“Time it is,” said Lord John. “You can blow the whistle.” He took up the envelope and cut it with his penknife. From it he drew a folded sheet of paper. This he carefully opened out and flattened on the table. It was a blank sheet. He turned it over. Again it was blank. We looked at each other in a bewildered silence, which was broken by a discordant burst of derisive laughter from Professor Summerlee.
“It is an open admission,” he cried. “What more do you want? The fellow is a self−confessed humbug. We have only to return home and report him as the brazen imposter that he is.”
“Invisible ink!” I suggested.
“I don’t think!” said Lord Roxton, holding the paper to the light. “No, young fellah my lad, there is no use deceiving yourself. I’ll go bail for it that nothing has ever been written upon this paper.”
“May I come in?” boomed a voice from the veranda.
The shadow of a squat figure had stolen across the patch of sunlight. That voice! That monstrous breadth of shoulder! We sprang to our feet with a gasp of astonishment as Challenger, in a round, boyish straw−hat with a colored ribbon−−Challenger, with his hands in his jacket−pockets and his canvas shoes daintily pointing as he walked−− appeared in the open space before us. He threw back his head, and there he stood in the golden glow with all his old Assyrian luxuriance of beard, all his native insolence of drooping eyelids and intolerant eyes.
“I fear,” said he, taking out his watch, “that I am a few minutes too late. When I gave you this envelope I must confess that I had never intended that you should open it, for it had been my fixed intention to be with you before the hour. The unfortunate delay can be apportioned between a blundering pilot and an intrusive sandbank. I fear that it has given my colleague, Professor Summerlee, occasion to blaspheme.”
“I am bound to say, sir,” said Lord John, with some sternness of voice, “that your turning up is a considerable relief to us, for our mission seemed to have come to a premature end. Even now I can’t for the life of me understand why you should have worked it in so extraordinary a manner.”
Instead of answering, Professor Challenger entered, shook hands with myself and Lord John, bowed with ponderous insolence to Professor Summerlee, and sank back into a basket−chair, which creaked and swayed beneath his weight.
45
“Is all ready for your journey?” he asked.
“We can start to−morrow.”
“Then so you shall. You need no chart of directions now, since you will have the inestimable advantage of my own guidance. From the first I had determined that I would myself preside over your investigation. The most elaborate charts would, as you will readily admit, be a poor substitute for my own intelligence and advice. As to the small ruse which I played upon you in the matter of the envelope, it is clear that, had I told you all my intentions, I should have been forced to resist unwelcome pressure to travel out with you.”
“Not from me, sir!” exclaimed Professor Summerlee, heartily. “So long as there was another ship upon the Atlantic.”
Challenger waved him away with his great hairy hand.
“Your common sense will, I am sure, sustain my objection and realize that it was better that I should direct my own movements and appear only at the exact moment when my presence was needed. That moment has now arrived. You are in safe hands. You will not now fail to reach your destination. From henceforth I take command of this expedition, and I must ask you to complete your preparations to−night, so that we may be able to make an early start in the morning. My time is of value, and the same thing may be said, no doubt, in a lesser degree of your own. I propose, therefore, that we push on as rapidly as possible, until I have demonstrated what you have come to see.”
Lord John Roxton has chartered a large steam launch, the Esmeralda, which was to carry us up the river. So far as climate goes, it was immaterial what time we chose for our expedition, as the temperature ranges from seventy−five to ninety degrees both summer and winter, with no appreciable difference in heat. In moisture, however, it is otherwise; from December to May is the period of the rains, and during this time the river slowly rises until it attains a height of nearly forty feet above its low−water mark. It floods the banks, extends in great lagoons over a monstrous waste of country, and forms a huge district, called locally the Gapo, which is for the most part too marshy for foot−travel and too shallow for boating. About June the waters begin to fall, and are at their lowest at October or November. Thus our expedition was at the time of the dry season, when the great river and its tributaries were more or less in a normal condition.