Part 77

'I'm so glad to be able to congratulate you,' he said, holding her hand and smiling with that rare, sweet smile of his. 'I was a little unhappy at leaving Dick; but now I leave him in your hands I'm perfectly content. He's the dearest, kindest old chap I've ever known.'

'Shut up, Alec,' cried Dick promptly. 'Don't play the heavy father, or Julia will burst into tears. She loves having a good cry.'

But Alec ignored the interruption.

'He'll be an admirable husband because he's been an admirable friend.'

For the first time Julia thought Alec altogether wise and charming.

'I know he will,' she answered happily. 'And I'm only prevented from saying all I think of him by the fear that he'll become perfectly unmanageable.'

'Spare me the chaste blushes which mantle my youthful brow, and pour out the tea, Julia,' said Dick.

She laughed and proceeded to do as he requested.

'And are you really starting for Africa so soon?' Julia asked, when they were settled around the tea-table.

Alec threw back his head, and his face lit up.

'I am. Everything is fixed up; the bother of collecting supplies and getting porters has been taken off my shoulders, and all I have to do is to get along as quickly as possible.'

'I wish to goodness you'd give up these horrible explorations,' cried Dick. 'They make the rest of us feel so abominably unadventurous.'

'But they're the very breath of my nostrils,' answered Alec. 'You don't know the exhilaration of the daily dangers, the joy of treading where only the wild beasts have trodden before.'

'I freely confess that I don't want to,' said Dick.

Alec sprang up and stretched his legs. As he spoke all signs of lassitude disappeared, and he was seized with an excitement that was rarely seen in him.

'Already I can hardly bear my impatience when I think of the boundless country and the enchanting freedom. Here one grows so small, so mean; but in Africa everything is built to a nobler standard. There the man is really a man. There one knows what are will and strength and courage. You don't know what it is to stand on the edge of some great plain and breathe the pure keen air after the terrors of the forest.'

'The boundless plain of Hyde Park is enough for me,' said Dick. 'And the aspect of Piccadilly on a fine day in June gives me quite as many emotions as I want.'

But Julia was moved by Alec's unaccustomed rhetoric, and she looked at him earnestly.

'But what will you gain by it now that your work is over--by all the danger and all the hardships?'

He turned his dark, solemn eyes upon her.

'Nothing. I want to gain nothing. Perhaps I shall discover some new species of antelope or some unknown plant. I may be fortunate enough to find a new waterway. That is all the reward I want. I love the sense of power and the mastery. What do you think I care for the tinsel rewards of kings and peoples!'

'I always said you were melodramatic,' said Dick. 'I never heard anything so transpontine.'

'And the end of it?' asked Julia, almost in a whisper. 'What will be the end?'

A faint smile played for an instant upon Alec's lips. He shrugged his shoulders.

'The end is death. But I shall die standing up. I shall go the last journey as I have gone every other.'

He stopped, for he would not add the last two words. Julia said them for him.

'Without fear.'

'For all the world like the wicked baronet,' cried the mocking Dick. 'Once aboard the lugger, and the gurl is mine.'