"If you mean have I any wish to marry her, I can answer that best by telling you that I'm engaged to marry Laura Slade."
"Ah, I see. Well, Mr. Carter, we will drop the subject, which is a painful one to me for many reasons. Let us get on to your personal schemes. In what way can I forward them?"
CHAPTER XV
TIN HILL: THE MINE
Tin Hill, when they got to it, carried riches that lay in full view of the sky. The mountain of country rock which held the veins reared up out of the dark green bush, red-streaked and barren, and the last day's march towards it lay through a heavy growth of rubber vines. Even the Krooboy could not help noticing these.
"O Carter," he said, "rubber lib for here. Dem Missy Kate she say rubber-palaver beat oil-palaver, an' kernels, an' gum, all-e-same cocked hat."
"She didn't. Those are my words of wisdom you've got hold of. Still I admit the sentiments are Miss O'Neill's. But the main thing is, Trouble, that rubber takes capital and labor to handle, and this firm's short of both at the moment. We'll leave rubber to Miss O'Neill for the present."
"O Carter, dem Missy Kate, she no fit for love you now?"
"She no fit," said Carter, with a sigh, "because you savvy I fit for do wife-palaver with dem Miss Laura."
The last marches of Ali ben Hoosein's road had been little travelled during these latter months of political upheaval, and this meant that the ever-growing bush had encroached, and passage was difficult. Moreover, food was painfully scarce. Swizzle-Stick Smith, out of his scanty store, had given them what he could, but this was soon eaten, and once more they had been forced to fall back on that marvellous thing, the kola nut. But though nibbling kola puts off the desire for a meal, and makes one able to endure prolonged strains, it does not fill gaps in the inside.