'Already I can hardly bear my impatience when I think of the boundless country and the enchanting freedom. Here one grows so small, so mean; but in Africa everything is built to a nobler standard. There the man is really a man. There one knows what are will and strength and courage. You don't know what it is to stand on the edge of some great plain and breathe the pure keen air after the terrors of the forest.'
'The boundless plain of Hyde Park is enough for me,' said Dick. 'And the aspect of Piccadilly on a fine day in June gives me quite as many emotions as I want.'
But Julia was moved by Alec's unaccustomed rhetoric, and she looked at him earnestly.
'But what will you gain by it now that your work is over—by all the danger and all the hardships?'
He turned his dark, solemn eyes upon her.
'Nothing. I want to gain nothing. Perhaps I shall discover some new species of antelope or some unknown plant. I may be fortunate enough to find a new waterway. That is all the reward I want. I love the sense of power and the mastery. What do you think I care for the tinsel rewards of kings and peoples!'
'I always said you were melodramatic,' said Dick. 'I never heard anything so transpontine.'
'And the end of it?' asked Julia, almost in a whisper. 'What will be the end?'
A faint smile played for an instant upon Alec's lips. He shrugged his shoulders.
'The end is death. But I shall die standing up. I shall go the last journey as I have gone every other.'