On the evening of the second day, as they sat before a blazing fire--for the night air had a nip even in equatorial Africa--Lambaire spoke his mind. “Does it occur to you fellows what we are marching towards?” he asked. Neither answered him. Sutton took a listless interest in the conversation, but the eyes of Whitey narrowed watchfully. “We are marching to the devil,” said Lambaire impressively. “I am marching to the bankruptcy court, and so are you, Whitey. Sutton is marching to something that will make him the laughing-stock of London; and,” he added slowly, watching the effect of his words, “that will make his father’s name ridiculous.” He saw the boy wince, and went on: “Me and Whitey floated a Company--got money out of the public--diamond mine--brilliant prospects and all that sort of thing--see?” He caught Whitey nodding his head thoughtfully, and saw the puzzled interest in Sutton’s face. “We are going back----” “If we get back,” murmured Whitey. “Don’t talk like a fool,” snapped Lambaire. “My God, you make me sick, Whitey; you spoil everything! Get back! Of course we will get back--the worst of the fighting is over. It’s marchin’ now--we are in reach of civilization----” “Go on--go on,” said Whitey impatiently, “when we get back?” “When we do,” said Lambaire, “we’ve got to say, ‘Look here, you people--the fact of it is----’” “Making a clean breast of the matter,” murmured Whitey. “Making a clean breast of the matter--‘there’s no mine.’” Lambaire paused, as much to allow the significance of the situation to sink into his own mind as into the minds of the hearers. “Well?” asked Whitey. “Well,” repeated the other, “why should we? Look here!”--he leant forward and spoke rapidly and with great earnestness--“what’s to prevent our saying that we have located the diamond patch, eh? We can cut out the river--make it a dried river bed--we have seen hundreds of places where there are rivers in the wet season. Suppose we get back safe and sound with our pockets full of garnets and uncut diamonds--I can get ’em in London----” Whitey’s eyes were dancing now; no need to ask him how the ingenious plan appealed to him. But Sutton questioned. The young man’s face was stiff with resentment. “You are mad, Lambaire,” he said roughly. “Do you think that I would go back and lie? Do you imagine that I would be a party to a fraud of that kind--and lend my father’s name and memory to it? You are mad.” Neither man had regarded him as a serious factor in the expedition and its object. They did not look for opposition from one whom they had regarded more or less as a creature. Yet such opposition they had to meet, opposition that grew in strength with every argument they addressed to him. Men who find themselves out of touch with civilization are apt to take perverted moral views, and before they had left the friendly village both Whitey--the saner of the pair--and Lambaire had come to regard themselves as ill-used men.