The Explorer

Lady Kelsey was far too distressed to see her nephew off; and Lucy was glad, since it gave her the chance of driving to the station alone with George. She found Dick Lomas and Mrs. Crowley alre

ed her eyes with a tiny handkerchief. Lucy

ack in the carriage?

don't mind,' Lucy answered quie

em good-bye, but w

wley. 'I wanted to throw myself in her arms and h

and they got into Mrs. Crowle

son who cried. I knew I should cry, and I brought three handkerchiefs on purpose. Look at

with triumph

said good-bye to them just as if they were going off for a day's golf. I was the only one who said I was sorry, and that we should miss them dreadfully. I hate this En

myself on the ground, and gnash my te

to Liverpool, and I shall have a racking h

tated for

d to let people see what we feel. But I don't know whether on that account our feelings are any the less keen. Don't you think there's a certain beauty in a grief that

ould have liked her much better if she had clung

aking hands? It was a very small omission, but i

iny house in Norfolk Street,

aper,' she said, 'while

endered as hers, and on the walls were mezzotints of the ladies whom Sir Joshua had painted. The chimney-piece was adorned with Lowestoft china, and on the silver table was a collection of old English spoons. She had chosen her butler because he went so well with the house. His respectability was portentous, his gravity was

n Mrs. Crowley returned, after an unconscionable time at the toilet-tab

aid. 'You've waited till I cam

morning by himself. At night, in your slippers and without a collar, with a pipe in your mouth and a good book in your hand,

excellent health,

m. W

our doctor had ordered you to go a

n,' returned Dick. 'Do you remember that I explained to you the

ongly disapp

up in a lunatic asylum. I invented a breakdown in my health, and everything is plain sailing. I've got a pair for

ou regret the st

a delusion. One of the greatest advantages of life is that hardly anything is. One can make ever so many fresh

life,' said Mrs. Crowley severely. 'It seems to

matter of fact, it's merely what you m

looked at Dic

you never marr

vered in my early youth that men propose not because they want to marry, but bec

ntous discover

at my only chance was to be ready with appropriate subjects at the smallest notice, a

rticularly brilliant,' murmured M

er been found wanting. I have met the ingenuousness of sweet seventeen with a few observations on Free Trade,

phy to me I make it a definite r

the results of missionary endeavour in Central Africa. Once a dowager sought to ask me my intentions, but I flung at her astonished head an article from the Encyclopedia Brittanica. An American divorcée swooned when I poured in

s. Crowley. 'I believe you never married for

known you for ten days without being tempted by those coal-m

it,' answered Mrs. Crowley. 'I put it down entir

would lunch with him, and gaily they set out for a fashionable restaurant. Neither of them gave a thought

igour of a Northern winter, set out for Nice. Lucy refused to accompany her. Though she knew it would be impossible to see her father, she could not bear to leave England; she could not face the gay people who thronged the Riviera, while he was bound to degrading tas

d sit in the National Gallery before some royal picture, and the joy of it would fill her soul with quiet relief. Sometimes she would go to those majestic statues that decorated the pediment of the Parthenon, and the tears welled up in her clear eyes as she thanked the gods for the graciousness of the

great poet, his doubt, despair, and his love of beauty, spoke to her heart as no modern writer could; and in the study of those sad deeds, in which men seemed always playthings of the fates, she found a relief to her own keen sorrow. She did not reason it out with herself, but almost unconsciously the thought came to her that the slings and arrows of th

him were placed all her hopes. But now and again wild panic seized her. Then the agony was too great to bear, and she pressed her hands to her eyes in order to drive away the hateful thought: what if George failed her? She knew well enough that he had his father's engaging ways and his father's handsome face; but his father had had a smile as frank and a charm as great. What if with the son, too, they betokened only insincerity and weakness? A malici

uraged. And she sought to give courage to him. She wanted him to see that her love was undiminished, and that he could count on it. Presently she received a letter from him. After a few weeks, the unaccustomed food, the change of li

he returned. He began and ended quite formally. George, apparently in the best of spirits, wrote as he always did, in a boyish, inconsequent fashion. His letter was filled with slang and gave no news. There was little to show that it was written from Mombassa, on

nd of Mombassa, with the overgrown ruins of a battery that had once commanded the entrance; and there were white-roofed houses, with deep verandas, which stood in little clearings with coral cliffs below them. On the opposite shore thick groves of palm-trees rose with their singular, melancholy beauty. Then as the channel narrowed, they passed an old Portuguese fort which carried the mind back to the bold adventurers who had first

en reams by every post to Lucy, and Lucy had looked forward very much to seeing her again. The little American was almost the only one of her friends with whom she did not feel shy. The apartness which her nationality gave her, made Mrs. Crowley more easy to talk to. She was too fond of Lucy to pity her. The general election came before it was expected, and Robert Boulger succeeded to the seat which Dick Lomas was only too glad to vacate. Bobbie was very charming. He su

figure in the procession of shadow pictures cast on a sheet in a fair, and nothing that she did signified. Her spirit was away in

. She knew the exultation which Alec felt, and the thrill of independence, when he left behind him all traces of it. He held himself

. He gave the order to the headman of the caravan to take up the loads. At the word there was a rush from all parts of the camp; each porter seized his load, carrying it off to lash on his mat and his cooking-pot, and then, sitting upon it, ate a few grains of roasted maize or the remains of last night's game. And as the sun appeared above the horizon, Alec, as was his custom, led the way, followed by a few askari. A band of natives struck up a strange and musical chant, and the camp, but now a scene

etimes they passed through villages, with rich soil and extensive population; sometimes they plunged into heavy forests of gigantic trees, festooned with creepers, where the silence was unbroken even by the footfall of the traveller on the bottomless carpet of leaves; sometimes they traversed vast swamps, hurrying to avoid the

ind; but at last they were all there; and the rear guard, perhaps with George in charge of it, whose orders were on no account to allow a single man to remain b

the tents were pitched, the bed gear arranged, the loads counted and stacked. The party whose duty it was to construct the zeriba cut down boughs and dragged them in to form a fence. Each little band of men selected the site for their bivouac; one went off to collect materials

t, or from scarcity the caravan had come to a land of plenty, there was a perfect babel of voices. But if the march had been long and hard, or if food h

Alec, gazing on the embers of his camp fire was alone with his thoughts: the silence of the night was upon him, and he looked up at the stars that shone in their countless myriads in the blue African sky. Lucy got up and stood at her open window. S

fostered in her were those that had been useful to her father and George; they had needed her courage and her self-reliance. It was very comfortable to depend entirely upon Alec's love. Here she could be weak, here she could find a greater strength which made her own seem puny. Lucy's thoughts were absorbed in the man whom really she knew so little. She exulted in his unselfish striving and in his firmness of purpose, and when she compared herself with him she felt unworthy. She treasured every recollection she had of him. She went over in her

s for this step. He had been busy making the final arrangements. A company had been formed, the North East Africa Trading Company, to exploit the commercial possibilities of these unworked districts, and a charter had been given them; but the unsettled state of the land had so hampered them that the directors had gladly accepted Alec's offer to join their forces with his, and the traders at their stations had been instructed to take service under him. This increased the white men under his command to sixteen. He had drilled the Swahilis whom he had brought from the coast, and given them guns, so that he ha

letter, and watched h

ing about Geo

dently qu

rid his mind of a certain uneasiness. He had received with misgiving Lucy's plan that George should accompany Alec. He could not help wondering whether those

owers from human ken. The months passed, and there was nothing. It was a year now since he had arrived at Mombassa, then it was a year since the last letter had come from him. It was only possible to guess that behind those gaunt rocks fierce battles were fought, new lands explored, and the slavers beaten back foot by foot. Dick sought to persuade himself that the silence was

o help him. For at length the directors of the North East Africa Trading Company, growing anxious, proposed to get a question asked in Parliament, or to start an outcry in the newspapers which should oblige the government to send out a force to relieve Alec if he were in difficulties, or avenge him if he were dead. But Lucy kne