Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com coast to fit him out with stores and goods, and had started
for the interior with a light heart and no more idea of what
would happen to him than a baby. He had been wandering
about that river for nearly two years alone, cut off from ev-
erybody and everything. ‘I am not so young as I look. I am
twenty-five,’ he said. ‘At first old Van Shuyten would tell me
to go to the devil,’ he narrated with keen enjoyment; ‘but I
stuck to him, and talked and talked, till at last he got afraid
I would talk the hind-leg off his favourite dog, so he gave me
some cheap things and a few guns, and told me he hoped he
would never see my face again. Good old Dutchman, Van
Shuyten. I’ve sent him one small lot of ivory a year ago, so
that he can’t call me a little thief when I get back. I hope he
got it. And for the rest I don’t care. I had some wood stacked
for you. That was my old house. Did you see?’
‘I gave him Towson’s book. He made as though he would
kiss me, but restrained himself. ‘The only book I had left,
and I thought I had lost it,’ he said, looking at it ecstatically.
‘So many accidents happen to a man going about alone, you
know. Canoes get upset sometimes—and sometimes you’ve
got to clear out so quick when the people get angry.’ He
thumbed the pages. ‘You made notes in Russian?’ I asked.
He nodded. ‘I thought they were written in cipher,’ I said.
He laughed, then became serious. ‘I had lots of trouble to
keep these people off,’ he said. ‘Did they want to kill you?’
I asked. ‘Oh, no!’ he cried, and checked himself. ‘Why did
they attack us?’ I pursued. He hesitated, then said shame-
facedly, ‘They don’t want him to go.’ ‘Don’t they?’ I said
curiously. He nodded a nod full of mystery and wisdom.