A Question of Latitude | Page 9

and with Madame Ducret slowly paced the deck. As they passed out of
the reach of the lights, he drew her to the rail, and stood in front of her.
"I am not quite mad," he said, "but you have got to come with me."
To Everett all he added to this sounded sane and final. He told her that
this was one of those miracles when the one woman and the one man
who were predestined to meet had met. He told her he had wished to
marry a girl at home, but that he now saw that the desire was the fancy
of a school-boy. He told her he was rich, and offered her the choice of
returning to the Paris she loved, or of going deeper into the jungle.
There he would set up for her a principality, a state within the State. He
would defend her against all comers. He would make her the Queen of
the Congo.
"I have waited for you thousands of years!" he told her. His voice was
hoarse, shaken, and thick. "I love you as men loved women in the Stone
Age--fiercely, entirely. I will not be denied. Down here we are cave
people; if you fight me, I will club you and drag you to my cave. If
others fight for you, I will KILL them. I love you," he panted, "with all
my soul, my mind, my body, I love you! I will not let you go!"
Madame Ducret did not say she was insulted, because she did not feel
insulted. She did not call to her husband for help, because she did not
need his help, and because she knew that the ex- wrestler could break
Everett across his knee. She did not even withdraw her hands, although
Everett drove the diamonds deep into her fingers.
"You frighten me!" she pleaded. She was not in the least frightened.
She only was sorry that this one must be discarded among the
incurables.
In apparent agitation, she whispered, "To-morrow! To-morrow I will
give you your answer."

Everett did not trust her, did not release her. He regarded her jealously,
with quick suspicion. To warn her that he knew she could not escape
from Matadi, or from him, he said, "The train to Leopoldville does not
leave for two days!"
"I know!" whispered Madame Ducret soothingly. "I will give you your
answer to-morrow at ten." She emphasized the hour, because she knew
at sunrise a special train would carry her husband and herself to
Leopoldville, and that there one of her husband's steamers would bear
them across the Pool to French Congo.
"To-morrow, then!" whispered Everett, grudgingly. "But I must kiss
you now!"
Only an instant did Madame Ducret hesitate. Then she turned her cheek.
"Yes," she assented. "You must kiss me now."
Everett did not rejoin the others. He led her back into the circle of light,
and locked himself in his cabin.
At ten the next morning, when Ducret and his wife were well advanced
toward Stanley Pool, Cuthbert handed Everett a note. Having been told
what it contained, he did not move away, but, with his back turned,
leaned upon the rail.
Everett, his eyes on fire with triumph, his fingers trembling, tore open
the envelope.
Madame Ducret wrote that her husband and herself felt that Mr. Everett
was suffering more severely from the climate than he knew. With
regret they cancelled their invitation to visit them, and urged him, for
his health's sake, to continue as he had planned, to northern latitudes.
They hoped to meet in Paris. They extended assurances of their
distinguished consideration.
Slowly, savagely, as though wreaking his suffering on some human
thing, Everett tore the note into minute fragments. Moving unsteadily
to the ship's side, he flung them into the river, and then hung limply

upon the rail.
Above him, from a sky of brass, the sun stabbed at his eyeballs. Below
him, the rush of the Congo, churning in muddy whirlpools, echoed
against the hills of naked rock that met the naked sky.
To Everett, the roar of the great river, and the echoes from the land he
had set out to reform, carried the sound of gigantic, hideous laughter.

A Question of Latitude
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