'What are you meaning to do?' asked Dick aggressively.
By now he had lost his fear of Archie. Enmity and suspicion had taken its place. He paid with hatred for the panic that had gripped his heart, for the doubts kindled in Norah's mind, for the glamour stripped from him. Where once he had felt contemptuous pity, an uncertain jealousy flickered. He hated Archie because he held the whiphand; he hated and despised him for not using it. He despised him that he might not despise himself. And he was uneasy. Why had the man promised to save him? Why, above all things, had he given him that ammunition? Was there a trap?
He wished he had not agreed to Sinclair's leadership. That condition, now he examined it, left the way open to every treachery. Was there a plot to separate him from Norah and let him starve?...
With all her drastic methods, Africa seems to have brought little out in Dick but a certain animal cunning. It was in a spirit of suspicious enmity that he asked the question which opened the discussion.
'What am I meaning to do?' repeated Archie. He refrained from adding, 'What in hell's that to you?'
'Yes,' said Dick.
'Build a raft, if you want to know.'
'A raft?'
'Look here——' said Archie, but Norah intervened in time.
'To get over to the Mimi, Archie?'