"King, him say him signed paper twice," he explained. "Him want
four barrels of rum now."

Trent laughed harshly.

"He shall swim in it, Sam," he said; "he shall float down to hell
upon it."

Oom Sam explained to the King that, owing to the sentiments of
affection and admiration with which the white men regarded him,
the three barrels should be made into four, whereupon his Majesty
bluntly pronounced the audience at an end and waddled off into his
Imperial abode.

The two Englishmen walked slowly back to the hut. Between them
there had sprung up from the first moment a strong and mutual
antipathy. The blunt savagery of Trent, his apparently heartless
treatment of his weaker partner, and his avowed unscrupulousness,
offended the newcomer much in the same manner as in many ways he
himself was obnoxious to Trent. His immaculate fatigue-uniform,
his calm superciliousness, his obvious air of belonging to a
superior class, were galling to Trent beyond measure. He himself
felt the difference - he realised his ignorance, his unkempt and
uncared-for appearance. Perhaps, as the two men walked side by
side, some faint foreshadowing of the future showed to Trent another
and a larger world where they two would once more walk side by side,
the outward differences between them lessened, the smouldering
irritation of the present leaping up into the red-hot flame of
hatred. Perhaps it was just as well for John Francis that the man
who walked so sullenly by his side had not the eyes of a seer, for