He indicated the dismal prospect with a harsh laugh.
“A bit suggestive of Hell,” he went on, “eh? How does it strike you?”
“Finer timber, I should think,” suggested Jack Meredith, and Durnovo laughed more pleasantly.
“The truth is,” he explained, “that it strikes one as a bit absurd that any man should travel up here for pleasure. If you take my advice you will come down-stream again with me to-morrow.”
He evidently distrusted him; and the sidelong, furtive glance suggested vaguely that Victor Durnovo had something farther up this river which he wished to keep concealed.
“I understand,” answered Meredith, with a half-suppressed yawn, “that the country gets finer farther up--more mountainous--less suggestive of--Hell.”
The proprietors of very dark eyes would do well to remember that it is dangerous to glance furtively to one side or the other. The attention of dark eyes is more easily felt than the glances of grey or blue orbs.
Jack Meredith's suspicions were aroused by the suspicious manner of his interlocutor.
“There is no white man knows this river as I do, and I do not recommend it. Look at me--on the verge of jaundice--look at this wound on my arm; it began with a scratch and has never healed. All that comes from a month up this cursed river. Take my advice, try somewhere else.”
“I certainly shall,” replied Meredith. “We will discuss it after dinner. My chap is a first-rate cook. Have you got anything to add to the menu?”
“Not a thing. I've been living on plantains and dried elephant-meat for the last fortnight.”
“Doesn't sound nourishing. Well, we are pretty well provided, so perhaps you will give me the pleasure of your company to dinner? Come as you are: no ceremony. I think I will wash though. It is as well to keep up these old customs.”
With a pleasant smile he went towards the tent which had just been erected. Joseph was very busy, and his admonishing voice was heard at times.
“Here, Johnny, hammer in that peg. Now, old cups and saucers, stop that grinning and fetch me some water. None of your frogs and creepy crawly thing this time, my blonde beauty, but clean water, comprenny?”
With these and similar lightsome turns of speech was Joseph in the habit of keeping his men up to the mark. The method was eminently successful. His coloured compeers crowded round him “all of a grin,” as he himself described it, and eager to do his slightest behest. From the throne to the back-kitchen the secret of success is the art of managing men--and women.