This man was different; and Victor Durnovo did not know--could not
find out--WHAT he wanted.

He had at first been inclined to laugh at him. What struck him most
forcibly was Joseph, the servant. The idea of a man swaggering up
an African river with a European man-servant was so preposterous
that it could only be met with ridicule; but the thing seemed so
natural to Jack Meredith, he accepted the servitude of Joseph so
much as a matter of course, that after a time Durnovo accepted him
also as part and parcel of Meredith.

Moreover, he immediately began to realise the benefit of being
waited upon by an intelligent European, for Joseph took off his
coat, turned up his sleeves, and proceeded to cook such a dinner as
Durnovo had not tasted for many months. There was wine also, and
afterwards a cigar of such quality as appealed strongly to Durnovo's
West Indian palate.

The night settled down over the land while they sat there, and
before them the great yellow equatorial moon rose slowly over the
trees. With the darkness came a greater silence, for the myriad
insect life was still. This great silence of Central Africa is
wonderfully characteristic. The country is made for silence, the
natives are created to steal, spirit-ridden, devil-haunted, through
vast tracks of lifeless forest, where nature is oppressive in her
grandeur. Here man is put into his right place--a puny,
insignificant, helpless being in a world that is too large for him.

"So," said Durnovo, returning to the subject which had never really