LATE one afternoon, two men, looking unspeakably battered, got into a
fly at a small off station and told the man to drive them to Strange
Hall.
“I’ll not show to a soul for a week,” said the first man, who, if one
looked at him microscopically, seemed like the remains of Strange,
“never in all my life have I felt so humiliated. To be held by the leg
by a parcel of niggers for the best part of four months, and at my age,
is too much for any fellow.”
“You were next to off your head most of the time, and then only for us
you’d have escaped long ago,” said Brydon.
“Don’t try to find excuses, it’s too damnable altogether, and to think
after all that those idiots got home months sooner, laden with ivory!”
“After the week what will you do?” asked the other looking out of the
window. “You’ll show yourself to your people directly you are
presentable, I suppose?”
“Give interviews to reporters probably,” he returned shortly.
Brydon furtively watched the gaunt shattered man, old before his time,
who not so very long before had looked as if he could move the world.
“Oh, that woman!” he thought savagely.
Almost in spite of himself he had become the keeper of all the elder
man’s secrets, and the office weighed frightfully on him.
By some extraordinary mischance, neither the letters sent at that time,
nor the cablegram, ever reached Strange; they came some time after the
expedition had gone, and in transmission were lost, and the negligent
messengers thought best to entirely deny the existence of any.
When Strange enquired at the office at Cairo, there was no account of
any cable for him, the clerk who had received it had been exchanged, and
Strange made no very pressing enquiry, for he hardly expected one, and
as a P. and O. boat was starting the next hour, he took passage on her
and went on board—even giving the reporters the slip.
As a matter of fact, he was so desperately ill at the time that he was
hardly responsible for his actions, or he must have recovered the record
of the cable, and both Brydon and Tolly were too much occupied in the
attempt to get him home alive to think of anything else. They succeeded
as it turned out, but only by the skin of his teeth.
On the whole, despite certain eccentricities, both Tolly and Brydon had
done better than any other men possibly could have done, their
sentimental devotion to Strange put starch into their rather limp souls,
and their uncomplaining heroism under the most shocking sufferings was
almost pathetic, and then by some special providence, they had both
escaped the second fever that nearly put an end to Strange.
“What’s that, do you see, in the field there? My eyes are beastly dim
yet,” said Strange, peering out at some object a few fields off.
“I don’t know, it looks like a hump.”
“Driver, just turn into that lane and take the south road.—It’s a silo!
By Jove! Old Hopkins is coming on, and look, all that waste moor under
cultivation! I always said it would grow potatoes. Seemingly the place
is not neglected. Hopkins was always a good fellow, but I had no idea
until now he wasn’t also an ass. I dreamt frequently of that ensilage
scheme, someone else has hatched out my dream for me. Oh Lord, here’s
this shivering on me again! Where’s the draught?”
“In your breast-pocket.”
“Tell him to wait, I can’t get in like this, ‘there’s a decency to be
observed!’”
The driver waited, revolving in his mind suppositions as to his
remarkable fare, and wondering why “in the devil’s name” the trap shook
as if it had the palsy.
After quite half an hour it stopped and he had orders to go on, while
Strange mopped the cold sweat from his face with a trembling hand.
“This degrades a fellow!” he muttered. As a rule he pulled himself well
together after these attacks, but this time he got no reaction.
When they reached the door he was almost unconscious.
“Take me quietly to my den,” he muttered, “don’t let the servants bother
me.” Then he fainted dead off.