As he stood on the "island" in the middle of the street, opposite Burlington House, he attracted a considerable amount of attention. He was probably the tallest man at that moment between St. Paul's and the Albert Memorial. His brown moustache was several shades lighter than his skin, which had been burnt to the colour of tan. His long limbs, his sloping shoulders, and the slouch with which he walked, gave him an appearance of looseness and prodigious strength. Also he had a habit of walking with his fists closed, and his arms swinging like pendulums. He was quite unconscious of the fact that people turned and stared after him, or that he was an object of exceeding admiration to small boys, who speculated upon the result of a blow from his fist.
He had not gone far along Bond Street when he cannoned into a young man, who received a ponderous blow in the chest from Harden's swinging fist. The explorer could hardly have been expected to look where he was going, since at that moment he was passing a gunsmith's where the latest improvement of elephant gun was on view in the window.
"I beg your pardon!" he exclaimed in eager apology.
"It's nothing," said the other, and then added, with a note of surprise, "Uncle Ted, by all that's wonderful! I might have known it was you."
Edward Harden seldom expressed surprise. He just took the young gentleman by the arm and walked him along at the rate of about five miles an hour. "Come and have lunch," said he.
Now Max Harden, in addition to being the explorer's only nephew, was a medical student at one of the London hospitals. As a small boy, he had regarded his uncle as one of the greatest men in the universe--which, in a physical sense, he was.
A week before Max had come of age, which meant that he had acquired the modest inheritance of a thousand pounds a year. He had also secured a commission from the Royal Academy of Physicians to make sundry inquiries into the origin of certain obscure tropical diseases in the district of the Lower Congo. This was precisely the part of the world to which Edward Harden was about to depart. Max knew that quite well, and his idea was to travel with his uncle. He had been to the Explorers' Club, and had been told by the hall porter that Mr. Edward Harden was out, but that he would probably return for lunch. It was about two minutes later that he collided with his uncle outside the gunsmith's shop.
To lunch at the Explorers' Club was in itself an achievement. That day several well-known men were there: Du Cane, the lion hunter; Frankfort Williams, back from the Arctic, and George Cartwright, who had not yet accomplished his famous journey into Thibet. Upon the walls of the dining-room were full-length pictures of the great pioneers of exploration: Columbus, Franklin and Cook. It was not until after luncheon, when Max and his uncle were seated in the outer smoking-room--through the green baize doors, it will be remembered, it was forbidden for guests to enter--that Max broached the topic that was nearest to his heart.
"Uncle Ted," said he, "tell me about this expedition? As yet I know nothing."
"We're going up the Congo," answered Harden simply; "and it's natural enough that you should know nothing about it, since practically nothing is known. Our object is big game, but we hope to bring back some valuable geographical information. The mouth of the Congo was discovered by the Portuguese in the fifteenth century. Since then several trading-stations have sprung up on the river, but no one has penetrated inland. It is known that about five hundred miles from the mouth of the river, a tributary, called the Kasai, flows from the south. Of the upper valley of that river absolutely nothing is known, except that it consists of the most impenetrable forests and is inhabited by cannibal tribes. It is there we propose to go."