IX

But the monotonous round of Lucy's life, with its dreams and its fond

imaginings, was interrupted by news of a different character. An

official letter came to her from Parkhurst to say that the grave state

of her father's health had decided the authorities to remit the rest of

his sentence, and he would be set free the next day but one at eight

o'clock in the morning. She knew not whether to feel relief or sorrow;

for if she was thankful that the wretched man's long torture was ended,

she could not but realise that his liberty was given him only because he

was dying. Mercy had been shown him, and Fred Allerton, in sight of a

freedom from which no human laws could bar him, was given up to die

among those who loved him.

Lucy went down immediately to the Isle of Wight, and there engaged rooms

in the house of a woman who had formerly served her at Hamlyn's Purlieu.

It was midwinter, and a cold drizzle was falling when she waited for him

at the prison gates. Three years had passed since they had parted. She

took him in her arms and kissed him silently. Her heart was too full for

words. A carriage was waiting for them, and she drove to the

lodging-house; breakfast was ready, and Lucy had seen that good things

which he liked should be ready for him to eat. Fred Allerton looked

wistfully at the clean table-cloth, and at the flowers and the dainty

scones; but he shook his head. He did not speak, and the tears ran

slowly down his cheeks. He sank wearily into a chair. Lucy tried to

induce him to eat; she brought him a cup of tea, but he put it away. He

looked at her with haggard, bloodshot eyes.

'Give me the flowers,' he muttered.

They were his first words. There was a large bowl of daffodils in the

middle of the table, and she took them out of the water, deftly dried

their stalks, and gave them to him. He took them with trembling hands

and pressed them to his heart, then he buried his face in them, and the

tears ran afresh, bedewing the yellow flowers.

Lucy put her arm around her father's neck and placed her cheek against

his.

'Don't, father,' she whispered. 'You must try and forget.'

He leaned back, exhausted, and the pretty flowers fell at his feet.

'You know why they've let me out?' he said.

She kissed him, but did not answer.

'I'm so glad that we're together again,' she murmured.

'It's because I'm going to die.'

'No, you mustn't die. In a little while you'll get strong again. You

have many years before you, and you'll be very happy.'

He gave her a long, searching look; and when he spoke, his voice had a

hollowness in it that was strangely terrifying.

'Do you think I want to live?'

The pain seemed almost greater than Lucy could bear, and for a moment

she had to remain silent so that her voice might grow steady.

'You must live for my sake.'

'Don't you hate me?' he asked.

'No, I love you more than I ever did. I shall never cease to love you.'

'I suppose no one would marry you while I was in prison.'

His remark was so inconsequent that Lucy found nothing to say. He gave a

bitter, short laugh.

'I ought to have shot myself. Then people would have forgotten all about

it, and you might have had a chance. Why didn't you marry Bobbie?'

'I haven't wanted to marry.'

He was so tired that he could only speak a little at a time, and now he

closed his eyes. Lucy thought that he was dozing, and began to pick up

the fallen flowers. But he noticed what she was doing.

'Let me hold them,' he moaned, with the pleading quaver of a sick child.

As she gave them to him once more, he took her hands and began to caress

them.

'The only thing for me is to hurry up and finish with life. I'm in the

way. Nobody wants me, and I shall only be a burden. I didn't want them

to let me go. I wanted to die there quietly.'

Lucy sighed deeply. She hardly recognised her father in the bent, broken

man who was sitting beside her. He had aged very much and seemed now to

be an old man, but it was a premature aging, and there was a horror in

it as of a process contrary to nature. He was very thin, and his hands

trembled constantly. Most of his teeth had gone; his cheeks were sunken,

and he mumbled his words so that it was difficult to distinguish them.

There was no light in his eyes, and his short hair was quite white. Now

and again he was shaken with a racking cough, and this was followed by

an attack of such pain in his heart that it was anguish even to watch

it. The room was warm, but he shivered with cold and cowered over the

roaring fire.

When the doctor whom Lucy had sent for, saw him, he could only shrug his

shoulders.

'I'm afraid nothing can be done,' he said. 'His heart is all wrong, and

he's thoroughly broken up.'

'Is there no chance of recovery?'

'I'm afraid all we can do is to alleviate the pain.'

'And how long can he live?'

'It's impossible to say. He may die to-morrow, he may last six months.'

The doctor was an old man, and his heart was touched by the sight of

Lucy's grief. He had seen more cases than one of this kind.

'He doesn't want to live. It will be a mercy when death releases him.'

Lucy did not answer. When she returned to her father, she could not

speak. He was apathetic and did not ask what the doctor had said. Lady

Kelsey, hating the thought of Lucy and her father living amid the

discomfort of furnished lodgings, had written to offer the use of her

house in Charles Street; and Mrs. Crowley, in case they wanted complete

solitude, had put Court Leys at their disposal. Lucy waited a few days

to see whether her father grew stronger, but no change was apparent in

him, and it seemed necessary at last to make some decision. She put

before him the alternative plans, but he would have none of them.

'Then would you rather stay here?' she said.

He looked at the fire and did not answer. Lucy thought the sense of her

question had escaped him, for often it appeared to her that his mind

wandered. She was on the point of repeating it when he spoke.

'I want to go back to the Purlieu.'

Lucy stifled a gasp of dismay. She stared at the wretched man. Had he

forgotten? He thought that the house of his fathers was his still; and

all that had parted him from it was gone from his memory. How could she

tell him?

'I want to die in my own home,' he faltered.

Lucy was in a turmoil of anxiety. She must make some reply. What he

asked was impossible, and yet it was cruel to tell him the whole truth.

'There are people living there,' she answered.

'Are there?' he said, indifferently.

He looked at the fire still. The silence was dreadful.

'When can we go?' he said at last. 'I want to get there quickly.'

Lucy hesitated.

'We shall have to go into rooms.'

'I don't mind.'

He seemed to take everything as a matter of course. It was clear that he

had forgotten the catastrophe that had parted him from Hamlyn's Purlieu,

and yet, strangely, he asked no questions. Lucy was tortured by the

thought of revisiting the place she loved so well. She had been able to

deaden her passionate regret only by keeping her mind steadfastly

averted from all thoughts of it, and now she must actually go there. The

old wounds would be opened. But it was impossible to refuse, and she set

about making the necessary arrangements. The rector, who had been given

the living by Fred Allerton, was an old friend, and Lucy knew that she

could trust in his affection. She wrote and told him that her father was

dying and had set his heart on seeing once more his old home. She asked

him to find rooms in one of the cottages. She did not mind how small nor

how humble they were. The rector answered by telegram. He begged Lucy to

bring her father to stay with him. She would be more comfortable than in

lodgings, and, since he was a bachelor, there was plenty of room in the

large rectory. Lucy, immensely touched by his kindness, gratefully

accepted the invitation.

Next day they took the short journey across the Solent.

The rector had been a don, and Fred Allerton had offered him the living

in accordance with the family tradition that required a man of

attainments to live in the neighbouring rectory. He had been there now

for many years, a spare, grey-haired, gentle creature, who lived the

life of a recluse in that distant village, doing his duty exactly, but

given over for the most part to his beloved books. He seldom went away.

The monotony of his daily round was broken only by the occasional

receipt of a parcel of musty volumes, which he had ordered to be bought

for him at some sale. He was a man of varied learning, full of remote

information, eccentric from his solitariness, but with a great sweetness

of nature. His life was simple, and his wants were few.

In this house, in rooms lined from floor to ceiling with old books, Lucy

and her father took up their abode. It seemed that Fred Allerton had

been kept up only by the desire to get back to his native place, for he

had no sooner arrived than he grew much worse. Lucy was busily occupied

with nursing him and could give no time to the regrets which she had

imagined would assail her. She spent long hours in her father's room;

and while he dozed, half-comatose, the kindly parson sat by the window

and read to her in a low voice from queer, forgotten works.

One day Allerton appeared to be far better. For a week he had wandered

much in his mind, and more than once Lucy had suspected that the end was

near; but now he was singularly lucid. He wanted to get up, and Lucy

felt it would be brutal to balk any wish he had. He asked if he might go

out. The day was fine and warm. It was February, and there was a feeling

in the air as if the spring were at hand. In sheltered places the

snowdrops and the crocuses gave the garden the blitheness of an Italian

picture; and you felt that on that multi-coloured floor might fitly trip

the delicate angels of Messer Perugino. The rector had an old

pony-chaise, in which he was used to visit his parishioners, and in this

all three drove out.

'Let us go down to the marshes,' said Allerton.

They drove slowly along the winding road till they came to the broad

salt marshes. Beyond glittered the placid sea. There was no wind. Near

them a cow looked up from her grazing and lazily whisked her tail.

Lucy's heart began to beat more quickly. She felt that her father, too,

looked upon that scene as the most typical of his home. Other places had

broad acres and fine trees, other places had forest land and purple

heather, but there was something in those green flats that made them

seem peculiarly their own. She took her father's hand, and silently

their eyes looked onwards. A more peaceful look came into Fred

Allerton's worn face, and the sigh that broke from him was not

altogether of pain. Lucy prayed that it might still remain hidden from

him that those fair, broad fields were his no longer.

That night, she had an intuition that death was at hand. Fred Allerton

was very silent. Since his release from prison he had spoken barely a

dozen sentences a day, and nothing served to wake him from his lethargy.

But there was a curious restlessness about him now, and he would not go

to bed. He sat in an armchair, and begged them to draw it near the

window. The sky was cloudless, and the moon shone brightly. Fred

Allerton could see the great old elms that surrounded Hamlyn's Purlieu;

and his eyes were fixed steadily upon them. Lucy saw them, too, and she

thought sadly of the garden which she had loved so well, and of the dear

trees which old masters of the place had tended so lovingly. Her heart

filled when she thought of the grey stone house and its happy, spacious

rooms.

Suddenly there was a sound, and she looked up quickly. Her father's head

had fallen back, and he was breathing with a strange noisiness. She

called her friend.

'I think the end has come at last,' she said.

'Would you like me to fetch the doctor?'

'It will be useless.'

The rector looked at the man's wan face, lit dimly by the light of the

shaded lamp, and falling on his knees, began to recite the prayers for

the dying. A shiver passed through Lucy. In the farmyard a cock crew,

and in the distance another cock answered cheerily. Lucy put her hand on

the good rector's shoulder.

'It's all over,' she whispered.

She bent down and kissed her father's eyes.

* * *

A week later Lucy took a walk by the seashore. They had buried Fred

Allerton three days before among the ancestors whom he had dishonoured.

It was a lonely funeral, for Lucy had asked Robert Boulger, her only

friend then in England, not to come; and she was the solitary mourner.

The coffin was lowered into the grave, and the rector read the sad,

beautiful words of the burial service. She could not grieve. Her father

was at peace. She could only hope that his errors and his crimes would

be soon forgotten; and perhaps those who had known him would remember

then that he had been a charming friend, and a clever, sympathetic

companion. It was little enough in all conscience that Lucy asked.

On the morrow she was leaving the roof of the hospitable parson.

Surmising her wish to walk alone once more through the country which was

so dear to her, he had not offered his company. Lucy's heart was full of

sadness, but there was a certain peace in it, too; the peace of her

father's death had entered into her, and she experienced a new feeling,

the feeling of resignation.

Now her mind was set upon the future, and she was filled with hope. She

stood by the water's edge, looking upon the sea as three years before,

when she was staying at Court Leys, she had looked upon the sea that

washed the shores of Kent. Many things had passed since then, and many

griefs had fallen upon her; but for all that she was happier than then;

since on that distant day--and it seemed ages ago--there had been

scarcely a ray of brightness in her life, and now she had a great love

which made every burden light.

Low clouds hung upon the sky, and on the horizon the greyness of the

heavens mingled with the greyness of the sea. She looked into the

distance with longing eyes. Now all her life was set upon that far-off

corner of unknown Africa, where Alec and George were doing great deeds.

She wondered what was the meaning of the silence which had covered them

so long.

'Oh, if I could only see,' she murmured.

She sent her spirit upon that vast journey, trying to pierce the realms

of space, but her spirit came back baffled. She could not know what they

were at.

* * *

If Lucy's love had been able to bridge the abyss that parted them, if in

some miraculous way she had been able to see what actions they did at

that time, she would have witnessed a greater tragedy than any which she

had yet seen.

X

The night was stormy and dark. The rain was falling, and the ground in

Alec's camp was heavy with mud. The faithful Swahilis whom he had

brought from the coast, chattered with cold around their fires; and the

sentries shivered at their posts. It was a night that took the spirit

out of a man and made all that he longed for seem vain and trifling. In

Alec's tent the water was streaming. Great rats ran about boldly. The

stout canvas bellied before each gust of wind, and the cordage creaked,

so that one might have thought the whole thing would be blown clean

away. The tent was unusually crowded, though there was in it nothing but

Alec's bed, covered with a mosquito-curtain, a folding table, with a

couple of garden chairs, and the cases which contained his more precious

belongings. A small tarpaulin on the floor squelched as one walked on

it.

On one of the chairs a man sat, asleep, with his face resting on his

arms. His gun was on the table in front of him. It was Walker, a young

man who had been freshly sent out to take charge of the North East

Africa Company's most northerly station, and had joined Alec's

expedition a year before, taking the place of an older man who had gone

home on leave. He was a funny, fat person with a round face and a comic

manner, the most unexpected sort of fellow to find in the wildest of

African districts; and he was eminently unsuited for the life he led.

He had come into a little money on attaining his majority, and this he

had set himself resolutely to squander in every unprofitable way that

occurred to him. When his last penny was spent he had been offered a

post by a friend of his family's, who happened to be a director of the

company, and had accepted it as his only refuge from starvation.

Adversity had not been able to affect his happy nature. He was always

cheerful no matter what difficulties he was in, and neither regretted

the follies of his past nor repined over the hardships which had

followed them. Alec had taken a great liking to him. A silent man

himself, he found a certain relaxation in people like Dick Lomas and

Walker who talked incessantly; and the young man's simplicity, his

constant surprise at the difference between Africa and Mayfair, never

ceased to divert him.

Presently Adamson came into the tent. He was the Scotch doctor who had

already been Alec's companion on two of his expeditions; and there was a

firm friendship between them. He was an Edinburgh man, with a slow drawl

and a pawky humour, a great big fellow, far and away the largest of any

of the whites; and his movements were no less deliberate than his

conversation.

'Hulloa, there,' he called out, as he came in.

Walker started to his feet as if he were shot and instinctively seized

his gun.

'All right!' laughed the doctor, putting up his hand. 'Don't shoot. It's

only me.'

Walker put down the gun and looked at the doctor with a blank face.

'Nerves are a bit groggy, aren't they?'

The fat, cheerful man recovered his wits and gave a short laugh.

'Why the dickens did you wake me up? I was dreaming--dreaming of a

high-heeled boot and a neat ankle and the swirl of a white lace

petticoat.'

'Were you indeed?' said the doctor, with a slow smile. 'Then it's as

well I woke ye up in the middle of it before ye made a fool of yourself.

I thought I'd better have a look at your arm.'

'It's one of the most aesthetic sights I know.'

'Your arm?' asked the doctor, drily.

'No,' answered Walker. 'A pretty woman crossing Piccadilly at Swan &

Edgar's. You are a savage, my good doctor, and a barbarian; you don't

know the care and forethought, the hours of anxious meditation, it has

needed to hold up that well-made skirt with the elegant grace that

enchants you.'

'I'm afraid you're a very immoral man, Walker,' answered Adamson with

his long drawl, smiling.

'Under the present circumstances I have to content myself with

condemning the behaviour of the pampered and idle. Just now a camp-bed

in a stuffy tent, with mosquitoes buzzing all around me, has allurements

greater than those of youth and beauty. And I would not sacrifice my

dinner to philander with Helen of Troy herself.'

'You remind me considerably of the fox who said the grapes were sour.'

Walker flung a tin plate at a rat that sat up on its hind legs and

looked at him impudently.

'Nonsense. Give me a comfortable bed to sleep in, plenty to eat, tobacco

to smoke; and Amaryllis may go hang.'

Dr. Adamson smiled quietly. He found a certain grim humour in the

contrast between the difficulties of their situation and Walker's

flippant talk.

'Well, let us look at this wound of yours,' he said, getting back to his

business. 'Has it been throbbing?'

'Oh, it's not worth bothering about. It'll be as right as rain

to-morrow.'

'I'd better dress it all the same.'

Walker took off his coat and rolled up his sleeve. The doctor removed

the bandages and looked at the broad flesh wound. He put a fresh

dressing on it.

'It looks as healthy as one can expect,' he murmured. 'It's odd what

good recoveries men make here when you'd think that everything was

against them.'

'You must be pretty well done up, aren't you?' asked Walker, as he

watched the doctor neatly cut the lint.

'Just about dropping. But I've a devil of a lot more work to do before I

turn in.'

'The thing that amuses me is to think that I came to Africa thinking I

was going to have a rattling good time, plenty of shooting and

practically nothing to do.'

'You couldn't exactly describe it as a picnic, could you?' answered the

doctor. 'But I don't suppose any of us knew it would be such a tough job

as it's turned out.'

Walker put his disengaged hand on the doctor's arm.

'My friend, if ever I return to my native land I will never be such a

crass and blithering idiot as to give way again to a spirit of

adventure. I shall look out for something safe and quiet, and end my

days as a wine-merchant's tout or an insurance agent.'

'Ah, that's what we all say when we're out here. But when we're once

home again, the recollection of the forest and the plains and the

roasting sun and the mosquitoes themselves, come haunting us, and before

we know what's up we've booked our passage back to this God-forsaken

continent.'

The doctor's words were followed by a silence, which was broken by

Walker inconsequently.

'Do you ever think of rumpsteaks?' he asked.

The doctor stared at him blankly, and Walker went on, smiling.

'Sometimes, when we're marching under a sun that just about takes the

roof of your head off, and we've had the scantiest and most

uncomfortable breakfast possible, I have a vision.'

'I would be able to bandage you better if you only gesticulated with one

arm,' said Adamson.

'I see the dining-room of my club, and myself seated at a little table

by the window looking out on Piccadilly. And there's a spotless

table-cloth, and all the accessories are spick and span. An obsequious

menial brings me a rumpsteak, grilled to perfection, and so tender that

it melts in the mouth. And he puts by my side a plate of crisp fried

potatoes. Can't you smell them? And then a liveried flunky brings me a

pewter tankard, and into it he pours a bottle, a large bottle, mind you,

of foaming ale.'

'You've certainly added considerably to our cheerfulness, my friend,'

said Adamson.

Walker gaily shrugged his fat shoulders.

'I've often been driven to appease the pangs of raging hunger with a

careless epigram, and by the laborious composition of a limerick I have

sought to deceive a most unholy thirst.'

He liked that sentence and made up his mind to remember it for future

use. The doctor paused for a moment, and then he looked gravely at

Walker.

'Last night I thought that you'd made your last joke, old man; and that

I had given my last dose of quinine.'

'We were in rather a tight corner, weren't we?'

'This is the third expedition I've been with MacKenzie, and I assure you

I've never been so certain that all was over with us.'

Walker permitted himself a philosophical reflection.

'Funny thing death is, you know! When you think of it beforehand, it

makes you squirm in your shoes, but when you've just got it face to face

it seems so obvious that you forget to be afraid.'

Indeed it was only by a miracle that any of them was alive, and they had

all a curious, light-headed feeling from the narrowness of the escape.

They had been fighting, with their backs to the wall, and each one had

shown what he was made of. A few hours before things had been so serious

that now, in the first moment of relief, they sought refuge

instinctively in banter. But Dr. Adamson was a solid man, and he wanted

to talk the matter out.

'If the Arabs hadn't hesitated to attack us just those ten minutes, we

would have been simply wiped out.'

'MacKenzie was all there, wasn't he?'

Walker had the shyness of his nationality in the exhibition of

enthusiasm, and he could only express his admiration for the commander

of the party in terms of slang.

'He was, my son,' answered Adamson, drily. 'My own impression is, he

thought we were done for.'

'What makes you think that?'

'Well, you see, I know him pretty well. When things are going smoothly

and everything's flourishing, he's apt to be a bit irritable. He keeps

rather to himself, and he doesn't say much unless you do something he

don't approve of.'

'And then, by Jove, he comes down on you like a thousand of bricks,'

Walker agreed heartily. He remembered observations which Alec on more

than one occasion had made to recall him to a sense of his great

insignificance. 'It's not for nothing the natives call him _Thunder and

Lightning_.'

'But when things look black, his spirits go up like one o'clock,'

proceeded the doctor. 'And the worse they are the more cheerful he is.'

'I know. When you're starving with hunger, dead tired and soaked to the

skin, and wish you could just lie down and die, MacKenzie simply bubbles

over with good humour. It's a hateful characteristic. When I'm in a bad

temper, I much prefer everyone else to be in a bad temper, too.'

'These last three days he's been positively hilarious. Yesterday he was

cracking jokes with the natives.'

'Scotch jokes,' said Walker. 'I daresay they sound funny in an African

dialect.'

'I've never seen him more cheerful,' continued the other, sturdily

ignoring the gibe. 'By the Lord Harry, said I to myself, the chief

thinks we're in a devil of a bad way.'

Walker stood up and stretched himself lazily.

'Thank heavens, it's all over now. We've none of us had any sleep for

three days, and when I once get off I don't mean to wake up for a week.'

'I must go and see the rest of my patients. Perkins has got a bad dose

of fever this time. He was quite delirious a little while ago.'

'By Jove, I'd almost forgotten.'

People changed in Africa. Walker was inclined to be surprised that he

was fairly happy, inclined to make a little jest when it occurred to

him; and it had nearly slipped his memory that one of the whites had

been killed the day before, while another was lying unconscious with a

bullet in his skull. A score of natives were dead, and the rest of them

had escaped by the skin of their teeth.

'Poor Richardson,' he said.

'We couldn't spare him,' answered the doctor slowly. 'The fates never

choose the right man.'

Walker looked at the brawny doctor, and his placid face was clouded. He

knew to what the Scot referred and shrugged his shoulders. But the

doctor went on.

'If we had to lose someone it would have been a damned sight better if

that young cub Allerton had got the bullet which killed poor

Richardson.'

'He wouldn't have been much loss, would he?' said Walker, after a

silence.

'MacKenzie has been very patient with him. If I'd been in his shoes I'd

have sent him back to the coast when he sacked Macinnery.'

Walker did not answer, and the doctor proceeded to moralise.

'It seems to me that some men have natures so crooked that with every

chance in the world to go straight, they can't manage it. The only thing

is to let them go to the devil as best they may.'

At that moment Alec MacKenzie came in. He was dripping with rain and

threw off his macintosh. His face lit up when he saw Walker and the

doctor. Adamson was an old and trusted friend, and he knew that on him

he could rely always.

'I've been going the round of the outlying sentries,' he said.

It was unlike him to volunteer even so trivial a piece of information,

and Adamson looked up at him.

'All serene?' he asked.

'Yes.'

Alec's eyes rested on the doctor as though he were considering something

strange about him. The doctor knew him well enough to suspect that

something very grave had happened, but also he knew him too well to

hazard an inquiry. Presently Alec spoke again.

'I've just seen a native messenger that Mindabi sent me.'

'Anything important?'

'Yes.'

Alec's answer was so curt that it was impossible to question him

further. He turned to Walker.

'How's the arm?'

'Oh, that's nothing. It's only a scratch.'

'You'd better not make too light of it. The smallest wound has a way of

being troublesome in this country.'

'He'll be all right in a day or two,' said the doctor.

Alec sat down. For a minute he did not speak, but seemed plunged in

thought. He passed his fingers through his beard, ragged now and longer

than when he was in England.

'How are the others?' he asked suddenly, looking at Adamson.

'I don't think Thompson can last till the morning.'

'I've just been in to see him.'

Thompson was the man who had been shot through the head and had lain

unconscious since the day before. He was an old gold-prospector, who had

thrown in his lot with the expedition against the slavers.

'Perkins of course will be down for several days longer. And some of the

natives are rather badly hurt. Those devils have got explosive bullets.'

'Is there anyone in great danger?'

'No, I don't think so. There are two men who are in a bad way, but I

think they'll pull through with rest.'

'I see,' said Alec, laconically.

He stared intently at the table, absently passing his hand across the

gun which Walker had left there.

'I say, have you had anything to eat lately?' asked Walker, presently.

Alec shook himself out of his meditation and gave the young man one of

his rare, bright smiles. It was plain that he made an effort to be gay.

'Good Lord, I quite forgot; I wonder when the dickens I had some food

last. These Arabs have been keeping us so confoundedly busy.'

'I don't believe you've had anything to-day. You must be devilish

hungry.'

'Now you mention it, I think I am,' answered Alec, cheerfully. 'And

thirsty, by Jove! I wouldn't give my thirst for an elephant tusk.'

'And to think there's nothing but tepid water to drink!' Walker

exclaimed with a laugh.

'I'll go and tell the boy to bring you some food,' said the doctor.

'It's a rotten game to play tricks with your digestion like that.'

'Stern man, the doctor, isn't he?' said Alec, with twinkling eyes. 'It

won't hurt me once in a way, and I shall enjoy it all the more now.'

But when Adamson went to call the boy, Alec stopped him.

'Don't trouble. The poor devil's half dead with exhaustion. I told him

he might sleep till I called him. I don't want much, and I can easily

get it myself.'

Alec looked about and presently found a tin of meat and some ship

biscuits. During the fighting it had been impossible to go out on the

search for game, and there was neither variety nor plenty about their

larder. Alec placed the food before him, sat down, and began to eat.

Walker looked at him.

'Appetising, isn't it?' he said ironically.

'Splendid!'

'No wonder you get on so well with the natives. You have all the

instincts of the primeval savage. You take food for the gross and

bestial purpose of appeasing your hunger, and I don't believe you have

the least appreciation for the delicacies of eating as a fine art.'

'The meat's getting rather mouldy,' answered Alec.

He ate notwithstanding with a good appetite. His thoughts went suddenly

to Dick who at the hour which corresponded with that which now passed in

Africa, was getting ready for one of the pleasant little dinners at the

_Carlton_ upon which he prided himself. And then he thought of the

noisy bustle of Piccadilly at night, the carriages and 'buses that

streamed to and fro, the crowded pavements, the gaiety of the lights.

'I don't know how we're going to feed everyone to-morrow,' said Walker.

'Things will be going pretty bad if we can't get some grain in from

somewhere.'

Alec pushed back his plate.

'I wouldn't worry about to-morrow's dinner if I were you,' he said, with

a low laugh.

'Why?' asked Walker.

'Because I think it's ten to one that we shall be as dead as doornails

before sunrise.'

The two men stared at him silently. Outside, the wind howled grimly, and

the rain swept against the side of the tent.

'Is this one of your little jokes, MacKenzie?' said Walker at last.

'You have often observed that I joke with difficulty.'

'But what's wrong now?' asked the doctor quickly.

Alec looked at him and chuckled quietly.

'You'll neither of you sleep in your beds to-night. Another sell for the

mosquitoes, isn't it? I propose to break up the camp and start marching

in an hour.'

'I say, it's a bit thick after a day like this,' said Walker. 'We're all

so done up that we shan't be able to go a mile.'

'You will have had two hours rest.'

Adamson rose heavily to his feet. He meditated for an appreciable time.

'Some of those fellows who are wounded can't possibly be moved,' he

said.

'They must.'

'I won't answer for their lives.'

'We must take the risk. Our only chance is to make a bold dash for it,

and we can't leave the wounded here.'

'I suppose there's going to be a deuce of a row,' said Walker.

'There is.'

'Your companions seldom have a chance to complain of the monotony of

their existence,' said Walker, grimly. 'What are you going to do now?'

'At this moment I'm going to fill my pipe.'

With a whimsical smile, Alec took his pipe from his pocket, knocked it

out on his heel, filled and lit it. The doctor and Walker digested the

information he had given them. It was Walker who spoke first.

'I gather from the general amiability of your demeanour that we're in

rather a tight place.'

'Tighter than any of your patent-leather boots, my friend.'

Walker moved uncomfortably in his chair. He no longer felt sleepy. A

cold shiver ran down his spine.

'Have we any chance of getting through?' he asked gravely.

It seemed to him that Alec paused an unconscionable time before he

answered.

'There's always a chance,' he said.

'I suppose we're going to do a bit more fighting?'

'We are.'

Walker yawned loudly.

'Well, at all events there's some comfort in that. If I am going to be

done out of my night's rest, I should like to take it out of someone.'

Alec looked at him with approval. That was the frame of mind that

pleased him. When he spoke again there was in his voice a peculiar

charm that perhaps in part accounted for the power he had over his

fellows. It inspired an extraordinary belief in him, so that anyone

would have followed him cheerfully to certain death. And though his

words were few and bald, he was so unaccustomed to take others into his

confidence, that when he did so, ever so little, and in that tone, it

seemed that he was putting his hearers under a singular obligation.

'If things turn out all right, we shall come near finishing the job, and

there won't be much more slave-trading in this part of Africa.'

'And if things don't turn out all right?'

'Why then, I'm afraid the tea tables of Mayfair will be deprived of your

scintillating repartee for ever.'

Walker looked down at the ground. Strange thoughts ran through his head,

and when he looked up again, with a shrug of the shoulders, there was a

queer look in his eyes.

'Well, I've not had a bad time in my life,' he said slowly. 'I've loved

a little, and I've worked and played. I've heard some decent music, I've

looked at nice pictures, and I've read some thundering fine books. If I

can only account for a few more of those damned scoundrels before I die,

I shouldn't think I had much to complain of.'

Alec smiled, but did not answer. A silence fell upon them. Walker's

words brought to Alec the recollection of what had caused the trouble

which now threatened them, and his lips tightened. A dark frown settled

between his eyes.

'Well, I suppose I'd better go and get things straight,' said the

doctor. 'I'll do what I can with those fellows and trust to Providence

that they'll stand the jolting.'

'What about Perkins?' asked Alec.

'Lord knows! I'll try and keep him quiet with choral.'

'You needn't say anything about our striking camp. I don't propose that

anyone should know till a quarter of an hour before we start.'

'But that won't give them time.'

'I've trained them often enough to get on the march quickly,' answered

Alec, with a curtness that allowed no rejoinder.

The doctor turned to go, and at the same moment George Allerton

appeared.