"Alas!" murmured Gran'pa. "We must, my dear! . . . Time is always on the wing. It waits for no one. And, here, our task is finished. . . ."
I leant over the deck rail and gazed pensively at the white cliffs rising from the blue green sea. Corisco the Beautiful! The romance of the happy days which we had spent there awoke tender memories and we were filled with the sadness of parting farewells. Obongi broke down completely, as did many of the other negroes. Even the missionaries and their wives could not conceal their grief. Molly had been to them everything that Gran'pa had prophesied—a ray of light in a dark world of ignorance and superstition; a link with "old times;" a glimpse of all they had left behind them in the countries of the civilized; a spirit of feminine youthfulness and abandon—such as is only understood and tolerated by the whites.
"When you come to England," said Molly to the Rev. William Watkins, "you'll bring Joey, won't you?"
Joey was her white-haired old "nigger man"—her particular pet—her swimming instructor—her bodyguard—her right hand. . . .
"Certainly, I will, if possible," he answered.
"Daddy will pay for his fare to London," she explained.
I hadn't the heart to protest against this new form of extravagance at such a moment. In fact, I almost suggested taking Joey with us there and then, and was greatly surprised that Molly had not thought of it herself!
"All ashore!" cried Captain Morgan, breezily.
The handshakings, the embraces and the kisses ceased; the gangway was drawn up; the engines throbbed; and the good ship swung slowly round and pointed its bow to the south. From the eastern horizon the sun suddenly shot its golden arrows of light. At the same moment our two aeroplanes rose from the centre of the island and came roaring overhead. All was commotion and noise. Below deck, we even heard the sharp bark of a male gorilla and the shrill cry of a female.
The 'planes sped swiftly out to sea, until they were mere specks; the land, with its cheering and gesticulating crowd of blacks, slipped slowly away; the native craft contracted into tiny toy boats—now peeping at us from the tops of white crests of foam, now hiding in the trough of the waves. Gradually, we became a little, isolated community, afloat on the open sea. The terrors and hardships of the jungle and the queer, half-dream-like quality of the life we had led on Corisco resolved themselves into mere memories. Our mental outlook changed with the physical. We might almost have been aboard a steamer en route from England to France! Romance was dying; the glory of conquest was departing; adventure was dead. Henceforth, our task would be merely the commonplace one of spectators. Except for Sally Rebecca, we should now have to be content with watching others tread the paths of danger and excitement. And when that was finished—what then? Would life become ordinary and respectable and safe again, or would it open into vistas of still greater accomplishments?