The Monarch in the Arabian story had an ointment which, put upon the
right eye, enabled him to see through the walls of houses. If the
Arabian despot had passed along a narrow street leading into a main
thoroughfare of London, one night just before the clock struck twelve,
he would have beheld, in a dingy back room of a large building, a very
strange sight. He would have seen King Charles the First seated in
friendly converse with none other than Oliver Cromwell.
The room in which these two noted people sat had no carpet and but few
chairs. A shelf extended along one side of the apartment, and it was
covered with mugs containing paint and grease. Brushes were littered
about, and a wig lay in a corner. A mirror stood at either end of the
shelf, and beside these, flared two gas-jets protected by wire baskets.
Hanging from nails driven in the walls were coats, waist-coats, and
trousers of more modern cut than the costumes worn by the two men.
King Charles, with his pointed beard and his ruffles of lace, leaned
picturesquely back in his chair, which rested against the wall. He was
smoking a very black brier-root pipe, and perhaps his Majesty enjoyed
the weed all the more that there was just above his head, tacked to the
wall, a large placard, containing the words, "No smoking allowed in
this room, or in any other part of the theatre."
Cromwell, in more sober garments, had an even jauntier attitude than
the King, for he sat astride the chair, with his chin resting on the
back of it, smoking a cigarette in a meerschaum holder.
"I'm too old, my boy," said the King, "and too fond of my comfort;
besides, I have no longer any ambition. When an actor once realises
that he will never be a Charles Kean or a Macready, then come peace and
the enjoyment of life. Now, with you it is different: you are, if I may
say so in deep affection, young and foolish. Your project is a most
hare-brained scheme. You are throwing away all you have already won."
"Good gracious!" cried Cromwell, impatiently, "what have I won?"
"You have certainly won something," resumed the elder calmly, "when a
person of your excitable nature can play so well the sombre, taciturn
character of Cromwell. You have mounted several rungs, and the whole
ladder lifts itself up before you. You have mastered two or three
languages, while I know but one, and that imperfectly. You have studied
the foreign drama, while I have not even read all the plays of
Shakespeare. I can do a hundred parts conventionally well. You will,
some day, do a great part as no other man on earth can act it, and then
fame will come to you. Now you propose recklessly to throw all this
away and go into the wilds of Africa."
"The particular ladder you offer me," said Cromwell, "I have no desire
to climb; I am sick of the smell of the footlights and the whole
atmosphere of the theatre. I am tired of the unreality of the life we
lead. Why not be a hero instead of mimicking one?"
"But, my dear boy," said the King, filling his pipe again, "look at the
practical side of things. It costs a fortune to fit out an African
expedition. Where are you to get the money?"
This question sounded more natural from the lips of the King than did
the answer from the lips of Cromwell.
"There has been too much force and too much expenditure about African
travel. I do not intend to cross the Continent with arms and the
munitions of war. As you remarked a while ago, I know several European
languages, and if you will forgive what sounds like boasting, I may say
that I have a gift for picking up tongues. I have money enough to fit
myself out with some necessary scientific instruments, and to pay my
passage to the coast. Once there, I shall win my way across the
Continent through love and not through fear."
"You will lose your head," said King Charles; "they don't understand
that sort of thing out there, and, besides, the idea is not original.
Didn't Livingstone try that tack?"
"Yes, but people have forgotten Livingstone and his methods. It is now
the explosive bullet and the elephant gun. I intend to learn the
language of the different native tribes I meet, and if a chief opposes
me and will not allow me to pass through his territory, and if I find I
cannot win him over to my side by persuasive talk, then I shall go
round."
"And what is to be the outcome of it all?" cried Charles. "What is your
object?"
"Fame, my boy, fame," cried Cromwell, enthusiastically, flinging the
chair from under him and pacing the narrow room. "If I can get from
coast to coast without taking the life of a single native, won't that
be something greater than all the play-acting from now till Doomsday?"
"I suppose it will," said the King, gloomily; "but you must remember
you are the only friend I have, and I have reached an age when a man
does not pick up friends readily."
Cromwell stopped in his walk and grasped the King by the hand. "Are you
not the only friend I have," he said; "and why can you not abandon this
ghastly sham and come with me, as I asked you to at first? How can you
hesitate when you think of the glorious freedom of the African forest,
and compare it with this cribbed and cabined and confined business we
are now at?"
The King shook his head slowly, and knocked the ashes from his pipe. He
seemed to have some trouble in keeping it alight, probably because of
the prohibition on the wall.
"As I said before," replied the King, "I am too old. There are no pubs
in the African forest where a man can get a glass of beer when he wants
it. No, Ormond, African travel is not for me. If you are resolved to
go, go and God bless you; I will stay at home and carefully nurse your
fame. I shall from time to time drop appetising little paragraphs into
the papers about your wanderings, and when you are ready to come back
to England, all England will be ready to listen to you. You know how
interest is worked up in the theatrical business by judicious puffing
in the papers, and I imagine African exploration requires much the same
treatment. If it were not for the Press, my boy, you could explore
Africa till you were blind and nobody would hear a word about it, so I
will be your advance agent and make ready for your home-coming."
At this point in the conversation between these two historic
characters, the janitor of the theatre put his head into the room and
reminded the celebrities that it was very late, whereupon both King and
Commoner rose, with some reluctance, and washed themselves; the King
becoming, when he put on the ordinary dress of an Englishman, Mr. James
Spence, while Cromwell, after a similar transformation, became Mr.
Sidney Ormond; and thus, with nothing of Royalty or Dictatorship about
them, the two strolled up the narrow street into the main thoroughfare
and entered their favourite midnight restaurant, where, over a belated
meal, they continued the discussion of the African project, which
Spence persisted in looking upon as one of the maddest expeditions that
had ever come to his knowledge; but the talk was futile, as most talk
is, and within a month from that time Ormond was on the ocean, his face
set towards Africa.
Another man took Ormond's place at the theatre, and Spence continued to
play his part, as the papers said, in his usual acceptable manner. He
heard from his friend, in due course, when he landed. Then at intervals
came one or two letters showing how he had surmounted the numerous
difficulties with which he had to contend. After a long interval came a
letter from the interior of Africa, sent to the coast by messenger.
Although at the beginning of this letter Ormond said he had but faint
hope of reaching his destination, he, nevertheless, gave a very
complete account of his wanderings and dealings with the natives, and
up to that point his journey seemed to be most satisfactory. He
inclosed several photographs, mostly very bad ones, which he had
managed to develop and print in the wilderness. One, however, of
himself was easily recognisable, and Spence had it copied and enlarged,
hanging the framed enlargement in whatever dressing-room fate assigned
to him; for Spence never had a long engagement at any one theatre. He
was a useful man who could take any part, but had no specialty, and
London was full of such.
For a long time he heard nothing from his friend, and the newspaper men
to whom Spence indefatigably furnished interesting items about the lone
explorer, began to look upon Ormond as an African Mrs. Harris, and the
paragraphs, to Spence's deep regret, failed to appear. The journalists,
who were a flippant lot, used to accost Spence with "Well, Jimmy, how's
your African friend?" and the more he tried to convince them, the less
they believed in the peace-loving traveller.
At last there came a final letter from Africa, a letter that filled the
tender, middle-aged heart of Spence with the deepest grief he had ever
known. It was written in a shaky hand, and the writer began by saying that
he knew neither the date nor his locality. He had been ill and delirious
with fever, and was now, at last, in his right mind, but felt the grip
of death upon him. The natives had told him that no one ever recovered
from the malady he had caught in the swamp, and his own feelings led
him to believe that his case was hopeless. The natives had been very
kind to him throughout, and his followers had promised to bring his
boxes to the coast. The boxes contained the collections he had made,
and also his complete journal, which he had written up to the day he
became ill.
Ormond begged his friend to hand over his belongings to the
Geographical Society, and to arrange for the publication of his
journal, if possible. It might secure for him the fame he had died to
achieve, or it might not; but, he added, he left the whole conduct of
the affair unreservedly to his friend, in whom he had that love and
confidence which a man gives to another man but once in his life--when
he is young. The tears were in Jimmy's eyes long before he had finished
the letter.
He turned to another letter he had received by the same mail, and which
also bore the South African stamp upon it. Hoping to find some news of
his friend he broke the seal, but it was merely an intimation from the
steamship company that half-a-dozen boxes remained at the southern
terminus of the line addressed to him; but, they said, until they were
assured the freight upon them to Southampton would be paid, they would
not be forwarded.
A week later, the London papers announced in large type, "Mysterious
disappearance of an actor." The well-known actor, Mr. James Spence, had
left the theatre in which he had been playing the part of Joseph to a
great actor's Richelieu, and had not been heard of since. The janitor
remembered him leaving that night, for he had not returned his
salutation, which was most unusual. His friends had noticed that for a
few days previous to his disappearance he had been apparently in deep
dejection, and fears were entertained. One journalist said jestingly
that probably Jimmy had gone to see what had become of his African
friend; but the joke, such as it was, was not favourably received, for
when a man is called Jimmy until late in life, it shows that people
have an affection for him, and every one who knew Spence was sorry he
had disappeared, and hoped that no evil had overtaken him.
It was a year after the disappearance that a wan, living skeleton
staggered out of the wilderness in Africa, and blindly groped his way
to the coast as a man might who had lived long in darkness and found
the light too strong for his eyes. He managed to reach a port, and
there took steamer homeward bound for Southampton. The sea-breezes
revived him somewhat, but it was evident to all the passengers that he
had passed through a desperate illness. It was just a toss-up whether
he could live until he saw England again. It was impossible to guess at
his age, so heavy a hand had disease laid upon him, and he did not seem
to care to make acquaintances, but kept much to himself, sitting
wrapped up in his chair, gazing with a tired-out look at the green
ocean.
A young girl frequently sat in a chair near him, ostensibly reading,
but more often glancing sympathetically at the wan figure beside her.
Many times she seemed about to speak to him, but apparently hesitated
to do so, for the man took no notice of his fellow-passengers. At
length, however, she mustered up courage to address him, and said:
"There is a good story in this magazine: perhaps you would like to read
it?"
He turned his eyes from the sea and rested them vacantly upon her face
for a moment. His dark moustache added to the pallor of his face, but
did not conceal the faint smile that came to his lips; he had heard
her, but had not understood.
"What did you say?" he asked, gently.
"I said there was a good story here, entitled 'Author! Author!' and I
thought you might like to read it," and the girl blushed very prettily
as she said this, for the man looked younger than he had done before he
smiled.
"I am afraid," said the man, slowly, "that I have forgotten how to
read. It is a long time since I have seen a book or a magazine. Won't
you tell me the story? I would much rather hear it from you than make
an attempt to read it myself in the magazine."
"Oh," she cried, breathlessly, "I'm not sure that I could tell it; at
any rate, not as well as the author does; but I will read it to you if
you like."
The story was about a man who had written a play, and who thought, as
every playwright thinks, that it was a great addition to the drama, and
would bring him fame and fortune. He took this play to a London
manager, but heard nothing of it for a long time, and at last it was
returned to him. Then, on going to a first night at the theatre to see
a new tragedy, which this manager called his own, he was amazed to see
his rejected play, with certain changes, produced upon the stage, and
when the cry "Author! Author!" arose, he stood up in his place; but
illness and privation had done their work, and he died proclaiming
himself the author of the play.
"Ah," said the man, when the reading was finished, "I cannot tell you
how much the story has interested me. I once was an actor myself, and
anything pertaining to the stage appeals to me, although it is years
since I saw a theatre. It must be hard luck to work for fame and then
be cheated out of it, as was the man in the tale; but I suppose it
sometimes happens, although, for the honesty of human nature, I hope
not very often."
"Did you act under your own name, or did you follow the fashion so many
of the profession adopt?" asked the girl, evidently interested when he
spoke of the theatre.
The young man laughed for, perhaps, the first time on the voyage. "Oh,"
he answered, "I was not at all noted. I acted only in minor parts, and
always under my own name, which, doubtless, you have never heard--it is
Sidney Ormond."
"What!" cried the girl in amazement; "not Sidney Ormond the African
traveller?"
The young man turned his wan face and large, melancholy eyes upon his
questioner.
"I am certainly Sidney Ormond, an African traveller, but I don't think
I deserve the 'the,' you know. I don't imagine anyone has heard of me
through my travelling any more than through my acting."
"The Sidney Ormond I mean," she said, "went through Africa without
firing a shot; whose book, _A Mission of Peace_, has been such a
success, both in England and America. But, of course, you cannot be he;
for I remember that Sidney Ormond is now lecturing in England to
tremendous audiences all over the country. The Royal Geographical
Society has given him medals or degrees, or something of that sort--
perhaps it was Oxford that gave the degree. I am sorry I haven't his
book with me, it would be sure to interest you; but some one on board
is almost certain to have it, and I will try to get it for you. I gave
mine to a friend in Cape Town. What a funny thing it is that the two
names should be exactly the same."
"It is very strange," said Ormond gloomily, and his eyes again sought
the horizon and he seemed to relapse into his usual melancholy.
The girl arose from her seat, saying she would try to find the book,
and left him there meditating. When she came back, after the lapse of
half an hour or so, she found him sitting just as she had left him,
with his sad eyes on the sad sea. The girl had a volume in her hand.
"There," she said, "I knew there would be a copy on board, but I am
more bewildered than ever; the frontispiece is an exact portrait of
you, only you are dressed differently and do not look--" the girl
hesitated, "so ill as when you came on board."