His very promise to abstain from drink had been made solely because that was the only way in which he could accept Harcourt's offer, and not from any desire to regain his lost state.
"No," he told himself that night, alone in his room at Harcourt's apartments, "I guess I'm a wastrel, pure and simple. I've nothing to go ahead for, and I've got a devil of a lot to forget; if I can only get up enough interest in the yacht and in the places we visit and the work we do, then there's a chance that I can break even and stay decent for a while. And, Lord knows, it's about time!"
In which conclusion he was undeniably correct, much more so than in his foregoing premises. For Hammer was not nearly so unlikeable as he imagined; in the effort to cast his old life and his youthful mistakes far behind him he had plunged into the swiftest maelstrom he could find, as better men than he have done and will do, but he had managed to keep his head above water—much to his own surprise.
The good-humoured manner, which was at first an assumption to hide the hurts beneath, had finally become reality, and perhaps Harcourt had shrewdly reckoned on the fact that mental trouble is very likely to lessen and vanish beneath the light of friendship.
Harcourt himself was little bothered over his own financial crash. Accustomed to thinking little of money or its value, he did not trouble greatly about making his living now that his plans for the immediate future were settled. He was twenty-six, two years younger than the American, but he had taken the Daphne far around the seven seas, and in some ways was a good deal older than Hammer.
The following day, having procured other clothes than his dress-suit, Hammer went aboard the Daphne. She was a small but luxuriously furnished steam-yacht of a thousand tons burden, and having been already overhauled for the benefit of Dr. Krausz, was ready for sea, save for stores and crew; also, the archaeologist's "impedimenta", as Harcourt had termed it, had not yet come aboard. Hammer was delighted with her, and with Harcourt and John Solomon, put in a busy day.
Harcourt was well satisfied with his supercargo, for Solomon took charge of the purchasing of the stores, and not only procured them of excellent quality, but at an astonishingly low price.
He proved to have a thorough acquaintance with his duties, and also with the duties of the other officers, and promised to be on the whole an exceedingly useful man.
Nothing was seen of Dr. Sigurd Krausz during the next two days, but Hammer learned that the point of the expedition was a small bay near Melindi, on the East African coast, and that another part of the expedition was being sent ahead to make the preliminary excavations.
On the third morning Harcourt sent the American to Krausz's hotel to inform the professor that the yacht was ready for her lading and passengers, and now, for the first time, as a result of that sending, Cyrus Hammer found himself awakening to the fact that he had been suddenly transplanted into a group of peculiar individuals, from the aristocratic but "busted" viscount and the pudgy John Solomon to the unscientific-appearing scientist, and that there was a screw loose somewhere.