“’Fraid he going to tell us Asiki come attack,” said Jeekie, shaking his head. “Hope they give us time breakfast first.”
“No doubt,” answered Alan nervously, for he feared the result of that attack.
Then the man arrived breathless and began to gasp out his news, which filled Alan with delight and caused a look of utter amazement to appear upon the broad face of Jeekie. It was to the effect that he had climbed a high tree as he had been bidden to do, and from the top of that tree by the light of the first rays of the rising sun, miles away on the plain beyond the forest, he had seen the Asiki army in full retreat.
“Thank God!” exclaimed Alan.
“Yes, Major, but that very rum story. Jeekie can’t swallow it all at once. Must send out see none of them left behind. P’raps they play trick, but if they really gone, ’spose it ’cause guns frightens them so much. Always think powder very great ’vention, especially when enemy hain’t got none, and quite sure of it now. Jeekie very, very seldom wrong. Soon believe,” he added with a burst of confidence, “that Jeekie never wrong at all. He look for truth so long that at last he find it always.”
Something more than a month had gone by and Major and Mrs. Vernon, the latter fully restored to health and the most sweet and beautiful of brides, stood upon the steamship Benin, and as the sun sank, looked their last upon the coast of Western Africa.
“Yes, dear,” Alan was saying to his wife, “from first to last it has been a very queer story, but I really think that our getting that Asiki gold after all was one of the queerest parts of it; also uncommonly convenient, as things have turned out.”
“Namely that you have got a little pauper for a wife instead of a great heiress, Alan. But tell me again about the gold. I have had so much to think of during the last few days,” and she blushed, “that I never quite took it all in.”
“Well, love, there isn’t much to tell. When that forwarding agent, Mr. Aston, knew that we were in the town, he came to me and said that he had about fifty cases full of something heavy, as he supposed samples of ore, addressed to me to your care in England which he was proposing to ship on by the Benin. I answered ‘Yes, that was all right,’ and did not undeceive him about their contents. Then I asked how they had arrived, and if he had not received a letter with them. He replied that one morning before the warehouse was open, some natives had brought them down in a canoe, and dumped them at the door, telling the watchman that they had been paid to deliver them there by some other natives whom they met a long way up the river. Then they went away without leaving any letter or message. Well, I thanked Aston and paid his charges and there’s an end of the matter. Those fifty-three cases are now in the hold invoiced as ore samples and, as I inspected them myself and am sure that they have not been tampered with, besides the value of the necklace the Asika gave me we’ve got £100,000 to begin our married life upon with something over for old Jeekie, and I daresay we shall do very well on that.”
“Yes, Alan, very well indeed.” Then she reflected a while, for the mention of Jeekie’s name seemed to have made her thoughtful, and added, “Alan, what do you think became of Lord Aylward?”