The Clicking of Cuthbert

bull bongo with his last cartridge after all the pongos, or

native bearers, had fled into the dongo, or undergrowth."

"I should love to!" whispered Betty, her eyes glowing. I suppose to an

impressionable girl these things really are of absorbing interest. For

myself, bongos intrigue me even less than pongos, while

dongos frankly bore me. "When do you expect him?"

"He will get my wire tonight. I'm hoping we shall see the dear old

fellow tomorrow afternoon some time. How surprised old Eddie will be to

hear that I'm engaged. He's such a confirmed bachelor himself. He told

me once that he considered the wisest thing ever said by human tongue

was the Swahili proverb--'Whoso taketh a woman into his kraal

depositeth himself straightway in the wongo.' Wongo, he

tells me, is a sort of broth composed of herbs and meat-bones,

corresponding to our soup. You must get Eddie to give it you in the

original Swahili. It sounds even better."

I saw the girl's eyes flash, and there came into her face that peculiar

set expression which married men know. It passed in an instant, but not

before it had given me material for thought which lasted me all the way

to my house and into the silent watches of the night. I was fond of

Mortimer Sturgis, and I could see trouble ahead for him as plainly as

though I had been a palmist reading his hand at two guineas a visit.

There are other proverbs fully as wise as the one which Mortimer had

translated from the Swahili, and one of the wisest is that quaint old

East London saying, handed down from one generation of costermongers to

another, and whispered at midnight in the wigwams of the whelk-seller!

"Never introduce your donah to a pal." In those seven words is

contained the wisdom of the ages. I could read the future so plainly.

What but one thing could happen after Mortimer had influenced Betty's

imagination with his stories of his friend's romantic career, and added

the finishing touch by advertising him as a woman-hater? He might just

as well have asked for his ring back at once. My heart bled for

Mortimer.

       *       *       *       *

I happened to call at his house on the second evening of the explorer's

visit, and already the mischief had been done.

Denton was one of those lean, hard-bitten men with smouldering eyes and

a brick-red complexion. He looked what he was, the man of action and

enterprise. He had the wiry frame and strong jaw without which no

explorer is complete, and Mortimer, beside him, seemed but a poor, soft

product of our hot-house civilization. Mortimer, I forgot to say, wore

glasses; and, if there is one time more than another when a man should

not wear glasses, it is while a strong-faced, keen-eyed wanderer in the

wilds is telling a beautiful girl the story of his adventures.

For this was what Denton was doing. My arrival seemed to have

interrupted him in the middle of narrative. He shook my hand in a

strong, silent sort of way, and resumed:

"Well, the natives seemed fairly friendly, so I decided to stay the

night."

I made a mental note never to seem fairly friendly to an explorer. If

you do, he always decides to stay the night.

"In the morning they took me down to the river. At this point it widens

into a kongo, or pool, and it was here, they told me, that the

crocodile mostly lived, subsisting on the native oxen--the short-horned

jongos--which, swept away by the current while crossing the ford

above, were carried down on the longos, or rapids. It was not,

however, till the second evening that I managed to catch sight of his

ugly snout above the surface. I waited around, and on the third day I

saw him suddenly come out of the water and heave his whole length on to

a sandbank in mid-stream and go to sleep in the sun. He was certainly a

monster--fully thirty--you have never been in Central Africa, have you,

Miss Weston? No? You ought to go there!--fully fifty feet from tip to

tail. There he lay, glistening. I shall never forget the sight."

He broke off to light a cigarette. I heard Betty draw in her breath

sharply. Mortimer was beaming through his glasses with the air of the

owner of a dog which is astonishing a drawing-room with its clever

tricks.

"And what did you do then, Mr. Denton?" asked Betty, breathlessly.

"Yes, what did you do then, old chap?" said Mortimer.

Denton blew out the match and dropped it on the ash-tray.

"Eh? Oh," he said, carelessly, "I swam across and shot him."

"Swam across and shot him!"

"Yes. It seemed to me that the chance was too good to be missed. Of

course, I might have had a pot at him from the bank, but the chances

were I wouldn't have hit him in a vital place. So I swam across to the

sandbank, put the muzzle of my gun in his mouth, and pulled the

trigger. I have rarely seen a crocodile so taken aback."

"But how dreadfully dangerous!"

"Oh, danger!" Eddie Denton laughed lightly. "One drops into the habit

of taking a few risks out there, you know. Talking of danger,

the time when things really did look a little nasty was when the

wounded gongo cornered me in a narrow tongo and I only had