"Then," said Carter, "we shan't clash, and I'm sure you will give me my passports. I don't know whether the place I am making for is in your territory or the next king's, but I'm going there purely for purposes of development. I tell you frankly, I haven't a bit of ambition at present beyond making a pile. If ever I find myself a rich man I may take a hand in the thankless game you are on at here. But that's in the future. In the meanwhile, if the question is not indiscreet, might one ask if it was a Frenchman you were having that rifle duel with just now?" "The Frenchman's down with fever. I was exchanging shots with a soldier of fortune who is, I believe, an old acquaintance of yours. Kwaka his name is." "Great Christopher! what a small place West Africa is. Old Kallee sent Kwaka down to borrow my head for his collection, and after the way I bamboozled that man I shouldn't have been surprised if he'd been struck off the Okky army list. Did you--er--make a clean job of him?" "Winged only, I think. He kept very well to cover." "You were both blazing away for long enough." "Well," chuckled Mr. Smith, "I'm afraid he hardly had a fair chance at me. You see, I'd a boy with a trade gun lying under a log a dozen yards to my right, and I'd a string from my foot to his trigger. When I loosed off the Winchester I pulled the other gun too, and Kwaka shot for the smoke every time, and made very good practice of it. That log would be worth mining for lead." "When you take the place what shall you do with the Frenchman?" "Just the same that he would do with me," said the old man grimly. "Now suppose we change the subject. The bush telegraphs have been persistently talking about a white woman who's been upsetting the face of Africa, especially about our factories. Heard anything of her?" Carter laughed shortly. "Of course I've heard. In fact, she's why I'm here. She's Miss Kate O'Neill." The old man dropped his eyeglass to the end of its ribbon, fumbled for it till he caught it again, and three times tried to screw it in place before he got it fixed. "Kate O'Neill, you say? She'd be about twenty--no, twenty-three years old?" "I'm a bad judge, but I daresay she'd be about that. Why, do you know her, sir?" Mr. Smith straightened himself with an obvious effort. "As I have not been to England for five-and-twenty years, is it likely? You said she was English, I think?" "As a point of fact, I did not, though presumably she is English. She was not the late Godfrey O'Neill's real relative. She was adopted, so I heard. But he left her the business for all that, and she's making it hum. She's marvellously able. But of course you have seen for yourself more of her efforts than I have, sir." "I have seen them?"