Long Odds

The canoe slid up to the pile-bound bank, and the two white men who got out strode towards the residency, which was characteristic, since on a day of that kind an Iberian would certainly have sauntered. The first of them was tall, and thinner even than most white men are who have had the flesh melted from them in tropical Africa. His face was hollow, though he was apparently only some thirty years of age, but it was the face of a strong-willed man, and there was a certain suggestion of optimism in it and his eyes, which was singularly unusual in the case of a man who had spent several years in that country. Even nature is malignant there, and man is steeped in lust and avarice and cruelty, but in spite of this Watson Nares was an optimist as well as an American medical missionary.