1/11 UNDERHAND. He elaborated and detailed to all interested, and to some whom it did not concern, many excuses for his delay in returning to his expedition, lying supine and attendant at Msala. It was by now an open secret on the coast that a great trading expedition was about to ascend the Ogowe river, with, it was whispered, a fortune awaiting it in the dim perspective of Central Africa. He was known as one of the foremost ivory traders on the coast--a man capable of standing against those enormous climatic risks before which his competitors surely fell sooner or later. |