.

OFF DUTY.
Chacun de vous peut-etre en son coeur solitaire Sous des ris passagers etouffe un long regret.
"Good-bye to that damned old Platter--may it be for ever!" With this valedictory remark Joseph shook his fist once more at the unmoved mountain and resumed his march.
"William," he continued gravely to a native porter who walked at his side and knew no word of English, "there is some money that is not worth the making." The man grinned from ear to ear and nodded with a vast appreciation of what experience taught him to take as a joke.
"Remember that, my black diamond, and just mind the corner of your mouth don't get hitched over yer ear," said Joseph, patting him with friendly cheerfulness.
Then he made his way forward to walk by the side of his master's litter and encourage the carriers with that mixture of light badinage and heavy swearing which composed his method of dealing with the natives.
Three days after the arrival of the rescuing force at the Plateau, Guy Oscard had organised a retreating party, commanded by Joseph, to convey Jack Meredith down to the coast.

He knew enough of medicine to recognise the fact that this was no passing indisposition, but a thorough breakdown in health.

The work and anxiety of the last year, added to the strange disquieting breath of the Simiacine grove, had brought about a serious collapse in the system which only months of rest and freedom from care could repair.
Before the retreating column was ready to march it was discovered that the hostile tribes had finally evacuated the country; which deliverance was brought about not by Oscard's blood-stained track through the forest, not by the desperate defence of the Plateau, but by the whisper that Victor Durnovo was with them.

Truly a man's reputation is a strange thing.
And this man--the mighty warrior whose name was as good as an army in Central Africa--went down on his knees one night to Guy Oscard, imploring him to abandon the Simiacine Plateau, or at all events to allow him to go down to Loango with Meredith and Joseph.
"No," said Oscard; "Meredith held this place for us when he could have left it safely.