Potgieter shot a brace of guinea-fowl, which they cooked for dinner in the scanty ashes. He would not let Tavanger stir from the scherm, for he said that the island would be full of storm-stayed snakes and other un-hallowed oddments. So the wretched pair had to twiddle their thumbs for thirty-six hours in an atmosphere like a Turkish bath, coughing and choking by the greenwood fire, and subsisting for the most part on Devenish's cold viands. Unluckily they had neither tea nor coffee, and their tobacco ran out. Tavanger got a furious cold in his head and rheumatic pains in his back, but the worst discomfort was the utter boredom; for Potgieter had no small talk, and slept most of the time.
Late on the second night the rain ceased, and revealed a wonderful sky of stars. On the second morning the river had fallen sufficiently to be forded, and mules and men, very stiff and miserable, started off for Greenlees. But their troubles were not over, for the valley they presently struck seemed to have melted into primeval slime, and when they got on to the higher ground they had to make lengthy detours to circumvent landslips. It was almost dark when they reached the mine, and it took Greenlees some time, Tavanger said, to realise that they were human.
When he did, when he understood who Tavanger was—having spent some time in a London office he knew him by repute—and recognised Potgieter as a man with whom he had once hunted, he was hospitable enough. In an empty rondavel he filled two wooden tubs with scalding water, into which he put a tin of mustard and a can of sheep-deep, declaring that it was the only way to stave off pneumonia.
Greenlees proved the simplest of the five to deal with, for he was an enthusiast about michelite. He was a Scotsman from Berwickshire, who had had a sound university training and knew a good deal about metallurgical chemistry as well as about engineering. He had been employed at the Daphne mine when it first began, and had believed so firmly in its prospects that he had scraped up every penny he could muster at the time and bought a biggish holding. Then he had quarrelled with the manager, but his faith in the concern had not wavered. He declared that it was abominably managed, that the costs were far too high, and the marketing arrangements rudimentary, but nevertheless, he was convinced that before long it would be one of the most lucrative concerns in the country. He anticipated, for one thing, some discovery which would bring down the smelting costs. "I'll hold on," he said, "though I should have to go wanting the breeks to do it."
Tavanger, seeing the sort of man he had to deal with, put his cards on the table. He told Greenlees frankly that he meant to control Daphne. He described, as only Tavanger could describe, the manoeuvres by which he had acquired the big London block, his journey to South Africa ("God, but you're the determined one," said Greenlees), his doings at the Cape and in Johannesburg, and his wild trek in the Rhodesian rains.
"I want to buy your holding, Mr Greenlees," he concluded. "I will pay any price you fix, and will contract to sell you the shares back on demand any time after next June at the price I gave for them. What I want is control of the stock till then, and for the privilege I am ready to pay you a bonus of one thousand pounds."
Of course Greenlees consented, for he saw that Tavanger was a believer like himself, and so far he had not met another. He asked various questions. Tavanger said nothing about the coming combine, but let him think that his views were the same as his own, a belief that presently a scientific discovery would make michelite a commodity of universal use.
He mentioned having talked with Sprenger in Berlin, and Greenlees nodded respectfully.
They sat late into the night discussing the future. Greenlees explained the system at work at the Daphne mine, and how it could be bettered, and Tavanger then and there offered him the managership. It was a London company, and its annual shareholders' meeting fell in January; Tavanger proposed drastically to reconstruct both the English and South African boards and to reform the management.
"What about having a look at the place?" Greenlees asked. "You could easily look in on your way down country."
Tavanger shook his head. "I'm not a technical expert," he said, "and I would learn very little. I've always made it a rule never to mix myself up with things I don't understand. But I reckon myself a fair judge of men, and I shall be content to trust you."
As they went to bed Greenlees showed him a telegram. "Did you ever hear of this fellow? Steinacker or Stemacker his name is. He wants to see me—has an introduction from the chairman of my company. I wired to him to come along, and he is turning up the day after tomorrow."
This was the story which Tavanger told me that night in my rooms.
His adventures seemed to have renewed his youth, for he looked actually boyish, and I understood that half the power of the man—and indeed of anyone who succeeds in his line—lay just in a boyish readiness to fling his cap on the right occasion over the moon.
"I deserve to win out, don't you think?" he said, "for I've risked my neck by air, land and water—not to mention black mambas … I should like to have seen Steinacker's face when he had finished gleaning in my tracks … The next thing is to get to grips with Glaubsteins. Oh yes, I'll keep you informed. You're the only man I can talk to frankly about this business, and half the fun of an adventure is to be able to gossip about it."
3
Chapter
I saw nothing of Tavanger again till the end of February, when he appeared as a witness for the defence in a case in which I led for the plaintiff, and I had the dubious pleasure of cross-examining him. I say
"dubious," for he was one of the most formidable witnesses I have ever met, candid, accurate, self-possessed and unshakable. Two days later I had to make a speech—an old promise to him—at the annual meeting, in the hall of the Fletchers' Company, of the children's hospital of which he was chairman. There I saw a new Tavanger, one who spoke of the hospital and its work as a man speaks of his family in a moment of expansion, who had every detail at his fingers' end and who descanted on its future with a sober passion. I was amazed, till I remembered that this was one of his two hobbies. He was Master of the Company, so he gave me tea afterwards in his private room, and expanded on the new dental clinic which he said was the next step in the hospital's progress.
"I mean to present the clinic," he told me, "if things turn out well. That is why I'm so keen about this Daphne business … "
He stopped and smiled at me.
"I know that I'm reputed to be very well off, and I can see that you're wondering why I don't present it in any case, since presumably I can afford it. Perhaps I can, but that has never been my way. I have for years kept a separate account which I call my 'gambling fund,' and into it goes whatever comes to me by the grace of God outside the main line of my business. I draw on that account for my hobbies—my pictures and my hospital. Whatever I make out of Daphnes will go there, and if my luck is in I may be able to make the hospital the best-equipped thing of its kind on the globe. That way, you see, I get a kind of sporting interest in the game.
"Oh, we have brisked up Daphnes a bit," he said in reply to my question. "I'm chairman now—my predecessor was an elderly titled non-entity who was easily induced to retire. We had our annual meeting last month, and the two vacancies on the directorate which occurred by rota-tion were filled by my own men. We've cleaned up the South African board too. Greenlees is now chairman, as well as general manager of the mine. He has already reduced the costs of mining the stuff, and we're getting a bigger share of the British import … No, there's been no reduction of price, though that may come. We stick to the same price as the other companies. There is a modest market for our shares, too, when they're offered, which isn't often. The price is about fifteen shillings, pretty much the same as Anatillas.