Within ten minutes after reading that letter, Carter was out under a brazen glare of heat, marching along the sand where it was wet and hard, and nearing the straggle of palms which marked the banks of Smooth River, at the rate of four good miles to the hour. When a white man walks at that speed through West Africa mid-day heat, it is only because some question of life or death hangs upon the speed; though in this case Carter told himself that love was the same as life. He pinned his eyes on the Smooth River palms, which the refraction made to dance up and down most coquettishly, and repeated this over and over again, because another voice within him persisted in sneering something about two very lonely people with nothing to do, who were not in love at all, but merely bored with idleness and their own society; and finally he got quite angry over the matter. He stuck out his great dogged chin, and presently cursed aloud. He shook his fist at the splendor of the tropical sun. "I do love the girl," he declared, "and I will marry her in spite of my father, and K., and everyone, if she will have me. Curse it! Why should I hesitate when I love her? This infernal climate is making me as slack and undecided as even poor old Slade."
So with the surf booming ceaselessly in his ears, and the sea-smoke driving over him and making his white drill collar damp and sticky, he marched resolutely on to meet Fate.
The attack on Smooth River factory did not take place without due warning. It seemed that a large caravan of native merchants from the hinterland had come through the Okky country with a fine cargo of produce since the King had stopped the roads. Whether they had cut new roads through the bush for themselves, or fought their way past the obstructing ju-ju, they did not explain; they arrived at the factory with kernels, a few tusks of discolored ivory, a few quills of water-worn gold, and a fine parcel of high-grade rubber, which were duly valued; they took cloth, six flint-lock guns, a case or two of gin, and the balance in pink Kola-nuts by way of payment; and with these on the skulls of their carriers, they marched away along the Beach and out of this history.
Then presently there came down envoys from the King of Okky demanding with a fine inconsistency that O'Neill and Craven's factory should pay his Majesty the transit blackmail which he had been unable to collect himself. Carter was sent for, post-haste, from Malla-Nulla, and was at first minded to tell those envoys to go to a kingdom which repute says is even hotter than West Africa. But thoughts of Laura living there by herself, and a dread of the horrors of native war made him offer a compromise. "Open the roads," said he, "and we'll pay up these fellows' dues, though your King knows perfectly well he hasn't an atom of claim on this factory. It's the custom for traders to pay for going through a country if they can't avoid paying; they never pay once they are through; and never, never, never, throughout all the wicked history of Africa has there been a case of an English factory being fool enough to pay toll which its casual customers have slipped through without paying. But, as I say, I am ready to meet you in the matter. Open the roads and I'll dash you this amount you ask for."