"Thanks. I will remember if I meet him; but it is about time I returned to my patient," said Maxwell, and the other two looked after him until he disappeared round a corner of the dwelling.
"A curious man," Gilby commented. "He's probably like the parrot, for he says very little. Still, it is not everybody who would have turned back with his expedition on the very odd chance of saving a crazy countryman. It is just possible, however, he was glad to, after the bushmen had scared him."
"African parrots never think, unless it's about the pricking inside them," said Redmond. "You wouldn't either, if a nigger had fed you with broken glass, so you'd die as soon as he'd sold you, and keep the demand up. You're wrong, as usual, in other ways, too. If I'm a judge of character, there are no niggers in Africa who could scare that man."
Meanwhile Maxwell had seated himself on the opposite veranda, and, after a glance at a trestle couch which showed him that Niven was apparently asleep, was gazing out to sea. He was close on the age of thirty, of average stature, but spare and sinewy. His sallow face had been further darkened by the African sun, and though now its expression and that of the dark eyes was thoughtful, it was the face of a resolute man. Carsluith Maxwell was also, in a somewhat somber fashion, a handsome man; and though some of his fair acquaintances described him as too silent, and others as too sardonic, all agreed that he was interesting. Maxwell described himself as an individual of unsettled habits, born with fastidious tastes and no means to gratify them—which, he said, explained his wanderings in search of a fortune. He did not add that his chief ambition was to restore to its former prosperity an old Border stronghold which, with every acre of its grass parks and stony plow-land heavily encumbered, stood behind the shores of Solway. Carsluith Maxwell, who some day would be master of Culmeny, had inherited more than a trace of the silent grimness of the old moss-troopers from whom he sprang.
Turning presently, he saw that Niven was wide awake and looking out to sea. Their acquaintance had been brief, and dated from the night when Niven reeled into the camp of a small French expedition, alone, fever-stricken, and half-crazy. Seeing that he would die in the forest when the expedition continued its march, Maxwell abandoned his prospecting journey and turned back to the coast with him. The African malaria often attacks a white man's brain as well as his body; and during most of the time Niven had talked erratically. Now, however, Maxwell noticed that he appeared sensible and sane.
"Good to come back to, isn't it?" he said, glancing at the sea, athwart which the track of the sunset beat luridly. "I used to long for it in the forest when Lyle and I first set up the one factory which ever stood more than twelve months in Shaillu's country. That reminds me! I have a good deal to tell you, and, considering that I may not last out to-morrow, it's high time I began. I have given you a good deal of trouble, but you may not regret it when I have done."
"I shall not regret it in any case," said Maxwell quietly. He was seldom emphatic in speech.
"You are like Lyle, and that's partly why I'm going to tell you. He and I went up into Shaillu's country long ago, and the Leopards tried to poison us. They wanted no white men there, and did not like free trade. They also tried other ways; but if our lives were in our own hands, we held them tight—and any man might face the devil with a partner like Lyle. You will understand presently why I'm commencing at the beginning. Well, we nursed each other through fevers, and twice stood behind a stockade with the rifle barrels burning our hands; but we made money, and I think the Leopards grew afraid of us because we lived in spite of them. Of course, we had our friends, because the brown traders from the North had to pay a heavy toll to the Leopards before we came; and some of them told us about gold having been washed out of a far-off river by niggers who had a poor idea of its value. We were too busy to trouble about ventures of that kind; and as the river flowed through No Man's Land there was nobody to sell us a marketable concession."
The sunset was fading off the waters when Niven paused to gather breath, while his strained voice sank to a deeper tone as he proceeded:
"There was a dispute as to who owned some gum we had paid for, and two men were shot before we convinced the niggers that nobody could lay violent hands upon our property. Then one of Shaillu's sub-headmen, who said there had been a mistake somewhere, summoned us to a palaver to talk the question over. We went, with twenty armed Krooboys scared almost to death, who feared Lyle more than they did the niggers, and were given a fair hearing. Several of the big Leopard men were there, but the headman held us justified, and when we had made everybody a present the palaver ended in revelry. I warned Lyle; but to fear nothing, and be equally ready with smile or pistol, was always my comrade's way.