"STAR" TALES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 9959, 22 September 1910, Page 4

"STAR" TALES.

A QUESTION OF LATITUDE (By RICHARD HARDING DAVIS.) Of the school of earnest /o-.'.ng writers'at whom the tvord muckrakcr had been thrown in opprobrium, and by whom it had been caught up as a title of honour, Everett was among Vhe younger and less conspicuous. But, if in his skirmishes with graft and corruption he had failed to correct the evils he attacked, from the contests he himself had always emerged with credit. His sincerity and his methods were above suspicion No ono had caught him in mis-statemont, or exaggeration. Even those lie attacked 'admitted ho fought fair. For these reasons the editors of magazines, with the fear of libel beforo their eyes., regarded him. as a " safe " man, the pub- ' lie, feeling that the evils ho exposed .were due to its own indifference,' with linoomfortable approval, and those -he *': attacked, with impotent anger. Their ; anger was impotent because, in the case- of Everett, the weapons used by .their class in "striking back" were denied them They could not say that jfor nionty he sold sensations., because .tt was known that a proud and wealthy parent supplied him with all the money he wanted. Nor in his- private lifo .could they find anything to offset his ' attacks upon the misconduct of others. Man had been sent to spy upon him, jtud women to lay traps. But the men re-ported that his evenings were spent , ,*t. his club, and, from the women, * those who sent them learned only that Everett "treats a lady just a.s though ; >he is a lady." j V Accordingly, when, with much trum- • petting, he departed to investigate conditions in the Congo, thero vrero pome who rejoiced. r The standard of lifo to which Evor•«tt was accustomed was high. In his home in Boston ib had been set for him by a. father and mother who, ' though oritics rather than workers in ilfche world, had taught him to despise Vhat was mean md ungenerous, to Vrrito tie truth and abhoi a compromise. At Harvard he had interested himself in municipal reform, and when later he moved to New York he transferred his interest to the problems of J.hat city. His attack upon Tammany Hall did not utterly destroy that origan jsation, but at onco brought him to the notice of the editors. By them he was invited to tilt his lance at evils in other parts of the United State.?, at "systems," _ trusts, convict camps, municipal misrule. His work had met with a measure of success that seemed itb justify "Lowell's Weekly" in sending him further afield, and he now was on his way to tell the truth about .the Congo. Personally, Everett was a ■ healthy, clean-minded enthusiast. He possessed all the advantages of youth, and all of its intolerance. He was supposed to be engaged to Florence Carey, ,l)ut he was not. There was, however, 'between them an " understanding," ' which understanding, as Everett understood it. meant that until she was ready to say "I am ready," he was to think ,'hf' her, dream of her, write love-letters "Ijo her and keep himself only for her. 'flfle loved her very dearly, and, having f\o choice, was content to wait. His content was fortunate, as Miss Carey Seemed inclined to keep him waiting indefinitely." * Escept in Europe, Everett had never travelled outside the limits of his own "country. But the new land toward which he was advancing held no terrors. 'As he understood it, the Congo was at Wie mercy of a corrupt "ring." In jarvery part of tho United States he had .found a city in the clutch of a corrupt iring. The conditions would be the Wame, the methods he would use to get 'at the truth would be the same, the Iresult for reform would be the same. 'The English steamer on which lie (sailed for Southampton was one leased fey the Independent State of the Congo, apA, with a few exceptions, her passenf'era were subjects of King Leopold. On oard, the language was French, at .table the men sat according to the rank ■ fhey held in the administration of the jjungle, and each in his buttonhole wore [the tiny silver star that showed that s6r three years, to fill the storehouses of the King of the Belgians, he had gathered rubber and ivory. In tho Janoking-room Everett soon discovered .that tiassengers not in the service of ;,. ithat king, the English and German officers and traders, held aloof from the "' (Belgians. Their attitude toward them seemed to he one partly of contempt, partly of pity. "Are your English protectorates on #lO coast, then, so much better atlminfetereci!"' Everett asked. ' The "Coaster," who for ten ' y»eare in Nigeria had escaped fever and jmdden death, laughed evasively. '"I have never been in the Congo," ho said. "Only know what they tell

one. But you'll see for yourself. That is," he added, " you'll see what they , want you to see," ! They were leaning on the rail, with : their eyes turned toward the coast of Liberia, a gloomy green line against which the waves cast up fountains of foam as high as the cocoanut palms. ;'A« a subject of discussion, the Coaster , jeemed anxious to avoid tho Congo. j "It was there," ho said, pointing,! {' the Three Castles struck on the rocks. \ She was a total loss. So were her passengers," he added. " They ato them." | .Everett gazed suspiciously at the un- j nioved face of the veteran. /"Who ate them?" he asked guardedly. "Sharks?" I "The natives that live back of that I x shore-line in the lagoons." j ~, Everett laughed with the assurance fcvf one for whom a trap had been laid; tmcl who had cleverly avoided it. | t "'Cannibals," he mocked. " Canni-1 bals went ont of date with pirates. JBut perhaps," he added, apologetically, I J** this happened some years ago?" J ' "Happened last month," said the! trader. I 1 I '*' Bat Liberia is a perfectly good reEubliCj" protested Everett. " The lacks there may not be as far advanced ilk in your colonies, but they're not cannibals." i ''Monrovia is a very small part of lifberia " said the trader drily. " And jnone or these protectorates, or Crown kalomesj on this coast pretends to control much of the Hinterland. There is |iierra Leone, for instance, about the '■oldest of them. Last year the Governor loelebrated the hundredth anniversary 1 Sal the year the British abolished ' Mavery. They had parades and teafights, and all the blacks wore in the ' street in straw hats with cricket ribfcons, thanking God they were not as ■iner men are, nob slaves like their grandfathers. Well, just at the height , tof the jubilation, tho tribes within jf&renty miles of the town sent in to fiay -that they, also, were holding a foalaverj and it was to mark the fact Siat they never had been slaves and . iriever would be, and, if tli£ governor ' . doubted it, to send cut his fighting - s«ea and they'd prove it. It cast quite 'ir gloom over the celebration." "Do you mean that only twenty Miles from the coast " began 1 'Everett, ''Ten miles," said the Coaster. •"Wait till you see Calabar. That's ear Exhibit A. The cleanest, best ad-

i miiiistrated Everything there is : mode! hospitals, barracks, golf links. Last year, ten miles from Calabar, Dr Stewart rode his bicycle into a native village. The king tortured him six days, cut him up, and sent pieces of him to fifty villages with the message: ' You eat each other. "We cat whit© chop.' That, was ten miles from our model barracks ' For some moments the muckiaker considered the ttatemont thoughtfully. "You mean," he inquired, " tliat the atrocities are not all on the side of the white iiihi?" " Atrocities?" exclaimed the trader. "I wasn't talking of atrocities. Are you looking for them?'' " I'm not running away from them," laughed Evorett. " ' Lowell's Weekly' is Bonding, me to the Congo to And out the truth, and to try to lielp put an em"! to them "

In his turn the trader considered the statement eatefully. " Among the natives," he explained, painstakingly picking each word, ''what you call .'atrocities' are customs of warfare, forms of punishment. "When they go to war they expect to oo tortured they know, if they're killed, they'll be eaten. The white man comes here and finds these customs have existed for centuries. Ho adopts them, because " ''One moment!" interrupted Everett warmly "That does not excuse him. The point is. that with him they have not existed To him they should ho against his conscience, indecent, horrible 1 He has a greater knowledge, a much higher intelligence; ho should lift the native, not sink to him."

The Coaster took his pipe from his mouth, and twice opened his lips to speak. Finally, he blew the smoke into the air, and shook his head.

"'What's the use!" he exclaimed

"'Try," laughed Evorett. "Maybe I'm not as unintelligent as I talk." " You must get this right," protested the Coaster. "It doesn't matter a damn what a man brings here, what his training was, what he is. The thing is too strong for him." "What thing?" ' " That!" said the Coaster. He threw out his arm. at the brooding mountains, tho dark lagoons, the glaring coast-linc, against which the waves shot into tho air with the shock and roar of twelveinch guns. "The first white man canio to Sierra Leone five hundred years beforo Christ," said tho Coaster. " And, in twenty-two hundred years, he's got just twenty miles inland. Tho native didn't need forts, or a navy, to stop him. He had three allies: those waves, the fever, and the sun. The black man goes bareheaded, and the sun lets him'pass. The white man covers his head with an inch of cork, and tho sun strikes through it and kills him.. When Jameson cam© down the river from Yambuya, the natives fired on his boat. He waved his helmet at them fot three minutes, to show them'there was a white man in the canoe. Three minutes was all the sun nan ted. Jameson died in two days. Where yon are going, tho sun does worse things to a man than kill him: it drives him mad. It keeps the fear of death in his heart; and that takes away his nerve and his sense of proportion. He flies into murderous fits over silly, imaginary slights; he grows morbid, suspicious, he becomes a coward, and because he is a coward with authority, he becomes a bully. "He is alone,-we will suppose, at a station three hundred miles "from any other white man. One morning his house-boy spills a cup of coffee on him. and in a. rage he half kills the boy. He broods over that, until ho discovers, or his crazy mind makes him think he has discovered, that in revenge the boy is plotting to poison "him. So punishes him again. Only, this time he punishes him as the black man has taught him to punish, in the only way the blackmail seems to understand; that is, he tortures him. From that moment tho fall of that man is rapid. Tho heat, the loneliness, the fever, tho fear of the black faces, keep him on the edge, rob him of sleep, rob him of his physical strength, of his moral strength. He loses shame, loses reason; becomes cruel, weak, degenerate, Ho invents new, bestial tortures; commits new, unspeakable ' atrocities,' until, one day, the natives turn and kill him, or ho sticks his gun in his mouth and blows the top of his head off."

The Coaster smiled tolerantly at tho wide-eyed, eager young man *at his side.

" And you," ho mocked, " think you can reform that man, and that hell above ground called the Congo, with an article in 'Lowell's Weekly?'"

Undismayed, Everett grinned cheerfully.

"That's what I'm here for!" lie said. By tho time Everett reached the mouth of the Congo, he had learned that hi everything he must depend upon himself; that ho would bo accepted only as the kind of man that, at the moment, he showed himself to be. This attitude of independence was not chosen, hut forced on him by the men with whom he came in contact. Associations and traditions that in every part of the United States had served as letters of introduction, and enabled strangers to identify and label him, were to the win to men on the steamer and at the ports of call, without meaning or value. That he was an Everett of Boston conveyed little to those who had not heard even of Boston. Tuat ho was the correspondent of " Lowell's Weekly" meant less to those who did not know "Lowell's Weekly" existed. And when, in confusion, he proffered his letter of credit, the very fact that it called for a thousand pounds was, in the eyes of a "Palm Oil Ruffian," sufficient evidence that it had been forged or stolen. He soon saw that solely as a white man was he accepted and made welcome. That he was respectable, few believed, and no ono cared. To be taken at his face value, to be rel'used at the start the benefit of the doubt, was a novel sensation; and yet not unpleasant. It was a relief not to be accepted only as Everett the Muckraker, as a professional reformer, as one holier than others. It afforded his soul the same relaxation that his body received when, in his shirt-sleeves in the sweltering smokingroom, ho drank beer with the chef do posto who had been thrice tried for murder. Not only to every one was lie a stranger, but to him everything was strange; so strange as to appear unreal. This did not prevent him from at once recognising those things that were nob strange, such as corrupt officials, incompetence, mismanagement. He did not need the missionaries to point out to him that tho Independent State of the Congo was not a colony administered for the benefit of many, but a vast rubber plantation worked by | slaves to fill_ the pockets of one man. ] T.t was not in his work that Everett ' found himself confused. It was in his attitude of mind toward almost every 'other question. At first, when ho could not make everything fit his rule of thumb, ho excused tho country tolerantly as a " t-cpsy-turvy" land. Ho wished to move and act quickly. 110 did not understand that men who had sentenced themselves to exile for the official term of three yearn, or for lite, measured time only by the date of their veloase;

"When lie learned that even a. cablegram could not reach his home in less than eighteen days, that the missionaries to "whom he brought letters were a three months' journey from the. coast and from each other, his impatience was chastened to wonder, and, later, to awe. His education began at Matadi, where he waited until the river steamer was ready to start for Leopoldvillo. Of the two places he was assured Matadi was tho bettei, for the reason that if you still were in favour with tho steward of the ship that brought you south, he might sell you a piece or ice. Matadi was a great rock, blazing with heat. It was"narrw, perpendicular paths seemed to run with burning lava. Its top, the main square of oho settlement, was of baked clay, beaten hard by thousand*, of naked feet. Crossing it by day was an adventure. Ihe nir that swept it was the breath oi a blast furnace. Everett found a room over toe shop of a Portuguese trader. It was caked with dirt, and smelled of unnamed diseases and chloride of lime. In it was a canvas cot, a roll of evil-look-imz bedding, a wash-basin filleo. with the stumps of corner was a tin chop-box, which Everett asked to have removed. It belonged, tho landlord told- him, to the man who, two nights before, had occupied the cot and who bad died in it. Everett was anxious to learn of what he had died. Apparently surprised at the question, tho Portuguese shrugged his shoulders. " Who knows?" ho exclaimed. The next morning tho English trader across tho street assured Everett there was no occasion for alarm. "He didn't dio of any disease," he explained. " Somebody got at him from the balcony, while he was in his cot, and knifed him." The English trader was a young man, a cockney, named Upsher. At home he had been a steward on the Channel steamers. Everett made him- his most intimate friend. He had a black u'ife, who spent most of her day in a fourpost bed, hung with lace curtains and blue ribbon, in which she resembled a baby hippopotamus wallowing in a bank of white sand. At first the black woman was a shock to Everett, but after Upsher dismissed her indifferently as a "good old sort," and spent one evening blubbering over a photograph of his wife and " kiddie " at home, Everett accepted her. His excuse for this was that men who knew they might die on the morrow must not" be judged by what they do to-day. The excuse did not ring sound, hut he dismissed the doubt by deciding that in such heat it was not possible to take serious questions seriously. In tho fact that, to those about him, the thought of death was ever present, ho found further excuse for much else that puzzled and shocked him. At home, death had been a contingency so remote that he had put it aside as something he need not consider until he was a grandfather. At Matadi, at every moment of the day, in each trifling act, he found death must be faced, conciliated, conquered. At home, he might ask himself, "If I eat this, will it give me indigestion?" At Matadi he asked, "If I drink this, will I die?"

Upsher told him of a feud then existing between tho chief of police and an Italian doctor in the State, service. Interested in the outcome only as a sporting proposition, Upsher declared the odds wero unfair, because tho Belgian was using his black police to act as his bodyguard while for protection the Italian could depend only upon his sword-cane. Each night, with tho other white exiles of Jvlatudi, the two adversaries met in the Cafe Fran-co-Beige. There, with puzzled interest, Everett watched thorn sitting at separate tables, surrounded by mutual friends, excitedly playing dominoes. Outside the cafe, Matadi lav smothered and sweltering in a black, living darkness, and, save for the rush of the river, in a silence that continued unbroken across a jungle as wide as Europe, inside, the dominoes clicked, the glasses rang on tho iron tables, the oil lamps glared upon the pallid, sweating faces of clerks, upon the tanned, sweating skins of officers; and the Italian doctor and the Belgian lieutenant, each with murder in his heart, laughed, shrugged, gesticulated, waiting for the moment to strike. "But why doesn't someone do something?" demanded Everett. "Arrest them, or reason with them. Everybody knows about it. It seems a pity not to do something." Upsher nodded his head. Dimly he recognised a language with which he had once been familiar. " I know what you mean," he agreed. " Bind 'em over to keep the peace. And a good job, too! But who?" ho demanded vaguely. " That's what I say ! Who?" From the confusion into which Everett's appeal to forgotten memories had thrown it, his mind suddenly emerged. "But what'B the use-!" he demanded. "Don't you see,"" he explained triumphantly, "if those two crazy men were fit to listen, to'sense, they'd havo sense enough not to kill each other!" Each succeeding evening Everett watched the two potential murderers with lessening interest. Ho even made a bet with Upsher, of a bottle of fruit salt, that the chief of police would be the ono to die.

A few nights later a man, groaning beneath his balcony, disturbed his slumbers. He cursed the man, and turned his pillow to find the cooler sido. But all through the night the groans, though fainter, broko into his dreams. At intervals some traditions of past conduct tugged at Everett's sleeve, and bade him riso and play the good Samaritan. But, indignantly, he repulsed them. \Vere there not many others within hearing? Wore there

not police? Was it his place to bind the wounds of drunken stokers-' The groans were probably a trick to entice him, unarmed, into the night. And so, just before the dawn, when the mists rose, and the groans ceased, Everett, still arguing, sank with a contented sigh into forgetfulncss. When he woke, tho.ro was beneath his window much monkey-like chattering: «ud ho looked down into tho white faco and glazed eyes of the Italian doctor, lying in the gutter and staring up at him. Below Lis shoulder-blades a pool of blood shone evilly in the blatant sunlight. Across the street, on his balcony, TTpshor, in pyjamas and mosquito boots, was shivering with fever and stifling a yawn. "You lose!" ho called.

Later in the day, Everett analysed his conduct of the night previous. " At home," ho told Upsher, " I would have been telephoning for an ambulance or been out in the street _ giving the man ' first-aid ' drill. But living as we do hero, so close to death, we see things more clearly. Death loses its importance. It's a bromide," ho added. " But travel, certainly broadens one. Every day I have been in the Congo I have been assimilating new ideas." Upsher nodded vigorously in assent. An older man could have told Evorott that ho was assimilating just as much of the Congo as the rabbit assimilates tho boa-constrictor, that first smothers it with saliva, and. then swallows it.

Everett started up the Congo in a small steamer open on all sides to the sun and rain, aud with a paddle-wheel astorii that kicked her forward at the rate of four miles an hour. Once every day, tho boat tied up to a tree and took on wood to feed her furnace, and Everett talked to tho white man in charge of tho wood post, or, if, as it generally happened, the white man Was on his back with fever, dosed .him with quinine. On board, except for her captain and. a Finn who acted as engineer, Everett was the only other white man. The black crew and "wood-boys" he soon disliked intensely. At first, when Nanseu. the Danish captain, and the Finn struck them, because they woro in the way or because they were not, Everett wbiced, and made a note of it. But later ho decided the blacks were insolent, sullen, ungrateful;. that a blow did them no harm.

According to the unprejudiced testimony of those who, before the war, in his own country, had owned slaves, those of tho " Southland " wero always content, always happy. When not sincing' close harmony in tho cottonfields, they danced upon tho levee, thev twanged the old banjo. But these slaves of the Upper Congo wero not happy. They did not dance. They did not sing. At times their eyes, dull, gloomy, despairing, lit with a sudden, sombre fire, and searched tho eyes of the white man. They seemed to beg of him tho answer to a terrible question. It was always tho same question. It had been asked of Pharaoh. They asked it of Leopold. For hours, squatting on the iron deck-plates, humoed on their naked haunches, crowding closo together, they muttered apparently interminable criticisms of Everett. Their eyes never left him. Ho resented this unceasing scrutiny. It got upon his nerves.' He was sure they were evolving some scheme to rob him of his tinned sausages, or. possibly, to kill him. It was then he began to dislike them. In reality, thoy wero discussing the watch strapped to his wrist. They believed it was a powerful jujn, to ward off evil spirits. Thoy were afraid of it.

One day, to pay the chief wood-boy for a carved paddle, Everett was measuring a bras of cloth. As he had been taught, ho held the cloth in his teeth and stretched it to the end of his finger-tips. The wood-boy thought the white man was giving him short measure. White men always had given him short measure, a-nd, at a glance, he could not recognise that this one was an Everett of Boston.

So he opened Everett's fingers. All the blood in Everett's body leaped to his head. That he, a white man, an Everett, who had como so far to set these people free, should be accused by one of them of petty theft! He caught up a log of firewood and laid open the scalp of tho black boy, from the eye to the crown of his head. The boy dropped, and Everett, seeing the blood creeping through his kinky wool, turned ill with nausea. Drunkenh\ through a, red cloud of mist, ho heard himself shouting, " The black nigger! Tho black nigger! He touched mo! I tell you, hetouched mol" Captain Nansen led Everett to his cot and - gave him fizzy salts, but it was not until sundown"that the trembling and nausea ceased. Then, partly in shame, partly as a bribe, he sought out the injured boy and gavo him the entire roll of cloth. It had cost Everett ten francs. To the wood-boy it meant a year's wages. The bov hugged it in his arms, as he might a baby, and crooned over it. From under'the bloodstained bandage, humblv, without resentment, ho lifted his tired eyes to those of the white man. Still, dumbly, they begged the answer to the same question. During the five months Everett spent up the river he stopped at many missions, stations, one-man wood posts. He talked to Jesuit fathers, to inspec tors, to collectors for the State of rubber, taxes, elephant tusks, in time, even in Bangalese, to chiefs of the native villages,. According to the point of view, he was told tales of oppression, of avarice, of hideous crimes, of cruelties committed in . the name of traUo that were abnormal, unthinkable. The note, never was of hope, never of cheer, never inspiring. There was always the grievance, the spirit of unrest, of rebellion that ranged from dislike to a primitive, hot hate. Of his own land and life he heard nothing, not ever when his face was again turned towards tlu east. Nor did he think of it. As now he saw them, the rules and pruicip'es and standards of his form-- existence wero petty and credulous. But he assured himself he had not abandoned those standards. He had only temporarily lain them aside, as he had left behind in I ( ondon his frock coat and silk hat. Not because he would not use them again, but because in the Congo thoy were ridiculous. For weeks, with a missionary as a guide, he walked through' forests in which tho sun never penetrated, or on the river, moved between banks where no white man had placed his foot • where at night tho elephants came trooping to the water, and. seeing the lights of the boat, fled crashing through the jungle; where the great hippos, putting and blowing, roso so close to'lds elbow that he could have tossed his ci"arotto and hit them. The vastness' of tho Congo, towards which he had so jauntily set forth, now weighed upon us soul, the immeasurable distances • the slumbering disregard of time- the brooding, interminable silences- the to conquer the land that were so futile, so puny, and so cruel, at first appalled, and later left him unnerved rebellious, childishly defiant What health was hero, h 0 demanded hotly, m holding in a" dripping jungle, to morals, to etiquette to fashions of conduct? Was ho the white man, intelligent, trained' disciplined in mind and body, to be jud,<>-

Ed by naked cannibals, by chattering monkeys, by mammoth primeval beasts? His code of conduct was his own. Ho was a lav,- unto himself. . Ho came down the river on one of. tho larger steamers of tho State, and, on this voyage, with many fellow passengers, He now was on his way home, but in. tho fact ho felt no 'elation. Each day the fever ran tiugiiing through his veins and left him listless, frightened, or choleric. One night at dinner, in ono cf these modes of 'irritation,_ he took offence at the act of a lieutenant who, in lack of vegetables, drank ' from the vinegar bottle. Everett protested that such table manners were unbecoming an officer, even an officer of the Congo" and on tho lieutenant resenting .bis criticism, Everett drew his revolver. Tho others at the table took it from him, and locked him in his cabin. In tho morning, when he tried to recall what had occurred, he could remember only that, for somo excellent reason, he had hated some one with a hatred that could lie severed only with death. Ho knew it could not havo been drink, as each day the State allowed him but one half-bottle of claret. That but for tho interference of strangers ho might have shot a man, did not interest him. In the outcome of what he regarded merely as an incident, he saw cause neither for congratulation, or selfreproach. For his conduct he laid the "'lame upon the sun, and doubled his dose of fruit salts. Everett was again at Matadi, waiting for the Nigeria to take on' cargo before returning: to Liverpool. During the few days that must intervene before she sailed, ho lived on board. Although now actually bound north, the thought afforded him no satisfaction. His spirits were depressed,' hi« mind gloomy: a feeling of rebellion, of outlawry, filled him with unrest.

While the ship lay at tho wharf, Hardy, her English captain, Cuthbort, tho purser, and Everett ate on deck under the awning, assailed by electric fans. Each was clad in nothing more intricate than pyjamas. "To-night," announced Hardy, with a sigh, "we got to dress ship. Mr Lhicret and his wife arc coming on board. We carry his trade goods, and I got to stand him a dinner and champagne. You boys," ho commanded, " must wear ' whites,' and talk French. "I'll dine on shore," ■ growled Evarett.

" Better meet them," advised Cuthbert. Tlie purser was a pink-cheeked, clear-eyed young man, who spoko the many languages of the coast glibly, and his own in the soft, detached voice of a well-bred Englishman. Kg was in training to enter the consular service. Something in his poise, in the assured manner in which lie handled his white stewards and the black Kroo boys, seemed to Everett a constant reproach, and he resented him.

"They're a picturesque couple," explained Cuthbert. " Dueret was originally a wrestler. Used to challenge allcomers from the front of a booth. He served his time in tho army in Senegal, and when he was mustered out moved to the French Congo and began to trade, in a small way, in ivory. Now he's the biggest merchant, physically and every other way, from Stanley Pool to Lak» Chad. He has a house at built of mahogany, and a grand piano, and his own ico-plant. His wife was a supper-girl at-Maxim's. He brought her down here and married her. Every rainy season thoy go baek to Paris and run racehorses, and they say tho best table in every all-night restaurant is reserved for him. In Paris thev call her the Ivory Queen. She's killed seventeen elephants with her own rifle." In tho Upper Congo Everett had seen four white women. They wero pallid, washed-out, bloodless; even the youngest looked past middle age. For him women of- any other type had ceased to exist.. He had come to think of every white woman as p.iisfc middle age, with a face wrinkled by the sun, with hair bleached white by tho sun, with eyes from which, through gazing at the sun, all light and lustre had departed. He thought of them as always wearing boots to protect their ankles from mosquitoes, and army helmets. When he came- on deck for dinner, he saw a woman who looked as though sho was posing for a photograph by Reutlinger. She appeared to have stepped to tho deck, directly from her electric victoria and the Hue de la Paix. Sho was tall, lithe, gracefully erect, with eyes of great loveliness and hair brilliantly black, drawn, a la Merode, across a broad, fair forehead. She wore a gown and long coat of white lace, as delicate as a bridal veil, and a hat with a flapping brim from which, ia a curtain, hung more lace. When sho was pleased, sho lifted her head, and the curtain rose, unmasking her lovely eyes. Around tho white, bare throat was a string of pearls. Thoy had cost the lives of many elephants. Cuthbert, only a month from home, saw Madame Dueret just as sho was—a Parisienne, elegant, smart, soigne. He know that on any night at Madrid or d'Armenonville he might look noon twenty women of tho eamc charming type. They might lack that something tin's girl from Maxim's possessed—the spirit that had caused her to follow her husband into the depths of darkness. But outwardly, for show purposes, they Wore even as she. But to Everett sho was no messenger from another world. She was unique. To his famished eyes, starved senses and fever-driven brain -she was her entire .sex personified. Sho was tho one woman for whom lie had ahvay,* sought, alluring, soothing, maddening; if need be, to "be fought for; the one thing to bo desired. Opposite, across the taHe, her husband, the ex-wrestler, chasseur d'Afrique, elephant poacher, bulked large as an ox. Men felt as well as saw his bigness. Captain Hardy deferred to him on matters of trade, The purser deferred to him on matters of administration. He answered them in lii« big way, with big thoughts, in big figures. He was fifty years.ahead of his time. He beheld the Congo open to the world ; in tho forests where tie had hunted elephants ho foresaw great " factories," mining camps, railroads, feeding gold and copper ore to the trunk lino from the Capo to Cairo, hi is ideas wero the ideas of an empirebuilder. But, while tho others listened, fascinated, hypnotised, Everett saw only the woman, her eyes fixed on her husband, her lingors turning and twisting her diamond rings. Every now and again she raised her eyes to Everett almost reproachfully, as though to say, "Why do you not listen to him? J.t ia much better for you than to look at me."

"When they had gone, nil through tlio sultry night, until the sun drove him to his cabin, like a caged animal Everett paced and repaced the deck. The woman possessed his mind and lie could not drive her out. He did not wish to drive her out. What the consequences might bo he did not care. So long as he might see her again, he • jeered at the C(>"-?qucnce-s. Of one thing ho was positive. He could not now leave the. Congo. He would follow her to Brazzaville. H Jio was discreet, Dueret might invite him to make himself their guest. Once established in her homo, she must listen to him. No man ever before had felt for any woman the mice! he felt for her. it was too big for him to conquer. It would bo too big for her to resist. In the morning a note from Dueret i inn ted Everett and Cuthbert to join him in an all-dav excursion to the waterfall beyond Matari. Everett answered the note in person. The thought of .seeing the woman calmed and steadied him like, a dose of morphine. So much more violent than the fever_in his veins was the fever in his brain that, when again he was with her, he laughed happily, and was grandly at peace. So different was be from the man thov had met the night before, that the Frenchman and his wife glanced at eacli other in surprise and approval. They found him witty, eager, a most charming companion; and when he announced hie intention of visiting Brazzaville, they insisted he should mako their home his own. His admiration, as outwardly it appeared to be, for Madame Dueret. was evident to the others, but her husband accepted it- It was Jier due. And, oy

the Congo, to grudge to another man tho sight of a pretty woman was as cruel as to withhold the few grains of quinine that might save his reason. But, before the dav passed, Madame Ducrot was aware that tho American could not be lightly J <*smissed as a.n admirer. The fact neither flattered nor offended. For her, it was no novel or dis'-'-bing experience. Other men, whipneu on by loneliness, by fever, by primitive savage instincts, had told her what she meant to them. She did not hold them responsible. Some, worth curing, she had nursed through the illness. Others who refused to be cured, she had turned over, with a, shrug, to her husband. This ono was more difficult. Of men. of Everett's traditions and education she had known but few; but .she recognised the typo. This young man was no failure in life,, no derelict, no outcast flying the law, or a scandal, to hide in the jungle. He was what, in her Maxim days," she had laughed at as a.t aristocrat. He knew her Paris as she did not know it; its history, its art. Even her language he spoke more correctly than her hushnnd or herself. She knew that at his home there must ho many women infinitely more attractive, moro suited to him, than herself; women of birth, of position, young girls and great ladies of the other "world. And" she knew, also, that in his present state, at a nod from her ho would cast these behind him, and carry her into the wilderness. More quickly than she anticipated, Everett proved she did not over-rate the forces . that compelled him.

The excursion to the rapids was followed by a second dinner on -board the Nigeria. But ivn-, as on the previous night, Everett fell into sullen silence. He. ate nothing, drank continually," and with Ins eyes devoured the woman. When coffee had been served .he left the others at table, and with Madame .Ducrot dowry paced the deck. As thev passed out of the reach of the lights he drew hor to the rail, and stood in front of her.

"I mil. •ot quite mud" he said, "but yoa lave got to com© with me.''* To Everett all lie added to this sounded sane and final Ho told Leitliat this was one of • those miracles when the one woman and the one man who were predestined to meet had met. He told her lie had wished to marry a girl at home, but that he now saw that the desire was the fancy of a schoolboy. He told her lie was rich, and offered her the choice of returning to the Paris she loved, or of going deeper into the jungle. There ho would set up for her a principality, a state within the State. He would defend her. against all comers. He would make her the Queen of the Congo. "I have waited for you thousands of years!" ho told her. His voice was hoarse, shaken and thick. '' I love you as men loved women in the Stone Age -—fiercely, entirely. I will not be denied. DoViii hero we are cave people; if you light me, I will club you and drag you to my cave. If others fight for you, I will kill them. I love you." he panted, " with all mv soul, mv mind, my body, I love you! 1 will not let you go!'"' Madame Dueret did not say she was insulted, because sho did not feel insulted. She did not call to her husband for help, because she did not need his help, and because she knew that the ex-wrestler could break Everett across his knee. She did not even withdraw her hands, .although Everett drove the diamonds deep into her fingers. r "You frighten 7iie!" she pleaded. She was not in the least frightened. fc?he only was sorry that this one mast be discarded among the "incurables." In apparent agitation, she whispered, "To-morrow! To-morrow I wiJi give you your answer."

Everett did not trust her, did not release her. He regarded her jealously, with quick suspicion. To warn, her that ho knew she could not escape front Matadi, or from him, he said, " Tho train to Leopoldville does not leave, for two davs."

"I know!" whiepered Madame Dueret soothingly. "1 will give you your answer to-morrow at ten." She "emphasised the hour, because she knew at simrise a special train would carry her husband and herself to Leopoldville, aud that there one of her husband s steamers would bear, them across the Pool to French Congo. Everett, grudgingly.' "But I must kiss you now!'"'

Only an instant- did Madame Duorot hesitate. Then she turned her cheek. '■' Yes." she assented. "You must kiss mc now."

Everett did not rejoin tho others. Ho led her back into the circle of light, and locked himself in his cabin.

At ten the next morning, when D-u----ci-ft and Ills wile Mere well advanced toward Stanley Pool, Cuthbert handed Everett a note. Having been tola what it containrd, lie did not move away, but, with his back turned, leaned upon tho rail. Everett, his eyes on fire- with triumph, his fingers trembling, tore opon the envelope. Madame Ducret wrote that her husband and herself felt that Mr Everett was suffering more severely from the climate than he knew. Yt'ith regret they cancelled their mvitatiou to visit them, and urged him, for his health's sake, to continue as ho had planned, to northern latitudes. They hoped to meet in 'Park. They extended assurances of their distinguished consideration.

Sl.nvly, savagely, as though wreaking his suffering on some human thing, Kverett tore the- note into minute fragments. Moving unsteadily to the ship's side, ho iiung them into the river, i.ind then hung limply upon tho rail-

Above him, from a sky of brass, tho suu stabbed at his eyeballs. Below him, tho rush of tho Congo, churning in niuddv whirlpools, echoed against tho lulls of naked rock that met the naked sky. To Everett, tho roar of tho arreafc river and the echoes from the land lie had set out to reform, carried the sound of gigantic, hideous laughter.