Then the black clouds split up like a rent cloth, and showed behind them, not Heaven, but the living fire of Hell. The thunder crashed out in sharp reports like file-firing at a review. With one accord the men ceased rowing and crouched down in the canoe.
Durnovo shouted to them, his face livid with fury. But for some moments his voice was quite lost. The lightning ran over the face of the river like will-o'-the-wisps; the whole heaven was streaked continuously with it.
Suddenly the negroes leaped to their paddles and rowed with bent back, and wild staring eyes, as if possessed. They were covered by the muzzle of Durnovo's revolver.
Behind the evil-looking barrel of blue steel, the half-caste's dripping face looked forth, peering into the terrific storm. There was no question of fending off such torrents of rain, nor did he attempt it. Indeed, he seemed to court its downfall. He held out his arms and stretched forth his legs, giving free play to the water which ran off him in a continual stream, washing his thin khaki clothing on his limbs. He raised his face to the sky, and let the water beat upon his brow and hair.
The roar of the thunder, which could be FELT, so great was the vibration of the laden air, seemed to have no fear for him. The lightning, ever shooting athwart the sky, made him blink as if dazzled, but he looked upon it without emotion.
He knew that behind him he had left a greater danger than this, and he stretched out his limbs to the cleansing torrent with an exulting relief to be washed from the dread infection. Small-pox had laid its hand on the camp at Msala: and from the curse of it Victor Durnovo was flying in a mad chattering panic through all the anger of the tropic elements, holding death over his half-stunned crew, not daring to look behind him or pause in his coward's flight.
It is still said on the Ogowe river that no man travels like Victor Durnovo. Certain it is that, in twenty-seven hours from the time that he left Msala on the morning of the great storm, he presented himself before Maurice Gordon in his office at the factory at Loango.
“Ah!” cried Gordon, hardly noticing the washed-out, harassed appearance of the visitor; “here you are again. I heard that the great expedition had started.”
“So it has, but I have come back to get one or two things we have forgotten. Got any sherry handy?”
“Of course,” replied Gordon, with perfect adhesion to the truth.