Part 10 (1/2)
”I saw after Jack Ballinger myself this mornin' He blew a hole in the skirt of ot a jacket on hi fellah, I hope you don't mind--what? You see, between you an' me close-tiled, I look on this South A, and if I have a pal with me I want a man I can bank on So I sized you down, and I'm bound to say that you came well out of it You see, it's all up to you and me, for this old Summerlee man ant dry-nursin' from the first By the way, are you by any chance the Malone who is expected to get his Rugby cap for Ireland?”
”A reserve, perhaps”
”I thought I reainst Richmond--as fine a swervin' run as I saw the whole season
I never ame we have left Well, I didn't ask you in here just to talk sport
We've got to fix our business Here are the sailin's, on the first page of the Times There's a Booth boat for Para next Wednesday week, and if the Professor and you can work it, I think we should take it--what? Very good, I'll fix it with him What about your outfit?”
”My paper will see to that”
”Can you shoot?”
”About average Territorial standard”
”Good Lord! as bad as that? It's the last thing you young fellahs think of learnin' You're all bees without stings, so far as lookin'
after the hive goes You'll look silly, so an' sneaks the honey But you'll need to hold your gun straight in South America, for, unless our friend the Professor is a et back
What gun have you?”
He crossed to an oaken cupboard, and as he threw it open I caught a gli rows of parallel barrels, like the pipes of an organ
”I'll see what I can spare you out of my own battery,” said he
One by one he took out a succession of beautiful rifles, opening and shutting the them as he put them back into the rack as tenderly as a mother would fondle her children
”This is a Bland's 577 axite express,” said he ”I got that big felloith it” He glanced up at the white rhinoceros ”Ten more yards, and he'd would have added me to HIS collection
'On that conical bullet his one chance hangs, 'Tis the weak one's advantage fair'
Hope you know your Gordon, for he's the poet of the horse and the gun and the man that handles both Now, here's a useful tool--470, telescopic sight, double ejector, point-blank up to three-fifty
That's the rifle I used against the Peruvian slave-drivers three years ago I was the flail of the Lord up in those parts, I h you won't find it in any Blue-book There are ti fellah, when every one of us ht and justice, or you never feel clean again That's why I ed it myself, ended it ood row of the of them all, that I killed in a backwater of the Puto that would do for you” He took out a beautiful brown-and-silver rifle ”Well rubbered at the stock, sharply sighted, five cartridges to the clip
You can trust your life to that” He handed it to me and closed the door of his oak cabinet
”By the way,” he continued, co back to his chair, ”what do you know of this Professor Challenger?”
”I never saw him till to-day”
”Well, neither did I It's funny we should both sail under sealed orders from a man we don't know He seemed an uppish old bird His brothers of science don't seem too fond of him, either How came you to take an interest in the affair?”
I told hi, and he listened intently Then he drew out a map of South Ale word he said to you was the truth,” said he, earnestly, ”and, o on when I speak like that South Aht through frorandest, richest, most wonderful bit of earth upon this planet People don't know it yet, and don't realize what it may become I've been up an' down it from end to end, and had two dry seasons in those very parts, as I told you when I spoke of the war I made on the slave-dealers Well, when I was up there I heard some yarns of the same kind--traditions of Indians and the like, but with somethin' behind the fellah, the more you would understand that anythin' was possible--ANYTHIN'! There are just so which folk travel, and outside that it is all darkness Non here in the Matto Grande”--he swept his cigar over a part of the map--”or up in this corner where three countries ht, there are fifty-thousand h a forest that is very near the size of Europe You and I could be as far away from each other as Scotland is froreat Brazilian forest Man has just made a track here and a scrape there in the maze Why, the river rises and falls the best part of forty feet, and half the country is a morass that you can't pass over Why shouldn't somethin' new and wonderful lie in such a country?
And why shouldn't we be the aunt face shi+ning with delight, ”there's a sportin' risk in every olf-ball--I've had all the white paint knocked off o Life can whack me about now, and it can't leave afellah, that's the salt of existence Then it's worth livin' again We're all gettin' a deal too soft and dull and coreat waste lands and the wide spaces, with a gun in my fist and somethin' to look for that's worth findin' I've tried war and steeplechasin' and aeroplanes, but this huntin' of beasts that look like a lobster-supper drealee at the prospect
Perhaps I have dwelt too long upon this new acquaintance, but he is to be my comrade for many a day, and so I have tried to set him down as I first saw him, with his quaint personality and his queer little tricks of speech and of thought It was only the need of getting in the account ofwhich drew me at last from his co the lock of his favorite rifle, while he still chuckled to hiht of the adventures which awaited us It was very clear to land have found a cooler head or a braver spirit hich to share theht, wearied as I was after the wonderful happenings of the day, I sat late with McArdle, the news editor, explaining to hih to bring next e Beaureed that I should write home full accounts of my adventures in the shape of successive letters to McArdle, and that these should either be edited for the Gazette as they arrived, or held back to be published later, according to the wishes of Professor Challenger, since we could not yet knohat conditions he uide us to the unknown land In response to a telephone inquiry, we received nothingup with the remark that if ould notify our boat he would hand us any directions which heA second question from us failed to elicit any answer at all, save a plaintive bleat from his wife to the effect that her husband was in a very violent te to make it worse A third attempt, later in the day, provoked a terrific crash, and a subsequent er's receiver had been shattered