Of Millicent Chyne he thought more often, with a certain tranquil sense of a good time to come. In her also he placed a perfect faith. A poet has found out that, if one places faith in a man, it is probable that the man will rise to trustworthiness--of woman he says nothing. But of these things Guy Oscard knew little. He went his own tranquilly strong way, content to buy his own experience. He was thinking of Millicent Chyne one misty morning while he walked slowly backwards and forwards before his tent. His knowledge of the country told him that the mist was nothing but the night's accumulation of moisture round the summit of the mountain--that down in the valleys it was clear, and that half an hour's sunshine would disperse all. He was waiting for this result when he heard a rifle-shot far away in the haze beneath him; and he knew that it was Joseph--probably making one of those marvellous long shots of his which roused a sudden sigh of envy in the heart of this mighty hunter whenever he witnessed them. Oscard immediately went to his tent and came out with his short-barrelled, evil-looking rifle on his arm. He fired both barrels in quick succession and waited, standing gravely on the edge of the Plateau. After a short silence two answering reports rose up through the mist to his straining ears. He turned and found Victor Durnovo standing at his side. “What is that?” asked the half-breed. “It must be Joseph,” answered Guy, “or Meredith. It can be nobody else.” “Let us hope that it is Meredith,” said Durnovo with a forced laugh, “but I doubt it.” Oscard looked down in his sallow, powerful face. He was not quick at such things, but at that moment he felt strangely certain that Victor Durnovo was hoping that Meredith was dead. “I hope it isn't,” he answered, and without another word he strode away down the little pathway from the summit into the clouds, loading his rifle as he went. Durnovo and his men, working among the Simiacine bushes, heard from time to time a signal shot as the two Englishmen groped their way towards each other through the everlasting night of the African forest. It was midday before the new-comers were espied making their way painfully up the slope, and Joseph's welcome was not so much in Durnovo's handshake, in Guy Oscard's silent approval, as in the row of grinning, good-natured black faces behind Durnovo's back. That night laughter was heard in the men's camp for the first time for many weeks--nay, several months. According to the account that Joseph gave to his dusky admirers, he had been on terms of the closest familiarity with the wives, and families of all who had such at Loango or on the Coast. He knew the mother of one, had met the sweetheart of another, and confessed that it was only due to the fact that he was not “a marryin' man” that he had not stayed at Loango for the rest of his life. It was somewhat singular that he had nothing but good news to give.