It was not so much in the mere words that Drake expressed this quality as in the spirit which informed, the voice which launched them, and the looks which gave them point.

His face flashed into mobility, enthusiasm dispelling its set habit of gravity, sloughing it, Fielding thought, or better still, burning through it as through a crust of lava; his eyes--eyes which listened, Fielding had not inaptly described them--now spoke, and spoke vigorously; enthusiasm, too, rode on his voice, deepening its tones--not enthusiasm of the febrile kind which sends the speech wavering up and down the scale, but enthusiasm with sobriety as its dominant note concentrated into a level flow of sound.
His description had all the freshness of an immediate occurrence.
Compared with the ordinary style of reminiscence it was the rose upon the tree to the dried leaves of a _potpourri_.
'But,' said Fielding, unconsciously resisting the influence which Drake exerted, 'I thought you took a whole army of blacks with you on these expeditions ?' 'Not on the one I speak of.

In Matanga a small force of them, yes! But even they were difficult to manage, and you could not depend upon them.
They would desert at the first opportunity, sell their guns, your peace-offerings of brass rods, and whatever they could lay their hands on, and straggle behind in the dusk until they got lost.

It was no use sending back for them in the morning.

One would only have found their bones, and their bones pretty well scoured too.