Flora put her hand in the other's arm. "But you might have stopped him."
"He's Harry's friend," said Mabel. "I am yours. After all, that counts for something, but we won't talk about it now. Your promising to marry Harry has drawn us closer. It's an extra tie, because all Bob's friends are mine."
The tug's whistle shrieked as she swung across the tide to the landing stage and Flora looked down the river. In the distance, where granite walls and warehouses got small and indistinct, the African boat melted into the smoke and mist. Flora felt strangely forlorn and half afraid.
CHAPTER IV
THE MAN WHO VANISHED
Moonlight glittered on the West African river and it was very hot; the air was heavy, humid, and tainted by miasmatic vapors. Inside the lonely factory, moisture dripped from the beams and the big bare room that opened on the veranda smelt of mildew. Across the river, tangled mangroves loomed through drifting mist that hid the banks of mud about their long, arched roots. Wyndham's schooner, Columbine, rode in midstream, her tall masts and the graceful sweep of her rail cutting black against the silver light. Somebody on board was singing a Kroo paddling song with a strange monotonous air. In the distance one heard the rumble of heavy surf.
The factory was old and ruinous and the agent's hair was going white. He sat opposite Wyndham, at the end of a table about which documents were scattered; a cocktail jug and some glasses occupied the middle. Ellams was haggard and his skin was a jaundiced yellow. Marston lounged in a deck chair, with the perspiration running down his face, and smoked a cigarette.
"I think I have told you all you want to know, and I'm willing to give up my post," Ellams remarked. "Indeed, I'm beginning to feel I'm too old for the job. Few white men have lived as long in the fever swamps; as a rule an agent's run was very short when I first came out. We didn't bother about mosquitoes then. The tropical-diseases people hadn't discovered the mischievous habits of anopheles."
"You were here with my uncle, I think?" said Wyndham.
"I was with him for a year or two," Ellams answered, in a reminiscent tone. "A strange man, in some ways! I expect it's long since you saw him?"