'I daresay you have some preparations to make,' he said.
Walker got up.
'I'll be off,' he answered, with a slight smile.
He was glad to go, for it made him ashamed to watch the boy's humiliation. His own nature was so honest, his loyalty so unbending, that the sight of viciousness affected him with a physical repulsion, and he turned away from it as he would have done from the sight of some hideous ulcer. The doctor surmised that his presence too was undesired. Murmuring that he had no time to lose if he wanted to get his patients ready for a night march, he followed Walker out of the tent. George breathed more freely when he was alone with Alec.
'I'm sorry I did that silly thing just now,' he said. 'I'm glad I didn't hit you.'
'It doesn't matter at all,' smiled Alec. 'I'd forgotten all about it.'
'I lost my head. I didn't know what I was doing.'
'You need not trouble about that. In Africa even the strongest of us are apt to lose our balance.'
Alec filled his pipe again, and lighting it, blew heavy clouds of smoke into the damp air. His voice was softer when he spoke.
'Did you ever know that before we came away I asked Lucy to marry me?'
George did not answer. He stifled a sob, for the recollection of Lucy, the centre of his love and the mainspring of all that was decent in him, transfixed his heart with pain.
'She asked me to bring you here in the hope that you'd,'--Alec had some difficulty in expressing himself--'do something that would make people forget what happened to your father. She's very proud of her family. She feels that your good name is--besmirched, and she wanted you to give it a new lustre. I think that is the object she has most at heart in the world. It is as great as her love for you. The plan hasn't been much of a success, has it?'
'She ought to have known that I wasn't suited for this sort of life,' answered George, bitterly.
'I saw very soon that you were weak and irresolute, but I thought I could put some backbone into you. I hoped for her sake to make something of you after all. Your intentions seemed good enough, but you never had the strength to carry them out.' Alec had been watching the smoke that rose from his pipe, but now he looked at George. 'I'm sorry if I seem to be preaching at you.'
'Oh, do you think I care what anyone says to me now?'
Alec went on very gravely, but not unkindly.
'Then I found you were drinking. I told you that no man could stand liquor in this country, and you gave me your word of honour that you wouldn't touch it again.'
'Yes, I broke it. I couldn't help myself. The temptation was too strong.'
'When we came to the station at Munias, and I was laid up with fever, you and Macinnery took the opportunity to get into an ugly scrape with some native women. You knew that that was the one thing I would not stand. I have nothing to do with morality--everyone is free in these things to do as he chooses--but I do know that nothing causes more trouble with the natives, and I've made definite rules on the subject. If the culprits are Swahilis I flog them, and if they're whites I send them back to the coast. That's what I ought to have done with you, but it would have broken Lucy's heart.'
'It was Macinnery's fault.'
'It's because I thought Macinnery was chiefly to blame that I sent him back alone. I determined to give you another chance. It struck me that the feeling of authority might have some influence on you, and so, when I had to build a _boma_ to guard the road down to the coast, I put the chief part of the stores in your care and left you in command. I need not remind you what happened there.'
George looked down at the floor sulkily, and in default of excuses, kept silent. He felt a sullen resentment as he remembered Alec's anger. He had never seen him give way before or since to such a furious wrath, and he had seen Alec hold himself with all his strength so that he might not thrash him. Alec remembered too, and his voice once more grew hard and cold.
'I came to the conclusion that it was hopeless. You seemed to me rotten through and through.'
'Like my father before me,' sneered George, with a little laugh.
'I couldn't believe a word you said. You were idle and selfish. Above all you were loathsomely, wantonly cruel. I was aghast when I heard of the fiendish cruelty with which you'd used the wretched men whom I left with you. If I hadn't returned in the nick of time, they'd have killed you and looted all the stores.'
'It would have upset you to lose the stores, wouldn't it?'
'Is that all you've got to say?'
'You always believed their stories rather than mine.'
'It was difficult not to believe when a man showed me his back all torn and bleeding, and said you'd had him flogged because he didn't cook your food to your satisfaction.'
'I did it in a moment of temper. A man's not responsible for what he does when he's got fever.'
'It was too late to send you to the coast then, and I was obliged to take you on. And now the end has come. Your murder of that woman has put us all in deadly peril. Already to your charge lie the deaths of Richardson and Thompson and about twenty natives. We're as near destruction as we can possibly be; and if we're killed, to-morrow the one tribe that has remained friendly will be attacked and their villages burnt. Men, women and children, will be put to the sword or sold into slavery.'
George seemed at last to see the abyss into which he was plunged, and his resentment gave way to despair.
'What are you going to do?'
'We're far away from the coast, and I must take the law into my own hands.'
'You're not going to kill me?' gasped George.
'No,' said Alec scornfully.
Alec sat on the little camp table so that he might be quite near George.
'Are you fond of Lucy?' he asked gently.
George broke into a sob.
'O God, you know I am,' he cried piteously. 'Why do you remind me of her? I've made a rotten mess of everything, and I'm better out of the way. But think of the disgrace of it. It'll kill Lucy. And she was hoping I'd do so much.'
He hid his face in his hands and sobbed broken-heartedly. Alec, strangely touched, put his hand on his shoulder.
'Listen to me,' he said. 'I've sent Deacon and Rogers to bring up as many Latukas as they can. If we can tide over to-morrow we may be able to inflict a crushing blow on the Arabs; but we must seize the ford over the river. The Arabs are holding it and our only chance is to make a sudden attack on them to-night before the natives join them. We shall be enormously outnumbered, but we may do some damage if we take them by surprise, and if we can capture the ford, Rogers and Deacon will be able to get across to us. We've lost Richardson and Thompson. Perkins is down with fever. That reduces the whites to Walker, and the doctor, Condamine, Mason, you and myself. I can trust the Swahilis, but they're the only natives I can trust. Now, I'm going to start marching straight for the ford. The Arabs will come out of their stockade in order to cut us off. In the darkness I mean to slip away with the rest of the white men and the Swahilis, I've found a short cut by which I can take them in the rear. They'll attack just as the ford is reached, and I shall fall upon them. Do you see?'
George nodded, but he did not understand at what Alec was driving. The words reached his ears vaguely, as though they came from a long way off.
'I want one white man to lead the Turkana, and that man will run the greatest possible danger. I'd go myself only the Swahilis won't fight unless I lead them.... Will you take that post?'