That was, perhaps, the best result of the expedition. They had settled a friendship likely to last through life. They were confident that they would do great things together. Shirikanga hove in sight at the river mouth. Two country barques lay at anchor there, with grimy awnings over their poops. Ashore, in the blaze of the day, were a few white-washed huts, from one of which a Union Jack floated. In the compound of another hut a negro was slowly hoisting the ball of a flag. He brought it to the truck and broke it out, so that it fluttered free. It was a red burgee, the letter B of the code.
"Mail day," said Lionel. "We shall be out of here to-night. We shall be at Banana by Wednesday. That means Antwerp by Wednesday three weeks. London's not far away."
"Good," said Roger. He was not thinking of London. He was thinking of a lonely Irish hill, where there were many yellow-hammers. The trees there stood up like ghosts. Round an old, grey, two-storied house the bees murmured. He was thinking that perhaps one or two roses might be in blossom about the house even a month later, when he would stand there.
He thought of his life in Africa, and of its bearing upon himself. It had done him good. He was worth more to the world than he had been a year before. He thought little of his success. It had been fortunate. It had saved Lionel. When he thought of his earlier life he sighed. He knew that he would have achieved more than that sorry triumph had he been trained. His life had been improvised, never organised. Great things are done only when the improvising mind has a great organisation behind it.
He thought it all over again when he lay in his bunk in a cabin of the Kabinda, on his way up-coast. He was at peace with the world. Clean sheets, the European faces, and the civilised meals in the saloon, had wiped out the memory of the past. Africa was already very dim to him. The Zimbabwe rose up in his mind like something seen in a dream, a dim, but rather grand shape. The miseries of the camp were dim. He had been sad that morning in bidding farewell to the four whose lives he had saved. Jellybags, Toro, Buckshot, and Pocahontas. He repeated their names and considered their engaging traits. Jellybags was the best of them. He had liked Jellybags. Jellybags had wanted to come with them. He would never see Jellybags again. He didn't care particularly. The sheets of the bunk were very comfortable. At the end of a great adventure things are seen in false proportions. Only the thought that those men had shared his life for a while gave him the suggestion of a qualm before he put them from his mind.
He thought of Ottalie. He saw her more clearly than of old. In the old days he had seen her through the pink mists of amatory sentiment. The sentiment was gone. Action had knocked it out of him. He saw her now as she was. She was more wonderful in the clearer light; more wonderful than ever; a fine, trained, scrupulous mind, drilled to a beautiful unerring choice in life. She was near and real to him, so real that he seemed to be within her mind, following its fearlessness. He felt that he understood her now. With a rush of emotion he felt that he could bring what she had been into the life of his time.
In the steamer at Banana was a German scientist bound to Sierra Leone. He spoke English. He asked the two friends about their achievement. Lionel told him that they had discovered a serum for the cure of trypanosomiasis. The German smiled. "Ah," he said. "There is already sera. The Japanese bacteriologist, what was his name? Shima? Oshima? Shiga? No, Hiroshiga. He have found a good serum, which makes der peoples die sometimes. Then there is Mühlbauer who have improved the serum of Hiroshiga. He have added a little trypanroth or a little mercury or somedings. Now he have cured everymans. I wonder you have not seen of Hiroshiga in der newspapers. He have make his experiments in der spring; and Mühlbauer he is now at Nairobi curing everymans. He have vaccination camps."
"Well," said Lionel. "We've been beaten on the post. You hear, Roger? All that we have done has been done."
"You wait," said Roger. "We're only beginning."
Afterwards he was sad that it was ending thus. He would have been proud to have given a cure to the world. It would have been an offering to Ottalie. She would have loved to share that honour. He had plucked that poor little flower for her at the risk of his life. It was hard to find that it was only a paper flower after all. He thought of Ottalie as standing at the window of the upper passage looking out for him. She seemed to him to be something of all cleanness and fearlessness, waiting for him to lead her into the world, so that men might serve her.