"I'm sorry for you," said Bones, shaking his head; "I hate to see fellows with illusions."
He reported all that occurred to the Commissioner, and Sanders was a little worried.
"I wish I knew what his game is," he said; "I'd stop him like a shot, but I can't very well in the face of the Administrator's wire. Anyway, he will get nothing out of the N'gombi. I've tried every method to make the beggars bank their surpluses, and I have failed."
"He has got to come back this way, at any rate," said Hamilton, "and I cannot see that he will do much harm."
"What is the rest of his baggage like?"
"He has a case of things that look like concave copper plates, sir," said Bones, "very thin copper, but copper. Then he has two or three copper pipes, and that is about his outfit."
Mr. Corklan was evidently no stranger to the coast, and Bones, who watched the man's canoe being loaded that afternoon, and heard his fluent observations on the slackness of his paddlers, realized that his acquaintance with Central Africa was an extensive one. He cursed in Swahili and Portuguese, and his language was forcible and impolite. "Well," he said at last, "I'll be getting along. I'll make a fishing village for the night, and I ought to reach my destination in a week. I shan't be seeing you again, so I'll say good-bye."
"How do you suppose you're going to get out of the country?" asked Bones curiously.
Mr. Corklan laughed. "So long!" he said.
"One moment, my dashin' old explorer," said Bones. "A little formality—I want to see your trunks opened."