“ ‘Would a thousand be any good to you?’
“I looked at him speechless. ‘A thousand pounds?’ I stammered.
“ ‘Yes; I think I can raise that for you.’ He was staring in front of him as he spoke. ‘And yet I don’t know. I’ve got more or less used to you and you’ll have to stop a bit longer. Then we’ll see about it.’
“ ‘But, good heavens! man,’ I almost shouted, ‘do you mean to say that you stop here when you can lay your hand on a thousand pounds?’
“ ‘It appears so, doesn’t it?’ He rose and stalked over to the bar. ‘It doesn’t much matter where you stop, Merton, when you can’t be in the one place where you’d sell your hopes of Heaven to be. And it’s best, perhaps, to choose a place where the end will come quickly.’
“With that he turned on his heel, and I watched him with a sort of dazed amazement as he sauntered down the dusty road, white in the tropical moon, towards his own shack. A thousand pounds! The thought of it rang in my head all through the night. A thousand pounds! A fortune! And because, out in death-spots like that, men are apt to think strange thoughts—thoughts that look ugly by the light of day—I found myself wondering how long he could last at the rate he was going. Two—sometimes three—bottles of gin a day: it couldn’t be long. And then—who knew? It would be quick, the break-up; all the quicker because there was not a trace of it now. And perhaps when it came he’d remember about that thousand. Or I could remind him.”
Merton laughed grimly.
“Yes, we’re pretty average swine, even the best of us, when we’re up against it, and I lay no claims to be a plaster saint. But Fate had decreed that Jimmy Mainwaring was to find the end which he craved for quicker than he had anticipated. Moreover—and that’s what I’ve always been glad about—it had decreed that he was to find it before drink had rotted that iron constitution of his; while his boots still shone and his silk shirts remained spotless. It had decreed that he was to find it in the way of all others that he would have chosen, had such a wild improbability ever suggested itself. Which is going ahead a bit fast with the yarn—but no matter.
“It was after I’d been there about three months that the incident happened which was destined to be the indirect cause of his death. I told you, didn’t I, that there were several Dago traders who lived up in the foot-hills, and on the night in question three of them had come down to Nwambi on business of some sort—amongst them one Pedro Salvas, who was as unpleasant a specimen of humanity as I have ever met. A crafty, orange-skinned brute, who indulged, according to common knowledge, in every known form of vice, and a good many unknown ones too. The three of them were sitting at a table near the door when Mainwaring lounged in—and McAndrew’s words came back to me. The Dagos had been drinking; Jimmy looked in his most uncompromising mood. He paused at the door, and stared at each of them in turn through his eyeglass; then he turned his back on them and came over to me.
“I glanced over his shoulder at the three men, and realised there was trouble coming. They’d been whispering and muttering together the whole evening, though at the time I had paid no attention. But now Pedro Salvas, with an ugly flush on his ugly face, had risen and was coming towards the bar.