“I will go at once.”

“I came to you,” said Jocelyn, “because I know that you are an intelligent man and a great traveller.”

“I have travelled much,” he answered, “when I was younger.”

“Before you were married?” said the English girl. “Before little Nala came?”

The man grinned.

He looked back over his shoulder towards one of the huts, where a scraggy infant with a violent squint lay on its diaphragm on the sand.

“Where do you wish me to go?” asked the proud father.

“To Msala on the Ogowe river.”

“I know the Ogowe. I have been at Msala,” with the grave nod of a great traveller.

“When can you leave?”