"Beyond me. But you never can tell, and there's always the probability of Africa springing something new upon one. If I were you I should let your personal appearance slide and risk wearing that decoration for the day, if your boy says so. Ju-ju's a dangerous thing to meddle with anyway, and he calls it that. Besides your fever's gone, you say?"
"Absolutely. And I don't even feel a wreck."
"You're sure you were pretty bad last night?"
"I fancy I was close upon pegging out. I never had such a stiff bout before."
"Well, Mr. Carter," said the old man screwing in an eyeglass and staring at him, "if I were you I should dash Trouble five bob for saving your life, and follow out the rest of his instructions. Ju-ju often gets there when drugs won't touch the spot at all, and, mark you, you're getting that admission from the man who knows more about drugs suitable for Coast ailments than anybody in West Africa. The only trouble about putting this into general practice, is, where are you going to find the proper ju-ju to meet the case? But you seem to have got hold of the right boy for this sort of thing in Trouble. Turning to business for a moment, I hope you're satisfied with your exertions on behalf of Craven and O'Neill with his Majesty of Okky?"
"Well, I don't know what he's done yet, sir. Mr. Slade said he had wiped out Malla-Nulla factory and killed you and all the boys, but that seems, well, exaggerated."
"Slade always takes the gloomy view. The King talked; and I'll admit things looked ugly for a bit. You see you'd walked off with the Firm's artillery."
"Good heavens, do you mean that my tin-pot ten-and-sixpenny revolver was the only gun about the place?"
"Certainly I do. You see—er—Mr. Carter, one occasionally—er—dines rather heavily here, and once after dining too well I saw a man shoot another whose loss he regretted afterwards. So as I wished to spare myself those regrets, I saw to it that there was nothing more deadly about the place than trade guns, and you wouldn't catch me loosing off one of those, however drunk I might be. I regret to say the King didn't continue to carry his liquor like a gentleman after you'd left; he grew quarrelsome; and finally I had to pull him up with some sharpness. Then came the ultimatum. He said I should find the roads stopped already—the old scoundrel had been playing me like a trout, it seems, till everything had been got ready, and he told me that as a fine for your lèse-majesté he should help himself to the contents of the factory as they stood."
"But you headed him off there, sir, at any rate."