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Title: Surrender
Author: Snaith, John Collis (1876-1936)
Date of first publication: 1928
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   New York: D. Appleton, 1928
   (first U.S. edition)
Date first posted: 14 July 2009
Date last updated: 14 July 2009
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #352

This ebook was produced by: Al Haines




SURRENDER

_J. C. Snaith_




D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

New York :: 1928




COPYRIGHT ---- 1928 ---- BY

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY


PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA




By J. C. SNAITH

  SURRENDER
  THE HOOP
  WHAT IS TO BE
  THUS FAR
  THERE IS A TIDE
  ARAMINTA
  THE VAN ROON
  THE COUNCIL OF SEVEN
  THE ADVENTUROUS LADY
  THE UNDEFEATED
  THE TIME SPIRIT
  THE COMING




SURRENDER


I

Dorland woke with a shudder.  Yes, It was just as he feared.  Hour by
hour he had fought against a kind of terrible dream.  Lying in a trance
of half consciousness he imagined that he was a rat in a sewer.  And
now when his eyes had come open, and with them the gates of his mind,
he realised that his vision of himself was more or less true.

Absinthe had a little to say in the matter.  But there were other
things besides.  First among them was the all pervading stench in which
he lay.  He could hardly breathe.  His throat and nostrils were
corroded by a miasma, sweat was pouring from his body, he felt he was
going mad.  To one as keenly sensitive as Ambrose Dorland his
surroundings were incredibly foul.  By his side, a few inches from him,
a man was talking in his sleep.  What proceeded out of that mouth was
of a piece with the stertorous brute who let it forth.  The sleeper was
a low type of half caste, whose face was scarred by disease.  Stretched
half naked in that sticky heat, he was one of thirty in an overcrowded
dormitory.  And to judge by the poisonous fumes that rose from the
mattresses ranged along each of the four walls, the other forms of life
which shared these beds could only flourish so abundantly in sheer
defiance of the laws of nature.

Every window was shut.  But had they been open, those six narrow panes
high up in the whitewashed wall, they would have made very little
difference to one in Dorland's condition.  Had he lain out in the open
desert under the African moon that now looked down upon him, he would
still have gasped like a dying fish.  God, why had he come here!  What
was he doing in this inferno?  A young man, barely twenty-three,
educated, accomplished, intensely ambitious, he had absolutely nothing
in common with the _sclrats_ of three continents.

Meditations of this kind were no use now.  Yet one thing he must do.
Let him contrive to get one of those windows open before the power of
reason slipped away from him.  Summoning the will with an effort that
was desperate, he rose from his mockery of a bed with great caution,
not making a sound.  The men around him cherished a superstition in the
matter of fresh air.  On the hottest night they held even a minute
quantity to be highly dangerous.  Even if it meant a _brodequin_ in the
ribs one of those panes would have to yield.  With painful caution
Dorland climbed up to the sill.  The hasp was broken, the window stuck.
He shook it gingerly but it wouldn't move.  Half measures were plainly
no use.  Still it would have to yield, whether it disturbed these
beasts or not.  Growing suddenly frantic he pushed an elbow through the
glass.

The crash was modest but it advertised the crime.  Near by the worst
bully in the caserne lay awake and watchful.  "_Cr nom de nom de bon
dieu de dieu_!" he growled.  Experience taught Dorland to look out for
developments.  These quickly arrived in the form of a heavy missile
flung at his head.  But the moon gave light enough to see it coming.
He had time to duck, and the iron bound boot which his old friend
Jabot, an Apache from the stews of Marseilles, had flung, knocked out
another pane and fell to the floor with a thud.

Dorland now held himself ready for something worse.  Knowing his man he
half expected a blow on the jaw or a kick in the stomach.  However, for
the moment, there was neither.  Jabot having no other missile handy was
too apathetic to follow up the matter.  He was dog-tired and half drunk
and his only real interest in the affair was a vent for that grudge
which he held against the universe.  But at two o'clock in the morning
he lacked the energy to let himself go, and was content to turn over
from his right side to his left with a horrible promise of what he
would do when he was really awake.

The instant Dorland knew that he need fear nothing more from his
neighbour, at any rate for the time being, he slipped back to his
mattress.  By the mercy of Allah, the _caporal de chambre_ slept at
the other end of the long room.  He made no sign.  A few stray oaths
were loose, from those members of the _escouade_ who had been
disturbed, but they did not allow a couple of panes of broken glass to
worry them.  All the same if four hours later, those panes happened to
catch the eye of the sergeant major at kit inspection, they were very
likely to mean three days _salle de police_ for legionnaire 17883, that
unlucky number.

Yes, that number was unlucky.  As Ambrose Dorland lay on his mattress,
which was hard and rough to the spine as a granite sett, he was in a
sweat of panic fear.  It was not so much that he was afraid of the men
around him, as that he was unequal to the life he had to live.
Physically, mentally, morally, he could not support a life of that
kind.  Brought up soft by a doting mother, who lived to gratify every
whim of an only child, until the fatal decision, a few months ago, his
life was almost too happy.  He had been born and bred a gentleman, but
at Sidi-bel-Abbs, the depot of _la lgion trangre_, they did not
know the meaning of the word.

At Sidi-bel-Abbs, nevertheless, they were aware that the _bleu_
Ambrose Dorland was not "one of us."  Nor would they ever be able to
make him one.  They had a down on him accordingly.  He was _un mauvais
sujet_.  And so he was in the black books of the sergeant major and the
other _sous-officiers_ who had it in their power to make his life a
hell.  Even without help of theirs life for Ambrose Dorland under such
conditions was hard to bear.  The low bestiality of men whom he
declined to think of as comrades, the grotesque, dirty, ill-fitting
clothes, the bad food, the sense of degradation, the all pervading
filth, the soul destroying monotony, the disgusting corves, these
things were bitter.  But on top of all was the brutal ill will of
chartered bullies from whose clutches there was no escape, from whose
malice there was no appeal.

Lying on his mattress, gazing at the African moon, this young man of
twenty-three felt he was very near the end of his tether.  Absinthe, to
which he had been weak enough to yield, had had a little to do with it,
but the coarse food which nauseated him, the squalor that galled his
peculiar temperament, and a touch of fever, all had a part to play.  He
had heard them speak of _le cafard_, the desert madness, which was
universally dreaded, even by the most vile.  Was this final curse upon
him already?  Lying there among those foul and noisy sleepers, his
brain already beyond control, he began to fear that it was.  Surely his
will was loosening.  It was the only thing he had to hold on by.  If
that went, all went.  But in the last few days it had grown flaccid.
And in this airless night he felt that a heavy curtain was being drawn
across the mind.

Behind that curtain lurked nameless horrors.  If the will passed from
him he would not be able to evade them.  The one chance of escape he
had was to retain a power that in the last resort might consent to put
him out of life altogether.  Perhaps it would only be exchanging one
hell for another hell.  In his present mood he felt it must be so, but
the darkest region of the beyond could not be worse than what he saw
now as he lay on his back gazing at infinity.

The cold truth of the matter was that he was a born coward.  At least
so he had been made to believe.  As they reckoned men and things at the
depot of _la lgion trangre_ that was the rank accorded him.  Far
better he were dead than that stigma had been fixed upon him.  Bullies
and blackguards, from whom the commissioned officers kept strictly
aloof, these criminal sweepings of Europe, Asia and Africa were only
too ready to take advantage of any form of weakness.  Yet the real
tragedy of Ambrose Dorland was that in his heart he knew that he was
not contemptible.

You do not ask a razor to cut a block of marble.  If you do you merely
destroy the razor.  Even if he could not pass the test of brute courage
demanded by the Apache, there was a lamp in his brain which he had
always felt must carry him far.  He had a talent whose wise development
should make him one day a master man.  A single error of judgment in a
moment of enthusiasm had changed all that.  When in Rome one must be as
the Romans.  In a few months of mental and physical degradation it had
been branded upon the too sensitive soul of Ambrose Dorland that he was
no Roman.  And he never could be one.

At five o'clock came _rveil_.  By that hour Dorland had passed into a
light doze.  The note of a bugle rudely shattered it.  Once more he was
faced with the horrors of the day, which in a sense were more real than
those of the night.  At the hated sound he forced himself to spring up
from his mattress, and though shaking in every limb as if in the grip
of ague, he got into his clothes.  Like everything else in this inferno
they were hateful to him.  Coarse, heavy and grotesque, it was beneath
any man's dignity to wear them.  When he had put his trousers on, he
considered whether he would have the time and the strength to go down
to the lavabo and scramble for the pump.  As a rule it was a dog fight.
Force as well as enterprise were needed.  This morning he lacked both.
Moreover he suddenly remembered it was the first Thursday of the month.

For those who suffered as he did it was one of the world's worst days.
There would be a long route march in a fierce sun, manoeuvres in the
field, an encampment in the forest where the night would be spent, and
a return to barracks the following day.  Five forty-five A.M. was the
hour of departure with music and complete kit.  Everything must be
close packed in his knapsack.  Also he must carry pick and shovel,
parts of the tent, water bottle filled to the brim, cartridges, gun and
bayonet, and some food in the _musette_, the entire outfit weighing
about forty kilogrammes.

Such a load was staggering for a weak man.  Dorland had a powerful
impulse to report himself ill, but he knew that his plea was not likely
to be accepted by the doctor.  And if it were not he would receive a
fortnight's imprisonment for reporting himself without cause, and he
would also lose the privilege for two months of staying out once a week
until midnight.  In spite of that there would be many applications.
And many would pay the penalty.  The doctor took no account of feet
lacerated by the clumsy, ill-fitting brodequin.

Dorland's feet were in very bad condition.  So when his kit was packed
he gave the two or three minutes he had to spare to tallowing them, and
to the careful readjustment of his _chaussettes russes_, the strips of
greasy linen worn by the legionary in lieu of socks.  Hardly had he
done this when all else was banished by the entrance of Sergeant Major
Hauptmann, the worst of his foes.

The dreaded moment had come.  Bridling like a turkey cock Sergeant
Major Hauptmann cast a ruthless eye about the room.  He was bound to
see the broken panes.  Guilt would be promptly fastened upon the
guilty.  And Hauptmann being Hauptmann could be trusted to make the
most of the case.  The culprit shivered in his coarse shirt.  If I am
lucky, he thought, it means three weeks _garde de chambre_ at the
least; if I am not lucky the matter will be carried higher and then
it's _salle de police_.

Hauptmann, however, had no time for broken windows just now.  He was
there to inspect kit and to remind the _escouade_ that it was the first
Thursday of the month.  In the stress of the moment the kit received
only a perfunctory eye, a few hasty instructions were given to Corporal
Fabre and then to Dorland's intense relief the great man went away.

A cup of good _jus_, handed by the room orderly, helped further to give
Dorland a little heart.

God knew how sorely that heart was needed!  But there was no remedy.
He would have to go through with it.  The march would be torture, but
pains equally severe and in kind more ignominious awaited any attempt
to shirk.  Whatever he did now there was no escaping the penalties of
his folly.  And the penalties were cumulative.  They waxed and
multiplied.  As the mind weakened and the nerves wore thin his
sufferings grew.

He managed to get his knapsack tightly packed and his entire kit
assembled.  He swept under his bed, did a few chores connected with the
foul room in which he had lain, and then came the sound of the "fall
in."  Laden like a camel he staggered down the stairs to the barrack
yard.  How horrible he felt!  His brodequins galled him cruelly, his
brain opened and shut, he sweated at every pore and yet he was
shivering.  For the hundredth time since he had come to this rat trap
he was cursing the hour in which he was born.  But what was the use of
that?




II

What is the use of cursing the hour in which you were born? Dorland
asked himself as the battalion swung out of the barrack gates to the
strains of _Tiens, voil du bondin_, the march of the Legion.  As it
entered the stifling filth of Sidi-bel-Abbs he asked the question
again.  You have only yourself to blame, mon ami, was the answer.  It
is well sometimes to look before you leap.

Had there been a friend beside him to share his troubles he might have
cared less.  But where could he look for a friend among this sullen
mass of thieves, cut-throats, _embusqus_, men of low class and no
class?  For one reason or another this precious crew had put themselves
on the wrong side of the law.  That was the truth about _la lgion
trangre_.  Men went there for sanctuary.  In nine cases out of ten
they sought to escape the consequences of a crime.  But they did not
always succeed.  In the few months Dorland had been with the Legion he
had seen more than one man tapped on the shoulder by a detective as he
sat at mess.

Dorland himself in his nave simplicity had enlisted to fight against
the Boche.  His country had yet to enter the war and in a fit of
idealism he had been ready to show it the way.  He had read and he had
heard about the Foreign Legion.  For a young man of inexperience, who
did not know too much of the world, a romantic halo surrounded it.
Being headstrong and used to his own way he had not troubled to make
enquiries.  Besides his nationality was a bar to other French
regiments.  It was for the army of France that he had a sentimental
fancy and in his total ignorance of _le militaire_ one branch of it
seemed as good as another for a young enthusiast.

Disillusion came soon.  He was out to fight the Boche.  But almost the
first thing he learned was that the Foreign Legion was mainly German.
Nearly all the _sous-officiers_ had a Teutonic name.  And a large
majority of the rank and file were akin to that nation.

As soon as the battalion was through the gates of the squalid town the
band ceased playing.  Then began a weary trek along a rough and
treeless road.  Mile upon mile there was not a hint of shade.  The sun
grew more powerful, the terrain more difficult, and men began to prove
unequal to the pace.  Some lagged behind, others fell out by the road
side, there were some who fainted.

Sergeants and corporals stayed to look after these.  None of the
stragglers was trusted to fend for himself.  It was like a penal
battalion.  For Dorland this was exactly what it was.  But in spite of
his feet which gave him great pain and the buzzing of his head and the
ever growing weight of his sac, which at every mile threatened to
become too much for his failing strength, he somehow managed to keep
going.  In this he was helped considerably by a ten minutes' halt every
hour.  Without that rest and a little relief from his water bottle for
a parched throat he could not have kept on.

Even so the time came when he had to yield.  Towards noon, with the
forest not yet in sight and the sun at its fiercest, his head began to
spin.  Do as he would he was no longer equal to the load on his
shoulders.  His knees sank, a strange darkness invaded his brain and
then he grew suddenly aware that he was lying on his back in the white
dust at the side of the road.  He lay supine and gasping on the verge
of consciousness.  The time seemed like hours, although it could not
have been more than a few minutes.  Afraid of what might happen he made
frantic efforts to rise.  But in vain.  His legs refused to support the
weight of his pack.  He might have been a fallen horse pinned down by
the shafts of a cart.

"What are you doing there, you lousy swine?"  He recognised the voice.
It belonged to Sergeant Major Hauptmann, the tyrant whom he most feared.

"Get up, you."  Hauptmann offered the encouragement of his boot.  Yet
in spite of a couple of well directed kicks Dorland was unable to rise.
The sergeant grinned and spat in a way he had.  "Look here, my old," he
said, "don't sham dead with me or when you get home you shall have
another dose of the _crapaudine_."

Dorland had had one go already of that brutal torture.  His flesh crept
at the thought of a second.  But it was no use struggling, he was
unable to rise.  In spite of all he could do his eyes darkened again.
When with a mighty effort he regained a sense of himself he heard
another voice speaking.

"All right, Sergeant.  I daresay I can fix him."

"Only shamming, the white llvered----!"

"Well, leave him to me.  I'll fix him."

With an oath foul enough to poison the air Sergeant Major Hauptmann
passed along the road, and Dorland, numb and sick with the effects of
the sun, peered miserably at his new tormentor.  This was a corporal he
did not remember to have seen before.  At any rate he had not had to do
with him.  He was a small, wiry man, lean as a jackal, and he belonged
to another company.  His ministrations would probably involve another
kick in the ribs, but Dorland was inured to those by now.  However, his
methods to begin with were new.  Without saying a word and keeping his
brodequins to himself, the Corporal knelt and drew a handkerchief from
Dorland's tunic; then he poured water over it from his own bottle and
bound it tightly round the temples of the stricken man.  It was the
first spontaneous act of friendliness Dorland had received since he had
joined the Legion.  The effect was magical.  Strength flowed back into
his brain; earth and sky stopped spinning.

"Thank you, thank you," murmured Dorland.  He spoke in English.

The Corporal, not at all roughly, offered his own water bottle.  "Take
a drink, old man," he said.  To Dorland's keen surprise the Corporal
also spoke in English.  So acute was his relief at hearing his own
mother tongue in lieu of the language whose many bastard forms he had
grown to detest, that he suddenly acquired the power to sit up and
press the tin cup to his parched lips.

The English-speaking Corporal held it for him while he did this.  "Go
easy, old son.  No hurry."  Such odd, curious gentleness was almost
feminine.

Dorland returned the empty cup with real gratitude.  He was feeling a
new man already.  And when the Corporal knelt and unstrapped the pack
and then relieved Dorland's shoulders of its weight this feeling grew.
Here was a very strange kind of non-com for the Foreign Legion.

Once more Dorland made an effort to rise.  But it was not very
successful.

"No hurry, my boy," said the Corporal watching it.  "Better go slow for
a bit."  He helped the stricken man to move out of the dust into the
rough grass at the side of the road and then made him comfortable,
unbuttoning the collar of his tunic and propping up his head on his
knapsack.  "Not much shade," said the Corporal, "but I daresay you'll
be all right presently."

"Yes," said Dorland gratefully, "I'll soon be all right."  Already his
voice was stronger and he was feeling wonderfully better.

"English aren't you?" said the Corporal.

"American," said Dorland.

"More or less the same."

"Yes, more or less."

"A good lad, whoever you are," said the Corporal, who had already
noticed the wide bright eye, the finely modelled nose and chin, the
sensitive lips.  "But what in God's name brought you here?"

"I wanted to do my bit," said Dorland.  "A regular French regiment
wouldn't have me unless I changed my nationality.  And the English only
have their own nationals, too."

"Well you've come to the wrong shop, old son, which of course you know."

There was such a depth of sadness in the voice of the Corporal that
even had Dorland lain in ignorance of that fact there would have been
no excuse to remain so.  The unexpected friendliness, the human
intimacy brought sudden tears to the eyes of Dorland.  He was deeply
ashamed, but at that moment he was powerless to hold them back.  After
being insulted, bullied, knocked about for months on end, to be treated
in this way was almost more than he could bear.

"What were you doing before you came here--if the question is not
impertinent?"  The Corporal wore a battered _kpi_, a dirty, ill
fitting uniform and his chin had not known a razor for some time, but
there was no mistaking the tone and manner of the sahib.  Dorland had
heard nothing like that voice for many moons.

"I was studying art in Paris when the war broke out.  Then I went to
Italy.  And when our people at home sat on the fence I thought the best
thing I could do was to come on here."

"Poor chap," said the Corporal sympathetically.  "Pity somebody didn't
put you wise."

"Yes, I wish they had.  But I was told that I might expect to find a
lot of decent Americans here."

"Not in the Legion, old son.  We are wrong 'uns."

You are worse than wrong 'uns, you are the scum of the earth, Dorland
would have liked to add.  He might have done so had he not realised
that to every rule there are exceptions and that in this case the
Corporal provided one.  Such a man must have his reasons no doubt, or
he would not be a corporal in the Legion, but in spite of his uniform
there was no concealing that he belonged to a type whom Ambrose Dorland
had never expected to meet again.

In a space of time much less than would have been the case had he not
been sustained by the hand of a friend, Dorland was once more ready for
the road.  Weak and ill he still was, yet he felt stronger for the
Corporal's help.  They moved along at the tail of the column, keeping
in touch with it as well as they could, although for Dorland the
process was more than a little painful.  But now there was a good
Samaritan to help him on his way.  Not only did the Corporal support
him from time to time as they marched along together in the ever
growing heat of the sun, untempered as yet by a hint of shade, but also
he relieved him of some of the weight of his pack and thereby added to
the burden of his own.  "We shall get to the forest presently," he said
cheerfully, "and then you'll feel a new man."

To Dorland, however, the time seemed interminable before the forest
came in sight.  And he was quite sure he would never have got there had
not a true friend been at his side.  But the Corporal made a world of
difference.  Some natures have little power of ploughing a lonely
furrow.  They need sympathy and kindness as the flowers of the earth
need sunlight and air.

On the outskirts of the forest was a dingle of leafy sweet-smelling
pines.  The Corporal led Dorland into the shadow of these, placing him
carefully out of the sight of the regiment with his back to the trunk
of a tree.

"Stay here, my boy, for the next few hours," said the Corporal.  "But
don't let them see you, if you can help it, or they may knock hell out
of you.  They'll be manoeuvring over there"--the Corporal pointed
southeast--"most of the afternoon.  But we shall encamp for the night
yonder."  With the precision of an old soldier he pointed west.
"You'll find the place about three-quarters of a mile off.  Wait till
you hear the _rassemblement_ before moving out of this.  Eat some food.
And here's a couple of cigarettes.  Get a nap this afternoon.  And
don't come out too early.  Good luck, old man.  So long.  I'll look out
for you again."  The Corporal moved off into the sunlight, his slight
figure tough as pinwire, a soldier's every inch for all its opera
bouffe tunic and breeches.

As Dorland watched him go his heart sank.  It was like the withdrawal
of clear sunlight from a swamp of foetid horrors.  But for the time
being that kindly presence had done its work.  An hour ago he had not a
friend in the world.  He had one now and it made all the difference.
When the Corporal had gone, however, he felt sick unto death, yet he
wished he might believe that was really the case.  Death was a long way
off.  There was a great deal more to suffer before he could honestly
claim it.  He lay very still against the bole of the pine, until the
other stragglers had passed along the road into the forest.  It was
sound advice the Corporal had given him.  None of his own officers must
catch him there.

Presently the road grew clear.  Nobody had seen him under the tree.
That in itself was reassuring.  He was grateful for the shade, and a
few hours of complete rest was doing wonders for his broken feet.  But
he must not be seen until the time came to join the others.  That time
would be the cool of the evening, not that the evenings were ever cool
in Africa at this season of the year.  As the afternoon wore on he grew
well enough to eat some bread and cheese which he carried in his
_musette_.  Then he smoked the Corporal's cigarettes and his nerves
grew stronger.

Almost for the first time since his arrival at Sidi-bel-Abbs, that
outpost of hell, he had an idea that a word might be said in favour of
life itself.  Yet he had no doubt that the next few hours would destroy
any such illusion.  Sergeant Major Hauptmann was saving it up for him.
Or if not Sergeant Major Hauptmann some other savage brute.  He was not
instinctively a martyr, as some men and women are, but he suffered from
a peculiar order of mind.  His brain was too active, his imagination
too keen, he was much too easily hurt.  The hurts other natures threw
off as lightly as a duck shakes water from its tail, cut deep into his
soul.  It was because he had been weak enough to let these beasts know
it that they took such a pleasure in baiting him.

After his food he was able to get several hours' real sleep, of which
his frayed nerves stood much in need.  It was many days since he had
slept like that.  When he woke up it was not as a rat emerging from a
sewer.  He was in full possession of his mind.  The sun was perceptibly
lower, it was dipping rapidly behind the trees.  But the golden haze of
a tropical sky reminded Dorland that his eye was that of an artist.  If
only he could stay here undisturbed and put what he saw upon canvas!

Fort in Paris, less than a year ago, had prophesied that his sense of
colour would carry him far.  One of his pictures had been accepted for
the Salon.  He had felt deep in his heart that big things lay ahead.
Already he could see, draw, compose, handle paint in the way of the
few.  Had there been no war the world must have heard of him.  But it
would never hear of him now.  They were going to squelch out his life
with their brodequins as they squelched rats when they cleaned out the
latrines of the town gaol.  Ugh!  He had rats on the brain.  Was it
that the madness he dreaded had already overtaken him?

A sudden wave of nausea flowed over the walls of his mind.  He cursed
himself for yielding to the thought.  Weak, vain, cowardly.  But he
couldn't help it.  Why pretend otherwise?  It was the kind of poor fish
he was.  He needed fair weather.  A great man in the making--while the
weather kept fair.  But when it turned foul he could not hold a candle
to these sweepings of the gutter who never tired of offering him
violence and indignity.  The raw truth was he was not enough of a man
to face this ugly world into which he had strayed.  He was planned for
things very different.  Still, why make excuses?  All the excuses in
the world could not hide the plain fact.  Sergeant Major Hauptmann had
described him pretty correctly.  It only remained for such as Ambrose
Dorland to curse the hour in which he was born.




III

Over the feathery tops of the sweet-scented trees came the notes of a
bugle.  It was the _rassemblement_.  He must be getting on now or he
would pile trouble on the head of trouble.  Nay, there was little doubt
that he had done so already.  The _sous-officiers_ made a point of
taking every chance against him.  Painfully he rose from under the
tree, strapped on his pack, and began gingerly to move forward through
the short grass In the direction of the sound.  He was feeling better
now.  The fever in his head had abated.  Suddenly a covey of young
partridges flew out with a whirr from under his feet.  He might have
been walking in the woods of his native Maryland.  God, he had never
thought he should live to curse the dear woman with whom he had walked
there so often.

Let him be a man and learn to stand up to things and keep off absinthe.
It was not that he was by nature vicious.  But in Paris, in the
care-free life of the boulevard, he had acquired a taste for the stuff.
There seemed no danger in it then, for it was always easy to control.
But in this life of misery it was the devil.  Not only did it evoke
memories of happier days, but in a subtle way it went with the climate.
It was the only anodyne he had, but already it had become a terrible
menace.

Following as well as he could the hateful call he had not gone more
than half a mile when the bivouac came in sight.  His heart was in his
boots as he passed beyond the provision wagons into the midst of the
troops.  He soon recognised various members of his own _escouade_ who
were occupied in fetching water in canvas buckets, while others were
gathering wood to make fires for the cooks.  It was a scene of such
activity that he was able to join it unnoticed.  Everything was being
carried on as though it were a real campaign.  The afternoon had been
spent in manoeuvres with the firing of blank cartridges and now
entrenchments were being rapidly prepared against the imagined threat
of an attack.  Sergeants and corporals were far too busy to pay much
attention to the stragglers.

Dorland rejoiced in this piece of luck.  He promptly slipped off
knapsack and tunic and began to make himself useful.  First he lent a
hand in the pitching of a tent, of which he bore a sixth part in his
own kit.  It was a further stroke of luck that he was in time for this
ceremony, otherwise his absence must have provoked comment.  When this
was done he took pick and shovel and joined those at work upon the
raising of the fortifications.  He bore a hand in building up a high
earth platform and fixing the wooden _mitrailleuse_ upon it, as if to
repel a real attack.  By sundown the camp was in being.  Trenches were
dug, fires lit, supper cooked, the watch and guard were set.  He was
able to eat his food in reasonable comfort under an oak tree.  And then
having been solemnly warned of an attack during the night and that he
must retire duly equipped with bayonet and rifle and full cartridge
cases, he was free until bed-time.

The aspect of the camp was truly magnificent: the low tents of the
soldiers, the tall tents of the officers, the watch fires, the
sentinels.  To add to its impressiveness they had been joined by half a
battalion of the Spahis, and their gorgeous costumes and their splendid
Arab horses hitched together lent a touch of romance to the scene.  As
Dorland watched it with his painter's eye he felt a thrill of aesthetic
pleasure.  Here and there were soldiers gathered about a fire, the
light playing upon their swarthy faces.  On one side was the dark
forest, and on the other the wide vast plain which seemed to stretch
interminably into the growing mist.  The damp rich odours of the earth
and pines, the neighing and stamping of the horses, and the gradual
silence which crept over the scene fixed themselves upon Dorland's
memory.

He had no wish to enter a small tent and woo further sleep in the
company of five unwashed men who had been sweating all day under a
pitiless African sun.  So he sat outside, in front of the tent,
contemplating the scene and musing upon the entire life of the Legion.
How incongruous it seemed in comparison with this really wonderful
picture which only showed the beauty, the colour, the mystery, the
hazard and the fascination of the life of warriors.  It was good to be
out there in the open, inhaling the pure air of the night.  His pains
and his cares seemed to fall away from him.  For the first time since
he had entered upon a career that was killing him there came some ease
of spirit.  These were rare moments.  A connoisseur of life's finer
essences, he drank them greedily.  And drinking he fell asleep.

He woke at the sound of the bugle.  It was dawn already.  There had
been no night attack.  Dorland realised as he rubbed his eyes and
stretched his limbs that he had had the finest sleep of his life.  In
mind and body he was reborn.  His cup of hot _jus_ and piece of bread
tasted very good.  As he moved about in the strong air he was able to
look the world in the face.  The cloud growing daily in his brain
appeared to have receded.  If only he could keep out of that dive in
Sidi-bel-Abbs and refrain from the green poison there was still a hope
that he might be able to carry through this grim adventure.  It was but
slender, yet the hope was there.

He looked around for his new friend.  This change of heart was wholly
due to him.  But it was not a moment to pursue the acquaintance.
Corporals did not mix with common soldiers.  Besides it was highly
probable that his superior in rank had forgotten his existence.  It was
what one must expect in a life of this kind.  To Ambrose Dorland such a
man was simply everything just now, but for a _sous-officier_ a
sunstruck bleu was a sunstruck bleu.  However it was not a time to
weigh the matter.

Already the camp was breaking.  Orders were being shouted, all was
hustle and intense activity.  Tents were packed, earth was levelled
where the fortifications had been, the place was made to look as if an
army had not been there.  In a little more than an hour the battalion
was again upon the march.  The road chosen for the return was still
longer than the one by which they had come.  Again the heat was
stifling, but Dorland was now a different being from the previous day.
He was well rested, and in a magical way the sense of his manhood had
returned.  These brutes as yet had not completely broken his will.
Please God they would not!  He plodded on and on through the reddish
white dust.  And so intimate was the sense upon him of the Corporal's
kindness that he tried to make friends with the man by whose side he
marched.

He could not have had a more unpromising subject to begin upon.  It was
the pockmarked man who slept next to him, the fellow who talked in his
sleep.  Under those conditions he was a better conversationalist than
when he was awake.  A half caste negro from one of the Algerian coast
towns, with the face of a criminal and half mad with disease, there was
nothing to be got out of him beyond a few grunts.

This was discouraging but Dorland felt it was something to be able to
make the attempt.  He had formed a resolve in the course of the night.
Upon finding out the kind of people among whom he was thrown he had
held strictly aloof.  But low types though his brother legionaries were
he felt now that he must make a bid for their goodwill.  It would not
be easy.  By nature he was fastidious and lacked experience in the art
of "mixing."  They could never be his friends, but if he thought more
of them and less of himself he might yet be able to save his reason.

He could get nothing out of the poilu at his side, and not knowing his
bastard Arabic could hardly hope to do so.  Although meaning so well,
he was not sorry.  In the entire regiment there was not an uglier mug.

It was a weary foot-slog in the heat.  Even the halt of ten minutes
every hour did not help so very much.  But Dorland fixed his will, and
though his head began to buzz again and he soon became a welter of
pain, he managed to keep going.  About noon, to his intense relief,
they entered a grove of mulberry trees.  In the shade of these _Rompez_
was sounded and they were allowed to rest for an hour.

Then it was that Dorland, who kept a sharp look out, suddenly caught
sight of his friend.  He was in sore need of rest, yet still greater
his need of that kind voice.  Contrary to rule though it was, he could
not resist the impulse to draw the Corporal's notice.  Rising from
where he lay he threw himself deliberately across his path.  Would the
good Samaritan remember him?  At first Dorland feared not.  The
Corporal looked very tired and very hot, and now that Dorland met him
unexpectedly he saw how finely drawn was that face, how strange the
light in those sombre eyes.  Seen as Dorland saw it now that could not
be the face of a man who was happy.  Yet why expect any legionnaire to
be happy?  Almost without exception its rank and file had the best of
reasons for being miserable.  But it was a shock to come on this man
unaware and to find that which made him akin to the rest.

Observing this new aura upon his friend Dorland the impressionable
began to think better of his impulse.  Wiser perhaps to let well alone.
The kindness he had met with the previous day would never pass from his
mind, but that was no excuse for obtruding upon good nature.  A
_sous-officier_ was a _sous-officier_.  He was a celestial being,
moving upon a superior plane, with great powers over a common soldier
like himself.  It was Dorland's experience that almost invariably these
powers were abused.  But this man was not as the others.  Here was a
sahib.  Such consideration as he had shown must come from the heart of
understanding.

Involuntarily Dorland blocked the Corporal's path.  Reason had nothing
to say in the matter.  He was obeying a force stronger than reason.
The Corporal gazed at him with a curious look in his eyes.  Dorland was
struck by what those eyes revealed.  And he was afraid that he was not
going to be recognised.  But the next moment proved this fear to be
groundless.  The haggard face changed suddenly to what it had been as
Dorland first remembered it.

"Hulloa, _mon ami_," said the Corporal In his deep voice.  "How do you
find yourself this morning?"

Gratitude and relief surged through Dorland as he promptly declared
himself very much better.

"You are certainly looking very much better.  Did you get a good sleep
under that tree?"

"Oh yes, thanks, I did."

"I hope there were no developments when you joined _les autres_?"  The
Corporal smiled just a little.

"Fortunately none."

"In luck, old man.  I meant to look you up to see if you were all
right, but our lot was fixed at the other end of the wood, and this is
the first free minute I've had since I left you."  It was not a
corporal of the Legion speaking to a common soldier, it was the genial
note of one friend to another, the tone Dorland was accustomed to in
the only world in which it had ever seemed worth while to exist.

"May I offer you a cigarette?"  It is not usual for a common soldier to
offer a _sous-officier_ a cigarette in the middle of manoeuvres, but
one irregularity is apt to beget another.

"Thank you so much."  The Corporal's air as he accepted the cigarette
suddenly thrust back the mercurial Dorland to _le Cercle_ at Paris and
the Lambs in New York.  This was a delightful fellow.

"Let's find a place in the shade," said the Corporal.  "Over there,
right among the trees where we can't be seen."  The senior in rank and
also in age led the way through the grass, past a group of sweating
legionaries gratefully stretched in siesta, to a cool place under a
large oak where nothing human was in sight.  Each waited for the other
to sit down.  It was as if they were not quite sure whose club it was,
and whose the privilege therefore to take the second fauteuil after
having pressed the button to summon the waiter.

Alas, there was no button to press, no waiter to summon.

"Try one of these.  I got them the other day when I was over at Oran."
The Corporal held the match while Dorland lit the cigarette he had been
given, and then with a slight bow indicated to the American the spot
that looked most comfortable beneath the tree.  For all that the
Corporal was so tattered and razorless Dorland acutely felt the grand
seigneur behind the simple gesture.

"Do you know, old man," said the Corporal when they had arranged
themselves and were puffing away contentedly, "it's done me good
meeting you.  I find one gets so depressed living month after month
with nobody but oneself to talk to.  I've nothing in common with these
chaps.  They can't be as bad as they seem, but one doesn't understand
their lingo nor does one particularly want to.  Most of them are as
crooked-ugly as a bunch of rattlesnakes."

That was exactly Dorland's feeling, but he was content merely to nod so
as not to interrupt the confidences of the elder man.

"Still if one must fix oneself up with a bed of nettles, why complain
when one has to lie in it?"  The Corporal laughed bitterly.  This again
was precisely Dorland's feeling.  "I wouldn't mind so much," the
Corporal went on, "if they meant to give you a square deal.  But they
don't.  Here you are at every dago's mercy.  I've done three years'
hard service with this regiment and I thought I'd earned a right to
fight in France.  But not at all.  They've turned down every
application I've made.  And it begins to look now as if they mean to
send me back to the Sahara."  On those last words the tone and manner
of the Corporal abruptly changed.  At the word Sahara a shudder ran
through him.  It was long drawn and tense, the sudden emanation of a
despair beyond despair.

The silence was painful.  And then the Corporal spoke again.  "But why
meet trouble half way?"  He took a long pull at his tobacco.  "Only
fools do that.  Let us talk of something cheerful.  Tell me about
yourself, old son."  In the ear of Dorland that sounded like irony, yet
he knew it was not.  He knew that this man in his own way was suffering
as much as he.  The Corporal was more balanced, more stable, far more
experienced, but he, too, was absolutely "fed."  This poor fellow, too,
was almost as weakly human.  Dorland pitied him deeply, yet a shade of
disappointment mingled with his sorrow.  He had hoped for a kind of
demi-god, but demi-gods simply did not happen in such a world as this.

"Dorland you said your name was.  Artist, eh?  Must be hell all the
time, for a chap like you."

With a queer tightening of the throat Dorland allowed that much.  It
was due less to his own private emotions than the recognition of an
echo from a charming and gracious mind.  Whoever this man was he, too,
suffered very deeply.

"I wonder if you'd mind telling me your name?" Dorland ventured.

The Corporal's melancholy plucked at the gentle heart of the
questioner.  "James Smith is my name," he said.  And then he began to
mingle a curious blend of humour with his gloom.  "Otherwise Jimsmitt.
Otherwise Smitt.  Otherwise Smitten.  Otherwise Smitten-of-Allah.  A
queer sort of perisher.  Been through many incarnations no doubt.  Some
of 'em very unsuccessful, or they wouldn't have saved it up for him in
this one the way they have.  But grousing leads nowhere."  With a
sudden wrench of the will that Dorland could almost feel the Corporal
broke off short.  "If one gets thinking about oneself in this outfit
one is bound to go mad," he added rather piteously.

"Tell me, old man, have you put in for the Western Front?"

Dorland said he had.

"And they turned you down?"

"I'm afraid so.  At any rate I've had no reply."

"They don't play the game," said the Corporal.  "Policing the Sahara
isn't a white man's job and these people know it.  But the fact is any
man, no matter what his nationality, loses any sort of caste as soon as
he is fool enough to join _la lgion trangre_."  The Corporal did not
disguise a note of bitterness.  "They ought to stick up over the
barrack gates at Sidi-bel-Abbs, 'Abandon hope all ye who enter here.'"

"Yes, that's absolutely true," said the American in his heart, but
refrained with his lips.  To complain of fate never brought solace to
any man.

Half an hour they sat and talked.  They had much in common.  Jimsmitt,
as he quaintly called himself, seemed to know a great deal of that
world in which it had always been Dorland's ambition to move.  But it
was the fact that he tried to conceal his knowledge that so much
impressed the younger man.  Before that memorable talk was at an end
Dorland was convinced that Jimsmitt, whoever he might be, had a
history.  And the more they talked the stronger this feeling grew.  The
American with his keen perception was soon aware of hidden things.  It
needed them to explain his presence in the Legion.  Nearly every
legionary had a secret of some kind which constituted his _raison
d'tre_.  Dorland, without venturing a guess at Jimsmitt's past, and
without giving rein to an impertinent curiosity, would have paid a good
deal to learn who Jimsmitt really was and why he had entered this
antechamber of hell.

For these men only terms of that kind could paint the life they were
condemned to live.  Each looked into the heart of the other.  The
Englishman was older than Dorland in more things than mere years.  And
there was something a little paternal in his attitude towards him.
Clearly he had taken a liking to this rather nave and simple-hearted
young man.  But when they came to talk the American was far the more
open of the two.  In a fashion curiously frank, and very pleasing for
one craving human intercourse, the young fellow told a good deal about
himself, the life he had led in New York, Paris, Rome, his secret
ambition, his present eclipse.

Jimsmitt, on the other hand, was careful to disclose very little.  One
fact in regard to him, however, soon emerged.  He was afraid of
something.  His sombre eyes, the overtones of a singularly deep and
beautiful voice, the occasional twitching of his slender hands, the
nervousness of every gesture, betrayed him to the keen-eyed Dorland.

Was this man afraid of madness?  The American was inclined to think he
was, and perhaps the more readily because his own mind was haunted by
that awful fear.

"This death-in-life," said Jimsmitt, as he offered his companion
another cigarette, "drives one to absinthe.  It's something in the
climate.  But dope is worse than damnation for you and me."  The
Corporal shuddered, and Dorland by the force of experience also
shuddered.  "Don't touch the stuff, my son.  Sooner or later it means
_le cafard_."

Dorland had heard a good deal about that strange form of madness that
so often comes upon the white man in the desert.  Therefore he was not
in need of warning; that is to say, he had refused to take warning
already.  His loosening will had toyed for some time with an illicit
remedy for blank depression.

Did this new friend know that?  Could he have guessed a secret of which
Dorland was heartily ashamed?  His words had an impressiveness which
made it seem exceedingly likely.  Yet how could he know?  Dorland did
not believe there was anything in his own speech and manner to tell
him.  Nor did he believe, bag of misery though he was, that the fatal
signs had yet come out in his appearance.  This man could not, and
Dorland vowed that he should not, pierce his secret.

"Is it so bad as all that?"  He tried to speak lightly and in his own
ear succeeded.  The cleverest man alive would have been taken in by
such an offhand tone.

"Hell and damnation, old man."  Somehow the voice of Jimsmitt made his
blood run thin.  "Leave the green stuff alone whatever you do."  Again
Jimsmitt shuddered, again Dorland realised part of the truth concerning
him.  "If you don't, and you go up into the Sahara, and from what I
hear it looks as if they mean to send us there pretty soon, it would be
a thousand times better you had never been born."

That seemed to be the point to which an unforgettable conversation had
been leading.  At any rate it was the end.

"There's the bugle."  The Corporal, gaunt and livid, rose from beneath
the tree, "Don't think me impertinent, will you?"  Appeal, solicitude,
apology were in the charming voice.  "But I felt I must tell you.
Promise you'll keep off it."

A tense moment was filled by the strident notes of the "fall in."  And
then Dorland, with those deep, sombre and tragic eyes fixed upon his
own, said huskily, "Yes ... I'll promise ... to keep off the filth."




IV

Soon they were on the march again.  It was still very hot, but a change
was in the sky.  Banks of cloud were piling up in the southwest.  A
heavy storm rode in their midst, but to Dorland the sight was not
unwelcome.  Anything was better just now than that ball of living fire
which shrivelled him.  The pendulum had swung back.  His tongue was out
again, he was limping painfully, his head was at its tricks.  He was
organised too delicately for prolonged endurance.  Soon the weight of
his pack began to seem intolerable and he found himself stumbling, but
this time he was determined that no matter what happened he would not
give in.

The journey home was very trying.  Instead of a straight four hours'
march back to Sidi-bel-Abbs the return was by a circuitous route of
nearly eight.  Early in the afternoon came the threatened storm.  Rain
of a tropical violence overwhelmed them.  Dorland was pierced to the
skin, water flowed from his knapsack in a never ending stream, his
boots were waterlogged.  Hard the going had been along the rough desert
roads, but his ironshod brodequins had now to squelch through a heavy
paste of red mud.  Had it not been for a couple of short halts he must
have fallen out.  As it was he could just keep up with the battalion.
But for Dorland savage rain was a less evil than brutal sun, so that
when the gates of the town hove in sight, and the band of the Legion
struck up the _Marseillaise_, he was still miraculously in step with
his own _escouade_.

Painfully he entered the caserne.  Then he climbed up to his
_chambre_, stripped in the midst of thirty others, dried his body as
well as he could and exchanged his soaked uniform for fatigue dress.
As he did so his eye lit on the broken panes and his heart sank.  No
questions had been asked as yet.  Everybody had been far too busy; yet
he felt sure of trouble.  The only thing in his favour was that the
window was high up and did not readily catch the eye.  All the same he
had precious little hope of escaping the punishment he had earned.

When he had changed he went down to the lavabo and wrung out his
clothes and then returned with them and spread them out over his cot.
As it was still raining in torrents there was nowhere else to dry them.
Besides he must not let them out of his sight.  Kit was continually
stolen and according to the law it was the victim who had to shoulder
the responsibility.  Either he must replace the missing attire with
that of somebody else or pay the price of his negligence.  Dorland had
paid the price several times already.

When he had strung out his clothes he sat down beside them.  Having a
little time on his hands he fell into another fit of the blues.  The
discovery of Jimsmitt had cheered him immensely.  But already the first
elation had worn off.  Again the mercury had fallen.  He was lonely as
ever.  Yet not quite.  No longer was he utterly friendless, and the
thought was like wine.  It had always been his nature to seek the
countenance of others, first his father and mother, both of whom were
dead, then his pastors and masters at Harvard and at Paris.  This man
Jimsmitt had come to him in a sore hour; he was like a special
messenger from God.  Dorland felt that life had changed already, and he
would have yielded ten years of it gladly in his present mood had
Jimsmitt been the room-corporal of the hateful dormitory in which he
sat.

All that remained for him now was to look forward to the hour when he
should see this friend again.  But when that hour would be was hard to
say.  It was unlawful for a _sous-officier_ to fraternise with a common
soldier and there was the further drawback that he belonged to another
company.  Dorland, however, could only hope that it would soon be his
privilege to foregather once more with a "white man."  In the meantime
he must bear in mind the promise he had solemnly given that he would
keep off absinthe.

As a fact Dorland had made that decision before Jimsmitt put it up to
him.  He knew the green stuff was threatening his brain.  The awful
despair that had sandbagged his mind was the result of dope.  Seated on
his cot in the midst of a babel he made no effort to follow, well
knowing sheer disgust would have been the only reward, he began to
realise how slight was the chance of keeping his word.  All the omens
he had learned to fear in the very depths of his soul were swooping
upon him like vultures.  The craving for the strange liquor was cruel.
Already he was near the point when the will unaided could not carry on.
If he was to get through the night of stifling horror that lay ahead of
him in the inferno wherein he sat, if he was to ward off insomnia that
so surely was unanchoring his brain, he must slip out into the town
after the _appelle_ and drink a little, just a very little of the only
antidote there was.

What thoughts was he thinking?  He must do nothing of the kind.  In
that direction lay madness.

To break the spell of his ideas he got up from his mattress.  The aura
of this spot was the seventh circle of Dante.  Let him go somewhere
else and change the sequence of his thoughts.  Let him get away from
this _canaille_ with its bestial manners and happily unintelligible
conversation.  But there was nowhere else he could go.  It was still
raining cats and dogs.  So he turned feverishly to _astiquage_, the
eternal polishing of black leather straps and large cartridge cases.
Work, work, work, incessant and for the most part senseless, that was
the only anodyne for the ill from which he suffered.

That night, as it happened, Dorland's bed was less unkind than it had
been for weeks.  In part the change was due to an illicit cause;
ventilation was provided by the broken panes above his head.  He could
breathe.  Moreover he was bone tired after all those hours of marching
in tropical rain and blistering sun.  Also a moral factor was at work.
He felt for the first time that within the precincts of those noisome
barracks there was a friend.  And the vital sense of that friendship
had already borne fruit.  Thus far he had been equal to his word.  But
for the promise to Jimsmitt he would have slipped off into the town
after supper when the rain had ceased and bought temporary courage.
However he had not done so, yet quite surprisingly he had managed to
sleep.  This successful exercise of the will gave him a glimmer of new
hope.

Crushing monotony in the days which followed tried his resolve very
severely.  And he had to contend with the hostility of the others.
Upon his first arrival he had made the mistake of letting them see how
much he disliked them.  In those moments of bitter disillusionment when
he understood the tragic nature of his mistake and the character of
those among whom he had cast his lot, he took no pains to hide his
feelings.  Hating the look and the sound and the smell of this rabble
of low class foreigners with their unwashed bodies and foul clothes and
dirty minds, his one aim was to give them a wide berth.  It had
advantages, but in the end the disadvantages outweighed them.  _Vieux
routiers_ are past masters in the art of giving a _bleu_ a bad time.
As soon as they found out that Monsieur Mutt, as they called him, was
keeping so much to himself because he despised them, that he never ate
or drank with them, or walked and talked with them if he could possibly
avoid so doing, they knew how to deal with him.  And as they set him
down a natural coward it was quite an easy job.  They stole everything
of his they could lay hands on, they did him a bad turn whenever they
could, he often got a sly kick or a covert blow.

To make matters worse his enemies included the _sous-officiers_.  These
were dreaded by the hardest and most experienced _soldat_, for in the
Legion as throughout the entire army of France they were all-powerful.
Better be dead, said the old hands, than be in wrong with your
corporal, your sergeant, your sergeant major and your adjutant.  By
this time the unfortunate Dorland knew in the marrow of his bones it
was the truth.  Better dead, yes, than to be in the black books of such
men.  More than once the dreaded Sergeant Major Hauptmann had promised
faithfully to see that he ended up in the _Zphyrs_.  There was a
tradition in the Ninth Company that Sergeant Major Hauptmann invariably
kept his word in matters of that kind.  Dorland felt he was condemned
already by Court Martial to a long term of the terrible _Travaux
Publiques_.  Sergeant Major Hauptmann in his own good time would see
that Monsieur Mutt received his due.

Meanwhile the scroll was heavily charged with minor punishments.  Day
after day he was given tasks that he loathed inexpressibly.  Time and
again it was his lot to fumigate sewers, load manure, clean out
latrines.  Every kind of fatigue there was greater competition than
usual to escape invariably fell to Monsieur Mutt.  He had _garde de
chambre_ weeks on end.  Three times already he had undergone _salle de
police_.  And as Sergeant Major Hauptmann said with a touch of that
sinister humour that endeared him to nobody, three goes of _salle de
police_ in the first six months of a _bleu's_ career was a sure
stepping stone to higher things.  "One fine morning, my old, you will
pay a visit to Oran and make your bow to _le Conseil de Guerre_.  And
then..."  Sergeant Major Hauptmann, who had been bred not as an actor
but as a pickpocket, had yet too fine a sense of the theatre to
complete his prophecy.

If Monsieur Mutt did not realise that the rope was as good as round his
neck it was not for lack of mass suggestion.  One and all took a
pleasure in bringing that home.  Yet, strange to say, at the end of six
months he was still alive, and, as far as a soldier of the Legion may
be said to be free, he was still free.  They had scared him pretty
badly one way and another, but he now felt the time was coming when
they would be able to scare him no more.  Imagination had made him
sweat blood.  Still he was passing through the fire.  He had been
knocked about pretty badly, but no bones were broken so far.  And he
was now fearing blows and shrinking from insults less.  A man is a man
wherever he may be, no matter how savagely he is tormented.

Dorland waited uneasily for developments in the matter of the broken
windows.  Had another member of the _escouade_ been guilty of a crime
that was not specially heinous, things might perhaps have been made
easy for him.  But things were never made easy for Monsieur Mutt.
Howbeit one day passed, then another, no comment was made, no question
asked.  Perhaps the affair would blow over.  Certainly those panes so
high up in the wall did not accost the eye.  Even the lynx eye of the
Sergeant Major at kit inspection had overlooked them.  And Corporal
Fabre, who by a miracle had heard nothing of the matter at the time it
occurred, did not seem to have noticed them either.  Or if he had, and
no doubt this was the true interpretation, he was far too old a hand to
stir up a hornet's nest.

For a few days nothing much happened.  Dorland managed somehow to keep
out of trouble.  He was no fool in anything to which he gave his mind.
And he seemed to have a run of luck.  For several nights he slept
better.  It may have been that the fugg was less overpowering in the
_chambre_ now that its windows were no longer sealed; again the
knowledge that somewhere in the barracks was a friend and comrade may
have acted upon him.  Yet there were times all the same when he was
sunk in black despair.

This hateful life was doing nothing to advance the cause Dorland had at
heart.  He was prepared to make sacrifices of personal comfort, of
mental habit, but they must be leading somewhere.  In this blind alley
he was merely rotting.  Evil, injustice, meaningless degradation were
rife.  He felt that he would give his very soul to get away from it
all.  But there seemed no chance of that.  The chains were too firmly
riveted.  He had made several appeals by letter to be transferred to
the Western Front, but he was without friends who could help him, or
any kind of military credentials or influence and he had received no
reply.

The prospect before him was terrible.  He had enlisted for five years,
but he did not know how he was going to keep on for half that period.
His nerves had worn thin, and he had a perpetual craving now for the
only alleviation of which he knew.  But he had been solemnly warned
that if he persisted in this false remedy the end would be madness,
crime, and a death of dishonour.  Such an end would be of a piece with
his present surroundings, but none the less he wanted to avoid it.
During these highly critical days he tried very hard to brace his will.

While his sanity hung in the balance, for the fight that was going on
in his brain was a threat to reason itself, he craved an opportunity to
talk again with Jimsmitt.  But the heavy round of his duties and his
subordinate position were much against him.  Besides he soon found more
trouble.  He had been lucky in the matter of the broken windows, but a
few days after the manoeuvres somebody "borrowed" his sash, and as he
had neither the inclination nor the address to "borrow" that of
somebody else, as any other man in the caserne would have done, he met
with severe reproof from the Sergeant-Major, who promptly gave him
three weeks' _garde de chambre_ with a lively promise of worse to
follow.

For Dorland three weeks' _garde de chambre_ was bad enough.  It meant
never a moment to oneself from morning bugle to lights out.  He was at
everybody's beck and call.  All the things to avoid fell to him
automatically.  Moreover he was not able to get into the town.  That
cut two ways since the green stuff was not sold in the canteen in the
barrack square; but it also destroyed any hope of meeting his friend.
And the injustice seemed to fill his cup.  He should have taken better
care of his sash certainly, for loss of equipment was treated as a
felony, but its abstraction had been the work of an expert thief and
the whole thing rankled.

Now that Dorland was strictly confined to his own section of the
barracks his chance of meeting a corporal in the Fifth Company was very
remote.  In fact his only hope was the weekly march out to a _champ de
tir_ some distance off, where special evolutions were performed by the
whole battalion.  Dorland kept a sharp look-out for his friend on these
occasions.  Once or twice he fancied he caught a glimpse of that
slight, trim form.  Yet there was no opportunity of making himself
known even had it been he, and of this Dorland was not sure.

Resentment and bitterness were taking root in what until a few months
ago had been a sweet nature.  And that nature, not really perverted as
yet by all the foul use it had received, had a longing that was almost
a passion to meet again a "white man."  But it looked as if this simple
boon was to be denied.  One week grew into two, two grew into three,
but Dorland was able to get no word with Jimsmitt.

Meanwhile he was becoming desperate.  The life was beyond his physical
strength and to make matters worse he was the prey of insomnia.  Worn
out though he was, aching in every bone from sheer fatigue, when he
threw himself on his mattress he could not rest.  His nights were
broken and disturbed.  All this weighed him down.  Therefore it was not
surprising that as soon as his term of _garde de chambre_ was up he
turned to the only palliative now open to him.

At the first opportunity he went into the town.  Almost without
conscious volition he found himself in the narrow and squalid by-street
in which "the stuff" was to be had.  It was, of course, no remedy.
Nay, in this stifling heat it was a form of suicide.  But this evening,
the first of his release, he simply could not resist it.  He must have
something to make him sleep tonight, something to deaden the pain of an
intolerable life.  If he sipped enough of the green mixture it would
induce pleasant dreams.  The dreams were very transient, but while they
lasted they made an illusion of well being.  When the effect of the
drug wore off it was, of course, another story.  Soon or late it was
bound to destroy him.  Being this evening in a state of utter despair,
he felt the sooner he made an end of things the better.

Limp and wretched and possessed by a sense of mental and moral
uncleanness, he walked along the lane until he came to the door of a
dismal sort of dive called the Golden Bowl.  It was a hole-and-corner
affair kept by a Levantine who answered to the name of Mustapha.  Two
Spahis and a civilian who had the look of a Greek sat drinking some
kind of hooch at a little table.  This haunt was known only to the few.
Queer sorts of dope of all nations, from the yala-yala of the Berber
and the kmalla of the Senussi to the special blends of firewater which
rejoiced the heart of the civilised European, could be had at the
Golden Bowl.  The capacity to pay for them was all that was necessary.

Dorland's pay as a member of the Legion amounted to the magnificent sum
of one halfpenny a day in the currency of France.  This did not go far
with Mustapha, but unfortunately the young painter was able to
supplement it with money of his own.  A couple of thousand francs still
remained to his credit at a bank in the town; and this sum would keep
him in absinthe for some time.  Mustapha gave the gaunt and hollow-eyed
legionary the bland smile he reserved for the regular and approved
customer.  Then he jerked a brown thumb over his shoulder towards an
inner sanctuary, lifted the flap of a zinc counter, pulled aside the
curtain of this holy of holies and politely bowed Dorland within.

It was the Mecca of the solitary and experienced drinker.  Dorland
entered this airless place, whose cubic capacity was about six feet by
seven, with a feeling of shame.  He loathed himself for the thing he
was doing.  Was it not a deliberate breaking of his word?  Nay, it was
a breaking of the promise made to his mother's memory.  Every time he
entered this seductive little hell brought him one step nearer
damnation.  Well, what of it?  He couldn't go on as he was.  Life had
come to a dead end.  The sooner the curtain was rung down the better;
yet he knew only too well this was not the way to do it.  As he passed
into this private fugg-hole he saw the consequences plainly before him.
But his strength had gone.  And as he had not the pluck to shoot
himself he must risk _le cafard_.

Bogged in a morass of black thoughts it came rather as a shock to
Dorland to find a man seated at the table in the tiny room.  He had not
expected to see anyone.  But it did happen on occasion that another
connoisseur was seated there.  This one was holding a curious
long-stemmed delicately wrought liqueur glass up to the light, and it
was full of a green fluid.  For the moment Dorland did not recognise
him.  Indeed the recognition came first from the connoisseur.  "My
God," he said.

To Dorland the sound of that gentle voice was like a blow in the face.

"Just in time, old man," said Jimsmitt very quietly, as if it were the
most ordinary matter in the world.  "Just in time to take this stuff
off me."  Thereupon he lowered his glass and with a wan smile set it
upon the table.

Before the bewildered and unhappy Dorland could find any words to
speak, Mustapha, whose efficiency in such matters was remarkable, had
brought in a glass that was an exact replica of the one Jimsmitt had
just set down.  They waited for Mustapha to retire, and then Jimsmitt,
having politely indicated a vacant seat the opposite side of the table
and Dorland having taken it, they sat gazing at one another in an odd
silence which for the younger man was full of an intense embarrassment.

"Set a thief to catch a thief, eh, old man?" said Jimsmitt lightly.
The half humorous tone somehow took any hint of tragedy out of their
meeting.  "You must have guessed the other day the sort of bird I was.
But I'm bound to say, if you'll forgive me, I hadn't quite guessed the
sort of bird you are."

The note of camaraderie took any sting out of the gentle thrust, but
Dorland was feeling very uncomfortable.  He lacked the sang-froid and
the poise of the elder man.  Whatever Jimsmitt had in the way of shame
was concealed under his banter.  Behind all, however, was the gravity
of one who knows he is very near the end of his tether.

"I hope you realise," said Jimsmitt when each had more or less
recovered from the shock of the other's presence in that room, "that we
are both heading straight for the precipice?"

Dorland did realise that and confessed it.

"Well, what's to be done about it?  You see we are both sensible men at
bottom."

The American for his part was not quite sure that either of them
deserved that compliment.  The two glasses of absinthe that stood
between them were a very bitter comment upon any claims they might have
on that score.

"Fact is I've heard bad news," said Jimsmitt in a low voice.  "I
daresay you've heard it, too."

Dorland's head-shake denied that he had lately heard any worse news
than usual.

Jimsmitt got up from the table and went to the curtain to make sure
that it was drawn properly and that no one could overhear.  Then he
came back and resumed his seat heavily.  As he did so Dorland was
struck by the grey weariness of that enigmatic face.  It was somehow a
little fey.  The look in the sombre eyes, which yet miraculously
retained the power to smile, drove to the heart of the younger man.
Here was mystery.  And he did not doubt that here also was tragedy.

"They say," continued Jimsmitt in that voice gentle, low and kind that
had such a fascination for the American, "that In about a month's time
half our battalion will be moving up into the Sahara."

"Well, I hope I shall be chosen, although I'm afraid there isn't much
chance."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because," said Dorland, "I'd rather be anywhere than where I am now.
If I stay here much longer I shall go mad."

A look of genuine pity came into the face of the elder man.  "My dear
fellow, you've not been in the Sahara, have you?"

"No."

"Well, I have.  I've served there a year, cooped up in a mud fort, two
hundred miles from the nearest Arab village, in the midst of two
thousand miles of burning sand, with a sun twice as hot as it is here
pouring down on you all day.  It is like living in a baker's oven.  I
tell you, my friend, Sidi-bel-Abbs is a health resort compared to the
place we are going to in the Sahara."

Jimsmitt shivered as he spoke.  Involuntarily his fingers strayed to
the liqueur glass on the table.  But he did not raise the fatal brew to
his lips.  He, too, was almost at the end of his rope, but he still
retained the embers of sanity.

"You can't imagine what the place is like.  I wouldn't condemn my worst
enemy to spend a whole year in that lime kiln.  Twelve months is the
limit, but it's much too long for most of those who go there.  Two in
five go mad within six months.  And if once you take to this
stuff"--Jimsmitt held up his glass--"you have simply no chance at all."

"And if you stay here," said Dorland, "you've not much chance either."

"Not much," Jimsmitt agreed, "unless you can keep off this."

"Well," Dorland confessed, "as things are with me now I don't see how
I'm going to keep off it."

"How long have you been at this game, old man?"  The question was put
in the affectionate voice of a kindly elder brother.

"I first acquired the taste in Paris," said Dorland frankly.  "But
there, living a good life, a sensible life, a happy life, I could
always close it down when I wanted to.  Here it's different.  It sort
of gets hold of you in this hell on earth.  It kind of masters you.
I'm at the point now when I simply can't carry on without it."

"Yes, I see you are.  When I met you first, three weeks ago, I rather
guessed something was wrong, but I didn't think you had gone so far."
There was a pause that was painful and then Jimsmitt added, "Well, old
son, what's to be done about it?"

"I just don't know," said Dorland dismally.

"Nor I," said Jimsmitt.  "We're in the same boat it seems.  As things
are with us there's only one remedy.  If it is a remedy."

"Blow our brains out, I suppose."

"Yes, there's always that.  But even that prescription has to be taken
in time.  If you play about too long with this dope you lose all
volition.  Absinthe saps the will."

Dorland knew that.  Privately he doubted if he retained the power, if
he had ever had it, of applying such a drastic cure.  But he was
careful not to betray his anxieties on this point.

"Still, after all, there may be an alternative," said the Englishman,
looking steadily at the man before him.  "I don't urge it for you.  I
wouldn't urge it for anybody.  It may not be any good.  From all that
one hears it doesn't work out right once in a hundred times.  All the
same I've made up my mind to try it."

"Tell me what it is," said Dorland eagerly.

Jimsmitt cast an apprehensive eye towards the closely drawn curtains.
"I'm thinking of going on pump."  His voice rose hardly above a whisper.

"You are going to desert!"  Dorland could not control a wild flutter of
the nerves.

"Yes," said Jimsmitt sombrely.  "I've thought the whole thing out and
I've pretty well decided to do it."

Dorland suddenly felt the room to be stifling him.  He, too, had given
thought to that way of escape, but his common sense had assured him
that the hope was too slender.  It was not a reasonable hazard.  Yet if
this friend, a real campaigner who had had experience of the desert,
had really made up his mind to the chance, it seemed like a heaven-sent
opportunity.

"Jimsmitt," said Dorland hoarsely as he half rose from his chair,
"please take me with you."

The man the other side of the table looked at Dorland steadily and with
a sort of pity.  But he said nothing.




V

"I mean it," said Dorland breaking a tense silence.  "Better to die of
thirst and sunstroke out in the desert than like a rat in a sewer in a
French penal battalion."

"Ye-es, I think you are right," said Jimsmitt slowly.  "At least it
means a run for your money.  If we stay here, now we've fallen for this
green filth, there's simply no chance at all.  If we take to the desert
we've not much chance either.  They say the successful _poumpistes_
don't work out at one per cent.  So ponder it well, old man.  And if
there is any other cure for your complaint, if you can even see the
ghost of one, you had better take it.  For, as I say, it's not easy to
exaggerate the chances against us."

Dorland felt his case to be so hopeless that his decision was made
already.  It was a drowning man clutching at a straw; but there was no
alternative.  He was under a threat of madness anyway.  Life in the
Lost Legion had driven him too far.

"You must think it over."  Jimsmitt spoke gently and kindly.  "Look all
round before you take the plunge.  There's not only thirst and
starvation to think of, there's the Bedouin, too.  You've seen what
they do, the gentle Touareg ladies.  I hope you've examined that jolly
little collection of photographs on the wall of your caserne."

Dorland had done so and wished he had not.  Those pictures spoke of
mutilation and torture beyond belief.  Still if the worst came it would
be over comparatively soon.  It would not be a world-without-end of
slowly accumulating misery.

"Then there are the _goums_ who are always on the prowl," Jimsmitt
proceeded, "not to mention the police spies in all the towns and
villages within a radius of two hundred miles.  There's a substantial
reward you know on the head of a deserter."

Dorland was aware of that.  Was he not only too familiar with most of
the arguments against going on pump?  He knew how powerful they were.
More than once lately he had considered the pros and cons of the
matter.  But tonight in spite of everything there was not a doubt in
his mind that a heaven-sent opportunity had presented itself.  It
simply must not be missed.  "Jimsmitt," he said hoarsely, "if you are
really going you must let me come with you."

"Sleep on it, old man."

"But you--really--are--quitting, aren't you?"

"Yes, I'm quitting all right.  The only question is when.  You see it's
no use rushing your fences in a sport of this kind.  Look before and
after, that's the correct card.  And when you've done all you can and
taken every precaution there's not much hope in the desert for a lone
Roumi."

"There'll be two of us anyhow."

"It'll need more than two of the likes of us, my son, to put the wind
up a war party of the Touareg.  By the way, do you happen to have
picked up any Arabic?"

"Only a very few words I'm afraid."

"That's a pity."  The voice of Jimsmitt told much.  "One hears it is
necessary to have some Arabic when you go into the desert."

Dorland's heart sank.  It was hardly wise to confess his ignorance, yet
it would not have been honest to pretend to knowledge he had not.

"You see it all needs very careful planning if we are to give ourselves
half a chance of getting clear."

"It must be the desert I suppose?"

Jimsmitt thought there was no other way.  It would be hopeless to try
the sea.  "No chance at all on the coast, particularly in war time," he
said.  "Everything is far too well organised.  No, it's the desert.
And at the very worst time of the year."

"I'm quite game," said the American, his heart beating fast.  "If the
risk is good enough for you it's good enough for me--if only you'll
take me along.  Of course, I've no Arabic, but I won't let you down."
He could tell from Jimsmitt's race how damaging was the admission.  But
if the Englishman was a true friend he would surely stretch a point.
Was he a true friend?  Dorland peered across the table anxiously.  The
silence was painful.  He knew that a man like himself adrift in North
Africa and unable to speak Arabic was bound to prove a dangerous
passenger.  He might easily give away those who did.  And it was pretty
clear that the Corporal saw that only too plainly.

"I won't let you down--if you'll take me," Dorland persisted.

With a gesture that told nothing Jimsmitt laid his untasted glass on
the bamboo table.  "Let us think it over, old man," he said in his
soft, melancholy voice.  "It is not a thing to jump into."

"Will you take me?" the young man persisted.

"Sleep on it, _mon ami_."

"If I sleep on it for a month I shall not change my mind.  I'll run any
risk to get away from what is coming to me here."

There was a long pause.  It was ended at last by Jimsmitt rising slowly
from the table.  Very simply he laid his hand on Dorland's shoulder.
"Don't let us decide it now," he said.  "It's not a thing to decide on
the spur of the moment.  You are a young man, you have a clean bill;
when you've done your time with the Legion there's a place waiting for
you where you belong.  With me it's different.  Whatever happens I'm a
washout anyway.  But with you, as I say, it's another pair of shoes.
Before you take the plunge you must think ahead."

"Oh, yes, I know," said Dorland.  "But don't you realise it's the only
chance I've got?"

"It may be so.  And yet for your own sake I'm rather hoping you are
mistaken."

Finally leaving their liquor untouched to the keen surprise of
Mustapha, who, however, was duly paid, they passed out of the sanctuary
together and through the outer door of the Golden Bowl into the dark
and narrow lane.  Arm in arm they went towards the _sk_, which was in
the centre of the town.  In the course of a long stroll through the
purlieus of Sidi-bel-Abbs the two men continued their discussion.  The
American was in a state of excitement he could hardly control, but his
friend the Corporal, richer in years and experience, was strangely
cool.  He verged upon reticence.  Plans were being matured, and Dorland
gathered that other legionnaires were in the scheme.  The attempt was
to be made on scientific lines.  Otherwise, said Jimsmitt, it was worse
than useless to make it.  But what the plan was, and just how it was to
be put through, Jimsmitt would not divulge.  His only sop for the
American's passionate curiosity was a promise of further details when
they met again.

In a tone that made no secret of disappointment Dorland asked when that
meeting was likely to be.

"I'll look out for you at the route march next Thursday, old man.  In
the meantime we'll both put on our thinking caps.  We really mustn't
decide in a hurry."

So they went on through the alleys of the town.  Silence and constraint
overtook them, yet a sense of real and growing friendship was always
there.  Ultimately they entered the dismal lane that divides the
barracks of the Spahis from those of the Legion.  And then the younger
man fixed a sudden grip upon the tunic of his companion.  "Jimsmitt,"
he whispered hoarsely, "I simply have to be in this.  If you won't take
me I shall go by myself.  And that's all there is to it."

They shook hands in the gloom and went their ways after a final and
desperate, "You will look out for me Thursday, won't you," from the
American.

Feverish with excitement Dorland climbed the dark stone stairs to his
dormitory.  New vistas were opening in his mind.  To escape, to be free
of this squalor!  Why had he not made up his mind sooner?  A man of
less imagination would certainly have done so.  It was said that to go
on pump by yourself in the desert was a short cut to hell.  Perhaps.
But that was the point he was coming to now.  Things had gone so ill
with him and there was so little hope of amendment they were bound to
get worse.  It was surely the hour for a gambler's throw.

Would the Englishman let him into his own caravan?  A few brief days
would decide.  Meanwhile Ambrose Dorland must forswear absinthe and
keep out of "clink."  To miss the route march would be fatal.  In that
event he was never likely to see his friend again.  Caught in a mill
race of hectic thoughts he sank once more into vile dreams.

Next day, for the time being free of _garde de chambre_ and with
nothing more tangible against him than the ill will of the
_sous-officiers_ and the malice of _les autres_, he gave himself up to
a mirage of hope.  He was like a galley slave who ventures to believe
that his dhow is about to sink.  That was the kind of exhilaration
Dorland felt.  It was a choice between the frying pan and the fire.
Dorland preferred the fire.  Would Jimsmitt take him?  Hour by hour
that grim question tore his mind.  It was the thought that closed his
eyes at night, the problem that opened them in the morning.

Sunday passed, a sorely needed time of comparative rest.  One had to be
a legionnaire to realise the true value of Sunday.  Then came Monday, a
day of peril, spent under the shadow of the sergeant major.  On Mondays
there were two kit inspections of a strict kind.  This bully invariably
started a new week by making it hot for somebody.  _La cellule_ never
loomed so near as on Monday.  Dorland went about his chores walking
very delicately, hoping thereby not to incur notice.  He slunk along
corridors when nobody was by, he watched the colour sergeant as a
performing dog watches the man with the whip.  It was degrading to be
in the toils of chartered brutes like these, but if the untoward
happened between now and Thursday, so that when the battalion marched
out on the monthly manoeuvres he was doing _salle de police_, his last
hope was gone.  Nothing would be left to him then except to go out into
the desert alone.

Monday passed, Tuesday passed.  He was still free.  Wednesday began
badly with a sharp reprimand from his corporal for some minor fault
committed by somebody else.  It was the kind of thing he was used to,
but he knew how easily it might lead to trouble.  Incidents of that
kind had a knack of breeding ugly and unforeseen consequences.  On
Wednesday night, therefore, it was a blessed relief to seek his hard
mattress with nothing definitely against him.  Unless Fate was holding
some dirty trick in reserve which she meant to play at the very last
moment, and you couldn't trust the jade an inch, No. 17883 Ambrose
Dorland _soldat deuxime classe_, would march out with the rest of the
Ninth Company at 5:45 A.M. the next morning.

As it happened that inefficient bleu, that _pkin_ did march out.
Behind the famous band of the Legion playing _La Pompomire_, he swung
through the town with the others.  As he did so he felt that for once
certain ladies busily weaving a malign web had been caught napping.  He
was in a turmoil of excitement.  But he managed to keep himself in
hand.  It was not yet six o'clock in the morning, but the heat was
already severe.  His mind went back to that other hot day a month ago
which had changed his life.  Odd the way things happen.  Had not the
cruel heat of that day knocked him out he would never have met a good
Samaritan disguised as a corporal of the Fifth.  Today the sun of
Algiers promised to be just as hard upon a nerve-racked poilu whose kit
was more than he could carry; but a new strength was in his veins.

The march, as usual, was terribly gruelling.  By now the terrain was
only too familiar to Dorland.  The hard rough track was sown with
painful memories, but at least one spot which he passed was hallowed by
the aura of a friend.  He was a different man from what he had been a
month ago.  It was as if a lamp was lit in his heart.  At each brief
halt he looked around for Jimsmitt with a feeling of curious
excitement.  But disappointment succeeded disappointment.  His friend
was nowhere to be seen.  Dorland told himself that a wide gulf yawned
between a corporal of the Fifth Company and a common soldier of the
Ninth.  He must possess his soul in patience until the serious business
of the day was over, then he would be able to go forth boldly and seek
him.  But in the meantime he could not allay a gnawing anxiety.  It was
difficult not to put a sinister construction on this aloofness.  Had
the corporal had good news for him he must have found an early
opportunity to let him know it.  To Dorland his absence was
significant.  Evidently Jimsmitt had decided to turn down his appeal.




VI

Hour by hour they halted for a few minutes' rest, but no corporal of
the Fifth Company appeared, and Dorland's heart sank lower.  He had
been much too optimistic.  Jimsmitt was not going alone on the great
adventure.  What more likely than that the others should decline to
encumber themselves with an inexperienced rookie, physically weak, who
hardly knew a word of Arabic.  Yes, it was asking too much.  Dorland
tried to pluck the thought from his mind.  But at each halt the shadow
grew.  By noon it filled him with such savage depression that his head
once more began to swim.  Still he was determined to keep on now even
if in the end he fell down dead by the roadside.

Would that he might do so.  If his appeal were refused a worse death
awaited him.  He didn't know how he managed to keep going through all
the evolutions of a dreadful afternoon.  The twistings and turnings,
the taking of cover, the firing of blank cartridges became a form of
delirium.  He sweated and frizzled in his _capote_, he couldn't get his
breath after _pas gymnastique_ uphill and down.  All he did was merged
in a Walpurgis Night of crass insanity.  About five o'clock these
orgies were ended for the time being by the sound of the _Rompez_.  And
then Dorland, weak and gasping, sank to the earth on the verge of
collapse.

He had just strength enough left to go and collect a _gamelle_ of
_soupe_.  After that was eaten in the shade he felt better.  Then he
was free to lie down and sleep for two hours or to wander in the woods
and the fields before turning in for the night.  He must not think of
rest, however, until he had run to earth the corporal of the Fifth
Company and had spoken with him.  When he had smoked a cigarette he
went forth to look for Jimsmitt.

He had hardly gone ten yards upon his quest when he saw a familiar form
approaching.  Dorland realised at once that Jimsmitt was looking for
him.

A complex of strange, rather wild emotion, the American leapt forward
to greet his friend.  But he did not dare to glance at that face.  Doom
was in it.  Dorland's heart sank.  He did not know how he would survive
the blow he was about to receive.

"So here you are, old man," said the Corporal in his charming manner.
"Lucky to find you.  Like looking for a needle in a bundle of hay."

Dorland tried to read his fate in the casual tone.  But he was not
successful.  The tone was just as usual.  It told nothing.

"Where can we go to be quiet?"

"In the middle of that wood yonder," Dorland suggested huskily.  It was
as if each word clove to the roof of his mouth.  "No one there to
overhear, I fancy."

"Righto," said Jimsmitt cheerily, "I'll lead the way."

They walked across a carpet of pine needles, moss and fern and dry
leaves.  At every step Dorland felt his heart against his ribs.  Was
this white man, this congenial spirit about to dash the cup from his
lips?  He was friendly as ever.  Was it in him to deny one who was
thirsting and hungering for a little kindness?  Surely not.  Yet a
voice whispered in Dorland's ear that there was no ground for hope.

"This place looks all right," said the Corporal when they had trekked
in silence, one behind the other, for about a quarter of a mile.  "Sit,
my son."

Dorland sat.

"We'll light our fags and then we'll talk things over."  And Jimsmitt
also sat.

It seemed an age to Dorland before Jimsmitt really opened the ball.

"Well, young fellow," said the Corporal in a fashion curiously slow and
deliberate, "let us come to the horses.  We've gone into this matter
very carefully, my friend and I, we've talked it over pretty fully, and
we've decided that if you've really and truly made up your mind to join
the expedition you may do so."

Dorland needed some little time to grasp the full significance of these
words.  And then came a wave of intense relief.  A burst of gratitude
followed, low toned but emotional.

Jimsmitt cut it short with a laugh.  "My dear lad," he said, "keep all
that.  There's precious little to be thankful for.  I want you to get
that fixed in your mind.  You know pretty well what your present
troubles are, but when we find ourselves out there, a thousand, two
thousand, three thousand miles from the white race, if we ever get as
far, there's simply no saying what they will be."

"That I realise," said Dorland, "but I still thank you."

"We may go mad with thirst," said Jimsmitt, "we may be filleted by the
Touareg, we may be eaten by lions, we may be recaptured by _goums_, we
may be mutilated by marsh Arabs.  And even if we avoid every one of
these luxuries at the best of it we are bound to find life most
damnably unpleasant for a long time to come.  So I say again think it
all well over before you decide."

"I have already decided.  If you take me, I come."

"Stout fellow," laughed Jimsmitt.

But there was no laugh in Dorland.  Deep in his heart was the knowledge
that he was not a stout fellow.

However, that was neither here nor there.  It did not matter in what
colours Jimsmitt painted the picture, the younger man had fully made up
his mind to a great hazard.

"When do you start?"

"Wednesday evening at nightfall.  The sooner we go the better."

Dorland agreed.

"It suits you I hope."

"As far as I know at the moment it suits me down to the ground.  But as
the sergeant major always has it in for me I am quite likely to get
another trick of _garde de chambre_.  And should I happen to be doing
it on Wednesday I may not be able to get away until lights out."

"If you can't we'll wait till you come."

"Where do I pick you up?"

"You know the Arab quarter at the far end of the town?"

Dorland knew where it was.

"Then you know the common, and the bridge that leads to it."

"Yes, I can find those all right."

"Cross that bridge, and just before you enter the path that leads to
the Village Ngre turn rather sharp left.  Cut straight across the
common and you'll find a nest of squalid and rambling Arab houses.
When you get into the nest take the first turn right, and then the
first on the right again.  Then keep to the left until you come to a
long narrow street.  In the middle of the street you will find a kind
of archway.  The second house on the right under the archway has a
yellow door.  Give three sharp knocks on that door, and say to anyone
who opens it, 'I am a friend of Zeyd Mohammed,' and walk right in.  I
hope all this is clear."

To avoid any mistake Dorland repeated these directions in every detail.

"Good," said Jimsmitt.  "But in the darkness it may not be easy to see
the colour of the door, so don't forget to bring a box of matches.  By
the way," he added, "I suppose these blighters made you part with your
suit of civvies when you came here?"

Dorland said they had.

"Well, I'll arrange for some clothes for you.  And, by the way, do you
happen to have some money?  Every penny we can scrape together will be
needed.  And the more we have the better our chances at the start."

Dorland, it seemed, was very well provided with money.  Astonishingly
well provided for a legionary.  He had no less than two thousand francs
to his name at the Crdit Lyonnais in Sidi-bel-Abbs.

"Croesus," said Jimsmitt with a glowing eye, "that's a sum that will
help considerably."

"I will draw it out as soon as we get back," said Dorland, "and then
I'll hand it over to you."

"Splendid," said Jimsmitt.  And they proceeded to arrange a meeting
outside the bank in the town at half past five on the next afternoon
but one.  It was the earliest practicable moment and it seemed to
clinch their bargain.

"I suppose I mustn't bring my gun and bayonet?"

"No, old man, you mustn't.  Travel as light as possible.  And at the
first opportunity you've got to look as little like a legionary as you
can.  Leave your knapsack, also your _capote_.  But there's one thing
you might do.  Should you happen to see the sergeant major's automatic
hanging up in the guard room slip it into your pocket if you get the
chance.  In the places we're bound for it may be worth its weight in
diamonds."

"Anything else?" said Dorland with a dour smile as he made a note of
the suggestion.

"Let me urge you to be at the tryst as soon after dark as possible.
The start may be touch and go.  It is of great importance to be well on
our way before dawn."

Dorland promised to bear this in mind.  But he said again that he might
be faced with certain obstacles.  Jimsmitt in his wisdom was ready to
make allowances for these.

This matter finally settled, the two friends lay side by side under the
spreading leaves of an acacia, talking a little, smoking steadily,
thinking a great deal.  To the younger man with his peculiar
temperament the sense of comradeship was soothing and delightful.  He
knew really nothing about this man he had picked up, but there was no
mistaking the white man and the gentleman.  Dorland had no doubt that
he was a man with a history.  That applied, almost without exception,
to every soldier of the Legion.  Unless he were an ignorant fool, a
term Dorland did not hesitate to apply to himself, no man with the
hallmark of birth and breeding upon him would ever find his way to the
depot at Sidi-bel-Abbs except for some very private reason.  What
crime had Jimsmitt committed?  What wrong had he wrought?  It was hard
to think of one who remained so gentle and charming in spite of the
life he led, in any such connection, but Dorland felt that so it must
be.  All the same, these were blissful hours.  They were a couple of
down-and-outs; the world to which they both belonged was bound so to
regard them; but deep called unto deep in a miraculous way.  Each was
stronger for the proximity of the other.  The things they had suffered
were branded upon their hearts.  Others, perhaps more terrible, lay
immediately ahead.  Yet Dorland felt it was going to be far easier to
sustain them, whatever they might prove to be, with the help of this
unknown who in his darkest hour had come to him so providentially.




VII

When Dorland found himself back in the caserne, about five in the
afternoon of the following day, he was still in the throes of an
excitement he could not suppress.  Dead beat with marching and toiling
under an African sun, he went straight to the _chambre_ and flung
himself onto his cot.  Yet he could not rest.  A thousand devils had
him in their grip.  He closed his eyes, but strange horrors swam in
front of them.  There was naught for it but to rise and turn to
_astiquage_, that eternal meaningless polishing of leatherwork which
every man did so unwillingly and with a sense of grievance.  He was
coming to think, however, that even _astiquage_ had its uses.  Just now
it was a bromide for a mind feverish with anticipation.

Where a week ago he counted the days he now counted the hours.  If all
went well the freedom he craved with his entire being was very near.
At the back of his mind, however, he knew the "if" was a big one.
Lately a sense of malign fate had fallen upon him.  He felt in the
marrow of his bones that he was in the grip of an occult power.
Something told him, even as he applied wax and elbow grease furiously
to the leather, that before Wednesday at sundown a concealed rock was
bound to trip him up.  Was it that in his overburdened _cafard_-haunted
brain he already carried the germs of dissolution?  Imagination doth
make cowards of us all.  It was tragically true.  Dorland had always
been strung a little too high.  As a child he had been afraid of his
own shadow.  Ambitious to prove his manhood he had joined _la lgion
trangre_ as a common soldier.  What a piece of vainglorious folly!

He heard a heavy step at the far end of the long room.  It was so
familiar and so disconcerting that Dorland bent his sweating face
lower.  He did not dare to look up, yet he knew that Corporal Fabre was
gazing at him.  Also he knew that Fabre was in a sour mood, and that he
was only too likely to vent it upon somebody.  Dorland held his breath.
What new injustice was this low bully about to wreak?  In a quake of
fear the young man waited for the sound of that hated voice.  Would it
be some loathesome _corve_?  Would he rivet some imaginary crime upon
him?  If so it meant one further skid upon the precipitous path that
was sending him headlong to the _Zphyrs_.

Dorland heard the fellow's mattress creak.  Still not daring a glance
towards the zone of danger he realised that Corporal Fabre, too
dog-tired to bully for the sheer love of the game, had decided upon
slumber.

The young man waited until his enemy had fairly closed his eyes.  Then
he left the room with a swiftness that suggested the presence of a
rattlesnake.  He would have to be horribly cunning if he were to retain
his freedom until Wednesday night.  Hope was making him a worse coward
than usual.  But he couldn't help that.  One and all these incarnate
beasts had it in for Number 17883.  The sergeant major had already
announced that the next go of _salle de police_ would mean _Conseil de
Guerre_ for Monsieur Mutt.  And then, _mon enfant_, the _Zphyrs_.
Yes, the only wise course was to keep out of their way.  The mere sight
of such a _pkin_ was enough to inflame them.  Let him not meet
Sergeant Major Hauptmann in the middle of the stone stairs as he crept
down.  Rather would he meet a tiger.

Sweating blood Dorland dragged his weary bones across the barrack yard
to the canteen.  Several men were there, but having made sure they
included none of his own _escouade_ he found the courage to order a
litre of red wine.  It seemed to give him a little of the strength, not
only of body but of soul, that he so cruelly needed.

Thus fortified he made his way to the gate.  He had an appointment at
the bank in the town at half past five, but it was in the power of the
sergeant of the guard to prevent his keeping it.  This functionary
turned men back on the slightest pretext.  A missing button or a sash
askew was enough.  Dorland had an anxious moment while the
jack-in-office passed an eye over him.  But he was dressed carefully
and the fellow let him through.

Dorland found himself on the narrow pavement outside the Crdit
Lyonnais a few minutes before the appointed time.  But Jimsmitt was
there already.  "Welcome as the flowers in May" was his greeting of the
American.

The young man entered the bank, presented his chit and received all
that stood to his name, which was rather more than two thousand francs.
Then the two friends walked down the street to a quiet haunt where they
could buy a cup of coffee.  Here, while they refreshed themselves in a
deserted corner of the room, the money was handed over.

"It feels good," said Jimsmitt, crinkling the notes in his fingers.  "I
had no idea I had struck such a plutocrat.  But this is going to help
considerably.  It will give us an excellent send-off at any rate.
Still, my son, you had better keep two hundred francs for yourself."

Dorland in his generosity was inclined to demur.  But Jimsmitt was
firm.  "It's an insurance against rubs in the meantime," he said.  "One
should never be without a little of the ready in a crisis.  You may
have to grease the palm of a corporal or a sergeant between now and the
night.  It's always well in the Legion, or anywhere else for that
matter, to have a bit in hand.  But this princely nineteen hundred of
yours together with the bit I've scraped together myself should give us
a really good start.  Still, it's bound to be touch and go all the
time.  The military police around here are the devil.  We must get out
into the desert as soon as ever we can.  Once there we may take some
tracking."

The American proceeded solemnly to rehearse his previous instructions.
He was found to be letter perfect.  They sat in the caf talking and
smoking until it was time to return to barracks.  Dorland, however,
went forth a few minutes before the Corporal; it would have been unwise
for them to be seen together.

The night was very hot.  Bone tired though he was, Dorland slept ill.
Tossing from side to side on a hard and narrow mattress, he felt a kind
of vertigo as the events of the past two days flowed back into his
mind.  The prospect of escape filled him with a wild excitement.  It
seemed too good to be true.  Days ago he had given up hope of getting
away from this Inferno.  Dope had begun already to inhibit his will,
yet with the help of others he might achieve what he could not begin to
do for himself.  And taking things at their lowest, an end in the
desert, whether at the instance of thirst, starvation, pestilence, wild
beasts or the merciless Bedouin, was to be preferred to dying like a
rat in a sewer or, if _le cafard_ came upon him, like a mad beetle in
the sun.

Sunday went off very well.  By the mercy of Allah nothing of
consequence happened.  Corporal Fabre, Sergeant Major Hauptmann and
other dangerous luminaries did not trouble him much and he took care
not to trouble them.  But it was like being in a powder magazine,
lighted candle in hand.  One spark might blow him up.  Not for a moment
of that long day could he ignore the painful necessity of keeping out
of _la cellule_.  If he found himself locked up there on the fateful
Wednesday evening there would be an end of the good chance.

However, Sunday passed without mishap.  More or less it was a day of
rest for this herd of bullied, over-driven men.  Dorland felt the
better for it, particularly as he was able to snatch a little sleep in
the afternoon.  When he turned in that night and was out of harm's way
for another eight hours, it was with a thankful heart.  The time was
getting short and he was still at liberty.

Monday, however, as Mondays did as a rule, began ill.  Sergeant Major
Hauptmann informed him at kit inspection, an ugly sneer in his tone,
that he would be required for _garde de chambre_ the whole of that
week.  This was a heavy blow.  Not only did it mean extra _corves_,
and being at the beck and call of the _escouade_ from _rveil_ to
lights out, but also it meant he would not be able to get through the
barrack gates into the town.  It was sheer injustice, a fresh mark of
tyranny and ill will, for it was not Dorland's turn for this hated
duty.  Besides, had he not, thanks to the spite against him, just had
three weeks on end?

The _pkin_ had to accept it with the best grace he could.  There was
no appeal.  Still he was half prepared for something of this kind.  A
week seldom passed in peace.  It was quite certain now that he would
not be able to keep the tryst on Wednesday at the time appointed.
Forewarned, however, was forearmed.  He must make his plans accordingly.

If not very brave he was pretty desperate now.  The attempt was going
to be vastly more risky, but even if it spelt death he was determined
to make it.  He must wait until lights out and the officer of the night
had paid his visit of inspection, and then he would creep like a mouse
into the barrack yard, scale the high wall unobserved, and slip away
down the line at the back which led to the town gate.  This programme
would add immensely to the hazard.  But it was the only one practicable
now.  And even this depended on no fresh trouble overtaking him between
now and Wednesday night.

Monday was a strenuous day.  It was full of excursions and alarms of a
minor sort.  But any one of them might lead to a clash with the
Sergeant Major whose attitude towards him had never been more
threatening.  The same applied to Corporal Fabre.  Among his _corves_
was the cleaning of that officer's boots and the performance of his
_astiquage_.  Dorland hated this as much as he dreaded it.  The
ruthless eye of Corporal Fabre was quite likely to see flaws in his
work where none existed.  Any pretext sufficed to put some new
indignity upon him.  And Fabre knew, none better, how little was now
required to fix up this _pkin_ with the Sergeant Major.

Monday was a day of tribulation, yet it wore to an end without
disaster.  No. 17883 was still unmarked for punishment.  He stretched
his weariness upon a hard couch with a more or less thankful heart.
Two days more.  That was the thought that flamed like a torch in an
overwrought brain.  If anything untoward happened now he felt he should
go mad.

Tuesday dawned.  Already he was on the threshold of the day, and was
still out of "clink."  If flesh and blood could manage it, he must
remain at liberty.  But the sharp note of the bugle in the yard below
had a truly inimical sound.  Still the day wore on.  He was overmuch in
the eye of Corporal Fabre, but he did his work so thoroughly that it
left no loophole for his tormentor.

That night as Dorland turned in he could hardly realise how near he was
to the grand finale of the morrow.  Rather unexpectedly he was soon
asleep and for once bad dreams were spared him.  Wednesday broke with
the usual promise of stifling heat.  But as Dorland sprang from that
hateful mattress for the last time he felt ready for anything.  He was
keyed to a high pitch now the day had come at last.  Every spark of
nerve would be tested to the utmost before that day, or rather that
night, was out.  But he was still a very young man.  Life was
sufficiently unexplored to be dear to him.  He felt an exhilaration
almost terrible when he thought of what he was about to do.

The preliminaries would have been quite simple had it not been for the
unlucky fact of _garde de chambre_.  Absence would be noticed at once,
and must rouse a hornet's nest inconveniently soon.  Besides it was
hardly likely the sergeant would let him through the barrack gates when
the others passed out at five o'clock.  He was half inclined to try it
on, yet all things considered it seemed wise to refrain.  Why risk an
almost certain miscarriage?  Therefore he was content to take a stroll
round the barrack yard about six o'clock and carefully survey
beforehand the place for his climb.  The wall was high and there were
spikes on the top, but adventurous spirits had recourse to it
constantly when they desired to be out late without permission.
Sometimes they failed, but Dorland being light and active had no fear
that when the time came he would not be able to get over the top.
Would he be seen by the sentries?  That was the question.

He must wait for the _appelle_.  There was no bugle or whistle for the
_appelle_, but at nine o'clock sharp an officer made the rounds to see
that all were in their rooms and to note the missing.  The door would
burst open as if a cyclone had struck it, and the officer would look
about to see that every man stood to attention at the foot of his bed,
if he was not in bed already.  If a man came in after the _appelle_ he
was punished and further permission to go out refused.  At ten o'clock
the bugle played for the last time and all lights were extinguished.

Dorland had decided to wait for this ceremony.  But he must not try to
get away too soon afterwards, as there was still too much light in the
sky and he might be seen climbing the wall.  He made his arrangements,
as far as he could, against the moment of flight.  But they did not
amount to much.  Jimsmitt had advised him to travel with but a very
little of his kit.

One article there was which Jimsmitt in his wisdom had suggested he
should bring.  That, if he could lay his hand upon it, was the
automatic of the Sergeant Major.  Such a weapon, Jimsmitt had assured
him, might prove beyond rubies.  But Dorland did not feel inclined to
run any undue risk in the matter.  Yet it was on the cards when at a
quarter to nine he went down to the guard room with the daily list of
defaulters, one of the numerous extra duties of a _garde de chambre_,
that a chance would arise.

At a quarter to nine Corporal Fabre handed him the list as usual.
Already seething with excitement he went to beard the lion in his den.
The door of the guard room was open, but Sergeant Major Hauptmann, who
was generally there at that hour with a large pair of spectacles
obscuring his ugly nose, was mercifully absent.  Hastily Dorland placed
the list on his desk.  As he did so he grew aware that Sergeant Major
Hauptmann's automatic, the dreaded of all men, which had taken more
than one life in cold blood without cause, was hanging on a nail in its
usual place.

Dorland gazed swiftly round to make sure that the room was empty.  Then
just as quickly he made a dive for the weapon and slipped it in his
tunic.  The whole thing did not take more than a minute, yet it opened
the door to immediate consequences.  Dorland had not time to pass from
the room before he was arrested by a sound on the threshold.  Smartly
he drew back, and so avoided butting Sergeant Major Hauptmann full in
the middle of the stomach.

"It's you, my friend," said Hauptmann with the dangerous suavity he
reserved for the most eminent members of his black list.  "Here, what's
your hurry?  Stay a minute.  Don't scuffle off like that, you rat.  Let
me see if your name is in the bill."

Dorland had no reason to think it was, but he waited in considerable
fear, while the chief bully put on his spectacles and ran his eye over
the names.  "Seemingly not," he said.  "I must find out the reason.  We
must have that little matter put right, eh, _mon gars_?"  He smiled
like a wolf with two rows of long yellow teeth.  "You'll like to know,
I'm sure, that this next time I am bringing your name to the Captain's
notice."

Dorland felt it wise to say nothing.  He was content to salute smartly
and go.  Nor did he stand upon the order of his going.  He had a
horrible dread that Sergeant Major Hauptmann's truculent eye would
stray to the wall above his desk and behold the rape of his beloved
pistol.  Even as he bore the Sergeant's persiflage he cursed himself
for being such a fool as to run this risk.  Serve him right if the
beast caught him out.

Luckily for Dorland it was the beast who was caught out.  At any rate
for the moment.  In a horrid state of nerves Number 17883 got clear
away from that grisly room.  God, how he was sweating as he went up
those stone stairs to his _chambre_!  What an idiot to put his neck
into such a noose!  At the first boom of nine from the clock in the
hall below he was standing at the foot of his cot.  It was the hour of
the _appelle_.  His many duties of that never-ending day were ended.
And now the fun was about to begin.  He had been careful to prime
himself with a couple of litres of the good red wine they sold at the
canteen.  This gave him a kind of Dutch courage.  Heaven knew he would
need it before the night was through.

Into the room burst Sergeant Major Hauptmann like a shot out of a gun.
God, the beast had missed that automatic!  What a treble-plied fool to
be carrying it upon him!  He was bound to be suspected.  Why in
heaven's name had he not had the sense to pitch it over the barrack
wall before coming upstairs?  Discovery was certain.  And then...

Sergeant Major Hauptmann, however, had not yet made a sign.  He was
running an accusing eye over the room, but it was accusing nobody in
particular.  It was simply that a human cyclone was making its rounds
as usual.  In rather less than two minutes Sergeant Major Hauptmann was
gone.  Sweating like a pig Dorland lay down fully dressed on his cot.
He must wait until the swift African darkness had fallen.  Then he
would creep down those stairs and shin up the outer barrack wall and
drop into the lane beyond.  He filled in some of the time by furtively
stowing about his person a few light articles, which included a
jack-knife, a box of matches, a ball of string, a packet of cigarettes.
Then followed more waiting, accompanied by a growing nausea of
excitement, which made him feel physically sick.




VIII

At last he decided it was dark enough.  The bugles had not yet sounded
the general "lights out," but it seemed best to go before they did.  To
slip down the stairs of the caserne and out into the deserted barrack
yard took but a few seconds.  Moving like a cat, for danger was
everywhere, he crept swiftly along in the shadow of the main wall of
the barracks, made a dash across to the outer wall at a timely moment
with no sentry by, and came to the place he had chosen.  It had been
chosen by the light of day, and with judgment.  The climb was not
really difficult.  It called for resolution, but his nerves were geared
high.  Something more than ten feet of bricks and mortar was needed to
stop him now.

He had to look out for the row of spikes at the top.  However, as there
was still a fair amount of light it was tolerably easy to avoid.  Quick
as thought he came down the face of the wall and half slid, half fell
into a bed of rubble and short grass on the other side.  At first he
held himself close to the wall in case a sentry was near.  But there
did not seem to be a soul about.  Hugging the shadow of the wall he
slowly approached the outer barrack gate.  This he must pass if he was
to find his way into Sidi-bel-Abbs.

As he crept along by this wall it was disconcerting to find how much
light still remained.  The sky, glowing like a dark jewel, was sown
thick with stars.  And the moon was already up.  Being in the fourth
quarter it was very much against him.  Still he must take his chance.
The question was should he walk boldly past the gate as if on a lawful
occasion and run the risk of being challenged, or should he proclaim
its obvious irregularity by creeping on all fours, with a final bolt,
hell for leather, if the sentry spotted him?

This nice point occupied him some little time.  Then he conducted a
reconnaissance of a very cautious kind with the shadow of the wall to
cover him.  The commonsense of the matter seemed to be to lie doggo.
Any sentry would guess what he was up to at that place at that hour.
Hands and knees were the only safe mode for the moment.  He got down to
them accordingly.  And very thankful he was that he did.  For just as
he had done so a bayonet gleamed suddenly in the moonlight from the
farther angle of the barrack wall.

Observing the sentry coming along by the wall at the regulation pace
Dorland wriggled on his belly into some fairly long grass a few yards
off.  This made excellent cover.  As soon as the sentry had walked past
him, Dorland set another angle of the wall between them.  Then, having
satisfied himself that no one was coming round the other angle, he made
his way boldly and swiftly into the lane that ran past the barrack gate.

Once there the worst was over.  He was not likely to be challenged now.
In a few minutes he would be through the town gate.  It was one of five
and they were always unguarded.  There would be other perils to look
out for by the time he approached the Village Ngre.  But so far he had
done well, and for the time being might count himself reasonably safe.

Without misadventure he got into the town.  Just as he entered the rue
Sidi Carnot the clocks began to strike ten.  Even at that hour the
streets were fairly busy.  Some of the men of his own regiment had
permission to be out until midnight, and there were many Chasseurs
d'Afriques, Spahis, Houssas and other picturesque looking folk who
shared this privilege.  But Dorland did not loiter even for a last
drink at one of many cafs that invited him.  Every nerve was at the
stretch; his heart beat up into his throat.  He would know no peace
until he had found Jimsmitt.  And it was by no means certain that he
would know it then.  His boats were burnt.  For better, for worse, the
great chance was already taken.

As he went swiftly through Sidi-bel-Abbs towards the Arab quarter new
fears attacked him.  The Arab quarter was a nest of foul slums and
alleys which could only be reached through the Port Cocu.  This gate,
with narrow bridge, gave directly onto a common, and was the main
highway to the Village Ngre, which was strictly out of bounds for a
legionary at any time.  A man entering it at this hour ran a double
risk of having his throat cut and his pockets rifled or being spotted
by a sergeant and picket and run back to barracks at the point of the
bayonet.  The sequel to the latter was thirty days' hard labour.

As Dorland drew near to the Port Cocu his fears took a new shape.
Maybe his real troubles were only now beginning.  He could see the dark
bulk of the Arab quarter away to the left not far ahead.  Moonlight
bathed that huddle of roofs with a sinister radiance.  Such filthy
stews were full of danger.  But he must chance all that.  It was even
more important to keep a sharp look-out for the sergeant's guard.

Passing through the Port Cocu he was met by the long and narrow bridge.
This spanned a broad ditch which ran between the town walls and the
common.  Beyond the common, immediately ahead, was the Village Ngre,
and rather sharp to the left was the place Dorland was now making for,
the network of squalor that formed the Arab quarter.  Already he was on
forbidden ground.  It behoved him to be watchful indeed since this was
just the hour in which he was most likely to be trapped.

He had crossed the bridge and was stepping on to the common when he
suddenly realised that the very thing he feared was about to happen.  A
sergeant of the Legion with a picket of four men who carried fixed
bayonets were coming along the path from the Village Ngre and heading
straight towards him.  The bright moonlight made that clear enough.
They were perilously near and even if he stepped aside to allow them to
pass they were bound to see him.

It was an awkward fix, and it was full of danger.  What should he do?
There was only a very few seconds in which to make up his mind.  They
were almost face to face.  Two courses were open.  He could
right-about-face and bolt the way he had come, trusting to escape in
the maze of streets of the town itself, or he must dodge quickly out of
their path and set off across the common direct to the Arab quarter.
As it was unlawful for a legionary to be across the bridge at that hour
pursuit was certain in either event.

There was no time to weigh the pros and cons.  Suddenly he decided upon
the bolder line.  In the thrall of fear it was less a decision than an
instinct.  Now that he had come so far he could not turn back and
re-enter the dangerous town.  Yet the alternative was even more
perilous.

Barely had he stepped aside to allow the guard to pass when he was
challenged.  "Halt!  Who goes there?"  Instantly he broke into a run.
There was nothing else for it.  His promptness gave him a few yards'
start.  When it came to a chase those few yards would be precious.

"Halt!" cried a stern voice, "or I fire."

Dorland took no notice.  He ran on, not daring to look back.  But he
was not really afraid of the threat.  Everybody knew the picket did not
carry ball cartridges.  Their bayonets were the things he had to look
out for.  And these could only be used at close quarters.  Again he
heard the harsh voice of the sergeant.  There came no shots, yet he had
a sense of what in the circumstances was something worse.  The picket
was coming after him as hard as it could lick.

All depended now on one simple factor.  It was his legs against theirs.
He judged that he had a start of a hundred yards or even a little more.
Every one of those hundred yards would be needed.  Still he was not
without hope.  Young and active, and with very life at stake, he was
prepared to run until he dropped.  His pursuers had no such spur.  They
were merely doing their duty at the beck of a hard taskmaster who alone
would receive _kudos_ for his capture.  Also they had their guns to
carry.  And in the fashion of the Legion which even wore it on a forced
march through the heat of the desert, each man was probably encumbered
with a _capote_.

As Dorland maintained a good pace over the rough and stony common
without the enemy seeming to gain upon him, he felt that if he kept his
head and did not trip over some unforeseen snag he had a fair prospect
of getting away.  Never had his brain been so alert.  His objective was
the Arab quarter, but he must be careful not to let them know the exact
spot he was making for lest they found a means of cutting him off.  The
common had many pitfalls.  Boulders and potholes and trappy bits of
ground abounded, while to make matters worse Dorland's feet were very
sore.  But with life hanging in the balance, all that he had of mind
and will and energy made a powerful response.

By the time he was half way across the common, perhaps a distance of a
quarter of a mile, he ventured to look back.  His pursuers were
following as hard as they could, but they did not seem to be gaining
upon him.  He decided not to go any faster for the time being, although
he might have done so.  But he wisely determined to leave something in
hand for a final spurt when he reached the Arab quarter.  This was
where the real chance of escape would occur.

Soon he was upon the outskirts of that noisome, evil-looking village.
At the sounds of running and shouting from the men behind, the rattle
of arms and the clatter of feet, dark forms scuttled off like rabbits
into their burrows.  Arabs are never fond of moonlight and after
sundown they do not care for noises in the street.  _Gendarmes_ chasing
a thief or a murderer through the bowl of night was a fact with which
the quarter was only too familiar, but the sons and daughters of the
Prophet indulge no idle curiosity in such affairs.  One man is so very
like another in the sight of the law that mistakes sometimes occur, and
if the _goums_ lose one quarry they have been known to pick up a
substitute.

As the sounds of the hunt, clear and distinct, approached, the few
persons abroad hastened to find shelter.  When Dorland entered the main
street he was still a hundred yards ahead and going as well as his
foes.  But it was now that he had to use his brain.  He must recall the
instructions of Jimsmitt.  Above all he must turn them to account.  Yet
as soon as he entered the first of these devious ways he realised that
it would be fatally easy to run into a trap.  If his pursuers saw the
point he was making for they might catch him presently in an alley or a
cul-de-sac.

"First to the right," said Jimsmitt, "first to the right again.  Then
keep to the left until you come to a long narrow street.  In the middle
of the street you will find a kind of archway.  The second house on the
right under the archway has a yellow door.  Give three sharp knocks on
that door."

There was much to remember, grave risk to run.  Dogs began to bark
furiously as the chase went by.  Dorland was still well ahead by the
time he took the first to the right, yet before he could take the first
to the right again the picket had turned the corner and was able to see
the way he went.

Now it was he spurted in the hope of making the next point, the first
turn to the left, before they were again in view.  But again he was
unlucky.  The hunters were keeping track of him extremely well.  He ran
harder than ever.  Another turning brought him into the street that was
the longest yet.  And its houses were so close together it was also the
darkest.  Soon he saw the archway.  It was exactly where Jimsmitt said
it would be, on the right, half way down.  Dorland cast back a hasty
glance.  The enemy had yet to round the corner.

He turned aside into the darkness of the archway.  Crouching down close
to the wall of a house whose shutters gave not a ray of light, he
waited for the sergeant and his men to pass by along the street.  But
it was taking a horrible chance.  He was gambling on the prospect of
his foes keeping straight on.  It was foolhardy.  If they happened to
turn aside and explore the archway, as they were quite likely to do, he
would be neatly trapped.

Crouching in the darkness, his heart in his mouth, Dorland seemed to
live a lifetime in a few seconds.  He could hear the loud clatter of
boots on the rough cobbles, he could even hear the grunts and the
wheezes of the heavy-breathing runners.  Prone in the dust of the entry
to minimise every chance of being seen as they passed, Dorland lay in a
moil of fear.  In spite of the panics he had lived through in the past
eight months, this was the worst yet.  His enemies were within a very
few yards.  But as far as he could tell they were not stopping.
Grunting and wheezing they were keeping steadily on down the long and
narrow street.

When Dorland was quite sure they had passed he rose from the dust of
the alley.  Before anything else happened or they had time to turn upon
their tracks he must find the house with the yellow door.  There lay
sanctuary.  But under the arch it was so dark he would have to strike a
match to look for it.  Listening keenly he made sure that the sounds of
pursuit were fading in the distance to a continual accompaniment of
barking dogs, and then he struck a match.  It gave precious little
light.  Five were required before he could satisfy himself that the
house with the yellow door was the second up the short dark alley.

It was a real satisfaction to find that the door, although very dirty,
had claims to be called yellow.  Dorland felt for the latch and tried
it, only to discover that it was securely barred.  Then he remembered
Jimsmitt had said it would be and that he must knock three times.
Before doing this he listened again.  All sound of the hunt had ceased.
He took the automatic from his tunic and gave three smart taps upon the
door.  The only answer was the furious barking of a dog in the next
house.  He knocked again, still harder.  There was no time to lose.  At
any moment the picket might return.

Pressing his ear to the wood he could detect sounds within.  It was
like a person shuffling across a flagged courtyard.  Through a crack in
the door he could now see a flicker of light, very faint.  There was a
click of bolts, the grunting of a key.  "For God's sake be quick,
whoever you are!" muttered Dorland.  So far as he knew the real danger
was past, but the tug at his nerves was still heavy.

The door opened a few inches, slowly.  An Arab woman, veiled to the
eyes and wearing a haik, held a small petroleum lamp above her head.
She peered at him cautiously.

"I am a friend of Zeyd Mohammed."  Dorland remembered his instructions.

The Arab woman made no reply, but she opened the door wide enough for
Dorland to pass in.  As soon as he entered she hastened to close the
door.  With relief indescribable the fugitive heard the shooting of the
bolts and the turning of the key.  He was free.  More or less he was
free.  But even now he did not feel quite out of the wood.  Beyond the
lamp in the Arab woman's hand the place was like a pit.  And it had an
unwholesome smell, a sort of atmosphere you could cut with a knife.
Dorland, however, was ceasing to be fastidious.  Besides, it was sheer
ingratitude to be critical of this asylum.

He was in a kind of stone-flagged patio common in Arab houses.  It was
across this he had heard the woman flapping in her red slippers.
Through the shadows he could make out dimly a row of wooden stairs.
Dorland was not invited to ascend, but was conducted by the lamp bearer
through a curtained alcove at the foot of them into a small airless
chamber whose heat was stifling.  But that didn't trouble him.  At last
he was beginning to feel reasonably secure.

So far as he could tell no one else was in the small room.  But he soon
learned this was an illusion.

"Here you are, old man," said a familiar voice.  "Make yourself quite
at home."  It was the voice of Jimsmitt, there could be no doubt about
that.

In vain Dorland cast his eyes around the room.  There was not a sign of
a third person.  Only the Arab woman in her veil and her voluminous
haik was there, he would take his oath.  Suddenly a low rich laugh
struck through the maze of Dorland's bewilderment.  Yet he could not
find a key to the mystery.  There was no one else except the Arab
woman, that he would swear.




IX

The Arab woman, as it happened, was the key.  Dorland gave a sharp cry
as the truth broke upon him.  "Some disguise," he said, laughing
heartily.  It was the first real laugh he had enjoyed for many a month.
"I am completely had.  If you hadn't spoken I'd never have guessed."

"We've taken pains in the matter," said Jimsmitt, grinning through his
veil with modest pride.

"Simply gorgeous."  Dorland for the first time since his arrival in
North Africa was moved to enthusiasm.  He felt this perilous attempt
was going to be made upon the best professional lines.  Jimsmitt was
plainly an expert who meant to leave nothing to chance.  Taking the
matter at its lowest it seemed as if his nineteen hundred francs had
been well invested.

"Allow me to lead you into the beauty parlour," said Jimsmitt.  "And
I'll lend a hand in transforming you into a Moorish lady of fashion.
Come on this way."  In a businesslike manner, but still wearing haik,
red slippers and veil, so that only half the eyes were visible,
Jimsmitt opened a little door, drew aside a curtain and bowed Dorland
into a second fugg-hole.  It was a little larger, and if anything a
little hotter and a little smellier than the first.  A sort of
_batterie-de-toilette_ was laid out on a small table.  And a number of
articles indispensable to an Arab woman of the better class were
arranged on a divan.

"There's no maid to help you to prettify yourself," said Jimsmitt, "but
you are very welcome to the services, such as they are, of your Aunt
Fatima."

"Meaning yourself I presume," said Dorland, who could not help laughing
at the air of Oriental gravity.

"First you had better wash yourself thoroughly--face and neck, arms and
hands, feet and ankles--with the brown walnut juice in this bowl.  I
don't mind saying that personally I have had a complete bath in the
altogether.  Best to go the whole hog while one is about it, but of
course that's optional."

"I shall go the whole hog," said Dorland with a grin.

"O wise young man!  Take off your clothes.  Step into this canikin.
And then I'll pour the stuff gently over you.  It stains like sin, but
it is none the less excellent."

Dorland promptly took off every stitch of the hated uniform he wore,
stepped into a kind of hip bath and received the contents of the bowl.
It was a brown mixture, rather gummy, but as far as he could tell from
the uncertain flicker of a tiny lamp suspended from the ceiling and the
light which Jimsmitt had set upon a stool, it did its work.  Jimsmitt
took up a large sponge and proceeded to anoint him freely.  Said
Dorland, "I hope this stuff will not further inflame the blisters on my
poor feet."

"I hope not," said Jimsmitt in a tone not devoid of sympathy.  "But I'm
afraid those poor feet will have to be left in the hands of Allah.  It
is up to me to make you a complete work of art."

When Dorland had been duly painted he was advised to stand on a rug
until he was dry.  Jimsmitt then proposed to show him what to put on in
the way of clothes and how to wear them.  Meanwhile he would go and see
how supper was getting on, promising to return in five minutes.

Dorland had not bargained for a change of sex, but he did not doubt its
value in the circumstances.  As both were men on the short side, light
and spare of frame, with limbs of some delicacy, there was nothing
strikingly unfeminine to catch the eye.  The large veil which obscured
the whole face except the upper part of the eyes and the long haik
reaching to the heels completely disguised the figure.  A clever ruse
thought Dorland, and he began to feel that he had a chance of life.

Within the promised five minutes Jimsmitt returned.

"The third member of our party is not here yet," he said.  "I hope
nothing has happened to him.  He should have arrived before now.  But I
expect he's all right.  He's the sort of lad who can take care of
himself.  Now, my son, are you dry enough for your clothes?"

Dorland thought he was.  Underclothes were recommended to begin with.
These took the form of the coarse shirt and thick drawers he had
already removed.  They were unladylike garments, but equally good
against the burning sun and the chill wind of the desert.  The veil and
the haik, however, were the all-important things.  The haik was draped
carefully by the expert Jimsmitt, a caftan was bound Moorish fashion
round the temples and the veil was fixed _le dernier cri_.

"There you are, old man," said Jimsmitt, stepping back a couple of
paces and surveying this work of art with a chuckle.  "Your mother
wouldn't know you now.  And if one of those infernal _goums_ finds you
out he'll deserve a prize."

"Yes, I think so, too," said Dorland.  "That is if I make up half as
well as you.  I was properly taken in myself."

"You'll find a couple of very useful pockets inside your gown.  So
transfer from your tunic all the things you're likely to want.  Aha, is
that the sergeant major's automatic I see before me!"

Dorland without one prick of shame confessed the crime.

"Excellent youth!  And here is its peer."  Opening his haik the
Corporal disclosed his own belt.  It was full of cartridges and there
was a natty weapon beside it.

"Didn't seem worth while to bring cartridges," said Dorland.  "Ours,
you know, are blank."

"So are everybody's."

"Mercifully yes," thought Dorland, "otherwise I should not be here now."

"Well here are a few to be going on with.  Stick them into your pouch."
Jimsmitt counted out a dozen cartridges and handed them over.  "And now
for a bite of grub."

Taking up the light from the stool on which he had placed it, the
Englishman led the way along a short passage.  This was a typical
rambling Arab house of infinite ramifications.  It was very dark and
close and smelt ill.  Yet as Dorland followed in the wake of his friend
the smell improved.  It was not less pungent but distinctly more
agreeable.  Odours of roast meat began to mingle with the permanent
aroma.  And the spirits of Dorland accordingly rose.  After many weeks
of the extremely coarse fare provided by Madame la Rpublique, a mere
promise of other dishes was in itself a feast of Lucullus.  As Dorland
waddled along in loose Arab garments and the comfortable red slippers
that had replaced the hated brodequins he felt that already things had
begun to pan out well.

The room in which the feast awaited them was larger than the others.
It contained two Arab women, presumably mother and daughter, neither of
whom was prepossessing.  To judge by the elaborate way their hair was
dressed, the trinkets and gewgaws that bedizened them, the strong
coarse perfume with which they were anointed and the liveliness of
their gestures as they approached the table they were members of the
oldest profession in the world.  But they could not be said to charm
the eye of a Roumi.  However, that was a small matter compared with the
business that occupied them now.

A _couscous_ made of balls of boiled wheat and slices of chicken was
promptly set before the guests.  It was excellent and the two
legionnaries who had not tasted such food for many a day fell upon it
with real appetite.  Roast kid followed and this proved equally
delectable.  Red wine accompanied these good things.  Then came sweet
cakes, fruit and coffee, altogether an admirable meal and well
calculated to hearten the travellers.  It was eaten in the Arab
fashion, without the aid of knives and forks, but at the end of each
course a bowl of water was proffered into which the guest dipped his
fingers.

When the repast was over, Dorland and Jimsmitt feeling well satisfied,
retired to one of the smaller rooms to smoke and also to await the
arrival of the third member of the party.  He had been expected sooner
and Jimsmitt betrayed some little anxiety on his account.

"I hope nothing is wrong," he said as the clocks chimed midnight.  "It
is always the unexpected that happens, so we ought to be prepared."

However, these fears were soon allayed.  Almost as Jimsmitt spoke a
knocking could be heard on the outer door of the patio.  "Here he is, I
think," said Jimsmitt.  And he shuffled forth in his red slippers
across the courtyard to find out who was there.

He soon returned with a tall man, young and very handsome, who had the
look of a pure-bred Arab.  This man wore a burnous over a jellab, and
his air, his dress and his features, very swarthy yet finely cut, all
combined to give him a look of singular impressiveness.  Jimsmitt
played up to him in a humorous manner.  "All hail, O lord and master,"
he cried prostrating himself like a woman of the harem.

The newcomer appreciated the jest keenly.  His lips parted in a
flashing smile in which some very white and even teeth were displayed.
Zeyd Mohammed was his name and Dorland and he were promptly made known
to each other.  Dorland, who did not feel equal to clowning the rle of
wife that had been thrust upon him, was content to offer his hand.  It
received a very powerful grip, in keeping with the fine specimen of
manhood who gave it.

"Is Abdulla all right?" Jimsmitt enquired in English.

"Oh, yes, yes," said Zeyd in the same tongue.

"Good," said Jimsmitt.  "Now go and eat the excellent supper that
awaits you.  Then come back here and smoke the pipe of friendship.  And
then we must start on the long, long trek."

When Zeyd had gone Jimsmitt asked the third member of the party what he
made of him.

"Difficult to say," Dorland answered guardedly, "but he looks as if he
might be terrible to his enemies."

"Yes," said Jimsmitt, "that is more than likely.  And I know by
experience that he is faithful to his friends.  We are lucky to have
him with us.  He was born and bred in the desert so there can be no
better guide."

"Is he on pump also?" Dorland enquired.

"Yes, he is one of us.  He, too, has had enough of the Legion.  Fresh
pastures call him.  And that is mainly the reason why we three meet
here tonight."

"By the way, are you planning to make for any definite point?"

"More or less.  But of course we shall have to be guided by
circumstances.  So many things may happen, so many hazards may arise.
Our present idea is to trek across the desert into upper Egypt.  Of
course, it is a terrific journey.  And if all goes well and we don't
lose our way, which is almost certain, if we are able to escape hunger,
thirst, smallpox, cholera, the Bedouin, and the thousand and one things
likely to undo us, we shall be lucky if we make Khartoum in a year.  We
may find ourselves in places in which a white man has never set foot,
but we could not have a better guide than Zeyd.  He has made the
journey to Mecca, therefore he is a hajji of experience who has taken
high degrees; he is desert-wise as only a man of his sort can be; he is
familiar with many dialects and many tribes.  Without the help of a man
like Zeyd such a journey would be madness.  Even as it is the scales
are weighted heavily against us.  But '_In sh'Allah_' as the Arabs say.
As God wills."

"As God wills," said Dorland.  And then he repeated the phrase "_In
sh'Allah_," softly.




X

While Zeyd ate his supper the two friends smoked and drank some
excellent coffee.  They were at the threshold of high adventure, and
neither could dissemble a feeling of excitement.  But in Dorland the
emotion uppermost was relief.  He had contrived to escape from the
veritable hell in which he had been engulfed.  Even now he was not
clear of the wood, but it was his fixed intention never to return alive
to those dreaded barracks.  Though he did not underrate what lay ahead
he could only rejoice that the pains he was about to suffer would be
leading somewhere.  No longer would he be a mere butt for malignant
stupidity.  Besides, he would fare in the company of a true friend.
Jimsmitt was already very dear to him.  He liked the man, he trusted
him, they had many things in common, their minds marched together.

Zeyd did full justice to his supper.  There was no saying when he would
get another meal of that kind.  But in the process of time he returned
to the others, accepted a cheroot of strong Arab tobacco, and then at
Jimsmitt's bidding they went forth to seek the mysterious Abdulla.
They would then proceed upon their way.

It was a perfect night for a journey.  The air was balmy, the roads
were dry, the moon was near the full.  If anything there was more light
than they desired, for they had no wish to court the notice of the
inquisitive _goumier_.  But as they left the house which had served
them so well, and passed through the archway into a maze of zigzagging
streets they had every confidence in their disguise.  Only an Arab
_gendarme_ of supernatural powers, or a sergeant and picket gifted with
second sight could hope to perceive three deserters from _la Lgion
Etrangre_ in the bearded sheik in burnous and cowl, ambling peaceably
with his two veiled wives.

After moving for about twenty minutes through native hovels whose
reputation was none too clean they came without mishap to an open field
at the end of the village.  This contained a small stable, an affair of
mud and straw.  It also contained the mysterious Abdulla.

He was in the care of a negro who lay coiled up in a corner of the
stable.  As soon as Zeyd entered the negro sprang to his feet.  Abdulla
proved to be a donkey, a pretty mouse-coloured little moke with four
white stockings.  A full load for him had already been assembled in
this hovel, over which the negro was mounting guard.  The first item,
and in some respects the most important, was a small jointed tent of
black camel hair.  A true desert nomad asks naught better in which to
sleep on the longest and most arduous haj.  Also there was food, a fair
supply in divers gunny bags, three large girbys of water, several thick
rugs, a modest quantity of spare clothing, a copy of the Koran,
materials for writing, a box of ball cartridges and various other
articles that were likely to prove of service.

By the time Abdulla was saddled and loaded up it was getting on for two
o'clock.  The moon was like day when the party set forth in Arab
fashion single file, this peaceable, rather rustic sheik and his two
wives.  None could have guessed their destination.  It had surely been
pronounced sheer madness had any done so.  A sense of high exhilaration
was in all three.  Even Abdulla stepped along so nimbly that he might
be said to share it.

Zeyd was an ambitious young man.  But his age was camouflaged by the
length of his beard, which having multiplied itself by ten in the space
of a few minutes was now worthy of a prophet or a patriarch.  All the
same the fire of youth burnt in his fine dark eyes.  And big schemes
were in his heart.  He had acquired some experience of men and cities,
he had mingled with the Roumi and he was a first class warrior.  And
now he was afoot once more in that trackless desert which he knew and
loved as few men knew and loved it.  For that very reason none could
have been more keenly alive to its dangers.

By the time the dawn was showing this small caravan was well away on
its great journey.  Sidi-bel-Abbs, that abhorred place, was already
out of sight, some kilometres behind them.  The going was not bad,
although perhaps a little severe upon the red slippers of the ladies.
At present it was mainly hard clay.  When they came to the desert it
would yield to honey-coloured sand.  And then the ladies could doff
their slippers and walk barefoot.

Not extending themselves fully they maintained a very fair pace at the
start.  But as their trek was to be four thousand miles as the crow
flies, and only Allah could say what its length would prove to be in
the light of many unforeseen haps by the way, it was wise to keep
something in hand.  But they meant to lose no time in getting beyond
the immediate zone of danger.  A sharp look-out was kept for parties of
cursedly officious _goums_, who received a reward of twenty-five francs
for any deserter they brought in whether dead or alive.  As the reward
was the same in either case the _goums_ were quite impartial in the
matter.  But the three wayfarers, so complete was their disguise, felt
they need not fear these prowling enemies unduly.  However, it was not
their intention to wander out of the path to seek sorrow.  It is ever
the unexpected that happens.  _In sh'Allah_.  As God wills.

They made such excellent use of the early hours that by the time the
sun was up they were well on their way to the desert.  The scene had
great beauty.  Away to the east was the noble bulk of the Tell Atlas,
whose rocks, crowned with their gloom of trees, looked awe inspiring.
All around was a green and fruitful land.  But already they were
descending to a plain that led straight to the open wilderness.  The
sooner they reached that bourne the safer they would be.  Yet it would
mark the beginning of other perils.  They were entering a zone that
only very brave, very tenacious, very fortunate men, the chosen of
Allah, could hope to traverse.  Every crumb of bread, every drop of
water they carried was likely to be most precious, but towards noon
they decided to eat and rest.

It was while they sought a favourable spot among a grove of trees,
perhaps the last they would see for many a long and bitter hour, that
they came quite unexpectedly upon a party of six Arabs.  They were
fierce looking men, well mounted and well armed, and their rig
proclaimed them at once as of the kind the fugitives least wanted to
meet.

These were the dreaded _goumiers_.  And it would be necessary to
sustain their scrutiny.

"Peace go with you, brothers, in the name of Allah," promptly sang out
Zeyd Mohammed in his choice Arabic.  He saluted his brethren in the
polite fashion of his race.  The _goums_ looked him over keenly, but in
the Oriental manner they refrained from direct and open scrutiny of his
wives.

The result was satisfactory.  Indeed they must have been very sceptical
to doubt that a sheik so handsome and so courteous was other than he
seemed.  The _goums_ responded with the hauteur of a proud clan to the
genial long-beard.  But they gave him greeting for greeting and passed
on.

Zeyd chose a good place in the shade of some cork trees, the worthy and
charming Abdulla was out-spanned and then all set to upon the first
meal of their pilgrimage.  It had been fully earned.  And for that
reason it tasted sweet.  Yet it was severely plain, a little unleavened
bread and a few dates and for Abdulla a bit of honest corn.  If they
ate sparingly there was food for twenty days.  But water promised to be
the chief problem.  They drank a very small quantity, for already there
was no saying when they would be able to replenish the skins.  The
drought had been longer than usual and they had just passed a
watercourse that was hardly more than a bed of stones.

After this frugal meal they had a siesta.  Dorland stretched himself
luxuriously upon the warm sand.  For the first time for many a cruel
week God was in his heaven.  The tide of life flowed back into an
embittered heart.  Man's brutality had brought him to the verge of
madness.  But there was also a reverse side to the medal.  And the
intensity of his present realisation of that fact gave him a strange
joy.  He could not guess what hardship, what terrors lay ahead, and he
was wise enough not to try.  This thrice blessed hour sufficed for
Ambrose Dorland.  He was free as the sky above him, he was sound in
mind and body, a friend was stretched on either side.  Could man ask
more?

They did not go on until they were well rested.  Already the sun was
dipping when Zeyd smiling and cheerful led Abdulla forward at a
comfortable gait.  The two ladies of his harem walked behind him, side
by side now, talking in English.  Never in his life had Dorland felt
more happy.  The reaction from panic fears and the life of the underdog
was infinitely sweet.  "Jimsmitt," he said, thrusting an arm through
that of his friend, "I can never thank you enough for bringing me with
you."

"Better not sing too soon, old man.  We are only just entering the
wood.  No saying what the next turn in the game will be.  Zeyd, who
knows all there is to know about the desert, doesn't know that.  Every
sort of trap lies in wait for little excursion parties like ours."

"So I understand.  But after that hell-upon-earth we've just quitted,
this life somehow makes you feel good."

"It does.  All the same, let us continue to replenish our waterskins
and keep out of the hands of the Touareg or we shall find ourselves up
against something worse."

Dorland had heard tales of that dreaded veiled bandit of the desert
into whose country they were about to venture.  Unspeakably cruel, very
bold, unceasingly active, the Touareg were a menace alike to the lonely
nomad and the armed caravan.  Zeyd did not minimise the danger.  He was
the sworn enemy of these robbers and with reason.  It was the Touareg
who had impaled the living body of his father upon a palm tree and had
carried away his mother and sisters into captivity.  The guide had
every reason to hate and fear the Touareg.  And now he was so near the
hunting grounds of these savages he marched with eyes all round his
head and slept with one of them open.

Zeyd Mohammed advised travel by night with the help of a friendly moon
to avoid the heat of the day.  There was the further advantage that the
gentle Touareg was not fond of the moon.  It was known to be a powerful
deity, one of the many evil spirits who played them tricks.  The
Touareg could not be said ever to lack boldness.  None who had to do
with him questioned his courage, but it was thought he was most to be
feared in the daytime.

The caravan made excellent progress.  By noon on the fourth day all
signs of vegetation had been left behind.  Mile upon mile, as far as
the eye could scan, there was never a sign of a tree or a watercourse
or even a blade of grass.  A yellow wilderness stretched all round
them.  The sense of infinity struck at the heart.  And as the sun
poured down at midday with no friendly rock or tree to mitigate its
terrible power, Dorland understood why Jimsmitt had thought well to
dash the cup of rejoicing from his lips.  Nature the pitiless was just
as much to be feared as Sergeant Major Hauptmann of the Ninth Company
or the Touareg of the Sahara.

It was now that the hair tent borne by Abdulla proved such a boon.  At
any time it could be fixed up in a few minutes.  And in the midst of a
furnace of burning sand, with no hint of shelter for a hundred miles,
it was a true blessing.  Moreover it was shared equally by three men
and a donkey.  A merciful man is merciful to his beast.  It was their
first care to see that the willing and gentle Abdulla had an honest
share of this precious shade.

As they spread their rugs and lay down in the lee of the tent Dorland
expressed his gratitude in a sigh.  Had he ventured alone upon this
trek it would never have occurred to him to travel with a donkey and a
hair tent.  Jimsmitt laughed when this was pointed out to him.  "Yes,
my son.  You are certainly faring _en prince_.  But don't forget that
it is your own private wealth that has made it possible.  Even in the
desert money counts, although there are fools in the world who say that
money doesn't matter anywhere."

"I used to be one of them," said Dorland.

"Then I expect you were born to more than was good for you.  It is
generally people who have more than they know what to do with who talk
in that way."

Only Zeyd Mohammed who was desert bred could woo sleep in that torrid
heat.  His companions envied him.  A descendant of the Prophet, his
forbears had ranged these sterile wastes for thousands of years.  He
was lean as a bone, hard as a nail, of wonderful endurance.  Suckled in
every kind of physical hardship he put all Roumis to shame.  Yet he was
a true friend, a faithful servant, a great companion.  What he would
have been as an enemy was another matter.  There was a terrible gleam
in his black velvet eyes when he spoke of the Touareg.  But, as
Jimsmitt said of him, if he liked you he liked you.  Certainly this son
of a robber, for he made no secret of the fact that the Howeitat, the
famous tribe of fighters to which he belonged, had little to learn from
even the Touareg, greatly liked the Englishman.  Nay, it might be said
that he loved him.  At Jimsmitt's lightest word he was standing by to
go about.  He would surely have plunged his right hand in a fire or his
fuzzy head into the mouth of a lion at the bidding of that enigma.

Dorland asked himself what the bond could be.  Two creatures more
diverse would be hard to find.  The American could only ascribe it to
his fellow traveller having a strange power over men.  In the very hour
of their first meeting he had felt that.  Jimsmitt had a subtle quality
that attracted other minds.  Zeyd was a savage, although so fine of his
kind that he hardly deserved the name.  When he spoke of white people,
the Roumi he called them, a note of contempt was heard in his voice and
his eyes shone like a crouching panther's, yet the kindliness and
humour of Jimsmitt, displayed in the most trying circumstances, seemed
to have conquered entirely this son of the desert.  Dorland for his
part was always a little afraid of Zeyd.  When he saw that warrior,
hawklike and sinister, raking at dawn the far horizon for a sign of his
blood foes, he could not help wondering what would happen if things
went wrong and death overtook Jimsmitt.  Zeyd's scorn of the Roumi was
disturbing.  No matter how regarded he was a truly formidable man.

Water was getting very scarce.  It was already a problem.  Several
waterholes to which the expert eye of Zeyd directed them had proved to
be dry.  The rainfall was much less than usual.  It was a serious
situation to meet so early in their travels.  Each day they drank very
sparingly of the water they carried; nay, it was hardly more than a
moistening of the lips.  For they were now in the heart of a barren
country.  There was not a hint of green among the endless waste of sand
and scrub that engulfed them.  And the further they went the greater
the sun's power.

Soon their throats grew so parched that tongues and lips began to
swell, yet they could only moisten them from time to time with what
remained in the goatskins.  But as each day led to a new disappointment
the store borne by the patient Abdulla grew perilously low.  Their
sufferings were acute.  They could hardly swallow their food; so little
water remained in the skins they were reduced to a ration of a few
drops a day.  In spite of that they drove steadily on in the cool of
the night, and rested in the daytime from the worst of the heat.  Hope
of better things was the only spur, but the farther they went the more
slender that hope grew.

One morning, about an hour after dawn, they came upon a strange sight.
In some wise they were prepared for it by a curious foulness of the
air.  When they approached several huge vultures rose from the ground
with a terrific whirr.  The reason for their presence was at once
apparent.  Zeyd's nose had led him to a scene with which he at any rate
was only too familiar.  A party of desert travellers had been horribly
massacred.  They lay upon the sand, more than a dozen tormented and
mutilated bodies, upon whom the carrion birds had not yet completed
their work, although evidently dead some days.

Both the white men were so affected by the sight and the stench that
they did not care to approach.  Zeyd, however, had no qualms.  Far from
being oppressed by the hideous spectacle, he saw it as a favourable
omen.  A close examination of the slain, which he was left to conduct
alone, strengthened this view.  It was clearly a band of wandering
Arabs, and in Zeyd's opinion they owed their fate to the dreaded
Touareg.  Only the Touareg so foully mutilated and disembowelled their
hapless victims.  But it was not the work of these bandits of the
desert that gave him pleasure.

Most of the corpses had been looted.  Therefore it was the more
surprising that several skins filled with water had been left behind.
Zeyd raised the ululations of his race as he returned to his two
friends with these things of price in his arms.  They were doubly
precious.  First the water would allay their present pangs, for there
was no reason to consider it other than quite drinkable in spite of the
horrid circumstances of its discovery.  And to the sagacious Zeyd what
was of even greater moment, since the Touareg had not taken the trouble
to carry the water away with the rest of their loot, it was to be
inferred that they had a good supply and that more was at hand.

"Yes," said Zeyd, "there is a well nearby, or those accursed, no matter
what else they took, would certainly have taken these skins of water."

This was so reasonable that in spite of the proximity of a foe even
more terrible than thirst, the little company took fresh heart.  They
had the first real drink for several days, and then in vastly better
case went on in search of the oasis which could not be far away.  All
the same it was necessary to proceed with caution.  This was the
country of a deadly foe.  Evidently a war party was near.  They must be
ready for all contingencies.  And not least of these was the likelihood
of sharing the fate of this hapless band of fellow travellers.  They
looked to their weapons and then moved resolutely on.  If possible they
must find an oasis before the sun grew too fierce.  But they had ever
to bear in mind the prospect of selling their lives dearly in the
process.

Zeyd, curiously desert-wise, gave careful study not only to the few
fragments of barren rock and patches of scrub they met from time to
time, but also to the general lie of the land.  He was convinced that
water was not far off.  Also he was convinced that his blood enemies
were near.  The robbers had left a broad trail, easy to pick up.  There
were many hoof marks of horses and camels.  They led south by
southwest.  It was there the hope of the travellers lay, and it was
there lay their danger.

A little before noon, away to the right, towards the far horizon, Zeyd
pointed out what appeared to be a mere thickening of the all-pervading
haze which for a whole week had made their eyes ache.

"Trees," said Zeyd.

They had to take his word for it.  A keener eye than a Roumi's was
needed to detect trees at that distance.  They had been deceived too
often already in this land of mirage.  But Zeyd had not a doubt.  With
a thrill of hope they moved steadily on.

An hour's steady going made it abundantly clear that Zeyd was right.  A
cluster of date palms with their high boles and graceful feathery tops
could be plainly seen.  And in the course of the next hour patches of
the living green appeared beyond this grove of trees.  Here at last was
the promised land.  But Zeyd in his wisdom did not exult.  On the
contrary he became silent as the tomb.  This beckoning oasis was more
likely to harbour a worse foe than thirst.  He must use every care.
Before long they saw that the clump of date palms marked the boundary
of a desert village.  About a mile beyond was a huddle of low-roofed
mud huts.  Here, without a doubt, was water.  The problem now was to
gain access to the well.  Was it jealously guarded, that was the
question.  And was the village in hostile hands?

Zeyd held both these contingencies to be most likely.  Before deciding
what should be done a halt was made and they indulged in well-earned
rest and a little food.  Nearby was a dip in the ground, what the Arabs
call a _wadi_.  It seemed a good place wherein to lie hidden.  There
was a fair amount of cover, and though some highly dangerous neighbours
might be lurking around it offered a prospect of concealment.  If not
of the best, it was certainly better than nothing.

Accordingly the tent was pitched, Abdulla was hobbled, a ration of
dates was handed out.  And what was of more consequence each man was
allowed a cup of water, with a portion for their honest friend.  The
taste was brackish, as it often is in the desert, yet the precious
stuff was gladly drunk.  Much refreshed and in better heart than at any
time for the past week, the travellers stretched their weariness in the
golden sand.  Lying in the lee of the tent they presently held a
council of war.

The Touareg was now the problem.  To enter the village, which Zeyd
judged to be about four miles away, might be to walk straight into the
lion's mouth.  Even if it were not infested by the people he most
feared, the villagers, like many desert tribes, were probably hostile
to strangers.  Zeyd proposed to go forth alone and explore.  His
friends were averse to his taking the whole burden of the risk.  But
the Arab, shrewd as he was fearless, held that one man was less likely
than three to excite an enemy.  Besides, he could find out what he
desired to know without exposing himself.  If he went alone the
_flissa_ of the Touareg should be kept from his throat by the exercise
of cunning.  His movements would be unhampered.  And his friends were
in need of rest.  Zeyd was quite sure he would do best alone.

Jimsmitt and Dorland had a generous desire not to put too heavy a
burden upon him.  But in the end they could not withstand the arguments
of the Arab.  It seemed wise to let him carry out a highly dangerous
reconnaissance in his own fashion, particularly as the brave fellow was
sure the hazard would be less if allowed to pursue it in his own way.
Reluctantly his friends consented.  As they watched him go they felt
that he took his life in his hands.  But there was no help for it.
Even against their own sense of sportsmanship they were bound to yield
to his judgment.  And they consoled themselves with his own belief that
if he met with enemies the lore of his kind would enable him to outwit
them.

The two white men were full of anxiety for the return of Zeyd.  They
were tired out and must have rest, yet they could not stifle their
uneasiness.  Were they not shirking a responsibility they were bound in
honour to share?  Commonsense declared this was not really the case.
Zeyd knew what he was about, and his friends must respect his wishes,
even if it hardly seemed to be playing the game to let him go alone.

The _wadi_ being fairly deep gave some protection from the sun of
Arabia.  Further comforted by the hair tent, the two desert-galled men
found themselves in more luxury than they had reason to expect.  The
water which had flowed down their parched gullets was most soothing.
Presently a sense of lassitude began to creep over them.  Much needed
sleep was not far off.  Dorland in fact had closed his eyes and was in
a doze when without any warning his rest was very rudely shattered.

All at once he heard the man who was stretched at his side utter a high
wild cry.  It was part curse, part yell, part scream.  And then
Jimsmitt sprang to his feet as if he had gone suddenly and completely
mad.




XI

Dorland for a moment had an illusion of undergoing a hideous desert
nightmare.  But as soon as he opened his drowsy eyes he understood.  A
mob of the wickedest faces he had ever seen was peering into the tent.
Their owners brandished knives and spears, they rolled eyes that were
horrifying in their frenzy and their menace.  Bewildered as the
American was, and numbed with fear, he was yet able to see that the
behaviour of Jimsmitt was in the last degree irrational.  He was
dancing, literally dancing, and snapping his fingers, and letting forth
a volley of Arabic in the form of curses.  The futility was pitiable.
Surely Jimsmitt had lost his reason.

Dorland just then did not realize that such was the impression he
sought to convey to these atrocious savages.  Obviously they meant to
treat this pair of tent dwellers in just the same manner as the
luckless caravan a few days ago.  By desperately feigning madness
Jimsmitt hoped to give them pause.  The wildest bands of the desert
were said to respect madness.  How far they did so was now the question.

Would fear of the evil eye cause them to spare the lives of their
captives?

Doubt sprang to those wild and savage faces.  But Jimsmitt guessed it
was due as much to the clothes worn by the travellers as to the fact
that one of them was surely insane.  Who were these men-women?  To what
tribe did they belong?  The haik and the headdress were only worn by
females of any tribe they knew.  But the growth of beard upon their
swarthy faces--days ago they had discarded their veils--just as surely
proclaimed their manhood.  What outlandish sect was this?

The Touareg were puzzled quite as much by their garb as by the
behaviour of Jimsmitt.  They brandished _flissas_ and spears, they
uttered murderous cries, yet doubt prevailed.  At the beck of a
grotesque figure in a loose white robe, who grinned like a monkey and
waved a heavy sword, these wretches stayed their hands.  For a time
they were content with half measures.  Yet it is certain these two
unfortunate men would have been tortured to death upon the spot but for
the intervention of the wazir of the tribe, who was clearly at a loss
how to deal with them.

As it was they were roughly seized and their hands bound tightly with
cords.  Then they were dragged forward and each was fastened to the
saddle of a camel.  The tent was left standing, but Abdulla was loaded
up with what remained of the food and water.  And then at a foot pace
the whole party set off across the sand in a direction contrary to that
taken an hour before by Zeyd.

The two prisoners had to keep up as well as they could with the
cavalcade.  Happily it was not going at speed, else they would have
been dragged over the stones and through the scrub.  They were in a
hopeless pass, entirely at the mercy of those who knew nothing of
mercy.  Plainly their captors being uncertain what to do with such
demented nondescripts, for the behaviour of one left no doubt of their
madness, even had not their wild garb announced it, were going to take
advice in the matter from their emir or sheik or one having authority.

What lay before the two victims was terrifying.  They had little chance
of saving their miserable lives.  The best they could hope for was a
quick death.  Nay, they had not gone far on their painful and
humiliating journey when each regretted that death was not his already.
Each felt it had been wiser to have sought it at the point of the
sword.  At least it would have spared them torture unspeakable, for
which this dreaded tribe was notorious.

However, it was too late now for the end it had surely been wise to
embrace.  Bound securely to the camels they were being dragged to their
doom.  The pace was not unreasonable.  Clearly the gentle Touareg meant
to bring the prisoners alive and in good shape to their chief.  It was
for him to say in what manner they should be killed.

This journey through the waste of burning sand was horrible.  Heads
throbbing, nerves on the rack, the two unhappy men were propelled in
the glare of a powerful sun.  It was no more than a foretaste of
tortures to come.  Yet their throats soon grew dry again, their eyes
stung, their nostrils were choked with the dust of many hoofs.  After a
time as the pace of the camels increased, they could hardly keep on
their legs.  But the alternative was to be dragged head foremost.  Had
they been sure that such a mode would hasten the end they must have
accepted it.

When they had gone about ten miles, their captors, who seemed in no
particular hurry, drew rein at a green place.  The savages refreshed
themselves at a well.  Without loosening the bonds of their prisoners
they had the humanity, although humanity was hardly the word, to hold a
gourd to their burning lips.  The more surely these dogs were kept
alive the better sport they would offer.  He to whom they were going at
a comfortable leisure would know how to use them.  Meanwhile no hurt
must come to these spawn from the heat of the sun or the haps of the
way.  The stronger the bull the louder he roared when the knife gored
his entrails.

The captives, had they been able, would have declined the gourds when
pressed to their lips.  But nature forbade.  Even at the price of
extending their lives they drank greedily.  It needed more than human
will power to resist that delicious coolth.  The wily Touareg knew
that.  And Jimsmitt could read their minds.  So much the better for the
emir if his victims were tended now.

The cavalcade went on and on.  Water and rest had revived the captives,
yet the flow of new strength did but seem to worsen their pains.  Their
bound wrists became swollen and lacerated.  Fine dust assailed their
eyes and nostrils; their very brains were on fire.  Hour by hour their
suffering grew, and with it the nightmare of their oppression.

At last the cruel sun went down.  Straight ahead it sank in a rage of
green, crimson and gold.  Never had Dorland seen such a sky.  Much of
his three and twenty years had been passed in the study of nature's
pageantry.  But none had equalled this in wild beauty.  It was the last
sunset which he was likely to see, yet the wonder and the glory of it
amazed him.  All he had borne in the last few months seemed but little
compared with this final pass.  He was being dragged by savages to a
death of horror, of a long drawn, inhuman ignominy.  But the soul of
the artist was quickened by that amazing light in the sky.  And he felt
that whatever price was exacted at the last, the life of man was a
truly worth while adventure.  Was it not something to have known it?
Was it not something to be able to realize its possibilities?

The stars came out over the desert and there was a bright moon.  But
there seemed no end to this awful journey.  Yet just as Dorland's mind
had ceased to speculate upon what their doom must be, they came
suddenly upon a gloom of trees.  The camels halted.  Soon the prisoners
realized that they had reached a kind of encampment, and that here for
them was probably the end of all things.

A rope was cast around each prisoner's neck and they were dragged to a
couple of palm trees to which they were tied.  Water was offered and
again they drank.  Then came a man older and taller and with more
dignity than any of the others.  He was accompanied by the ape-faced
grotesque who had first intervened to save them from the knife.

"Who are you, you dogs?" said the tall man, who had the air of a
chieftain, speaking in Arabic.  "Whence come you?"

"Holy men, O unbeliever!" cried Jimsmitt in a kind of rage in the same
tongue.  Evidently the Englishman knew something of its use.  His voice
was very hoarse, his words very halting, but yet they were intelligible
to this wild folk.

"What is your tribe?" demanded the sheik, "that ye wear the robes of a
woman and the beard of a man?"

"We are humble followers of the Prophet," said the Englishman, "But
also we are _hajji_ of great experience.  We work miracles.  And we
have taken high degrees."

"There is only your word for that," said the sheik scornfully.

"Is not the word of a magician, a wonder worker, more than enough?"
And Jimsmitt suddenly broke into a wild song.

"What proof do you offer?"

Tightly bound by the middle to the palm tree though he was, the
Englishman began to kick his heels as if he were dancing.  And then he
poured out a flood of strange gibberish.

"This dog is mad or he is feigning," said the chief to the first of his
henchmen.

As it happened that was the opinion of the wazir.  It was because he
could not decide the question and did not wish to court the displeasure
of Allah by hurting and slaying one who claimed to be at once a holy
man, a wizard, a genuine lunatic and therefore a possessor of the evil
eye, the most dreaded thing in the world, that this functionary had
recourse to a higher authority.

"I think the dog is feigning," said the tall man, who it would seem was
the emir of the tribe.

"It may be so, Illustrious," said the wazir, "but I ask myself why does
he wear the haik and the tazal and the djellaba and why is there a
beard under his chin if he be not truly mad?"

The emir perceived the force of the argument.  Such uncanny wearers of
female garb were surely not as other men.

"We will not decide this thing by the light of the moon, El Balar,"
said the emir.  "That were surely unlucky.  Let us sleep upon it.  And
then we will consider it in the fair light of day.  If they cannot show
us to-morrow a plain reason for our protection they shall journey to
heaven by the roughest way.  Deceit calls for a bitter penalty.
Meanwhile see to it, El Balar, these dogs remain close bound with
thongs.  If they are true wizards they will go away in the night.  But
if the dawn proves their impotence we shall know what to do with them."

For the captives, only one of whom could understand, there was no
comfort in these words.  Bound so cruelly there was no hope of escape.
Moreover a guard with naked _flissas_ was set to watch over them.  If
they had magic the emir in his wisdom was determined to make a severe
call upon it.  The palm fibre bit deep into their flesh.  Thirst
continued to devour them as the hours slowly passed.  Yet when morning
broke, the pangs of the present would be as naught with those which
then awaited them.




XII

It was an eerie scene as the rays of the moon stole through the tops of
the palm trees.  Time's tardy flight was slow agony, yet both men knew
it for a mere prelude to what must come.

"Dor, old man," came a gentle voice breaking in softly upon a long and
terrible reverie, "are you bearing up?"

"Trying to," was the answer in a faint, weak tone.  "God, I wish we had
made an end when we had the chance."

"So do I," muttered Jimsmitt.  And then hearing a deep groan from the
next tree, he set his teeth and gasped with the stoicism of a true
hero, "We are not done in yet, old man.  As long as there's life
there's hope.  I've always heard so, anyway."

"It's the kind of hope we should be better without," thought Dorland.
But he refrained from expressing his thoughts.  He understood the
effort the good comrade was making in a situation that admitted of
none.  And he appreciated it.  There was something in this fortitude
that gave him courage.  The man at his side who equally with himself
was suffering the torments of the damned, was ready and willing to show
him how to die.  Dorland felt that a Power which sends a friend of this
calibre in such an hour cannot be wholly impotent, wholly uncaring.

The hoarse fragmentary words of the man who was bound to the next tree
gave Dorland a new strength of soul.  Let these fiends do their worst.
No matter what inhuman devilries they contrived, he would not flinch.

Jimsmitt and Dorland had given up all hope.  Their chance was so
slender the mind could not dwell upon it.  Zeyd might conceivably find
a means of bringing them help, but it was not to be expected.  It was
asking too much of Providence.  And in the middle of that terrible
night, when the moon was at its brightest, a thing happened which
seemed to denude them of even this possibility.

A sudden shrill outcry arose among the guards who were keeping watch
over the prisoners.  Its effect was to wake Jimsmitt and Dorland from
the stupor that had now overtaken them.  By the light of the moon they
saw that two or three horsemen had arrived in the camp.  One had a dead
body attached to his saddle and was trailing it along the ground.  This
it was that had caused the commotion among the sentries.  But soon the
horseman passed out of sight with the corpse, the sentries ceased their
clamour and the night resumed its eeriness.

The prisoners could discern nothing of the dead man's appearance, but
they felt their last hope was gone.  It must be the body of Zeyd that
had been dragged in.  The cup of their woe brimmed over.  Yet one grain
of comfort there was.  Zeyd had not had his sufferings unduly
prolonged.  He must be counted lucky.  It was not least of what they
had to bear themselves that the precise nature of their fate was still
uncertain.  Their own death, whatever form it might take, was unlikely
to be so merciful.

Stupor descended upon them again, but their pains were too severe to
obscure all sense of time and place.  Their bodies turned to fire as
the thongs bit deeper, and long before the grey light of dawn began to
filter through the trees the pangs of thirst grew terrible.

Those flecks in the sky were more than welcome.  Yet beyond a doubt
they were a signal for a bloody and obscene death.  But anything,
anything seemed better now to their overwrought minds than this present
agony.  While the light slowly broadened, a partial insensibility,
which was all they were likely to taste of mercy, began to drug their
brains.

Soon, however, they understood it was now broad day.  They heard a
trample of feet.  And it was followed by a babble of voices.  The
chieftain who had spoken with them the previous night emerged from the
grove.  He was accompanied by a mob of others, including women and some
children, yet all as wild, savage, inimical as himself.  Swords,
knives, spears shone in the light that came through the trees.

The chief and his wazir came up and stood before Jimsmitt.  And as the
emir gazed at that strange, portentously clad magician, he waved his
followers aside.  A large cup of water was in the hand of the emir and
he pressed it to the lips of the bound prisoner.

Jimsmitt drank half of it greedily and then said in Arabic to the man
who held the cup, "Give the rest of the water to my friend."

"Nay, there's plenty for him," said the emir.  And when the Englishman
had drained the cup the emir had it replenished and offered it to
Dorland.

Both prisoners felt this boon, so wholly unexpected, would prove to be
a mere intensification of their agonies, yet overdriven nature simply
could not resist.

When each had drunk the wazir handed a long knife to the chieftain.
And with his own hands the emir proceeded to sever the palm-fibres that
bound the prisoners.  As soon as this was done Abdulla the donkey was
led out from among the crowd.  The little beast had been loaded up with
food and skins of water.

"Go with God," said the emir.  The words were addressed to Jimsmitt,
who, no longer bound, leaned half fainting against the tree.  "You are
holy men and true magicians who have given proof of your worthiness.
Allah be with you.  Go in peace."

The speech was perfectly intelligible to the released captive.  But he
heard it in a kind of dream.  It was impossible to relate it to the
circumstances.  Such words must be some final trick of a dissolving
mind.  Still the effect was potent; new life ran through his veins.
And as the presence of Abdulla lent force to the words of the emir,
Jimsmitt found strength.  Moving to the comely little beast he took it
by the bridle.

As if in a dream the Englishman turned to his companion.  Dorland also
had been cut loose.  Verging upon collapse, his back was still against
the tree to which he had been bound.

"Come, old man," said Jimsmitt.

Fearing to delay the order of his going and expecting some cruel and
subtle trick, he took hold of Abdulla and led him very slowly out of
the glade.  The Englishman could hardly drive his stiff, aching,
lacerated limbs, yet the sudden excitement of deliverance was so
intense that they were quickened with fresh life.

Feeling the whole affair was other than it seemed, Jimsmitt looked back
to see if Dorland followed.  The American was stumbling heavily forward
in his wake.  He was slowly emerging from the solemn ring of their
enemies; all of whom stood silent with their knives and spears upheld.

The two captives hardly realized that the incredible had happened.  But
they stumbled on and on, half blindly, one each side Abdulla, out of
this oasis and once more into the burning gold of the desert.  For a
reason they could not fathom their foes offered no impediment.  What
was it that had made them free men?  By what dark alchemy had their
lives been spared?

Jimsmitt and Dorland moved into the desert with as much speed as they
could muster.  The simple act of volition loosened their limbs; again
the blood flowed through the restricted muscles, so that in the course
of every hundred yards the pace improved.  They managed to stumble on
for several miles.  By then their enemies were far out of sight and
there was good hope of their not changing their minds.  And so the two
painfully bewildered travellers called a halt and proceeded to
investigate Abdulla's pack.  To their surprise they found the dates and
dried figs of the previous day had not been touched.  Moreover several
loaves of wheaten bread had been added, with a liberal supply of fresh
water.

Devoutly thankful, Jimsmitt and Dorland sat down on the sand to enjoy
the most welcome repast of their lives.  They could not begin to fathom
this mystery.  What had occurred in the course of the night to soften
their foes?  Jimsmitt was completely at a loss.

"We are holy men and true magicians who have given proof of our
worthiness.  I can only say, old man, I give it up."

The more they looked at this riddle the less could they solve.  But in
sudden release from an unthinkable pass they ate and drank their fill.
Yet they could not forget that the body of Zeyd had been brought into
the camp during the night.  Surely it was his corpse they had seen.
Brave fellow, he had no longer to fear the Touareg, nor madness, nor
torture, nor thirst.

Their sense of loss was keen as they remembered their guide.  What fate
awaited them?  The previous night had been worse than death.  Whenever
it came to them now it would be merciful.  As they gazed around this
fiery waste they saw menace on every hand.  What must they do?  Which
way must they go, now there was none to shape their course?

After a little discussion they began to look for the trail along which
they had been dragged from the wadi.  If they could strike it they
hoped also to discover the small village Zeyd had set out to explore.
He had said they might perhaps find water and sanctuary in that oasis.
For the time being it was the only chance.  With the help of Jimsmitt's
compass they were presently able to hit their own trail of the day
before.  The way proved long and trying, for the sun was fierce.  Yet
they were sustained by the sense of a real objective.  Not only was
there the lure of water and food, but they did not forget that a
comfortable hair tent might still be standing in the wadi.  To the best
of their knowledge the Touareg had not troubled to loot it.

About noon they were lucky enough, these smitten travellers, to light
upon some low rocks which promised a shield from the sun.  Here they
lay several hours.  Their repose was not improved, however, by the
knowledge that a nest of vipers, of the deadly horned variety, was not
far off.  Several glided away at their first approach, and rather than
woo sleep Jimsmitt and Dorland used their voices freely.

When they went on again, in spite of food, water and rest and complete
freedom, both grew terribly depressed.  The loss of Zeyd bore upon them
cruelly.  He had been a tower.  And now he was gone they seemed to be
caught in a trap.  To postpone the inevitable was merely to prolong
their agonies.

All the same they were the sport of a providence deeply mysterious.  A
few hours ago the incredible had occurred; and there was no reason why
it should not happen again.  But as they returned in those tracks which
reeked with the tortures of the previous day, fear like a ravening
vulture hovered around them.

Towards evening came a moment when Jimsmitt suddenly drew Dorland's
attention to a sinister portent.  About a mile off was a camel with a
man upon it.  Even at that distance in the clear bright air it could be
seen that a gun was slung over his shoulders and that in his hand was a
spear.  "One of those cursed Targui," said Jimsmitt.  "No doubt he
belongs to the party which has just entertained us so royally."

"Quite likely to be full of mischief," said Dorland.

"Highly probable.  And I fancy he has spotted us.  Anyhow he is coming
on pretty straight, so we had better look out."  Jimsmitt opened his
haik to see if the automatic he carried loaded in every chamber was
still in his belt.  Yes, it was all right.  The Touareg luckily had not
suspected its presence.  Dorland followed his friend's example.  His
own weapon which had once belonged to Sergeant Major Hauptmann was
still intact.

"This sportsman will get it in the neck if he tries any of his tricks,"
announced Jimsmitt grimly.  "The moment he looks like raising that gun
I shall simply plug him."

While the distance rapidly lessened between themselves and this bird of
ill omen they speculated keenly as to what the Targui scout would do.

"These warriors don't stand on ceremony.  They are always out for
blood.  But perhaps we can meet him in that little matter."  And
Jimsmitt took out his pistol.

The camel and its rider were now pretty near.  It was a beautiful white
_mehira_, of an unequalled speed and endurance, a genuine ship of the
desert.  The man who rode it looked a formidable warrior, but as he
came rapidly towards them he did not change the position of gun or
spear.  It was just as well for him that he did not, since unknown to
himself the two Roumis had him well covered.

Suddenly the man on the camel gave a high, wild cry.  He waved both
hands in the air, and then so that there should be no mistake about the
nature of his greeting he removed his white caftan and waved it on the
end of his spear.




XIII

To the utter surprise of Jimsmitt and Dorland and to their profound joy
they promptly realised an astonishing fact: the rider of the camel was
their friend Zeyd.  It was a great moment.  Each had given up the other
for lost.  It seemed not less than a miracle, this wonderful meeting.
Zeyd dismounted at once and embraced both his friends affectionately.

Jimsmitt gave a brief account of their own terrible adventure.  He then
asked Zeyd for his story.

The Arab, it seemed, having reached the village in the oasis, had
talked with the sheik.  He found him not altogether well disposed
towards strangers, only too ready in fact to view them with suspicion.
Above all he was in lively fear of the Touareg, of whom a war party was
very close at hand.  Although willing to let Zeyd replenish his girby,
also to provide him with food if paid for, he did not seem greatly to
care for this wayfarer.  As the wayfarer had a similar feeling in
regard to the sheik he did not say overlong in his company.

Zeyd on returning to the wadi at sundown knew at once what had
happened.  But the Touareg had a start of several hours and in any case
there was absolutely nothing that one man, however resolute, could hope
to do against them.  All the same he decided to follow their trail.  He
had proceeded a few miles and the moon had risen when he found himself
face to face with a Targui scout who had observed him some little way
off and had hastened to ride him down.  The Targui drove at Zeyd with
lance poised, fully intending to kill him.  But as Zeyd explained with
a grin broadly sardonic the devil met with his master.  The simple
looking nomad carried a pistol in his jellab.  And as the robber came
on Zeyd took steady aim and shot him dead.

The hero of this exploit clearly took a pride and a delight in it.  He
was the blood foe of these bandits.  For generations his family had
waged a feud against them.  He gloried in his success and rendered all
the details with humour and gusto.

To Jimsmitt and Dorland the return of Zeyd and the tale that he told
was one more astonishing shake of Fate's kaleidoscope.  It added a
further marvel to that day of marvels.  Yet when they came to
reconsider the matter they perceived something of the truth.  The
corpse that had been dragged into the camp in the middle of that
terrible night was that of the scout who had been picked up lifeless
and camel-less in the open desert by a party of his friends.  And as
Jimsmitt read the riddle now, the Touareg being deeply superstitious
had seen an omen in the mysterious fate of their comrade.  It was due
to sorcery.  For had they not two reputed wizards in their midst who
must give proof of their powers if they would save their own lives?
The wise men of the tribe had not the slightest doubt that these two
dangerous madmen dressed as women who possessed the evil eye had shown
what they could do.  Hence gentle treatment, and in lieu of a death by
torture, a prompt and merciful release.

Jimsmitt's new reading of the riddle appeared to cover all the facts.
And when it was duly expounded to Zeyd that man of infinite desert lore
accepted it.  None the less all three agreed it was a wonderful
deliverance from a truly desperate pass.

Ere the moon had fully risen they had returned to the wadi.  It was
good to find their outfit just as they had left it.  Poles and cords
had not been tampered with and the little tent of hair could still give
shelter.  They tethered the camel and also the worthy Abdulla.  Then
the three friends sat down and celebrated Allah's bounty by eating and
drinking heartily.  This they could afford to do since their wallets
had been replenished; and in Zeyd's opinion further sustenance was at
hand.  Before going to seek it, however, they considered what they
should do.

Zeyd, who mingled shrewdness and caution with the heart of a lion, was
none too sure of the head-man in the neighbouring oasis.  He was a rude
kind of Bedouin who looked askance at strangers.  But Zeyd quite agreed
with his friends that it was highly necessary for this sheik to be won
over.  Why run the gauntlet of enemies more formidable in the open
desert?  Besides, there was no saying how far they must travel before
they came to the next water.  And so after much talk in the lee of the
tent while the moon waxed higher and the stars shone brighter, Zeyd
made a wise proposal.  When the sun was up they would fare to the oasis
and buy the goodwill of this doubtful sheik by presenting him with a
much coveted war djemal lately in possession of the Touareg.  If this
signal proof of good-will did not appease the sheik nothing in Zeyd's
opinion could.

Undisturbed by lurking robber and prowling beast the three friends
slept for several hours.  Never since beginning their travels had they
rested so well.  The sun was already high when they awoke.  They ate an
excellent meal which their changed fortunes sanctioned, and then struck
tent, loaded up Abdulla and the djemal and without more delay set out
for the oasis.  It was not wise to linger in the wadi.  That spot was
familiar to the Touareg and a second encounter might have an issue less
happy.

To the best of their reckoning the place they were making for was about
four miles off.  It was in good cultivation and extensive.  There was a
grove of date palms, tamarisks and pomegranates; also a large well.  At
the moment the three travellers came upon it some women were drawing
water.  Beyond was a nest of mud huts and a patch of yellowish green
which proclaimed growing wheat.

Zeyd paid no heed to a number of fierce looking, heavily armed
villagers who eyed him askance, but led his camel straight to the hut
of the sheik.  He was an old man, tall and severe, with the look of a
patriarch.  But the beautiful djemal which Zeyd, with some flowery
speeches offered him, won his heart at once.  Actions speak louder than
words, never more so than with the Bedouin.  Zeyd told the story of its
capture in such a simple open manner that the old chief was delighted.

It was his nature to be deeply suspicious, particularly with the
Touareg at his door, but he had no reason to doubt this traveller's
tale.  Seeing is believing.  Zeyd, judging the moment happy, summoned
his two friends, who were close by yet out of sight of the sheik.
These were presented to Abd-el-Kyr, the village elder, as two holy men
of renown, one of whom was under a vow of silence, who had made the haj
to Mecca.  Abd-el-Kyr looked at the holy men a little doubtfully.  He
did not seem greatly to approve their appearance, but when Zeyd
whispered in his ear that they were medicine men of acknowledged powers
he was reassured.

In spite of Abd-el-Kyr's doubt of these two strange looking men-women
his mind was soon at ease in regard to the descendant of the Prophet
who sponsored them.  Zeyd was a man of parts.  He had a ready tongue,
he had wide information, he had travelled much.  Acquainted from
infancy with the tribes of the desert, among whom he had been raised,
he was able to play upon their weaknesses and to know what burdens
could be laid upon their credulity.  Moreover to the cunning of the
desert breeds was added the more subtle address that comes from travel
and worldly wisdom and association with the Roumi.

Zeyd knew the nature of the Bedouin even better than he knew men and
cities.  And as Jimsmitt deserved to Dorland, "In a couple of shakes of
a duck's tail, our lad of the village will be simply running rings
round old father Ibrahim."

This was surely well, for the hamlet was full of ugly customers armed
with _flissa_ and spear, who plainly needed but a word from their chief
to fall upon the travellers.  No doubt they saw a robber in every
stranger.  In any case visitors were few.  One every ten years was
about the average, so they were hardly so well up in treatment of the
tourist as the Arab of more fashionable places.  But so long as Zeyd
basked in the favour of the patriarch his companions held themselves
moderately safe.

Zeyd lost no time in consolidating the good opinion of the sheik.  At
the going down of the sun, when the elders of the village sat in a half
circle about the door of the chief's hut, and a _couscous_, green figs
and rice were eaten and coffee was drunk, to which ceremony the three
strangers were invited, Zeyd Mohammed gave a thrilling account of the
capture of his friends by the wicked Touareg.  He told how they had
been dragged many miles to their camp, had been bound to a palm tree
and threatened with horrible torture.

"If you are wizards give proof of your powers by saving yourselves from
the worst of all possible deaths."

Zeyd told the story with lively gesture and dramatic emphasis.  "That
was the charge laid upon them by the emir himself.  And how do you
think they met it, our two magicians?"  Zeyd asked the question with a
merry laugh.  "Why, in the course of the night they changed the emir
himself into a dromedary.  And that is why the Touareg hastened to cut
their bonds and send them away."

This wonderful tale aroused great laughter.  Yet it was clear from the
look on the face of the old sheik that he accepted it.  Seeing is
believing.  Had he not been given a war camel, a thing of real beauty?
The modern curse of scepticism might attack some of the younger members
of the tribe, but Abd-el-Kyr himself had always respected signs and
wonders.  It was an amazing feat even for two magicians of renown to
compass, but never in his life had Abd-el-Kyr owned so fine a _mehira_.

The villagers were in a state of ferment.  Their dreaded foes were
close at hand.  They had not been attacked by these bandits for more
than a year, but an onslaught was expected at any hour.  This tribe of
Bedouin had earned the name of being able to take good care of itself.
Their village was well armed and in a good state of defence.  It had
two score real fighting men, and, unless the Touareg heavily
outnumbered them, was likely to give as good as it got.

The strangers having made a favourable impression on the old sheik,
which was increased by their bearing at the public feast, they were
made welcome and allowed to pitch their tent at the far end of the
village.  Like wise men, however, they did not presume too much on
this.  They were there on sufferance.  The tribesmen were dangerously
excited.  Though the magicians had promised to use their powers against
the Touareg these Bedouin did not wholly trust them.  And the magicians
did not wholly trust their hosts.  Yet just now they felt far safer
under their protection than out in the open desert.  So they decided to
keep with these Bedouin as long as it was safe to do so, to take much
needed rest and to mature their plans.

At first things went well.  That relentless enemy the sun was less
formidable here.  They chose a spot among the palm trees, some distance
from the other tents, which afforded shade, and here they pitched their
own.  With food to eat, water to drink, coolness to lie in and the
vigilance of many against the common foe, the travellers were in
infinitely better case.  But it would not be wise to dwell overlong
with these people.  Magicians have to walk with delicacy.  While
neglecting no chance of improving their fortunes, they were able to
pass the time not unpleasantly and with even a certain amount of profit.

Zeyd, who was pretty well at home in the patois of this tribe, acted as
spokesman and emissary.  Jimsmitt whose Arabic was not inconsiderable
was not afraid to air it, and it seemed to Dorland that the charm his
friend had for men of every kind was not lost upon this desert folk.
As one day followed another they grew less suspicious.  For one thing
the expected onfall of the Touareg, who still prowled around, had yet
to occur.  This favour was credited to the strangers, Zeyd having
assured the sheik that the robbers dare not approach his village if
they knew it held the two magicians.  And if they did they would
certainly rue the day.

The strangers were kept well supplied with food.  Rice, dates, bread
and coffee were the staple, and though payment was offered it was
declined.  While Zeyd fraternised with the villagers the two Roumis
gave much time to the study of the Koran and the language in which it
was composed.  By now they realised its value.  And the farther they
penetrated into the desert, the more important would a knowledge of
Arabic become.

In the course of a week or so, leading a life not unpleasant, they felt
renewed in body and mind.  On first entering this retreat their spirits
were at a low ebb, but the good things now enjoyed did wonders for
them.  The pure desert air had a tonic quality.  Little food was
needed, but it was forthcoming in some abundance.  Many wells were
tainted with the germs of cholera and other diseases.  But it was part
of their good luck that in this place the water was pure.

As the result of Zeyd's many talks with the old sheik in which the two
magicians sometimes joined, that is to say the elder did so while the
one vowed to silence was content to listen, they were able to make a
plan for the future.  The sheik was a man of knowledge and ripe wisdom,
who had ranged the desert widely in his youth.  He had been to Mecca
and other holy places, and had a good name with other tribes.  He said
the best line for strangers to follow lay to the southwest.  Along that
route the oases, to begin with at any rate, were more plentiful, and as
the villages were warlike they were less at the mercy of the Touareg,
who seldom went far into that country.  Farther on, said the sheik, was
the land of the Sabyles, a folk not always friendly to the stranger,
but true believers and followers of the Prophet.  These might be
trusted to respect holy men who had made the haj.

The nearest village in that direction was a journey of twelve days on
foot.  It was occupied by a kinsman and friend of Abd-el-Kyr.  He, too,
was a man of travel and wisdom, bearing the name of El Bassim.  Ever
mindful of the war camel, Abd-el-Kyr was ready to commend the strangers
to El Bassim personally at any time they chose to woo his favour.  The
better to do so, the old man would send one of his own sons with them
as guide and harbinger of goodwill.

Zeyd was much pleased by this fair offer.  Among the desert tribes
links of this kind were of high value.  The Bedouin set great store by
ties of blood.  Abd-el-Kyr's bounty was gratefully accepted.

How soon must they avail themselves of it?  After their recent
experience they were loth to quit this kindly oasis.  But there was a
danger of outstaying their welcome.  The younger warriors not having
received a war camel were a little sceptical of their magic powers.
Proof might soon be required.  Besides the caravan was now fully
rested.  It would be wise, all things considered, to take advantage of
the old man's kindness, and push on at once to the next village.

Twelve days of hardship was involved, but Jimsmitt and Dorland acceded
to this plan.  They were keen to make a new point in the long and
terrible journey that lay ahead.  A return to the civilisation of the
white man was their ultimate goal, but it could only be won by seizing
every chance.  Sooner or later they hoped to make the banks of the
Nile, but it was certain that if they tarried overlong in the villages
of the Sahara they would never get there.

Compared to their state when they arrived in the oasis they were in
excellent case.  But much depended on the prowling Touareg.  Every
precaution must be taken to keep out of his hands.  For some little
time now he had made no sign.  The village had kept a sharp lookout,
but nothing more had been seen or heard of the war party.  There was
good hope of these bandits having sought fresh pastures.

Judging the road ahead to be reasonably safe this seemed a favourable
moment for departure.  When they told the sheik he called to him one of
his sons, by name Felim, and confided the strangers to his care.  He
was to conduct them across the waste to his kinsman El Bassim and give
to his personal charge Zeyd Mohammed, the descendant of the Prophet,
and his two friends.

Should they buy camels for the journey?  As these beasts, immensely
useful though they were, cost money of which they had little, and as
speed was no object, they decided to keep to Shanks' mare.  Zeyd,
however, with his usual address, caused the sheik to order Abdulla the
donkey to be fully loaded at dawn on the morrow with water and
provisions when the little party of four set out.




XIV

Many were the expressions of mutual esteem as the guests took leave of
Abd-el-Kyr and the elders of the village.  Mingled therewith was
perhaps a little mutual relief.  The presence of the two magicians was
felt to have been sovereign against the Touareg, but sorcerers in
general are queer tempered folk, who at the instance of a sandstorm or
a sudden change in the weather have been known to bite the hand of
friendship.  On the other side the wizards had no wish to disappoint
their hosts in the matter of their powers.  If any ill befell or a
disease broke out that they could not cure, they might easily become
unpopular.  And as Jimsmitt said to the magician who was under a vow of
silence, unpopularity among the Bedouin does not always mean a
Christian death.

All things considered it seemed wise once more to embrace the rigours
of the desert.  Felim, their guide, was an interesting young man.
Beauty of countenance was not his strong point, but he was well grown,
hardy and without fear.  Moreover, he was quite familiar with the road
to Khora-a-Belak, although strictly speaking it was not a road at all.
Twice a year he made this journey in the way of trade, sometimes
bartering food and camels for the things El Bassim could supply.  Also
he was a young man of great endurance.  So it seemed, at least, to the
two magicians.  Long after they were conquered by the sun he could keep
going.  He scorned to lie in the tent during the halt at midday, his
power of eye was fully equal to that of Zeyd and he did not know the
meaning of fatigue.

The heat of the sun was intense, but the nights were cool, and it was
then they made progress.  On the morning of the fifth day the stock of
water gave out.  It had been used rather liberally, as Felim had
promised to get more.  But when empty skins confronted them Jimsmitt
and Dorland grew alarmed and even Zeyd was uneasy.  Far as the eye
could scan the land was barren.  There was not a speck of green in a
hundred miles.

Felim, however, showed no concern.  He led them presently into a wadi
strewn with boulders and cactus and loose stones.  It might once have
been a river bed, yet was now as dry as the sand around.  The guide
told them to fix their tent and lie down and rest.  Then he chose a
place and began to delve with a short stick and his bare hands.

"He will have a long time to dig, I fancy, before he gets a full skin,"
was the comment of Jimsmitt.  Zeyd thought so, too.  Moreover, the Arab
did not dissemble his anxiety.  It had been against his advice that the
water had been used so freely.  But after they had grilled for an hour
in their siesta, for the sun had such power that even the hair tent was
no great protection, and they went to see how Felim was getting on,
they were astonished to find that he had been successful.  The water
was not of the best quality and the supply was limited, but it carried
them well on into the next day.

Zeyd no less than the Roumis were astonished by Felim's success.
Beyond a doubt their guide had extraordinary powers as a water finder.
Next day the same thing occurred.  Again he led them to a spot where
even Zeyd would not have chosen to look for water; again he was
rewarded.

"Had we been making this journey alone," Zeyd confessed, "I do not
think we should have reached the end of it.  This man is a wizard."

The Bedouin are famous for their craft and lore.  But for the two white
men it was a powerful lesson as to the dangers of travel in the desert.
It was disconcerting to feel that Zeyd himself would have been at a
loss.  Every mile they fared now the country grew more inimical.  They
were very far already from the things they knew.  Yet this was but the
threshold of a stupendous journey.  Perils menaced them on every hand.
Day by day, hour by hour, mile by mile, they seemed to increase.

Felim had reckoned upon completing this trek in twelve days.  But it
was not until sundown on the fourteenth that he brought them to the
oasis of Khora-a-Belak.  To the two white men it was a blessed sight,
to Zeyd also it was grateful.  Each day the sand had grown hotter, the
sun more pitiless.  With throats parched and tongues swollen and lips
very sore Jimsmitt and Dorland were one ache of weariness as finally
they entered a large grove of date palms at the end of which was
running water.

Felim led the three travellers at once to El Bassim.  He craved the
emir's protection for them on the ground of their being holy men who
had made the haj.  El Bassim, himself a man widely travelled, was
greatly interested, as his uncle, Abd-el-Kyr, had shrewdly guessed he
would be.  The emir was a younger man than he, probably fifty or so,
and as became one who had fared to Damascus on the one hand and Tangier
on the other, a distance almost incredible as reckoned in the mileage
of the desert, he had larger ideas.

Perhaps for that reason the folk he governed appeared less close to
savagery.  But they had their superstitions.  They did not care
overmuch for strangers, nor trusted them more than they could help.
However, these visitors had been well spoken of by El Bassim's worthy
uncle Abd-el-Kyr, so they were bound to show them hospitality.  The
chieftain heard with concern of the Touareg.  But for many a moon he
had not been troubled by these veiled robbers.  His oasis lay outside
their territory, and though it did not lack protection, for it
comprised nearly three hundred armed inhabitants, the emir rejoiced
that so it was.

Received with excellent courtesy, the travellers sought the shade of a
green grove.  Lying there in the midst of plenty in the shape of fruit,
buttermilk, fresh mutton, bread and wild honey and their credentials
respected, they gave themselves up to repairing the sore fatigues they
had undergone.  Once more the two white men applied themselves
diligently to the Koran and to a verbal study of the Arab tongue.  The
more deeply they penetrated the wild and trackless country which lay
before them, which Zeyd declared the foot of a white man had never
trod, the more urgent their need of intercourse with the tribesmen.
Every chance must be taken of making themselves proficient.  In this
they were greatly helped by Zeyd, who made an admirable go-between.  He
talked with the emir and satisfied the curiosity of the villagers as to
who they were and why they had come so far.

Zeyd learned much from El Bassim.  This chief was wonderfully informed
for a man who dwelt in a part so remote.  It was from the lips of El
Bassim that he heard of the mysterious city of Krav.  This holy place
was said to be the oldest in the world.  It contained strange
mysteries, it practised strange rites, and for men as devout as these
pilgrims who had made the haj to Mecca and Medina and the holy cities
of the south, it was infinitely worth a visit.  Krav was a home of
marvels.  El Bassim himself, who made the pilgrimage every five years,
would answer for it that the Sultan of Krav, whom he could claim as a
friend, was strong in the faith.  He was sure to welcome Zeyd Mohammed,
particularly if he explained that he was forty-second in descent from
the Neby.

"_Billah_," said El Bassim as he offered his guest a pipe of the rather
acrid tobacco of Southern Arabia, "I have no doubt the sultan will
receive you well.  He is not a travelled man himself, but he is not
without his ideas and he has heard of the Roumi with whom you say you
have mingled.  It will interest him greatly to meet one who has
intimately known the Frangesy.  And if you have really studied the art
of war with that strange people who are said to have trained the
vulture and the eagle, the kite and the condor to fight their battles
for them as they fly overhead and to swoop from the air upon the
enemies of the white race, it will not surprise me at all, _effendi_,
if the Sultan of Krav appoints you to the command of his army."

Such words tickled the ear of an ambitious young man.  First among his
reasons for adventuring so far in a remote land and taking service with
that queer people the Frangesy, had been his desire to master the whole
art of war.  Many desert wanderers had told him that the despised Roumi
had war magics of their own.  Zeyd Mohammed had surely discovered them.
And now he would be quite happy to sell his hard won knowledge to the
governor of the sacred city of Krav, who kept a fine army, or to any
other commander of the faithful who would reward his services.

Thus listened Zeyd to the emir with a burning eye.  His words were
exactly those he sought to hear.  The young man knew that his sword
must have a great value for the wise sultan of a backward province.

"O Bassim," said Zeyd, "tell me, how far is it to the sacred city of
Krav?"

"Upon my best camels," said the emir, "accompanied by a retinue, I have
made the journey in thirty-two days."

"We are poor sons of the desert," said Zeyd, "rich only in faith.  All
our faring is upon our flat feet."

"I doubt if your feet will ever get you there.  You will have to
venture at least a hundred days through a land of famine.  I do not say
you will not; all things are possible to the true believer.  Yet, my
son, it is so much better to have camels."

In his heart Zeyd agreed.  But present circumstances put camels out of
the question.

However the good fellow lost no time in reporting this conversation to
the two Roumis whom so oddly he had come to love.  To them also the
sacred city of Krav was not without allure.  As El Bassim described its
whereabouts, it must lie in the direct path to the Nile.  It was
therefore one more stage of their great journey.  But now fully imbued
as they were with the endurances of the desert, they had a clear sense
of its perils.

"It is a case for camels," said Jimsmitt, "yet if we buy them we must
go short of things more important."

This was a sore problem.  Even in the heart of the desert, pieces of
silver have a magic power.  And so few remained that had they bought
camels there had been no food for their owners.  "No," said Jimsmitt,
"let us go afoot to the city of Krav."

Zeyd thereupon made further shrewd enquiries of El Bassim.  The rigour
of the way would be severe, and the emir did not advise it upon such
conditions.  Yet the worthy chief had to own that it was performed
every year by resolute pilgrims even from Khora-a-Belak.  Half of
those who set out on foot never returned, so he could only discourage
that mode of travel.  Still as Zeyd Mohammed was forty-second in
descent from the Neby, and his friends were noted hajji of the holy
places there was no doubt they would be able to count on the friendship
of Allah.  But it would be truly needed, for it was a bad country.

Zeyd, remembering how much they owed Felim, asked the emir if it would
be possible to obtain the services of a guide.

El Bassim feared not.

"We will pay him well."

"Yes, but the bad season is coming.  There are terrible sandstorms in
the fall, about the time he would be returning alone.  Were he caught
it would be death.  You see, O friend, no man fares alone and on foot
to the city of Krav.  Nor therefrom if he can avoid it."

This was bitter news.  None the less the ambition of Zeyd Mohammed had
been fired.  What the wayfarers had next to consider was the question
of some less exacting route.  The journey to Krav might prove too great
a hazard.  Was there some more accessible city in the line of their
long trek to Asia?

"No," said the sheik, "the nearest place is El Fandy from which you are
lately come."

"But that is to return in our tracks," said Zeyd, "which is far from
our intention."

"You must go on to the city of Krav, you must go back to El Fandy, or
you must stay here," said El Bassim.




XV

When Zeyd reported this conversation to his friends a severe depression
fell upon all three.  It looked as if Fate had caught them in a snare.
The plain truth was that the oasis in which they lay was on the main
track to nowhere.  Camels were needed to go on.  But to return to El
Fandy and the grisly country of the Touareg was out of the question.
The only choice was to stay as they were for the time being.  They had
been well received, they were in good care, there was nothing to
complain of.  All the same they had no wish to remain indefinitely.
Such a life, although paradise compared to the rigours of the open
desert, might become intolerable.  Yet for the present they must resign
themselves to it.

Days passed.  Week succeeded week, but the three travellers still abode
with El Bassim.  There was no flaw in his hospitality.  He was a
Bedouin rude and simple, and he had very little beyond goodwill and the
plainest fare to offer.  For these his guests were by no means
ungrateful, yet had he been able to read the anxiety of their minds he
might have deemed them otherwise.  Many hours they spent together
devising plans they had not the courage to pursue.  After their sharp
experience of the open desert the benefits of Khora-a-Belak must not
be lightly eschewed.  It was good to enjoy protection from the sun at
noon, to have sweet water to drink in abundance, to be saved the
imminent dread of thieves and murderers.  Why cast these things away
for the sake of what was only too likely to prove a mirage?

If they ever got as far as the city of Krav, and it was a very bold
assumption, was there any surety they would be as well off as they were
now?  As for returning to El Fandy that was out of the question.  But
it was right to look ahead.  They must not hope, even had they so
desired, to lie the rest of their days in Khora-a-Belak.  A plan for
the morrow was eminently necessary.

When at last the plan came it was the gift of Kismet.  A _djinn_ turned
the water foul.  The sequel was an outbreak of cholera in the village.

For the three guests this was a tragic misfortune.  Some among their
hosts had been a little suspicious of them from the first.  They were
said to be magicians, yet they had given no proof of their powers.  Now
was their opportunity.  Those who believed in them asked that they
should exorcise the evil spirit.  But the sceptical did not hesitate to
say that as wizards were known possessors of the evil eye they must
have already used their wicked powers against those who had shown them
friendship.

For the three strangers, therefore, the appearance of cholera was in
every way unlucky.  The disease itself was a menace to their own lives,
while the attitude of the village was one of growing suspicion.  Even
the friendly El Bassim sought a demonstration of their occult powers.

When Zeyd carried to his friends the bad news they were resting in the
shade of their tent.  The look upon the face of the Arab declared the
heaviness of his heart.  And when the two white men heard what he had
to tell they were also much troubled.  Such tidings were very grave.
Their position was already full of peril.  Jimsmitt saw at once they
must not stay an hour longer than they could help.  The dangers that
awaited them in the open desert could hardly exceed those which had now
arisen.  That evening, after much discussion, they made up their minds
to leave Khora-a-Belak without delay.

They decided to make for the city of Krav.  Luckily they had been able
to glean a good deal of information as to the direction in which it
lay.  The road, or rather the lack of it, held many perils.  It would
be taking their lives in their hands.  Yet such a journey, after all,
was no more hazardous than a return to the country of the Touareg.

Howbeit, they did not hesitate.  The sudden appearance of a foe even
more dreaded than the robbers of the desert had made up their minds.
Delay would be highly dangerous.  And it would be prudent to slip off
in the night quietly without declaring their intention, lest they be
accused of commerce with the _djinn_.  Flight was bound to look like
guilt.  Their first care must be to allay suspicion.  Let them make in
secret every preparation and then suddenly go.

No time like the present, the travellers agreed.  The great decision
taken, Zeyd went at once to the huts to procure as much food as he
could lay hands upon.  And he took pains not to rouse comment.  Happily
the strangers were allowed to draw without payment a liberal ration
from El Bassim's private store.  By judiciously offering the sutler a
few pieces of silver the wily Zeyd intended to increase the quantity.
This he would load privately upon Abdulla, while his two friends went
down to the wells and filled the girbys with water against a long and
perhaps a terrible journey.  It meant risking infection and the spells
of the _djinn_.  Needs must, however, when the devil drives is as
potent a saying among the Bedouin as with the Roumi.  There was no help
for it.  Who could tell when they would again find water?

To begin with the plan or campaign worked out very well.  Zeyd without
exciting remark contrived to get a very good ration indeed from the
sutler.  It consisted of bread, rice, dates and figs.  The sutler was a
simpleton completely absorbed in his office.  Not his to ask questions.
He did not seem to know that a _djinn_ was at work, nor that these
strangers who were clearly preparing for a long journey were darkly
suspected of illicit dealings.  An ill thinking man could easily have
made difficulties.  But the sutler made none.  Upon receipt of a mild
_bakshish_ he allowed the travellers to take a liberal supply of food
from his own abundant store.  There had been a very good harvest and
bread and fruit were plentiful.  Used with care there was enough loaded
on the back of Abdulla to carry the travellers far.

Later that evening Zeyd had a final talk with the chief.  El Bassim was
still his friend, but his mind was now much exercised by the sudden
death of three of his flock.  It was due to a sickness caused by the
malice of a _djinn_.  The emir made no secret of the fact that he
looked to the two magicians, who for several months had enjoyed his
hospitality, to thwart the machinations of this evil spirit.

Zeyd Mohammed promised solemnly that he would do his best in the
matter.  But wizards are a difficult folk who can only act when the
magic lies upon them.  The young man deftly turned the conversation to
the holy city of Krav and the chances of three pilgrims getting there
on foot.  If all went well and they were able to strike the caravan
route to Southern Arabia about the twentieth day of the journey, El
Bassim inclined to think they might hope.  The worthy sheik did not put
it higher, but he thought they might hope.

Their hasty preparations made, the travellers were now ready to depart.
It was clearer than ever that danger lurked in any delay.  Thus as soon
as the village was asleep they folded their tent and stole out with the
fully loaded Abdulla upon the stony track.  They took the road which
led from this pleasant valley into the cruel and trackless unknown.  As
they did so their hearts were heavy.  It was as if they held a
premonition of things to come.  They were leaving ease and abundance
for they knew not what.  But there was no help for it.  To bide a day
longer might involve death by sickness or by torture.  They had no
great hope of reaching the place they sought, nor could they guess the
kind of place it would prove should they ever arrive.  But they were
not in a position to choose.  And to repine was vain.  All their energy
was needed for the task before them now.

They had gleaned some knowledge of the direction they must take.  But
so many haps were likely to arise, and the landmarks were so few that
they could hardly hope to escape grave miscalculations.  Their best,
nay, their only chance lay in hitting the caravan trail to the city of
Krav before their food and water gave out.  So they decided to push on
as quickly as they could in search of it.

The sun that day, as every day, had cruel power.  Being well rested,
however, and imbued with the fire of despair, they gave it scant heed
but went determinedly on, with only a few brief halts and not pitching
their tent until night fell.  They rested there until the moon rose and
then went on again.  Far out now in a barren, treeless, waterless
country of loose sand, rock and scrub, there was no road or any kind of
mark to guide them.  They had to travel by the sunset and the stars.
Jimsmitt had a compass, but in such conditions its value was uncertain.
The city of Krav had been vaguely described to them as "over there."
But the pointing finger of El Bassim had left a margin for error which
might easily amount to a thousand miles.

In sore depression the three travellers went on.  They went on through
the day and through the night.  Never had their spirits been so low.
It was as if a pre-vision of untoward chance was already upon them.
Were they not far out upon that bourne whence no traveller returns?

In this sore travail these men of diverse nature grew strangely close
to one another.  Their fates were linked so intimately that each seemed
a moiety of the others.  It was a curious fellowship.  Yet there was
something deep and sacred and immortal in it.

Jimsmitt had once remarked that Zeyd was a white man all but his skin.
It was the highest compliment that one of his race had in his power to
pay an Arab.  But with equal justice, now that they were far out in the
Sahara in complete and terrible submission to the will of Allah, the
child of the desert might have said of his two friends that they were
Bedouin in all but name.  Inexorably they kept up hour by hour, day by
day.  Sternly they limited themselves to a few drops of water and a
very little food at sundown.  Zeyd did not forget that his companions
were white men accustomed to eat and drink more heavily than the desert
bred.

Presently the wayfarers began to lose count of time.  But as they drove
on through that pathless waste, with never a hint of their goal and
very little hope of it, they knew the precious days were passing.  They
kept a sense of direction as well as they could, but the "over there"
of El Bassim was now a mockery.  It was very doubtful now if they could
have found their way back to Khora-a-Belak.

They had still a fair supply of food in their wallets, but the girbys
were almost dry.  Shrivelled tongues, swollen lips and burning throats
were causing much pain.  But near sundown one evening when both white
men were beginning to fear madness, came one more signal instance of
the kindness of God.  They were stumbling among rough stones which
formed a sort of trough in the sand when Zeyd suddenly picked up a
piece of grey green moss.  The next moment he was on his knees digging
with bare fingers as if for very life.

His friends had little expectation.  Their joy was the greater
therefore when Zeyd held up his hands and showed them moist.  Jimsmitt
and Dorland joined feverishly in the digging.  And before night swooped
down they had scraped water enough to allay their pains.  There was
also the hope of more.  To do full justice to this cache they camped
till dawn.  The water was hard to get, but they were able to collect
enough for several days.  And they were loth to quit this land of
promise.  There was no saying when they would strike water again.  But
they must not stay long lest their supply of food give out.

When they moved on, although water and rest had done wonders, the two
white men soon began to flag.  Zeyd, the child of the desert, was still
untiring, but his companions were asking too much of nature.  Already
it was certain their limit was near.  They did all they could to keep
the knowledge to themselves.  But their strength was going.  It was a
point of honour not to complain, yet as mile after mile they lurched
and stumbled on by the faint light of the stars they might have been
drunken men.

The day came at last when exhaustion, lack of water and food and the
heat of the sun told their inevitable tale upon the most fragile of the
three.  Dawn one morning found Dorland in the throes of fever.  It was
clear that he could no longer keep up with his companions and it would
have been futile to urge him to do so.  He begged them to leave him,
since any delay in the open desert would involve the death of all.  But
the others would not hear of this.  Even at the cost of their own lives
they were determined not to abandon him.

In sheer desperation and not knowing what to do, Dorland insisted on
dragging his failing limbs a few miles more.  But when they had come to
a watercourse completely dry, which yet offered partial shelter from
the sun's brutal rays, he sank down in a kind of vertigo and was unable
to rise.  Here he lay gasping and writhing in a low fever for the rest
of that day.  And even when the night brought a little ease, he could
not continue the journey.  He realised as he lay tossing helplessly
hour by hour that only one thing remained to be done.

If he were not to involve his friends in his own fate he would have to
blow out his brains.  For one of his nature it would not be easy.  But
no choice lay before him.  He must screw up his courage to the deed.
The idea once firmly lodged in his mind the problem was how and when to
execute it.  Both his friends kept with him in the shelter of the tent.
And to judge by their vigilance they had guessed his purpose.

All that day Jimsmitt and Zeyd kept their eyes upon him.  And when
night came and he feigned sleep in order to put them off their guard he
was still unable to outwit them.  For when seizing his moment he rose
very stealthily in the darkness and took the automatic from his belt,
he was unable to apply it to his temple before Jimsmitt, who had been
feigning sleep, also had sprung up and wrested the pistol from him.

"No you don't, old man," said Jimsmitt.  "One for all.  All for one.
That's the motto of this caravan."

Dorland had not the strength to contest the matter.  He could but
regret his own feebleness and lie down again with a groan.  Weaponless
now and growing ever weaker he felt that chance was past.  Again he
begged his friends to leave him to his fate, but their only answer was
to press to his lips more than a fair share of the scant water that
remained.




XVI

The skins were again so low that early one morning Zeyd set off with a
girby and a digging tool.  By the light of recent experience his hope
was not high.  There was little chance of finding water within a
reasonable distance of the wadi.  But the good fellow knowing the sheer
necessity went off alone cheerfully, leaving Jimsmitt to look after the
sick man.

Zeyd had been gone about two hours when there came a sudden fall of
temperature.  It was more than welcome.  At that moment Jimsmitt and
Dorland guessed little of what it portended.

Enormous clouds began to appear in the south west.  Soon arose a heavy
distant sound of rushing.  Then it was that Jimsmitt, who had
experience of the Sahara, felt a sudden grip of terror.  What he heard
could have only one meaning.  A sandstorm was coming.  And its awful
fury gathering momentum over thousands of miles, with nothing to break
its force, meant almost certain death for those who were exposed to the
full blast.

Zeyd had not yet returned.  Fears for his safety were now rife.  But he
was far beyond human aid.  The best there was to hope for, as far as he
was concerned, was that he would be able to find some kind of wadi or
_donga_ in which to lie while the worst of the storm passed.  Yet even
that would mean an intervention of Providence.

It was useless to speculate.  Nor was this the moment.  The coming
storm was almost upon them.  Jimsmitt must act promptly if he were to
save his own life and that of his stricken friend.  He ran forth at
once to find Abdulla.  The good little beast had been hobbled as usual,
but a few yards off.  Quickly he was led into the tent.  Ropes and pegs
were firmly adjusted; then the moaning semi-conscious Dorland was
dragged within.  The entrance was closed up to keep out the sand.  And
then in complete darkness Jimsmitt, who stood in the middle of the
tent, the better to hold on to the fabric, awaited the storm.  Abdulla
seemed to share the terror of the Englishman.  The poor beast snuffed
and sweated and made queer noises.  Dorland alone of the three was in
no condition to appreciate the new peril.

Barely had Jimsmitt made his dispositions when all the Furies of the
desert swept down upon him.  Amid shrieks and screams to affright the
boldest, a terrific wind struck the little hair tent.  By the mercy of
God the wadi was deep enough to break its fury.  Save for that the
house of hair must surely have been torn from its moorings and cast
away.  Even as it was, the issue of the storm was long in doubt.
Jimsmitt held on to the roof of the tent with better success than he
expected, but soon came another menace.  The flying sand had a trick of
completely burying everything which dared to stand against it.  Even if
the tent could keep the perpendicular, sooner or later it would be
over-borne by the sheer weight of sand.  And then a death by
suffocation would almost certainly follow.

Still this was a chance that had to be taken.  To venture now into the
open was to woo even more certain death.  By far the best hope for all
three was to stay as they were.  It was a gamble upon the tent being
strong enough to resist to the bitter end.  But it was wise.  The wadi
continuing to break the fury of the storm Jimsmitt was able to hold on
until it had passed.

For rather more than three hours the simoon was at a height.  Then it
began to diminish sensibly.  By the time the sky had cleared and light
had pierced the sides of the tent the air was nearly calm again.
Jimsmitt was able to open the flap, although a considerable weight of
sand had gathered about it, and so escaped a powerful and growing
threat of asphyxiation.  When the flap was open the air was much the
cooler for the storm.  It smelt quite refreshing.  The temperature was
lower by many degrees than at any time since they had left
Khora-a-Belak.  But the heart of the Englishman was heavy as he came
forth to survey the picture.

In a sense the havoc was surprisingly little, perhaps for the good
reason that amid such barrenness there was hardly any mischief for
Nature to do.  An earthquake must have left things much as they were.
But here and there, by the wind's caprice, the blown sand had been
greatly displaced.  Owing to the shelter of the wadi they had met no
personal harm.  All the same their camp was half burled.  It was grim
evidence of what would have happened had they been caught in the open.
They owed much to the clemency of God.  Yet the heart of Jimsmitt sank.
It seemed as he gazed upon the wild and terrible scene that there was
little hope for Zeyd.

Had the Arab been able to take shelter?  It was immensely unlikely.

For the whole of that day clouds obscured the sun.  The fall in
temperature continued and the change was tonic.  It brought such relief
to Dorland that his fever abated.  His friend was careful to keep from
him the loss of Zeyd.  Jimsmitt by now could only believe that the Arab
had been overcome or had lost his way, and that they must not hope to
see the good fellow again.

It was a tragic blow.  All through this incredible journey they had
leaned very heavily upon their guide.  His knowledge, his cunning, his
endurance--without these in abundant measure they could never have come
so far.  And their withdrawal just now was tantamount to sentence of
death.  Had Zeyd been with them still it was hardly to be expected that
they would emerge alive from this sore pass.  Now that he was gone
their case seemed hopeless.

All through the night which followed--to Jimsmitt one of despair--he
sat by Dorland's improvised couch.  Once or twice the stricken man
asked for their friend.  Each time the Englishman parried his question.
When another day broke it was clear that Zeyd would not return.

The water by now had all but given out.  Dorland was still consumed by
thirst, and Jimsmitt, who for the sufferers' sake had been content with
less than his share, for several days was himself enduring torture.  As
he went forth with a waterskin and a pointed stick he felt that he was
upon a hopeless quest.  The watercourse in which they were encamped had
seemed bone dry.  It had been thoroughly prospected by Zeyd and himself
three days ago.  Coming madness and a cruel death were stalking them
already, as Jimsmitt moved listlessly upon what in seasons more
favourable was the bed of a tiny river.  Already the sun was out again
like an avenging sword.  Without water it would not be possible to
sustain its fury.

But the despairing man had not gone far when there happened a strange
thing.  In certain parts of the river bed, where the full force of the
_huboob_ had struck it, there had been a considerable displacement of
loose sand.  Here and there the face of the watercourse was much
changed.  Dark patches were showing.  Thrilled by a hope he dare not
entertain the unlucky man fell on his knees and began to dig.  Soon
there was a promise of results.  As with a mounting excitement he went
deeper and deeper there came a tiny trickle of the precious fluid.  In
the course of an hour, working hard, he was able to collect and strain
a full girby.

It was their best strike for many a long and bitter day.  And there
looked to be more at hand.  Wildly excited, Jimsmitt bore his discovery
to the tent.  Dorland and he drank greedily.  The water tasted
wonderfully sweet.  And that was also the judgment of Abdulla.  He too
had had to suffer.  Indeed they feared their willing friend was about
to die.  But this providential finding of water meant a new lease of
life for all three.  The spring was less than a mile from where Dorland
lay.  And Jimsmitt, strengthened immensely by what he had found
already, soon returned for a further supply.  It would be wise to get
what they could while they could lest the growing heat of the day suck
it dry.

Jimsmitt continued to dig with excellent results.  Girbys were
replenished by noon.  And then later, as evening approached, he went
again and found more.  And there was still a reasonable quantity left
for the morrow.

This wonderful piece of luck made them new men.  Their food would last
several weeks.  Water all along had been their problem.  Now that for
the time being it was in fair supply their pangs were stayed.  They
hoped for strength to move across the waste in search of the caravan
route to the city of Krav.  It was said to intersect the desert but a
few miles from where they were now.  If only they could strike it there
would be a prospect of new oases.  Anyhow the present discovery gave
them a further lease of life.

Zeyd's fate, however, could no longer be hidden from Dorland.  In a
sense that dire tragedy completely embittered their cup.  Not only had
they lost a self-sacrificing friend but the lack of his incomparable
skill and craft was as heavy a misfortune as could well have beset
them.  What a grim irony underlay the whole matter!  Zeyd had no need
to go afield in quest of that which unknown to them was at their very
door.  And that act of nature's violence which had disclosed its
presence had undoubtedly robbed their friend of his life.  The
inscrutable providence upon whom all depended had given freely with one
hand while it cruelly took away with the other.

Heavy of heart and yet sensible of their luck they stayed by the water
several days.  It was of a good kind and so deep was the havoc of the
wind along the river bed that the flow was fairly copious.  They might
have remained longer in the land of plenty, and would have been glad to
do so, but there was food to consider.  The one real hope of life was
to reach the caravan route before that gave out.  And so they must take
one more chance in this land of chances and go in search of it at the
earliest moment.

That moment came as soon as Dorland's fever had subsided and he was
strong enough to walk.  Then it was in the cool of the night, by the
light of the stars these two unlucky men led forth a creature hardly
less unfortunate.  Jimsmitt in his devotion would have had Dorland
mount Abdulla.  But Dorland would not hear of this.  "No," he said.
"It isn't fair.  Let each bear his own burden.  Share and share alike
is the law for us now."

Bay after day, night after night, they stumbled blindly on.  Their
store of food grew rapidly less, for there was never a sign of succour.
Again they were afflicted with a cruel need of water.  Tormented by
thirst and hunger and a powerful threat of sun-blindness, it was now
certain that madness and death were not far off.  Mile by mile Jimsmitt
continued to sustain his friend.  As long as Dorland had that shoulder
to lean upon and a voice, gentle, kind and whimsical, to charm his ear
he was somehow able to keep going.  Time and again it seemed that he
must fall dead in his tracks.  But the sense of Jimsmitt ever by his
side lent force to his limbs, nerve to his heart, even in those grim
hours when the face of God was hid.

And so it was that one morning at sunrise, with a dread and strange
darkness falling upon their eyes, they suddenly realised that only a
little way off and coming towards them in a cloud of dust was the thing
they sought.  It was that for which for many days they had longed.
Their faith had met with reward.  It was a caravan of pilgrims making
the haj to the sacred city of Krav.


An hour later the two worn and broken men had joined up with this band.
Food and water were once more obtainable.  The caravan led them to one
oasis after another.  Finally they reached that wonderful and
mysterious city of which they had heard.

Of what these desert travellers did there this is neither the time nor
the place to tell.  Nor of their going thence.  Nor of their further
travels in wild and barren and trackless places never before trodden by
the Roumi.  Nor of their many sufferings.  The story of these
adventures among strange peoples, in old and remote cities, may never
be told.  Nor the story of a bitterly painful captivity at the hands of
a cruel sultan.

But through many terrible hazards Jimsmitt and Dorland fared together.
And each continued to sustain the other with a devotion passing the
love of women.

This odyssey, in the beyond of which a record has yet to be made,
endured nearly three years from the time of their flight from
Sidi-bel-Abbs in North Africa.  And then by many devious ways they
came to the city of Damascus.  Afterwards they went by the Red Sea and
through the breadth of Syria to the Nile.  Thence to Khartoum, and
finally one morning of spring, they found themselves at the gates of
Cairo.

Gaunt as shadows, burnt dark by the sun of the desert, barefooted, mere
bundles of rags that would scarce hold together, they reached that city
in the guise of beggars.  There was nothing in the outward aspect of
these vagabonds to relate them to what they had been.  None could have
guessed their nationality.  Their unkempt beards, their inscrutable,
half vacant eyes, the colour of their skins, the strangeness of their
gestures were far indeed from the civilisation of the West.  It would
have been difficult for Jimsmitt's mother to have recognised her son,
an English gentleman.  Nor would it have been easy for the mother of
Ambrose Dorland to recognise a graduate of Harvard University.

Their sufferings had been terrible.  Many times it had seemed they
could never hope to win back to the haunts of the white race.  Certain
it is that they could not have done so had they gone alone.  But their
united strength, the one helping the other through the barren lands and
an utter darkness of the spirit, had somehow brought them home.  As
they came in sight of the minarets of Cairo they were walking like a
pair of children hand in hand.  It was the measure of Allah's bounty.
It was the measure of a darkly inscrutable Providence.




XVII

They found a cool and quiet place within the Fazil gate.  Here they
sat.  And then they considered what they should do.  They were back
where they belonged.  After all they had been through it seemed
incredible that they should live to see this day.  But as they sat
weary and numb inside the Fazil gate they could make no plans.  Adrift
so long in the wilderness it was as if they had lost the power of
consecutive thought.

They did but ask to rest.  That was now their sole demand of a highly
mysterious cosmos.  Had it not been for the other's presence each would
have sought to die.  Life as they had learned to know it through those
awful years had only one guerdon.  And that guerdon was the face of a
friend.  In the wan eyes of each lay a mystic talisman which wrought
upon the other's soul.

Jimsmitt and Dorland sat together in the shade of the Fazil gate.  The
younger man, after his wont, laid his turbaned head on the ragged
shoulder of his friend.  And then in utter weariness he fell asleep.
Several hours he slept, while his alter ego, not stirring a limb, gazed
steadily at the pageant before him with eyes half blind.  He gazed upon
the busy life around him, wherein men and women of his own kind
abounded, and upon those curious familiar things he had not expected to
see again.

Strange it was to be seated thus by the highway in the very nexus of
affairs in the heart of the eastern world.  To the Englishman it seemed
that his years of weary travail, of hardship and misery unspeakable,
were but the fabric of a dream.  Now that he saw again the people of
his own race, amid the trappings of a civilisation he had once enjoyed,
the hell through which he had passed lost its grip.

When Dorland woke up they tried again to make plans for the future.
But it was no use.  Each felt that the linchpin had been knocked out of
his brain.  There was a total lack of the co-ordinating will that
enables a man to mould his destiny.  Yet if they were not to spend the
rest of their days a mere couple of _fellaheen_ beggars by the wayside,
they must be up and doing.

They had still a little money.  It was only a few pieces of silver,
which with grim tenacity they had managed to keep through many
vicissitudes.  Sitting by the Fazil gate it seemed a very meagre store.
But if they were to bend the future to their purposes it behoved them
now to eke out these piastres and drachmas and Arabian dollars to the
most careful advantage.  When they had rested awhile they ate the last
of their dates.  And then they fell again to discussing what they
should do.  But they reached no practical goal.  In the true oriental
manner they talked about it and about it but came out by that same door
wherein they went.  At last in the late afternoon as the sun began to
dip behind the tamarisk trees that screened the western sky and the
waters of the Nile there happened a strange thing.

This occurrence in itself very simple, perfectly congruous, made upon
Dorland an extraordinary impression.  The spot they had chosen,
although protected from the sun, was well in the eye of the passer-by.
Being one of the chief highways of the city, there was a constant
stream of traffic.  Both wayfarers had been enormously interested by a
garish and brilliant throng.  All the chief types of the Orient were
here to be seen, mingled with many typical westerners of the upper
class.  Automobile, rickshaw, horse, mule and camel made a continual
procession,

Jimsmitt and Dorland were fascinated by the spectacle.  The whole thing
was a brilliant panorama, a vivid picture they had never expected to
see again.  In the midst of the scene which so deeply stirred their
emotions an unforgettable incident arose.

Dorland observed coming slowly towards them the most completely
beautiful woman he had ever seen.  Such an impact upon his vision may
have owed something to the circumstance.  The painter was as one
returned from the dead.  His artist's eye, open always to vivid and
swift impressions, was now almost morbidly excited.  Versed in the
esoteric values which only a highly trained craftsman can assess, he
was stirred very deeply by this apparition of exquisite grace.

She might have been in the late twenties and she was accompanied by a
young girl.  Sauntering past in the grateful shade of the lime and the
tamarisk, there was ample opportunity to look at her.  But when Dorland
came to think the matter over afterwards he could never really decide
how much of the lasting effect this woman made upon him was the fruit
of what occurred.  Yet he could not help thinking that even had she
passed them by, Jimsmitt and himself, squatting from habit in the shade
like a couple of eastern beggars, this wonderful creature would still
have awakened the deepest and subtlest forces in his nature.  For him
it must have been a moment of rebirth.  The mere sight of such beauty
must have roused a dead ambition.

Was it that eyes burning with recognition of things forgot pierced a
secret in her heart?  Or more likely, as Dorland came to believe, it
was a similar phenomenon stirring in the tormented soul of Jimsmitt.
For as this lady approached those two dark bundles of rags, which
presumably contained the Bedouin of the desert, she halted suddenly and
gave Jimsmitt a long and piercing look.  Then at the beck of an obscure
impulse which yet was plainly rooted in pity, she opened her
_sac--main_ and very gently with a gesture that Dorland was never to
forget laid a silver dollar in the lap of his companion.

Jimsmitt, who had had no thought of _bakshish_, was too much astonished
to acknowledge the alms.  He made neither movement nor sound as the two
women immediately went on.  Yet so great was the tension of the man at
his side that Dorland well knew the incident had cut very deeply into
his soul.

Clearly this man, whom impenetrable mystery enshrouded, was greatly and
strangely affected.

The silence which fell upon the two friends continued until the lady
and the girl were out of sight.  Jimsmitt then remarked in a far-off
unhappy voice which gave the man who loved him a sense of ice along the
spine, "This, my son, is one more of the things that simply don't
happen."  And very softly and gently he laughed to himself.

Nothing more was said of the matter at that time.  Dorland feeling that
it held the seed of the uncanny, summoned all that he had of will to
dismiss the thing from his mind.  To that end he rose from the grass
and taking his friend by the arm moved farther on into the city.  They
bought a little food and then in the native quarter found a very cheap
lodging for the night.  Their means entitled them to a roof of some
kind to cover them, but until they had formed a definite scheme of life
they would do well to conserve every cent of their resources.

It was strange indeed to be lying under a roof once more cheek by jowl
with the civilisation of the west.  They slept amid bedfellows of a
lively kind.  But a long captivity with the Sultan of Krav and their
recent mode of life had inured them to these.  Followed a breakfast of
rye bread with a bowl of the bitter but excellent Arab coffee for which
they had developed a taste in their travels.  And then towards noon
they went forth as far as l'Avenue des Fleurs, a very gay and pleasant
thoroughfare, and sought the friendly shade of the tamarisk.

Here it was, stretched at ease, that Dorland's mind turned again to the
future.  He was a man still young, not thirty as yet, in whom ambition
was beginning to stir in its long sleep.  A dormant talent must soon be
calling to him.  After years of misery almost too great to be borne he
felt that he must do something to justify the life for which he had
striven and had so hardly won.

It was while he lay thus, with these ideas germinating in his mind,
that his companion spoke again of the incident of the previous evening.
Dorland had tried to dismiss it.  Better for the health of Jimsmitt's
soul that it pass into oblivion.  But it was Jimsmitt now who took up
the tale.  And he did so in a curiously dramatic manner.

Without reason or rhyme, the man by Dorland's side rose suddenly from
the ground on which they lay, opened his tattered _jellab_ and
disclosed round his thin brown neck a locket suspended by a fine chain
of gold.  The American had observed that locket on other occasions.
But Jimsmitt had never alluded to it, and Dorland had had no curiosity
about it.  Doubtless it was some heirloom or charm, or it may have held
a portrait of Jimsmitt's mother.

Now, however, in a startling fashion, Jimsmitt slipped the chain from
his neck and handed the locket to Dorland.  "Open it, old man," he said
in a soft, wistful tone.

Little suspecting the thrill in store Dorland opened the locket in a
casual way.  He recoiled sharply.  It was as if a viper had bitten him.
The locket fell from his fingers into the sand.

He had seen the portrait of a woman, an exquisite miniature.  She was
hardly more than a girl.  But it was a face seen very recently.  And to
an artist's eye it was unforgettable.  "God," said Dorland with a gasp.
All at once he felt a queer tightening of the throat and breast.

"Ye-es," said Jimsmitt half to himself, "the ways of Allah are
inscrutable."

Whimsicality masked the words; yet it could not mask the anguish in the
eyes of him who uttered them.  They held a depth of pain the man at his
side could not bear to see.  Almost from the hour of their coming
together Dorland had known that James Smith, otherwise Jimsmitt,
otherwise Smitt, otherwise Smitten-of-Allah, guarded a vital secret.
Not his to penetrate, he had dismissed it from his mind.  Yet now, in
this strange hour, the sense of it returned upon Dorland with awful
intensity.  The hand of Fate itself, imperious and merciless, had
suddenly descended again upon Smitten-of-Allah.  That odd
self-description once more recurred to Dorland.  It was surely a
portent of great suffering.  The look of the man as he uttered those
sinister words smote upon his friend's tender heart.  Alas, poor
Jimsmitt!

Dorland said nothing.  What could he say?  "More things are in earth
and heaven, Horatio, than are dreamed of in our philosophy" was a
phrase that formed in his mind.  But he was silent.

Most of the day was spent under the trees.  Little in the way of words
passed between them.  Yet the mind of Dorland was full of the immediate
future.  And this concern was intensified by what befell when they
returned in the evening to the byways of the city.  En route to their
squalid lodging they had to pass a dive wherein liquor of a crude and
fiery sort could be obtained.  Here the Italian could buy lacrima
cristi, the American a horse's neck, the Russian vodka.  It was a haunt
of many doubtful members of a heterogeneous floating population.

"Let us celebrate our good luck, old man."  As they came to the door of
the White Dove, Jimsmitt unexpectedly broke a silence which had grown
painful to his friend.  "I must buy you a drink."

Dorland had no particular wish for a drink.  His wanderings had somehow
cured his morbid taste for absinthe.  And there was reason to hope that
lack of opportunity had also cured Jimsmitt's.  But now as he suddenly
entered this place and his friend unwillingly followed there was in his
tone and bearing that which caused Dorland's heart to sink.  His
companion led the way through the swing doors up to a glittering
counter presided over by an obese Turk wearing a fez.

To Dorland's horror Jimsmitt produced the silver dollar the woman had
given him and demanded absinthe.  He ordered two glasses.

"No, no," said the younger man firmly to the Turk.  "Do not get it."
And then without another word he took Jimsmitt by the arm and half led,
half dragged him out of the place.




XVIII

Gripping his companion as if he were a prisoner Dorland led him down a
long and squalid street to the cheap eating house they had visited the
previous evening.  Here another meal of sorts was placed before them.
It cost only a few cents, but in comparison with desert fare it was not
unpalatable.  Jimsmitt could hardly be got to touch it.  But the
younger man, already feeling immensely better for his return to
civilisation, was able to do justice to the rice and eggs and the
excellent coffee.  All the same he was not in a happy mood.  He had a
growing concern for his friend.  Since the incident the previous day
Jimsmitt's manner had become very strange.  His sudden demand for
absinthe was in the circumstances extremely disquieting.  Dorland
feared that the blow Fate had dealt him was beyond his strength to bear.

This evening Jimsmitt had a curious apathy.  His eyes seemed veiled and
gazing inwards.  All day he had been without food, yet he pushed away
his plate untasted.  Finally he said as Dorland led him away to their
lodging, "I think, old man, we had better clear out of this city."

Dorland thought so, too.  Cairo seemed no place for either of them.
And presently when he lay stretched on a hard bed in a stuffy attic he
gave his mind to the new problem.  For the sake of his friend let them
move on.  Cairo had become intolerable to Jimsmitt.

Dorland felt menaced by the whole responsibility of the future.  It was
left to him not merely to plan but to carry out a new orientation.  The
blow which had fallen so unexpectedly, so mysteriously upon Jimsmitt
seemed to have broken his will.  His growing apathy was alarming to the
man who loved him.  Dorland as he reviewed their unhappy situation felt
that it behoved him to do all in his power to renew the link which had
snapped in each of their lives.  He had no idea who Jimsmitt was; he
did not know his real name or of anything pertaining to him.  But he
was so obviously other than his circumstances that his friend must not
rest until he had been able to re-establish him, to put him back where
he belonged.

As for Dorland himself, when he had joined the Foreign Legion at the
end of 1915, he had been a painter of brilliant promise.  His friends
in Paris did not hesitate to speak of his genius.  But as things were
now it would not be possible to pick up the threads of that life just
as they had been left.  It was true the war was over and the Armistice
had been signed nearly six months, yet it was hardly likely that its
terms included an indemnity for deserters from the French Foreign
Legion.  Anyhow, Dorland had no intention of taking the risk by showing
himself in Paris.  He was too well known there, and he had enlisted in
his own name.  One thing he could do.  And he felt it must be done at
the first opportunity.  There was a sum to his credit at one of the
French banks.  It was not large, but it was the residue of the much
diminished estate that had come to him on the death of his mother.
Except the money Jimsmitt and he had stowed away in their own rags,
which at best amounted to a few pounds English, this sum in the Paris
bank comprised the whole of their resources.

As Dorland lay in his bed that night he came to several important
decisions.  He felt that the best, perhaps the only, chance Jimsmitt
had was to return to his native land.  He must break the spell that was
upon him.  Let him forget the awful years in the tropical heat of the
dark continent.  A means must be found to relate him to the life he had
formerly known.

The next day was full of significance.  Its events seemed to fix and
develop the scheme for the future that had already formed in Dorland's
mind.  It began inauspiciously.  Jimsmitt refused to eat a crumb of
their meagre breakfast.  This was a bad sign, for the previous day he
had also eaten nothing.  Also the cloud, so alarming to Dorland, which
had spread over his mind, appeared to increase.  He seemed to be losing
his memory.  And he spoke hardly at all.  Dorland, however, began to
develop power of will as that of Jimsmitt waned.  The younger man faced
with an ever-growing responsibility waxed ever higher in resolve as his
friend grew weaker.

In the course of a momentous day the American might be said to take
upon himself the rle of mother, wife, nurse and comrade.  He began by
compelling, literally compelling the Englishman to swallow a little
food.  And then, taking him by the arm, he led him from the stews of
the city to a pleasant spot near the Jamsar gate where he would be safe
from the sun and the traffic.  Then having drawn a solemn promise from
the stricken man that he would not stir from this place until his own
return, Dorland left him comfortably in the shade and went forth into
the city.

The French bank that held his money did not appear to have a branch in
Cairo.  Of that he was informed by the Crdit Lyonnais.  Nor, as he was
further informed, had it an accredited agent.  The reason was simple
and it was cogent.  It appeared the bank in question was in
liquidation, having stopped payment and failed for a very large amount.
The Crdit Lyonnais took a gloomy view of its affairs.  Its creditors
were only likely to receive a very small dividend, if any, and many
months must pass before even that could materialise.

This news was staggering.  The one weapon Dorland possessed had broken
in his hand.  His sole means of re-establishing himself in the only
world he knew had completely vanished.  There was none to whom he could
turn.  His European friends all lived in France.  And that was a
country to which just now he must give the widest possible berth.  He
had no friends in England, for he had never been there.  In Rome he had
only made acquaintances.  Even if he could get as far as that city
there was nothing to ask of it in the way of help.

The one alternative was to scrape the wherewithal together by hook or
by crook and go back to America.  But even there he was hardly known.
He had formed friendships at Harvard which long ago had lapsed.  And in
any event he was far too proud to pick up the threads in the too
obvious rle of a down-and-out.  The same held true of his few
relations.  Some there were, no doubt, scattered up and down the length
and breadth of the United States, but he knew little of them, and they
still less of him.  Had his mother been alive it would have been
otherwise.  As it was, with a sick man on his hands, hardly a dollar in
his pocket and but a few rags to his back, his own country appeared to
be about the last place on earth he cared to visit.

Yes, the blow was crushing.  He felt completely stunned by it as he
strolled round the city and tried to shape in his brain some
alternative scheme.  The more thought he gave to the matter the more
imperative it grew that Jimsmitt should leave the East as soon as
possible.  As Dorland read his case it needed the astringent air of his
native continent to pull him together.  The one chance, it seemed to
Dorland, to restore his mind was to banish from it the nightmare of the
last three years.  If he stayed where he was he would sink lower and
lower.  And there was reason to fear that he had already gone too far.

Growing pretty desperate and knowing that what was done must be done
quickly, Dorland had come to no further decision when towards evening
he rejoined his friend.  Jimsmitt still sat where he had been left.  He
was sunk in tragic gloom, but at the sight of Dorland a light flickered
into his eyes.  For days, for months past, that beacon had always shone
there, no matter how transiently, at the mere approach of his friend.

"Good to see you, old man," said Jimsmitt faintly.

And then he added in a slow reluctant voice: "I expect the time has
about come to dissolve our little partnership."

Dorland asked what he meant.

"We are at the end of our journey, aren't we?"

"No, we are not," said Dorland.  "There's a long way to go yet."

"Not for me, old son.  I feel I can't keep on any longer.  And you have
all the world before you, so it isn't right to hold you back."

"That's as may be," said Dorland.  "But we are going to travel to
Europe together.  And the air of that old place is going to put you
right."

But to judge by the look of Jimsmitt now it was quite clear that he had
no wish to be put right.  He seemed to feel that he was done.  In fact
he roundly asserted that he was a watch whose mainspring had snapped.

Rather than be a heavy drag upon his friend, Jimsmitt asked to be left
to his fate.  But Dorland let him see that he had not the least
intention of consenting to that.  Moreover, with a robust optimism he
did not really feel, he declared that it was in his power to set him
right again.

Jimsmitt, for some reason, appeared to have no wish to be put right.
His one object during many incredible months spent in places "off the
map" had been to get the man he loved safe into port.  Well, he had
brought him there at last.  That was the appointed end of a long and
terrible journey and, as far as Jimsmitt was concerned, an end of the
whole sorry business of life.

However, it was to be nothing of the kind.  Bonds had been forged in
the hearts of these two men while they had suffered and borne and
striven together.  And now in this new phase of their extremity in a
sense their minds had become one.  That is to say they had only one
will between them.  And for the time being that will was in possession
of the younger, the stronger, the more virile, the more forward looking
nature.  Had Jimsmitt been free to act for himself, he would have taken
himself off altogether, so that Dorland unimpeded might go on alone.
But Dorland was now so much stronger than he that he was able to
dictate the actions of both.

"You are coming to Europe, Jim," he said.  "And Europe is going to put
you right."

Jimsmitt gently shook a head of blank despair.  But just then he had
neither the wit nor the will to disabuse the mind of his friend.




XIX

Dorland had fully decided in his own mind that they were going to
Europe.  But he was much puzzled as to the means of getting there.
While they sat in the cool of the tamarisks turning over the pros and
cons of the whole matter--that is to say, as well as Jimsmitt was in a
condition to apprehend them--Dorland saw that, assuming he was able to
maintain his present ascendancy of will power, the problem must resolve
itself into one of ways and means.  Could they raise enough money to
get to Europe?

Dorland soon concluded that the difficulties of reaching England were
likely to prove very great.  But if attacked with boldness perhaps they
were not insuperable.  After considerable thought and a survey of their
joint resources, he made a definite plan.  But it was contingent upon
everything turning out favourably.  An adverse wind, an unforeseen
chance, would instantly shatter it.

First they must exchange their present rags for some clothes of the
European kind.  It did not matter how cheap they were.  Then they must
make their way to Alexandria, seek out the skipper of some ocean tramp
at that port and persuade him to take them to Europe.  To this end
Dorland would propose to work his own passage.  He lacked experience of
the sea; but he was fairly strong now and more than willing.  Jimsmitt
was in no state to earn his own keep, but Dorland ventured to hope with
an optimism the case hardly warranted, that he would be able to fix
terms of some kind by which his friend could accompany him upon the
voyage.

Unfortunately they had very little money.  The most skilful accountancy
could not stretch it far enough to cover their needs.  And when Dorland
outlined the scheme to Jimsmitt, the Englishman showed so little
interest in it, for one place seemed to him as good as another to die
in, that it was clear he must look for no help from that failing mind.
But each day now brought new fighting power to Dorland.  He had formed
his plan and nothing less than a definite non-possumus on the part of
Fate was going to turn him from it.

To begin with he was driven to do a thing which he greatly disliked.
Beyond a few pieces of silver, odd bits of bric--brac such as Arab
charms and two or three stones of very doubtful value, the only
articles in their possession which could be turned to commodity were
the gold locket and chain that Jimsmitt wore round his neck.  These
undoubtedly had a definite value even with the goldsmiths of Cairo.
Dorland had perforce to explain to their owner that the chain at least
must be used for their needs if they were ever to see Europe.

To Dorland's surprise Jimsmitt promptly opened his shirt, removed the
talisman and without saying a word handed it to his friend.  Dorland
would have given much not to have had to barter the gold chain.  But
there was no help for it.  As far as the locket was concerned and the
exquisite miniature it contained, he felt that it had a considerable
value.  Whether a Jew dealer in the rue Denise would be persuaded to
give a reasonable sum for it was an open question.  However, his
dealings with the goldsmith were satisfactory enough to make further
negotiation for the time being unnecessary.

The sale of the gold chain enabled them to buy a couple of
reach-me-downs from a slop tailor in the ghetto.  They were ill fitting
suits of poor quality but they served.  Also they bought thick shirts
and drawers and new headgear, which, after complete immersion of
themselves in the public baths, they were glad enough to don.  It was
not exactly Bond Street attire, but compared with the masses of unclean
rags they had been able to discard, it was undoubtedly an advance in
the right direction.

The next thing to do was to proceed by train to Alexandria.  This would
deplete their resources very considerably.  But it seemed economically
sound.  It would take too long to perform the journey on foot as they
would still require food each day.  Moreover Dorland was not sure that
Jimsmitt was in a condition to undertake it.  Indeed, throughout all
these preliminaries his rle was entirely passive.  As always he seemed
to be living in a cloudland of apathy.

When they reached Alexandria it was late in the evening.  They had some
food at a caf, although it was little enough that Jimsmitt could be
persuaded to eat.  And then for the sake of economy they found places
on a seat in one of the public parks.  The air being dry and the night
warm, they rested in fair comfort until dawn.  For men of regular life
such a night had been sorry enough.  But compared with what they had
undergone in the Sahara and elsewhere this repose had a touch of
Elysium.

As soon as the sun was up they moved off slowly to the docks.  Dorland
was the nerve and the sinew, the blood and the bone of the enterprise.
Wherever he went he could now muster the force of will to compel his
friend, no matter how reluctantly, to follow.  At the waterside Dorland
found a place in the shade of the jetty for Jimsmitt.  And then he went
along the front in search of a passage to Europe.

The quest was not very happy.  All the morning he tried hard to
discover the kind of skipper he was looking for.  But only one boat was
going to England immediately and that had a full complement of hands.

At noon he returned to his friend with the tale of his non-success.
Jimsmitt received it with a smile of truly Oriental indifference.  One
place is as good as another to die in, that smile seemed to say.  But
the American, undaunted, took a little rest, denied himself one of the
few crusts they had with them since these must serve as their supper
that night, and then he went back to the waterfront.  Was there a hope
of better luck?  He rather fancied not by the look of it.  But as he
walked slowly along the quayside he came to a jetty at which a
coffin-like steamer had arrived in his absence.  And she was evidently
about to engage in coaling.  By no means a prepossessing craft.  But
beggars cannot be choosers, particularly in matters of this kind.
Dorland gazed eagerly around.  Presently he observed a masterful
individual who in an odd way matched the queer looking craft from which
he had just stepped ashore.  "Excuse me, sir," said Dorland politely,
"but do you happen by any chance to be making for the port of London?"

"Shall be by this time tomorrow if all goes well," was the gruff answer.

"Do you care to sign on an extra hand?"

The skipper was non-committal.  He stroked his jaw.  Then he passed the
eye of knowledge over this outlandish bird.  "What experience?"

"None, sir," said Dorland quite frankly.  "But you'll find me willing
to learn and not afraid of hard work."

The skipper continued to ruminate.  Again he had recourse to the eye of
knowledge.  Yes, a strange kind of fowl.  He spoke like an educated
man, and to Captain Jonas that was a point in his favour.  "We travel
pretty rough y' know.  More work than grub and more grub than pay."

"Will you take me, sir?" said the American with quiet determination.

"I don't like the cut of your jib altogether."

"That doesn't surprise me," said Dorland cheerfully.  "But if you'll
hold the berth open while I go along and get a shave I've a sort of
idea you may like it better."

Once more the skipper ruminated.  And then he said, "Well, my lad, that
seems a fair proposition."

"Right you are, sir," said Dorland.  "I'll be back pretty soon."

He simply hated the idea of spending two sous on a shave.  At the best
this outlay was a gamble.  There was no saying what impression he would
make even when his beard was removed.  Once he had had the look of a
white man.  But three years' unadulterated hell in the back of beyond
might have changed the landscape considerably for the worse.

Dorland had already taken a few steps in the direction of what had the
appearance of a barber's shop at the side of the quay when the skipper
abruptly recalled him.  "Hi, you!  Come you back."

Dorland came back.

"If your papers are all right I'll take a chance."

It was an anxious moment as Dorland produced his papers.  He had
managed somehow to hold on to them like grim death through all his
travels.

"Yankee I see," remarked the skipper as soon as his eye lit on the
Eagle.  "One of the war winners, eh?  Well, boy, I'll chance you.  You
can get hold of a shovel and a suit of dungarees as soon as you like.
I promise you it's a hard ship.  And a shilling a day and a chew of
bacca is all we pay.  But there's worse grub than ourn, although you'll
have to go some way to find it."

"I don't mind the work, sir, and I don't mind the pay, and I shan't
mind the grub, for I've come from a place where you have to tighten
your belt."

"Yes, they do say these Egyptian gaols are fair belly pinchers.  What
was you in for--if it's a fair question?"

"As a matter of fact, sir, I never was in--touching wood," and Dorland
pressed a grimy forefinger upon the exact centre of a dusky forehead.

"Now, now, boy," said the skipper, "don't lie to me."

"God's truth, sir."

"Well, I can only say that if a chap with a phiz like yours has not
been in choky he bloody well ought to have been."

Dorland smiled broadly.  There was something about this seafarer which
appealed to him.  Suddenly he decided to take his courage in both
hands.  Now or never was the time to put the crucial question.  And
upon the answer he received all depended.

"I have a friend, sir, I'd much like to come aboard with me."

"Be content with wangling yourself, my lad.  'Taint every man y'know
who'd take a chance with a hairy baboon like you."

"No, sir, I expect not," said Dorland good humouredly.  "But you see
this man and I left the north coast of Africa just three years ago.
We've walked right across the Sahara; we've been to Timbuctoo, to
Damascus, to every hell there is in the heart of that infernal
continent.  What we've been through you wouldn't believe.  I can hardly
believe it myself.  But my friend has hung on to me when, as you might
say, I couldn't hang on to myself.  And now he can no longer hang on to
himself it's up to me to hang on to him."

"Can he work his passage?"

"No, I'm afraid not.  But as far as I can I'll work double trick.  And
I won't draw a penny of pay if only you'll take him.  There'll only be
his food, and he hardly eats at all.  I'm sorry there's nothing at the
moment I can offer to pay you for him.  But if you'll name a price for
his passage and trust me until I can raise it in London I give you my
word that sooner or later it shall be paid."

"All very queer."  The skipper at once resumed the mantle of deep
thought.  But the Armistice was not yet six months old and things in
general were still very queer.  It was not a case, all the same, for a
hasty decision.  The _William Walker_ was in need of hands, but this
was about the funniest piece of junk he had come across lately.

The style of this chap somehow gave the impression of an honest man,
but it was a very odd story that he told.  Very odd.  The skipper's
instinct was at once to say no.  Yet for some obscure reason he
reluctantly decided to think the matter over.




XX

While the skipper was thinking the matter over this strange bird
returned with his friend.  He led him slowly by the hand, almost as if
he had been a blind man.  This chap, too, in his tarry suit with a
growth of rough beard was a decided oddity.  But the skipper, who was a
connoisseur in human debris of every kind, was rather interested.
These two men were quite unlike the specimens he usually had to do
with.  The gentle care with which one brought the other along by the
hand reminded the skipper of a very young child and its nanna.

Captain Jonas looked keenly at the vacant eyes, the frail form and then
he fired off a few sharp questions.  "Got friends in England I presoom?"

Jimsmitt did not seem very clear upon the point.

"Ye-es, I suppose I have.  But it's so long since I was there."

"Then what do you want to do when you get there?"

"To die."

The plain and blunt answer seemed to impress the skipper favourably.
But it was not the answer he expected nor was it the one Dorland wished
him to receive.

"Don't believe him, sir," said Dorland cheerfully.  "He's far too good
a fellow to die just yet.  And when he gets out of this oven, away from
this fly walk, back to his own country, he will soon be a very
different man."

"I'm not so sure about that," said the skipper with brutal candour.
"Looks to me there's death in that face."

"_In sh'Allah_," said Dorland softly, his voice hardly more than a
whisper.  And then with a change of tone: "But he is my only friend.
He is the whitest man in the world.  And if I can help it I don't
intend to lose him."

The skipper was a hard file, but even he was touched a little by the
devotion of this queer looking Yankee.  There was a depth of emotion in
him when he spoke of his dazed and battered companion that made an
appeal.  Captain Jonas had no pretensions to be considered a
philanthropist, but after sizing up carefully this brace of birds, he
decided to stretch a point and take them both on board.

It was more than likely one of them would not be able to do a hand's
turn.  Still it would not cost much to ship him to the port of London.
The _William Walker_ being shorthanded, this American, although a
lubber, might earn his own keep and more, so perhaps there would be no
harm done.  All the same an irregular proceeding, quite contrary to the
principles of Jonas Jonas.

The upshot was that after Dorland had renewed his entreaty the skipper
reluctantly allowed Jimsmitt to be helped on board.  He was tenderly
stowed away, out of the sun and out of the way of the crew, in the lee
of the chart house with a bit of an awning to protect him.  Dorland
having done this went ashore in search of an outfit of dungarees, so
that he might at once begin his job.  By the captain's advice he
visited a slop shop near the water's edge where he managed to get a
cheap suit and a spare shirt.  These purchases were just within his
means.  But the margin left over was uncomfortably slim.

Dorland then returned to the _William Walker_ and set to work with a
will.  To start with he had to load coal from the quayside into the
hold of the ship.  By no means a pleasant job, it was child's play to
some which had devolved upon him in the course of his travels.  It was
remarkable what strength the prospect of a return to civilisation had
already given him.  He was a new man.  After long years of a hateful
life he was coming back to his own.

He had told the skipper he was not afraid of hard work and he meant to
live up to his word.  Captain Jonas, however, kept a sharp eye upon
him, also upon his friend.  While one plied a shovel so heartily as to
earn the ill will of his mates, who struck the note of "ca' canny" with
some success, the other did not stir from the cushy place that had been
found for him in the lee of the chart house.

Towards evening the next day the _William Walker_ lifted anchor and put
forth into the roads on her voyage to the port of London.  She was not
a craft one would have chosen for a pleasure jaunt.  Even in a sea
fairly calm she pitched a good deal, and on slight provocation shipped
a lot of water.  Moreover she had not many superfluous inches in the
matter of deck space.  And her crew, a scratch lot of mixed
nationality, were not a happy family.  The reason, in Dorland's
opinion, could hardly have been the food.  It was plain enough, but of
its kind good, and in very fair supply.  At least that was Dorland's
view.  But it was coloured by his experience of three years in the
desert.  Judged by a Saharan menu salt junk and remainder biscuit with
occasional jam and pickles and plenty of tea was the fare of Lucullus.
Perhaps the root of the trouble was that Captain Jonas was a hard
master.  He kept the crew at it and now and then treated them rough.
It was a theory of his that these sweepings of the ports were the
better for a free use of his tongue, his fist and his boot.

Still in his way he was a just man.  In that he was helped by a gloomy
strain of piety.  A kind of cockney-fied Welshman, like most of his
breed he was excessively shrewd.  And though wanting it himself he
valued the signs of education in others.  The two men whom he had
shipped at the port of Alexandria were the only members of his crew who
were troubled in that way, and as the American, though without any sea
experience whatever, was so cheerfully willing and the Englishman gave
no trouble, he showed them favour.  Obviously these two down-and-outs
were men of cultivation.  Captain Jonas would have liked to know how
and why men of that class had fallen so low in the world.  The one
interested him quite as much as the other.  Both had been up against
it, if ever men had.  But whereas the American had survived his gruel
and was full of buck, the other fellow's number was about up.

All day and every day the Englishman sat in the place that had been
found for him out of the way of the crew.  He never stirred, but merely
gazed with fixed eyes over the rail and out to sea.  What passed
through his mind as he thus sat who should say?  On several occasions
Captain Jonas tried to get him to talk but without much success.  He
appeared to have lost his memory, or at least the power of expressing
himself.  A strange figure.  A queer fish.

The _William Walker_ made quite a fair passage to Marseilles.  It was
void of any particular incident.  The first and second mate, Mr.
Johnson and Mr. Pearce, were the only white men of the crew; the rest
were half breeds and worse.  For the most part they were a sullen,
idle, disaffected lot.  It was against Dorland's ideas to have truck
with them.  He kept to himself as much as he could, eating his grub by
Jimsmitt's side and resting there whenever he was off duty.  No love
was lost between Dorland and the crew.  But after many months of forced
intimacy with the wily Bedouin, the gentle Touareg and the playful
followers of the Mahdi, he minded his shipmates not at all.  His recent
life provided a standard of comparison.  It was one before which all
others paled.  If a man could survive the sacred city of Krav he had
naught to fear on the deck of the _William Walker_.

When their craft entered the harbour at Marseilles, unloaded half its
cargo of rice and took aboard tallow, sardines and dried fruit, Dorland
was particularly careful not to venture far away from the quay.  The
old fort on the hill was a house of call for the Foreign Legion.  He
was privileged to see more than one wearer of that hated uniform on the
quayside while he attended sedulously to his job.  His experiences at
Sidi-bel-Abbs had been burnt into him so deeply that even the Sahara
had not effaced them.  And rather than fall again into the hands of
Sergeant Major Hauptmann and those other brutes and be condemned to
_Travaux Publiques_ in Central Africa he would jump into the sea.
There would be no ease of mind for Ambrose Dorland until the _William
Walker_ had left the port of Marseilles.  However, as he told himself,
there was really nothing to fear.  None could have recognised No. 17783
_Soldat zime Classe_ in the hirsute, chocolate coloured scarecrow
sedulously loading dry goods into the hold of that vessel.

After a good deal of pitching and tossing in the Bay of Biscay and
quite a nasty turn in Southampton Roads, the little tramp came finally
to anchor in the mouth of the Thames.  It really seemed too good to be
true.  This event occurred on a fair morning of May whose soft beauty
gently but firmly belied the legend that enshrouds the maligned island
of Britain.  A certain amount of mist there was, but it was not of the
heavy, all pervading kind for which Albion is famous.  Nor was its
breath as chill as Dorland had expected to find it.  Nay, as they cast
anchor by the docks it was like a fairy tale come true.  By the grace
of Allah he had got himself into port at last with a rare and precious
cargo.  Jimsmitt was still alive, and if he seemed no better than when
he came aboard at Alexandria, his friend did not think he was anywise
worse.

In spite of rather too much hard work, Dorland had not found the voyage
unpleasant.  He was really the better for it.  The cranky little tub at
one time and another had pitched a good deal, but on the whole it had
behaved very well.  Some of the days aboard had been lovely.  Even
Jimsmitt, propped up against the chart house in a sort of coma, felt
their magic.

Dorland's cheeriness, which seemed to increase the nearer he got to
Europe, won the respect of Captain Jonas.  So that when the _William
Walker_ arrived at the port of London and this hand was duly paid off,
the skipper very civilly expressed his willingness to forego any
payment in the matter of the stricken man.  His charges in any event
would not have amounted to much, but Dorland none the less was very
grateful for this generosity.  Confident, however, of his ability one
day to discharge it, he offered to hold himself responsible for the
debt.  But the skipper said no.  The Yankee by his exertions had earned
a free passage for his friend.  When they parted on the quay the
skipper shook hands with them both and wished them the best of luck.

Not long had the two wayfarers been ashore in the purlieus of Wapping
when one of them at least began to realise how much that luck was to be
desired.  At the first beerhouse they came to, over a very modest
repast of bread and cheese and a pot of four-half that is said to go so
well with the climate, Dorland made a further examination of their
means.  The result was depressing.  Less than two pounds remained.  It
was true that Dorland still had the locket which he wore by a string in
lieu of the former gold chain round his neck.  The miniature it
contained as well as the locket itself must have some little value, but
he did not intend to part with them if he could help it.

Jimsmitt, of course, was still a serious care.  Dorland had hoped that
the voyage to Europe might set him up.  But it was clear that
Jimsmitt's general condition had not improved.  And now they were
ashore in the land in which Smitten-of-Allah had been born and bred he
was really no better.  If anything Jimsmitt was rather worse than when
they left Alexandria.




XXI

Dorland first must put his friend in a place of security.  And then he
must find a means of keeping body and soul together.  It was almost
certain from what he had been told at Cairo that there was nothing to
expect from the French bank in which the residue of the monies that had
come to him at his mother's death had been placed.  Meanwhile he had to
live.  They both had to live.  Unfortunately this was Dorland's first
visit to England.  He had not one friend there.  In Paris he was
already beginning to be known as a "coming man" when the war broke out.
But a deserter from the Foreign Legion dare not return to his former
haunts.  And this was a great pity.  Already he felt a stir of the old
ambition.  He longed to turn again to his art.  Deep within him was a
consciousness of talent.  He had the painter's eye for colour, the
trained hand of the accomplished draughtsman.

Howbeit, this was not a time to think of pencil and brush.  Without
money and with a sick man on his hands he must turn to the first thing
that offered.  As the two men sat in the Wapping beerhouse at midday
trying to make plans it occurred to Dorland that the time had now come
to find out who his friend really was.  James Smith was the name he had
borne in the Legion.  It was the name he had borne throughout their
travels.  And Dorland from motives of delicacy had never once sought to
pierce the veil of his anonymity.  But face to face now with
destitution in a city which Jimsmitt, to judge by scraps of talk he had
let fall, must have known intimately, it was surely time to make an end
of these scruples.  When Dorland broached the subject, however, it was
clear that even had Jimsmitt wished to help him in the matter he was no
longer able to do so.  Ice crept through Dorland's veins when it slowly
dawned upon him that his unhappy friend had actually forgotten his own
name.

Yes, that was the truth of the matter.  It was hard to believe that
such a thing could be.  But when Dorland put the frank question "Who
are you really, my dear old chap?" the sufferer merely shook a tragic
head.  The eyes became vacant and he said in a soft voice charged with
strange and terrible meaning, "I am Smitten-of-Allah, old man.  In
other words, I am just a lost soul in Hades."

For the time being that was literally and painfully true.  It left no
more to be said.  This man driven beyond the limit of the bearable by
all that he had suffered had lost his own identity.  This grim fact was
the most immediate of all their problems.  Dorland must put him in a
place of safety.  And then he must find a job to tide them over their
present difficulties.

"I think a vet of some kind had better see you, old boy.  Perhaps he
would get you into a hospital."

Yet as Dorland spoke he felt his coat sleeve plucked in a weak and
flaccid grip.

"Don't leave me, old man.  Don't leave me to anybody."  The stark
entreaty of the appeal tore at Dorland's heart.  "I don't want anybody
but you to take care of me.  You are all I have in the world.  You
won't leave me, old man, will you?"

These halting words had a kind of occult power that Dorland simply
could not resist.  Together these two had met unnameable things.  And
the younger man with those searing words upon him felt that Fate
required them to share the sufferings of each other to the very end.

Dorland in any case would not have had the heart to forsake his friend.
Already the mind had gone.  It had been more merciful perhaps to yield
at Cairo to Jimsmitt's wishes.  At all events the younger man realised
pretty acutely now that he must accept full responsibility for a tragic
life.  It was the will of Ambrose Dorland that had brought home that
empty shell.  Jimsmitt had begged to be allowed to go out in peace, and
now on the benches of this Wapping public house it seemed a hundred
times better had he done so.

Dorland did not give much time to these vain regrets.  He had made
himself responsible for Jimsmitt.  And not for an instant did he mean
to shirk the task he had laid so unwisely, perhaps so selfishly, upon
himself.  Without delay he must find a roof for this unhappy man.  And
he must find a bed.  Beyond everything he needed that.

As it happened a bed was not difficult to come by.  The locality
abounded in a floating population, here today, gone tomorrow.  Within a
stone's throw of the docks, at the end of the long street in which they
sat, was a large, gloomy, massive building.  On a basis of charity it
provided the casual wayfarer with a mattress and clean sheets for the
modest sum of fourpence a night.  So long as a man had that sum about
him he would not lack a bed in Wapping.

A few words with the custodian of the Pilgrim House, as it was called,
and a brief inspection of what it had to offer told Dorland it was the
kind of place they were seeking.  Things were done on such a lavish
scale that each guest was provided with his own tiny cubicle.  There
was hardly space to swing a cat in it, but it offered a privacy that
was still dear to these wanderers.  By good luck they were able to
secure adjoining cubicles in a cool and quiet corner of the vast
building.  Out of the scant wages Dorland had just received from the
skipper of the _William Walker_ he paid enough in advance to secure
their present address for a week at least, gaining thereby an aura of
financial standing.  He then helped Jimsmitt off with his boots and
laid him on the bed.

Dorland's next act was to give a judicious threepence to the janitor.
From this worthy he extracted a promise to keep an eye on his friend,
who was not drunk but had got a touch of the sun travelling from Egypt
by long sea.  Then Dorland went forth to a shop a few yards along the
street and invested in some pyjamas.  After a warm bath which could be
had on the premises for the sum of a halfpenny, the ghostlike form of
Jimsmitt was inducted into these garments.  The combined effect was to
make him more comfortable in mind and body than he had been for many a
day.  Soon the poor fellow stretched the weight of his weariness upon
this luxurious couch and with a grateful sigh fell into a troubled doze.

Early next morning Ambrose offered himself for casual labour at the
docks.  By then he had had a shave, his queer tawny locks had been
trimmed and he looked altogether more prepossessing than when he had
come ashore.  While the critical operation was being performed he had
gazed into the barber's mirror with a powerful curiosity mingled with
equally powerful misgiving.  What in wonder's name was he going to look
like now?  After all these days, all these years of a life that did not
bear thinking about, how in the name of Allah would he emerge?

The result was certainly better than was to have been expected.  Thin
as a lath, brown as a berry, gaunt as a spectre, he hardly knew
himself.  He was no longer the young painter Ambrose Dorland who in a
moment of enthusiasm had insisted on joining _la lgion trangre_ in
the fall of 1915.  No, this was a very different person.  But the
exigent artist eye had to own that he looked quite an "interesting"
fellow.

Down at the docks the next morning he managed to get taken on
temporarily as a stevedore.  It was the line of least resistance, but
as long as the job lasted it would keep a roof over Jimsmitt.  For the
time being that was the only thing that mattered.

Casual labour might also help Dorland to think out a plan for the
future.  At present his brain was painfully barren of all expedients.
He had completely lost touch with the ways of civilisation.  No doubt
he would settle down again after a while.  Eventually he would again
fit into the niche provided for a graduate of Harvard University and a
student of promise at l'Atelier Fort.  But at the moment he was a
square peg and the entire world was one large round hole.

However, he had found a job, and if he could hold it down for a bit it
might tide Jimsmitt over a very critical time.  Let the poor dear chap
rest, really rest in a cool spot, in a comfortable bed, with regular
nourishing food, and his memory might come back.  It drove to Dorland's
heart that this man to whom he owed more than life, who had helped him
months on end to beat off devils of every kind conceivable, should be
completely marooned.  He had forgotten his own name.

Dorland felt that he could earn by the waterside enough money to keep a
roof over Jimsmitt and himself.  But the rough work was far from his
liking.  It was not so much the physical strain as that work of this
kind led nowhere.  He was fashioned for something wholly different.
The return to civilisation, of which to be sure he had only touched the
merest fringe, had infected him with a new ambition.

He had known in those last few months in Paris before the war that he
was a born painter.  Some inner genie, some secret voice there was no
mistaking had told him so.  And now that he had found his way back
after many days to where he belonged, the sense of his destiny was
again upon him.  The life of a dockhand was not the true mtier of
Ambrose Dorland.

Still there was Jimsmitt to consider.  He was earning enough at the
docks to provide the invalid with meat extract and eggs and bunches of
grapes and other delicate fare to tempt the appetite.  The poor fellow
of course protested, yet he had to yield to the more virile will.  But
Dorland was painfully aware that the life of a dockhand led only to a
dead end.  With ambition calling let him make a supreme effort to pick
up the threads of a broken life.  Just now, however, he did not see how
it was going to be done.

He devoted a portion of his first Sunday in England to exploring the
city of London.  Work at the docks had severely restricted his
activities.  But with a free day before him he made Jimsmitt
comfortable and then he set off to have a look at the West End.  Far
down in his mind lurked a hope that some idea might occur to him by
which he could get back on to his natural plane.  As it happened in the
course of his wanderings that Sunday about the streets an idea did
occur to him.  But it was of such a fantastic kind that it could hardly
be said to promise anything material.

Near Hyde Park Corner his eye was caught by a pavement artist.  The
drawings in coloured chalk exhibited by the artist were crude to the
last degree.  They bore little relation to the things they were
supposed to represent, while the draughtsmanship was feeble.  All the
same, poor as these efforts were, they attracted a fair number of pence
into the artist's cap.

It suddenly occurred to Dorland that here was a field for his talent.
Beyond a doubt he could make a far better showing than this chap.  At
any rate it would serve to keep in his hand, and with luck it might
even be as profitable as the distasteful work that occupied him now.
Yes, it would be a relief from the grinding monotony, the general
hopelessness of manual labour for which he was physically unfitted.

That evening as he returned to Wapping and Jimsmitt he made up his mind
to give the scheme a trial.  He would continue to work on weekdays at
the docks, at any rate for the present, and on Sundays he would choose
a pitch in the West End and see what happened.

It would first be necessary to acquire some coloured chalks.  Artists'
colourmen were to be found in the neighbourhood of the Pilgrim House as
he had already discovered.  And in the course of the week that followed
he bought what he required.  Then when Sunday came, a fine spring day,
he set out at a very early hour to look for a pitch in a favourable
spot.

Being so early on the ground he had the run of it.  The place he chose,
after careful survey, was in the lee of St. George's Hospital.  Here
the sun would not kill the pictures, nor what was just as important
would it kill the artist.  Having made his choice he knelt on the
pavement and got to work.




XXII

Dorland soon found that his fingers had not wholly lost their cunning.
It seemed aeons since he had held an artist's crayon in his fingers.
But the highly trained craftsman had already thought out his picture
fully beforehand, also the means of executing it.  The subject was
Scenes from the Upper Nile--Morning.  Evening.  They were to be
companion pictures.

Once he had got into his stride the first grew with astonishing
celerity.  It was boldly devised, and, within the limits of such a
medium, brilliantly executed.  When it was finished he stood up to
examine it, and as he did so the secret pride of the artist stirred in
him yet again.  He was pleased with this experiment.  After all it was
the thing he was born to do.  For the first time since the fatal day in
1915, he felt something of an inner harmony.  This effort, tentative as
it was, primitive, naf, was not altogether negligible.  What it set
out to do it did.  The adaptation of the means to the end, the unity of
the composition, the sense of values and above all the pictorial effect
which was intended to leap to the eye of the passer-by were rather
remarkable.

Feeling exhilarated by such a result and happy in his labour, he set to
work on the companion picture.  Somehow the subject had a touch of
inspiration.  The tinkle from time to time of an occasional copper
falling into his cap, which he had spread out on the pavement, was a
further stimulus.  Without pausing in the honest pursuit of a second
chef-d'oeuvre, he would utter a polite "Thank you, sir," "Thank you,
madam," as the case might be.  When complete, the Upper Nile--Evening,
in the artist's opinion was even more successful than the sister work.

For one thing he had produced a truly wonderful sunset.  Anyone who had
seen the Upper Nile would recognise an authentic study.  But also it
had the flamboyance that was likely to hit the man in the street.
Already the Upper Nile--Morning was enjoying some success, mostly
copper, although by this time one sixpence had found its way into the
cap.  But in the artist's opinion it was the second pastel that earned
the supreme and dazzling triumph, shortly before midday, of a real
genuine half crown.  Moreover it was accompanied by words that gave as
much pleasure to Ambrose Dorland as certain remarks upon his work that
he had once been privileged to overhear at the Salon.

"You know," said a voice, and it was a kind of voice whose owner has
half crowns to throw into the cap of a street artist, speaking to a
friend whose eye could also appraise such an unexpected display of
virtuosity, "You know a chap of this sort ought not to be doing this."

In those careless words Ambrose Dorland perceived the recognition of
one artist by another.  Somehow that speech was like manna in the
wilderness.  He felt too shy to raise his eyes from the pavement to
take stock of this generous hearted brother in the craft, but when the
speaker had passed on he was sorry for the omission.  The kindly words
would not have been less sweet to his ear had he been able to recognise
the man who had uttered them.

That incident was the crown of the day.  But all through the afternoon
and evening the pictures of the Upper Nile, later supplemented by
scenes from the Sahara, not only enjoyed a _succs d'estime_, but what
was even more important, they continued to attract a steady trickle of
pence.

At the end of the day Dorland found his pockets bulging.  To be sure
the spoils included only one half crown and three sixpences, yet they
amounted to several shillings more than he would have been able to earn
at the docks in the same length of time.  As he returned to Wapping on
the top of a bus he was inclined to consider the experiment highly
successful.  One thing struck him in especial.  It was the politeness,
the tolerance, the immense kindliness of London.  Policemen had not
interfered with him, passers-by had been careful not to walk over his
pictures, all the comments which had reached his ears had been admiring
and friendly and even discriminating.  Somehow these people among whom
he found himself now for the first time not only respected themselves
but also the honest effort of others.

On his return to the Pilgrim House, he sat in the dark in Jimsmitt's
cubicle and told the story of the day's adventure.  He told it with
humour and point, but poor Jimsmitt, whose mind was now very dim, was
not able to respond.  The cloud that had spread over his brain seemed
to be growing heavier.

Dorland put in another hard week at the docks.  And then when Sunday
came his experiment of the week before was repeated.  Again the day was
all that a pavement artist could desire, but the results considered
financially were hardly so good.  Perhaps his inspiration was not quite
equal to the first occasion or it may have been the caprice of the
public.  Nevertheless the effort ranked as a success, particularly as
it again received the meed of a half crown.

This time Dorland was able to catch a glimpse of the generous donor.
He was a tall sunburnt man who wore a brown flannel suit with a touch
of elegance.  Dorland looked up just in time to see this Maecenas
disappear round the corner of the Hospital.

As the mental health of Jimsmitt did not improve, and his memory if
anything grew worse, Dorland asked the custodian and general factotum
of the Pilgrim House, who answered to the name of Wiggy, if he could
recommend a doctor.  Wiggy recommended a Dr. Perry, who had a surgery
in the next street.

Dr. Perry called one morning at the Pilgrim House when Dorland was at
the docks.  He put a few questions to the stricken man, listened to his
heart, felt his pulse and then left word with Wiggy for the friend of
the sick man to come and see him that evening on his return from work.

Dorland did so.

"I'm afraid there's nothing I can do for him," said Dr. Perry.  "He
seems sound enough in wind and limb, although he's terribly thin.  But
I am inclined to think from what you tell me that the sun of the desert
has affected his brain.  Complete rest, good food and careful nursing
may pull him round, but frankly I doubt it.  His memory beyond a
certain point is a total blank and he seems not to want to recover it.
And that of course is a very bad sign."

Dorland felt it was Jimsmitt's worst symptom.

"I suggest," said Dr. Perry, "that we get him, if possible, into a home
where he can be properly taken care of."

"I'd prefer to take care of him myself."

"But you are working all day at the docks for a low wage," said the
kindly doctor.  "He must press heavily upon you.  Besides there are
institutions which specialise in such cases."

"If I thought they could do him any good I would let them have a try.
But he thinks, and I think, that if I can't pull him round no one else
can."

"Pray what can you do for him, my dear fellow?"

"Well it seems to me his case is purely mental.  It's a matter of the
will.  By imposing my will on his as you might say I've kept him going
ever since we left Cairo.  And when he hasn't my will to hold on by
he'll go out."

"Assuming that is so, and of course I express no opinion, is it quite
kind in the circumstances to keep him going?"

"Sometimes I ask myself that," said Dorland candidly.  "But what I feel
about him is that there is something in his life that ought to be
cleared up."

"Who is he, do you know?"

"His name is James Smith, and he was born and educated in this country."

"But that may not be his real name.  At least one has a feeling that it
isn't."

"I have told you all I know about him, sir, but I, too, have that
feeling."

"Where did you come across him first?"

"In the French Foreign Legion at Sidi-bel-Abbs.  We served together;
and then we deserted.  And we've just done three years foot-slogging up
and down the length and breadth of Africa.  Every kind of hell that
exists on this planet we found and survived.  But that chap held on to
me when I couldn't hold on to myself, and I've made up my mind whatever
happens to hold on to him now."

Dr. Perry could only conclude that it was a very strange case.  Yet
things being as they were there was nothing he could immediately do in
the matter.

The unsatisfactory episode of Dr. Perry, for which a good and kindly
man was in nowise to blame, had the effect of stiffening Dorland's
will.  He would see his poor friend through to the very best of his
power.

Jimsmitt was more than content to remain as he was.  He had a real
dread of strangers.  All he asked was to rest in his clean and quiet
cubicle, looked after in the daytime by the experienced Wiggy.  The
janitor was by no means a bad fellow at heart, although not an oil
painting to look at.  But if you managed to get the right side of Wiggy
he was quite a useful man to be in with.  Dorland had certainly managed
to do that.

As for the invalid, it was simply his nature to get the right side of
everybody.  He was a kind of man who found a short cut to the hearts of
most people.  Wiggy in the depths of his experience supposed the poor
cove had "done something" to find himself on such a mudbank.  It was
pretty clear when new faces suddenly appeared in the House that he was
in fear of the police and detectives and so on, but in spite of that
Wiggy could not help liking him.  He never complained, he gave no
trouble, and there were a hundred subtle things which told Wiggy, the
world-wise, that no matter what games he had been up to he was a
thorough gentleman.

The third Sunday, after one more honest week at the docks, which meant
better tobacco and nicer fruit for Jimsmitt, the artist paid another
visit with his chalks to Hyde Park Corner.  For the third time all the
conditions were favourable.  The pictures were drawn with the same
force, the same truth, the same mastery, all rather astonishing in
their way, no less to the eye of the instructed than to the man in the
street.  The coppers again flowed steadily into the cap.  And then
shortly after midday the half crown for the third time made its
quasi-miraculous appearance.

But on this occasion there was an odd development.

Dorland realised that a tall, slim, well-tailored form was bending over
him.  And then he grew sensible of a polite and very agreeable voice
speaking in a low and friendly tone.

"You'll excuse my asking, won't you?  But I do hope there's no real
need for you to be doing this sort of thing."

Dorland looked up quickly.  A flush deepened the bronze of his face as
he met a shrewd pair of grey eyes.

"You are very kind, sir."  It was the answer of a man able to
appreciate a charitable impulse in a perfect stranger and yet, without
any undue display of pride, able politely to repudiate it.

"Don't think me impertinent, but somehow it doesn't seem right that you
should be here."  That had been this passer-by's first impression, and
the bearing and attitude of this remarkable looking young man now
confirmed it.  Surely he had first-hand knowledge of many things, and
it was reasonably clear that he had been taught at some time or other
to use chalks by the first masters.

"Don't think me impertinent, but if you care to come and have breakfast
with me one morning here's my address."  The friendly stranger took out
a case and handed a card to the man on the pavement.  "What about
to-morrow morning at nine o'clock?"

"You are very good," said Dorland, "and I should like very much to
accept your invitation.  But if I do I shall lose a day's work at the
docks.  And as I am only a 'temporary' that might mean losing the job
altogether."

"I see," said the patron and connoisseur.  "Well, fix your own time.
And your own day.  That is if you care to come and see me."

The pavement artist said he got half a day off on Saturdays.  If four
o'clock next Saturday afternoon would do he would make a point of being
at the address given.

"Excellent.  I shall expect you at my studio--it's on the card--next
Saturday at four."

They left it at that.

Dorland glanced at the card as soon as this friend who had fallen from
the skies had passed round the corner.


  Mr. Alastair G. Graeme, R.A.
  49b, Oakley Street
  London, S.W.
  Burlington Club


Dorland seemed to remember the name as one of the younger group of
British painters that was rapidly coming to the front in those golden
days before the war in which his own art had touched its zenith.  The
thought uppermost as he held that card in his hand and heard a coin
fall into his cap and uttered his statutory, "Thank you, sir," "Thank
you, madam," was that odd as the cosmos was said to be, the reality far
surpassed the legend of its strangeness.  Mr. Alastair G. Graeme was a
man of assured position in the world which bought and sold and created
pictures.




XXIII

Saturday was slow in coming.  It was impossible for Dorland to stave
off a growing excitement as the day approached.  Who knew what change
it might work in his fortunes?  _In sh'Allah_.  That magic phrase he
had brought home from his travels was still the dominant factor in the
case.  There was no anticipating the next turn in the game of life.

Without saying a word to Jimsmitt on the subject, and indeed his
unhappy friend was hardly in a state to comprehend it had he done so,
Dorland put on a carefully brushed yet ill fitting suit of shoddy and a
presentable tie and collar.  Then allowing plenty of time for the
journey he set out for Chelsea.  He was amazed by the new chance that
had arisen.  Yet it somehow chimed with the general air of large
humanity of this metropolis.  That was the impression it left upon
Dorland.  It was less crowded, a good deal more leisurely than he had
expected to find it.  But it had its own peculiar aura.  Something
about this kindly, cheerful, law-respecting, bourgeois London set it
apart from Boston, New York, Paris, Rome and other great cities he had
known.

Once in Chelsea, the London _quartier Latin_, Oakley Street was not at
all difficult to find.  Mr. Alastair G. Graeme received him very
cordially.  He had had the tact to give his servant instructions that
he would not be at home to anyone else.  Graeme like many men of real
attainment was a bit of a Don Quixote.  He made rather a hobby of
collecting queer specimens of the human race.  Odd fish he called them.
His sentimental weakness for helping lame ducks to swim amused his
friends.  But it was his way of expressing gratitude to life for having
treated him so well.

Alastair Graeme had promised himself an interesting hour with the
pavement artist.  A connoisseur in the more _recherch_ types that make
up the human comedy, one glance at the nondescript figure as it entered
his studio convinced him that he was about to enjoy himself.

In this expectation he was not disappointed.  As he told a friend with
whom he dined that evening, he spent perhaps the most enthralling hour
of his life.  He began, after his hospitable manner, by offering his
visitor tea.  And while those delicate hands toyed with saucer and cup,
the host who prided himself on being a Sherlock Holmes in a modest way,
built up certain theories about their owner.  Questions of a kind not
too blatantly inquisitive would follow in due course.  But to begin
with it was so much more amusing to draw the portrait of this queer bit
of flotsam by the private exercise of one's own wits.

A highly educated man.  That was the first clear impression.  A man at
all events schooled and disciplined in the outward forms of the social
hierarchy.  The air of breeding which underlay each word, each gesture,
each trivial act was distinctly attractive.  But how had a man of this
quality come to be a down-and-out?  Of course, there had been a war.
And many strange things had happened.  Yet that did not alter the fact
that such a man had simply no right to be earning a living by drawing
in chalks on the pavement outside St. George's Hospital.

Graeme had merely touched the fringe of the subject by the time he had
fixed up his visitor with a Turkish cigarette.  But then offering
gentle encouragement he got the man of mystery to lift a corner of the
veil.  Told in Dorland's very simple, rather naf, extremely lucid
style, his story was astonishing.  Even with certain suppressions and
hiatuses the effect was powerful.

Two facts announced the prescience of Alastair Graeme.  The first was
that Ambrose Dorland--in his charming navety the young man did not
hesitate to give his real name--had intimate knowledge of the Nile and
the Sahara.  And he had studied pastel under the guidance of some very
modern master.  Upon these points the amateur Sherlock Holmes was fully
entitled to plume himself.  He had deduced them from the drawings on
the pavement.  They were the basis for this intimacy.

"Fort, you say?  My private shot was Vallire.  All the same I doubt
whether anybody taught you that trick of flinging those scorching
yellows, those terrific greens, those burning reds all over the
pavement without setting fire to the city of London.  That, if I may
say so, my dear sir, is something devilish like genius.  And it's all
your own.  By the way, have you exhibited?  Perhaps I ought to know."

"There's no reason why you should know," said Dorland, smiling a little
at this generous enthusiasm, "I was still _ab ovo_ when the war came.
But I did have a little thing hung in the Salon, and I like to think
that it sold for seven hundred francs."

"Well," said Graeme, "I hope you'll let me help you to get on with your
real job.  You are about as fit to be unloading sides of bacon and
carcases of mutton down at the docks as Mr. Lloyd George is to be prime
minister of England, and that to my way of thinking is the very limit
of incongruity."

The downrightness amused Dorland, but he saw that it was leading to a
heaven-sent opportunity.  And for the sake of the stricken friend whom
up till now he had kept in the background of the picture he must
prepare to grasp his chance.

"You shall have a corner of this studio to work in, until you are able
to fix yourself up with one of your own."

Dorland was a little overwhelmed by the offer.  To his practical mind
it seemed quixotism.  But Alastair Graeme had been thrilled by the
story he had heard.  Moreover he had been captivated by the telling.
Not for a moment could one doubt the absolute honesty of a man who told
such a story in such a way.  And it was a record of sublime endurance,
defiant courage.  To have trekked three years in the very heart of the
African deserts, holding on by one's eyebrows, as it were, in the midst
of unspeakable indignities, hunger, thirst and madness, and yet to
retain the wits to tell of these things with a quiet power of humor was
something to place to the credit side of human nature.

"You really must allow me to help you, my dear Dorland," said Alastair
Graeme.  "Men like myself who have had the luck to turn up the smooth
side of the medal--even in this filthy war I have been able to get
myself demobilised at the first possible moment and I don't mind
telling you I did so without any sense of shame--as I say, men like
myself owe it to men like you to throw out a loose spar whenever the
chance occurs."

Yes, this man in his way was something of a Don Quixote.  But it would
not be less quixotic to refuse such an offer.  At the same time far
more was involved in it than a studio in which to work.  Even if
Dorland could take up the brush where he had laid it down, and that was
exceedingly doubtful, it would still be necessary to find the sinews of
war, not merely for himself but for Jimsmitt, until such time as he
could get his work to market.

Graeme saw at once a part of the difficulty, yet Jimsmitt for various
reasons had been kept so much in the background that his presence in a
Wapping doss house was not suspected.  Even with the whole scheme
hanging in the balance, Dorland felt it the part of loyalty to a
helpless friend to keep him entirely out of the picture.  The
generosity of Alastair Graeme made this easy.

"You must please allow me to finance you until you get on to your legs.
I'm sure it won't be long before you do.  And it really hurts me to
think of a man of your powers slaving at those docks and then drawing
pictures on the pavement when you get a day off.  Take a rest tomorrow,
Sunday.  And then on Monday morning turn up here as early as you like.
I can find you a few tools.  And here's ten pounds with which to get a
few necessaries."

Alastair Graeme went to a bureau in a corner of the large room, took
from a drawer a bundle of notes and handed them to Dorland.  "Pay me
back any time it's convenient.  And you can have some more when you
want it."

Dorland felt a little breathless.  There was a touch of Haroun Al
Raschid about this distinguished painter.  "But suppose I'm a wrong
un," said Dorland, "suppose I'm a crook."

"Well if you are, my friend," laughed Graeme, "I leave the sin to you.
But I don't mind saying that no man could have told the story of his
life as you have told it, who was either the one or the other.  The
nemesis that invariably overtakes the damned liar must certainly have
tripped him up at some point."

"But how can you possibly know that what I say is true?"

"How indeed?" Graeme laughed softly.  "All the same what I know I know.
And among the things I know is that I am going to lend you ten pounds,
with I hope the privilege of lending you considerably more should you
happen to want it."

It was a fairy tale, beyond a doubt, thought Ambrose Dorland on the
morning of the next day but one, Monday.  Instead of clocking in at the
docks at 7 A.M. he lay in bed one delicious hour longer; for he really
was bone tired after all the stresses recently laid on a delicate
frame.  And then having titivated himself carefully he set forth in
what he called his Mayfair suit, which he had bought in a slop shop at
Cairo and was still the only decent one he possessed.  He went by Bus
39, changed at Charing Cross into Bus 23, and so to the London
residence of the Caliph Haroun Al Raschid.

He was received by his host in a very genial manner.  A good deal of
the morning was spent in a discussion of art in general and the
choosing of a subject for Ambrose Dorland to begin upon.  Graeme felt
that he could hardly do better than to start with a few studies in
chalk of those light effects on the Nile which the more mature artist
considered amazing.  Moreover Graeme was inclined to think there was a
modest public for them.  Anyhow as soon as there was something to show
he was quite willing to sound the dealers of his acquaintance.  Yet
this brother in the craft assured Dorland there was no need to hurry.
"Don't rush your fences," he said.  "Get nicely into your stride before
you go out for everything."

"I'll do as you tell me," said the amenable Dorland, "It's good advice."

Alastair Graeme liked the air of quiet competence; also the perfect
modesty with which his "find" deferred to every suggestion that he
made.  Dorland was fully aware that the name of Alastair Graeme stood
for something in the craft.  Both in portraits and landscape he enjoyed
a considerable vogue.  His work fetched high prices, and in the opinion
of the expert deserved to do so.  Solidity was combined with genuine
imagination and over all was the lustre of a finely individual
technique.

Dorland, although he had decided to make haste slowly, took Graeme's
advice and set to work with a will.  But it was not altogether easy at
first.  He had a fine talent but it had grown rusty from long disuse.
Careful preparation, continual labour might be called for, yet neither
Dorland nor his generous sponsor doubted that in the end his gifts
would bear fruit.  In the meantime Graeme was quite willing to finance
him to a modest amount.  And until Dorland could afford a studio, a
corner of his own was at the young man's disposal.

Some of the money advanced to Dorland was spent on much needed clothes.
But for the sake of Jimsmitt he still retained his cubicle at the
Pilgrim House, although at a higher rental than fourpence a night.
Thither he returned at the end of his day's work to cheer his sick
friend.  Dorland knew that it was he alone who kept him going.  He had
but to withdraw the light of his presence for Jimsmitt to go out like a
candle.  In some respects the situation was one of growing difficulty.
His changed circumstances made it imperative that he should alter his
way of life.  Graeme, by now, was not unaware of Jimsmitt's existence.
But Dorland had spoken of the stricken man in a vague and guarded way.
And when this new friend had asked whether there was anything he could
do for the man Dorland was looking after--the case had been described
to Graeme as loss of memory--he was assured there was not.  Moreover
Dorland was so uncommunicative on the subject that Graeme soon let it
drop.

Jimsmitt in those critical weeks got no better.  Still it could hardly
be said that he got worse.  He had found a protector in Wiggy.  During
the long absence of Dorland each day, the custodian of the House, who
received weekly a small tip and a screw of tobacco from Dorland, really
looked after the Capting very well.  Wiggy always spoke of Jimsmitt as
the Capting.  An old soldier himself, and a batman of experience, you
simply couldn't deceive him, as he explained to Dorland, in the matter
of what he called a Nofficer.  He had served as personal batman to
various ornaments of the British Army in various places including
India, Afghanistan, Egypt and the Soudan.

Wiggy took a lot of knowing.  His motto was to "keep hisself to
hisself," but if you took pains to cultivate his acquaintance as
Dorland did, it was worth the trouble.  Beneath a rude exterior Wiggy
kept a heart.  That is to say if he liked you he liked you.  But the
reverse also held true as the clientele of the House sometimes found to
its cost.  If Wiggy didn't like you, well, he didn't.  You might just
as well go and boil yourself as be in wrong with Wiggy.  Such at least
was the opinion of those in a position to know.  And they were many.

Jimsmitt had nothing to fear in that way.  He did not court Wiggy's
favour, but there was something about him that immediately gained it.
No doubt he was "wanted."  In Wiggy's opinion he would not be where he
was otherwise, but no matter what sort of life he had lived or what the
cause of his fall, Wiggy found a soft spot for the Capting.

The invalid was quite as comfortable as was possible in the
circumstances.  The place was clean, and in the daytime absolutely
quiet.  At very little cost it offered him that rest of which he was so
much in need.  It was not an ideal nursing home.  But having Dorland to
look after him and being in with Wiggy and being able to get a hot bath
as often as he wanted one he might have found himself worse off
elsewhere.  He was out of the world, out of that orbit of observation
from other people which for some mysterious reason he so much feared.

It was Dorland's hope that in a few months' time when he had really
begun to earn money, he would be able to repay the loan to Graeme,
which was mounting steadily week by week.  Perhaps he would scrape
enough together to take a cottage in the country.  He felt sure that
Jim would be the better for pure air.  Already he had broached the
subject.  But Jim was content, more than content, to remain as he was,
so long as his friend returned to him every night.  And so that friend,
although greatly occupied with plans for his welfare, decided for the
present to let well enough alone.

The few weeks immediately following his own discovery by Alastair
Graeme were uneventful.  For Dorland they were a period of renewal, of
hard and strenuous preparation.  It was not the least wonderful episode
in the amazing life of the last three years.  The workings of
providence were indeed mysterious.  As ever it took with one hand and
gave with the other.  But week by week, now that brain and will were
fully awake, pencil and brush responded.  It would not take long, at
the rate he was progressing, to be back where he was in 1914.  And as
ambition waxed in a mind that could still look forward, for this young
man was not yet thirty, he saw no reason why in the process of time his
hopes should not flower.

Graeme at any rate, who had now become a kind of mentor, declared
himself well satisfied with his progress.  He prophesied the day would
come when the name of Ambrose Dorland would stand for something very
considerable.  For that reason he must not rush his fences.  In other
words he must not offer hastily produced and immature work.

"That's all very well," said Dorland, "but I'm pretty far in your debt
already."

"Don't mention it, my boy," said Maecenas.  "Money is a much overrated
commodity.  And what finer investment is there than to develop genius?"

All the same, in spite of a generosity that he could only regard as
princely, Dorland was fully determined to start earning money with as
little delay as possible.

One day they were talking about portraits.  Dorland shyly confessed
that he hoped to be able to paint them.  It was the direction in which
his ambition was now moving.

"There's no reason why you shouldn't," said Graeme.  "I don't think
you'd find it difficult to adapt your technique to a lady in a court
dress or a gentleman in a tweed suit.  Personally I wish I'd never
touched them.  I was a better painter before I took to supplying
ancestors.  But of course they pay like billy-o."

"I wasn't thinking so much of the shekels," said Dorland, "although it
will certainly be very useful if I can connect with a few, but it must
be so interesting to have real live people to deal with.  Character, it
seems to me, is the one thing in the world that is worth while.  And if
one can develop the power to seize character and bring it out in all
its quiddity one never need be at a loss for a subject."

"True, I admit.  But nothing to my mind is more boring than having, as
so often happens, to make a silk purse out of the wrong material."

"I should like to paint faces exactly as I see them."

"One should do that of course.  But when one is up against certain
forms of sterility, conceit, arrogance, pretension and all the other
cheap vices of homo sapiens one gets a kind of nausea from trying to
treat them pictorially."

"There's that, of course.  But there must be compensations in a really
fine subject."

"Yes, but fine subjects are rare.  As a rule they are not the people
who go in for ancestor worship."

"I daresay not.  But as I see the world there's no lack of scope for a
painter of portraits.  For instance there's yourself."

"You are not going to persuade me that I am a thing of beauty."

"I don't know about that," said Dorland navely.  "As I happen to see
you.  Anyhow you could be made extremely decorative in that bright
suit, with that yellow tie, and your hair and eyes and that subtle
Highland colouring.  Yes, I see 'some' picture there."

"Well," said Graeme laughing, "when you come down to my Hertfordshire
cottage next month, we'll choose a setting in the garden--I think the
garden will please you--and you shall try your hand on a subject that
may not be quite as good as you think."

"That's a bargain," said Dorland.  And then still pursuing the topic he
said in his boyish way, "Don't you get a thrill from putting on canvas
a really beautiful woman?  I know that I should."

"Oh yes, one does.  But really beautiful women don't live in every
street."

"Yet in a place like London one sees every day women who are
marvellously paintable."

Graeme agreed.

And then suddenly, on the spur of the moment Dorland remembered the
precious locket Jimsmitt had given him which he still carried upon him
for safety.

"Now here's a subject," he said.  "Here's a face that to me is
exquisite."  Immersed in the depth of his argument he took the locket
from his breast pocket and opened it without paying much heed to what
he was doing.  "This face has everything.  Line, expression, character,
mystery, colour, all that a painter wants and more.  To my mind it's
unique."

He handed the locket to Graeme.

"You'd say so, my boy, if you'd seen the original," was the comment of
that connoisseur.

As the words were spoken Dorland did not immediately realise their
significance.  But after a moment he grasped it fully.  This face, a
modern Helen's, was the key to the mystery of Jimsmitt.




XXIV

Dorland knew the ground upon which he had entered was highly perilous.
But having gone so far he was obliged to proceed.

"You know this lady?"  He spoke with a certain excitement.

"Oh yes, in the way that everybody knows her," said Graeme lightly.

"Who is she?  Tell me."

"The woman in that locket is Mary Adeane, about ten years younger than
she is now."

"And you know her?"

"I know of her.  She was and is the most beautiful woman in England.
At least we painters think so."

"Well, I'm a painter too.  And I'll say that if England has a more
glorious creature than that it is a remarkable country."

"May I ask how you came by this miniature?" said Graeme as he examined
it.  "A bit of truly fine work, almost worthy of the subject."

Dorland suddenly grew cautious.  "Perhaps I'll be able to tell you
sometime.  Mary Adeane, you say, is the name of this girl?"

"Was.  She's changed it since that was painted."

"Ye-es," said Dorland.  "I expect so."

"Married a very rich man.  A tobacco king or one of those magnates.
But a rather painful story."

"Tell me," cried Dorland eagerly.

"There's not much to tell.  Except that he was the wrong kind of man
altogether.  Having married the most beautiful girl in England, of a
class far above his own, he must needs give all his time to chorus
girls and the ladies of the half world.  A sensual brute of immense
wealth, he made her very unhappy."

"How did she come to marry him?"

"A brace of thoroughly selfish parents were the cause.  She belongs to
an old family pretty far gone in financial decay.  And they thought the
millions of this fellow Benton--that was his name, Bob Benton, he was
about my standing at Eton--would put things right.  So they did in a
sort of way.  He made her very unhappy, but one must give his money its
due.  Benton was killed in the war, but he left her the bulk of his
fortune.  All the same she has suffered."

"There was someone else I suppose," said Dorland tentatively.

"Yes, that's where the real tragedy came in.  She was wildly in love
with another man, he with her.  But as he seemed to have no prospects
and those two parents of hers had wills of iron when it came to
self-protection, in the end she sacrificed herself for them and the
things they stood for."

"My God!"

"It shattered the other poor chap.  One of the best fellows that ever
stepped.  We were both in Duncan's house at school, but I was a bit
senior to him."

"What was his name?"  There was a sudden catch at Dorland's heart.

Graeme pondered a moment and then he said, "Odd that I should not be
able to tell you.  I know his name almost as well as I know my own.
But it has passed completely out of my mind.  I shall think of it
presently.  Such a good fellow.  Of course he had no prospects at that
time.  A younger son of a younger son.  Yet it's funny how things work
out.  Had Mary Adeane been allowed to marry him it would have been all
right."

"How?" asked Dorland.

"All the intervening lives were swept away in this holocaust.  If that
poor chap were alive now he would have an old title and several large
properties."

"Is he dead?"

"There's every reason to think so.  When Mary Adeane jilted him at the
instigation of her parents he disappeared.  That was some little time
before the war.  It was said he went all to pieces, took to drink and
gambling and so on.  But that one can hardly believe.  In my
recollection he was not that kind of man.  And yet I don't know.  A
charming fellow with a weak will.  Perhaps he was just the type to be
broken by an unlucky love affair.  I don't know.  But I do know that
behind the face in this locket--what a wonderful face it is!--lurks a
very tragic story."

"One can read it, I think."  Dorland felt a curious tightening of the
breast.  He was not listening to his own words.  His thoughts were far
away.  They were in the Pilgrim House at Wapping, where the man this
glorious creature had loved was lying gaunt as a spectre, broken in
body and brain.

Dorland had to set a powerful curb on himself not to disclose what he
knew.  The time was not ripe.  He had made certain promises to
Jimsmitt.  Besides, the whole situation needed extremely careful
handling.  His friend to whom he owed his own life over and over again
was as good as dead.  Deliberately Jim had sought oblivion, and with
all the little strength he had was determined to ensure it.  Would it
not be cruel to drag this spectre back into the light of day?  Surely
it was kinder to let him bide.

For that reason Dorland forbore to ask Graeme a second time for
Jimsmitt's real name.  By searching his memory an old schoolfellow
could beyond a doubt have found it.  But it seemed best just now not to
delve too deeply into the matter.  He must weigh it carefully.  He must
think out a definite plan of action.  Yet Dorland could only marvel at
the uncanny smallness of the world.  For he did not doubt that he had
just heard the true story of Jimsmitt and the unforgettable face in the
locket.  As far as the broken man in the Wapping doss house was
concerned that story was no more than half told.  He feared to dig down
to the roots of the matter, but there were times when the force of
curiosity was insurgent.

As the days passed Jimsmitt grew no better.  In fact he became weaker.
But the process was so gradual as to be almost imperceptible.  Dorland
had him vetted by another doctor, a specialist in mental cases.  Alas,
the case of Jimsmitt was one of those obscure ones that are a puzzle to
the faculty.  It was impossible to say exactly what was wrong with him.
A mysterious apathy and loss of memory were the outward symptoms, yet
as the second doctor saw at once, as soon as one probed beyond these
barriers other things were involved.  After all it was a psychical
condition.  Like the other doctor he recommended complete rest,
nourishing food, and if possible good country air.  Jimsmitt being more
or less at ease, and lacking nought save the last of these requisites,
his friend saw no reason to disturb him.  But Dorland felt the time was
coming when he would have to be disturbed.  Jimsmitt could not go on
for ever in the seclusion of the Pilgrim House.  It did not seem right
that he should.

Soon it would be necessary to make other plans for him.  Perhaps it
might be best to explain the whole position to Graeme.  The generous
fellow might find a corner for the invalid in his beloved
Hertfordshire.  Nor was it essential to divulge Jimsmitt's identity.
He was beyond a doubt one of the protagonists of the tragic story of
the ill-starred lovers.  But in the peculiar circumstances it might be
wise to leave Alastair Graeme to find out the truth for himself.

No doubt he would do so in the process of time.  Let the onus of
discovery lie upon him.  Yet Dorland felt it was hardly playing the
game.  It was moral cowardice.  Still the whole subject was beset with
thorns.

The American had reached no solution of his perplexities when an event
occurred which changed the aspect of the case.




XXV

Dorland after a busy day in Oakley Street was returning one evening to
the Pilgrim House.  The most agreeable part of the long journey was
being made on foot for the sake of exercise.  It was a delicious
evening of summer and he was sauntering pleasantly through one of the
fashionable squares.  Yet at that moment his mind was less occupied
with the magical change in his own fortunes than with the problem of
Jimsmitt.

While in the act of passing a stately house at the corner of the square
he noticed a woman of very striking appearance stepping from a motor.
Before he quite realised the situation he was looking into her face.
And then to avert a collision he stepped back swiftly to allow her to
pass.  At the same instant in a vivid blinding flash he recognised her.
There could be no mistake.  She was the woman of the Fazil gate at
Cairo, the girl of the locket, the heroine of Alastair Graeme's story.

A tide of wild emotion swept over Dorland.  An impulse he was powerless
to restrain took complete charge of him.  It was not a matter of
reason.  The action was so involuntary that reason had nothing to do
with it.  But as a manservant stood holding the door of the car the
American sprang forward.  Sweeping off his hat he said eagerly "I beg
your pardon, but could you--could you spare me a minute?  There is
something of importance--of great importance--that I have to tell you."

Taken by surprise the woman stopped and drew back.  And then she
hesitated.

"I apologise most humbly," said Dorland.  "But I am sure it is
something you ought to know."

In the urgency of Dorland's manner was that which immediately decided
her.

"Oh yes, certainly," she said in a voice low and deep.  Plainly this
was a woman who did not easily lose her self-possession.  And even when
lost it was quickly recovered.  "Come in here, won't you," she said in
a tone of quiet kindness as if in the act of welcoming a friend.

She turned and led the way into the house, across an entrance hall, up
a set of three stairs into a noble room which spoke to the artist in
Dorland by its air of magnificence tempered by great taste.  As soon as
the door closed upon them, and this lady did not hesitate to close it,
although giving sanctuary to a complete stranger, Dorland produced the
locket.  As always he carried it in his breast pocket.

"May I ask if you recognise this?"  And with an excitement he did not
try to conceal he handed the locket to her.

She took it in her hands and held it up to the light.

"Open it, please," said Dorland huskily.

The instant she had done so a cry escaped her.  By the strong light
that bathed the room the young man saw that a face which a few moments
ago had a high and beautiful serenity had entirely changed.  The ashen
look upon it now was pure agony.

"Tell me, tell me--how and where did you get this?"

"It was given to me."

"By whom?"

"By a friend.  And I have reason to believe that it was the friend to
whom you gave it."

"Impossible."

"Nothing in this world is impossible."  As Dorland uttered the words
with a slow force that seemed to render them sacrosanct, the woman
whose face was now drawn and wan looked into his eyes with a kind of
awe.  She shivered as if a voice from the dead was in her ears.  "You
know this man to whom I gave it?  Is it?--is he?--"  She obviously
feared to shape her question.

"He is alive," said Dorland calmly.

"And you can take me to him?"

"I am here for that purpose."

Scarcely had Dorland spoken when the woman touched the electric button.
A servant came in.  "Jevons, please--the car."

"Very good, my lady."  The man impassively retired without so much as a
glance at the visitor.

"And you say he is alive?  Jim Wendover?" she gasped looking again into
the eyes of Dorland.

"Yes--alive--Jim Wendover."  Dorland spoke upon a slight note of
triumph.  At last he had the name of Jimsmitt.  It needed no sixth
sense to tell him that his real name was Jim Wendover.  But it was not
the mere discovery that was the ground for his elation.  Was it not
rather because Ambrose Dorland, alone and unaided, under an inscrutable
providence had towed this storm broken waif of the high seas into port?

"Where is he?  I will go and see him now."  This woman like every woman
was all impulse, all fire when her heart was in the crucible.

"You shall," said Dorland.  Now that the great plunge was taken, the
immense risk accepted, he was strangely calm.  Perhaps what he was
about to do would kill his friend.  It might kill him as surely as if
he drove a knife into his heart.  He had not forgotten, nor could he
ever forget, that it was the sight of this woman, the mere contact with
her fingers, that had so suddenly and so grievously dethroned his mind.

Well, it was to be kill or cure.  A heroic remedy.  That which had
undone the brain of Jimsmitt must re-establish it.

"Where is he?" asked Lady Mary Benton as a tide of wild hopes sped
through Dorland's heart.

"Do you know the Pilgrim House along by the old quay at Wapping?  No, I
expect you don't."

"I have heard of Wapping," said Lady Mary.  But it was rather the tone
in which she might have said that she had heard of Popocatapetl.

"Well, I daresay your car will get us there in about an hour--if you
will take me with you to show the way."

In something under three minutes Dorland was sitting beside Lady Mary
and gliding towards the strange land of Wapping.  She piled him with
question after question in regard to Jim Wendover.  Dorland parried
discreetly where he could.  And where he could not he used equal
discretion in telling enough of his story without saying too much.
Already she was painfully excited, deeply distressed.  She had a
premonition that this messenger from the dead--long years she had
mourned as dead the man she had loved, whose life she had destroyed at
the instance of those who had forced her to break the promise she had
given him--was no bearer of gentle news.

Wapping was somehow significant.  In what sort would she find him?
Broken of brain, shattered of will, paralysed, maimed, down-and-out,
her woman's mind raced on and on as she beset this emissary with
questions and strove to adjust her heart to his careful answers.

"Do you happen to remember," said Dorland finally, "a couple of
_fellaheen_ beggars sitting by the Fazil gate at Cairo in the early
spring?  But no, of course you don't.  Why should you?"

"Oh, please go on."

"You put a dollar into the hand of one of them.  It was the hand of
Jimsmitt.  Smitten-of-Allah.  The man you call Jim Wendover."

She gave a little cry.  "I remember him so clearly.  There was
something in the look of that man that held me as I passed him.  But I
had no means of guessing, had I, that he had risen from the dead, and
that he would be sitting like a fakir in rags and a beard, dark as an
Egyptian and gaunt--gaunt as a spectre.  I had no means of knowing, had
I?"

"None," said Dorland.  "But there was something in you that did know.
And it spoke for you.  It is that something that has almost completed
the wreck of him--of the finest man on the wide earth.  And I have a
hunch, as we say, we Americans, that what has brought him so near to
destruction is going now to pull him back from the very edge of the
precipice."

"How I pray that you may be right."

"I too.  Well, here we are.  This is the Pilgrim House.  And the faith
that I have is now about to be put to the proof."




XXVI

Lady Mary shuddered as Dorland helped her out of the car.  She spent a
brief but rather harrowing moment in glancing at her surroundings.  The
Pilgrim House at Wapping, grim, dirty, and for all the roots of its
charity in some ways very foul, was about the last place on earth that
a woman would desire to greet one dearly loved on his return from the
dead.  She had been prepared for this nadir of fortune by all the tact
that Dorland could muster.  But the accumulative force of the attendant
circumstances drove at her heart as she was ushered into the evil gloom
of the place and she found herself glared at and gaped at by certain of
its denizens.

They were received on the threshold of the inner sanctuary by the
redoubtable Wiggy.

"How is the Captain tonight, Wiggy?" asked Dorland with the cheeriness
he never failed to assume when he entered this house of dolour.

"Werritin' because you're not home sooner.  He's never hisself isn't
the Capting until he comes."  Wiggy turned to address these
confidential remarks to Lady Mary.  "What I say is, it's this Mr. Dorey
what keeps the Capting alive.  The power of the human heye, mum, that's
what I say.  Mr. Dorey, you might say, has fairly put the comether on
the Capting.  Left to hisself he'd have handed in his checks weeks ago.
But Mr. Dorey says no."

"Tell me, Wiggy," said Dorland who felt it was high time he intervened
in the conversation, "Ought we to break it to the Captain that a lady
has come to see him?"

"Well, sir, you know better than I do how tear-bull shy the Capting is
of all strangers.  Tear-bull shy he is, mum."

"It so happens this lady isn't a stranger.  She is the oldest and best
of his friends."

"All the same you know what he is, sir."  Wiggy turned again to Lady
Mary.  "That queer, mum, the Capting is.  Always afraid of something.
Always afraid of meeting somebody.  But I'll say this for the Capting.
Queer as he is he never forgets that he's a Nofficer and a gentleman."

Again it seemed time for Dorland to intervene.  "I think, Wiggy, we'll
chance it anyway.  Perhaps you'll put a light in the Captain's cubicle."

"Right you are, sir."

"And Wiggy"--there was a moment's hesitation--"I think all things
considered it were best if you said nothing about a visitor.  Give him
no hint that a lady has come to see him."

"Very good, sir."

They allowed Wiggy a few minutes to tidy up the cubicle.  And when the
janitor returned to say that all was ready Dorland without further
preface led the visitor to the door and gently ushered her in.  As soon
as he had done so he drew back without being seen by the gaunt figure
on the bed.

To Mary Benton it was like entering a prison.  She had never been in
one, but she imagined this cell, for it was hardly more, was exactly
what a prison was like.  It was so bare, so tiny, so ill-lit, so
comfortless.  And yet that was to do it less than justice.  Compared
with its surroundings and the other cubicles wherein she had peeped it
was decorated with kindly human touches.  A small table containing a
bowl of flowers and a bunch of grapes was near the bed.  There was upon
it also a pipe, some tobacco, a magazine, several books.

She hardly dared to glance at the frail bearded form.  But suddenly she
heard a well remembered voice.  "Is that you, old man?"

The depth of melancholy in that voice was indescribable.  It tore at
her heart.  But it was the voice she had always loved and never hoped
to hear again, a thing of charm, of humour, of an infinite whimsical
kindliness.

In the next moment she was on her knees and her arms were round him.
"Oh, my dear, my dear!"  She caught him to her.  "Oh, my dear, my dear!"

Jimsmitt uttered a wild sigh.  It was as if his dreams were tormenting
him.  And then the confused and twisted brain, that had passed through
more of suffering than is meet for any man to know, was abruptly cast
once more into the mill race of fate.  Like a child, very tired,
resting its head upon the breast of its mother, Jim Wendover yielded to
those arms.  A miracle had happened to him.  He was with the woman of
his dreams.

Dorland, who had been careful to keep some distance away, up the
corridor, heard a sound of sobbing.  It was eerie, wild, intense; that
of a man completely overwhelmed.  Amid his travels and vicissitudes he
had seen and heard far too many things he desired to forget, but there
was something in that sound whose pain exceeded any he had known.  He
went further and further away, until he could hear those sobs no
longer.  And yet he could still hear them.

This travail of the soul was more than Dorland could bear.  He had been
with this friend through scathes and hazards it chilled the blood to
recall.  They had suffered many strange and unlucky chances.  Wendover
had fought for him when he could no longer fight for himself.  Such
endurance as Jimsmitt had shown was unbelievable.  But those pitiful
sounds now in the ear of Dorland proved that what the horrors of the
Dark Continent could not do, inexorable fate was able to accomplish.
Dorland shrunk back against the whitewashed wall at the far end of the
corridor.

He had tried his friend too high.  His plan had succeeded only to fail?
Perhaps he ought to have known that the shock of such a meeting would
be too great for human endurance.  It was surely wrong to have acted on
the spur of the moment even by the light of intuition?

The idea at the back of Dorland's mind had been to re-establish memory
upon her throne by the mere shock of this coming together.  In the
first instance a similar clash had cast it down.  He knew that it was a
heroic remedy, a case of kill or cure.  Had he taken the advice of a
doctor no doubt the attempt would have been made in a different way.
Yet Dorland told himself as now he fought against panic that no matter
how this meeting were arranged the shock to Jimsmitt had been terrible.

The American knew now that it was foolhardy.  Yet in obeying a sudden
and powerful impulse, he had felt that when all was said the case of
Jimsmitt was not a matter for the doctors.  It was an affair of the
soul.  The cleverest physician in the world would never get right down
to the root of the trouble in the way of the sole companion of many
incredulous adventures, the sole witness of the uncanny incident of the
Fazil gate.

What did the doctors know of this man?  What did they know of absinthe?
What did they know of the French Foreign Legion?  What did they know of
sandstorms in the desert?  What did they know of captivity, misery,
torture, hunger, thirst, of indignities worse than death?  No, this was
not a case for doctors.  It was a case for the love, the faith, the
insight of a friend.  Those pitiful sounds were still in Dorland's
ears, but in spite of them he refused, he simply refused to despair.

How long Dorland stood at the far end of that dim corridor awaiting the
return of Lady Mary he could not tell.  It seemed like hours.  Yet the
play of light on the wall opposite told him that reckoned as mere time
it was but little.

Had he wholly destroyed that weakened brain?  Or had the desperate
trick succeeded?  No doctor, no professional psychologist with a
diploma and degrees and a name on a plate in Harley Street would ever
have countenanced that gambler's throw.  But the thing was done, the
die was cast for better or for worse.

The door opened at the far end of the corridor.  She was coming now.
Overhead a shaft of golden light caught her hair, her eyes, her
wonderful face.  Ravaged by its emotions, that face was even more
wonderful this evening than when he had seen it first by the sunset of
the Nile.

To Ambrose Dorland it became almost a sacrilege to look upon it.  He
did not dare.  What it had to tell must be left for other eyes to scan.

"I must go now," she said as she came up to him.  Such control, such
mastery of self were extraordinary.  "But tomorrow morning I will come
again.  And then perhaps we can decide what is to be done."  Her voice
so gentle and so calm told nothing of what she felt and what she feared.

Dorland with his curious sense of delicacy forbore to ask any
questions.  For one thing he had every reason to shun the answer he
might receive.  But more than dread was at work in him.  He had fine
perceptions, he was a creature of intuitions.  This woman must not be
made to suffer one pang that could be spared.

He took her back to her car.  She let her hand linger an instant in his
as she wished him good night.

Beyond a further promise to return as early as possible the next day,
there was no other allusion to the subject of Jimsmitt.  Nor was there
any indication of her private feelings or of what was in her thoughts.
But knowing what they were and must be, for those harrowing moments in
Cadogan Square had told much, he marvelled that any woman could mask
her emotions with this perfect skill.

He saw her go.  And then numb with fear he re-entered the Pilgrim House
and walked along the corridor to the cubicle of his friend.  Had he
destroyed him?  The thought seared Dorland as if barbed with fire.  Was
the inhuman composure of their recent visitor meant to convey that the
worst had really happened?

With a thrill of joy he heard the voice of the stricken man.

"That you, Dorey, old man?  Come and sit with me a bit."  Faint that
voice was, hardly more than a whisper, but it was that of one who still
had control of his own mind.  Up to that point at all events Jim
Wendover was able to exercise the functions of a reasonable being.
Therefore it was surely too soon to say that a dangerous experiment had
failed.

Dorland that night slept ill.  He was overstrung.  As he lay wakeful
through the small hours in his own cell-like cubicle, listening for any
sounds from next door, he felt that all was in the balance.  Was
Wendover going to weather the storm?  The shattered brain was still in
being, so much could be said.  And the mind was less clouded.  Jimsmitt
now knew his own name.  This fact, it seemed reasonable to hope, might
be a prelude to the recapture of a lost identity.  But it was far too
soon to count on anything.

The clocks struck two.  Dorland crept into the next cubicle to see how
his friend did.  He had the pleasure of hearing him breathe peacefully.
That at least was a fair omen.

Next morning the American did not go to Oakley Street.  He waited at
the Pilgrim House in a flux of anxiety, not unmingled with other and
perhaps more complex emotions, for the coming of Lady Mary.  Meanwhile
Jimsmitt was not disturbed more than was absolutely necessary.  There
was reason to think he had had a good night, but the less he was
troubled with promiscuous talk the better.  Dorland therefore had to
possess his soul in patience.  Almost on the stroke of noon Lady Mary's
car stole up to the portals of the Pilgrim House.

Wiggy who happened to be scrubbing the front steps, an office he
performed with an air of dignified protest once a week--you might just
as well holystone the steps of the Zoo!--would have registered
astonishment at the spectacle, had it not been a fixed rule of his life
not to be astonished by anything.  Moreover the sight of a tall man
wearing an eyeglass and a braided morning coat and striped cashmere
trousers, a Nofficer handing out a real Looker, would also have
ministered to that emotion had Wiggy been susceptible to it.

Cool as on parade, he stood at attention beside his bucket and mop
while the two most distinguished visitors ever received by the Pilgrim
House alighted.  And in response to a kindly good morning which in
Wiggy's opinion would have been no discredit to Queen Mary herself, he
returned a judicially deferential, "Good morning, my lady," gloomily
adding, "I dessay you'll find the Capting a bit more hisself this
morning."

The wearer of the striped trousers and the braided coat was the most
famous alienist in London.  He spent a long quarter of an hour with
Jimsmitt while some way off, outside in the corridor, Lady Mary stood
talking to Dorland.  Now she had had time to arrange her thoughts and
to consider them in relation to the whole matter, she could not repress
a little bewilderment that a man such as Dorland, who had acted the
part of good fairy, should not have gone a step further and had his
friend placed in a nursing home.

A question of means, no doubt.  But there was complete disparity
between the Pilgrim House at Wapping, where apparently he was content
to live with poor Jim, and the marks of educational and financial
status that he certainly bore.  However as they waited now while the
brain specialist, Sir Hector Wilbraham, talked with Jimsmitt in the
privacy of his cubicle, she made a few delicate soundings upon this
deeply perplexing subject.

From the moment she had seen Dorland first, had heard his charming
voice, had experienced his unstudied candour, she had taken a great
liking to him.  Her intuitions seldom led her astray.  She saw this
young man as he was: one of those rare people who are completely
themselves because they can afford to be.  He had all the perceptions,
all the nuances, of certain members of her own sex.  And yet one
somehow felt he was not less a man for that.

As she talked with him now, while they waited for Sir Hector's report,
she dug tactfully to the roots of a very strange story.  Where had he
first met Jim?  In what circumstances?  And why, oh why, if she might
venture--and in the end she did venture before she was really aware of
her own temerity--had they chosen to live together in the Pilgrim House
at Wapping?

Faced with the question the young man was perfectly candid.  "Well,
Lady Mary," he said with a frankness she admired, "you see when Jim and
I landed in this country we were absolutely broke.  We had just about
enough to pay for our lodging here, fourpence a night, and that was
all.  I had never been in this country before, I hadn't a friend in it,
and I had heard at Cairo, what I've verified since, that what remained
of my money had been lost in the failure of a French bank."

"Oh yes...  But Jim?"

"I think I told you last night that Jim had completely lost his memory.
For the life of him he couldn't remember his own name."  Dorland felt
his companion wince a little as she leaned against the wall beside him.
"I was inclined to think he had a particular reason for forgetting
everything.  But in that you have proved me wrong."

For those naf words she would have liked to offer him a kiss.

"That was six weeks ago.  You see we had no money and no means of
getting any, beyond what I could pick up at the docks as a stevedore
and by drawing pictures of the Nile on the pavement outside Saint
George's Hospital."

"Oh, but--but--surely."  She shivered an incredulous dismay.

"No buts, Lady Mary.  It was so I assure you.  We had to keep going
somehow.  Jim was done, and he begged me not to let him go out of my
hands.  Two doctor men I found around here offered to get him into an
institution.  But Jim was dead against it.  He would have nothing to do
with strangers.  And I felt that until we could make some private
arrangement it would be best to let him lie in peace.  He only asked
not to be disturbed.  That was his instinct, and it was mine.  So as I
say, I set to work.  And then--yes, I must tell you--while I was
drawing the Nile on the pavement outside that Hospital and collecting a
fair amount of loot in my docker's cap, an angel came straight down
from heaven."

The young man paused in his narrative to laugh.  As he did so he
glanced at the glowing face of the woman by his side.  "Yes, an angel,
if ever one did come straight down from heaven into this strange,
uncanny muss-of-a-world."

"Oh do tell me about the angel."  His auditor clasped her heart with
excitement.

But at that moment, just as Dorland was about to continue the story of
the angel, Sir Hector Wilbraham stepped out of Jimsmitt's cubicle and
came slowly along the corridor.  And as Dorland the previous evening
had feared to traverse the face of Lady Mary, so now both these friends
of Jim Wendover instinctively averted their eyes from the face of the
specialist.

"A strange case," said Sir Hector after a brief moment of awkwardness.
"That poor fellow has been in very deep places."

"Yes, sir," said Dorland in a slow and quiet voice which yet had the
power to startle both its hearers.  "He has been in the nethermost
regions of hell."  And then breaking the silence that followed, the
young man went on: "If he hadn't he could never have dragged me out of
them.  And I now want to know if it lies in my power to do but a very
little in return for what he did for me."

Sir Hector smiled.  He said dryly: "From what Lord Wendover says you
appear to have done a great deal already to liquidate the debt."

"No need to believe all the poor old boy tells you.  But can you give
us some hope of him, Lady Mary and me?"

There was a pause.  And then the specialist said: "I hardly dare to
promise anything at this stage.  He may have a chance of recovery.  One
in a hundred--perhaps a fraction of one--I won't put it higher."

"Then we are going to bring off that chance," proclaimed Dorland
stoutly.  "We are going to get him well--Lady Mary and I."

"Let me say this.  If between you, you can't, there's no power in this
world that can."

"That we know to be true, Sir Hector," said Lady Mary.  "We both feel
that--Mr. Dorland and I.  But before we try to do anything he must be
got away from this--this dreadful place."

"I agree."

"My plan is to take him to Round Hill this afternoon with your
permission."

"Quite the best thing you can do."

"And you will come with us, I hope, Mr. Dorland."

"Only too delighted," said Dorland promptly.

"It is arranged then," said Lady Mary.  "I will take Sir Hector back to
Portland Place.  And then I will come straight back here for Jim and
you.  In the meantime will you have him dressed and his clothes packed?"

"He can't have it both ways, I'm afraid," said Dorland.  "If he is
dressed he will have no clothes to pack.  And the same applies more or
less to me."

Lady Mary laughed a peal, yet in her eyes was not one spark of mirth.
But the matter was left as she proposed.  Sir Hector went off in the
car with her while Dorland presided over the toilette of his friend.
He would like to have fetched a barber from the next street to remove
Jim's beard, but to this desecration its owner would not submit.  Oddly
enough he preferred that it should continue to disguise him.

Dorland felt that in some ways Jimsmitt was the better for the thing
that had happened.  He was still plunged in an abysmal gloom.  But a
part of his memory had already returned.  And now and again there was a
flash of the old whimsical humour.  Perhaps no harm had been done by a
daring experiment.  There was even a hope that as Jim Wendover was
adjusted to his natural plane his sense of identity would develop and
that in the process of time he would return to his former self.




XXVII

True to her word Lady Mary was back at the Pilgrim House in little more
than an hour.  In that time Jimsmitt had been helped to dress and a
comb had even been applied to his beard for which he showed more
concern than in Dorland's view it warranted.

Before they started, this party of three, upon a happy journey into the
heart of Kent, there was a pleasant little ceremony.

"Can you lend me ten pounds?" said Dorland in an aside to Lady Mary.
"You shall have it back, I faithfully promise, the first money I earn."

As her _sac  main_ contained that sum it was promptly handed to him.

"This is for you, Wiggy," said Dorland, bidding goodbye to the faithful
janitor.  "But I want you to promise that you won't go at once and blow
it on a horse."

The astonished but not ungrateful Wiggy promised.  "I'll put it
straight in the benk, sir."  And as Wiggy stood at the door of the
Pilgrim House to watch the Capting, "the nicest gentleman as ever
dossed here," drive off with his friends, he turned to confide one of
his own favourite aphorisms to a regular habitu of the House who was
standing beside him.  "Once a gentleman always a gentleman," said
Wiggy.  "And that's what Muck like you can't never ree-lise."

To Dorland it seemed that night as he lay in a bed smelling of lavender
in a chintz clad room, that a fairy had waved a magic wand.  The
contrast between his new pillow and his fourpenny doss of the night
before, not to mention those of the thousand and one nights previous,
was so great that his senses were bewildered.  But after many days he
was strangely, almost wildly happy.  He felt that he was coming into
his kingdom at last.  Moreover his faith was strong that the high
mission to which he had been called by providence had a quite
reasonable chance of fulfilment.

Jimsmitt, duly brushed and combed and bathed and fed and cared for, was
in the next room.  He was not yet himself.  That was too much to ask
all at once.  Weeks, perhaps months would pass before the breach in
that mind was healed.  But when he had been put to bed in a delightful
room, and Lady Mary herself had brought him tempting food he had sat up
and taken nourishment.  That is to say he had made a gallant effort to
do so.  "To please me, old boy," as she had put it cajolingly, and he
had bravely done his best.

It was idle to pretend that he was the Jim she had known.  A shadow was
athwart his brain.  In the time of their boy-and-girlhood, when she had
made that promise her selfish parents would not allow her to keep, the
mind of Jim was all sunshine, all mirth, and whim.  He had a wonderful
power of keeping one amused.  The things he said, not, alas, in the
least illuminating, the things he did, not, alas, in the least useful,
yet what would she not give for his joy of life, that was like a strong
wine, to return!

Still there was no need to despair.  Both these dear and great friends
of Jim Wendover were tonight in cordial agreement upon that.  He had
stood the journey to Round Hill very well, nay, he had borne the
transplanting in a way that exceeded their hopes.  He remembered his
own name; he remembered Mary Adeane; a ghost of a smile had flitted
across those vacant eyes.

In spite of a secret excitement the young painter slept deliciously.
He woke to the sound of larks and the scent of honeysuckle.  Round Hill
had a name more than local.  It was one of the stately homes of
England.  An aura of history, of tradition, of chaste magnificance was
upon every stone of this old and lovely house, upon every acre of its
gardens.  From the terrace with its Italian colonnade, under which
Dorland sat smoking an after-breakfast pipe, he amused himself by
counting the deer in the park below.  Everything about this pleasaunce
leaped to the ravished eye of an artist.  It was a realm of fary, and
its mistress, crossing a mosaic of Roman tiles with the grace of a
cygnet as she came towards him, was the one thing needed to complete
the picture.

"How is old Jim this morning?" said Dorland as he rose to greet her.

"He has slept," said Lady Mary, "and like a good boy he has eaten his
porridge.  I have given him a cigarette as a reward.  And now, of
course, he asks for you."

"Harmless, necessary me," laughed Dorland.  As he did so he felt a
sharp bite of happiness.  Life could play amazing tricks.  It did play
them.  To be on terms of intimacy, of camaraderie only possible to
those who have community of taste and interest, with this royal
creature was almost compensation for the years of horror he had passed
through.

Lady Mary leant against the balustrade.  "Before you go to Jim please
tell me something."

"Command me."

"Yesterday we were interrupted as you were recounting a miracle that
happened when you were drawing pictures of the Nile on the pavement
outside St. George's Hospital.  I burn to know what that miracle was."

Very simply, with the nave charm that was so powerful, this young man
told exactly what had occurred.  He described the sequence of half
crowns on three consecutive Sundays; "One has to be a pavement artist,
the real genuine thing like Ambrose Dorland to taste the full flavour
of such a phenomenon.  Think of it!  A tinkle of pennies hour after
hour.  And then wallop--a whole half crown."

"Yes, but that was merely an outward symbol of the miracle."

"True, True.  Maecenas introduced himself personally on the third
Sunday.  He invited me to breakfast.  He insisted on taking charge of
me.  Literally he picked me out of the gutter and set me on my legs.  I
have his card somewhere.  Yes, I thought I had."  Dorland produced the
card rather after the manner of a conjuror from some obscure recess of
his person.  "This talisman I carry upon me for luck."

"And so you ought, my dear boy," said his hostess with sisterly warmth
as she glanced at the card.  "Things of this kind only happen to
fortune's favourites."

"The jade owes me a bit all the same.  But I am not going to crab my
luck.  I suppose you have heard of Alastair Graeme?"

"He is quite famous.  One of the most accomplished painters we have."

"And well enough off to paint only the kinds of pictures that happen to
amuse him."

"So I believe."

"He is a regular Don Quixote.  At least I tell him so.  His fishing out
of the gutter a queer skate like me proves it."

"Let us call it Kismet, as poor dear Jim would say.  My view is that
most of our actions spring from causes we know nothing whatever about."

"I agree," said Dorland.  And then shivering in spite of the genial
warmth of the sun of Kent he added, "Old Jim and I have proved it."

"Yes, I think you must have," said Lady Mary.

For Dorland these were enchanted days.  Each hour in this wonderful
place revealed a deeper beauty.  And somehow his two friends, the old
one and the new, fitted into the picture with a harmony curiously
perfect.  The house itself had no peer even in that corner of England,
and with these noble spirits to lend it sorcery it wrought upon this
impressionable young American.  He was in the land of his fathers for
the first time.  All was new and strange.  And yet in a subtle way it
was familiar.  The Dorlands, his father had once told him, were a noble
West Country stock in the days of Elizabeth.

Round Hill was a continual delight.  Even the clipt hedge of yew, the
sundial, the flaunting peacocks had the charm of kinship.  These were
the things he had known in happier existences.  But he swam back into
their remembrance with a sense of gratitude.  Amid this well loved
scene his painter's eye, his artist's imagination were soon at work.

Alastair Graeme, whose judgment on such a matter few would dispute, had
described the chatelaine of Round Hill as the most beautiful woman in
England.  Ambrose Dorland could only endorse it.  As he saw her now,
fixed in her own ethos, his mind simply refused to conjure a vision
equally fair.

She fitted into her frame of centuries like a star in a clear sky.
Dorland felt that such beauty as hers was a part of its setting and yet
transcended it.  For this enthusiast, with the first impact of the land
of his fathers upon him, she was tradition and romance incarnate.
Verily a sorceress, within three days of his arrival at Round Hill she
had called his ambition from its long sleep.

"I shall have to paint her, I shall have to paint her," he said to
himself as he awoke on the morning of the fourth day.  The sun was on
the wall beside him and the blackbirds sang in the laurels around the
oriel window.  Such hours in such a house would have to be
commemorated.  And there was but one way for a young and rising painter.

Before proceeding in that matter he went up to town for the day.  When
he arrived at Oakley Street just before luncheon he felt like an idle
apprentice.  Alastair Graeme who had already done a long morning's work
promptly charged him with truancy.

"Give an account of yourself, my son.  I got a postcard without an
address but with a Kentish postmark, saying that something wonderful
had happened and that you would explain all about it this Wednesday
morning at luncheon.  So you see I have got Mrs. Griffin to set a place
for you.  She has also laid in a couple of _langoustes_ and a bottle of
Johannisberg to tide us over the telling of this wonderful story of
yours."

"It is a wonderful story, I promise you," said the truant.

"You seem rather to have made a corner in wonderful stories, _mon ami_."

"So you'll say when you've heard this one."

"Well, let us wash our hands and start lunch and then you shall tell
it.  Real honest work always gives me that hungry feeling."

"Even without real honest work I somehow get it."  And Dorland sat down
gaily at the pleasant little table which held tempting things.  Yet
before he had picked a claw of the _langouste_ he began his story.

Graeme listened with a kind of entrancement.  "You are an amazing
fellow," was his comment when Dorland reached the end.  "A life such as
yours is a tissue of marvels."

"It certainly is just now.  There's a lot I'd like to forget.  But the
last few days almost make up for everything.  Round Hill is unique."

"One has always heard so."

"Lady Mary would like you to come down for a week end."

"Nothing could give me more pleasure."

"If you can, why not come next Saturday?  Then you will see what the
place is like."

Graeme was a man of many engagements.  But it so happened he was free
for that week end.  Thus he accepted the cordial invitation that had
been sent to him by a woman he wanted very much to meet.




XXVIII

Saturday came and Alastair Graeme arrived at Round Hill in the middle
of the afternoon.  Here for him was the flower of romance.  Was he not
deepening acquaintance with a story that had long been half familiar?
And the two chief actors in the drama were also known to him.  That an
act of promiscuous charity in reclaiming from the gutter an obscure
young artist should have these consequences was indeed remarkable.

Dorland has been obliged to fit Wendover into the picture as well as he
could.  Graeme now recalled that the name of the man he had forgotten
was Jim Wendover.  And he knew that Round Hill was the historic domain
for whose sake Mary Adeane had sacrificed Wendover's happiness and her
own.  Yes, a romantic story.  And its meaning came home to him that
Saturday afternoon as he swung his Morris Cowley, which somehow went
with the slightly Bohemian appearance of its driver through wrought
iron gates surmounted by an ancient coat of arms.

Quite apart from all that Dorland had told, Alastair Graeme was keenly
looking forward to seeing Wendover again, and to making the
acquaintance of Lady Mary Benton.  He remembered seeing her at a dance
when she first came out.  A more radiant being he could not imagine.
Life, since then, had treated her ill.  But her fame was still widely
celebrated.

Alastair Graeme felt a rare emotion as he was ushered on to the broad
terrace with its spacious view of three counties.  It was intensified
by the handshake of his hostess.  He was very much a man of the world.
_Un vieux routier_ he liked to describe himself.  There were very few
of the really famous he had not met, for he was _persona gratissima_
everywhere, but even he, experienced as he was, could not subdue a
thrill of a kind he had long outgrown when he felt the pressure of
those exquisite fingers.

She was very tall, very slim, with all the grace and stateliness of
long inheritance.  Yet there was nothing formal about her.  She was
_bon enfant_, naturally gay.  A light of humour looked out of a large
and lovely eye set in a face perhaps too much alive, perhaps too
enkindled to be strictly classical.  Youth was still hers.  There was
not a hint of the recent past.  Maybe one supremely endowed by nature
and fortune had taken great pains not to show it.  Certainly she looked
younger and was rather gayer in manner than Alastair Graeme expected to
find her.  But the effect upon him in the moment of greeting was the
effect she made upon all the world.


  _Was this the face that launched a thousand ships,_
  _And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?_


Those familiar words sprang involuntarily into his mind as he gazed.

"You are an old friend of Jim's, I know," she said.  "But I'm afraid he
won't be able to see you.  Sir Hector Wilbraham thinks it's a little
too soon for him, so please take the will for the deed.  Mr. Dorland
has told you, of course, of the amazing adventures of Jim and himself
in the African desert?"

Whatever of awkwardness might lurk in such a meeting, the virtue rooted
in manners of the heart tided them most happily over every difficulty.
Rumour had not belied her.  A beauty which on a first view was a little
awe inspiring, at any rate to the morbidly susceptible soul of a
painter, was softened, made accessible, brought down to common earth by
a virile humanity.  Simplicity was not the least of her gifts.

This came out in her attitude to Ambrose Dorland.  He was accepted just
as he was, as the hero of a fairy tale.  There was something maternal
in the smile that regarded his enthusiasm.  Yet Graeme saw at once, and
with a good deal of pleasure, that she liked the young American
extremely.  Something there was about Dorland, which Graeme could not
quite explain, that was oddly engaging.  Perhaps it was his un-English
knack of taking things in his stride.  Already he was as much at home
at Round Hill as if he had lived there all his life.  Yet his delight
in the place and all pertaining to it was quite disarming.  It was the
love of a nature profoundly sensitive, deeply perceptive, for an
incomparably beautiful thing.  Graeme was much struck by this.  In all
that Dorland said, in all that he did it was now apparent.

Already he had made considerable use of his time.  Clearly he was not
one to let the grass grow.  Easel and canvas and other materials of the
craft were set out on the terrace at the moment Graeme arrived.
Dorland was absorbed in study of the view.  The elder painter was
amused when the young man with superb candour announced his purpose.
"Lady Mary has very kindly promised to let me have a shot at her
portrait.  I want it to be in the grand style, so I am taking a few
notes of this wonderful setting where she belongs."

"My ears burn," said Lady Mary, who was standing by.

"If I can only get you down on canvas as I see you," said Ambrose
Dorland unabashed, "with all the centuries upon you and those old trees
and these stones and this old turf around you, and that bit of pure
English sky above you, and that vista of woodland, stream and hill as
Wordsworth says, you will make me famous and Mr. Graeme will know that
it was right to pick up such a hobo off the pavement by St. George's
Hospital."

"Pure officiousness on his part I assure you," said Graeme laughing
heartily.  "The hobo would certainly have picked himself up at any time
he chose.  And it is plainer now than it ever was that he is going to
be a very considerable man."

"With you and Lady Mary to help me I somehow feel that I ought to be."
Dorland spoke without a suspicion of immodesty.

It was a very agreeable week end which Graeme keenly enjoyed.  But he
was disappointed in not being given a sight of Jim Wendover.  Still the
invalid was understood to be making good progress, although at present
Lady Mary and Dorland were the only people who were allowed to see him.

Lady Mary was genuinely pleased to have made the acquaintance of
Alastair Graeme.  Very gracefully she said so to the departing guest.
She hoped he would return in the autumn for a longer stay, when it
might be possible to have a party to meet him.  The coverts were not as
full of partridges and pheasants as they were in her father's time, but
she would like him to bring his guns.  And by then she hoped that Jim
would be quite well again and they would be able to tramp the fields
together.

Graeme returned to Chelsea rather elated.  It was good indeed to have
added this royal creature to the long list of his friends.  He had an
infinite capacity for making friends, and what was still better, for
keeping them.  A little harmless eccentricity apart, he was an entirely
lovable fellow.

In the days that immediately followed he did not see much of Ambrose
Dorland.  His protg appeared to have become a fixture at Round Hill.
Now and again the young man would run up to Oakley Street for a few
hours; it was hardly more than thirty miles as the crow flew.  Graeme,
however, did manage to lure him down to his own modest house in
Hertfordshire for a day and a night towards the end of the summer.

It was a typical bit of England and Dorland absorbed it greedily.  But
he did not forget that Wendover, who was having an uphill fight to get
his mind back to a normal plane, could not bear to have him out of his
sight more than a few hours.

"It's really quite odd," said Dorland, "the feeling that dear chap has
for me.  Of course I have it for him too.  We might be twin brothers.
I suppose when we were up against it, as few men can ever have been, we
got to depend on each other so completely that now old Jim imagines he
can't carry on without me.  Seems rather ridiculous, doesn't it?  Yet I
know it was the will of Jimsmitt that brought me alive through the
desert.  And I think it was my will that brought him home out of Egypt
to old England."

Graeme agreed that it was a remarkable case.  But it was
understandable.  Two men, intensely _simpatico_, placed in exceptional
circumstances were likely to have these reactions towards each other.
David and Jonathan, Damon and Pythias, there had been historical
instances.  All the same it did appear that Jimsmitt and Dorland were
rather overdoing it.

"And how is Lady Mary's portrait getting on?" said Graeme, a note of
mischief in his voice as they sat out after dinner in the pleasant
loggia in the cool of an August evening.  "If you don't make it a real
chef-d'oeuvre, my friend, I shall never forgive you."

"It's simply got to be one," said Dorland.  But he then confessed, "I'm
afraid it's not showing many signs at present."

"Not working, eh?"  A touch of disappointment crept into the banter of
Alastair Graeme.

"Oh yes.  I keep hard at it.  But somehow it doesn't get on."

"Why?"

"The subject's too big for the artist.  At present anyhow, if you
understand me."

"Yes, I think I understand you," said the man of wide experience.  "Too
many implications, eh?  One sees too much.  But I suppose every painter
does.  Selection after all, in every art, is the final secret."

"Anyhow," said Dorland ruefully, "I have already destroyed three
canvases.  I am working and thinking and planning all the time; yet I
seem farther than ever away."

"Well, stick to your subject and see what happens."

"I am simply bound to stick to it.  I can't help myself now.  But I
don't begin to get near the glory I behold.  To me it is the light that
never was on sea or land."

Alastair Graeme laughed fraternally.  "I'm not sure whether it's a good
thing or a bad thing to feel like that."

"A good one surely."

"I don't know.  A question of temperament I suppose.  Such a feeling as
that, to my mind, must be terribly discouraging unless one can muster a
colossal amount of genius."

"I can't hope for that.  But by dedicating what talent I have to a
wonderful theme, perhaps in the end it may get me somewhere."

"Well, go on with your picture.  And may it prosper.  But I appreciate
your difficulty.  I think I know where the problem begins.  And to know
that, as old man Goethe once said, is to be just a little way on the
road to wisdom."

Dorland had not exaggerated his perplexities.  He was giving long days
and sometimes long nights to the intensive study of his art.  But the
odd thing was that the more time he lavished on the preparation of this
chef-d'oeuvre he was planning the more dissatisfied he felt with the
result of his labours.  Every day he worked in the beautiful room that
had been placed at his disposal or out on the terrace when the weather
enticed him, but the problem did not simplify.  Of course his
conception was ambitious.  And to begin with, his technical resources
were not equal to the call.  Yet he was more conscious than ever of a
genuine talent.  It was merely that his vision had deepened since the
days in Paris.  There was no place now for the trivial in his cosmogony.

Anyhow he did not lack courage.  If it took him ten years, working ten
hours a day, to achieve that picture he meant to do it.  But it would
be something more than a portrait.  It was to be a milieu, a whole
civilisation.  As the artist saw it in the eye of his mind it was to be
a conspectus of what man himself had achieved in aeons of years by
blood and tears.  Even before Ambrose Dorland took up the brush he felt
this picture to be a very vital part of himself.

All this time he was also much occupied with the problem of Jimsmitt.
Recovery was painfully slow.  Jim had his good days and his bad days,
that is to say his mind seemed to fluctuate considerably.  In a room
brightly cheerful with fine window space he lay hour after hour.  Rest,
rest, rest preached the doctors.  Jimsmitt was able now to carry out
these orders under ideal conditions; still he did not go on as well as
his friends could have wished.  Since his meeting with Lady Mary in the
Pilgrim House, his lost memory had flowed back to him.  The shock then
administered had forced a door in his brain.  Yet for some reason more
abundant consciousness did not seem to bring ease of mind.

Dorland watching him as a nurse watches a patient or a mother a child,
felt the magic change of fortune hardly affected him at all.  Those
eyes were no less tragic than they had been at the Fazil gate at Cairo
or in the doss house at Wapping.  He was re-established, he was with
his own again, he had nothing to fear from anyone, yet a mysterious
shadow still hovered about him.  It was truly baffling.  Neither
medical science nor the devotion of his friends could melt this cloud.

"It does not matter how much we try, we doctors," Sir Hector Wilbraham
one day remarked.  "We cannot see right inside the mind of another
person."

No, poor Jimsmitt did not respond to treatment as he should have done.
But there was everything now to lure him back to the paths of
happiness.  It was clear--at least to Dorland, who studied their
bearing to each other with almost morbid care--that Lady Mary really
loved him.  He was the playmate of her youth, to whom she had once
plighted her troth, and there was no reason now why she should not
redeem the promise made to him then.  It was her last-minute
withdrawal, her deliberate sacrifice that Round Hill might be saved
which lay at the root of his troubles.  All that was now past.  Her
object had been gained.  And the man whose name she bore, in many
respects so unworthy, had not only had the grace to endow her with an
ample fortune, but two years ago he had died in battle.

To Dorland it was clear that Lady Mary owed very little to the memory
of her late husband.  A marriage of convenience, she had borne her part
with a courage akin to heroism and she was now free.  She was now free
to marry the man of her heart.  Oddly enough, and rather ironically,
fate had also been busy in the matter of him she loved.  Eight years
ago on the brink of his tragedy, Jim Wendover had been no more than a
younger son of a younger son.  But in that time there had been a war.
And with the men of Wendover's caste the effect had been simply
devastating.  The head of his family, serving with the Brigade of
Guards, had been killed in 1915, and two other lives that stood between
him and the title had ended untimely, one at Festubert, the other on
the plains of Gallipoli.

James Wendover, 12th Earl, was not rich in an age of plutocracy, but he
was now the owner of three fine old properties, so that even if he had
to pinch a little to maintain them he was by no means poor.  He now had
something very substantial to put in the scale against the ducats of
the woman he adored.  Not that it was necessary, except that he was a
proud man.  Yet the irony was that had his present status obtained
eight years ago, when the parents of Mary Adeane insisted on bringing
her beauty to market and selling it to the highest bidder for the sake
of Round Hill, the long term of bitterness that had seared one and had
shattered the other would have been spared them.

In such circumstances the tardiness of Jim Wendover's recovery was
doubly galling to those who loved him.  Dorland in especial was
disconcerted and impatient and more than a little anxious.  "Jim," he
would say, "if you don't buck up someone else will get her."




XXIX

On good days Jimsmitt would find his way downstairs and even on to the
terrace if Ambrose happened to be working there, which generally he was
if there was no rain.  Jim would sit by the easel and in a curious
melancholy silence would follow agile fingers and even interpret the
thoughts of a daemonic brain.  It was at these times the painter worked
best.  Then it was that the harmony, the aesthetic unity he sought so
painfully and had not yet found seemed very near.

Laughingly Ambrose declared that he worked thrice as well when Jim sat
with him.  He did not speak a word, old Jim, he asked no questions, he
never dammed the flow of inspiration with an ill-timed remark.  In fact
he reminded Ambrose of a faithful dog they once had at home.  Hours on
end he would lie in a nobly intelligent silence, his head between his
paws, assisting in the meditations of his friends.  Jim was rather like
that as he stretched his gaunt body at ease between the painter and the
subject, making no sound, uttering no word.  But somehow his mere
presence was a benediction.  And the artist wrestling with his medium,
often with sore travail of the spirit, was truly grateful for it.

Gradually, with this silent help, the picture grew.  From very
tentative beginnings and many false starts an organism slowly emerged.
At last came the dawn of a real idea.  Very painfully yet very surely
it took shape.  And as it did so came a vision of the means by which it
was to be accomplished.

But the hand of the unseen was still heavy upon Jimsmitt.  He did not
improve.  With his two friends he was perfectly charming but he shunned
the world.  Even when he grew comparatively strong he had no thought of
going to London to take up the thread of his life.  And the matter of
his inheritance, which soon or late he would be compelled to
investigate and to accept the burden it cast upon him, seemed to fill
him with positive dread.  He begged his two friends to keep his return
from the dead--for that was what it surely was--as dark as possible.

Wendover avowed that he had no wish to claim his title and estates.  As
he said, why should a broken reed upset the bassinette of a certain
lusty infant who had already entered upon its long minority?

Ambrose Dorland, in spite of his republican principles, was shocked by
these ideas.  To his mind they were inexplicable.  And if this attitude
was persisted in, his friend must renounce all claim to the hand of the
woman for whom he was surely predestined.  The younger man was
bewildered and he was troubled.  Here was a subtle lesion of the soul.
And this theory gathered force from the little things that happened day
by day.

One of these, which worried Dorland considerably, was Jim's opposition
to the second visit of Alastair Graeme.  He had kept his room on the
first occasion.  And when their hostess announced that she was looking
forward to the arrival of Jim's old schoolfellow on a particular
afternoon Dorland surprised a poignant horror in that wan face.  Such a
look of agony drove to Dorland's heart.  It could only mean that the
news of Graeme's coming was profoundly unwelcome.  Jimsmitt strove not
to let it appear; but it was no use.  There was no concealing anything
from the lynx eyes of Ambrose Dorland.

What reason had Jimsmitt to shun his kind?  For it was now clear he was
determined to evade all the people who had known him, all the people
who were likely to remember him as he was.  Many small things confirmed
this view.  For instance nothing would induce Jim to shave his beard.
It was so ragged, so grizzled, so unkempt that it was rather a joke.
His two friends ventured to remonstrate, but with humorous tenacity he
declined to have it touched.  So cleverly did he mask the dead
seriousness of the refusal that at first Dorland was deceived into
thinking it a mere whim.  But he saw now it was part of Jim's design.

Wendover was not a man to intrude his own private feelings.  Nay, he
concealed them so well that it was doubtful whether Lady Mary had any
perception of his attitude in the matter of Alastair Graeme's second
visit.  Upon the occasion of his first he had lain _perdu_.  And now
with this other sprung upon him suddenly he had no intention of meeting
an old schoolfellow.

Much, however, was destined to happen before the second appearance of
Alastair Graeme at Round Hill.  To begin with, owing to the sudden
death of a relation, Graeme wrote to postpone his visit.  Wendover
could hardly dissemble his relief.  It might not have been apparent to
Lady Mary, but to Dorland it was very clear.  And he took an early
opportunity to express himself pretty forcibly on the matter.

It was a delicious September morning and the two friends were walking
the stubble to win an appetite for luncheon.  They rested a little
under an elm tree in the old campaigning style of four years ago.  And
then Dorland began.  "Look here, Jim," he said attacking the thorny
subject with characteristic boldness, "you've just got to stop playing
the ostrich."

His friend gazed at him in mild surmise.

"What I mean is you've got to come out of your shell.  You have a
position in the world, and we both feel, Lady Mary and I, that you
ought to take it."

Pain and alarm came into the enigmatic eyes of Jimsmitt.  "Ah, you
don't understand," he said.

"We don't.  And yet we do."  Dorland could not remain insensible to the
tone, nor could he escape the look in those eyes.  But he had a duty to
perform.  And as far as the man he worshipped was concerned, much
depended on the way he tackled it.

"You are strong enough now to stand up to things, dear old man."  It
was the way in which a very patient and gentle mother speaks to an
intractable child.  "And we both think you ought to.  You are a peer
and all that, your name is one of the first in England, the world
expects a lot of you, and it is time you stood up to your job."

Jimsmitt shook his head forlornly but said nothing.

"Why not quit playing the ostrich?  Even if you stick your head in the
sand people still know that it's the head of Jim Wendover.  Our friend
Graeme--and what a friend he's been to us both I can't tell you--knows
you are here.  And there's lots of others who must know too."

"Ye-es, I suppose they must," said Jimsmitt wearily.

"Alastair Graeme wants very much to meet you.  Lady Mary would like you
to meet him.  So tomorrow I am going to drive you up to Bond Street for
that beard to be shorn or at least bobbed, and then we are going on to
your tailor's to have you measured for a proper outfit."

"But, my dear boy, it's impossible, I assure you."

Dorland ignored the alarm of those haggard eyes.  "If we meet the thing
properly," said the man of stronger will, "it will help your brain to
shed its shadows.  Lady Mary thinks you are a case for firmness.  And
so do I."

The painter it seemed had fully made up his mind in the matter.  Having
done so he was able as on many occasions since the episode of the Fazil
gate to impose his will upon the weaker vessel.  That will, a joint
affair, had passed definitely it appeared into the keeping of Ambrose
Dorland.

So it was that the very next morning Jim Wendover and Ambrose Dorland
drove up to town with Lady Mary whom they left in Cadogan Square while
they paid a visit to the barber and the tailor.  Then they collected
their hostess, and so back to Round Hill in time for dinner.

Jim could not be persuaded to forego his beard altogether.  It had
grown into a kind of symbol of the things that had happened to him.
But he had compromised by having it trimmed along with his abundant
locks into a semblance of the current mode.  Both his friends had to
own privately that this adornment lent its wearer a curious
distinction.  Somehow it was in harmony with his type.  It added to the
look of mystery for ever brooding in those sombre eyes, it seemed of a
piece with the singular quality of his mind and fortunes.

That evening at dinner he was almost gay.  "_In sh'Allah_," he said as
he raised a glass of dry champagne to his lips.

"_In sh'Allah_," said Dorland reverently.  And he did the same.

Tonight for the first time since his mind had clouded Jim was almost
his real self.  He talked freely of the world.  It was clear that the
visit to town, the transactions with the barber and the tailor had
stirred the sap in his brain.  The old life had begun to flow back; the
things to which he was born, which once held an indescribable
fascination, had still the power to strike home.

Lady Mary as well as Dorland was delighted with these first fruits of
their experiment.  Surely it was a success.  Ambrose was congratulated
by his hostess on having exerted his will to such good effect.  Tonight
the man they both loved was so much nearer himself than at any time
since his return from the dead.

Dorland, who was no believer in half measures, had arranged that they
should go up to London again in three days' time.  Jim could then have
his new clothes fitted, also he would be able to have an interview with
his lawyers.  A battle had to be fought, however, before that decision
could be reached.

Jim was most obstinately perverse.  He seemed to have some very special
reason for avoiding his lawyers.  But Dorland, very ably seconded by
Lady Mary, expressed himself cogently.  His manner was almost that of a
father to a boy at school.  It was high time a visit was paid to
Chancery Lane.  Jim tried his hardest to escape the ordeal.  But he
could advance no valid reason, or one that his friends considered
valid.  And so the will of Ambrose Dorland once more prevailed.

"You are bullying me frightfully, you know," said Jimsmitt with weary
resignation.

"Yes, my friend, we are.  But it is all for your own good.  It is going
to make a new man of you.  See if it doesn't."

The only answer was a deep sigh.  But Dorland was inflexible.  It was
necessary to take a strong line.  So when the third day came he simply
hustled Jim up to town, not only to his tailor's but also to Chancery
Lane.

The visit to the lawyers seemed to worry Jimsmitt a good deal.  As his
friend laughingly said, to judge by the way in which he shunned people
he might have committed some fearful crime and be hiding from the
police.

Howbeit Jim spent nearly an hour with his solicitors, who received him
with open arms.  He insisted on Dorland being present at the interview
and as that young man afterwards described it to Lady Mary, the senior
partner, Mr. Scrymgeour by name, almost fell on his neck and wept.  The
long lost heir, the prodigal son, Enoch Arden and Robinson Crusoe had
nothing on a scene which out-movied the movies.

According to Mr. Scrymgeour the estates were in apple pie order.  The
revenues had been carefully nursed, certain retrenchments and
substantial mortgage redemptions had been effected, and it was
reasonable to suppose that the 12th Earl would be able to enter upon
his inheritance in comfort and security.

"Comfort and security" had been the phrase the excellent Mr. Scrymgeour
had used.  But Dorland saw a wan look return to the eyes of Jimsmitt
and he saw a strange unearthly light fit across the drawn and haggard
face.

Still, Dorland told himself, Jim was none the worse for his excursion.
The talk with his lawyer had been a strain on his nerves but he had
survived it.  He was singularly unelated by the news he received.  From
his manner the inheritance might have belonged to someone else.  He
told Dorland frankly, as soon as they returned to the awaiting car,
that he felt quite unequal to the responsibility it cast upon him.  And
he sincerely hoped that for a time at any rate the present arrangement
could be allowed to continue.

Dorland said nothing.  An idea was growing up in his mind that the more
Jimsmitt was forced into doing things the better.  This was also the
opinion of Lady Mary.  And they were fortified in it by Sir Hector
Wilbraham.  The mental specialist quite agreed that the will must be
steadily built up by the rigid performance of daily tasks and duties no
matter how irksome they might be.

There was no house party for Alastair Graeme.  It would have been
trying the patient in his present state far too highly.  But six people
sat down to dinner on the evening of Graeme's arrival.  These included
a Mrs. Rea, an aunt of the hostess, an elderly widow lady of much
charm, and a Miss Mabel Frensham, a lively girl full of good looks and
good sense.  Jimsmitt, carefully dressed and valeted but feeling
"horribly new" as he confided to Dorland, occupied the seat of honour
at the head of the table.  He looked precisely what he was, the grand
seigneur, the long-descended man of many acres.  In spite of the
ineffable weariness and the secret terror that was in those tragic eyes
as seen by the overanxious Dorland, the special circumstances and the
man's own courage enabled him this evening to give of his best.

For once and almost for the first time he was delightfully himself.
His voice, and what a voice it was, had the old magic.  No wonder this
woman loved him.  Dorland felt that tonight all the world must love
him.  He was the born _charmeur_, yet with none of the tricks of those
who set out consciously to please.  With Jimsmitt it was more a
question of a noble courtesy.  It was something native to the man,
which gave bouquet to his gentle presence.  Dorland's mind went back,
in spite of the happy aura of that night, to his first meeting with the
corporal of the Fifth Company of _la lgion trangre_.  Again he was
the cowed and broken piece of human wreckage, again the voice of the
good Samaritan was in his ear.  He who spoke now from the head of the
table was he who spoke then.  This man was like no other.  It filled
Dorland's heart to see this dear friend sitting "where he belonged,"
clothed and in his right mind.

An irresistible impulse caused him to raise the first glass of wine.
"Jim," he said huskily, "_in sh'Allah_."

"Dorey, old man."  The good comrade raised his own glass with his rare
smile.  "_In sh'Allah_."

"What does it mean, that strange mystical incantation?" cried the
hostess gaily.  She too was a good comrade.

"As God wills," said Jimsmitt.  "It has a clear and simple meaning.
But when we hear that phrase, Dorey and I, it means all sorts of things
we can't express."

"Fate is what the Arabs really mean by it," said Alastair Graeme.  "I
once travelled the Dark Continent myself.  But as far as possible I
kept to the route of the common tourist."

"My dear Mr. Graeme," said Lady Mary, "we both seem to have a share in
the mystery.  I too have been in the desert."  She spoke lightly, but
in her eyes was something strange.  "_In sh'Allah_."  She raised her
glass.  Uttering the phrase her voice trembled oddly.

"_In sh'Allah_," Graeme followed her example.  But as he did so there
came a brief intensity of silence.  It was as if the sense of fate had
descended upon them all.




XXX

They did not allow even the sense of fate to impede the flow of their
gaiety.  Surely the circumstances required it of them.  The Odyssey as
Alastair Graeme called it, now that Ambrose Dorland had set forth its
salient details for his especial benefit, demanded the homage of a
brave and confident heart.  Providence after all gave more than it
took.  At least such had been his own reflections when he had come to
think over the queer impulse that had moved him to fling half crowns
into the cap of a pavement artist.

What esoteric sense of kinship had moved him to that deed?  Who should
say?  What trick of the subconscious linked him to these new and
delightful friends?  Ever since he had first set eyes on Mary Adeane as
a girl in her teens he had yearned to know her.  Then she had married,
the war had come, the whole world of men and things had overturned.  So
when the young American dramatically revived her memory he had well
nigh forgotten her existence.

By a chain of mystical circumstances she had now entered his life.
Confirmed bachelor though he was he would not have it otherwise.  She
was very woman.  And to the ravished eye of a painter, trained and
inured to beauty through many a year of discipline, she had the classic
quality his art demanded, which nature when greatly inspired could
sometimes give.  He knew many famous women, yet this modern Helen had
an unseizable ethos that surpassed them all.

Graeme was delighted to meet Wendover again.  For a short time he had
been Graeme's fag in Duncan's at Eton.  In those days of course, as the
painter now laughingly reminded him, he was a very big dog, and young
Wend as he was called was a very little dog.  "I hope I wasn't too
overbearing," said Graeme as he now recalled that early relationship.

"Who can imagine you ever being that?" said Lady Mary with whom he
already ranked as a prime favourite.

"Not so very difficult, believe me," laughed Graeme.  "All boys of that
age, when they are striving to keep abreast of their opportunities, are
perfect young beasts.  What do you say, Wendover?"

"You had a good name in Puppy Hole," was the judicial answer.  "You
smacked me once for burning your toast but I daresay I deserved it.
Anyhow I bear no malice."

"'A beast, but a just beast,'" quoted Lady Mary.  "Although I'm quite
sure that beast is not the word either."

"He was too popular ever to be a real beast," said Wendover.  "Even
when he was lamming you with a toasting fork he always managed to
retain a certain bonhomie."

"One can't believe he ever did anything of the kind," said Lady Mary
with feminine defiance.

"I give you my word for it.  Quite well and faithfully.  But the odd
thing was I liked and respected him the more."

"A truly generous nature," laughed Graeme.  "Had the boot been on the
other foot I should simply have hated you to all eternity."

"Now please come off it, Alastair Graeme," interposed Dorland.  "You
are not a kind of man who could ever hate anybody to all eternity.  I
doubt whether you could hate at all for more than twenty minutes, and
even then you would need at least a year's training at Heidelberg."

General mirth followed this sally.  It helped to keep them all on a
plane of unforced hilarity and cheerfulness.  These six people, three
of whom felt that old unhappy far off things were only just beneath the
surface as mirrored in the haunted eyes of Wendover, only wanted to
live in the present moment.  They wanted to enjoy it to the full.
Courage on the part of the man at the head of the table and the social
graces of his friends brought a rather gay evening to a happy issue.

As Wendover in his rle of invalid, for whom two hours' rest before
midnight had been strictly prescribed, was packed off to bed on the
stroke of ten, Lady Mary confided to Dorland that Jim had played up far
beyond her expectation.  He had behaved beautifully.  Dorland cordially
agreed.  Jim had played up splendidly.  And the young man felt that so
far his plan was going better than he could have hoped.  The look of
secret fear never for an instant left those haunted eyes, but now he
seemed able to hold it in check.

Next morning, in a light good enough by which to judge it, Alastair
Graeme inspected A Portrait of a Lady.  It was not yet complete.  Much
in the way of detail remained to be wrought, the finishing touches
still had to be put in, but enough of the subject had already emerged
for the eye of a fine craftsman to assess its technical merit and to
gauge what the effect of the whole was likely to be.

Alastair Graeme was astonished.  He had ventured to predict great
things of the man he had discovered in such romantic circumstances.
The more he came to know him the deeper grew the respect for his talent
and for the solid worth of his character.  Dorland had seen at the
outset exactly where he wanted to go.  With the commonsense of true
genius he had grasped all the essentials.  And here before the eyes of
this friendly critic was a proof of the distance he had travelled
already upon the long and hard road to the goal.

The elder painter had expected much.  But this chef-d'oeuvre promised
far to exceed his hopes.  It had every sign of a master.  A glorious
harmony of daring, skill and delicacy, the whole thing promised to be
unique.

"I can only congratulate you," said Alastair Graeme, a little
breathless in the presence of such power.

"Unlucky to do that before it's finished."

"It is complete enough for one to see what it means.  I see your plan,
your design, and I see where it leads.  To my mind it's already a
triumph."

"I wonder," said the modest Dorland.

"If there's any justice anywhere, and one sometimes asks oneself if
there is, this is a work that can hardly fail to put you where you
belong.  Apart from the technique, which is as powerful as Fort's--in
the days when Fort was Fort--you have somehow got magic into it.
'Was this the face that launched a thousand ships?' the canvas is
saying all the time.  It haunts one with the things no pen can write,
no tongue can utter.  The beauty of that face simply tears at the
heart.  All the accursed desert is in it, from the barrack square at
Sidi-bel-Abbs to the Fazil gate at Cairo.  But more than that is in
it.  All the tears shed by men and women through the ages, and all the
laughter they have heard seems to look out of that canvas in a way that
hurts you, in a way that stops your heart.  I am more than glad that
the wanderings of Odysseus have taught you how to do a thing like this."

The generous craftsman wrung the hand of his protg.  "It's the sort
of thing, my dear boy, that makes a chap like me feel a mere painter of
inn signboards."

Graeme was more than rewarded for all that he had done.  Not for a
moment did he doubt that A Portrait of a Lady was going to be one of
the significant pictures of the world.

Alastair Graeme went back to town and his own work, of which he had a
great deal on hand, after a brief three days of Round Hill.  He left a
deep sense of his own merits behind him.  Not only had he enjoyed
himself, he had been a cause of enjoyment in others.  Strong, wise and
happy in his own accomplishment, he had a very genuine faculty of
appreciation.  It had given him real pleasure to renew his acquaintance
with Wendover.  There was something mysterious about the man, something
even a little fey.  But when he had married the "most beautiful woman
in England," a verdict now amply confirmed by the living reality, all
that must surely pass.

"Of course he'll marry her," Graeme confided to Dorland.  "Everything
points to that now.  He can give her the setting she requires.  And if
without impertinence I might hazard a guess she must love him as much
as ever.  He is one of those men you can't help loving."

Dorland sighed a little.  "Yes," he said, "old Jim is an adorable man."

There were now two things Dorland felt he must immediately do.  One,
and it was the less important, he must finish this picture which had
already received the imprimatur of a fine judge.  He was delighted to
have it, even if he was a little overwhelmed by the fervour with which
it was expressed.  It seemed far too good to be true that such a
judgment should be passed upon work of his, but he did not question its
absolute sincerity.  And when all was said, if human suffering could
win the heights, Ambrose Dorland was fully entitled to any recompense a
view from the top could bestow.  He was not unmindful of what such a
success implied, but as he felt just now it was but a secondary matter.
The reinstatement of Jim Wendover was his first concern.  He must be
throned again upon that plane of reason and balance, of wit and
urbanity that was his birthright.  A means must be sought of killing
the fear that crouched at the back of those haunted eyes.

One morning as Lady Mary watched Dorland at work, and she marvelled
secretly at the power in those slender brushes, it came upon her
suddenly what a wonderful thing he was making of her in a funny gaudy
old fashioned gown she could not bring herself ever to admire.  Yet the
enthusiasm and the tutelage of Alastair Graeme had gone some way
towards enabling her to see wherein lay the picture's transcendent
qualities.  Had she not heard him compare this to Degas, that to
Jerome, that to Fort, this to Leonardo?  But as he finally said it was
the fact that Ambrose Dorland had been able to put all of himself, all
of his modern vision into it, that made it the thing it now was.

This morning, perhaps, there was a certain irony in recalling these
eulogies.  Ambrose this morning, poor dear, seemed quite unable to get
himself into the large, exotic, strangely glowing canvas.  He was
perfectly frank about it.  Suddenly he gave way to impatience.  With a
heavy scowl he laid down brushes and palette.  "I am hanged if I can
work this morning," he said plaintively.  "No, I simply can't."

"'O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms?'"

"'La belle Dame sans Merci,' I suppose."

"Not meaning poor stupid me, I hope?"

"Well, I'm not sure that I don't.  You certainly have something to do
with it."

"And I was foolishly and fondly hoping that I was a source of true
inspiration."

"So you are.  Nothing can ever make you otherwise.  But I can't help
thinking of Jim.  My mind runs on him continually.  He doesn't get on
as he ought and it is beginning to worry me."

"Well, I must say that I have that feeling too."

"It runs in my mind that we are not doing as much for him as we might."

"I am sorry you feel that," said Lady Mary with concern.  "Pray what is
there else that we can do for him?"

"I must lead up to that gradually lest you think me impertinent."
Dorland lapsed into the navety that she liked so much.  "What we have
to do is to get that scared look out of his eyes.  Of course you've
noticed it."

"Oh yes, I have.  And I grieve over it.  That terrible look means great
mental suffering.  Yet it is something I can't account for."

"Nor I.  Almost the first time I met him I saw it.  But since he came
home to where he belongs it seems to get worse."

"Do you think so?"

"Honestly I do.  But as you say, it is something unaccountable.  The
question is how are we to get rid of it?  Jim will never be himself
otherwise."

"What is there we can do?"

"Well, my dear gracious lady, I have been thinking the whole matter
very carefully over.  And I've come to the conclusion that just one
course remains.  While Jim is as he is now I am his other self, his
alter ego, as you might say.  So I take it upon myself to ask for
something on his behalf which he has not the will, nor the mental force
to ask for himself."

The almost eerie intensity upon the face of the young painter warned
Mary Benton of what was coming.  With the unconventional daring of his
character he was about to make a very high and grave demand upon her.

Ambrose Dorland laid his hand on his heart.  "Something right inside
here seems to tell me there is just one way now of putting Jim right.
And it is this.  I suggest that you go to him and tell him you are
ready and glad to carry out the promise which you made to him when you
were a girl.  If you go to him now and tell him just that I somehow
believe it may save him."

She did not resent his boldness.  It was part of him.  And it had been
accepted in the first hour in which they had met.  But for that
boldness the astonishing sequel had not been possible.  She had come to
delight in the intrepidity of this young American.  And as applied to
the present case she recognised its wisdom.  Jim loved her still.  Of
that she had every reason to be sure, although it was she who had dealt
the blow that had broken him.  But it was simply not in his nature to
bear malice.  A just man, besides, he knew the fault was not hers.
Their happiness had been sacrificed on the altar of others.

Much as she liked Ambrose Dorland, and of recent days while A Portrait
of a Lady grew in wonder she was coming to think about the artist more
than she cared to own, at this moment, when, taking his courage in his
hands he made this brave suggestion, she had never esteemed him so
greatly.

Deep in her was the knowledge that such a request was something beyond
mere bravery.  "If you really do feel that," she said tensely, "I will
certainly ... certainly...."  Amid the spate of rather wild emotion she
was unable to go on.  Yet she left not a shadow of a doubt as to the
resolve that had now entered her mind.

"Be it so," said Dorland.  And with the gesture of a poet, a courtier
and an artist fully conscious of his own power, he raised those
fingers, long, slender, exquisite, to his lips.




XXXI

Work was over for that morning.  Perhaps for many mornings.  Only Allah
could say.  No sooner had Dorland extracted this promise from this
woman, a promise he hardly dared to think of being made, let alone
being kept, he went hatless to the autumn fields.  They were still
bright and warm with the October sun.  For all that he had acted with
perfect sincerity, not upon impulse but at the cool instance of reason,
as soon as the thing was done, he was overcome by a terrible conflict
of feeling.  Yet God knew he must not harbour one breath of disloyalty
to his friend.  Jimsmitt could not help himself; had never been able to
help himself since that darkly awful but glorious hour of the Fazil
gate.

In these dynamic moments as Ambrose Dorland strode over the stubble he
seemed a traitor to his own heart.  "Oh what have you done!  What have
you done, Ambrose Dorland!"  It was not his own voice, yet as he heard
it and strove to outpace it he knew it sprang from the ultimate self.
There was in that faint cry the protest of the genie within him, the
despair of the great artist he had slain.

In the hush of noon, a mile from the house, with the placid deer, and
oaks a thousand years old around him, he felt a sudden ache of
loneliness.  Had he not reft himself of the inspiration which fed his
ambition?  "Was this the face that launched a thousand ships?"  Yes,
this woman had the fatal beauty of Helen.

To live as he had lived in the light of those eyes, to trace the
glancing shadows of that immortal face was to be smitten with the
desire to possess her.

  _The desire of the moth for the star,_
  _Of the night for the morrow._

Yes, it was true no doubt for Ambrose Dorland the waif, the hobo, the
down-and-out drawing with chalks on the pavement at Hyde Park Corner.
But for Ambrose Dorland the godlike youth who had gazed with eyes
unabashed upon that sun of beauty, who had taken it in his hands and
set it alive upon a fair canvas, for the man Ambrose Dorland who had
done this thing it was a very different matter.

God, what thoughts was he thinking?  If this were not disloyalty...!

Looking at his watch and fearing to be late for luncheon he made his
way back to the house.

At that meal, whose delicate fare, such was his excitement, he could
not touch, there was very little to show what had happened.  Jimsmitt
was there as usual at the head of the table; also the three ladies.
One there was at whom Dorland dare not look.  Yet had he done so there
would have been nothing to proclaim any development.  Had there been
any development?  Jimsmitt looked gaunter, grayer, more frail than
ever.  No matter what had occurred, this was certainly not one of his
good days.  It was pathetic to see him like that, although the fine
courtesy with which he presided over the little feast was nowise
lacking.

He spoke little; but he retained the gentle raillery, of a special and
peculiar blend which somehow endeared him to all who came within his
ken.  Dorland felt none the less that he was intensely unhappy.  No,
this was not one of his good days.  And his friend could only ask
himself whether the ruse he had sprung had miscarried or had merely
given one more twist to the secret barb that was festering in his flesh.

For two days this state of things went on.  Dorland could glean nothing
of what had transpired.  Perhaps it was nothing.  She might not have
mentioned the matter to Jim.  That, of course, was exceedingly likely.
And it was not a subject that he could ever refer to again.  It must be
left to the protagonists of this drama to make the next sign.  Would
they do so?  Could they do so?  Such a question was as far beyond his
power to answer, as it was beyond his capacity to ask.

While the matter hung fire Dorland lost the co-ordinating will which
enables the artist to prosper in his work.  A Portrait of a Lady only
lacked a few last touches now.  It was complete save for the final
strokes.  Nevertheless he could not give them.  He could scarcely bring
himself to look at his work.  Even to be in the same room as the
picture was to feel a kind of nausea.  It was as if his act of
sacrifice had desecrated the highest part of himself.

At the end of dinner on the second day Jimsmitt and Dorland were seated
alone at the table.  The ladies had gone to the drawing-room, the port
was circulating and the servants had retired.  Jimsmitt held a goblet
of old brandy in his hand.  After the manner of one who understood the
good things of life he was affectionately raising its temperature with
slender fingers pressed upon the glass when he suddenly said, "Mary has
told me she is ready and willing to keep her promise.  And I have had
to tell her I can't keep mine."  The tone was flat and level.  It was
so perfectly under control that it was impossible to guess what such
words implied.

Ambrose Dorland felt his heart beat into his throat.  "Why can't you?"
There came a moment of silence that to the younger man was a form of
death.  And then his friend went on in the same heavy, lifeless tone
which yet was almost casual, "I mustn't tell you, old man, but I simply
can't."

Dorland feared to meet those tragic eyes, knowing only too well what he
must find in them.  He had not the courage to pursue the subject.  More
or less he understood.

The next day Dorland turned again to his work.  He had a bout of
feverish energy.  Not only did he manage to complete A Portrait of a
Lady, but he was able to plan a study which he proposed to call Zeyd.
No further allusion was made by Lady Mary or by Wendover to the subject
which had had such a disastrous effect upon the painter.  But the two
friends continued to stay on at Round Hill.  Lady Mary was only too
glad to have them there.  In a fashion quite maternal she had taken
charge of both.

The time was not ripe for Jim to enter upon his inheritance.  His will
was atrophied by the shadow which lay across his mind.  Doctors and
friends alike were sorely puzzled.  He still had a dread of meeting his
kind, and it was only with the greatest difficulty he could be
persuaded to go about London.  And when he did so he was never alone.
Often he gave Dorland the impression that he dwelt in continual fear of
losing again the sense of his own entity.

One day, however, early in the New Year there came a truly singular
development.  The two friends had gone up to town on their weekly
pilgrimage, which was designed to keep Jim in touch with men and
things.  Upon this occasion they were sauntering about the streets of
the West End, looking in the shop windows to pass the time, when
Dorland saw an Arab _flissa_ in a pawnbroker's window.  This sword was
so exactly the article he wanted for the new picture he was
contemplating that he went in straightway and bought it.

Wendover accompanied him into the shop.  While Dorland was engaged in
the transaction he was suddenly aware that a wild yet half repressed
cry had escaped his companion.  He turned to look at him in
astonishment.  Clearly something pretty serious had happened to
Jimsmitt.  His face was ashen, he was trembling violently, his eyes
seemed to be starting out of his head.  The tide of emotion sweeping
over him was almost beyond his power to control.

Dorland then saw that Jim was holding in his hand a large heavy
overcoat.  It was lined with a curiously distinctive fur, a kind of
caribou.  Obviously imposing a powerful check on himself Jim asked the
pawnbroker the price of this garment.  He at once paid the sum demanded
and then took possession of the overcoat.

When the purchase was complete Wendover said to the pawnbroker in a
voice that Dorland could barely recognise, "I wonder if you can give me
a little information as to how this coat came here?"

To the best of the pawnbroker's recollection it had been sold to him
about two years ago by a Frenchman.

"A Frenchman!"

"Yes, as I remember him," said the pawnbroker.  "And I think I am
right, for I was even more struck by the man who offered that coat than
by the coat itself, although it is a funny looking thing."

"As you say, a funny looking thing," said the coat's new owner.  "I
should know it anywhere.  Can you describe the Frenchman?"

"He was a tall, ugly looking fellow.  There was a scar on his cheek and
he had only one eye."

Jimsmitt drew in his breath sharply.  "My God!" he gasped.  And he
reeled out of the shop like a drunken man.

Very slowly and in profound silence, Jimsmitt and Dorland made their
way to the spot where Lady Mary's chauffeur awaited them.  One carried
the sword, the other the fur coat.  Wendover offered no explanation of
his queer behaviour at the pawnbroker's.  He was intensely reserved all
the way home.  By this time Dorland was well used to the abrupt changes
in the manner of his friend.  More than ever was he convinced that poor
dear Jimsmitt was a little mad.

Dorland could not help feeling some concern for this new manifestation.
Just before they turned in at the lodge gates of Round Hill he
observed, "I shouldn't wonder, Jim, if that fur coat you have taken the
trouble to bring home has a history."

The words were uttered lightly but they were intended to draw the queer
fellow.  And they succeeded in their object.  "Yes, my dear boy," said
Jimsmitt in an odd, rather excited tone, "that coat undoubtedly has a
history.  And tonight, after dinner, I will tell you something about
it."

As he spoke Dorland noticed once more a strange light in those sombre
eyes.




XXXII

Jim was as good as his word.  After dinner that evening, as they sat
together over their cigars, he told Dorland the story of the fur coat.
The man who listened did not hesitate to describe it as the strangest
and in some respects the most terrible story he had ever heard.

"To begin at the beginning," said Jimsmitt, "I had better start by
telling you what you already know.  Anyhow, as it was more or less
public property, in a semi-private way of course, it is highly probable
that you have all the necessary information.  Briefly it is this.  When
Mary, poor child, through no fault of her own had to turn me down--she
was simply forced to do it--I went to pieces.  All the plans I had made
for her future and mine, all the things I had to work for and the
reasons for them were knocked askew.  That wicked marriage took the
linchpin out of our little coach and four.  It's a confession of
weakness I know.  But there it is, and that is one of the reasons why,
old man, I really look better with a beard.

"Well, as I say, after Mary's marriage I went to pieces.  After Monte
Carlo and so on I spent some little time in Paris playing ducks and
drakes with my meagre patrimony.  It was the behaviour of a weak fool.
Why disguise it?  I gambled, I drank, I wenched, I cursed God.  And
then a thing happened which pulled me up with a round turn.  One
evening I met a very pretty little girl at a cabaret.  She had taking
ways as most French girls have, and I was in the mood for what I was
pleased to call 'adventure.'  We arranged to meet the following
evening.  After we had dined I took her to 'a dancing,' and then in
accordance with her request I saw her home.  The address she gave the
taximan was not a very distinguished one, and it struck me so at the
time.  It was right in the heart of that nest of uncleanness behind the
Butte of Montmartre.  A man with any sense would never have gone with
her there.  But I had no sense just then.  I was in that frame of mind
when one simply asks for trouble.  So we drove off to the rue des
Capucines--I think that was the name--where we arrived some time after
midnight.  And in response to her pressing invitation I saw her to her
_appartement_, up I don't know how many pairs of stairs.  Here the
charmer made me very welcome and offered me something to drink.  I had
had more to drink already, considerably more than I should have had.
But she produced a bottle of champagne and insisted on my sharing it
with her.  It was pretty horrible stuff, at least it seemed pretty
horrible after what I had already had.  And we had just finished
drinking it when I heard a key fumbling at the lock of the outer door.

"'_Mon mari_,'" exclaimed the lady.  'Oh what shall we do.'  She
suddenly threw herself into a state of great agitation.  'You must hide
yourself,' she said.  'He will kill you if he finds you here.'

"Her part was very well done.  But I still had enough sense to know
that the advice she gave was the worst possible.  Something in her
manner told me that I was in a carefully laid trap.  If I hid myself I
should be caught in no position to put up a defence against the
blackmail or robbery or worse that was to follow.  Heavy male feet were
already outside the door of the room in which we were.  More than half
tight, I felt in an awful state of rage at the trick that was being
played upon me.

"The door opened and the most fearsome looking _maquereau_ entered the
room.  He was a very powerful man with a deep scar on his cheek and
with only one eye, and there was a revolver in his hand.  I knew in a
flash that the only chance for me was to get my blow in first.  I
picked up the empty champagne bottle from the table and simply broke it
over his head.  He went down with a crash.  The thud of his fall was so
horrible that I was sure I had killed him.

"I dashed down the stairs six flights to the street, but before I had
got to the bottom I could hear the woman shrieking murder.  In my panic
I didn't stop running until several streets were between me and the
scene of the crime.  I was in mortal fear of the police.  But I was
able to hail a taxi and give my address and drive off without being
challenged, for it was very late and very dark.  And I was just
beginning to hope that I had made good my escape when I realised that
in my mad haste I had left behind not only my hat but also my fur
overcoat.

"That, however, was not the worst.  For I remembered that not only was
there in it the name of the tailor who had utilised the caribou skin a
friend had recently sent me from the Yukon, but my own name was also In
it.  I returned to the hotel where my name and address were in the
register and spent the night getting sober and wondering what I should
do.  I felt certain I had killed the man, and the police with that coat
in their possession would have no difficulty in laying hands upon me.
And I could not help feeling I should thoroughly deserve any
consequences, however grim, that followed.  I had dragged an old and
decent name through the mud.  For I now realised not only what a fool I
had been but how low I had sunk.  The sense of degradation was awful.
I could not bear to think of myself in such a position.  And so there
seemed only one thing to do.  It was to disappear, to vanish
completely.  Not only must I fly from Paris, I must lose my identity.
In this I was confirmed by seeing in a late edition of a morning paper
that a murder had been committed in the small hours in the rue des
Capucines on Montmartre and that the police were investigating the
crime.

"That paragraph decided me.  I paid my bill at the hotel and in less
than two hours was on my way to Marseilles to enlist in the Foreign
Legion in the name of James Smith.  I knew it meant a hard life--how
hard I had yet to learn.  But I was in a mood to welcome heavy gruel.
Besides, England was no longer open to me.  Even had I cared to return
there, and I had not the slightest wish to do so, I should have been
extradited as soon as the French police had completed their
investigations.  And as I say I felt the need of a drastic remedy.  The
life of a common soldier in the Foreign Legion seemed the best means of
supplying it."

"You never doubted that you had killed the man," was Dorland's first
comment on this terrible story.

"No," said Jimsmitt in a hollow tone.  "And from that day to this I did
not question that the moment James Wendover returned to the land of the
living the French police would arrest him.  You see the overcoat I had
left behind with that name in it was conclusive evidence."

"How do you account for the paragraph in the newspaper?"

"Either it was pure coincidence, for I have since learned it was a
quarter of the town where murder is of frequent occurrence, or as I now
think more likely, a piece of false news based on the cries of the
woman.  For it is clear the _maquereau_ was no more than knocked out
temporarily, or he could not have sold that coat, after it had had a
considerable amount of wear, in London several years after the affair."

"My God, you must have suffered!"

"Yes, I have suffered.  I can't tell you what I have been through,
particularly since I came back here and found Mary willing to take me
on the old terms.  Somehow I couldn't bear to let her know that I had
been the associate and the prey of prostitutes, thieves and
blackmailers, and that at any time I might be sent off to a long term
of imprisonment in a French gaol.  It seemed like dragging her as well
as myself through the mud."

"Yes I quite see that," said Dorland.  "You were in a dreadful hat."

"No one can appreciate such a position unless one is actually in it.
To live with a sword of Damocles hanging over you is more than the mind
can bear!"

"My poor dear old chap!"  Dorland's voice had a woman's tenderness.
"But let us praise Allah it is all over now.  And by no means the least
amazing part of the story is that you and I should have come upon the
coat this afternoon in that pawnshop."

"Indeed, yes!  One can't imagine anything more remarkable."  There was
a hint of hysteria in the voice of Jimsmitt.  After long years of
mental torture Providence surely owed him something.  He was too sweet
natured not to own that much of what he had borne was a fruit of his
own weak folly.  But it did seem to him also as it seemed to his
friend, that the penalty exacted by fate had been brutal.  Destiny had
insisted on its pound of flesh.

No sooner had Dorland heard this extraordinary story than he knew that
the world had completely changed for Jimsmitt.  He rejoiced unfeignedly
that such was the case.  The long and dark night was over.  The
impending sword would never fall.  There was no reason now why he
should not marry the woman he adored and take the place in society to
which he was entitled.  It was a fairy tale come true.

The result was immediately apparent.  A new, a more wonderful Jimsmitt
began to emerge.  It was a Jimsmitt only hinted at in Dorland's
experience of him.  The flashes of gaiety were no longer so transient,
the mind and the will now miraculously freed of their inhibition were
poised again on a stable basis.

Wendover's first use of this new power, this new drive, was to reopen
the fine old house in Berkshire that had come to him by inheritance.
Here he meant to live quietly but with his friends about him.  Of
these, apart from the woman who the world took for granted would soon
be his wife, he made no secret of the fact that the foremost was
Ambrose Dorland.  It was to the pure devotion of this alter ego that he
owed his reason if not his life.  Almost the first thing he did now
that his will was clear was to make a bid for A Portrait of a Lady.

He knew exactly where that picture must hang in the large hall at
Clavering End.  And the sum he offered, although very large for the
work of a man whose name was in the making, was yet not excessive
considered as an investment.  At any rate so said the experts who had
already seen the picture.  Not only was this price designed to keep the
picture where it belonged, but it would give Dorland a ready means of
discharging his liability to his excellent friend Alastair Graeme.  And
it would enable him to set up a studio of his own.  In a word it would
furnish him with the munitions of war for some time to come.

Ten thousand pounds was the offer.  Considerable pressure had to be
brought to bear upon Dorland before he would accept it.  He did not
disguise from Jimsmitt that it was princely and that he would gladly
take far less.  Nay, he wanted to do so.  With the navety that was so
endearing he declared, "Jim, old man, you are paying through the nose.
I'm not a Velasquez or a Jan Vermeer or a Mathew Maris.  Divide the sum
by five and then it's a pretty tall figure for the work of an
_inconnu_."

"Nonsense, Dorey.  You know very well that one day that picture is
going to be worth many times more than I propose to give for it now."

"Nobody knows that.  But I do know its present price in the market
cannot be near that sum."

"That's as maybe, my dear," said Jimsmitt.  "But a work of art is worth
just as much as it will fetch."

Great argument followed, but finally the artist had to give in.

Dorland entered now upon a new phase.  No longer was he working well at
Round Hill.  For a time that enchanted spot had ceased to inspire him
and so he moved up to town.  He had the good luck to find a studio that
suited him in Glebe Place, which was almost next door to his friend of
Oakley Street.  And as ten thousand pounds takes a good deal of
spending and he felt pretty confident now of his ability to earn a good
income, he acquired a convenient yet rather expensive flat in
Knightsbridge.

In this new setting he hoped to recapture the passion for work that had
marked the earlier stages of his renascence.

At the exhibition of the Royal Academy at Burlington House in the
spring, A Portrait of a Lady made a profound sensation.  This chimed
with the prophecies of certain judges who had seen the picture before
it was publicly shown.  And when, perhaps with the help of a very
influential friend at court in the person of Alastair Graeme, it was
very favourably hung, the quality of the work and the importance of the
painter were instantly recognised.

One critic described it as a faithful portrait of a great lady, which
yet after the manner of a poet and seer was able to suggest that she
was "a day younger than the dawn, a day older than the world."  To
immense technical accomplishment was wedded the daring of an innovator,
who with an almost uncanny flair knew how to harmonise modernity with
the august traditions of the past.

Everybody spoke of this young and unknown American as the legitimate
successor to the great John Sargent, lately dead.  But even he at the
crest of his virtuosity had never so fully satisfied the higher
criticism with a work solid yet brilliantly alive, a thing of poetry
and imagination.

If aught was needed to confirm the verdict of the pundits, at least as
far as the large public was concerned, it was the rumor that a fabulous
sum--for a man unknown--had been paid for the picture by a certain
peer.  No names found their way into the newspapers as to the original
of the work or the identity of its purchaser, but a romance dear to the
heart of sentimental England was said to be at the back of the
transaction.

To lend piquancy to a dish already highly seasoned it was said that an
exclusive circle of English society would have no difficulty in
recognising a singularly beautiful woman who "did not advertise."
Moreover one of many adorers had celebrated a mysterious return from
the grave by paying a fancy price for a classic work.  Thanks to the
judicious Graeme who knew exactly what to say, how it should be said
and when, tongues were soon busy over dinner and luncheon tables.  And
nowadays it is in those places that reputations in the arts are made.

Within a month of his first impact upon an astonished world,
commissions began to reach the new portrait painter, Ambrose Dorland.
They were of a very desirable kind.  Some of the fairest and most
influential women in the land desired to have themselves immortalised
by this young man of genius.  But in spite of the furore his work was
creating, he remained very much a man of mystery.

He declined every invitation, he was seen nowhere, he was known only to
two or three people in London.  Of these the one who really counted was
Alastair Graeme.  It was mainly due to the stage management of that
large-hearted friend that his protg had enjoyed such a triumph.  But
it was rather disappointing to Graeme that the young man having made a
dramatic entry into a city it was not easy to storm, had such a
reluctance to turn it to advantage.

Complaint soon came to Graeme that not only was the new genius hiding
his light under a bushel, but still worse he was refusing commissions
which the most established painters would have considered far too
dazzling to be trifled with.

Having dined one evening in high places, when the London season was at
the peak, and being informed with a touch of rueful indignation by a
brilliant young hostess that the new man had declined even to consider
a _carte blanche_ offer to paint her portrait, Alastair Graeme came
round betimes the next morning to Glebe Place to discuss the matter.
To his surprise he learned from a caretaker that Dorland had not been
to the studio for a fortnight.

As it was a delicious morning of summer Graeme walked quietly along the
King's Road and down Sloane Street to his friend's flat.  By that time
it was approaching noon.  On arrival Graeme was informed by a servant
that Mr. Dorland had not yet gone out, but the man seemed very doubtful
whether he was at home to anybody.

"Oh, he'll see me all right," said Graeme.  And taking the bull by the
horns he stepped boldly across the mat and went forward unheralded into
the little sitting room.

Here a shock awaited him.

Ambrose Dorland was seated at the table in a dressing gown.  He was
unshaven, he looked very gaunt, rather wild about the eyes, and his
manner was strange.  Moreover, and this was the thing that caused
Graeme real distress, a bottle of green liqueur with a cork beside it
was on the table at which Dorland sat.  A long, slender-stemmed glass,
half full of the pernicious fluid was also there.

"My dear, dear fellow," cried Graeme, aghast at the entire spectacle,
"what _are_ you drinking?"

Dorland laughed in a key that sent a chill down the spine of his
visitor.

"Absinthe.  The last resort of weak and unstable wills."

Hypnotised by the tone of blank despair, Graeme asked what ailed him.

"I simply can't work."

"Can't!"

"No; the mere sight of canvas and brushes gives me the pip.  The
penalty I suppose exacted by Nature for having worked in too fine a
frenzy at that other job."

Alastair Graeme looked keenly into the tragic eyes.  Again he was met
by blank despair.  In a flash he saw what had happened.  The young and
impressionable man of genius was in thrall to "the face that launched a
thousand ships."  That subtle loveliness had unwittingly enslaved him.
It could hardly be given to any man after such an outpouring of his own
vital spirit to issue unscathed.

Already it was being freely said in certain quarters that the
announcement the world was looking for was overdue.  Mary Benton--they
preferred to call her Mary Adeane--was going to marry dear old Jim
Wendover who had so mysteriously turned up again after wandering for
years in the African desert.  Everybody who knew them and their story
was delighted.  After all those years of vicissitude such a
consummation was like a page from the _Arabian Nights_.

"Yes," said Dorland, "I'm afraid I put too much of myself into that
picture.  It's the confession of a weak man.  But if it comes to that,
no man can be stronger than nature, the jealous old beast, allows him
to be."  As he spoke he raised the glass he held in his hand.  Then he
sighed heavily and without bringing it to his lips put it back on the
table.

"You must pull yourself together, my dear fellow."  Alastair Graeme was
painfully conscious of the banality in such circumstances of such
words.  But he had to say something to relieve the tension and it was
the only thing that occurred to him to say.  Then he went on, still
keenly aware of his own inadequacy.  "You are simply playing ducks and
drakes with your prospects.  I hope you realise how wonderful they are."

"Oh yes, indeed I do," said Dorland in a hollow voice.

"Well, please don't make hay of such chances as no painter ever had."

"Oh yes, yes, yes," Dorland exclaimed, "but what can I do?"

"Last night I was dining with the Brancasters.  And before I came away
her Grace took me aside and complained bitterly that my mysterious
American as she called you had refused I don't know how much for a
portrait to hang in Saint James's Square."

"I know, I know.  But I can't take commissions I have no earthly chance
of being able to fulfil."

Graeme looked at him with growing concern.  "Oh, my dear chap, you
mustn't say that!  Why, you have the ball at your feet."

Dorland shook his head.  "All the life has gone out of me.  I feel as
if I was lying out in the desert without water or food and praying for
death."

"You have been overworking, _mon cher_.  A good long rest is what you
need."

"More than that I fancy.  The longer I rest the more surely all
inspiration will dry up.  Of course I might try to make some feeble
copies of what I have done already, but that is not the way I am made.
As I feel now my career as a painter is over."

"My dear boy, it is hardly begun!"

"I must rest content with being a painter of one picture."

"But that technical mastery, that use of colour, that sense of values,
do they not give you any pleasure to exercise them?"

"None--merely for themselves.  I must have something real, something
tangible to work for, a definite end in view."

Dorland spoke with a kind of weary exasperation.  It was clear that for
the time being he was at the end of his artistic tether.  Graeme,
thoroughly good fellow that he was, did his utmost to rouse him.  But
he soon concluded that just now such efforts would do no good.

"I can't get away from London at the moment," Graeme finally said.  "I
am fixed up all this week and some way into next, but as soon as I can
I mean to take you down into the country."

Graeme was full of solicitude, but he knew the hopelessness of mere
words.  This very impressionable young man had been pretty badly
scorched by the flame.  But there was nothing that sincere friendship
and keen sympathy could do for him just then.  So the elder painter
took his leave, sad at heart.




XXXIII

Just as Alastair Graeme turned into Knightsbridge, as luck would have
it, he tilted plump into Wendover.

"Hullo," he cried, in his exuberant rather boyish way, "I have just
been to call upon a certain friend of ours."

"That forestalls me," said Wendover.  And then with sudden anxiety in
his eyes: "I hope he's all right.  He didn't seem very gay when I left
him the other day.  One has a sort of Idea that London doesn't agree
with him."

"Very true.  Take him back to the country with you--if you are still
there.  He is moping in town."

"Yes, I will.  Very temperamental chap.  Most geniuses are, aren't
they?"

"If they are real dog, yes.  Although all temperamentalists are not
geniuses."

"That's one for me," said Wendover gaily.

Graeme, a very close and shrewd observer, was astonished by the change
that had come over Wendover since he had last met him a few weeks ago
at Round Hill.  This summer morning he looked years younger.  Somehow
he was entirely his own graceful, debonair self.  His laughter, no
longer hollow and forced, had a ring in it.  The large, deep,
singularly magnetic eye was almost merry.  Plainly there had been some
recent development in his life.  It was the difference between a man
with one foot already in the grave and a hale spectator of the human
comedy.

Graeme could only ascribe such a change to one cause.  Yet even that
theory did not wholly cover the facts.  At their last meeting, six
weeks ago, the painter had made the mental note that for a man entering
into his kingdom with every obstacle removed from the attainment of his
heart's desire, Wendover was strangely unhappy.  Graeme felt that in
spite of an exquisite politeness and a chivalrous determination not to
depress the people around him, some medical specialist had surely
numbered his days.

This morning, however, with the sun beating down on the pavement of
Knightsbridge in a fashion almost worthy of the Sahara, everything
about this curiously attractive fellow was different.  He had all the
lan that had charmed pre-war London.  The fine-drawn face was that of
a younger, more confident, more controlled, altogether happier man.

As Graeme looked at him, anxious to direct the conversation into a
particular channel, yet not quite knowing how to do so, he suddenly had
an inspiration.  "I say, Wend," he said with the dash of mockery such
audacity demanded, "I have an idea.  Take the young fellow Ambrose to
Berks.  Stand no nonsense but see that he comes with you now unless it
means breaking other engagements.  And then set him to work good and
honest on the companion picture to that one which rumour says you have
acquired at a rather fancy price--although between ourselves posterity
will applaud your judgment."

"Well, you know you vetted it for me," said Wendover with the sigh of a
lover, "And it was on your advice that I wrote the cheque.  But I might
as well confess that even had your advice been otherwise I should still
have backed my own judgment and bid up a corking fine picture.  A mere
layman can't help seeing its quality."

"Of course he can't.  And now, as I say, you must lose no time in
setting him to work on the Portrait of a Gentleman, as a companion
piece to stick in the R.A. show next year."

"Ax my futt."  His former fag was suddenly reduced to schoolboy
persiflage.

"I mean it, young fellow, my lad."  Graeme looked him straight in the
eye.  Yet though his gaze was so intent he did not observe that a dark
cloud gathered.  "Portrait of a Skrimshanker, belike, if you mean
present company."

"The pride that apes humility," said Graeme.

"You keep precious little pride about you if you have been dragged
through the places I have been, by the hairs of your tail."

It was then that Graeme saw the shadow.  All the same this was a new
Wendover, or rather it was a new edition of the original Wendover and
therefore a particularly captivating one.

"Don't think me impertinent," said Graeme with a sudden change of note.
But he could no longer stave off a question he was burning to ask.
"For the last six weeks I've looked each day in the _Morning Post_.
Everybody says it's an open secret but there's been nothing official.
When is the announcement?  As I say, don't think me impertinent, but I
simply want to have the pleasure of being the first to congratulate
you--that's all."

Wendover was touched by a tone of affection.  He had always liked this
fellow.  As a very Junior member of Puppy Hole he had looked up to him
as a "bit of a swell" in the full and true Eton sense.  A bit of a
swell he remained though he had learned the trick of bending a
meretricious world to his will.

"It's more than good of you, old man."  Very simply Wendover laid a
gentle hand on the other's sleeve.  "I won't pretend I haven't guessed
what people are saying.  In such odd circumstances it's natural they
should make haste to put two and two together.  But they oughtn't to
forget that she is the most glorious creature in England, the absolute
best, the most unselfish."  The ring in Wendover's voice was so
emotional that Graeme with his instincts on the alert and beginning to
sense dangerous ground promptly changed the subject.

He hastened back to the topic of Ambrose Dorland.  The painter and his
affairs still dominated the minds of both.  "I hope, Wend, you'll lay
hold of him and pull him together," were Graeme's final words.  "You
have more power over that young fellow than anyone else.  Overwork on
the top of those horrible years in the desert seems completely to have
upset his applecart.  If we don't watch it he will go permanently
wrong.  And if that happens we shall never forgive ourselves."

Alastair Graeme spoke with a depth of feeling that was rare.  Like
Wendover he clearly had a deep regard for the young American.  The two
men parted fraternally with a mutual promise to do all they could in a
matter that was disturbing them a good deal.

A minute later Wendover was seeking admittance at Dorland's flat.  As
in the case of the previous visitor it was vain for Wilkins the servant
to deny him.  Nay, he was not given a chance.  Jimsmitt simply walked
past him into the pleasant little room overlooking Hyde Park wherein
Dorland sat.

Graeme had prepared the caller for bad news, but the figure Ambrose
presented filled him with dismay.  His mind swung back to that hot
morning four years ago when he found a _bleu_ by the roadside, knocked
out by the sun of Africa, and a sergeant of the Legion ministering to
him with his boot.

For a few moments, without a word, Jimsmitt surveyed the scene.  He
soon decided upon a line of action.  Like Dr. Johnson on a celebrated
occasion the first thing he did was "to put the cork in the bottle."
Then he turned to the unkempt figure seated at the table and said,
"'Young Mr. Oliver Goldsmith, let there be no more of this?'"

Without further apology or preface he rang for Wilkins and asked him to
pack Mr. Dorland's suitcase.

"As soon as we have had a bite of lunch you are coming down to the
country, my boy."

"But I don't need any lunch and I don't want to go down to the
country," said the feeble Dorland.

Jimsmitt shook a head that had grown sternly decisive.  No hint there
of the weak-willed drifter.  It was the gesture of an extremely
strong-minded guardian.  Once more between these two had occurred a
complete overturn of power.  Ambrose Dorland had said they could muster
only one will between them.  Somehow that phenomenon was literally
true.  And now that by the stress of circumstance a much tried will was
no longer his, it passed automatically into the keeping of Jimsmitt.

By fate's alchemy it gathered strength in the process.  No one could
have wielded it more vigorously at this moment than Jim.  Taking upon
himself the rle of mother, nurse, physician and _valet de chambre_, he
stood over Ambrose while he shaved.  Jim even dipped the brush in
lather and stropped the razor.  Then with the help of the sympathetic
Wilkins he prepared a bath and peremptorily hustled Ambrose into it.

Clad presently in an elegant country suit whose art shade would match
the chaste browns and greens of Berkshire, the painter was collared and
tied, booted and hatted with distinction and care.  And then with never
a with-your-leave or by-your-leave he and his gear were put into a taxi.

As the clocks of the metropolis struck one, Jimsmitt and Dorland were
sitting opposite each other at one of the most desirable little
luncheon tables in all London.  Here in sight of green trees they
awaited the arrival of iced cantaloup, omelette aux points d'asperges,
sweetbreads and Perrier Jouet.

The contrast with that terrible day of their first meeting was
remarkable.  Yet in essentials it was the same.  Ambrose Dorland had
fallen again by the wayside.  Jimsmitt was as completely the good
Samaritan.  Nay, in a more intense degree he played that part, for now
he was acting on the belief that he was the one man in the world who
could save the man who had saved him.




XXXIV

They caught the 3.10 to Newbury.  And by five o'clock they were sitting
on one of the fair lawns of Clavering End.  The journey had done much
to revive Ambrose Dorland, and the old house, an authentic piece of the
past, did not fail to ravish his eye.  For an artist it ranked only
second to Round Hill.  In spite of his malaise it had an equal glamour.
What a power of sheer beauty was in these ancient places.  Even for a
down-and-out like himself they had all the sorcery of the centuries.

As each sat wrapped in thought, Dorland suddenly found courage to ask a
question.  Perhaps it was intended to numb the ache in his mind.  He
hated and despised himself yet he could not forget that it was always
there.  No chain is stronger than its weakest link.  A secret gnaw at
the back of the brain marked the point of danger upon which all
depended.

"Jim, you haven't told me yet when the great event is to be.  Everybody
knows it's soon, but there's nothing in the papers."

"No, there hasn't been."  The tone was light, so light that a jealous
ear was a little surprised.  There did not seem a ripple in the placid
nerves of Jimsmitt who was sucking quietly at his pipe, but that did
not apply to his questioner whose voice trembled oddly, whose heart
beat wildly.

Beneath Jim's indifference a very shrewd if veiled glance was at work.
Not a flicker of Dorland's eyes, not a tremor of his voice was lost
upon Wendover as he went very calmly on.  "You see nothing is really
settled."

"But I thought...."  Dorland stopped abruptly.  In common with the rest
of the world he had taken all for granted.  And with reason.  In a way
of speaking was not he the instigator of a thrice happy consummation?
Of course it was only a figure of speech for Jim to say nothing was
settled.  From the look of him, from the sound of that rich note of
deep content, it was certain that everything was working out all right.
Ambrose Dorland could only rejoice.  And he did so unfeignedly.  He
would not have the affair otherwise.  God forbid that he should envy
old Jim such happiness.  Already he felt marvellously better for having
been taken so firmly in hand.  And when he learned, as he soon did,
that Mary and her aunt Mrs. Rea were coming down from London the next
day and had promised to stay a whole fortnight at Clavering End a
strange exhilaration caught hold of him.

Ambrose that evening was more himself than he had been for several
months.  The new orientation had lent him courage.  He told himself, as
he undressed in a delightful room, that no matter what the future held
he would play the man.  Otherwise he were unworthy of the high and
signal gifts of friendship bestowed upon him by providence.  He owed
everything to Jimsmitt, almost the suit of pyjamas in which he lay.
Please God, he would prove worthy of a noble mentor.  Enfolded in that
prayer he fell asleep.

He woke a new man.  A deep draught of oblivion in an enchanted room in
a lovely house whose rooftree was that of one so dear to him, was full
of healing.  Even if a morbid ache was still at the back of his mind,
life was a thing far richer than Ambrose Dorland deserved to find it.
Who was he that he should expect to inherit the earth?

At breakfast, however, in spite of all, he somehow felt that he had
inherited it.  There at the sideboard was Jimsmitt, gay and charming,
stacking his plate with traditional English bacon and eggs.  How many
generations of bacon and eggs had it taken to produce a man of that
quality?  Never had Dorland seen him so abundantly himself as he stood
there, glossy and trim, clothed and in his right mind, a picture of a
highly civilised gentleman.  What a subject for a painter.  Oh, that a
wayward brush were worthy of it!

In the course of the afternoon Mary and her chaperon arrived.  Then for
the time being fled the dejection of Ambrose Dorland.  That magnetic
presence gave him new life, new faith.  Immediately it sought
expression.  The day was hot and they sat in a corner of a spacious
lawn in the shade of a picturesque old tree.  As they gossiped idly
Dorland suddenly caught the spirit of place in the face of Jimsmitt.
Seen at a certain angle in those golden shadows his features might have
been carved out of the ancestral oak.  Fired by sheer beauty of line
into a quick inspiration the artist began to sketch him.

Jimsmitt encouraged him by carefully keeping his pose while at the same
time he pretended to be unaware of what was happening.  The two ladies
with their woman's wit, were careful also not to break the spell.  They
had received a hint that all was not well with the painter and that the
natural remedy for his unease was to get him to turn again to palette
and brush.  With his friends about him, roused by an unspoken yet
active sympathy, the artist worked for more than two hours.  Almost
feverishly he wielded his pencil.  All was perfect.  The peace of the
evening, broken only by the cawing of rooks, bathed in "the light of
setting suns" played on the face of Jimsmitt and was yet more
poignantly reflected in the haunting beauty of the woman opposite.  It
was a moment of life, an unforgettable harmony of the spirit of place
that could never recur.

So happy was Ambrose Dorland with the idea which had come to him, that
next morning in the middle of breakfast, he announced his intention of
going up to London.  He must collect the tools of his craft in order to
lose no time in getting to work.  "I am going to call it A Portrait of
a Gentleman.  Or perhaps I may call it Jimsmitt.  In some ways I think
that title will be best.  How say you, milady?"

"I vote for Jimsmitt," said Lady Mary.

"Then Jimsmitt it shall be.  Yours is the casting vote.  And if all
goes well and you continue to inspire me it will be ready in time for
the wedding."

The words provoked a laugh.  No date was yet fixed for the wedding.
Jim, however, and his bride-to-be were none the less eager that nothing
should interfere with these plans.  Not only did the host promptly
offer his new car, but Lady Mary who had more than a little skill,
volunteered to drive it.  Finally the driving was left to a
professional chauffeur, yet when Ambrose set forth he was accompanied
by his two friends.  They spent a memorable day together and returned
early in the evening with the necessary outfit.

Once more came enchanted days.  It was Round Hill over again.  Yet
there was one material difference.  In the halcyon time when A Portrait
of a Lady was taking an immortal shape Ambrose Dorland was his own
master.  In other words the will he shared with Jimsmitt was in his own
keeping.  And it was by its full exercise that Jim carried on from day
to day.  But now as he worked on the lawn at Clavering End it was
surely, Jimsmitt who held the master key to fate.

The idea in a sense was fantastic, yet Dorland could not rid himself of
it, that it was by the vicarious power of Jimsmitt that he was able to
do as he now did.  Once more a brain, which perhaps had been a little
damaged by the sun of Africa, was strung to a dangerous pitch.  It
could only find relief by toiling furiously; yet Ambrose Dorland now
believed he had no true volition.  As in those awful months in the
Sahara he felt that every act was dictated by another.  Notwithstanding
this he was living wonderful days.  The picture of Jimsmitt under the
ancestral oak rapidly took on those qualities which had already brought
fame to Ambrose Dorland.

Perfect weather made it easy for Jim to keep his pose in a favourite
spot.  Working in a kind of subdued frenzy, with a creative rapture
beyond any he had known, Ambrose was able to forget for the time being
the sharp edge of terror.  For its antidote was always there.  In a
garden chair, reading, writing, and sometimes even attempting a little
sketching was the only true inspirer of those busy fingers.  The artist
did not realise the fact, but the sorcery of Lady Mary was more potent
than ever.

These days she was curiously silent.  During long hours she spoke
little.  But day by day as the power of a great painter unfolded
itself, her senses merged ever more fully In the spirit of place.
Grave joy flooded her eyes as without speaking or moving she watched
the young man at work.  All the hidden power, the subtle grace that was
Jimsmitt he evoked and like a magician, transformed into a living thing.

The golden days slipped by, the work took shape, and a fourth person,
occasionally present at these sessions of sweet silent thought, was
impressed by a salient fact.  Only one of three very dear friends had
any sign of gaiety.  The painter himself was in grim earnest.  Lady
Mary had an ever deepening gravity as each day she reclined in a wicker
chair by the easel.  In her eyes, as the work went on, came a growing
perplexity, a lengthening shadow of anxiety and pain.

Jimsmitt alone seemed in full enjoyment of the moment and of himself.
He alone was carefree.  The translation from the broken-brained waif of
a few months ago was complete.  Having come into his kingdom he was
born again.  The old Jimsmitt was there, the gentle soul, the friend in
need, yet now that he had returned to the place where he surely
belonged he was a Jimsmitt raised to a higher power.

His look of happiness was a thing to see, the note of his laughter a
thing to hear.  But there were times when a shadow crossed those
unfathomable eyes, when mystery brooded over them.  And as the day all
too rapidly neared for Mary's return to London, a kind of agonised
uncertainty hovered about him.  What Jimsmitt was thinking none could
have told.  But the mirth grew rarer on his lips, his face took on a
new austerity.

Sitting hour after hour in that enchanted garden, presiding over the
white magic that was being enacted by a man of true genius, it was as
if the very texture of his mind suffered a change.  At last the day
came when Mary was to leave Clavering End.  It had been arranged that
she should go to town by car in the afternoon.  She would have loved to
extend her stay but she had engagements to meet.

The dark moment of her going was very near.  Ambrose Dorland felt more
acutely than ever that he did but wield a vicarious power, so he worked
in a kind of frenzy against the time when she would be there no longer
to inspire him.  When she went, all would go.  He must be a brave man,
he must accept the inevitable, but how he was to keep on he simply did
not know.

The last morning came.  And as usual, no sooner was breakfast over than
Ambrose set up a brilliant and glowing canvas at the end of the lawn.
He began at once to work steadily, touching and retouching what he had
already done.  But an hour passed and his two friends did not come to
him.  At last, however, came Lady Mary.  She brought the news that Jim
had had to go into Newbury, but he hoped that for one morning Ambrose
would excuse him.

The young man felt a little surprise at this unexpected desertion.
Nothing had been said at breakfast.  It was the first time Jim had let
him down over the portrait, if in anywise it could be called "a let
down."  But the picture was now so far advanced that the absence of the
central figure did not really matter.  A look of melancholy in the eyes
of Lady Mary as she came and sat by the easel was far more disturbing.
In the course of the last few days the painter had watched it grow.
This morning it was painful to see.  And with the force of the
perception that was upon him now he knew the reason for it.

Could it be that Jim also knew why those eyes were desolate?  Was it
the chivalry of his heart that had planned to give them this last
morning together?  It was a far-sought idea, yet Ambrose Dorland could
not rid himself of the conviction that it was the truth.

The pressure of the occasion induced a deep excitement.  An intolerable
weight of emotion was upon him.  For a little he painted furiously,
striving to forget that the mainspring of his life was about to snap.
But in spite of all he could do, he was once more in the grip of an
occult power.  He tried to put it away from him, but signally failed.
Something was going, had gone out of the will.  It was almost as if a
malign force hovered about this garden.


  _Was this the face that launched a thousand ships,_
  _And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?_


He gazed upon that face of sorcery and gazing his eyes were pierced.
Something mysterious enfolded him.  Madness seemed to come upon him.
He laid down palette and brush.  Something not himself, a force wholly
beyond him, descended from the upper air.

"I might as well tell you, Mary," he said in a voice he did not
recognise as his own, "I might as well tell you what I am sure you
already know.  Simply that I adore you.  I love you so much that I
can't see any future without you.  I--I hate and despise myself for
saying this--but I can't help it."

To the disordered sense of the young man horror and joy appeared to
contend in this woman.  She sprang to her feet with a half checked cry.
Her face was transfigured, yet for the unhappy Dorland her eyes were
dominated by furtive terror.

But in this moment he was at the mercy of the Fates.  Suddenly he took
her in his arms, crushed her to him with wild force, covered her mouth
with kisses.

She yielded like a young girl, this great and noble woman.  With a
sensation of utter despair Ambrose Dorland knew that she was his.




XXXV

Jimsmitt came to them across the lawn.  "Only ten minutes to luncheon,
thank God.  I'm hungry as a hunter."  His words had the gay insouciance
of a man completely happy.

Ambrose Dorland murmured something about "base deserter."  His voice
was barely audible.  The words were addressed to space, for he dare not
look at the friend he had betrayed.  He did not know what he should do.
A sense of coming madness was upon him.  But so long as the goddess who
had bewitched him remained in that house, he still had the power to
live in the moment.  What would happen when, cast upon his own
resources, he was left to pay the penalty for what he had done, was
beyond his power to guess.

At this final meal Jim was all whimsicality and verve.  To Ambrose
Dorland he seemed to approach beatitude.  Was it that at last the day
of their nuptials had been fixed?  The young man did not venture to ask
the question.  How could he with that look of stony horror in the eyes
of the woman opposite?  He kept wholly clear of the topic.  At three
o'clock her car was at the door.  Then the two men who loved her said
good-bye.

Women are great actresses.  None could guess from the bearing of Mary
Benton what her emotions were as she drove off with the good Henrietta
Rea.  Gaily she waved and kissed the tips of white gloved fingers to
both her friends.  Dorland would have defied Jimsmitt to read the grim
secret in her bosom.  Nay, her woman's art was so consummate in this
dangerous moment, he almost doubted after all whether he himself had
done so.

As the car glided out of sight along a glorious avenue of beach and
sycamore Dorland became dazed.  The grisly problem that had haunted him
for some days must now be met.  What was he going to do?  The nature of
the spectre which faced him was even more terrible than at first he had
realised.  She loved him.  Beyond a doubt she loved him.  Oddly enough
that sinister, that immensely complicating factor had never entered
into his calculations.  But that morning, in one instant of madness she
had allowed him to tear the hidden proof right out of her heart.

In this hour of withdrawal it seemed a form of death and damnation for
both.  What of their duty to Jimsmitt?  Each loving him as they did,
each a very special part of his destiny, it behoved them at every cost
to be absolutely loyal.  Like the world at large Jim took for granted
that Mary would keep her promise whenever he asked her to do so.  Had
she not assured him of that?  Nay, it was at the instance of Ambrose
Dorland that she had lately renewed her pledge.

There was no way out for her.  Even had she or either of her lovers
desired, one there was no way out.  Jim had the first claim.  By all
the laws of right she must be his wife.  It was only left now for
Ambrose not to sully a noble friendship.  He owed this man all;
fortune, life, and that which he knew to be beyond either, reason
itself.  He could only pray that such a clear fact would suffice to
keep the frail barque he called himself upon its course.

That evening as the two friends sat in the cool of the garden Ambrose
found courage to ask a question.  "Jim," he said softly, "when is the
great day?"

The answer was long in coming, and when it came was not as expected.
"Dorey, old man, perhaps the time has come to let you into a secret.  I
am afraid, after all, there is to be no great day for me."

"What do you mean, Jim?"  Dorland was full of amazement.  In the
growing dusk he could not see the face of Jimsmitt.  Perhaps it was
well he could not.

But an odd change of voice disclosed what the shadowed eyes concealed.
"I mean this, old man.  It is too big a thing to happen to a broken
reed like me."

"You are that no longer, Jim.  Since all has come right for you, you
are as good a man as you ever were."

"That's as may be.  But what I know I know."

"Well, you can't back down now.  You simply can't."

In the long intensity of silence that followed both seemed to grow
years older.  This was one of those crises in which each felt the other
man was more to him than life Itself.

"She means your happiness, Jim.  Always she has meant your happiness."

"It may be so, old man.  But the question now is do I mean hers?"

The continued pause had an element of the uncanny.  For to Ambrose
Dorland it brought sudden revelation.  "You did mean her happiness."
The younger man spoke clairvoyantly, not consciously shaping his words
yet fully apprehending their meaning.  "Until you willed otherwise.
She loved you until you saw that I needed that love as much as you.
And then you set to work with that joint will of ours to undo for my
sake what I had far rather be done for yours."

"Ah, my dear boy," said Jimsmitt.  "You are too imaginative."

Neither, just then, had the strength to pursue the topic.  It was of
extreme delicacy and it was full of peril for both these men who had
been more than once in very deep places.  Both felt they were heading
for very dangerous ground.  One fact, however, emerged for Ambrose
Dorland.  If as he fully believed just now the happiness and the well
being of Jimsmitt were of more consequence than his own, he must bring
all the force of his nature to bear on wresting from him a due share of
motive power.

Jim was in the ascendent just now.  To his own undoing he was imposing
his will to help his friend.

Dorland began the next day strong in resolution.  There was but one way
in which he could now be true to Jimsmitt and vindicate his own sanity.
It must be through his art.  In future let that be his whole life.  Let
it fill the place of mother, sister, wife, mistress.  There would still
remain this sacred friendship with the man he worshipped.

Standing in front of the canvas, in the lee of this ancient tree, he
saw how strong and fine a thing this portrait of Jimsmitt promised to
be.  And when Jim came presently to resume his pose he saw it also.

"By Jove," he said, "you've got magnificent work there.  I offer no
opinion, of course, upon the likeness.  Privately I call it sheer
flattery.  But the altogether of the thing, the conception if I may so
ignorantly express it, the boldness, the colour and yet the simplicity
make one think of those things in the Prado by Goya and Velasquez.  But
you'll laugh at me for that!"

"On the contrary I am grateful.  You wouldn't say so unless you meant
it."

"Still the opinion of an ignoramus is not worth anything.  We must get
Alastair Graeme to come and see it.  I'll write to him today."

"Not today, Jim," said the artist.  "It isn't quite far enough on.
There's a lot more to be put into that face--although I'll own that
already it's a fair likeness.  But it hasn't quite the subtlety and the
depth it ought to have.  'Tisn't just the face of Jimsmitt as I see it.
I must get the-light-that-never-was look into it somehow."

"You mustn't spoil a wonderful thing by trying to put in more than the
subject will bear.  After all I am pretty common clay."

"Sit down there, under that tree, and don't talk bilge, my dear old
lad."  The artist spoke imperiously.  This morning, girt with power, he
was determined to regain his lost ascendency.  It should be
accomplished by the force of his brush, the inspiration of his talent.

Ambrose Dorland was to find, however, before the morning was out that
art is a supremely jealous mistress.  Do as the painter would, and he
drove his will to the utmost, he found it impossible to ignore the
truth.  Something vital was missing from this sance.  A presence was
withheld.  There was a vacant chair.  And every spark of resolve
Ambrose Dorland could muster was not enough to fill it.

As he went grimly on with his task, biting savagely at the stem of his
briar, he knew the day was going against him.  All too soon the fire
had waned.  The thing he had feared with all his soul, which he had
simply declined to face, was already upon him.  Like a pricked balloon
the divine afflatus was spent.

After a couple of hours of moral torture, doggedly and silently borne,
in the course of which every vacillating touch applied to a masterly
canvas meant a weakening of the artist's intention, he yielded to the
inevitable.  It was clear that he was doing no good.  Nay, he was doing
positive harm.  So he downed tools.

"Come on, Jim."  Dorland stifled a groan.  "Let us go for a little
walk.  We've done enough for this morning."

The painter did not utter a word of the cruel fact that had entered his
mind.  But it had never been so plain as now to Ambrose Dorland that
art cannot be trifled with.  She demanded all or nothing.  Whatever of
moral force he had must not be diverted from her in the altruism of
friendship.




XXXVI

The next morning the same thing occurred, but in an intensified degree.
Overnight Ambrose made resolutions he found impossible to keep.  More
than will power was needed to finish the portrait of Jimsmitt.  Cunning
had gone from the right hand of the artist.  No matter how he strove
there was no means of co-ordinating sense with faculty.  Inspiration
had flown.  Every cell of his being ached for that presence whose lack
no devotion could atone.

Dorland went from bad to worse.  Each day was a replica of the previous
one; the impotence of the artist grew ever more exasperating.  He knew
that every touch he gave the picture now weakened the original design
but he could see no remedy.  It had been wiser to refrain from it
altogether for a time.  Jimsmitt urged him to do this.  Knowing,
however, that if he did not complete it out of hand he would never be
able to look at it again, he persisted in going on with his task to the
bitter end.

How bitter that end was to be Ambrose Dorland had no conception.  The
climax occurred with a break in the weather.  Late one evening, after
nearly a month of radiant skies, much needed rain was promised by a
heavy bank of cloud in the south west.  A night of thunder and
lightning was accompanied by a deluge of rain.  The morning was cold
and very wet.  There could be no thought of work that day in the
drenched garden.  And so Dorland set up his easel in a room with a
north light that had been placed at his disposal.

No sooner was the canvas fixed, and the painter came to examine under
new conditions a work that he ventured to hope was very near fruition,
than he received a shock.  The portrait was ruined.  What eight days
ago, on the eve of Mary's departure, had been within an ace of a
masterpiece was now but a chaotic daub.  Every touch he had forced
himself to apply since that hour had been a tragic blunder.

Art and nature had indeed avenged themselves.  Seen now in this cold
impersonal light all illusion vanished.  The picture before him had a
certain savage power but it was no longer coherent; that is to say
though it may still have borne a kind of resemblance to Jimsmitt, it
was altogether remote from the artist's intention.  Compared with the
noble thing of eight days ago it was as if a madman had tried to
complete it.  In lieu of the beauty and the mystery he had sought to
give the exquisite face of a friend, was an expression of ironic
wickedness; a portrait of one who had sojourned overlong in the dark
places of the earth amid evil magics, fate and the devil.

When Dorland fully realised what a savage trick an overdriven mind had
played upon him he recoiled with a gasp of horror.  In that direction
madness lay.  Merely to look upon this thing was damnation.  He covered
his eyes with his hands as might a child in the presence of a bogey.

Thus was he standing, a sense of doom upon him, when Jimsmitt entered
the room unheard and so found him.  A flash of that uncanny insight
with which each of these men penetrated the heart of the other, showed
the artist was shattered.  One glance at the picture in its new setting
told why.  Jimsmitt could but reproach himself for not having made the
discovery sooner, for not having interposed his will.  In a sense he
had done so, but it was impossible to make that will effective until
the painter saw for himself what he was doing and where his defiance of
danger was leading.  Art had indeed taken a cruel revenge.

Shattered by the total ruin of what eight days ago had been a noble
work, Dorland as he stood before the easel broke into weak sobs.  The
tender heart of Jimsmitt was pierced.  He could say nothing.  For a
layman to attempt to offer comfort had been an outrage.  This man had
already proved himself to be a great master of his craft.  But he was a
man of exceptional nature who had suffered too much.  He was haunted by
an obsession which had gravely imperilled his reason.

At last the artist perceived that his friend was at his side.  "Do you
see what I have done, Jim?"  His voice had a note of curious hysteria.
"It was my intention to show you as you have always been to me, an
angel of light and sweetness.  Instead of which I have made you a
devil, I have simply made you a devil, as black-hearted, as subtle, as
hellish as those fiends who used to visit us in the torture dungeon in
the sacred city of Krav."

So it was.  Jimsmitt dare not deny it.  That terrible canvas would too
surely have given him the lie.  He was powerless to help or to console.
For each word of the unhappy Dorland was punctuated by the fierce stab
of the palette knife he held in his hand.  At each epithet he drove it
through the canvas.  Soon it was in ribbons.  Cut to shreds, its ruin
was complete.

They stood gazing at one another in silence.  It was as if a living
horror had entered the room.  "I want you now, Jim, to do me one last
service.  You still have the force I lack.  Drive this through the
heart of a weak, contemptible fool and let him make an end."  He
offered the knife with eyes of entreaty.

Very gently Jimsmitt took the knife from him.  "It seems to have
stopped raining."  He spoke so matter of factly that his calm voice in
the brain of Dorland was an obtrusion of sanity into a Walpurgis Night.
"Let us take a spin in the new car to get an appetite for luncheon."
Then he laid a hand on the painter's arm and led him out of the room.

The rest of the day went as if nothing untoward had occurred.  Yet
these men whose love for each other was passing the love of women knew
they were poised on the verge of a chasm.  Fate had played things up so
high there seemed no way of escape.  These twin souls were very near
destruction.

Reason has its laws, its clear and definite limits.  Those who
transcend them have soon or late to pay a price of inexpressible
bitterness.  A sense of this was in the minds of both, when late that
evening, measuring a final glass before bed, Jimsmitt remarked in a
tone apparently casual: "I should be in no hurry to get up tomorrow if
I were you, old man.  Have breakfast brought to your room.  You've been
overdoing things a bit.  Rest is what you need."

"Oh, I'm all right," said Dorland stoically.  But a hint of hysteria
remained in his voice.

"You are far from all right," said his friend gravely.  "I am sure an
extra hour or two in bed will do you no harm.  You are not as strong as
you think.  That active mind takes a lot out of you.  And since the
holy city of Krav, neither of us can stand much in the way of mental
racket."

"Oh, I'm all right, Jim, believe me."

"Take advice and don't show up till luncheon.  And by then I daresay
Mary will be here to greet you."

"Mary!"

"Yes, I've telephoned to her to come down here first thing tomorrow
without fail."

There was a silence.  And then the younger man broke in with a rather
wild but half suppressed cry: "Oh Jim, Jim, you shouldn't have done
that!"

"But why not?" said his friend gently.

"I don't think I can bear the sight of her--after what has happened."

"Rubbish, my dear.  And it is a mere prelude to what is going to
happen.  Mary, as far as you are concerned, is the key to everything."

"No more of that, Jim--if you love me.  Even you do not realise how
impossible the situation is.  Make allowance for the ferocious egotism
that burns in the soul of every artist."

"I do.  But it is not you I think of now.  I am thinking of Mary.  She
loves you, old man."

"How can she love us both?"

"A very simple matter for such a nature as hers.  She loves me as a
mother loves a weak and wayward and rather worthless child.  She loves
you as a wife loves a noble and puissant husband."

"No, no."  The younger man grew imperious.  "That can never be.  You
have the first claim upon her.  She is yours.  I cannot rob you.  If
you persist in this you will drive me mad."

"Well, well, well."  There came an abrupt change in the voice of
Jimsmitt.  "Sleep the sleep of the just, my dear Ambrose, and I repeat,
be in no hurry to get up tomorrow."

They went up the broad central staircase arm in arm.  For a moment they
lingered at the head of the first corridor outside Jim's room.
Suddenly he gripped Dorland's hand.  "God bless you.  God bless you
both.  Dear old man!"  He opened his door, stepped quickly within and
closed it resolutely behind him.




XXXVII

Dorland had not meant to take the advice of Jimsmitt, but he somehow
did.  Following a series of violent dreams he fell into a good sleep
after the sun had risen.  When he finally woke it was to find the hour
sometime after nine o'clock and that a servant was bringing in his
breakfast.  This seemed like intelligent anticipation on the part of
his host who had a power of imposing his wishes in subtle and
unsuspected ways.

Dorland resigned himself to the inevitable.  He managed to swallow a
boiled egg and a cup of tea and then feeling generally cheap and in a
state of mental eclipse gave himself up to further repose.  That is to
say he remained where he was, while with the help of tobacco he tried
to think out a line of action.  As he saw things this morning the
future for Ambrose Dorland was a total blank.  He could not see where
life was leading him.  Yesterday had been a confession of abject
impotence and failure.  Today must be the same.  And tomorrow?  In his
present mood it was impossible to envisage a tomorrow.

Between eleven and twelve he rang for shaving water and bathed and
dressed leisurely.  He was feeling unbelievably wretched.  The mind had
failed and the consciousness of it gained upon him with every movement
that he made.  His recent behaviour had been in the last degree
irrational, but as matters were there was no hope of betterment.  One
thing, however, he was more than ever determined upon.  Jimsmitt with
rare insight, with selfless devotion had proposed a certain remedy for
his malaise.  This he would oppose.  It was due to their sacred
friendship that even if his life as well as his art were laid in ruins
he must resist to the bitter end Jim's self-immolation.

This decision made, the painter descended on the stroke of noon the
lovely staircase of black oak to the panelled hall.  He was in no haste
to find Jim.  The day was again a glory of hazy summer warmth and his
friend was most probably basking under his favourite tree.  Just now,
loitering in the hall, Ambrose did not know how he was ever going to
sit there with him again.  Something in his brain was making of
everything a chaos.  Leaning heavily on the old chest at the foot of
the stairs, he was overcome by a feeling that he was a wayfarer in the
trackless desert, without compass or chart.

After a minute or two he cast an eye involuntarily upon the top of the
chest to see if there were any letters for him; it was where as a rule
they were put.  It seemed there was one.  The envelope simply bore his
name; it lacked address, postmark, stamp.  With a curious thrill he
recognised the hand of Jimsmitt.  He tore the letter out of its cover.
And then he read the following:


Dorey, old man, there is only one thing to do and I do it.
Fate--Kismet--_In sh'Allah_.  I am but an instrument under God.  Yet I
lay the sacred charge upon you, in the name of our friendship, to do as
Life would have you do.  You are a young man, of a noble genius, of a
truly creative spirit; you are called to fill the world with immortal
pictures.  Mary too is young, in every way a worthy mate for you; it is
surely hers to give lovely and noble children to the world.  If she
marries me these things will not happen.  I give you my solemn
assurance of this.  Fate has so willed it...  Dorey, do not search for
me.  You will never find me.  But I shall always be very near to you
both.  My prayers and my love will be with you eternally.  Regard me as
a friend who will never fail you whenever you desire his presence.
Think of him without remorse or pity, for believe me he needs nothing
of that kind.  He desires your happiness and Mary's as ardently as the
Time Spirit desires it.  By this path alone can you both achieve a high
destiny.  And in the full and complete happiness of one's friends one
achieves one's own...  Remember, Dorey, I am always with you when you
really want me.  But I lay the solemn charge upon you both to do
nothing to disturb the peace that is now upon your devoted Jimsmitt.


The reading of this letter struck Ambrose Dorland numb and chill.  It
was like the fabric of a dream.  He had a sensation that his eyes were
taking part in an experience that was not really happening.  Was it
that already he was losing touch with himself.  Was he losing hold on
reality?  Back into his thoughts flooded a memory of the infernos he
had passed through.  The barrack square at Sidi-bel-Abbs, the dusty
and arid wayside when he had first met the Corporal of the Fifth
Company, the appalling night with the Touareg, the long torture of the
desert, the final horror of the sacred city of Krav.

Was it that an overburdened brain had broken at last from its anchor?
He held the letter in his hand in a trance of fear.  At that
disintegrating moment it alone kept him together.  All around was chaos
and old night.  There was naught but that faint scrawl on that flimsy
page between him and the sundering of his entity.

Ambrose Dorland had no perception of time or place as he leaned for
support against the oak chest.  But at last he moved a few paces
forward across the hall.  As he did so he grew conscious of a sudden
flood of light.  The large doors at the farther end of the hall had
opened.  A figure, lithe and splendid, yet familiar, was upon the
threshold.

For an instant Dorland had the illusion that here was one more dark
trick of the soul.  Almost immediately it was dispelled.  Mary Benton
came quickly towards him, both hands outstretched, a little cry of
welcome upon her lips.

"Jim was so urgent.  He said you had such need of me I felt you must be
very ill.  How good it is to see you.  And how glad I am to get away
from that horrid London; a place of evil smells, evil noises, evil
dreams."

The sound of that voice, the contact of those hands broke the spell
that was upon Ambrose Dorland.  "Tell me," he gasped, "when did you
last communicate with Jim?"

"Last evening.  He rang me up just before seven.  I was made to promise
solemnly that I would come down here this morning at the earliest
moment.  You would have great need of me, he said.  But he would not
say why.  He was so insistent that I felt rather alarmed.  I could get
no definite reason out of him.  He gave me a kind of feeling that
something must have happened to you.  All the way down here I have been
in a state of nerves."

"The fact is something--something rather strange--rather uncanny--has
happened to us both."

Ambrose Dorland put into her hand Jimsmitt's letter.




THE END




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[End of _Surrender_ by J. C. Snaith]
