A Millionaire of Yesterday Part 7

Anything else?"

Monty fell back speechless. There was a sudden change in his face.

Trent, who had seen men die before, let go his hand and turned away without any visible emotion. Then he drew himself straight, and set his teeth hard together.

"I'm going to get out of this," he said to himself slowly and with fierce emphasis. "I'm not for dying and I won't die!"

He stumbled on a few steps, a little black snake crept out of its bed of mud, and looked at him with yellow eyes protruding from its upraised head. He kicked it savagely away--a crumpled, shapeless ma.s.s. It was a piece of brutality typical of the man. Ahead he fancied that the air was clearer--the fetid mists less choking--in the deep night-silence a few hours back he had fancied that he had heard the faint thunder of the sea. If this were indeed so, it would be but a short distance now to the end of his journey. With dull, glazed eyes and clenched hands, he reeled on. A sort of stupor had laid hold of him, but through it all his brain was working, and he kept steadily to a fixed course. Was it the sea in his ears, he wondered, that long, monotonous rolling of sound, and there were lights before his eyes--the lights of Buckomari, or the lights of death!

They found him an hour or two later unconscious, but alive, on the outskirts of the village.

Three days later two men were seated face to face in a long wooden house, the largest and most important in Buckomari village.

Smoking a corn-cob pipe and showing in his face but few marks of the terrible days through which he had pa.s.sed was Scarlett Trent--opposite to him was Hiram Da Souza, the capitalist of the region. The Jew--of Da Souza's nationality it was impossible to have any doubt--was coa.r.s.e and large of his type, he wore soiled linen clothes and was smoking a black cigar. On the little finger of each hand, thickly encrusted with dirt, was a diamond ring, on his thick, protruding lips a complacent smile.

The concession, already soiled and dog-eared, was spread out before them.

It was Da Souza who did most of the talking. Trent indeed had the appearance of a man only indirectly interested in the proceedings.

"You see, my dear sir," Da Souza was saying, "this little concession of yours is, after all, a very risky business. These n.i.g.g.e.rs have absolutely no sense honour. Do I not know it--alas--to my cost?"

Trent listened in contemptuous silence. Da Souza had made a fortune trading fiery rum on the Congo and had probably done more to debauch the n.i.g.g.e.rs he spoke of so bitterly than any man in Africa.

"The Bekwando people have a bad name--very bad name. As for any sense of commercial honour--my dear Trent, one might as well expect diamonds to spring up like mushrooms under our feet."

"The doc.u.ment," Trent said, "is signed by the King and witnessed by Captain Francis, who is Agent-General out here, or something of the sort, for the English Government. It was no gift and don't you think it, but a piece of hard bartering. Forty bearers carried our presents to Bekwando and it took us three months to get through. There is enough in it to make us both millionaires.

"Then why," Da Souza asked, looking up with twinkling eyes, "do you want to sell me a share in it?"

"Because I haven't a darned cent to bless myself with," Trent answered curtly. "I've got to have ready money. I've never had my fist on five thousand pounds before--no, nor five thousand pence, but, as I'm a living man, let me have my start and I'll hold my own with you all."

Da Souza threw himself back in his chair with uplifted hands.

"But my dear friend," he cried, "my dear young friend, you were not thinking--do not say that you were thinking of asking such a sum as five thousand pounds for this little piece of paper!"

The amazement, half sorrowful, half reproachful, on the man's face was perfectly done. But Trent only snorted.

"That piece of paper, as you call it, cost us the hard savings of years, it cost us weeks and months in the bush and amongst the swamps--it cost a man's life, not to mention the n.i.g.g.e.rs we lost. Come, I'm not here to play skittles. Are you on for a deal or not? If you're doubtful about it I've another market. Say the word and we'll drink and part, but if you want to do business, here are my terms. Five thousand for a sixth share!"

"Sixth share," the Jew screamed, "sixth share?"

Trent nodded.

"The thing's worth a million at least," he said. "A sixth share is a great fortune. Don't waste any time turning up the whites of your eyes at me. I've named my terms and I shan't budge from them. You can lay your bottom dollar on that."

Da Souza took up the doc.u.ment and glanced it through once more.

"The concession," he remarked, "is granted to Scarlett Trent and to one Monty jointly. Who is this Monty, and what has he to say to it?"

Trent set his teeth hard, and he never blenched.

"He was my partner, but he died in the swamps, poor chap. We had horrible weather coming back. It pretty near finished me."

Trent did not mention the fact that for four days and nights they were hiding in holes and up trees from the natives whom the King of Bekwando had sent after them, that their bearers had fled away, and that they had been compelled to leave the track and make their way through an unknown part of the bush.

"But your partner's share," the Jew asked. "What of that?"

"It belongs to me," Trent answered shortly. "We fixed it so before we started. We neither of us took much stock in our relations. If I had died, Monty would have taken the lot. It was a fair deal. You'll find it there!"

The Jew nodded.

"And your partner?" he said. "You saw him die! There is no doubt about that?"

Trent nodded.

"He is as dead," he said, "as Julius Caesar."

"If I offered you--" Da Souza began.

"If you offered me four thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine pounds,"

Trent interrupted roughly, "I would tell you to go to glory."

Da Souza sighed. It was a hard man to deal with--this.

"Very well," he said, "if I give way, if I agree to your terms, you will be willing to make over this sixth share to me, both on your own account and on account of your late partner?"

"You're right, mate," Trent a.s.sented. "Plank down the bra.s.s, and it's a deal."

"I will give you four thousand pounds for a quarter share," Da Souza said.

Trent knocked the ashes from his pipe and stood up.

"Here, don't waste any more of my time," he said. "Stand out of the way, I'm off."

Da Souza kept his hands upon the concession.

"My dear friend," he said, "you are so violent. You are so abrupt. Now listen. I will give you five thousand for a quarter share. It is half my fortune."

"Give me the concession," Trent said. "I'm off."

"For a fifth," Da Souza cried.

Trent moved to the door without speech. Da Souza groaned.

"You will ruin me," he said, "I know it. Come then, five thousand for a sixth share. It is throwing money away."

"If you think so, you'd better not part," Trent said, still lingering in the doorway. "Just as you say. I don't care."

For a full minute Da Souza hesitated. He had an immense belief in the richness of the country set out in the concession; he knew probably more about it than Trent himself. But five thousand pounds was a great deal of money and there was always the chance that the Government might not back the concession holders in case of trouble. He hesitated so long that Trent was actually disappearing before he had made up his mind.