"You seem to have a crowd of boys with you, Brinsley," he said.
The trader stepped back on to the Palestrina's ladder. "I could do with more. Those folks up river are loading me up with oil. Anyway, I'd like a talk with you about that gin duty your clerk has overcharged me."
Then he turned to a man in the launch below. "Go ahead," he said. "You can tell Nevin he must send me that oil down if he works all to-morrow night."
A negro shouted something back to him, and with engines clanking the launch swept away up the misty river, while it was with relief Desmond led Brinsley and his guests into the saloon where dinner was set out.
CHAPTER XXII
UNDER STRESS
When Desmond left him Ormsgill did not march directly east towards the interior, but headed northwards for several days. There were reasons which rendered the detour advisable, especially as he desired to avoid the few scattered villages as much as possible, but he had occasion to regret that he had made it. He pushed on as fast as possible until one hot afternoon when the boys wearied with the march since early morning lay down in the grass, and he wandered listlessly out of camp. Their presence was irksome, and he wanted to be alone just then.
There are times when an unpleasant dejection fastens upon the white man in that climate, and when he is in that state a very little is usually sufficient to exasperate him. The boys were muttering drowsily to one another, and Ormsgill felt he could not lie still and listen to them. He had also a tangible reason for the bitterness he was troubled with. Desmond had brought him no message from Ada Ratcliffe, and though she had as he knew no sympathy with what he was doing and had never shown him very much tenderness, it seemed to him that she might, at least, have sent him a cheering word. It was, in view of what it would cost him to keep faith with her, and that was a thing he resolutely meant to do, a little disconcerting to feel that she did not think of him at all.
In the meanwhile it was oppressively hot, and the air was very still. His muscles seemed slack and powerless, his head ached, and the perspiration dripped from him, but he wandered on until he reached a spot where a little patch of jungle rose amidst a strip of tall grass in the mouth of a shallow ravine. Ormsgill stood still in its shadow and looked about him. Not a leaf shook, and there was not a movement in the stagnant air. In front of him the patch of jungle cut harshly green against the glaring blue of the sky, and beyond it there was sun-baked soil and sand on the slopes of the ravine.
Then there was a flash in the shadow and one of his legs gave away. He staggered and reeled crashing into a thicket, and when a minute later he strove to raise himself out of it one leg felt numb beneath the knee except for the spot where there was a stinging pain. Ormsgill also felt more than a little faint and dizzy, and for a few moments lay still again blinking about him. A wisp of blue smoke still hung about the leaves, and he could hear a low crackling that grew fainter as he listened. It was evident that the man who had shot him was bent on getting away, and he made shift to roll up his thin duck trousers, and looked down at his leg. There was a bluish mark in the middle of the big muscle with a little dark blood about it, and he took out his knife. He set his lips as he felt the point of it grate on something hard, and then closed the knife and sat still again with a little gasp of pain.