"Thanks, you needn't give me the details over again. I saw all that for myself."
"That infernal King must have sent off his messengers the very moment after you had that turn-up with him about Laura—which, by the way, is a thing that I personally shall never forget, so you can draw on me over that down to the last breeches button. You see Okky City is closer in at the back here, but it's quite five hours' march further from Malla-Nulla. So the treacherous old brute stayed where he was, tippling with Smith, in the pious hope of keeping you all quiet till his men could come down and blot you all out. How you got through is a marvel to me. They must have reckoned on getting you as you walked here along the beach or they'd never have let you slip away. You and your boy have certainly escaped by the skin of your teeth. It's a moral certainty that they've got old Smith."
"I don't think so. But I shall go back and see."
"Rubbish! We may be able to hold out here, and perhaps will not be attacked at all when they find out we're ready for them. But it's perfectly impossible for you to get back along the beach to Malla-Nulla. Come up into the house, and we'll find you a bite of something to eat, and Laura shall mix you a whiskey and soda. We've a bit of the last steamer's ice still left, and you shall have it."
"Thanks. I'll come up and see Miss Slade, but I shall start back for Malla-Nulla in half an hour from now. And if, as you prophesy, I don't land, well, at any rate, I shall have done my best to get there."
"It's very nice of you, and all that, but do you think old Smith is worth it?"
Carter laughed. "Mr. Smith's a rough handful, but he's a good sort, and I like him. Besides he happens to be a gentleman."
"Or was one once. A lot of us on the Coast were gentlemen originally. I come of good people myself, and was at Eaton and Jesus, although I don't suppose you'd have guessed it if I hadn't told you. But you see Nature built me with a cutaway chin, and I couldn't hold down a job at home. However, come in, and we'll scratch you up some chop. Here, Laura, I've brought a caller."
"I feel this dreadful trouble is all my fault," said the girl as they came into the lamplit room. "If you had been killed, Mr. Carter, I should have looked upon myself as a murderess."
"My dear Miss Slade, you really mustn't worry about a matter you've no concern in whatever. The whole thing's a 'regrettable incident'—I believe that's the proper term—that Mr. Smith told me has been brewing for years. It's all due to the drop in the price of palm oil on the Liverpool market, which means that we white traders pay less for it on the Coast here, and the black traders get less, and so there's less for the King of Okky to squeeze out of them as they march through his territory from the hinterland. That's what's put his fat back up. The only great mistake that's been made is that I didn't split the old brute's iniquitous skull when I had the chance. I say, do you mind my commenting on those flowers you've got on the table? I haven't seen a cut flower since I left England."