“Tell you what, Miss Dane,” said Fairholme, “I don’t think you ought to tackle an expedition of this sort single–handed. You may want some one to pull you out of a tight place—what price me as a puller–out? I’m a pretty useless sort of chap in most things, but there is no reason why I shouldn’t try to do my country a good turn once in a way. Let me go with you, and then you’ll have no need to worry about coin.”
“You are really very kind,” she faltered, “but—but——”
“You are afraid of Mrs. Laing again,” he grinned. “Don’t worry yourself about her, dear girl. Not even Mrs. Grundy can growl at me for bein’ your fellow–passenger. I’m mixed up in this business, an’, by Jove, I mean to see it through. Look here, can’t you adopt me as a sort of elder brother, an’ make it ‘Billy’ an’ ‘Evelyn,’ an’ that sort of thing—eh, what?”
CHAPTER XIV
THE DRUMS OF OKU
Evelyn, ferried across the harbor by a boat’s crew from the warship, boarded the Estremadura in almost regal state. The vessel’s cabin accommodation was poor, but the English girl was given of its best. Not every day does a small West African trader receive a passenger under the escort of a peer of the realm and a Captain in the Royal Navy. It was an interesting moment when Rosamund Laing, accompanied by Figuero, came alongside. The Portuguese made off at once, but the lady, when it was too late to retreat, affected a blank indifference to Evelyn’s presence that showed how conscious she was of it. She seldom appeared on deck, ate each meal in the seclusion of her cabin, and spoke no word, even to Lord Fairholme. On arriving at Lagos she hurried from the ship, and Evelyn breathed a sigh of relief as she watched her enemy go ashore.
She did not carry her dislike of Mrs. Laing to the point of imagining her to be in active co–operation with the plotters against British supremacy in that quarter of the world. It was far more probable that a rich woman who drew some part of her revenues from factories on the coast might be combining business with the desire to obtain news of Warden at first hand. At any rate, the girl fondly hoped they might never meet again, and she trusted to the strength of her own story, supplemented by a letter from Captain Mortimer to the Governor, to place her beyond the reach of misrepresentation.
But her troubles, instead of diminishing, became even more pronounced when she called at Government House. Both she and Lord Fairholme were entirely ignorant of local conditions. Neither of them knew that Lagos, though the chief West African port, and practically the only safe harbor on the Guinea Coast, was the capital of an administration quite separate from that of North and of South Nigeria. To reach Old Calabar, the headquarters of Warden’s service, they must take a long journey down the coast and penetrate some forty miles into the Niger delta. Captain Mortimer, in all probability, thought she was aware of this vital distinction, but, at the outset, Evelyn almost felt that she had undertaken a useless task.