"Because," blurted out Venning, turning red—"because you have lived among animals."
Mr. Hume laughed heartily with a deep rumbling laugh.
"Animals are tricky, boy; and yet," he added, "there may be a meaning in what you say. They have a dignity in death that is grand. Go and make your inquiries, lads. I am Dave Hume, the hunter, and my life has been passed in wild lands, but there are some in London who know me."
He rose up to open the door, and Venning overtopped him by inches, yet he did not look either small or unwieldy. His step was springy, and his head, poised on a massive neck, was well set, with the chin raised. He was a man, evidently, who had always looked the world straight in the face. His eyes had a yellowish tinge, and in their colour and their calm they reminded Venning somehow of a lion, an impression heightened by the tawny hue of a long beard.
The next day, the references having been satisfactorily followed up, the contract was entered upon, and the two boys paid over the sum of Pounds 50 each to David Hume, who in his turn agreed to let them share in any profits which the expedition might make, from any source whatever.
"Profits, Mr. Hume?" they asked.
"Profits from hunting, from trading, or from discovery. I don't say that we shall make anything. The chances are, of course, that we may lose all before we are a month out, but it is always well to be business-like. There is gold in Central Africa. We may discover a gold reef. There are new animals in the forest. We may catch an okapi, and if we could land it in England it would fetch a large sum. We might snare a live gorilla, and there is not a gorilla in the zoological gardens of Europe."
"A gorilla!" said Venning, thinking of a picture he had seen of an erect man-ape bending a rifle-barrel into an arch as if it were a cane.
"A gorilla!" said Compton. "I should like to find the Garden of
Rest."
"You have heard his story, Mr. Venning?" said the hunter, nodding his head at Compton.