The Explorer Part 4

Two men above all attracted Alec Mackenzie's interest. One was Richard Burton, that mighty, enigmatic man, more admirable for what he was than for what he did; and the other was Livingstone, the greatest of African explorers. There was something very touching in the character of that gentle Scot. MacKenzie's enthusiasm was seldom very strong, but here was a man whom he would willingly have known; and he was strangely affected by the thought of his lonely death, and his grave in the midst of the Dark Continent he loved so well. On that, too, might have been written the epitaph which is on the tomb of Sir Christopher Wren.

Finally he studied the works of Henry M. Stanley. Here the man excited neither admiration nor affection, but a cold respect. No one could help recognising the greatness of his powers. He was a man of Napoleonic instinct, who suited his means to his end, and ruthlessly fought his way until he had achieved it. His books were full of interest, and they were practical. From them much could be learned, and Alec studied them with a thoroughness which was in his nature.

When he arose from this long perusal, his mind was made up. He had found his vocation.

He did not disclose his plans to any of his friends till they were mature, and meanwhile set about seeing the people who could give him information. At last he sailed for Zanzibar, and started on a journey which was to try his powers. In a month he fell ill, and it was thought at the mission to which his bearers brought him that he could not live.

For ten weeks he was at death's door, but he would not give in to the enemy. He insisted in the end on being taken back to the coast, and here, as if by a personal effort of will, he recovered. The season had pa.s.sed for his expedition, and he was obliged to return to England. Most men would have been utterly discouraged, but Alec was only strengthened in his determination. He personified in a way that deadly climate and would not allow himself to be beaten by it. His short experience had shown him what he needed, and as soon as he was back in England he proceeded to acquire a smattering of medical knowledge, and some acquaintance with the sciences which were wanted by a traveller. He had immense powers of concentration, and in a year of tremendous labour acquired a working knowledge of botany and geology, and the elements of surveying; he learnt how to treat the maladies which were likely to attack people in tropical districts, and enough surgery to set a broken limb or to conduct a simple operation. He felt himself ready now for a considerable undertaking; but this time he meant to start from Momba.s.sa.

So far Lucy was able to go, partly from her own imaginings, and partly from what d.i.c.k had told her. He had given her the proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, and here she found Alec MacKenzie's account of his wanderings during the five years that followed. The countries which he explored then, became afterwards British East Africa.

But the bell rang for dinner, and so interrupted her meditations.

III

They played bridge immediately afterwards. Mrs. Crowley looked upon conversation as a fine art, which could not be pursued while the body was engaged in the process of digestion; and she was of opinion that a game of cards agreeably diverted the mind and prepared the intellect for the quips and cranks which might follow when the claims of the body were satisfied. Lucy drew Alec MacKenzie as her partner, and so was able to watch his play when her cards were on the table. He did not play lightly as did d.i.c.k, who kept up a running commentary the whole time, but threw his whole soul into the game and never for a moment relaxed his attention. He took no notice of d.i.c.k's facetious observations. Presently Lucy grew more interested in his playing than in the game; she was struck, not only by his great gift of concentration, but by his boldness. He had a curious faculty for knowing almost from the beginning of a hand where each card lay. She saw, also, that he was plainly most absorbed when he was playing both hands himself; he was a man who liked to take everything on his own shoulders, and the division of responsibility irritated him.

At the end of the rubber d.i.c.k flung himself back in his chair irritably.

'I can't make it out,' he cried. 'I play much better than you, and I hold better hands, and yet you get the tricks.'

d.i.c.k was known to be an excellent player, and his annoyance was excusable.

'We didn't make a single mistake,' he a.s.sured his partner, 'and we actually had the odd in our hands, but not one of our finesses came off, and all his did.' He turned to Alec. 'How the d.i.c.kens did you guess I had those two queens?'

'Because I've known you for twenty years,' answered Alec, smiling. 'I know that, though you're impulsive and emotional, you're not without shrewdness; I know that your brain acts very quickly and sees all kinds of remote contingencies; then you're so pleased at having noticed them that you act as if they were certain to occur. Given these data, I can tell pretty well what cards you have, after they've gone round two or three times.'

'The knowledge you have of your opponents' cards is too uncanny,' said Mrs. Crowley.

'I can tell a good deal from people's faces. You see, in Africa I have had a lot of experience; it's apparently so much easier for the native to lie than to tell the truth that you get into the habit of paying no attention to what he says, and a great deal to the way he looks.'

While Mrs. Crowley made herself comfortable in the chair, which she had already chosen as her favourite, d.i.c.k went over to the fire and stood in front of it in such a way as effectually to prevent the others from getting any of its heat.

'What made you first take to exploration?' asked Mrs. Crowley suddenly.

Alec gave her that slow, scrutinising look of his, and answered, with a smile:

'I don't know. I had nothing to do and plenty of money.'

'Not a bit of it,' interrupted d.i.c.k. 'A lunatic wanted to find out about some district that people had never been to, and it wouldn't have been any use to them if they had, because, if the natives didn't kill you, the climate made no bones about it. He came back crippled with fever, having failed in his attempt, and, after a.s.serting that no one could get into the heart of Rofa's country and return alive, promptly gave up the ghost. So Alec immediately packed up his traps and made for the place.'

'I proved the man was wrong,' said Alec quietly. 'I became great friends with Rofa, and he wanted to marry my sister, only I hadn't one.'

'And if anyone said it was impossible to hop through Asia on one foot, you'd go and do it just to show it could be done,' retorted d.i.c.k 'You have a pa.s.sion for doing things because they're difficult or dangerous, and, if they're downright impossible, you chortle with joy.'

'You make me really too melodramatic,' smiled Alec.

'But that's just what you are. You're the most transpontine person I ever saw in my life.' d.i.c.k turned to Lucy and Mrs. Crowley with a wave of the hand. 'I call you to witness. When he was at Oxford, Alec was a regular dab at cla.s.sics; he had a gift for writing verses in languages that no one except dons wanted to read, and everyone thought that he was going to be the most brilliant scholar of his day.'

'This is one of d.i.c.k's favourite stories,' said Alec. 'It would be quite amusing if there were any truth in it.'

But d.i.c.k would not allow himself to be interrupted.

'At mathematics, on the other hand, he was a perfect a.s.s. You know, some people seem to have that part of their brains wanting that deals with figures, and Alec couldn't add two and two together without making a hexameter out of it. One day his tutor got in a pa.s.sion with him and said he'd rather teach arithmetic to a brick wall. I happened to be present, and he was certainly very rude. He was a man who had a precious gift for making people feel thoroughly uncomfortable. Alec didn't say anything, but he looked at him; and, when he flies into a temper, he doesn't get red and throw things about like a pleasant, normal person--he merely becomes a little paler and stares at you.'

'I beg you not to believe a single word he says,' remonstrated Alec.

'Well, Alec threw over his cla.s.sics. Everyone concerned reasoned with him; they appealed to his common sense; they were appealing to the most obstinate fool in Christendom. Alec had made up his mind to be a mathematician. For more than two years he worked ten hours a day at a subject he loathed; he threw his whole might into it and forced out of nature the gifts she had denied him, with the result that he got a first cla.s.s. And much good it's done him.'

Alec shrugged his shoulders.

'It wasn't that I cared for mathematics, but it taught me to conquer the one inconvenient word in the English language.'

'And what the deuce is that?'

'I'm afraid it sounds very priggish,' laughed Alec. 'The word _impossible_.'

d.i.c.k gave a little snort of comic rage.

'And it also gave you a ghastly pleasure in doing things that hurt you.

Oh, if you'd only been born in the Middle Ages, what a fiendish joy you would have taken in mortifying your flesh, and in denying yourself everything that makes life so good to live! You're never thoroughly happy unless you're making yourself thoroughly miserable.'

'Each time I come back to England I find that you talk more and greater nonsense, d.i.c.k,' returned Alec drily.

'I'm one of the few persons now alive who can talk nonsense,' answered his friend, laughing. 'That's why I'm so charming. Everyone else is so deadly earnest.'

He settled himself down to make a deliberate speech.

'I deplore the strenuousness of the world in general. There is an idea abroad that it is praiseworthy to do things, and what they are is of no consequence so long as you do them. I hate the mad hurry of the present day to occupy itself. I wish I could persuade people of the excellence of leisure.'

'One could scarcely accuse you of cultivating it yourself,' said Lucy, smiling.

d.i.c.k looked at her for a moment thoughtfully.

'Do you know that I'm hard upon forty?'

'With the light behind, you might still pa.s.s for thirty-two,'

interrupted Mrs. Crowley.

He turned to her seriously.

'I haven't a grey hair on my head.'

'I suppose your servant plucks them out every morning?'

'Oh, no, very rarely; one a month at the outside.'