Then came the happenings at Mokki, and Ali ben Hossein's parting gift of the little gray stone duck which had unmistakable brown tin crystals for its head, its wings and its feet, and on the top of all arrived Kate's cablegram. A sweating operator had read that message from under sea, as it winked out in a darkened cable hut; runners had carried the curt words along roaring beaches, paddlers had borne them by canoe up muddy creeks, a great bank in far-off Hamburg had pledged the performance of their promise. A day later the slatternly S.S. _Frau Pobst_ lurched untidily up the muddy creeks, and commenced to ease the factory buildings of their overflowing wealth of West African produce.
Carter itched to be off. It had come to this; he could not trust himself in Kate's neighborhood. Laura Slade saw, or fancied she saw how things were, and bravely asked him one day to break their engagement.
But Carter drew her down onto the office chair beside him and put an arm round her and kissed her. "Now," he said, "tell out frankly who it is that you like better than you like me?"
"Well, as Cascaes is the only alternative, I didn't suppose it was. Come now, out with it, what's the trouble? I suppose you're just going to be a woman and tell me it's my fault? I don't agree with you. I'm the same me as always was--red hair, large feet, and as big an appetite as the Coast will allow."
She put her face against his shoulder. "It's Kate, George."
"You must let me refer to her as Miss O'Neill," said Carter dryly. "You see, she's my employer--or was--and we're naturally not on intimate terms-- Well, what's Miss O'Neill got to do with my marrying you?"
"Twaddle! Now, look here, my dear, you've been nervy and upset ever since that bit of a scrap at Smooth River. Now, haven't you?"
"I'm sure of it. And it's not surprising. That was a pretty tough time for any girl to go through. Well, as I've told you, I've got my nose onto a fortune that's tucked away up in the bush, and I'm going to look for it. In the meanwhile, as I managed to screw sixty golden sovereigns out of that greedy old Balgarnie for curios that he'll sell for at least a hundred and forty, there's just that amount of cash to take you on a jaunt to Grand Canary for rose growing."