Dark came suddenly and when he landed a hot, clammy fog thickened the gloom. Little fires the factory boys had lighted by ancient custom twinkled in the haze and a yellow beam from the veranda windows touched the towering cottonwoods, but all else was dark and the spot was somehow forbidding. One felt the gloom was sinister. A few miles up the creek, the naked bushmen served their savage gods with fantastic rites and the Ju-Ju men and Ghost Leopards ruled the shadowy land. At the factory white men got sick and died.
Lister went up the steps, and entering the big room, saw Montgomery in a Madeira chair. His face was wet by sweat, but although his thin form was covered by a blanket he shook with ague. Brown occupied a rude couch, made from two long boxes in which flintlock guns are shipped. He lay in an ungainly pose, his head had fallen from a cushion, and his face was dark with blood. His eyes were shut and he breathed with a snoring noise.
"What's the matter with the captain?" Lister asked, although he thought he knew.
"He's exhausted by his efforts and the worse for liquor," Montgomery answered with a laugh. "On the whole, I think you had better let him sleep. Perhaps you remarked that some of the glass is broken and two of my chairs are smashed!"
Lister had not remarked this, but he looked about and began to understand. He had seen Brown throw a Spanish landlord out of a Grand Canary wine shop.
"Your captain arrived when the steamboat men were dining with me," Montgomery resumed. "In this country we're a hospitable lot and it's the custom to send West African factories a supply of liquor every three months. Mine arrived not long since, and if you open the cupboard you'll see how much is left. But there are cigarettes in the tin box; they mildew unless they're canned. Make yourself a cocktail. I don't want to get up and my boy's in the compound, playing a drum to keep off the ghosts."
Lister lighted a cigarette and listened. A monotonous, rhythmic throb stole into the room, and he felt there was something about the noise that jarred.
"I'll cut out the cocktail. You're rather generous with your liquor," he remarked dryly. "But how did the trouble Brown made begin?"
"By a dispute about some coal."
"Ah!" said Lister, who looked at Montgomery hard.