Trent rose up with flashing eyes.Da Souza shrank back from his outstretched hands.The two men stood facing one another.Da Souza was afraid,but the ugly look of determination remained upon his white face.Trent felt dimly that there was something which must be explained between them.There had been hints of this sort before from Da Souza.It was time the whole thing was cleared up.
The lion was ready to throw aside the jackal.
"I give you thirty seconds,"he said,"to clear out.If you haven't come to your senses then,you'll be sorry for it.""Thirty seconds is not long enough,"Da Souza answered,"for me to tell you why I decline to go.Better listen to me quietly,my friend.It will be best for you.Afterwards you will admit it.""Go ahead,"Trent said,"I'm anxious to hear what you've got to say.
Only look here !I'm a bit short-tempered this morning,and Ishouldn't advise you to play with your words!""This is no play at all,"Da Souza remarked,with a sneer."I ask you to remember,my friend,our first meeting."Trent nodded.
"Never likely to forget it,"he answered.
"I came down from Elmina to deal with you,"Da Souza continued."Ihad made money trading in Ashanti for palm-oil and mahogany.I had money to invest -and you needed it.You had land,a concession to work gold-mines,and build a road to the coast.It was speculative,but we did business.I came with you to England.I found more money.""You made your fortune,"Trent said drily."I had to have the money,and you ground a share out of me which is worth a quarter of a million to you!""Perhaps it is,"Da Souza answered,"perhaps it is not.Perhaps it is worth nothing at all.Perhaps,instead of being a millionaire,you yourself are a swindler and an adventurer!""If you don't speak out in half a moment,"Trent said in a low tone,"I'll twist the tongue out of your head.""I am speaking out,"Da Souza answered."It is an ugly thing Ihave to say,but you must control yourself."The little black eyes were like the eyes of a snake.He was showing his teeth.He forgot to be afraid.
"You had a partner,"he said."The concession was made out to him together with yourself.""He died,"Trent answered shortly."I took over the lot by arrangement.""A very nice arrangement,"Da Souza drawled with a devilish smile.
"He is old and weak.You were with him up at Bekwando where there are no white men -no one to watch you.You gave him brandy to drink -you watch the fever come,and you write on the concession if one should die all goes to the survivor.And you gave him brandy in the bush where the fever is,and -behold you return alone!When people know this they will say,'Oh yes,it is the way millionaires are made.'"He stopped,out of breath,for the veins were standing out upon his forehead,and he remembered what the English doctor at Cape Coast Castle had told him.So he was silent for a moment,wiping the perspiration away and struggling against the fear which was turning the blood to ice in his veins.For Trent's face was not pleasant to look upon.
"Anything else?"
Da Souza pulled himself together."Yes,"he said;"what I have said is as nothing.It is scandalous,and it would make talk,but it is nothing.There is something else.""Well?""You had a partner whom you deserted.""It is a lie!I carried him on my back for twenty hours with a pack of yelling niggers behind.We were lost,and I myself was nigh upon a dead man.Who would have cumbered himself with a corpse?Curse you and your vile hints,you mongrel,you hanger-on,you scurrilous beast!Out,and spread your stories,before my fingers get on your throat!Out!"Da Souza slunk away before the fire in Trent's eyes,but he had no idea of going.He stood in safety near the door,and as he leaned forward,speaking now in a hoarse whisper,he reminded Trent momentarily of one of those hideous fetish gods in the sacred grove at Bekwando.
"Your partner was no corpse when you left him,"he hissed out.
"You were a fool and a bungler not to make sure of it.The natives from Bekwando found him and carried him bound to the King,and your English explorer,Captain Francis,rescued him.He's alive now!"Trent stood for a moment like a man turned to stone.Alive!Monty alive!The impossibility of the thing came like a flash of relief to him.The man was surely on the threshold of death when he had left him,and the age of miracles was past.
"You're talking like a fool,Da Souza.Do you mean to take me in with an old woman's story like that?""There's no old woman's story about what I've told you,"Da Souza snarled."The man's alive and I can prove it a dozen times over.
You were a fool and a bungler."
Trent thought of the night when he had crept back into the bush and had found no trace of Monty,and gradually there rose up before him a lurid possibility Da Souza's story was true.The very thought of it worked like madness in his brains.When he spoke he strove hard to steady his voice,and even to himself it sounded like the voice of one speaking a long way off.
"Supposing that this were true,"he said,"what is he doing all this time?Why does he not come and claim his share?"Da Souza hesitated.He would have liked to have invented another reason,but it was not safe.The truth was best.
