It seemed to him that Alec paused an unconscionable time before he answered.
'There's always a chance,' he said.
'I suppose we're going to do a bit more fighting?'
'We are.'
Walker yawned loudly.
'Well, at all events there's some comfort in that. If I am going to be done out of my night's rest, I should like to take it out of someone.'
Alec looked at him with approval. That was the frame of mind that pleased him. When he spoke again there was in his voice a peculiar charm that perhaps in part accounted for the power he had over his fellows. It inspired an extraordinary belief in him, so that anyone would have followed him cheerfully to certain death. And though his words were few and bald, he was so unaccustomed to take others into his confidence, that when he did so, ever so little, and in that tone, it seemed that he was putting his hearers under a singular obligation.
'If things turn out all right, we shall come near finishing the job, and there won't be much more slave-trading in this part of Africa.'
'And if things don't turn out all right?'
'Why then, I'm afraid the tea tables of Mayfair will be deprived of your scintillating repartee for ever.'