  I interrupted it. "Jimmy knows about it," said I. "No one else." She looked at us calmly, taking stock of us. "Very well," she said; "and Jack has told me the whole story too, of course. I didn't know till this moment that Jimmy knew: but I'm so glad he does, for it makes us all four-square. Now, when first Jack got your letter, Roddy, He was for sending the information in six words on a post card, as being all that was due to an old friend that had so misjudged him. But I persuaded him, and—" The outer door slammed upon the word, and a brisk footstep sounded in the passage. I recognised it at once. So did Constantia. "—And here he is!" exclaimed Constantia, without rising, "—come, as it happens, to have it out with the pair of you.… Hallo, Jack!" I am bound to say that my first look at Jack Foe gave me a start, as he too started at sight of Jimmy, whose presence, of course, he had not expected. He was pale in comparison with the tan of two months back: but at every other point he was wonderfully set up and improved. It was Constantia's doing, belike: but he had become again in appearance the Jack Foe of old times—a trifle more seamed in the face but with a straightness and uprightness of carriage that rejuvenated him. His clothes, too, were of the old cut, modestly distinguished. "Collingwood too?" said he, nodding easily. "That's better than I looked for.… You have told them?" he asked Constantia with a frank look of understanding. Then his eyes wandered, naturally, over the disorder in the room. "Roddy is packing," said Constantia. "For South America," said I. "And after that? Yes, you needn't tell," he went on with an ease which I could only admire. "It's the island, of course—I had your note and was going to answer it, but Miss Denistoun—Constantia— insisted that I should call round and tell you. The latitude is—" "One moment," interrupted Jimmy. "You let the door slam behind you, Professor: and your dog is protesting." "My dog?" Foe turned about, as Jimmy stepped to the passage. "What are you talking about, Collingwood? I don't own such a thing." "I'll be damned if there isn't one snuffling at that outer door," said Jimmy, and went quickly out into the passage. I heard the lock click back and, upon the noise, a scuffle and gallop of a four-footed beast: and, with that, a great yellow dog burst in at the doorway of the room, took a leap forward, crouched, and slowly stiffened itself up with its legs, its back hunched and bristling. There it stood, letting out its voice in a growl that sounded almost like a groan of satisfied desire. "Great Scott!" exclaimed Jimmy, following. "If this isn't your Billy, Professor, come to life!" And I, too, cast a quick glance over my shoulder at Foe—against whom the hound evidently stiffened, as a pointer at its game. Foe, white as a sheet, was leaning back, his shoulders propped against the edge of the mantelshelf. "He is not my dog," he gasped out. "Take him away: he's dangerous!" "Looks so, anyway," said Jimmy calmly. "Well, if he's not your dog, here's his owner to claim him."—And into the room, staring around on us, walked Farrell. For the moment I stared at him as at a total stranger. It was only when, almost ignoring the rest of us, he took a step forward, pointing a finger at one man—it was only when I turned about and saw Foe's face—that the truth broke on me—and then, at first, as a wild surmise, and no more. Even when I wheeled about again and stared at the man, full belief came slowly: for this Farrell was thin, wiry, gaunt; sun-tanned, with sunken eyes and a slight stoop; wearing the clothes of a gentleman and, when at length he spoke, using the accent of a gentleman.… But this came later. For some seconds he said nothing: he stood and pointed. I glanced at Constantia, preparing to spring between her and I knew not what. Constantia, leaning forward a little in her chair, with lips slightly parted, had, after the first glance, no eyes for the intruder, whom (I feel sure) she had not yet recognised. Her eyes were fixed on Jack, at whom the finger pointed: and her hand slid along the arm of her chair and gripped it, helping her to rise and spring to his side. Jimmy's face I did not see. He had come to a halt in the doorway. "You hound!" "Roddy! Catch him—oh, help!" It was Constantia's call ringing through the room. I sprang about just in time to give support as Jack fell into our interlacing arms, and to take the most of his weight as we lowered him flat on the hearth-rug in a dead faint. "Call off your damned dog, sir, whoever you are!" shouted Jimmy, running forward to help us. "We'll talk to you in a moment." I heard Farrell call "Rover! Rover!" and the dog must have come to heel instantly. For as I knelt, occupied in loosing Jack's collar, of a sudden a complete hush fell on the room. Jimmy had run for the water-bottle. "Don't ring—don't fetch Jephson!" I had commanded. "Get water from my bedroom." When I looked up to take the bottle, Farrell still stood implacable before the doorway. Constantia also looked up. "Who is this gentleman?" she demanded. "My name is Farrell," answered the figure by the doorway. "Miss Denistoun may remember a fellow-passenger of some years ago, on the Emania." I heard the catch of her breath as she knelt by me, staring at him. I heard Jimmy's muttered "My God!" My arm was reaching to catch Constantia if she should drop backward. But she pulled herself together with a long sob—I felt it shuddering through her, so close she knelt by me. Again silence fell on the room. Jimmy had fetched my bath-sponge along with the bottle. I poured water upon it and bathed Jack's temples, watching his eyelids. After a while they fluttered a little. I felt over his heart. "He is coming round," I announced: "but we'll let him lie here for a little, before lifting him on to the couch. "One question first," commanded Constantia. "Answer me, you two. … Is this—is this thing true, Roddy? Did he leave-this man—on the island?" For the moment I could put up no better delay—as neither could Jimmy—than to call "hush!" and pretend to listen to Jack's faintly recovering heart-beat. But Farrell heard, and answered,— "It's true, Miss Denistoun.… I had no notion to find him here; still less to find you and distress you. I came to Sir Roderick. But the dog here was wiser. He knew the scent on the stairs, and raced in ahead.… I am sorry to say it, Miss Denistoun: but that blackguard yonder took ship and left me solitary,—to die, for aught he knew. Let him come-to, and then we'll talk." Constantia rose. Slowly she picked up her gloves and sunshade. "No, we will not talk," she said, after a pause. "That talk is for you four men. I—I have no wish to see him recover." As she said it, she very slowly detached from her breast-knot the rose which had carried my felicitation, and laid it on the table: and, with that, she walked out, Farrell drawing aside to make way for her. NIGHT THE TWENTY-SECOND.THE SECOND MAN ESCAPES.Now that exit of Constantia's, I must tell you, had an instant and very remarkable effect upon Farrell, though she swept by him without perceiving it. A moment before he had stood barring the doorway, his legs planted wide, his eyes fierce, his chest panting as he waited for his enemy to come back to life, his mouth working and twisting with impatience to let forth its flood of denunciation. As Constantia walked to the door he not only drew back a foot to let her pass. He drew his whole body back, bowed for all the world like any shop-walker letting out a customer, even thrust out a hand, as by remembered instinct and as if to pull open an imaginary swing-door for a departing customer of rank. In short, for a moment the man reverted to his past—to Farrell of the Tottenham Court Road.… Nor was this all. As she went by him he slewed about to follow her with his eyes, kicking aside the dog that hampered him, crouching against his legs: and still his gaze followed her, to the outer door. Not until she had closed the outer door behind her did he face about on the room again; and still it was as if all the wind had been shaken, of a sudden, out of his sails. His next words, moreover— strange as they were—would have stablished his identity with Farrell even had any doubt lingered in us. "Funny thing," said he, addressing us vaguely, "how like blood tells, even down to a look in the eyes. I was husband to a woman once, thousands of miles from here and foreign of race: but she came of kings, though far away back, and Miss Denistoun, Sir Roderick, she reminded me, just then—" "Look here, Mr. Farrell," I broke in; "with your leave we won't discuss Miss Denistoun, here or anywhere—as, with your leave, we'll cut all further conversation until Dr. Foe is fit for it, which at this moment he pretty obviously is not. It may help your silence if I tell you that the lady who has just left is, or was, engaged to marry him." "Christ!… And she knows?" He stared, less at us than at the four walls about him. "She does not," said I: "or did not, until a few minutes ago." "But you knew!"—Wrath again filled Farrell's sails. "You knew— and you allowed it.… And you call yourselves gentlemen, I suppose!" "If you take that tone with either of us for an instant longer," I answered, after a pause, "you shall be thrown out of that door, and your dog shall follow through the window. If you prefer to stand quite still and hold your tongue—will you?—why, then, you are welcome to the information that I only heard of this engagement less than an hour ago, and Mr. Collingwood less than ten minutes before you entered." "But you knew that other thing," Farrell insisted. "Yes, I knew," said I: "and for the simple reason that Dr. Foe told it all to me. And Mr. Collingwood knows, for I told it to him. We two have kept the secret." "And," sneered Farrell, "you still keep being his friends!" "No," I answered; "as a matter of fact, we do not. But you have taken that tone again with me in spite of my warning, and I shall now throw you downstairs.… You are an ill-used man, I believe, though not by me: and for that reason, if you come back—say at ten to-morrow morning—and apologise, you will find me sympathetic. But just now I am going to throw you out." "You may if you can," retorted Farrell, eyeing my advance warily. "I've spoilt this marrying, I guess: and that's the first long chalk crossed off a long tally." I was about to grip with him when Jimmy called sharply that there were to be no blows—Foe wanted to speak. Foe had recovered under the brandy and lay over on his side, facing us, panting a little from the dose—of which Jimmy had been liberal. "Have it out, Roddy," he gasped, "here and now. I'm strong enough to get it over, and—and he can't tell you any worse than you both know, of my free telling—and I don't want to trouble either of you again. Let him have it out," implored Foe, between his sharp intakes of breath. "I am glad you excepted me," burst out Farrell. "You'll trouble me again fast enough: or, rather, I'll trouble you—to the end of your dirty life. Are you shamming sick, there, you Foe?" "You know that he is not," said Jimmy, holding back my arm. "Tell your story, and clear." "My story?" echoed Farrell in a bewildered way. "What's my story more than what you know, it seems? What's my story more than that, after sharing hell for days in an open boat, and solitude on that awful island, this man left me—choosing when I was sick and sorry: left me to hell and solitude together—left me to it, cold-blooded, when I was too weak to crawl—left me, in his cursed grudge, when he could have saved two as easy as one? Has he told you that, gentlemen?" "He told me quite faithfully," said I. "We—Mr. Collingwood and I— both know it." "Ay," Farrell retorted, "but neither you nor your Mr. Collingwood, when you say that, understands a bit what it means…" He broke off, searching for some words to convey the remembered agony to our brains that had no capacity (he felt) even to imagine it. "No," came a dull voice from the couch—startling us, dull though it was. "Only you and I, Farrell, understand what it means. Tell them just the facts, as I told the facts, and no more. Tell them, and me, how you escaped." "By the same ship as you did, if you wish to know—the I'll Away schooner, Captain Jefferson Hales. And I'll tell you something even more surprising.—Your ill-luck started the very hour you left me and Rover to die like two dogs together. When you stepped aboard the I'll Away, you stepped aboard as a lost missionary. You had your own bad reasons for not wanting to tell too much: and Hales had his own very good reasons for not putting too many questions. To start with, he didn't like missionaries as a class, or their conversation: and I gather that his crew likewise didn't take much truck in them; neither in the species nor in you as a specimen: least of all in you as a specimen. I'm sorry for it, too, in a way: because, at first, I pictured them asking you to put up a prayer, and pictured your face and feelings as you knelt down to oblige. Well, that was one of the pretty fancies that ought to come true but don't manage to, in this world. As for the next, there's no saying. You passed yourself for a missionary, and if Satan has humour enough to accept you on that ticket, a pretty figure you'll make, putting up false prayers in hell.… Anyhow, you didn't make friends on board that schooner—eh?" "I did not," Foe answered listlessly. "You weren't over comfortable with that crowd when you changed me for it?" "I was not, if that's any comfort to you." Farrell grinned. "Of course it's a comfort to me. They sent you to Coventry more or less; and I'll tell you the reason, if you don't know it. There was a whisper going round the ship forward.… One of the hands—it being a clear day—had heard a dog barking from the shore. Another fancied that he had. Then a third called to mind having heard somewhere—he couldn't remember the public, or even the port—that when old Buck Vliet marooned his missionary he'd left a dog with him in compassion.… I should tell you two gentlemen that the yarn about Vliet and how he caught a missionary by mistake, and how he'd short-circuited him somewhere in a holy terror, was a kind of legend all along the coast and around the Eastern islands. I dare say it crossed to the Atlantic in time: for again it was the kind of story that starts by being funny and gets funnier as each man chooses to improve on it.… All I can say is, that if the body you and I, Foe, looked down upon, that afternoon, belonged to Vliet's missionary, I don't want to hear any more fun about it.… So you see, gentlemen, this God-forsaken lot, down in the I'll Away's fo'c'sle, patched it up amongst them that this man, in his hurry, had deserted his dog. Now, as I shall tell you, if they had reasoned, they'd have known that the dog wouldn't starve, anyway. But they didn't reason. They were a God-forsaken lot—mostly broken men, pliers about the islands—and it just went against their instinct that anyone should forsake so much as a dog. If they'd known you had forsaken a man, you Foe, they'd have tarred and burnt you. "—Captain Hales, as it happened, hadn't caught the barking or any faint echo of it: the reason being that he was hard of hearing, although in the rest of his senses sharper than all his crew rolled together, and in wits or at a bargain a match for any trader between Chile and Palmerston. Also I have heard it rumoured that he had run a bit wild in his youth, found himself within the law or outside of it (I forget which), and come down to the South Pacific for the good of his health. But that was many years ago. He was now a middle-aged man, and had learnt enough about these waters to call you a fool if you suggested by way of flattery that what he didn't know about them wasn't worth knowing. "—Something, at any rate, in his past had turned him into a silent, brooding man, seldom coming out of his thoughts until it came to a bargain, when he woke up like a giant from sleep. His deafness helped to fasten this silent habit deeper upon him. Also he was touchy about his deafness: didn't like at any time to be reminded of it; and was apt to fly into a sudden rage if anyone brought up a reminder, even by a chance hint. And that, belike, was the main reason why he alone on board—barring yourself, Foe—never heard tell of this barking which he had missed to hear with his own ears. "—And now for one thing more, Foe—and it'll make you squirm by and by! Like most deaf men he was a bit suspicious: and looking at you sideways as you came on board—what with one thing and another, not liking missionaries as a line in trade, and, in particular, mistrusting the cut of your jib, he thought things over a bit and altered his helm. "—I'll explain. You see, you not only came aboard looking what you are, but you came aboard fairly slimed over, in addition, with all that had ever been told or guessed against Buck Vliet's missionary. The stories didn't agree about his sect: but they agreed that Vliet, though a ruffian, hadn't marooned the man just for fun—that he must have been a hard case somehow. The stories might vary concerning Vliet's reasons: but they agreed that the man hadn't come to it by sheer over-prayerfulness: and the conclusion was—reasonable or unreasonable—that you, Foe, must have been a bad potato somehow, or at best a severe trial, if so hardened a stomach as Vliet's hadn't been able to keep you down. Worse; he guessed you for a spy. "—Here, Sir Roderick and Mr. Collingwood, I must tell you that Vliet and Hales, as masters in this knock-about off-island trade, had grown to be rival kings in their way, and Hales in his brooding fashion as jealous as fire. From all I've heard, Vliet hadn't the ambition to be properly jealous: all he objected to was his business being cut. "—Vliet was an old man—a regular hoary sinner, who kept his trade secrets by a very simple method. He stocked his crews entirely with lads of his own begetting. White, black, he didn't care how many wives he carried to sea, or how much of a family wash he carried in the shrouds on a fine day. He ran his trade on secrecy and close family limitations. He had no range. His joy was to have a corner unknown to a soul else in the world. Fat, lazy, wicked, and sly— that was Vliet. He belonged to the old school. "—Now, for years, Hales—of the new school, and challenger—had been chasing after a rumour that chased after Vliet from port to port—a rumour that Vliet drew on an uncharted island, in those latitudes, known only to himself and to so much of his progeny as the old Solomon didn't mistrust enough to lose overboard.… Well, the belief at Valparaiso is that old Buck Vliet, with his schooner—on which he grudged a penny for repairs—had found an ocean grave at last, somewhere. The guess is that he overdid the Two Brothers in the end, being careless of warnings, with a top-hamper of wives. There is also a legend—likely invented to account for the name of his schooner—that he left all his money to a twin brother in business in Salt Lake City, and that the brother and his brother's wives had fitted out a new schooner to hunt for the island's whereabouts. "—Listen, you Foe! While I was lying sick, and you neglecting the look-out, Hales made our island, and anchored in the bay. While I was lying sick, and you neglecting the look-out, Hales made our island, that had been his dream for years; landed there, or on the far side, took its bearings to a hair, of course, and went ashore with a party to prospect. What do you say to that?" "I say," answered Foe, still languidly, shifting his head a little on the cushion, "that I always told you we were on the wrong side of the island, and that you would never listen." "They landed, anyway," pursued Farrell; "and for a whole day, after watering, they explored. They never got over the crest that looked down on our camp." "And if they had they would never have seen us," said Foe, responding like a man in a dream. "You had chosen the site too cleverly; the fern-brake would have hidden us, anyway. Let that pass." "But there was the bonfire and the look-out, both unattended." "Oh, if we're to start re-arguing arguments that kept us tired for about three years," answered Foe, "you built the bonfire on the wrong slope, as I always told you. And I'd cut down your flagstaff." "We won't quarrel about that, since here we are," Farrell retorted with a savage grin. "So I'll drop it and get on with the story. And the next thing to be mentioned in the story, Foe, is that for a clever man, you're about the biggest fool alive. You have no end of knowledge in you, which I admired on the island. The way you found all kinds of plants and things and turned them to account, and explained to me how traders and practical chemists could make fortunes out of them—why, it was wonderful. But it wasn't so wonderful to me as that, with all this knowledge, you'd never turned it to account, so to speak, when, with a third of it, at your age, I'd have been a millionaire. And the ways and manners of a gentleman you had, too; which I could easier set about copying—as I did. It won't bring you much comfort to know that, half the time, I was sucking education out of you, grinning inwardly and thinking, 'Now, my fine hater, the more you're taking the superior line with me the more I'm your pupil all the time; the more you're giving me what I'll find priceless, one of these days, if ever we get back upon London pavements.' In the blindness of your hatred you never guessed that Peter Farrell, all through life, might have had a long way with him—a way of looking ahead—and all to better himself. You never guessed that, all the time, I was letting you teach me. "—But in practical matters—in all that counts first with a business man—I saw pretty early that you were little better than a fool. Yet I couldn't have believed you or any man such a fool as you showed yourself on the I'll Away: and even you couldn't have missed sensing it but for one thing—you couldn't dare return to the island. "—A place so rich as that, unknown, uncharted!—reeking with copra, not to mention other wealth—fairly asking to be sold and turned over to a government, to a syndicate, to develop it! Man! you and Hales had a million safe between you when you boarded the schooner; and I can see Hales's mind at work when he spotted your boat and sized up the share he was losing by your turning up. The marvel to me is, he didn't turn you a blind eye. But Hales is a humane man. He did time in his youth, but he's not the sort that you are, Foe—the sort that could leave a man to die solitary and forsaken. Belike, too, the prize was so great in his grasp that he didn't care how much, in reason, might run through his fingers. "—Listen! When you sighted him, he had made a careful offing of the southern reefs, and had hauled up close to his wind. Where do you suppose he was bound? He was fetching up to beat back to Valparaiso. Being Yankee born and not a stocking-banker like old Buck Vliet, he was all for Valparaiso with an island to sell to the Chilian Government, and a concession and a syndicate fair in view. This cargo of beads, cheap guns, sham jewellery, canned meats, and rum, that he had aboard for the islands, would keep: the rum would even be improved by a little Christian delay. But, if he sank it all, all was nothing to the secret he carried. "—And then you hove on his view, for partner: and he took you in. … I hope you'll remember him gratefully after this, Foe. He chose to sight you—and he hadn't heard the dog. If he had, it wasn't in him to guess that you had left any better than a dog behind. "—Then you fairly flummoxed him. Missionary though you were, he'd accepted you as prospective shareholder. It wasn't for him to guess that you dared not go back. "—He's told me that, accepting you, for a day and a half he held on his course, close-hauled. Is that so? But he was suspicious, as deaf men are. He took a notion that you—you, keeping mum as a cat, having to pass for somebody else and avoid questions—were just lying low, meaning to slip cable at Valparaiso and hurry in with a prior claim. I am sorry to say it, Foe: but altogether you did not create good impression on board the I'll Away. To the crew you were an object of dark suspicion. To the skipper you were either a close knave, meaning to trick him, or an incredible idiot. After a while, and almost against hope, he determined to try you for an idiot. He ordered his helm up, and watched you. You did not protest. He put his helm farther and farther up, and headed for the Marquesas. Still you offered no objection. So he landed you—on Nukuheva, if I remember. And from Nukuheva, somehow, I guess, you got a slant out of your missionary labours to Sydney or else 'twas back to Valparaiso—I haven't tracked it: but from one or other you picked up some sort of a passage home. Anyway, lost men as the I'll Away's crew might be, they were glad enough, having traded you for nothing, to up-sail and lose you out of their sight.… And this man I find you two gentlemen treating as your friend, whom the scum of the earth (as you would call them) abhorred! And you know, whilst those poor men only guessed!" "Stay a moment, Farrell," interposed Jimmy. "Sorry to interrupt … but will you kindly take a look around this room. Not entirely a neat apartment, eh? A few odd cases and cabin trunks lying around?… You and Sir Roderick were almost at blows just now. But if you're curious to know the reason of all this mess, it is that, when you paid us this timely call, he was packing to search for you." "So?" Farrell drew back, regarding me, and the upper lids of his eyes went up till they were almost hidden by his brows. "So?" he said slowly. "But why?" "Put it at a whim," I said sharply, "and get on with your tale. … If you interrupt again, Jimmy, I'll strangle you, or attempt to. You may have observed that I'm ready to fight anybody, this afternoon." Farrell looked at me earnestly. "I see what you would be driving at, sir," said he, becoming the humble tradesman again. "And I admire. But, by God, sir!" he broke out, "it won't do! It shan't do! No man is going to shoulder that man's sin, to rob me of him!" "Get down from that horse," said I. "You can mount him again, if you choose, later on; but, first, finish the story." "All very well," said Farrell, "to put it in that dictatorial way, when you've taken the heart out of a man.… Well, Hales headed back for Valparaiso, scarce believing his luck. There he interviewed the ministry, got a provisional concession, and started out for the island again, to make good—and found another inhabitant alive and kicking. "—He behaved just as well as before, and better—for I was frank with him and knowledgeable. He couldn't understand missionaries, real or sham: but he understood a square deal, and didn't charge interest on bowels of mercy. His only grumble was, 'I'll put you on your honour. Tell me, please, there's no more of you hereabouts. It's a long passage to and fro: and if you're a man, you'll see that I'm almost as crowded as you are lonesome. Don't start me beating all this brush for skunks!' "—He sailed me back to Valparaiso, after we had spent three days prospecting the property together. At Lima I left him to fight out details with the Minister of the Interior—who, for some mysterious reason, turned out to be the person charged with trafficking for an islet three hundred miles from any interior—while I trained north and, crossing the Isthmus, sailed north for New York. The only man I knew in the whole Western Hemisphere was a friend of mine there, Renton by name, and I made for Renton, to raise capital. "—I found that he could walk into Wall Street, and, arm-in-arm with me, raise the money easily. Moreover I found that he had stored some twelve thousand dollars for me as my share of an investment I'd helped him to in Costa Rica. Some day, gentlemen, I'll tell you of this little episode, if you care to hear about it. It was a deal in a queer sort of mahogany he had asked me to inspect. "—But to return to the island, and wind up. Hales found me there, alive and hearty, Foe. For why? Because I had found a purpose in me—to wait and, when time came, to hunt you to the ends of the earth. It's my turn now. You've taught me, and I'll improve on your teaching. You've bought a practice, I've learnt; and now I learn that you've fixed up to marry this Miss Denistoun. "—Don't I know why?… Didn't I see that look in her eyes as she walked past me, just now? "—Yes.… Santa's look.… No secrets between you and me. But, by God, you shan't! I'll save her from that. Sooner than she shall be wife of yours, I'll marry her myself!" "Mr. Farrell," said I, "you have learnt much and learnt it sorely: but you haven't learnt enough. Pick up your hat, take your dog with you, and walk out." "That's right enough," said he; "and I'm going. I'm only half a gentleman yet, and my feelings get the better of me in the wrong way. But you'll never rob me of that fellow, and so I promise you two, and him.… Come along, Rover!" NIGHT THE TWENTY-THIRD.COUNTERCHASE.I went to the South Pacific, after all. Farrell called on me, next day, and before I could countermand my passage. He came, as he said, to offer me his deep apologies. "I grant you, Sir Roderick, that I behaved ill to you and Mr. Collingwood, and specially to Miss Denistoun. I had no business to drag her into the talk.… But I'm only a learner in the ways gentlemen behave. It doesn't come to me by nature, as it comes to luckier ones, whose parents and grandparents have bred it into the bone. You may put it that I've hair on my hoof and have to shave it carefully. What taking trouble can do I can make it do, and don't count the time wasted. But it's the unexpected that catches out a man like me.… You see, I came up thinking to find you alone: and I was so keen to see you, I paid no attention to the dog, queerly as he was behaving. I thought, maybe, he'd smelt a cat. There weren't any cats on the island, or aboard the I'll Away, or the cars, or the Oceanic.… And then I burst in after the hound, as soon as I realised that he meant mischief of some sort; and, of a sudden, there was Foe face to face with me, and you others treating him friendly as friendly. Was it any wonder that, coming on him like that and after hunting him more than half the world across, I let myself go?" "Well, first of all," I answered coldly, "you may disabuse your mind of any notion that Mr. Collingwood and I were chatting with Doctor Foe in the way you suspect. As a matter of fact, after you left, we told him what we were trying to avoid telling him in Miss Denistoun's presence at the moment when you broke in—that, through his treatment of you, he had forfeited our friendship." "Had he come to hear that?" asked Farrell,—"if it's a fair question." "It's a perfectly fair question," said I, "and the answer is that he had not. He had come to give me in person some information for which I had written to him.… Can you guess? It was the precise latitude and longitude of your island.… And now, question for question. You hadn't tracked him here, for you have just said that your finding him in this room took you fairly by surprise." "Almost knocked me over," Farrell agreed. "Then what had been your purpose in calling on me?" I asked, "—if that, too, is a fair question." "Well, I'll admit I was calling, in part, to get his address or discover his whereabouts. But that wasn't my only reason. My real reason and foremost—But before I tell it, Sir Roderick, will you answer me yet another question? Was it true, what Mr. Collingwood said?—that you were actually packing to search for me?" "Mr. Collingwood," I answered, somewhat embarrassed, "certainly would not have said it if it hadn't been true." "Well, it fairly beat me," said Farrell, staring. "And it beats me again, now you confirm it. Searching for me?—Why? You couldn't have guessed there was money in it." "It may sound strange to you, sir," said I pretty icily; "but I took that fancy into my head neither for your beaux yeux nor for profit. Moreover, if you don't understand without my help, I'll be shot if I can provide you with an explanation that won't strike you as wildly foolish.… However, if you must know, the thought of a fellow-creature marooned on that island, and of the bare chance that he might yet be alive to be rescued, had been preying on my mind ever since I heard Foe's tale, and parted with his friendship on account of it. Also it may appear extravagant, but through that old friendship I felt a sort of personal responsibility, as if Jack had left his trespass in my keeping.… But why discuss all this? You're back, safe and sound, and the trip is off. When Jephson has finished unpacking, he'll step over to Cockspur Street and pay forfeit for the two berths." "Two berths?" "Jephson was going with me. I fancy he looked forward to the adventure, and is a trifle disappointed this morning." Farrell nodded to show that he understood. Yet he seemed to be considering something else, and kept his eyes fixed on me in a queer way. "Sir Roderick," he said, after a pause, "your arrangements are all made for this voyage?" "Oh, yes," said I. "Your turning up like this is quite a small nuisance in its way. I'd arranged with my lawyers, arranged with my bankers, let my flat here furnished from the first of next month (that's the worst), taken out letters and passport, made my will, stored my few bits of spare plate. Last week I spent down in Warwickshire, clewing up the loose tackle, holding heart-to-heart conversations with Collingwood and my steward. Collingwood's my neighbour down there, you know, and will help to look after things." Farrell considered all this, slowly. "Excuse me, Sir Roderick," said he, "but is there no chance of your going back to your intention and re-packing?" "Why on earth should I?" was my very natural question. "Why, it's like this, sir," said Farrell, "—and now I'll come to the real reason that brought me yesterday. My real reason was a matter of business.… You may remember my telling you that, in New York, I'd consulted Renton, an old friend of mine, about raising the capital to take over and develop Santa Santissima, as we've agreed to call the island; and that Renton had no difficulty to raise the money. What I didn't tell you—not thinking it wise before company— was that from the first I'd stipulated—with Hales as well as with Renton—that half the shares should be held in Great Britain. Hales didn't care, as he put it, where in thunder the money came from, so long as it was good. Renton—as being British-born, though naturalised—made no objection and only one condition, that the syndicate should be a small one. If I could get half the capital raised quietly in England by one or two persons, why, so much the better. He could raise the other half without calling on Wall Street or starting so much as an echo.… Now, I don't mind telling you, Sir Roderick, that I had you in mind all the while. That island is a gold mine: the copra alone there represents whole fortunes running to waste: and even if old Buck Vliet still sails the waters—which I doubt, for the Two Brothers hasn't been spoken or sighted within these four years, and he wasn't provisioned for whaling—still, the concession papers are made out in Hales's name and mine, and the duplicate documents stored.… All I can say is, that I'm ready to put my own little pile upon it, to the last guinea. And I thought of you from the first; you having done me a good turn more than once, or tried to. Yes, sir: but the best of all would be your going out and making sure for yourself. You, that was preparing to go that distance to find a lost man—I say, sir, it would be heavenly, if you went and found a fortune instead. I've arranged a cable to Hales, and the I'll Away will be waiting for you at Valparaiso. But in case he should miss—which he won't—here are papers for you: bearings of the island, sketch-map, copy of bond of agreement with him, copy of agreement with Renton. All these I was bringing to put into your hand yesterday. But, my God! Sir Roderick, now that I've heard what I've heard—that you were preparing to search the South Pacific for me, and for no worse reason than that a poor devil was cast away there, I'd ask you on my knees to sleep in the berth you've booked and travel to better purpose." It has occurred to me since—and more than once or twice—that although the man and his offer were honest, he had a secondary purpose all this while: to get me out of the way lest I should embarrass his pursuit of Foe and his other scheme of which I am to tell. But, on the whole reckoning, I incline to think the man was perfectly sincere, and even eager to do me this kindness; which—as things turned out—was really an extravagant one, on the monetary calculation. At any rate, after studying his face for a while, I called Jephson out from my bedroom and told him that I had changed my mind: we would sail, after all, and he might start re-packing at once. Jephson fairly beamed. "But there's one thing I'd like to say," put in Farrell, while it was obvious that this order overwhelmed him with joy. "I want to have it clear between us that, joyful as I am at your acceptance, and grateful as I am for your seeing things in this light, it doesn't in any way compromise my dealing with Foe." "If you take my advice," said I, "you'll drop Foe, and all this silly business of hatred. He has tried it on you, and up to a certain point it answered. You played him—I'll grant you, unknowingly—a perfectly damnable trick. Don't smear your soul with any flattering unction, Mr. Farrell. You wrecked his life; and, in return, he set himself to wreck yours. Up to that point I can understand, though it all seems to me infernally silly. But in his monomania he went just that step too far, and has exchanged thereby the upper hand. You have the cards now: yet I warn you against playing them. For, as sure as I sit here, I warn you that in the act of destroying him you will destroy yourself. I look back on his miserable pursuit, and I prophesy the end of yours." "Well, it has taken me through fires of hell," said he; "but I wouldn't have missed it. I'm the man now, and he's the coward." "Quite so," said I. "Then be thankful and drop it. Do you want to retrieve his soul as he has found yours?" Farrell mused over this for a while. "I can't explain it to you," he said. "I can't explain it to myself. But that man and I simply can't give one another up. As I woke it in him, so he wakes in me something that I can't be without, having once known it. It seems to be a necessary part of myself." "There are a great many 'Can'ts' in that confession—for a strong man," was my comment; "and a trifle too much 'myself' for a man who has found himself. But you remember that meeting at the Baths, when you and Jack Foe first made acquaintance? Of course you do. Well, there was a little man seated in the hall, fronting you, and he read the explanation and gave it to me later, as he helped me on with my coat. I made no account of it at the time: but he said that he'd seen another man looking out of your eyes, for a moment, and it gave him a scunner." Again Farrell pondered. "I dare say he was right, too," he said thoughtfully. "When two men are made for one another, I guess their souls—if that's not too good a word—must exchange flesh and clothing now and then, so that for the moment there's a puzzle to separate t'other from which.… Has Foe told you about her— about Santa?" "He has," said I. "Yet he can't have told you all: for he doesn't know it all—about Renton, for instance, and how I did that bolt from him to Costa Rica, and from Costa Rica to San Ramon. You must hear all about that, if you will: because, when you've inspected the island for yourself, your next business will be with Renton, and I want you to understand the man you will be dealing with." Thereupon he told me: and that is how I was able, the other night, to relate what happened in Costa Rica and at San Ramon. One of these days, when you're fairly rested, you shall have a full, dull, true, and particular account of the voyage upon which I started, next day, with Jephson, as per schedule: with a detailed description of Santa Island, or Santa Santissima (to give it its full name). But this story isn't about me: it concerns Foe and Farrell: and therefore it's enough to say here, that I reached Valparaiso and found Captain Jeff Hales waiting for me with his schooner fresh from dock, and fleet: that he and I took to one another in the inside of ten minutes; that our voyage, first and last, went like a yachting cruise; that we made the island and spent something more than two months on it, prospecting, mapping, choosing the sites for our factories that were to be, even planning a light tramway to cart their produce down to the grand north-eastern bay which (as Foe had warned me) proved to be the only anchorage. But Santa's cross was there, standing yet on the small beach where the castaways had landed, and no doubt it stands yet. No storm ever seriously troubles the water within that lovely protected hollow. Returning to Valparaiso, I travelled north by steamer, by rail, by steamer and rail again, to New York, hunted up Renton, and found that my luck held; that I was dealing with a man as honest as Hales and keen as either of us. With half a dozen cable messages, to and from Farrell in London, we had everything fixed, and our company as good as a going concern, when the Chilian Government interposed a long, vexatious delay which, at one point, appeared to hint at an intention to repudiate the bargain. Back I travelled; this time with Renton in company, and Renton mad as fire. It all turned out to be a bungle by some clerk that had taken to drink and forgetfulness; but it cost us a month or two before the Government of Senor Orrego, having no case, decided to do us justice without troubling the Courts. Renton and I returned in triumph through the grilling heats of July, and reached New York to find the papers announcing this war for a certainty: whereupon, without unpacking, I pelted for home. From Southampton I made for London, and had two short interviews with Farrell amid the rush of rejoining the H.A.C., collecting kit, and the rest of it. Our talk was entirely about business, and was conducted at the National Liberal Club—the hostelry to which I had addressed all my letters and cables. I gathered that he used it almost as a permanent residence, having sold or given up his house at Wimbledon. He said nothing of Foe, and I forbore to ask questions. From the H.A.C., in the general catch-as-catch-can of those early weeks of the war, I found myself on one and the same day pushed into a temporary Commission in the R.F.A., commanded down to Warwickshire to recruit for it; and met at my lodge-gate with a telegram ordering me off to Preston to collect a draft there and report its delivery at Aldershot. Funny sort of home-coming for a man returning after two years' absence! But there it was. I had just time by smart driving to catch the next down train at our local station: so, without even a glimpse of the ancestral roof, I put the dog-cart about and posted back. For the next week or so, as Jimmy put it of his own very similar experience (he had joined up in the Special Reserve as a gunner three years before the war), I didn't spend a night out of my train. Then came a morning—I had rolled up with my latest draft, from Berwick at 4.30 a.m.—when the Colonel sent for me to come to the orderly-room some ten minutes before he opened business, and then and there asked me if it was to my liking to come out to France with the division then moving, on the ammunition column of his brigade. I walked back to the R.F.A. mess, picked up a newspaper in the ante-room, and dropped into a chair. My heart was beating like a girl's at her first ball. "France"—"France"—the very "r" in that glorious word kept beating in my ears with the roll of a side-drum. I gripped the Times, steadied myself down to master the short little paragraph on which my eyes had been fixed, unseeing, for a couple of minutes, and found myself staring at this announcement:
NIGHT THE TWENTY-FOURTH.CONSTANTIA.The drumming in my ears died suddenly out to silence, and then started afresh more violently than ever, and more sharply, for the long pinging of an electric bell shrilled through it. The pinging ceased sharply: the drumming continued; and I looked up to see the mess sergeant standing over me, at attention. "Telephone call for you, sir." I went to the instrument like a man in a dream. Something suddenly gone wrong with Sally's healthy first-born? Jimmy starting for France and ringing me up for farewell? Farrell—damn Farrell!—to talk business? Jephson, with word that he had achieved the urgent desire of his heart and been passed as a gunner, to join me, quo fas et gloria ducunt? These four only, to my knowledge, had my probable address. "Hallo?" I called. "Hallo!" came the answer sharp and prompt, in a woman's voice which I recognised at once for Constantia's. "Is that you, Roddy?" "Yes—Roddy, all right," I spoke back, mastering my voice. "Have you seen—?" Her voice trailed off. "D'you mean the announcement? Yes, two minutes ago. Is it congratulations you're ringing up in this hurry?" "Roddy, dear, don't be a beast!" the voice implored. "I'm in a horrible hole, and I think only you can help me. Is it possible for you to get leave, and come? Mamma asks me to say that there's a room here, and—and we want you!" "As it happens," returned I, "there'll be no trouble about getting leave. We're to start—report says—at the end of the week, and I must be sent up to collect a few service odds-and-ends. As for sleeping, I'll ring up Jephson, and if he's already conscripted, I can doss at the Club. All that is easy. But tell me, what is the matter?" "Oh! I can't here." Constantia's voice thrilled on the wire. "It's pretty awful. I never gave him leave—never!" "You're getting pretty incoherent," said I. "We'll have it out when we meet. Dinner?… No, I shall pick up a meal on the train. … Mustn't expect me before 8.30; I have to put a draft through and see them off. Odd jobs, besides.… These are strenuous times." "Roddy, you're an angel!" "Not a bit," said I; "and I warn you not to expect me in that capacity. You'll observe that I haven't congratulated you yet." I put this in rather savagely. "You're also rather a brute," answered the voice. "But you'll come?" "Please God," said I. "Thank God!" answered she; and I hung up the receiver. Well, in my jubilation I had forgotten to ask for leave to run up and get kit. But leave was no sooner asked for than given. From Victoria that evening I taxi'd straight to Jermyn Street, where I found Jephson, warned by telegram, elate at the prospect of soldiering. I was able, after a talk with my Colonel, to inform him that he had also a prospect of coming along as my servant, and this lifted him to the seventh heaven. Then I went out, picked up a dinner at Arthur's, and walked on to Upper Brook Street. In those days London had not started to shroud its lamps. One stood a few paces short of the porch of Number 105; and as I turned into Brook Street I saw a man come hastily down the steps, and enter a taxi anchored there. The butler followed and closed the door upon him. The night had begun to drizzle, and there was a sough of sou'westerly wind in the air. I turned up the collar of my service overcoat and, as the taxi passed, walked pretty briskly forward and intercepted Mrs. Denistoun's butler, who, after a stare at the retreating vehicle, had reascended the steps and was about to close the door. Recognising me by the light of the porch lamp, he opened the door wide, and full upon the figure of Constantia, standing in the hallway. She gave a little gasp and came to me, holding out her hand. "You were always as good as your word, Roddy. Come into the library. Where are you sleeping, by the way?" "In my flat," said I. "Jephson will not be called up for a day or two. He has a fire lit, and will sit up for me." "He may have to sit up late," replied Constantia. "Mamma will be down presently.… There has been something of a scene, and she is upset. You saw Mr. Farrell go away, just now? You must have passed him, almost at the door." "I did," said I, "though I don't know if he recognised me. Child, what is the matter?" "Child?" echoed Constantia. "It does me good to be called that, for that's exactly how I am feeling.… He had no right—no right—" and there she broke off. "Do you mean," said I, "that he put that announcement in the Times having no right to do it?" "I dare say," moaned Constantia, waving her arms feebly, pathetically, "he understood more than I meant him to." "Let us be practical, please," said I, becoming extremely stern. "Have you, or have you not, engaged yourself to marry Farrell?" "Certainly I have not," she answered with vivacity. "He asked me, and I—well, I played for time." I couldn't repress a small groan at this: or, rather, it was half a groan and half a sigh of relief. "Has he spoken to your mother?" "No." "Does your mother know about it?" "Yes. I told her." "Does she approve of this announcement in the papers? Has she sanctioned it?" "Of course she does not—of course she has not.… Roddy, sit down and don't ask so many questions all of a heap. Sit down and light your pipe, and pass me a cigarette. Furnilove will bring in some whisky for you by and by." "Thank you, Constantia; but I don't feel like staying. I've always maintained—oh, damnation!" I broke off. "What have you always maintained, Roddy? Sit down and tell it. Are you not here because I sent for you? And didn't I send for you because I am in trouble? We are in a tangle, I tell you, and I'm asking you, on my knees, to untwist it. So light your pipe and, before we begin, tell me—What is it you have always maintained?" "I have always maintained," I answered slowly, even more stern than before, "that no woman can be safely trusted to know a cad from a gentleman. If the cad can flourish a trifle of worldly success in front of her, or if he's a mere adventurer and flashes himself on her boldly enough, or, if she has persuaded herself to pity him, she's just fascinated, and you can't trust her judgment ten yards. There!… I've burnt my boats." Constantia sat for some while pondering this, breathing out the smoke of her cigarette, gazing into the fire under the shade of a handscreen. "I'll tell you another thing, Roddy," she said at length; "and it's as true and truer. No woman thinks worse of a man for burning his boats.… But it isn't quite worldly success to be wrecked and left desolate on an island three hundred miles from anywhere. It all started (as you hinted) with my pitying him and admiring his strength of will after the awful experience he had tholed." "He left you just now? I saw him drive away, and his infernal dog with him." "Yes: there had been a pretty bad scene. I was furious, and Mamma was so much upset that I doubt if she'll be fit to talk to-night. But it's a blessed relief to her, now that she knows you are anchored here for a while, to protect us, and that, at the worst, we can ring up Jermyn Street." "Why," I exclaimed, "what the devil is there to protect you from?" "Jack—Mr. Foe, that is—has been watching this house for days. He haunts the pavement opposite, all the hours he is off duty. Mamma is sure that he means evil, and I wish I was sure that he didn't. He has gone under, Roddy. It is awful to look out, as Furnilove draws the blinds, and see that figure there stationed, reproaching us—yet for what harm that we have done him? He is even ragged.… I should not be surprised to hear he was starving. Yet what can we do?" "Tell me his address," said I. She hesitated. "Why should you suppose that I know his address?" she asked, shading her face. But I took her up bluntly. "I am sorry," I said, "to be discharging apophthegms upon you to-night: but you must hear just one other. Every woman follows and traces a man who has once laid his heart on her altar. I am sorry, Con, to call up an instance from so far back in the past: but you knew where to 'phone even for me, this morning. … So own up, child, and tell me, where is Foe?" "I believe," she answered after a while, the handscreen hiding her face, "he has found work in one of these emergency hospitals they are putting up.… It's at a place called Casterville Gardens, down by Gravesend. When first he started watching this house, he was in rags; but for the last fortnight he has worn khaki, and it improves his appearance wonderfully.… Besides, when a man is in the army, you have the comfort to know that, at least, he isn't starving." "Was it so bad as that?" I asked. "Well, and now about Farrell?" "Ah!" said she, "when you saw him get into that taxi, I had dismissed him. He was going—or said he was going—straight to Printing House Square to get that abominable paragraph contradicted. I told him that he was to return to-night and bring me his assurance that it was contradicted—either that, or never to enter this house again.… And now, Roddy, as he may be late—as I would only be content with his seeing the Editor in person—and as editors, I understand, come down late to their work—suppose you mix yourself a whisky-and-soda: for here is Furnilove with the glasses.… Furnilove! keep the latch up for an hour or so, and the door on the chain. Mr. Farrell may be calling late with a particular message. Do not admit him beyond the hall, but come and report to me here. Sir Roderick will receive him in the hall and take the message." "Yes, miss," said the obedient Furnilove. "That is all." Constantia pondered.—"Except that you may tell the housemaid not to worry about the room for Sir Roderick. He will not sleep here, after all. And you may send Henriette up with word to Mamma that all is right and Sir Roderick stays only to receive Mr. Farrell's message. He will probably be going at once on receipt of it, and then you can lock up. The others can go to bed when they choose." "Very good, miss," said Furnilove, and withdrew. "And now," said Constantia, "since he is late, keep me amused. Tell me all about the island." So I told her this and that of my voyaging; and the time drew on until the clock on the mantelpiece chimed a half-hour. It was one-thirty. "The dickens!" said I, pulling out my own watch and consulting it. "Farrell is a long time at Printing House Square. In my belief, Con, he won't be returning." Just at that moment the front door bell pealed loudly. We stood up together. We heard Furnilove padding towards the door, and we both moved out into the passage as he slid up the latch and unhooked the chain. Constantia, in her eagerness, had pressed a little ahead of me. A man rushed in, disregarding Furnilove, shouldering him aside—a man in a furred overcoat. Expecting Farrell, for the moment I mistook him for Farrell. Even when above the fur collar I caught the sight of common khaki, for another moment I took him for Farrell. But he ran for Constantia, stretching out his arms as if to embrace her; and as he stretched them, under the hall light, I saw that one of his hands was bleeding. I had enough presence of mind to spring in front of her and ward him off. It was Foe. "It's all right," he gasped, staring at me. "No need to make a fuss. … I have killed him." And with that, still staring at me horribly, he sank slowly and collapsed in a huddle at my feet, raving out incoherent words. Furnilove behaved admirably. Having assured himself that Miss Constantia was safe, and that I had the intruder under control, he went smartly to the telephone.… Amid Foe's ravings I heard him ringing up the exchange and, after a pause, summoning the doctor. "We had better have the spare room prepared again, after all," said Constantia. "We can't turn him out, in this state.… And there's a dressing-room, Roddy, next door, if you can put up with it.… But what has happened, God knows." "God knows," said I. "But he's a lunatic, unless I'm mistaken. We'll hear what the doctor says.… But he shan't sleep here, to trouble you.… Furnilove, whistle up and have a taxi ready.…" "Oh, what is he saying?" moaned Constantia as the body on the floor still twisted as if burrowing to hide itself, now muttering and again shouting in a voice that reverberated along the passage, "Kill him! Damn that dog!—kill him!" I knelt on the body and held it still. It was the body of my best friend, and I knelt on it, almost throttling him. "One can't ring up a lunatic asylum, at this hour of the morning," I found myself gasping. "He's for my flat, to-night, if your doctor will take charge of him with me." And with that I looked up and caught sight of Constantia's mother at the head of the staircase. "It's all right, Mrs. Denistoun," said I, glancing up. "It's my friend, Jack Foe—my friend that was. With the doctor's leave I'll get him back presently to Jermyn Street, where Jephson and I will look after him for the night.… Jephson used to worship him, and will wait on him as a slave." And with that—as it seemed amid the blasts of Furnilove's whistle in the porchway and the toot-toot of a taxi, answering it—a quiet man stood above my shoulder. It was the doctor: and Furnilove had been so explicit on the 'phone that the doctor—whose name I learnt afterwards to be Tredgold—almost by magic whipped out a small bottle from his pocket. "Water," said he, after a look at the patient, "and a tumbler, quick!" Furnilove dashed into the library and returned with both. "Bromide," said Dr. Tredgold. "Let him take it down and then hold his head steady for a few minutes.… Right!… Now the question is, where to bestow him? I can't answer for him when the dose wears off: but it's no case to leave with two ladies." "There's a taxi, doctor," said I, "if we can get him into it. I have a flat in Jermyn Street, and a trustworthy manservant. I suggest that he'll do there for the night." "Right," said Dr. Tredgold again; "and the sooner the better. I'll come with you, when I've bound up this wound on his hand. It's a nasty one.… It looks to me—Yes, and it is, too!" "What is it?" I asked. "A dog-bite." "So that was what he killed!" thought I, and aloud I said, "Thank God!" "Eh?" said the doctor. "A dog-bite's a queer thing to thank God for." "It might have been worse," I answered. "H'm: well it's bad enough," Dr. Tredgold replied, busy with his bandaging. NIGHT THE TWENTY-FIFTH.THE PAYING OF THE SCORE.Next evening, my leave being up, I returned to Aldershot. Dr. Tredgold had called around early, and after overhauling his patient and dressing the hand, had assured me there was no cause for anxiety. The fever had gone down, and this allowed us to tackle the main mischief, which was malnutrition. In short, Jack was starving. "Your man makes an excellent nurse," said the doctor. "I'll tell him to go slow at first, with beef-tea and milk, and to-morrow he can start the works up with a dose of champagne. But I'll drop in to-morrow, to make sure. The wound?—Oh, it's a dog-bite, safe enough, and a rather badly lacerated one. But we cauterised it in time last night, and it shows no 'anger,' as the saying is. Has he told you how he came by it?" "No," said I. "He has been lying in this lethargy ever since you left him. He wakes up and takes his medicine from Jephson, and then drops back into a doze. I thought it best not to worry him." "Quite right, too.… And I'll not ask questions, either, beyond putting it that he's a friend of yours, gone under, and you're playing the Samaritan.… Well, you can go back to duty, and Jephson and I will see this through. It's queer, too.… I seem to have seen his face somewhere.… But what's queerer is that he isn't dead. He must have had some practice at fasting, poor fellow. I should say that his stomach hadn't known food for a week." I duly 'phoned the doctor's report to Constantia. To Jephson my last words were, "Write daily. When Dr. Foe can sit out, dress him in any old suit, shirt, and underwear. I don't see myself out of this khaki for a long time ahead. He will be fit again long before Monday week, when you're to join up: and when he is able to walk, there's an envelope for him in the top right-hand drawer of my writing-table." Jephson wrote twice to report that Dr. Foe was "going on favourably," and on the third day, that he had even dressed himself and taken a walk. He had been away four hours and more—"which caused me much anxiety," added Jephson. But on the fourth day, on the eve of our starting for Rouen, I got the following letter, in Jack's own handwriting:
That is the end of the tale [concluded Otway], except for this— Twelve months later, being on leave and wanting to clear up the mystery of the newspaper report, I took a train down to C—, past Gravesend, made inquiries of the police, and finally hunted up the juryman who had shown so much emotion at the inquest. I found a little whiskered grocer, weighing out margarine in a shed that was half shop, half canteen. All I extracted from him was this— "Yes, to be sure, sir, I remember it perfectly. I only wish I didn't: for I dream of it at night: and, being a widower, I can't confide the trouble. The fact is, I must suffer from nerves and— what do they call 'em, sir?—hallucinations—yes, that's the word. But I was fresh from inspecting the body, and when that person broke in, wearing a face like the corpse's twin-brother, well, it knocked me clean out. Of course, it must have been a hallucination; none of the others saw the least resemblance—as they've told me since. But at the moment, I'd have wagered my life.…" EPILOGUE."Yes, that is the story," said Otway, sorting back the documents into his dispatch-case. "Is it quite all the story, sir?" asked Polkinghorne, breaking the silence that followed its close. Otway frowned, re-sorted the last three or four papers, laid them in the case and closed it with a couple of snaps. "That's all," he answered, "that exists for publication. That is, unless you want a moral. I can give you that, all right: and if you have any use for it you may apply it to this blasted War. As I see it, the more you beat Fritz by becoming like him, the more he has won. You may ride through his gates under an Arch of Triumph; but if he or his ghost sits on your saddle-bow, what's the use? You have demeaned yourself to him; you cannot shake him off, for his claws hook in you, and through the farther gate of Judgment you ride on, inseparables condemned. "—And, oh, by the by! I am taking my leave next Wednesday. Sammy has been nosing suspiciously, these five days, around a wine-case which on the 22nd he shall have the honour of opening. It contains, if our friend the Transport Officer hasn't been beforehand with you, some Pommery 1900; with which you are to do your best. For it turns out that, with luck, I am to be married on that day. No flowers, by special request." Otway re-opened the dispatch-case and again made sure of his last two exhibits, which he had not exhibited. The first was a note, folded three-corner-wise, which ran:
The second of these exhibits, not exhibited, was a creased envelope containing the shredded petals of a rose. THE END. |
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