Nothing would induce a child of Nature to sleep in the open as long as he can find any sort of a cuddy-hole to stew in. I was a little afraid of what the French captain might say, but he took my eccentricity calmly enough.
“Ah, zat your bed? Ah, zat is good idea”; and left me to a night rolling beneath the stars, when I tossed and dreamed and woke with a start, thinking that the great green hills of water were about to overwhelm me; and as about twenty times more terrified of the dream than I had been of the reality.
Next morning found us outside Accra, a long way outside, because the surf was bad, and I found to my dismay there was no mail in yet, and I must land, for there was no cargo for the Gergovia, and she wanted to go on her way.
I found the landing terrible. I can frankly say I have never been so frightened, and I had no nerve left to stand up against the fear. But it was done. I saw my friend in Accra, and again recounted with delight my travels. For the first time I began to feel I had done something, and I felt it still more when the people in Schenk & Barber's, a great trading firm, held up their hands and declared that I had done a wonderful thing to cross by Krobo Hill at night. I had done well, then, I kept saying to myself, I had accomplished something; but I must admit I was most utterly done. When the mail steamer arrived, the port officer made it his business to see me off to the ship himself; we were drenched to the skin as we rounded the breakwater, and I was so nervous when the mammy-chair came dangling overhead from the ship's deck, that I hear he reported I was the worst traveller he had ever been on board with. Then, in addition to my woes, instead of being able to sit and chat and tell my adventures comfortably to the friends I met, I was, for the first time for many a long year, most violently seasick.
But, when I went to bed, I slept dreamlessly, and when I awakened we were rising to the swell outside Sekondi, and I felt that even if I had to face the surf again I should be among friends presently, and there was a feeling of satisfaction in the thought that I had at least seen something of the most beautiful river in the world, and some unknown country in the east of the Colony.
Always there is that in life, for, good or evil, nothing can take away what we have done. We have it with us, good or bad, for ever. Not Omnipotence can alter the past.
CHAPTER XX—WITH A COMPANION
The kindness of Sekondi—Swanzy's to the rescue—A journey to Dixcove—With a nursing Sister—The rainy season and wet feet—Engineering a steep hill in the dark—Rains and brilliant fireflies—The P.W.D. man's taste in colours—The need of a woman in West Africa—Crossing the Whin River—My fresh-air theory confirmed.