to trust yourself beside me. Except for Father's sake, it might be a good thing if she were to throw me out of her cart and kill me on the spot. Muse Suzette, as she sat listlessly watching her maid packing her trunk. Among the frocks there was one of the Salisbury-Taylor's confections, a frock which was to have been worn by Mrs. Alan Carew, and Suzette felt that she would sink with shame when she put it on. I ought to be prosecuted for obtaining goods under false pretenses, she thought. Geoffrey Warnock found a telegram waiting for him at the little post office at Hartsburg, and the mere outward casing of that message sent his heart beating furiously. There must be news of his love in it, news good or bad. I will not live through her wedding date if she marries him, he told himself. The telegram was from his mother. The marriage is broken off with much sorrow on both sides. That's nonsense on her part. There can be no sorrow, only relief of mind, only joy, the prospect of a blissful union, a life without a cloud. Thank God, thank God, thank God, I never felt there was a God till now. Now I believe in him, now I will lift up my heart to him in nightly and daily prayer, as Adam did by the side of Eve. Oh, thank God, the barrier is removed, and she can be mine. My own dear love, part of my heart, life of my life. He carried a fiddle among his scanty luggage, not the treasured inimitable strata barius, but a much cherished little amati, and by and by, having eaten some hurried scraps by way of dinner, he took the violin out of its case and went out to a little garden at the back of the inn, and in a fine burst so gave himself up to impassioned utterance of the love that overflowed his heart. Music and music only could speak for him. Music was the interpreter of all his highest thoughts. The stolid beer drinkers came out of their smoke-darkened parlor to hear him, and sat silent and unseen behind an intervening screen of greenery and listened and approved. Ah, what for a fiddler, how he can play. Oh, heaven-like, not true, my friend. He played and played, walking about under the vine curtain, played till the pale gray evening shadows darkened to purplish night, and the stars looked through the leafy roof of that rustic tunnel. He was playing to her, to her, his faraway love to Suzette in England. He was pouring out his soul's desire to her, a hymn of sweet content, and he almost fancied that she could hear him. There must be some mystical medium by which such sounds can travel from being to being, where love attunes two souls in unison, some process now hidden from the dull mind of average man as the electric telegraph was half a century ago. This is how a lover dreams in the summer gloaming in a garden on the slope of up pine, clad hill, with loftier heights beyond, shadowy and dark against the deep blue of that infinite sky where the stars are shining aloof and incomprehensible in remoteness that fills mortality with despair. She was free. That was Jeffrey's one thought in every hour and almost every minute of his breath, his journey from Hartzburg to Discomb. She was free, and for her to be free meant that she was to be his. He imagined no opposition upon her side when once her engagement to Ellen had been broken. She'd been bound by that tie and that only. His impetuous, passionate nature, self-loving and concentrative as the temper of a child could conceive no restraining influence, nothing that could prevent her heart answering his, her hand yielding to his, and a marriage as speedy as law and church would allow. They could be married ever so quietly in London where no curious eyes could watch, no gossiping tongues criticized, married, made for everyone, and then away to mountain and lake, to Pallanza, Lugano, Bellagio, anywhere between steel and water to a life lovelier than his various dreams. No man journeying with a passionate heart ever found rail or boat quick enough, and Jeffrey always impatient, chafed at every stage of the journey and complained as bitterly as if he had been traveling at the expensive crawl in which a Horace Walpole or a Beckford was content to accomplish that restricted round which our ancestors called the Grand Tour. Nothing slower than a balloon would have satisfied Jeffrey's eager soul, and he would rather have accepted balloon transit with all its hazards and run the risk of being landed in a Corinthian valley or a Norwegian fuel than endure the harassing delay at dusty railway stations or at the slowness of the channel boat. He telegraphed to his mother from Brussels and again from Dover, a cart waiting for him at the station with one of the fastest torches in the stable, but unfortunately one of the stupidest grooms who could furnish him with no information upon any subject was all well at home, his mistress well, the groom believes so, was Miss Vincent well, the groom had heard nothing to the contrary but he had not seen Miss Vincent lately. No particular inference was to be drawn from this statement of the grooms since Suzette's visits were not made to the stable yard. There was no one at this groom to do stable parade and to insist upon horses being stripped and trotted up and down for the edification of a visitor whose utmost knowledge of a horse might be that it is a beast with four legs, mane and tail understood though not always existent. Jeffrey rattled his old hunter along at a pace that made the cart sway like an outrigger in the wake of a steamer and he alighted at the manor house a quarter of an hour before a reasonable being would have got himself there. It was late in the evening and his mother was sitting alone in the dimly lighted music room. The piano was shut a bad sign for when Suzette was there the piano was hardly ever idle. Well mother dear so glad to be home again said Jeffrey with an affectionate hug but with eyes that were looking over his mother's head into space for another presence even while he gave her that filial embrace and I am so glad to have you Jeffrey and I hope now this restless spirit will be content to stay. Say Salon where's Suzette? At Bournemouth with an old school fellow why didn't you wire her address and then I could have gone straight to her my dear Jeffrey what are you thinking of? Of Suzette of my dear love of my wife that is to be my dear boy you cannot go to her you must not ask her to marry you while this cancelled engagement is a new thing I should think her a horrid girl if she would listen to you forever so long do you mean for a week or a fortnight for a long long time Jeffrey long enough for Allen's wounded heart to recover upon my soul mother that is too good a joke is my mother the most romantic and unconventional of women preaching the 18 penny gospel of middle-class etiquette it is no question of conventionality my affection for Allen is only second to my love for you and I cannot think of his being wounded and humiliated as he must be if Suzette were to accept you directly after having jolted him and you would have Suzette sit beside the tomb of Allen's hopes for a year or so while I eat my heart out banquet on joys deferred, sickened and died perhaps with that slow torture of waiting mother you don't know what love is love in the heart of a man if she had married Allen I should have shot myself on her wedding day that was written in my book of fate if she won't marry me if she play fast and loose if she's so cold if she won't look in my eyes and say honestly I love you and I am yours I can't answer for myself I fear there will be a tragedy you know there is something here touching his forehead which loses itself in a world of fiery confusion when this touching his heart is too sorely tried Jeffrey my dearest oh Jeffrey you agonize me when you talk like that I think yes I believe that Suzette loves you but she is sensitive tender hearted all that is womanly and good I must give her time to recover from the shock of parting with Allen whom she sincerely esteems and whose sorrow is her sorrow I will see her tomorrow I cannot live without seeing her why every mile of pine forest through which I came seemed three every mile of dusty Belgian flatness seemed seven to my hot impatience I must see her hear her hold her hand in mine and she shall do what she likes with the poor rag of life which will be left when I have lived an hour with her End of Chapter 23 Chapter 24 of Sons of Fire by Mary Elizabeth Braddon this LibriVox recording is in the public domain Roman and Sabine Jeffrey was not to be balked of his purpose he sat till long after midnight in the music room with his mother sat or roamed about in the ample spaces of that fine apartment talking in his own wild way with that restless fitful romanticism which had marked him from childhood from the dim hours so vaguely remembered and so sadly sweet in his memory when he had sat on the floor with his head leaning against the soft silken folds of her gown and had been moved to tears by her playing there were simple turns of melody almost automatic phrases of Mozart's which recall the vague heartache of those childish hours an idea of music so interwoven with that other idea of summer twilight in a spacious shadowy room that had startled him to hear one of those familiar movements in the broad glare of day as if daylight and that music were irreconcilable no arguments of his mother's could shake his purpose and talk with her she alone shall be the judge of what is right perhaps when I am sure of her I may be able to teach myself patience but I must be sure of her love he was at Bournemouth by the first train that would carry him there and it was still early when he went roaming out towards Brunxum and the borderland of Dorset to walk suited better with his impatience than to be driven by a possibly stupid fly man and to have the fly pulled up every five minutes for the stupid fly man to interrogate a probably more stupid pedestrian who would inevitably prove a stranger in these parts as if the inhabitants never walked abroad no he would find Rosencrantz Mrs. Tolle marched his villa for himself he had been told it was near Brunxum Chine swift of foot and keen of apprehension he succeeded in last time than any fly man would have done yes this was the villa, red brick gabled, curtained with Virginia Creeper from chimneys downwards Virginia Creeper not yet touched by Autumn's ruddy fingers and with roses enough in the well-capped garden to justify the name which fancy had given he opened the light iron gate and went into the garden a somewhat spacious garden she was there perhaps at a great rate he would explore before confronting servant drawing rune and unknown lady of the house the garden was so pretty and the morning was so fine that if within the precinct surely she would be in the garden he went boldly round the house via shrubberied walk and saw a fine lawn on a breezy height above the chine facing the sunlit sea and the wooded dip that went down were blown about in the fresh morning air dropping a rain of pink and yellow on the smooth short turf he saw the sea westward sapphire blue through an arch of reddest roses and beyond that archway close to the edge of the cliff as it seemed in the perspective there was a bench with a red and white awning and sitting under that awning a figure in a white frock a slender waist, a graceful throat a small dark head which he would have known from a thousand girlish heads and throats and waists for him, the girl of girls he knew that restless foot lightly tapping the grass as she looked seaward was there not weariness of life rebellion against fate in that quick movement of the slender foot she was waiting for happiness and for him he ran to her sat down by her side had taken both her hands and his eye of surprise my darling, my darling he murmured now and forever my own she snatched her hands away and started to her feet indignantly anger flashed in the dark eyes and flushed the pale olive cheeks and then her frown changed to an ironical smile and she stood looking at him almost contemptuously I think you forget Mr. Warnock that it is a long time since the Romans ran away with the Sabines you mean that I am too impetuous? I mean that you are too absurd is it absurd to love the sweetest woman in the world the prettiest, the most enchanting Suzette I tore back from the heart's mountains because I was told you were free free to wed the man who loves you with all the passion of his soul when I told you of my love months ago you were bound to another man you were resolutely bent upon keeping your promise to him I had no option but to withdraw to fight my battle and try to live without you I did try Suzette I left the ground clear for my rival I was self banished from my own home you need not have been banished I could have kept away from this comb that would have distressed my mother whose happiness depends on your society Suzette you know how she loves you to see you my wife will make her very happy she has taken you to her heart as a daughter not so much as she has taken Alan Carew to her heart it was for his sake she liked me I could see when we parted that it was of Alan she thought it was for him she was sorry I don't think she will ever forgive me for making Alan unhappy not if her only son's happiness is bought with that price Suzette why do you keep me at arm's length now when there is nothing to part us now while I know that you love me you have no right to say that if you know it you know more than I know myself Suzette Suzette do you deny your love she was crying with her hands over her averted face he tried to draw those hands away eager to look into her eyes he would not believe me or words only in her eyes could he read the truth I deny your right to question me now while my heart is aching for Alan Alan whom I like in respect more than any man living he is the best friend I have in the world after my father he ever will be my cherished and trusted friend if in some great unhappiness I needed any other friend than my father badly wickedly as I have behaved to him it is to Alan I would go for help what not to me do you know more than I would appeal to a whirlwind you think me so unreasonable a creature yes unreasonable it is unreasonable in you to come here today you must know that I am sorry for having behaved so badly deeply sorry for Alan's disappointment I begin to think it is a pity I am disappointed him if nobody is to profit by your release oh forgive me forgive me I should have killed myself if you had persisted at least you have saved a life I hope you are glad of that I cannot talk to you while you are so foolish is it foolish to tell you the truth I bear my heart to you to the woman I want for my wife I am a creature full of faults but for you I could become anything I would be as wax oh Suzette is not love enough is it not enough for any woman to be loved as I love you you cannot love me better than Alan did though he never talked as wildly as you Alan it is not in his nature to love or to suffer as I do he was not born under the same burning star all the forces of nature where it wore when I was born Suzette my Swiss nurse told me of the tempest that was lashing the lake and roaring over the wilderness when I came into the world with something of that storm in my heart and brain be my good genius Suzette saved me from my darker storm yourself make and mold me into an amiable order loving English gentlemen I am your slave you have but to order me and I shall submit as meekly as the trained dog who lies down at his mistress's feet and shams the stillness of death tell me to fetch and carry tell me to die I will do your bidding dog she gave a trouble sigh and looked at him pale and perplexed in deep distress his pleading moved her as no words of Alan's had ever done and yet there was more of fear than of love in the emotion that he awakened I've only one thing in the world to ask of you she said in a low agitated voice I asked you to leave me to myself I came here almost among strangers in order that I might be calm and quiet and away from the associations of the past year you must forgive me Mr. Warnock if I say that it was cruel of you to follow me here cruel for passionate love to follow the beloved Mr. Warnock to how formal Suzette if you do not love me if I am nothing to you why did you joke Karoo I asked him to release me because I felt I did not love him well enough to be his wife only that only that as time went on I felt more and more acutely that I could not give him love for love and you cared for no one else there was no other reason he insisted trying to take her hand I've hardly asked myself that question and I will not be questioned by you she rose and moved away he following Mr. Warnock I'm going into the house I beg you not to persecute me it was persecution to come here today give me hope I cannot leave you without hope I can nothing more than I have said my heart is sore for Alan Alan is first in my thoughts and must be for a long time I hate myself for having behaved so badly to him and what of your behavior to me how cold how cruel oh thank heaven here comes Mrs. Tomash and her daughter now you must go he looked round and saw a middle-aged lady in a chair being wheeled across the lawn a girl in a pink frock pushing her chair he gave Susette a despairing look picked up his hat from the grass and walked quickly away he was in no mood to make the acquaintance of the pink frock or the lady in the chair though that plump benevolent person with neat little gray curls clustering round a fair forehead he walked back to the nearest station angry beyond measure and paced the platform for an hour waiting for the train for eastly and with half a mind to throw himself under the first express that came shrieking by yet that were basest surrender she is possessed by a devil of obstinacy he told himself but the stronger devil within me shall master her while the more fiery and arrogant of Susette's lovers was raging against her coldness resolved to bear down all opposing forces to ride rough shot over every obstacle her gentler and more conscientious lover was hiding his grief in the quiet of that level an unromantic land on which his eyes had first opened no tempest had raged when Alan was born he had entered life amidst no granures of mountain and glacier arrested avalanche and flashing torrent an English home English to intensity had been his cradle a mild even tempered mother a father in whom a gentle melancholy was the prevailing characteristic growing up under such home influences Alan Carew had something of womanly gentleness interwoven with the strong fiber of a fine manly nature he had the womanly capacity to suffer in silence to submit to fate and to make a very humble place at the banquet of life well he was not destined to be happy she had never loved him never he had won her by sheer persistency he had imposed upon her yielding nature upon the amiability which makes it so hard for some women to say no she had always been friendly and kind and sweet but the signs and tokens of love had been wanting if she would have been content to marry him upon those friendly terms content to forego the glamour of romantic love all might have been well love would have followed marriage in the quiet years of a wedded life the watchful kindnesses of an adoring husband must have won her heart yes but for Jeffrey Warnock's appearance on the scene all might have been well Suzette would have married Alan and the years would have made liking love Jeffrey's was the fatal influence contrast without fiery nature had made Alan seem adullard this is what the forsaken lover told himself as he roamed about the autumn fields the fertile levels where all the soil he trod on was his own and had belonged to his ancestors when the clank of armed feet was still a common thing in the land his pet was your swiftest motive travel the shooting had begun and the houses of Suffolk were full of guests and the squires of Suffolk had mustered their guns and were doing their best to beat the record of last year and all the years that were gone but Alan had no heart for so much as a morning tramp across the stubble the flavour and the freshness were gone out of light he gave his shooting to a neighbour and old friend of his fathers while his own days were spent in long walks by stream and mill rays, pine wood and common in any direction that offered the best chance of solitude he wrote to Suzette with grave kindness apologising for his angry vehemence in the hour of their parting he expatiated sorrowfully upon that which might have been I think I must have known all along that you had no romantic love for me he wrote but I would have been content to have your liking in exchange for my passionate love I should not have thought myself a loser had you put the case in the plainest words you idolise me and I well I think you an estimable young man and I have no objection to be your idol accepting your devotion and giving you a sisterly regard in exchange there are men who would think that a bad bargain but I am not made of such proud stuff your friendship would have been more precious to me than any other woman's love and I should have been happy infinitely happy could I have won you on those terms but it was not to be and now my heart turns cold every time the post bag is open lest it should hold the letter that will tell me Jeffrey Warnock has won the prize that I have lost be Suzette they are happening every day and hearts are breaking quietly may you be happy my dear lost love whatever I may be much as he might desire solitude it was impossible for Alan to escape his fellow man through the month of September in such a happy shooting ground as that in which his property lay in that part of Suffolk people knew of hunting as a barber's form of sport somewhat affected woodlands and a fox was considered a beast of prey the guns had it all their own way in those woods which Alan's great grandfather had planted and over the turnips which Alan's tenants had sung among the shooters who were profiting by his hospitality it was inevitable that he should meet someone he knew and that someone happened to be a man with whom he had been on the friendliest terms five years before during a big shoot in the neighborhood they met at a dinner at the house of the jovial squire to whom Alan had given his shooting a five mile drive from fendike lady Emily had persuaded her son to accept the invitation his father had been dead six months though she the widow would go nowhere it might seem churlish in the sun to hold himself aloof from old friends and you don't want to be wearing the willow for that shallow hearted girl I hope at it lady Emily it was very angry with Suzette no he did not want to wear the willow to pose as a victim so he accepted Mr. Meadow Banks invitation it was to be only a friendly dinner only the house party and among the house party Alan found his old acquaintance Cecil Patrington a man who had spent the best years of his life in Africa and had won renown among sportsmen as a hunter of big gain a weather beaten athlete brawny strong of limb with bronze forehead and copper colored neck I think you were just back from Bacuana land when we last met said Alan in the unreserved of squire Meadow Banks luxurious smoke room and you were going back to the Cape when the shooting was over have you been in Africa ever since yes I've been moving about most of the time here and there in Central South Africa between Rosaville and Tabora now on one side of the lake now on the other which lake Tangyanyika it's a delightful district only it's getting a doosed deal too well known Burton was a glorious fellow and he had a glorious career no man can ever enjoy life in Africa like that there are steamers on the lake now and one meets babies and these babies with a profound sigh I've looked for a record of your exploits at the geographical oh I don't go in for that kind of thing you see I read a paper once and it didn't pay I am not a literary cove like Burton and I haven't the gift of the gab like Stanley who is a literary cove too by the way I ain't a scientific explorer I don't care a hang what becomes of the water don't you know I like the lakes for their own sake and the niggers for their own sake I don't dismiss of it all and the variety and the danger of it all if I discovered a new lake or an unknown forest I should keep the secret to myself that's my view of Africa I ain't a geographer I ain't a missionary I ain't a trader I like Africa because it's jolly because there ain't any other place in the world worth living in to the man who has once been there shall you ever go again shall I ever Mr. Patrington laughed at the question and said, do you, said Alan, I should like to go with you why not, asked Mr. Patrington End of Chapter 24 Chapter 25 of Sons of Fire by Mary Elizabeth Bratton this LibriVox recording is in the public domain if she be not fair to me Jeffrey Warnock went back to the disco and his mother read failure and mortification in his gloomy countenance but he vouched safe no confidence he was not sullen or unkind he lived and that was about as much as could be said of him the fiddles which were to him as Jerry's friends lay mute in their cases he seemed to regard that spacious music room with its lofty ceiling and noble capacity for sound as the captive line regards his cage a place in which to roam about and pace to and fro restless, miserable, unsatisfied he did not complain and his mother dared not attempt to console once she pressed his hand and whispered patience but he only shook his head fretfully and walked out of the room patience yes he muttered to himself I could be patient as patient as Jacob when he waited for Rachel if I were sure she loved me but I've begun to doubt even that who if she knew what love meant she would have rushed into my arms she would have swooned upon my breast in the shock of that meeting but she sat prim and quiet only a little pale and tearful while I was shaken by a tempest of passion she is capable of no more than a schoolgirl's love held in check by the pettiest restraints of good manners on the world's opinion and she has hardly decided whether that feeble flame burns for me or for Allen and then he began to preach to himself the sermon which almost every slighted swing has preached since the world began what was this woman that he should die of heartache for her was she so much feared than other women whom he might have for the wooing no again and again no he could conjure fairer faces out of the past faces he had gazed at and praised and which had left him cold she was not as handsome as Miss Simpson at Simla last year that Miss Simpson who had thrown herself or as Miss Brown had 90 tall General Brown's daughter who looked like a hoary and who waltzed like a thing of air imparting buoyancy and grace to the lumpiest of partners he had not cared a straw for Miss Brown even although the general had hinted to him in the after dinner freedom of the mess room that Miss Brown had an exalted opinion of him no he had cared for neither of these girls though either might have been his for the asking perhaps that was why he did not care he was madly in love with Suzette whom he had known only as another man's betrothed Suzette represented the unattainable and for Suzette he could die he hardly left the bounds of discombe during those bright autumnal days when the music of the hounds was loud overfield and down he had severed himself from most of the friends of his manhood by leaving the army and in match him he had only acquaintance from these he kept scrupulously aloof one match in person however he could not escape mrs. Mornington surprised him in the music room with his mother one afternoon and instead of running away as he would have done from anyone else he stayed and handed tea cups with supreme amiability he knew she would talk of Suzette that was inevitable she has scarcely settled herself in a comfortable arm chair when she began well mrs. Warnock have you seen anything more of this niece of mine of course there could be only one oh indeed she has not come back from Bournemouth has she oh yes she has she has come and gone I made sure she would pay you a visit you and she were always so thick I believe she has found review than she is of me Jeffrey began to walk about the room as softly as the park headed floor would allow listening intently eager as it was to hear he could not sit still while Suzette was being discussed mrs. Warnock murmured a gentle negative oh but she is you know there is that said mrs. Mornington pointing to the organ and that pointing to the piano and your son as a fiddler you are music mad all of you Suzette took to practicing five hours a day it was Chopin Rubenstein Beethoven and Mendelssohn all day long she looks upon me as an outsider because I don't appreciate classical music I wonder she didn't run over to see you has she gone back to Bournemouth not she my foolish brother took fright about her because she was worried and worried when she came home so he whisked her off to London took her to a doctor in Mayfair who said Schwabach and to Schwabach they are gone and I believe after a course of iron at Schwabach where they will meet no civilized beings at this time of year they are to winter on the Riviera and a pretty penny these whims and fancies will cost her father I'm glad I have no daughters poor Alan such a fine honest hearted young man she ought to thank God for such a sweet heart I dare say if he had been a reprobate and a bankrupt she would have offered to go through fire and water for him Geoffrey walked out at the open window which afforded such a ready escape she was gone heartless selfish girl gone without a word of farewell without a whisper of hope Alan returned to match him a few days after Mrs. Mornington's appearance at Disco and in spite of his dark doubts about Geoffrey his first visit was to Mrs. Warnock she was shocked at the change in him he was pale and thin and serious looking and before his gray tweed suit might have been mistaken for a city person with a populist hungry parish she talked to him about Lady Emily in the farm had he been shooting were there many birds this year she talked of the most frivolous things in order to ward off painful subjects but he himself spoke of Suzette she has gone away I'm told for the whole winter Marsh houses shut up I never knew the bright home like house it was till I saw it this morning with the shutters shut and the gates padlocked there was not even a dog to bark at me she has gone far afield but I'm going a good deal farther and then he told her with a certain excitement of his meeting with Cecil Patrington and his approaching departure for Zanzibar it was the luckiest thing in the world for me he said I've not the least idea what to do with myself or where to go to get out of myself the little I have seen of the continent rather bored me picture gallery cathedral table dote a theater invariably shut up a river reported delightful and navigable but not navigable at the time being the same thing and the same thing not very interesting to a man or can't reckon the age of a cathedral to within a century or two over and over again but this will be new this will mean excitement I shall feel as if I were born again the wonder will be to myself at least that I don't come home black when you think you will find consolation in Africa I hope to find forgetfulness poor Alan poor Jeffrey it is a hard thing that you should both suffer mr. warlock sufferings will soon be over I take it rapture and not suffering will be the dominant in the scale of his life he will have everything his own way when I'm gone I don't think he will he has not confided his secrets to me but I believe he has offered himself to her since her engagement was broken and has been rejected he will offer himself again and will be accepted there are conventionalities to be observed this Vincent would not like people to say that she transferred her affection from lover to lover with hardly a week's interval I only know that my son is very unhappy Alan so as a sport child when he can't have the moon your son will get the moon all in good time only we'll have to wait for it and sport children don't like waiting how bitterly you speak of him Alan I hope you are not going to be ill it is not his fault that she has thrown me over at the eleventh hour it is only his good fortune to be more attractive than I am it was the contrast with his brilliancy that showed her my dullness he has the magnetism which I have not genius perhaps or at least the air and suggestion of genius one hardly knows what constitutes the real thing I'm one of the crowd he is the marked individuality which fascinates or repels and you will be friends still Alan my poor willful son and you he is like a ship without a rudder now that he has left the army he has no intimate friends he cannot rest long in one place I never wanted him to steal your sweetheart Alan I'm sure you know that but I should be very glad to see him married you will see him married before long and to the lady who was once my sweetheart Mrs. Warknock shook her head and the argument was closed by the appearance of Geoffrey himself who came sauntering in from the garden with his favorite clumber banyl at his heels been shooting Alan asked as they shook hands there was a certain aloofness in their greeting but nothing churlish or sullen in the manner of either on Geoffrey's side there was only listlessness on Alan's grave reserve now I look at my dogs every day the keepers do the rest you are not fond of shooting not particularly not of creeping about at cops on the lookout for a cock pheasant still lest I love a hot corner he seated himself on the bench by the organ and began to turn over a pile of music idly, baconly almost not as if he were looking for anything in particular Alan rose to gum as his Warknock followed him to the corridor does he not look wretched and wretchedly ill she asked appealingly her own unhappiness visible in every line of her face he has certainly changed for the worse since I saw him last that was a longish time ago you may remember he looks hipped and worried he should go away as I'm going not like you Alan to a savage country I wish he would take me to idly for the winter we could move from place to place we could change the scene as often as he liked I fear the mind would be the same the earth and sky might change traveling upon beaten paths would only bore him if he is unhappy and you are unhappy about him you'd better let him come with patronton and me the offer was made on the impulse of the moment out of sympathy with the mother rather than out of regard for the son no no I could not bear to lose him again so soon what would my life be like if you were both gone I should lapse into the old loneliness I should bring back the old dreams the old vain longing these last words were murmured brokenly in self communion Alan left her and she went back to the music room where Jeffrey had seated himself at the piano and was playing a Spanish dance by Sara Sata for the edification of the Spaniard who looked agonized what have you been saying to Kuru mother he asked stopping in the middle of a phrase nothing of any importance Alan is going to Central Africa Mr. Patrington a Mr. Patrington I suppose you mean Cecil Patrington yes that is the name End of Chapter 25 Chapter 26 of Sons of Fire by Maria Elizabeth Bratton this LibriVox recording is in the public domain I go to prove my soul Alan lost no time in making his preparations he ordered everything that Mr. Patrington told him to order and in all things followed the advice of that experienced traveller who consented to spend his last fortnight in England at Beachhurst where his parents excited considerable interest in the local mind he allowed Alan to mount him and went out with the South Serum and as he neither dressed road nor looked like anybody else he was the object of some curiosity among those outsiders who did not know him as the famous African Hunter a man who had made himself a name casually while following the bent of his own fancy and carrying nothing what his countrymen at home thought about him Lady Emily was her son's guest during the last week anxious to be with him till he sailed to postpone the party till the final day she was full of sorrow at the end of a separation which was to last for at least two years and might extend to double that time if the climate and the manner of life in Central Africa suited him Stanley had taken nearly a year and a half going and returning between Zanzibar and Ugg and Stanley had been a much quicker traveller than previous explorers and Mr. Patrington talked to Ugg as a starting point for journeys to the north to the west rambling explorations over less familiar regions and an on a leisurely journey down to Nassaland the African Arcadia his plans if carried out would occupy five or six years that sturdy traveller laughed at the mother's apprehensions my dear lady Emily you are under a delusion as to the remoteness of the great lake country should your son grow homesick a three-month journey will bring him from the Tanganyika to the Thames sixty years ago it took longer to travel from Bombay to London than it does now to come from the heart of Africa the mother sighed and looked mournfully at her son he was unhappy and travel and adventure would perhaps afford the best cure for his low spirits she discussed the situation with Mrs. Mornington when that lady called upon her my niece has acted very cruelly she said my niece has acted like a fool she has made two young men unhappy and left herself out in the cold I saw Jeffrey Warnock last week and he was looking a perfect wreck do you think she cared for him the girl must care for somebody looking back now I can see that there was a change in her a gradual change after Jeffrey Warnock's return it was very unfortunate that young men would have been a capital match added Mrs. Mornington waxing practical but she could not marry them both lady Emily felt angry with Jeffrey as the cause of unhappiness the indirect cause of the coming separation between herself and her son how happy she might have been had all gone smoothly Alan would have settled at Beechhurst with his young wife but they would have spent nearly half of every year how happy her own life might have been with the son she loved and the girl whom she was ready to take to her heart as a daughter but for this willful cruelty on the part of Suzette lady Emily was sitting in the Mandarin room with her son and his friend laid in the evening their last evening but one in England tomorrow they were all going to London together and on the day after the travellers would embark on the P&O for Zanzibar the night was wet and windy and a large wood fire burnt and crackled on the ample heart lady Emily had her embroidered coverlet spread over her lap and a work table drawn conveniently near her elbow in the light of a shaded lamp while the two men lounged in luxuries chairs in front of the fire the room looked the picture of comfort the men, companionable content and homely at the thought that years must pass before such an evening could repeat itself and before her poor Alan would be sitting in so comfortable a chair it was not without regret that her son had contemplated the idea of their separation or of his mother's solitary home when he should be gone he had talked with her of the coming years suggested the nieces or girlfriends whom she might invite to enliven the slumber's house the mortal gardens and level park-like meadows that stretch to the edge of the river you have troops of friends mother and you will have plenty of occupation with your farm and sovereign power over the whole estate Drake the bailiff will have to consult you about everything yes there will be much to be looked at and thought about but I shall miss you every hour of my life Alan not as much as if I had been living at home I was quite happy thinking of you here how can I be happy when I picture you toiling alone in the desert under a broiling sun no water even the camels dropping and dying under their burdens dear mother be happy as to the camels we shall not be in the camel country we shall see very little of sandy deserts shadowy woods fertile valleys the margins of great lakes will be our portion and you will drink the water which is sure to be unwholesome and you will get fever Alan did not tell his mother that fever was inevitable a phase of African life which every traveller must reckon with he represented African travel as a perpetual holiday in the land of infinite beauty with patreon go back there if it were not a delightful life he argued he is not to get his living there as the poor fellows have who grill and bake themselves for half a lifetime in India he loves the life he goes to jubu big game he is a horrid bloodthirsty creature little by little however lady Emily had allowed herself to be persuaded that Central Africa was not so hideous a region as she had supposed she was told that there were bits of country like Suffolk a home like Arcadia on the shores of Na'asa which would remind her of her own farm and why not make that district your headquarters she argued appealing to patreon we shall have no headquarters we shall wander from one interesting spot to another we shall settle down only in the masika season when travelling is out of the question not so much because it couldn't be done as because the black keys won't do it they are uncommonly careful of themselves won't budge in the rains won't take a canoe on the lake if there's a bit of a swell on I'm glad of that side lady Emily with an air of relief the niggers are prudent and careful a lucid deal to prudent my dear lady Emily the men were sitting at a table looking at a map one of patreon's own rough maps scrawled in splotch with a blunt quill pen he was showing Alan where more scientific map makers had gone wrong here's the Lua Laba you see and here's the little wood where we camped I seldom use a tent if I can help it but there wasn't a village 10 miles of that spot the door was opened and a servant announced Mr. Warnock Alan started up surprised thrown off his balance by Jeffery's entrance it was half past 10 match him bedtime you have come to bit us goodbye Alan said recovering his self-possession as they shook hands this is very kind and friendly of you I've come to do nothing of the kind I want to join your party if you and your friend will have me he spoke in his lightest tone he was looking worn and ill and there were all the signs of sleeplessness and worry in his haggard face I know it's the 11th hour he said but I heard you say looking from Alan to patrington that your important preparations have to be made at Zanzibar where you buy most of the things you want I I only made up my mind this evening after dinner I'm bored in England there's nothing for me to do I get so tired of things and your mother has it Alan I don't know what she's talking about me I believe I only worry her when I am at home will you take me Karoo yes or no why of course it is yes Mr. Warnock exclaimed Lady Emily coming from the other end of the room where she had been folding up her work for the night Alan why don't you introduce Mr. Warnock to me she was radiant charmed at the idea of a third traveler and such a traveler as the squire of discomb it seemed to lessen the peril of the expedition that this other man should want to go he should offer himself thus lightly on the eve of departure she shook hands with Jeffrey in the friendliest way looking at the wand worn face with keen interest like Alan yes he was like but not so good looking his features were too sharply cut his hollow cheeks and sunken eyes made him look ever so much older than Alan thought the mother admiring her own son above all the world of course they will take you she said looking from one to the other so much pleasanter for them both they will feel less lonely I ain't afraid of lonelyness growl patron but if Mr. Warnock really wishes to go with us and will fall into our plans and not want to make alterations and upset our root now and again I'm agreeable it isn't always easy for three men to get on smoothly you see even two don't always hit it Burton and speak for instance there were bothers you shall be my chief and captain protested Jeffrey and if you should tire of me I can always wander off on my own hook you know I could start by myself now take my chance and trust in native guides choose another line of country where I couldn't molest you molest my dear Warnock if you are really in earnest really inclined to join us as a pleasant thing to do and not a caprice of the moment I should be glad to have you and I think patronton will have no objection said Alan hastily not the slightest only want unity of purpose you don't look in the best possible health added patronton bluntly but you can rock that I suppose yes I'm not afraid of hardships I should like to have a few words with you before anything is settled if you will take a turn on the terrace said Alan and on Jeffrey ascenting he went over to the glass door and led the way to the gravel walk outside the rain was over and the moon was shining out of a ragged mass of cloud why do you leave this place now when you are master of the situation really when he and Jeffrey have walked a few paces I'm not master no more than a beaten hound is master I've mastered nothing not even the lukewarm regard which she still professes for you she has thrown you over but I'm not to be the gainer I went to her directly I knew she was free I offered myself to her an adoring slave but she would have none of me she did not love you enough to be your wife but for me she had only contempt cruel words mocking laughter that cut me like a bunch of scorpions I'm frank with you Karu if I had a ghost of a chance I would follow her to Schwalbach to the Riviera all around this globe on which we crawl and suffer distance should not divide us but I'm too much a man to pursue a woman who scorns me I want to forget her I mean to forget her and I think I might have a chance if I went with you in your chamd yonder I should like to go with you unless you dislike me too much to be happy in my company dislike you no indeed I do not I'm glad of that my mother's very fond of you you have been to her almost as a son it will comfort her to think that we are together together in danger and difficulty and if one of us should not come back nonsense we're not of course we are coming back look at patronton ah but he has been a solitary traveler when to go there's always one who stays if you think that you'd much better stop at home no no the risk is the best part of the business to a man of my temper it's the toss-up that I like heads a safe return tails death in the wilderness death by niggers wild bees flat or fire I go with my life in my hand as the catchphrase of the day has it and if there were no hazards no danger well one might as well stay at home or play polo at Simla Alan we've been rivals but not enemies shall we be brothers hence forward yes friends and brothers if you will they went back to the Mandarin room and when lady Emily had been in them good night the three men lit up pipes and cigars worried about that wonder world of tropical Africa and what they were to do there till that night grew late and the man of room nosing on the saddle by the saddle room fire after a hearty supper of beef and beer questioned quarellisly whether his governor meant to go home before daylight end of chapter 26 chapter 27 of sons of fire by Mary Elizabeth Braden this LibriVox recording is in the public domain black and white a year and more spring and summer, autumn and winter had gone by since Alan Carew and his companions set their faces towards the dark continent and now it was spring again the early spring of central Africa and under the pale cloudless blue of a tropical sky three white men with their modest following of Wangwana and Wani Yamweezy a company no bigger than that with which captain trivia crossed from shore to shore camped beside the sea of Ugg they had come from the east and the journey from the coast opposite Zanzibar taken very easily with many halting places on the way had occupied the best part of a year some of those resting places had been chosen for sport for exploration for repose after weary and troublesome stages sometimes a long halt had been forced upon the travelers by sickness, by inclement weather, by the rebellion or the perversity of their men those porters upon whose endurance and goodwill their comfort and safety alike depended in a land where it has been truly said luggage is life that marked from Bagatmoyo Stanley's starting point through the vicissitudes of the road and the seasons had not been all pleasure and there were darker hours on the way when toiling on with aching head and blistered feet half stifled by the rank mists and poisonous odors of a jungle that smelt of death Alan Carew and his companions may have wished themselves back in the beaten paths of a civilized world where there is no need to think of bed or dinner and where all that life requires for sustenance and comfort seems to come of itself but if there had been weak yearnings for the comfortable as opposed to the adventurous not one of the three travelers had ever given indication of such backsliding each in his turn stricken down not once but often by the deadly Mukunguru or African fever had rallied and girded his loins for their journey without an hours needless delay and then on recovery there had followed a fervent joy in life and nature a rapture in the atmosphere a keener eye for every changeful light and color in earth and sky the blissful sensations about newly created being basking in a new world it was almost worth a man's while to pass through the painful stages of that deadly fever the egg you fit and linger the yawning and drowsiness which marked the beginning of sickness the raging thirst and throbbing temples the aching spine and hideous visions which are its later agonies in order to feel the mercy of restored health when the convalescent sees ineffable loveliness even in the dull monotony of rolling woods and thrills with friendship and love for the dusky companions of his journey loneliness and horror, pleasantness and danger a startling variety of scenes had been traversed between the red coast of eastern Africa and that vast inland sea where many rivers meet and mingle in the deep bosom of the mountains across the monotony of rolling woods that rise and fall in a seemingly endless sequence by fever-haunted plains and swampy hollows through the dripping scrub of the Makata wilderness in all the dull horror of the Masika season when the long swaths of tiger grass lie rotting under the brooding mists that curtain the foul-smelling waste when the Makata river has changed from a narrow stream and in whose shallow waters trees and canes and lush green parasites subside into tangle masses of putrid vegetation until to the traveler's weary eye it seems as if this very earth were slowly rotting in an universal and final decay they had come through many a settlement friendly or unfriendly through rivers difficult to cross by fort or ferry difficult and costly too for dusky sultans who take toll of these white adventurers at every ferry sometimes rival chiefs who set up a claim to the same ferry and have to be defied or satisfied generally the latter through many a guet apan where the wit-wit of the long arrows sounded a thwart the woods as the travelers hurried by through scenes of beauty and romantic grandeur between sword diversified with noble timber calmly picturesque as an English park a hunter's paradise of big gain they had journeyed at a leisurely pace loitering wherever nature invited to enjoyment their camp of the simplest their followers as few as the absolute necessities of the route demanded by the same forest paths fighting his way through the same inexorable jungle Curtin had come on his famous voyage of discovery to the unknown lake and by the same or almost the same paths Stanley had followed in his search for the great god-fearing traveler brave and calm and patient who had made Africa his own and here had come Cameron meeting that dead lord of untrodden lands journeying on other men's shoulders no longer the guide and chief but the silent companion of our sorrowful pilgrimage lonely as the way might be it was peopled with heroic memories I should like to have been the first to come this way Jeffrey had said with a vexed air as he twirled the tattered leaves of Burton's book which with Stanley's and Cameron's travels and Gerdas Faust composed the whole of his library you would always like to be the first Alan answered laughingly is it not enough for you that you are the mightiest hunter of us three the father of meat as our boys call you and that finer giraffes and heart beasts have fallen before your gun than even Patrington can boast experienced sportsmen though he is Patrington assented with a lazy comfortable laugh stretched his legs on the reed mat under the rough veranda and refilled his pipe he was content to take the second place in the record of sport and to let this restless fiery spirit satisfy its feverish impulses in the toils and perils of the jungle or the plain here was a young man with an insatiable love of sport an activity of brain and body which nothing tired and it was just as well to let him work for the party while the older traveler and nominal chief of the expedition basked in the February sun and read Pickwick a little brown leather bound bible which he had used of good many years before at Harrow and a dozen or so of Tal Snitz volumes all by the same author and all tattered and torn in years of travel and continual re perusal constituted Mr. Patrington's talk of literature Alan was the only member of the party who had burdened himself with a varied library of a dozen or so of those classics which a man cannot read too much or too often for indeed could any man not actually a student exercise so much restraint over himself as to restrict his reading for three or four years to a dozen or so of the world's greatest books that man would possess himself of a better literary capital than the finest library in London or Paris can provide a reader hurrying from author to author from history to metaphysics from Homer to Horace from Herodotus to Frude and wasting years of careless reading upon those snares to the idle reader books about books half the intelligent readers in England know more about Mr. Paters opinion of Shelley or Mr. Foreman's estimate of Keats than they know of the poems that made Shelley and Keats famous Dickens reigned alone in Cecil Patrington's Mr. Ray Valhalla he always talked to the author of Pickwick as he or him like Mr. DeMaurier's fine gentlemen who thought there was only one man in London who could make a hat Mr. Patrington would only recognize one humorist and one writer of fiction how he would have enjoyed this kind of life he said what fun he would have got out of those crocodiles would a word picture he would have made of our storms and the naseca rains and those rolling woods that illimitable forest other side of you conongo and how he would have understood all the ins and outs in the minds of our Zanzibarys and of the various nigger chiefs whose society we have enjoyed and whose demands we have had to satisfy upon the road have they minds as Jeffrey with dope and scorn I doubt the existence of anything you can call mind in the African cranium hunger and greed are the motive power that moves the native mechanism but mind know they are ferocious instincts such as beasts have and the craving for food feed them and they will love you today but they will rob and murder you tomorrow if they see the chance of gaining by the transaction oh come I won't have our boys maligned I've lived among them for years remember where you are only a newcomer granted that they are greedy they are only greedy as children they are like children exactly they are like children they could not be like anything worse what? cried patrington with a look of horror have you no faith in the goodness and purity of a child in its goodness not a wit purity yes the purity of ignorance which we call in a sense and pretend to admire as an exquisite and touching attribute of the undeveloped human being these blackies are just as good and just as bad as the average child greedy grasping selfish selfish grasping greedy ready to kiss the feet of a man who comes back to the village with an antelope on his shoulder ready to send a poisoned air after him if on parting company he refuses to be swindled out of cloth or beads they are bad patrington if I were not a disciple of lock I would say they are innately bad but what does that matter we are all bad what a pleasant way you have of looking at life fellow men said patrington I look life and my fellow men full in the face and I ask myself if there is any man living whose nature noble perhaps according to the world's esteem does not include a latent capacity for evil every man and every woman the best as well as the worst is a potential criminal do you think that mcbeth who came over the heat that sundown after the battle was a scoundrel not he there was not a captain the scottish army more loyally devoted to his king he was only an ambitious man temptation and opportunity did all the rest temptation where it only strong enough and opportunity would make a murderer of you or me lead us not into temptation a wondrous wise and simple prayer which rises every night and morning out of the mouths of babes and sucklings over all the christian world the phrases includes every aspiration needful for humanity said ceso patrington who was in matters theological just where he had been when his boyish head was about under the episcopal hand on the day of his confirmation far away from new books and new opinions knowing not the names of spencer or clifford schopenhauer or hartman this rough travelers religion was the religion of paul domby of hester summerson and agnes wittfield and little knell of all the gentlest creatures in the pantheon of charles dickens there was leisure and despair for argument and discussion here in this quiet settlement on the shore of the great lake the travelers had established themselves in a deserted tomb which had been allotted to them by the arab chieftain of the land and which was pleasantly situated on a ridge of rising ground about a mile from the busy village of eugigi they had done all that laborious ingenuity could do to purify the rough clay structure ridding it as far as possible of the plague of insects that crawled in the darkness below or buzzed in the thatch above of the rats which the dusk of evening brought out in gay and familiar riot and the snakes that followed in their train and the huge black spiders whose webs choked every corner they had knocked out openings under the deep eaves of the thatch roof openings which allowed of cross currents of air and were regarded by their zanzibarys and yunni and yambies with absolute horror only once in their pilgrimage had they found a hut with windows what does a man want in his tomb with warmth and shelter and how can these white men be so foolish as to make openings that let in the cold argued the native mind nor was the native mind less exercised by the trouble these three white men took to keep their tomb and its surroundings the veranda the ground about it severely clean or by their war of extermination against that insect life whose ravages the african suffers with a stoical indifference the travelers had established themselves in this convenient spot close to the port and market of yujiji to wait for the masika the season of rain that reigneth every day rain that closes round the camp like a dense wall of water such rain as a man must go to the tropics to see in which once having seen he is not likely to forget they could hardly be better off anywhere when the rains of april should come upon them than they would be here the natives were friendly friendly too, friendly and kind and helpful was the mighty arab chief Ruma Riza the white arab sovereign lord of these regions sold master here where the scepter of the sultan of zanzibar which is not a man whose word is law and whose hand is plenty Ruma Riza looked upon siso patrington's party with the eye of favor and upon patrington as an old friend they almost a subject of his own so familiar was patrington's bronze face in those regions where he had come close upon the footsteps of cameron and when that lake land of tropical africa was still a new world untrodden by the white man's foot the waters of the lake still unexplored the vast country of rua unknown even to the arabs edugigi provisions were plentiful and even cheap edugigi there were boat builders and canoes and rowers were at hand for the exploration of the vast freshwater sea indeed there was only too much civilization and human life to please that son of the wilderness siso patrington i loved the unknown better than the known we shall never see the lake again as Burton saw it before ever the sound of engine and paddle wheel had been heard on that broad blue expanse when the monkeys chattered and screamed and slung themselves from tree to tree in tumult of wonder at sight of the white wave error nobody can ever enjoy the sense of rapture and surprise that took cameron's breath away as he looked down from the hills and saw the wide reaching pale blue he took the lake itself for a cloud at the first glance and a little inlet for the lake and asked his men with bitter as chagrin is this all and then the niggers pointed and these vast waters spread themselves out of the cloud and he saw this mighty sea shining out of its dark frame of mountain and palm forests Jupiter what a moment I could never enjoy that surprise I had read cameron's book and he had discounted the situation for me and he had swindled me out of my emotions I knew the breadth and length of the lake to within a mile no chance of mistake for me yes I said here is the Tanganyika and it is a very fine sheet of blue water and pray where is the swiss porter to take my luggage or where shall I find the omnibus for the best hotel mark me last before we have been long underground there will be hotels and omnibuses and swiss porters and the cooks and gazes of the future will deal in through tickets to the African lakes and this great heart of Africa will be the Englishman's favorite holiday ground let but the tramway Stanley talks about be laid from Bhagat Moya to the interior and Harry will be lord of central Africa as he is of the rest of the earth idle talk and idle hours beside the campfire though the days were as sunny and summer like as February on the river area the nights were cold and after sundown masters and men like to sit by their fires and watch the pine would crackle and the flames leap through the smoke like living things vanish and reappear fade into darkness or flicker into light with swifter and more sudden movement than even the thoughts of the men who watched them the porters and servants had their own huts and their own fires they had made a rough stockade round the cluster of beehive huts a snug settlement which Alan compared to a medieval fortress one of the Scottish castles whose inhabitants live and move in the pages of the Wizard of the North Alan was a devoted worshiper of Scott whom he held second only to Shakespeare and as Cecil Patrington claimed exactly this position for Charles Dickens the question afforded an inexhaustible subject for argument sometimes mild and philosophical sometimes vehement and angry to which Jeffrey listened yawningly or into which superior vehemence and arbitrary assertion ever were his humor to be interested in a land where there was no daily record of what mankind here were doing no newspaper at morning and evening recounting the last pages of the world's history telling the story of yesterday's crimes and catastrophes sickness and death wrong and right evil and good adventures successes failures inventions gains and losses every movement near or far in the great mill wheel of human life the newspapers of civilized society and of all the business of money getting and money spending it was only in such discussions that these exiles could find subjects for conversation the contents of the letters and papers that had reached them three months before at Tabor brought on from Zanzibar by an Arab caravan bound for the hunting grounds of Rua had been long exhausted and now there was only the populace of the great Romancers to talk about things when they were in no mood for P.K. or poker and to lazy brain for the arduous pleasures of chess then it was pleasant to lie in front of the fire and dispute the merits of one's favorite novelist or some abstract question in the regions of philosophy sometimes the three men's talk would wander from Dickens to Plato from Scott to Aristotle from Macaulay to Thucydides Alan was the most bookish of the three and his knowledge of German enabled him to travel to the northern libraries in the shape of that handy series of little paper covered books which includes the best German authors to gather with translations of all the classics ancient and modern Greek, Latin, Norse, English, French, Italian at tuppence of volume tiny booklets of which he could carry half a dozen in the pockets of his flannel jacket and which comprised the literature of the world in the smallest possible compass for more than a year these three men's poetry for all intellectual solace for all mental comfort for more than a year they had looked upon no white faces but their own so tanned and darkened by sun and whether that they had come to talk of themselves laughingly as white Arabs or semi-nigroids and to opine that they would never look like Englishmen again Indeed Cecil Patrington whose 15 years of manhood had been chiefly spent under tropic stars had no desire ever again to wear being Englishmen whom he spoke of disparagingly as a turnip face bronzed and battered and hardened by the hard life of the desert he laughed to scorn the amenities of modern civilization and the iron bondage of the claw hammer coat male humanity is divided into two classes the men who dress for dinner and the men who don't I've always belonged to the latter half we are the free men our shoulders have never borne the yoke I ran away from every school I was late hell and Tommy and my private tutors Berkshire Parsonage set fire to his study when he locked me in with an order to construe five tough pages of thick sides for insubordination I set fire to his waist paper basket lads and his mrs muslin curtains I knew I could put the fire out with his garden host when I had given him a good scare and after that little bit of rarsen he was uncommonly glad to get rid of me the old my dressing for dinner every night putting on a claw hammer coat and a white tie to eat barley broth and hash mutton I wasn't going to stop in such a bouge as that then came the university I was always able to scramble through an exam so I matriculated with flying colors past my little go with the flourish of trumpets and my people hoped I had turned and over a new leaf so I had boys a new leaf in a new book I'd begun to read the story of African travel Livingstone Burton Baker do shall you Stanley and from that hour I knew what man of life I was meant for I got my kind old dad to give me a big check compounded with him before my second term at Trinity was over for the 1500 my university career would have cost him and sale for the Cape and from that day to this except when I read a paper one night inside the row I've never worn the garment of the white slave I've never thrust these hairy arms of mine into the silk line sleeves of a claw hammer coat for the oldest travel those days before the coming of the masika left nothing to be desired the long coasting voyages on the great freshwater sea the canoes following the romantic shores are threading that southern archipelago where the river Lofu pours its broad stream into the lake were enough for exercise excitement variety for Cecil Patrington for the man who carried no burden of bitter memories whose heart ached not with the yearning for home the joys of Central Africa were all sufficing he had been happy in scenes far less lovely happy in arid deserts such as the Roman poet pictured to himself in the luxurious repose of his suburban villa it's deserts to be made and durable by the presence of the lodge Cecil Patrington would not have exchanged his winch as to rifle for the loveliest of the lodge he wanted to kill not to be killed no sweetly smiling no critically prattling society would have made up to him for the lack of big game and the means of slaughter perhaps he too had dreamed his dream even as Mr. Jaggers had there's no man so unlikely of aspect that he may not once have been a lover is not the faithfulness fondest lover in all modern fiction the hunchback Quasimodo but if this rough sportsman had ever succumbed to the common fever had ever sighed and suffered his melody was a thing of the remote past in his most confidential talk there had never been the faintest indication of a romantic attachment why did I never marry he echoed when the question was asked justingly beside the campfire in the early stages of their journey I had neither time nor inclination nor money to waste upon such an expensive toy as a wife a wife who would eat her head off in England while I was knocking about over here a wife who would cost me more than a caravan this was all that Mr. Patrington ever said about the matrimonial question the marriage is a subject of which some men never reveal their real thoughts he took life as merely as if it had been a march in a comic opera and in the presence of his cheerfulness the two young men kept their troubles to themselves had Alan forgotten Suzette under those traffic stars no he not achieved forgetfulness but he had learned to live without love without the light of a fair woman's face and in a modified way to be happy the changes and chances of difficulty's accidents and adventures of the journey between the coast and Tabor had kept his mind fully occupied fever and recovery from fever failure or success with his gun difficult negotiations with village sultans and even an occasional skirmish in which the poisoned arrows flew fast and the stern necessity of firing on their assailants had steered them in the face all these things had left little leisure for love's sick dreams for fond regrets in the chapter 27 chapter 28 of Sons of Fire by Mary Elizabeth Bratton this LibriVox recording is in the public domain the meeting place of waters at Tabor there had been a long halt a delay forced upon the travelers by the conditions of climate by the sickness and the idleness of their caravan but this interval of rest had not been altogether disagreeable the place was a place of fatness a settlement in the midst of a fertile plain where the flocks and herds the Arab population the pastoral life suggested those familiar pictures in that first book of ancient history which the child takes into his newly awakened consciousness and which the heart and battered wayfarer, believer or agnostic loves and admires to the end of life in just such a scene as this Rebecca might have given Isaac the faithful draft of water from the wayside well upon just such a level pastor Joseph and his brother might have tended their flocks the visions of the young dreamer would have shown him this pale milky azure over arching the rich level where the sheaves bowed down to his sheaves and in just such a reposeful atmosphere would he have laid himself down for the noontide siesta and let his fancy slide into the dim labyrinth of dreamland at Du Bois there had been over much time for thought and the yearning for a far way face must needs have been in the hearts of both those young Englishmen whose bronze features were sternly and steadily set with the resolute calm of men who do not mean to waste and despair and die for love of the fairest woman upon earth often and often in the dusk Alan heard his comrades rich baritone rolling out that old song shall I wasting and despair die because a woman's fair shall my cheeks grow pale with care because another's rosy are the voice thrilled him what a gift is that music which gives a man power over his fellow men Jeffries fiddle talked to them nearly every night beside the campfire talked to them sometimes at daybreak when its owner had been sleepless for that restless spirit had watched too many long blank hours in the course of his travels it had been hard work to convey that fiddle case across the rolling woods through swamp and river guarded from the crass stupidity of native porters from the obstinacy of their African donkey the curiosity of the inhabitants of the villages on the way Jeffrey had carried it himself for the greater part of the journey refusing to trust Arab or Negroid with so precious a burden writing or walking he had managed to take care of his little Amadi the smallest but not the least valuable of all his fiddles there were some among his dark followers to whom Jeffrey's Amadi was an enchanted thing a thing that ought to have been alive if it was not indeed there were some who secretly believed that it was a living creature the velvet nest in which he kept the strange thing the delicate care with which he laid it in that luxurious resting place or took it out into the light of day the loving movement with which he rested his chin on the shining wood while his long license fingers twined themselves caressing way about the creature's neck the strange light that came into his eyes as he drew the bow across the strings and the ineffable sounds which those strings gave forth all these were tokens of a living presence a something to be loved and feared when he tuned his fiddle they thought that he was punishing it and that it shrieked and groaned in pain why else were those sounds so harsh and discordant so unlike the melting strains which the thing gave forth when he laid his chin upon it and loved it when his lips smiled and his melancholy eyes looked far away into the purple distances across the woods and the plains to the remoteness of the mountain range beyond if it were not actually alive if it had neither heart nor blood as they had why then it was a familiar demon a charm by which he who possessed it could influence his fellow men he could rouse them to savage raptures to shrieks and wild leaps that were meant for dancing he could melt them to tears from the first hour when he played by the campfire on the third night after they left Baga Moya Jeffrey's music had given him a hold over the more intelligent members of the caravan they had listened at first almost as the dog listens and had been ready to lift up their heads and howl as the dog howls but gradually those singing sounds had exercised a soothing influence they had sprawled at his feet a ring of listeners with elbows on the ground looking up at him out of onyx eyes that flashed in the firelight among their followers there were some Mako Lolo's from the Shire Valley men of superior courage and determination a finer race than the common herd of African porters of the same race as those faithful followers of Livingston's first great journey who afterwards became chiefs and rulers of the land these Mako Lolo's adored Jeffrey the achievements of his Winchester rifle that ardent, fitful temperament of his exercised an extraordinary influence over these men and it seemed as if they would have followed him without fee or reward for sheer love of the man himself not for meat and cloth and beads and brass wire never a word said Jeffrey or Allen of that one woman whose image filled the minds of both they talked of other people freely enough each spoke of his mother tenderly regretfully even Allen taking comfort from the thought of Lady Emily's delight in her farm the occupation and interest which every change of the seasons brought for her such letters as had reached him on his wanderings had been resigned and uncomplaining although dwelling sorrowfully upon the husband she had lost he used to live so much apart shut in his library day after day and only joining me in the evening that I could hardly have believed my life could seem so empty without him but I know now how much his presence in the house even his silent unseen presence meant for me and I realize now how often I used to go to him interrupting his dreamy life with my petty household questions my little bits of news from that farm yard or the cow houses or the garden he was so kind and sympathetic he would look up from his books and say to himself in some story about my Brahmas or my Koschans and if he was bored he never allowed me to see the faintest sign of impatience I think he was the best and truest man that ever lived and my Allen is like him may God protect and bless my dearest my only dear in all the perils of the desert Lady Emily's mental picture of Africa represented one far reaching waste of level of sand of spherical earth pervaded by camels and occasionally varied by a mirage a pair of pyramids like tall candlesticks at the end of a board room table a sphinx and a crocodile a river occupied the northeast corner of this vast plateau while the southwest was distinguished by a colony of ostriches and the place to which Indian officials used to resort for change of air some 50 years since to these narrow limits were restricted Lady Emily's notions of the continent on which her son was now a wanderer she feared that if he got out of the way of the crocodiles he might fall in with the ostriches which doubtless were dangerous when encountered in large numbers and she shuddered at the sight of her favorite feather fan Mrs. Warnock's letters were in a sadder strain the key was distinctly minor she wrote of her loneliness of the monotonous days my organ talks to me of you Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Mendelssohn all tell me the same story you are far away, away for a long time and life is very sad there was not a word of Suzette in those letters if she was ever at the manor if his mother retained her affection and found solace in her society there was no hint of that consoling presence it might be that the girl hated the house because of that vehement stormy love the love that would not let her be faithful to a more reasonable lover and yet, and yet thought Jeffrey hardly caring even in his own mind to put the question positively in his, in her most consciousness there was the belief that she loved him, him, Jeffrey Warnock that she had refused him perversely and foolishly out of a mistaken sense of honor she would not marry Allen whom she did not love in order to spare her jolted lover the pain of seeing a rival's triumph but I'm not beaten yet Jeffrey told himself, when I go back to England if I but find her free I shall try again Allen's wounds will have healed by that time and even her quixotic temper will have satisfied itself by the sacrifice of two years of her lover's life when I go back musing sometimes on that prospect wondering whether returning by the road that had come or dropping down southed by trivia's root to the Niasa and the Zambezi or by the more adventurous westward root by the forest and the Congo the way by which trivia had come to the lake whichever way were eventually chosen Jeffrey asked himself if the three travelers would all go back one shall be taken on the other left throughout the record of African travel there is that dark feature of the story the traveler who is left behind sometimes it is the fever fiend that lays a scorching hand upon the fearless adventurer flings him down to suffer thirst and pain and heaviness and delirious horrors in the foul darkness of a beehive hut to die in a dream of home with shadowy faces looking down at him familiar voices talking with him sometimes he falls in a ring of savage foes hemmed ground with hideous faces implacable as lion or leopard foes who kill for the sake of killing or cannibals for whom man is the choices banquet the hazards of the pilgrimage take every shape death by drowning death by massacre death by smallpox or jungle fever death by starvation by the bursting of a gun by beasts of prey in every story of travel there is always that dark page which tells of the man who is left Dylan Farquhar the two Pocox, Jameson Bartolot, Weissenberger the ghost that haunt the pathways of tropical Africa or many but those melancholy shadows exercise no deterring influence on the traveler who sets out today strong, elate, hopeful inspired by an eager curiosity which takes no heed of trouble or of risk which of us three is to stay behind Jeffrey asked himself in a gloomy wonder he had come to the stage at which the traveler bears a charmed life it is seldom the experienced wanderer, the man of many journeys who falls by the wayside hot-headed youth, bold in its ignorance of danger, perishes like a bird caught in a trap the strong frame of the trained athlete travels like a leaf in the hot blast of fever, the careless boatman tempts the perils of a difficult passage and is swept over the stony bed of the torrent and vanishes a fathomless pool the hardened traveler knows what he is about and can reckon with the forces of that gigantic nature which he faces and defies it is the Tyrone who pays the price of his inexperience and in the history of African travel the survival of the fittest is the rule which of us that question had entered into the very fabric of Jeffrey's thoughts sometimes sitting by the campfire as the chillness of night crept drowned them, a grisly fancy would flash across his reverie and he would think that the pale mist that rose about Allen's figure on the other side of the circle was the visionary shroud which the Highlander sees upon the shoulders of a friend marked for death Would it be Allen? If it were Allen, he, Jeffrey would hasten home to tell the sad story and then to claim her whose too tender conscientiousness had refused happiness at Allen's expense Allen gone for no reason why she should deny her love for I know I know that she loves me, Jeffrey repeated to himself he had been telling himself that story ever since he left England no deny from those lovely lips no words of scorn would convince him that he was unloved he could recall looks and tones that told another story he had seen the gradual change in her which told of an awakening heart she never knew what love means till she knew me he told himself Allen's death no there was no such hideous thought in the dark labyrinth of his mind or at least he believed that there was not one must perish he had so brooded over the story of former victims that he had taught himself to look upon one lost life as inevitable but the lot was as likely to fall upon him as upon Allen more likely since his habits were more reckless and more adventurous than Allen's if there was danger to be found he and his Malkalolos courted it shooting expeditions raids upon unfriendly villages hand-to-hand skirmishes with marambos brigand tribes he and his Malkalolos were ready for anything he had traveled over hundreds of miles with his warlike little gang exploring, shooting, fighting while Patrington and Allen were living and dreaming in action waiting for better weather or for the recovery of half a dozen ailing Pogazis sadly he who ran such superfluous risk was the more likely to fall by the way well death is a solution of all difficulties if I am dead it will matter to me very little that my bright ineffable coquette is transformed into a sober middle-aged wife and that she and Allen are smiling at each other across the family breakfast table in a commonplace domestic paradise but while I live and am young I shall think of her for her and hate the lucky rich who wins her if we should both go back if Patrington's tough bones are the bones that are too whitened by the way and not Allen's or mine why then we shall again be rivals and the years of exile will be only a dream that we have dream it was a strange position in which these two young men found themselves friends almost as brothers in the close intimacy of that solitude of three only three civilized thinking beings a crowd of creatures who seemed as far apart as if they had belonged to the forest fauna the great antelope family or the simian race these two so nearly of an age reared in the same country and the same social sphere united and sympathetic at every point of contact between mind and mind and yet keeping this one deep gulf of silence between them they spoke to each other freely of all things except of her and yet each knew that she was the one absorbing subject in the mind of the other each knew that her image went along with them was never absent never less distinctly lovely even when the way was full of hardship and peril when every yard of progress meant to struggle with thorns that tore them and brambles that lashed them and the tough rank verdure carpet that clogged their feet neither had ever ceased to remember her or to think of these adventurous days as anything else than exile from her whatever interest or enjoyment there might be in that varied experience of a land where beauty and ugliness alternated with startling transitions it was not possible that either Alan or Jeffrey could forget the reason they were there far from the fair faces of women and from all the ease and pleasantness of civilized life Jeffrey had the better chance of oblivion since those wild excursions and explorations of his afforded all the excitement of the untrodden and the hazardous the caravan rode from the coast to the UGG with all its varieties of hardship was too beaten a track for this fiery spirit at every halting place he went off at a tangent and if his comrades threatened not to wait for his return he would pledge himself to rejoin them further on laughing to scorn every suggestion that he and his little company of Mark Kalolos and Juan Yamouises could lose themselves in the wilderness he was more in touch with the men than Alan as familiar with their ways and ideas as Patrington after many years of travel he had learned their languages with a marvelous quickness not the copious language of civilization and literature being remembered but the terse and useful vocabulary of the camp and the hunting ground the river and the road he understood his men and their different temperaments as few travelers learned to understand or desired to understand them and yet there was but little Christian benevolence at the root of his sympathy and comprehension although as an Englishman Jeffrey would have given no sanction to the sale and barter of his fellow creatures these dark servants were to him no more than slaves so much caring power and so much fighting power subject to his domination it pleased him to know their characters to be able to play upon their strength and weakness their ferocity and their greed just as surely as he manipulated the stops of the great organ at this comb these Africans gave and choosing to almost everybody they christened the great sultan of the interior tip-o-tip because of our curious blinking of his eyes captain trivia obtained his nickname on account of his eyeglass another man was named after his spectacles the sultan of Ugg was called Rue Marisa it has ended because he has succeeded in reducing belligerent tribes to peaceful settlement for the Englishman in particular Africa could always find a nickname based on some insignificant detail of manner or appearance for Englishman in general she had found a nobler sounding name she called them sons of fire Jeffrey with his tireless energy his rapid decision his angry impatience of delay seemed to his followers the very highest exemplar of the fiery race that can persevere and conquer difficulties which the native of the soil recoils from as insurmountable sons of fire were they not worthy of the name these white men went far out in midstream while the boatman bent and cowered over their paddles these Englishman looked in the face of the lightning and sat calm and unmoved while they darkened to the pitchy blackness of a starless midnight and the thunder reverberated from hill to hill with roar upon roar and peel upon peel like the blooming of heavy batteries and a non-crashed and rattled with a sharper nearer sound blinding torrential rain war of thunder and tempestuous waters where all is nothing to these sons of fire their spirits rose amidst hurricane or thunderstorm they were full of life and gaiety while the cock shell canoes were being tossed upon the short choppy sea like forest leaves upon a forest brook and when every sudden gust threatened destruction they laughed at peril and insisted upon having the canoes out when their native followers saw danger riding on the wind and death over the waters they met the spirit of murder and were not afraid they laid down to sleep in the midst of an unknown wilderness with savage beasts lurking in the darkness that surrounded their tents they floated rivers that swarmed with crocodiles horrible stealthy creatures swimming deep down below the surface of the water the placid beautiful water with lotus flowers sleeping in the sunlight and scaly monsters waiting underneath in the shadow panther crocodile tempest fever or elk poisoned arrows from murderous foes were only so many varieties in the story of adventure through every vicissitude the ready with and calm courage of the Englishman rose superior to accident discomfort or danger and to the native temper these wanderers from out far country an island which they had heard of as a speck in a narrow sea seemed men of iron with souls of fire Jeffrey would admit no malingering would accept no sex for inaction or delay is little band picked out from the rock of their porters were always on the move saving those rainy interludes which made movement impossible and even then Jeffrey fretted and fumed and was inclined to question the impracticability of a hunting expedition through those torrential rains did you ever hear of a fox hunter stopping at home because of a wet day he asked Cecil Patrington impatiently did you ever see such rain as this country retorted Patrington pointing through an opening in the door of the hut to the sheet of falling water which spotted out all beyond and splashed with a thud into the pool that filled the enclosure the deep eaves kept the rain out of the huts but not without occasional accident spoiled provisions damp gunpowder it was a rude awakening from dreams of home to find one's better float on a pond of rising waters Jeffrey had taken upon himself the meat for the party Patrington's blazy happy-go-lucky temper readily seating that post of distinction to the newcomer a man who had shot every species of beast that inhabits the great continent could easily surrender the privilege of finding meat dinners along the route so he only used his gun now and again when the humor prompted and for the most part smoked the pipe of peace and red dickens in the repose of a day's halt while Jeffrey roamed off the end of a sea-queas dark skins and now in this period of waiting there was the great inland sea to explore those romantic shores with their wealth of animal life those waters teeming with fish hemmed round and guarded by the majesty of mountains those lofty peaks and hollows no foot of man had ever tried there was plenty of scope for movement and adventure here so long as the rains held off and the three men made good use of the canoes were rarely idle or the roars allowed to shirk upon the favorite pretense of bad weather so long as there was something to be done Jeffrey and Alan were happy but with every interval of repose there came the familiar heartache belonging for home faces the sense of disappointment and loss sometimes alone by the lake while the lamp was shining on the faces of his two friends yonder in the veranda where they sat playing chess alone in the awful stillness the vast mountain gorge the waters rippling with passive movement only faintly flecked with whiteness here and there in the blue distance Jeffrey's longing for that vanished face grew to an almost unendurable agony he felt as if he could bear this anguish of severance no more he began to calculate the length of the homeward journey oh the weariness of it for him for whos impatience the fastest express train would be too slow he shrank appalled from the distance that he had put between himself and the woman he loved the intolerable distance thousands and thousands of miles and the difficulties and vicissitudes of the journey all the forces of tropical nature to contend with dependent upon savages subject to fevers that hinder and stop the eager feet and lay the weary body low a helpless log to waste days and nights in burning agony to awaken and find a caravan dwindled by desertion luggage plundered new impediments to progress why had he been so mad as to come here that was the question which he asked himself again and again in the stillness of night when the mountain peaks stood out in silvery whiteness and the mountain cousins were pits of blackest shutter why had he a free agent master of his life in its golden opportunities made himself a voluntary exile what demon of revolt and impatience drove me out into the wilderness when I ought to have followed her and refuse to believe in her unkindness and insisted upon being heard and heard again and rejected again only to be accepted later did I not know in my heart of hearts that she loved me and now she will believe no more in my love the man who could leave her who could try to cure himself of his passion for her such a man is unworthy to be remembered someone else will appear upon the scene that unknown rival whom no man fears or foresees till the hour sounds and he is there some arrogant lover utterly unlike Alan or me who will not adore her as we have adored who will approach her not as a slave but as a master who will win her in a month in a week with fierce swift wooing startle and scare her into loving him win her by her coo demand that is the sort of thing that will happen it is happening now perhaps while I am standing by these African water sick with longing for her is it night and moonlight in England I wonder are she and her new lover walking in the old sleepy garden no it is winter there they are sitting at the piano perhaps in the lamp light her little hands moving about the keys he listening and pretending to admire knowing and caring no more about music than the courses of my bagazzies but it is maddening to think of how I am losing her and I came here to cure myself of loving her cure there is no cure for such a passion as mine it grows with absence it strengthens with time and now the mizika the dreaded rainy season began the rain sun burnt with a sickly oppressive heat and overall nature there crept the death like silence that comes before a storm no longer was heard the whale of the fish eagle calling his mate and the answering call from afar no diver flitted black long and lanky over the waters the big white and grey kingfisher advantage from the branches that overhang the lake even the ran eye in the sedges noisiest of birds for the most part were mute in anticipatory terror thick darkness brooded over the long line of hills on the further side of the lake and from Ugg nothing could be seen but a waste of livid waters touched here and there with patches of white then through that dreadful stillness rolled the long low muttering of the thunder and lightning flashes pale and sickly overhanging paul of night and day and then the tempest in all its majesty of terror the roar of winds and waters the artillery of heaven peeling crackling rattling booming from yonder fortress of unseen giants the citadel of untrodden hills and after the storm the rain the ceaseless hopeless melancholy rain a wall of water shutting out the world there was nothing for it but to sit in the rough shelter of the tumby and amuse oneself as best one might cleaning guns and fishing tackle mending nets playing cards or chess reading talking disputing executing the enforced inaction the deadly monotony for jeffrey's restless spirit that rainy season was absolute torture and it needed all the forbearance and good nature of his companions to bear with his irritability and fretful complaining against inexorable nature even patrington the best tempered most easygoing of men was discussed jeffrey's feverish impatience i begin to admire the wisdom of a vulgar proverb two's company three's none he said to allen across the chess board as they arranged their men sitting in the light of the wood fire while jeffrey lay fast asleep in his hammock after the weariness of sleepless nights your friend is a very bad traveler a fine weather traveler a man who must have sport and variety and progress all along the route that kind of man isn't a pleasant companion in central africa if courage and activity are essential patients is no less needed your friend has plenty of pluck but there's too much quick silver in his veins he exercises an extraordinary influence upon the men but he is just the kind of fellow to quarrel with them and get murdered by them if he were left too much to his own devices it would need very little for them to think that fiddle of his an evil spirit and smash it and him too on the whole crew i wish you and i were alone for with yonder gentlemen pointing to the motionless figure under the striped rug i feel as if i had undertaken the care of a troublesome child in africa don't you know isn't the right place for a spoiled rats jeffrey will be himself again when these beastly reins are over he's a splendid fellow and i know you like him like him of course i like him nobody could help liking him he has the knack of making himself like loved almost but he's a crank for all that alan marked my words that young man is a crank alan's heart sank at this expression of opinion short sharp decisive he remembered what he had heard of jeffrey's birth from the lips of jeffrey's mother could one expect perfect soundness of brain perfect balance of mind and judgment in a man who had entered life in a world of dreams and hallucinations end of chapter 28