With the Commissioner was the Director of Contracts. Both were under thirty-five years of age—Britons of the forceful and energetic type to which colonial development owes so much.
They were sitting at a large teak table littered with papers and documents. The Director of Contracts was reading a typed cablegram.
"Infernal cheek, Carr," he exclaimed to his colleague. "We've no use for cheap German stuff in the Protectorate. We'll turn it down."
The subject of his righteous wrath was a tender from the Pfieldorf Company offering to supply steelwork "exactly according to the plans and specifications of a contract that has unfortunately failed to be executed", delivering the material at Pangawani within thirty-six days of receipt of telegraphic order, for the sum of £55,000.
"Good!" ejaculated the Commissioner. "Tick the blighters off while you are about it. I'd rather see the Kilembonga Gorge unbridged till the crack of doom than have the place disfigured—yes, dishonoured, if you like—by a Hun-made structure. It was a bad stroke of luck when the Brocklington people's stuff went to the bottom of the sea."
The walls and doors of the official buildings were far from soundproof. Peter, standing with Comyn outside the door, heard the words distinctly. To him they conveyed only one explanation: that in transport from Bulonga to Pangawani the vessel chartered for the conveyance of the steelwork had met with disaster.
Comyn tapped at the door and was bidden to enter.
"I've brought Mr. Mostyn to report to you, sir," he explained. "Mr. Mostyn was in charge of the dhow that landed seven survivors of the West Barbican this morning."
"We've just been talking of the West Barbican, Mr. Mostyn," said the Commissioner. "We were saying how unfortunate it was that an important consignment for us was lost in the ship. By the by, are you any relation of Captain Mostyn, one of the managing directors of the Brocklington Ironworks Company?"
"He's my father, sir," replied Peter. "I'm afraid, though, that I fail to understand your reference to the loss of the steelwork."