A Millionaire of Yesterday

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A MILLIONAIRE OF YESTERDAY by E. Phillips Oppenheim

CHAPTER I

"Filth," grunted Trent - "ugh! I tell you what it is, my venerable
friend - I have seen some dirty cabins in the west of Ireland and
some vile holes in East London. I've been in some places which I
can't think of even now without feeling sick. I'm not a particular
chap, wasn't brought up to it - no, nor squeamish either, but this
is a bit thicker than anything I've ever knocked up against. If
Francis doesn't hurry we'll have to chuck it! We shall never stand
it out, Monty!"

The older man, gaunt, blear-eyed, ragged, turned over on his side.
His appearance was little short of repulsive. His voice when he
spoke was, curiously enough, the voice of a gentleman, thick and a
trifle rough though it sounded.

"My young friend," he said, "I agree with you - in effect - most
heartily. The place is filthy, the surroundings are repulsive, not
to add degrading. The society is - er - not congenial - I allude
of course to our hosts - and the attentions of these unwashed, and
I am afraid I must say unclothed, ladies of dusky complexion is to
say the least of it embarrassing."

"Dusky complexion!" Trent interrupted scornfully, "they're coal
black!"

Monty nodded his head with solemn emphasis. "I will go so far as
to admit that you are right," he acknowledged. "They are as black
as sin! But, my friend Trent, I want you to consider this: If the
nature of our surroundings is offensive to you, think what it must
be to me. I may, I presume, between ourselves, allude to you as
one of the people. Refinement and luxury have never come in your
way, far less have they become indispensable to you. You were, I
believe, educated at a Board School, I was at Eton. Afterwards you
were apprenticed to a harness-maker, I - but no matter! Let us
summarise the situation."

"If that means cutting it short, for Heaven's sake do so," Trent
grumbled. "You'll talk yourself into a fever if you don't mind.
Let's know what you're driving at."

"Talking," the elder man remarked with a slight shrug of his
shoulders, "will never have a prejudicial effect upon my health.
To men of your - pardon me - scanty education the expression of
ideas in speech is doubtless a labour. To me, on the other hand,
it is at once a pleasure and a relief. What I was about to
observe is this: I belong by birth to what are called, I believe,
the classes, you to the masses. I have inherited instincts which
have been refined and cultivated, perhaps over-cultivated by
breeding and associations - you are troubled with nothing of the
sort. Therefore if these surroundings, this discomfort, not to
mention the appalling overtures of our lady friends, are distressing
to you, why, consider how much more so they must be to me!"

Trent smiled very faintly, but he said nothing. He was sitting
cross-legged with his back against one of the poles which supported
the open hut, with his eyes fixed upon the cloud of mist hanging
over a distant swamp. A great yellow moon had stolen over the low
range of stony hills - the mist was curling away in little wreaths
of gold. Trent was watching it, but if you had asked him he would
have told you that he was wondering when the alligators came out
to feed, and how near the village they ventured. Looking at his
hard, square face and keen, black eyes no one would surely have
credited him with any less material thoughts.

"Furthermore," the man whom Trent had addressed as Monty continued,
"there arises the question of danger and physical suitability to
the situation. Contrast our two cases, my dear young friend. I am
twenty-five years older than you, I have a weak heart, a ridiculous
muscle, and the stamina of a rabbit. My fighting days are over. I
can shoot straight, but shooting would only serve us here until our
cartridges were gone - when the rush came a child could knock me
over. You, on the contrary, have the constitution of an ox, the
muscles of a bull, and the wind of an ostrich. You are, if you will
pardon my saying so, a magnificent specimen of the animal man. In
the event of trouble you would not hesitate to admit that your
chances of escape would be at least double mine. Trent lit a match
under pretence of lighting his pipe - in reality because only a few
feet away he had seen a pair of bright eyes gleaming at them through
a low shrub. A little native boy scuttled away - as black as night,
woolly-headed, and shiny; he had crept up unknown to look with
fearful eyes upon the wonderful white strangers. Trent threw a lump
of earth at him and laughed as he dodged it.

"Well, go ahead, Monty," he said. "Let's hear what you're driving
at. What a gab you've got to be sure!"

Monty waved his hand - a magnificent and silencing gesture.

"I have alluded to these matters," he continued, "merely in order
to show you that the greater share of danger and discomfort in
this expedition falls to my lot. Having reminded you of this,
Trent, I refer to the concluding sentence of your last speech. The
words indicated, as I understood them, some doubt of our ability to
see this thing through."

He paused, peering over to where Trent was sitting with grim,
immovable face, listening with little show of interest. He drew a
long, deep breath and moved over nearer to the doorway. His manner
was suddenly changed.

"Scarlett Trent," he cried, "Scarlett Trent, listen to me! You are
young and I am old! To you this may be one adventure amongst many
- it is my last. I've craved for such a chance as this ever since
I set foot in this cursed land. It's come late enough, too late
almost for me, but I'm going through with it while there's breath
in my body. Swear to me now that you will not back out! Do you
hear, Trent? Swear!"

Trent looked curiously at his companion, vastly interested in this
sudden outburst, in the firmness of his tone and the tightening of
the weak mouth. After all, then, the old chap had some grit in him.
To Trent, who had known him for years as a broken-down hanger-on of
the settlement at Buckomari, a drunkard, gambler, a creature to all
appearance hopelessly gone under, this look and this almost
passionate appeal were like a revelation. He stretched out his
great hand and patted his companion on the back - a proceeding which
obviously caused him much discomfort.

"Bravo, old cockie!" he said. "Didn't imagine you'd got the grit.
You know I'm not the chap to be let down easy. We'll go through
with it, then, and take all chances! It's my game right along.
Every copper I've got went to pay the bearers here and to buy the
kickshaws and rum for old What's-his-name, and I'm not anxious to
start again as a pauper. We'll stay here till we get our
concessions, or till they bury us, then! It's a go!"

Monty - no one at Buckomari had ever known of any other name for
him - stretched out a long hand, with delicate tapering fingers,
and let it rest for a moment gingerly in the thick, brown palm of
his companion. Then he glanced stealthily over his shoulder and
his eyes gleamed.

"I think, if you will allow me, Trent, I will just moisten my lips
- no more - with some of that excellent brandy."

Trent caught his arm and held it firmly.

"No, you don't," he said, shaking his head. "That's the last
bottle, and we've got the journey back. We'll keep that, in case
of fever."

A struggle went on in the face of the man whose hot breath fell
upon Trent's cheek. It was the usual thing - the disappointment
of the baffled drunkard - a little more terrible in his case perhaps
because of the remnants of refinement still to be traced in his
well-shaped features. His weak eyes for once were eloquent, but
with the eloquence of cupidity and unwholesome craving, his lean
cheeks twitched and his hands shook.

"Just a drop, Trent!" he pleaded. "I'm not feeling well, indeed
I'm not! The odours here are so foul. A liqueur-glassful will do
me all the good in the world."

"You won't get it, Monty, so it's no use whining," Trent said
bluntly. "I've given way to you too much already. Buck up, man!
We're on the threshold of fortune and we need all our wits about us."

"Of fortune - fortune!" Monty's head dropped upon his chest, his
nostrils dilated, he seemed to fall into a state of stupor. Trent
watched him half curiously, half contemptuously.

"You're terribly keen on money-making for an old 'un," he remarked,
after a somewhat lengthy pause. "What do you want to do with it?"

"To do with it!" The old man raised his head. "To do with it!"
The gleam of reawakened desire lit up his face. He sat for a
moment thinking. Then he laughed softly.

"I will tell you, Master Scarlett Trent," he said, "I will tell you
why I crave for wealth. You are a young and an ignorant man.
Amongst other things you do not know what money will buy. You have
your coarse pleasures I do not doubt, which seem sweet to you!
Beyond them - what? A tasteless and barbaric display, a vulgar
generosity, an ignorant and purposeless prodigality. Bah! How
different it is with those who know! There are many things, my
young friend, which I learned in my younger days, and amongst them
was the knowledge of how to spend money. How to spend it, you
understand! It is an art, believe me! I mastered it, and, until
the end came, it was magnificent. In London and Paris to-day to
have wealth and to know how to spend it is to be the equal of
princes! The salons of the beautiful fly open before you, great
men will clamour for your friendship, all the sweetest triumphs
which love and sport can offer are yours. You stalk amongst a
world of pygmies a veritable giant, the adored of women, the envied
of men! You may be old - it matters not; ugly - you will be fooled
into reckoning yourself an Adonis. Nobility is great, art is great,
genius is great, but the key to the pleasure storehouse of the world
is a key of gold - of gold!"

He broke off with a little gasp. He held his throat and looked
imploringly towards the bottle. Trent shook his head stonily.
There was something pitiful in the man's talk, in that odd mixture
of bitter cynicism and passionate earnestness, but there was also
something fascinating. As regards the brandy, however, Trent was
adamant.

"Not a drop," he declared. "What a fool you are to want it, Monty!
You're a wreck already. You want to pull through, don't you? Leave
the filthy stuff alone. You'll not live a month to enjoy your coin
if we get it!"

"Live!" Monty straightened himself out. A tremor went through all
his frame.

"Live!" he repeated, with fierce contempt; "you are making the
common mistake of the whole ignorant herd. You are measuring life
by its length, when its depth alone is of any import. I want no
more than a year or two at the most, and I promise you, Mr. Scarlett
Trent, my most estimable young companion, that, during that year, I
will live more than you in your whole lifetime. I will drink deep
of pleasures which you know nothing of, I will be steeped in joys
which you will never reach more nearly than the man who watches a
change in the skies or a sunset across the ocean! To you, with
boundless wealth, there will be depths of happiness which you will
never probe, joys which, if you have the wit to see them at all,
will be no more than a mirage to you."

Trent laughed outright, easily and with real mirth. Yet in his
heart were sown already the seeds of a secret dread. There was a
ring of passionate truth in Monty's words. He believed what he was
saying. Perhaps he was right. The man's inborn hatred of a second
or inferior place in anything stung him. Were there to be any
niches after all in the temple of happiness to which he could never
climb? He looked back rapidly, looked down the avenue of a squalid
and unlovely life, saw himself the child of drink-sodden and brutal
parents, remembered the Board School with its unlovely surroundings,
his struggles at a dreary trade, his running away and the fierce
draughts of delight which the joy and freedom of the sea had brought
to him on the morning when he had crept on deck, a stowaway, to be
lashed with every rope-end and to do the dirty work of every one.
Then the slavery at a Belgian settlement, the job on a steamer
trading along the Congo, the life at Buckomari, and lastly this bold
enterprise in which the savings of years were invested. It was a
life which called aloud for fortune some day or other to make a
little atonement. The old man was dreaming. Wealth would bring
him, uneducated though he was, happiness enough and to spare.

A footstep fell softly upon the turf outside. Trent sprang at once
into an attitude of rigid attention. His revolver, which for four
days had been at full cock by his side, stole out and covered the
approaching shadow stealing gradually nearer and nearer. The old
man saw nothing, for he slept, worn out with excitement and
exhaustion.

CHAPTER II

A fat, unwholesome - looking creature, half native, half Belgian,
waddled across the open space towards the hut in which the two
strangers had been housed. He was followed at a little distance by
two sturdy natives bearing a steaming pot which they carried on a
pole between them. Trent set down his revolver and rose to his feet.

"What news, Oom Sam?" he asked. "Has the English officer been heard
of? He must be close up now."

"No news," the little man grunted. "The King, he send some of his
own supper to the white men. 'They got what they want,' he say.
'They start work mine soon as like, but they go away from here.'
He not like them about the place! See!"

"Oh, that be blowed!" Trent muttered. "What's this in the pot? It
don't smell bad."

"Rabbit," the interpreter answered tersely. "Very good. Part
King's own supper. White men very favoured."

Trent bent over the pot which the two men had set upon the ground.
He took a fork from his belt and dug it in.

"Very big bones for a rabbit, Sam," he remarked doubtfully.

Sam looked away. "Very big rabbits round here," he remarked. "Best
keep pot. Send men away."

Trent nodded, and the men withdrew.

"Stew all right," Sam whispered confidentially. "You eat him. No
fear. But you got to go. King beginning get angry. He say white
men not to stay. They got what he promised, now they go. I know
King - know this people well! You get away quick. He think you
want be King here! You got the papers - all you want, eh?"

"Not quite, Sam," Trent answered. "There's an Englishman, Captain
Francis, on his way here up the Coast, going on to Walgetta Fort.
He must be here to-morrow. I want him to see the King's signature.
If he's a witness these niggers can never back out of the concession.
They're slippery devils. Another chap may come on with more rum and
they'll forget us and give him the right to work the mines too. See!"

"I see," Sam answered; "but him not safe to wait. You believe me.
I know these tam niggers. They take two days get drunk, then get
devils, four - raving mad. They drunk now. Kill any one to-morrow
- perhaps you. Kill you certain to-morrow night. You listen now!"

Trent stood up in the shadow of the overhanging roof. Every now
and then came a wild, shrill cry from the lower end of the village.
Some one was beating a frightful, cracked drum which they had got
from a trader. The tumult was certainly increasing. Trent swore
softly, and then looked irresolutely over his shoulder to where
Monty was sleeping.

"If the worst comes we shall never get away quickly," he muttered.
"That old carcase can scarcely drag himself along."

Sam looked at him with cunning eyes.

"He not fit only die," he said softly. "He very old, very sick man,
you leave him here! I see to him."

Trent turned away in sick disgust.

"We'll be off to-morrow, Sam," he said shortly. "I say! I'm
beastly hungry. What's in that pot?"

Sam spread out the palms of his hands.

"He all right, I see him cooked," he declared. "He two rabbits and
one monkey."

Trent took out a plate and helped himself.

"All right," he said. "Be off now. We'll go to-morrow before these
towsly-headed beauties are awake."

Sam nodded and waddled off. Trent threw a biscuit and hit his
companion on the cheek.

"Here, wake up, Monty!" he exclaimed. "Supper's come from the royal
kitchen. Bring your plate and tuck in!"

Monty struggled to his feet and came meekly towards where the pot
stood simmering upon the ground.

"I'm not hungry, Trent," he said, "but I am very thirsty, very
thirsty indeed. My throat is all parched. I am most uncomfortable.
Really I think your behaviour with regard to the brandy is most
unkind and ungenerous; I shall be ill, I know I shall. Won't you - "

"No, I won't," Trent interrupted. "Now shut up all that rot and
eat something."

"I have no appetite, thank you," Monty answered, with sulky dignity.

"Eat something, and don't be a silly ass!" Trent insisted. "We've
a hard journey before us, and you'll need all the strength in your
carcase to land in Buckomari again. Here, you've dropped some of
your precious rubbish."

Trent stooped forward and picked up what seemed to him at first to
be a piece of cardboard from the ground. He was about to fling it
to its owner, when he saw that it was a photograph. It was the
likeness of a girl, a very young girl apparently, for her hair was
still down her back and her dress was scarcely of the orthodox
length. It was not particularly well taken, but Trent had never
seen anything like it before. The lips were slightly parted, the
deep eyes were brimming with laughter, the pose was full of grace,
even though the girl's figure was angular. Trent had seen as much
as this, when he felt the smart of a sudden blow upon the cheek,
the picture was snatched from his hand, and Monty - his face
convulsed with anger - glowered fiercely upon him.

"You infernal young blackguard! You impertinent meddling blockhead!
How dare you presume to look at that photograph! How dare you, sir!
How dare you!"

Trent was too thoroughly astonished to resent either the blow or
the fierce words. He looked up into his aggressor's face in blank
surprise.

"I only looked at it," he muttered. "It was lying on the floor."

"Looked at it! You looked at it! Like your confounded impertinence,
sir! Who are you to look at her! If ever I catch you prying into
my concerns again, I'll shoot you - by Heaven I will!"

Trent laughed sullenly, and, having finished eating, lit his pipe.

"Your concerns are of no interest to me," he said shortly; "keep
'em to yourself - and look here, old 'un, keep your hands off me!
I ain't a safe man to hit let me tell you. Now sit down and cool
off! I don't want any more of your tantrums."

Then there was a long silence between the two men. Monty sat where
Trent had been earlier in the night at the front of the open hut,
his eyes fixed upon the ever-rising moon, his face devoid of
intelligence, his eyes dim. The fire of the last few minutes had
speedily burnt out. His half-soddened brain refused to answer to
the sudden spasm of memory which had awakened a spark of the former
man. If he had thoughts at all, they hung around that brandy bottle.
The calm beauty of the African night could weave no spell upon him.
A few feet behind, Trent, by the light of the moon, was practising
tricks with a pack of greasy cards. By and by a spark of
intelligence found its way into Monty's brain. He turned round
furtively.

"Trent," he said, "this is slow! Let us have a friendly game - you
and I."

Trent yawned.

"Come on, then," he said. "Single Poker or Euchre, eh?"

"I do not mind," Monty replied affably. "Just which you prefer."

"Single Poker, then," Trent said.

"And the stakes?"

"We've nothing left to play for," Trent answered gloomily, "except
cartridges."

Monty made a wry face. "Poker for love, my dear Trent," he said,
"between you and me, would lack all the charm of excitement. It
would be, in fact, monotonous! Let us exercise our ingenuity.
There must be something still of value in our possession.

He relapsed into an affectation of thoughtfulness. Trent watched
him curiously. He knew quite well that his partner was dissembling,
but he scarcely saw to what end. Monty's eyes, moving round the
grass-bound hut, stopped at Trent's knapsack which hung from the
central pole. He uttered a little exclamation.

"I have it," he declared. "The very thing."

"Well!"

"You are pleased to set an altogether fictitious value upon
half bottle of brandy we have left," he said. "Now I tell you what
I will do. In a few months we shall both be rich men. I will play
you for my I 0 U, for fifty pounds, fifty sovereigns, Trent,
against half the contents of that bottle. Come, that is a fair
offer, is it not? How we shall laugh at this in a year or two!
Fifty pounds against a tumblerful - positively there is no more
- a tumblerful of brandy."

He was watching Trent's face all the time, but the younger man gave
no sign. When he had finished, Trent took up the cards, which he
had shuffled for Poker, and dealt them out for Patience. Monty's
eyes were dim with disappointment.

"What!" he cried. "You don't agree! Did you understand me? Fifty
pounds, Trent! Why, you must be mad!"

"Oh, shut up!' Trent growled. "I don't want your money, and the
brandy's poison to you! Go to sleep!"

Monty crept a little nearer to his partner and laid his hand upon
his arm. His shirt fell open, showing the cords of his throat
swollen and twitching. His voice was half a sob.

"Trent, you are a young man - not old like me. You don't understand
my constitution. Brandy is a necessity to me! I've lived on it so
long that I shall die if you keep it from me. Remember, it's a
whole day since I tasted a drop! Now I'll make it a hundred. What
do you say to that? One hundred!"

Trent paused in his game, and looked steadfastly into the eager face
thrust close to his. Then he shrugged his shoulders and gathered up
the cards.

"You're the silliest fool I ever knew," he said bluntly, "but I
suppose you'll worry me into a fever if you don't have your own way."

"You agree?" Monty shrieked. Trent nodded and dealt the cards.

"It must be a show after the draw," he said. "We can't bet, for
we've nothing to raise the stakes with!"

Monty was breathing hard and his fingers trembled, as though the
ague of the swamps was already upon him. He took up his cards one
by one, and as he snatched up the last he groaned. Not a pair!

"Four cards," he whispered hoarsely. Trent dealt them out, looked
at his own hand, and, keeping a pair of queens, took three more
cards. He failed to improve, and threw them upon the floor. With
frantic eagerness Monty grovelled down to see them - then with a
shriek of triumph he threw down a pair of aces.

"Mine!" he said. "I kept an ace and drew another. Give me the
brandy!"

Trent rose up, measured the contents of the bottle with his
forefinger, and poured out half the contents into a horn mug. Monty
stood trembling by.

"Mind," Trent said, "you are a fool to drink it and I am a fool to
let you! You risk your life and mine. Sam has been up and swears
we must clear out to-morrow. What sort of form do you think you'll
be in to walk sixty miles through the swamps and bush, with perhaps
a score of these devils at our heels? Come now, old 'un, be
reasonable."

The veins on the old man's forehead stood out like whipcord.

"I won it," he cried. "Give it me! Give it me, I say."

Trent made no further protest. He walked back to where he had been
lying and recommenced his Patience. Monty drank off the contents
of the tumbler in two long, delicious gulps! Then he flung the horn
upon the floor and laughed aloud.

"That's better," he cried, "that's better! What an ass you are,
Trent! To imagine that a drain like that would have any effect at
all, save to put life into a man! Bah! what do you know about it?"

Trent did not raise his head. He went on with his solitary game
and, to all appearance, paid no heed to his companion's words.
Monty was not in the humour to be ignored. He flung himself on
the ground opposite to his companion.

"What a slow-blooded sort of creature you are, Trent!" he said.
"Don't you ever drink, don't you ever take life a little more
gaily?"

"Not when I am carrying my life in my hands," Trent answered grimly.
"I get drunk sometimes - when there's nothing on and the blues come
- never at a time like this though."

"It is pleasant to hear," the old man remarked, stretching out his
limbs, "that you do occasionally relax. In your present frame of
mind - you will not be offended I trust - you are just a little
heavy as a companion. Never mind. In a year's time I will be
teaching you how to dine - to drink champagne, to - by the way,
Trent, have you ever tasted champagne?"

"Never," Trent answered gruffly "Don't know that I want to either."

Monty was compassionate. "My young friend," he said, "I would give
my soul to have our future before us, to have your youth and never
to have tasted champagne. Phew! the memory of it is delicious!"

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