“It’s all up,” he said, soberly.
“Let’s come back to camp and talk it over,” I said.
Together we traversed the square under the stars, and entered the field of clover. In the dim, smoky camp all lights were out except one oil-drenched torch stuck in the ground between the two tents. Byram had gone to rest, so had Kelly Eyre. But my lions were awake, moving noiselessly to and fro, eyes shining in the dusk; and the elephant, a shapeless pile of shadow against the sky, stood watching us with little, evil eyes.
Speed had some cigarettes, and he laid the pink package on the table. I lighted one when he did.
“Do you really think there’s a chance?” he asked, presently.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Well, we can try.”
“Oh yes.”
Speed dropped his elbows on the table. “Poor old governor,” he said.
Then he began to talk of our own prospects, which were certainly obscure if not alarming; but he soon gave up speculation as futile, and grew reminiscent, recalling our first acquaintance as discharged soldiers from the African battalions, our hand-to-mouth existence as gentlemen farmers in Algiers, our bankruptcy and desperate struggle in Marseilles, first as dock-workmen, then as government horse-buyers for the cavalry, then as employés of the Hippodrome in Paris, where I finally settled down as bareback rider, lion-tamer, and instructor in the haute-école; and he accepted a salary as aid to Monsieur Gaston Tissandier, the 187 scientist, who was experimenting with balloons at Saint-Cloud.