"Yes, but people have forgotten Livingstone and his methods. It is now the explosive bullet and the elephant gun. I intend to learn the language of the different native tribes I meet, and if a chief opposes me and will not allow me to pass through his territory, and if I find I cannot win him over to my side by persuasive talk, then I shall go round."
"And what is to be the outcome of it all?" cried Charles. "What is your object?"
"Fame, my boy, fame," cried Cromwell, enthusiastically, flinging the chair from under him and pacing the narrow room. "If I can get from coast to coast without taking the life of a single native, won't that be something greater than all the play-acting from now till Doomsday?"
"I suppose it will," said the King, gloomily; "but you must remember you are the only friend I have, and I have reached an age when a man does not pick up friends readily."
Cromwell stopped in his walk and grasped the King by the hand. "Are you not the only friend I have," he said; "and why can you not abandon this ghastly sham and come with me, as I asked you to at first? How can you hesitate when you think of the glorious freedom of the African forest, and compare it with this cribbed and cabined and confined business we are now at?"
The King shook his head slowly, and knocked the ashes from his pipe. He seemed to have some trouble in keeping it alight, probably because of the prohibition on the wall.
"As I said before," replied the King, "I am too old. There are no pubs in the African forest where a man can get a glass of beer when he wants it. No, Ormond, African travel is not for me. If you are resolved to go, go and God bless you; I will stay at home and carefully nurse your fame. I shall from time to time drop appetising little paragraphs into the papers about your wanderings, and when you are ready to come back to England, all England will be ready to listen to you. You know how interest is worked up in the theatrical business by judicious puffing in the papers, and I imagine African exploration requires much the same treatment. If it were not for the Press, my boy, you could explore Africa till you were blind and nobody would hear a word about it, so I will be your advance agent and make ready for your home-coming."
At this point in the conversation between these two historic characters, the janitor of the theatre put his head into the room and reminded the celebrities that it was very late, whereupon both King and Commoner rose, with some reluctance, and washed themselves; the King becoming, when he put on the ordinary dress of an Englishman, Mr. James Spence, while Cromwell, after a similar transformation, became Mr. Sidney Ormond; and thus, with nothing of Royalty or Dictatorship about them, the two strolled up the narrow street into the main thoroughfare and entered their favourite midnight restaurant, where, over a belated meal, they continued the discussion of the African project, which Spence persisted in looking upon as one of the maddest expeditions that had ever come to his knowledge; but the talk was futile, as most talk is, and within a month from that time Ormond was on the ocean, his face set towards Africa.
Another man took Ormond's place at the theatre, and Spence continued to play his part, as the papers said, in his usual acceptable manner. He heard from his friend, in due course, when he landed. Then at intervals came one or two letters showing how he had surmounted the numerous difficulties with which he had to contend. After a long interval came a letter from the interior of Africa, sent to the coast by messenger. Although at the beginning of this letter Ormond said he had but faint hope of reaching his destination, he, nevertheless, gave a very complete account of his wanderings and dealings with the natives, and up to that point his journey seemed to be most satisfactory. He inclosed several photographs, mostly very bad ones, which he had managed to develop and print in the wilderness. One, however, of himself was easily recognisable, and Spence had it copied and enlarged, hanging the framed enlargement in whatever dressing-room fate assigned to him; for Spence never had a long engagement at any one theatre. He was a useful man who could take any part, but had no specialty, and London was full of such.
For a long time he heard nothing from his friend, and the newspaper men to whom Spence indefatigably furnished interesting items about the lone explorer, began to look upon Ormond as an African Mrs. Harris, and the paragraphs, to Spence's deep regret, failed to appear. The journalists, who were a flippant lot, used to accost Spence with "Well, Jimmy, how's your African friend?" and the more he tried to convince them, the less they believed in the peace-loving traveller.