Then one bleak morning in late autumn the nostalgia of Africa took him by the heart and before that day was out he was shaking the dust of Ireland from his feet with his face set for Southampton where the Union-Castle liners turn their noses towards the Southern Cross.
One of the first faces to greet him at the Cape Town Docks was Talfourd’s. Carden fell upon him as upon a long-lost brother. It seemed to him there was no other man in the world he would so gladly have met. He was conscious that Tal and he shared an experience that was secret to the rest of his friends. Wherefore he could not disguise his pleasure at the encounter. Tal was hooked in to come and lunch at the City Club, and later to dine at the Mount Nelson. For the moment there was no one like Tal. The latter indeed found himself somewhat intrigued by this unwonted demonstrativeness. Carden seemed to him to be queerly changed since first they had met some five or six years past. When after dinner that night, out among the trim walks and aromatic bushes of the garden, they fell into reminiscences he voiced something of his thought. He was an introspective fellow with a good deal of sentiment in his composition, and the wine and cigars had been excellent.
“You were always a hard nut to crack, Carden, but the gayest chap on earth, and even the fellows you knocked out liked you for it afterwards. But Africa changed you as it changes us all. You went queer on that trek of ours up north and I never could make it out. I’ve thought a lot about it and, do you know, I always dated the change in you back to that little farm we put up at on the road to Tuli—Greis-Kopje—remember the place?”
Carden gloomed at him. Did he remember it? By God!
“Strange,” continued Talfourd, “I ran into our old driver Swartz at Pretoria the other day. He has got regular work on the Zeederburg Coach Line, and is up and down the Tuli Road. He told me a queer thing about Greis-Kopje. It appears that old de Beer, the fellow who owned the place, disappeared about a year ago and has never been seen since. He was the husband of that pretty girl we thought was his daughter at first. You remember?”
Carden was busy lighting another cigar, his face mask-like except for the eyes which burnt like points of blue fire.
“The supposition is that either he was drowned crossing the Crocodile River or else a stray lion got him.”
“And Mrs de Beer?”
“Still lives on there with old Grietje and Yacop.”
“Let’s go in,” said Carden abruptly. “I have to be up at daybreak and get through a lot of business. I leave by the mail at eleven.”