‘I beg your pardon,’ replied Drake gravely.  ’Your chief is the most considerate of men, and I trust that his equity will leave him a margin of profit, only I don’t seem to feel that I need make any defence.  I have no objection to be interviewed, as I told you, but you must make it clear that I intend nothing in the way of apology.  Is that understood?’

The pressman agreed, and made a note of the proviso.

’There is another point.  I have seen nothing of the paper necessarily for the last few weeks.  The Meteor has, I suppose, continued its—­crusade, shall we call it?—­but on what lines exactly I am, of course, ignorant.  It will be better, consequently, that you should put questions and I answer them, upon this condition, however,—­that all reference is omitted to any point on which I am unwilling to speak.’

The reporter demurred, but, seeing that Drake was obdurate, he was compelled to give way.

‘The entire responsibility of the expedition rests with me,’ Drake explained, ’but there were others concerned in it.  You might trench upon private matters which only affect them.’

He watched the questions with the vigilance of a counsel on behalf of a client undergoing cross-examination, but they were directed solely to the elucidation of the disputed point whether Drake had or had not, while a captain in the service of the Matanga Republic, attacked a settlement of Arab slave-dealers within the zone of a British Protectorate.  The editor of the Meteor believed that he had, and strenuously believed it—­in the interests of his shareholders.  Drake, on the other hand, and the Colonial Office, it should be added, were dispassionately indifferent to the question, for the very precise reason that they knew it could never be decided.  There were doubts as to the exact sphere of British influence, and the doubts favoured Drake for the most part.  Insular prehensiveness, at its highest flight, could do no more than claim Boruwimi as its uttermost limit, and was aware it would be hard put to it to substantiate the claim.  The editor, nevertheless, persevered, bombarded its citizen readers with warnings about trade fleeing from lethargic empires, published a cartoon, and reluctantly took the blackest view of Drake’s character and aims.

Drake’s march with a handful of men six hundred miles through a tangled forest had been a handsome exploit, quickening British pride with the spectacle of an Englishman at the head of it.  Civilian blood tingled in office and shop, claiming affinity with Drake’s.  It needed an Englishman to bill-hook a path through that fretwork of branches, and fall upon his enemy six weeks before he was expected—­the true combination of daring and endurance that stamps the race current coin across the world!  Economy also pleaded for Drake.  But for him the country itself must have burned out the hornets’ nest, and the tax-payer paid, and paid dearly.  For there would have been talk of the expedition beforehand, the force would have found an enemy prepared and fortified.  The hornets could sting too!  Whereas Drake had burned them out before they had time to buzz.  He need not have said one word in exculpation of himself, and that indeed he knew.  But he had interests and ambitions of his own to serve; a hint of them peeped out.