"Trent,"he said suddenly,"you're a wonderful man.Honestly,this road is a marvellous feat for untrained labour and with such rotten odds and ends of machinery.I don't know what experience you'd had of road-******.""None,"Trent interjected.
"Then it's wonderful!"
Trent smiled upon the boy with such a smile as few people had ever seen upon his lips.
"There's a bit of credit to you,Davenant,"he said."I'd never have been able to figure out the levelling alone.Whether I go down or not,this shall be a good step up on the ladder for you."The boy laughed.
"I've enjoyed it more than anything else in my life,"he said.
"Fancy the difference between this and life in a London office.
It's been magnificent!I never dreamed what life was like before."Trent looked thoughtfully into the red embers."You had the mail to-day,"the boy continued.How were things in London?""Not so bad,"Trent answered."Cathcart has been doing all the harm he can,but it hasn't made a lot of difference.My cables have been published and our letters will be in print by now,and the photographs you took of the work.That was a splendid idea!""And the shares?""Down a bit -not much.Da Souza seems to be selling out carefully a few at a time,and my brokers are buying most of them.Pound shares are nineteen shillings to-day.They'll be between three and four pounds,a week after I get back.""And when shall you go?"the boy asked.
"Directly I get a man out here I can trust and things are fixed with his Majesty the King of Bekwando!We'll both go then,and you shall spend a week or two with me in London."The boy laughed.
"What a time we'll have!"he cried."Say,do you know your way round?"Trent shook his head.
"I'm afraid not,"he said."You'll have to be my guide.""Right you are,"was the cheerful answer."I'll take you to Jimmy's,and the Empire,and down the river,and to a match at Lord's,and to Henley if we're in time,and I'll take you to see my aunt!
You'll like her."
Trent nodded.
"I'll expect to,"he said."Is she anything like you?""Much cleverer,"the boy said,"but we've been great chums all our life.She's the cleverest woman ever knew,earns lots of money writing for newspapers.
"Here,you've dropped your cigar,Trent."Trent groped for it on the ground with shaking fingers.
"Writes for newspapers?"he repeated slowly.I wonder -her name isn't Davenant,is it?"The boy shook his head.
"No,she's my mother's cousin really -only I call her Aunty,we always got on so.She isn't really much older than me,her name is Wendermott -Ernestine Wendermott.Ernestine's a pretty name,don't you think?"Trent rose to his feet,muttering something about a sound in the forest.He stood with his back to the boy looking steadily at the dark line of outlying scrub,seeing in reality nothing,yet keenly anxious that the red light of the dancing flames should not fall upon his face.The boy leaned on his elbow and looked in the same direction.He was puzzled by a fugitive something which he had seen in Trent's face.
Afterwards Trent liked sometimes to think that it was the sound of her name which had saved them all.For,whereas his gaze had been idle at first,it became suddenly fixed and keen.He stooped down and whispered something to the boy.The word was passed along the line of sleeping men and one by one they dropped back into the deep-cut trench.The red fire danced and crackled -only a few yards outside the flame-lit space came the dark forms of men creeping through the rough grass like snakes.
