Why had he been so mad as to come here? That was the question which he asked himself again and again in the stillness of night, when the mountain-peaks stood out in silvery whiteness and the mountain-chasms were pits of blackest shadow. Why had he, a free agent, master of his life and its golden opportunities, made himself a voluntary exile?
"What demon of revolt and impatience drove me out into the wilderness, when I ought to have followed her and refused to believe in her unkindness, and insisted upon being heard, and heard again, and rejected again, only to be accepted later? Did I not know, in my heart of hearts, that she loved me? And now she will believe no more in my love. The man who could leave her, who could try to cure himself of his passion for her—such a man is unworthy to be remembered. Some one else will appear upon the scene—that unknown rival whom no man fears or foresees till the hour sounds and he is there—some arrogant lover, utterly unlike Allan or me—who will not adore her as we have adored—who will approach her not as a slave, but as a master, who will win her in a month, in a week, with fierce swift wooing, startle and scare her into loving him, win her by a coup de main. That is the sort of thing that will happen. It is happening now, perhaps. While I am standing by these African waters, sick with longing for her. Is it night and moonlight in England, I wonder? Are she and her new lover walking in the old sleepy garden? No, it is winter there; they are sitting at the piano, perhaps, in the lamplight, her little hands moving about the keys—he listening and pretending to admire, knowing and caring no more about music than the coarsest of my Pagazis. Oh, it is maddening to think of how I am losing her! And I came here to cure myself of loving her. Cure! There is no cure for such a passion as mine. It grows with absence—it strengthens with time."
And now the Masika, the dreaded rainy season began; the rain-sun burnt with a sickly oppressive heat; and over all nature there crept the deathlike silence that comes before a storm. No longer was heard the wail of the fish-eagle calling his mate, and the answering call from afar. No diver flitted, black, long, and lanky, over the waters. The big white and grey kingfisher had vanished from his perch upon the branches that overhang the lake. Even the ranæ in the sedges, noisiest of birds for the most part, were mute in anticipatory terror. Thick darkness brooded over the long line of hills on the further side of the lake; and from Ujiji nothing could be seen but a waste of livid waters touched here and there with patches of white. Then through that dreadful stillness rolled the long low muttering of the thunder, and lightning flashes, pale and sickly, pierced the overhanging pall of night-in-day—and then the tempest, in all its majesty of terror, the roar of winds and waters, the artillery of heaven pealing, crackling, rattling, booming from yonder fortress of unseen giants, the citadel of untrodden hills.
And after the storm the rain, the ceaseless, hopeless, melancholy rain, a wall of water shutting out the world. There was nothing for it but to sit in the rough shelter of the tembe, and amuse one's self as best one might, cleaning guns and fishing-tackle, mending nets, playing cards or chess, reading, talking, disputing, execrating the enforced inaction, the deadly monotony. For Geoffrey's restless spirit that rainy season was absolute torture; and it needed all the forbearance and good nature of his companions to bear with his irritability and fretful complaining against inexorable nature.
Even Patrington, the best-tempered, most easy-going of men, was disgusted at Geoffrey's feverish impatience.
"I begin to admire the wisdom of a vulgar proverb—two's company, three's none," he said to Allan across the chess-board, as they arranged their men, sitting in the light of the wood fire, while Geoffrey lay fast asleep in his hammock after the weariness of sleepless nights. "Your friend is a very bad traveller—a fine-weather traveller, a man who must have sport and variety and progress all along the route. That kind of man isn't a pleasant companion in Central Africa. If courage and activity are essential, patience is no less needed. Your friend has plenty of pluck; but there's too much quicksilver in his veins. He exercises an extraordinary influence upon the men; but he is just the kind of fellow to quarrel with them and get murdered by them, if he were left too much to his own devices. It would need very little for them to think that fiddle of his an evil spirit, and smash his skull with it. On the whole, Carew, I wish you and I were alone, for with yonder gentleman," pointing to the motionless figure under the striped rug, "I feel as if I had undertaken the care of a troublesome child; and Africa, don't you know, isn't the right place for spoilt brats."
"Geoffrey will be himself again when these beastly rains are over. He's a splendid fellow, and I know you like him."
"Like him? Of course I like him. Nobody could help liking him. He has the knack of making himself liked, loved almost, but he's a crank for all that. Allan, mark my words, that young man is a crank."
Allan's heart sank at this expression of opinion, short, sharp, decisive. He remembered what he had heard of Geoffrey's birth from the lips of Geoffrey's mother. Could one expect perfect soundness of brain, perfect balance of mind and judgment in a man who had entered life in a world of dreams and hallucinations?