no 6' CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY A it> BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE ry^swo CV>^v\- -i' '-t- ,,.->*^ Due jm^^ — i^n r r rr A-f^fti "m 88i HFTr-i!3=" eiMiU V it-Vrf "•^jt *'* ."■■ *-.i 4r' Cornell University Library The original of tliis bool< is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013342146 THE GREEN FLAG AND OTHER STORIES WORKS BY A. CO NAN DOYLE. The White Company. MicAH Clarke. The Refugees. Rodney Stone. Uncle Bernac : A Memory of the Empire. The Great Shadow. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Memoir? of Sherlock Holmes. The Sign of Four. A Study in Scarlet. The Firm of Girdlestone. The Parasite. Exploits of Brigadier Gerard. Captain of the Polestar. Round the Red Lamp. The Stark Munro Letters. The Doings of Raffles Haw. The Tragedy of the Korosko. Songs of Action. A Duet. The Green Flag, and other Stories of War AND Sport. The Great Boer War. Adventures of Gerard. The Hound of the Baskervilles. Return of Sherlock Holmes. Sir Nigel. Through the Magic Door. Round the Fire Stories. THE GREEN FLAG, IPage 21. THE GREEN FLAG AND OTHER STORIES WAR AND SPORT BY A. CONAN DOYLE author of "micah clarki," "the white company," "rodnzy stone,' " uncle beknac," etc. WITH A FRONTISPIECE NEW EDITION LONDON SMITH, ELDER & CO., 15, WATERLOO PLACE 1905 (iAll rights reserved) XL PRINTED EV WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES. A ' 9^3339 7^ PREFACE, It is difficult to make a volume of short stories homogeneous, but these have this in common, that they concern themselves with war and sport — a fact which may commend them to the temper of the times. Such as they are, I have chosen them as the fittest survivors out of the tales which I have written during the last six years. A. CONAN DOYLE. Undebshaw, Hindhead, February 18th, 1900. CONTENTS. The Geeen Flag ... ... ... ... Captain Shakkey — I. How THE Governor of St. Kin's came Home n. The Dealings of Captain Shaekey with Stephen Ckaddock HI. How Copley Banks slew Captain Sharkey The Crime of the Brigadier The Croxlet Master ... The "Slapping Sal" The Lord of ChIteai; Noir The Striped Chest A Shadow Before The King of the Foxes The Three Correspondents Thk New Catacomb The D^btjt of Bimbashi Joyce ... A Foreign Office Eomance ... PAGE 1 25 45 65 83 104 171 185 204 225 245 265 297 319 333 THE GREEN FLAG 4ND OTHER STORIES. THE GREEN FLAG. When Jack ConoUy, of the Irish Shot-gun Brigade, the Eory of the Hills Inner Cu'cle, and the extreme left wing of the Land League, was incontinently shot by Sergeant Murdoch of the constabulary, in a little moonlight frolic near Kanturk, his twin-brother Dennis joined the British Army. The countryside had become ■ too hot for him ; and, as the seventy-five shillings were wanting which might have carried him to America,. he took the only way handy of getting himself out of the way. Seldom has Her Majesty had a less promising recruit, for his hot Celtic blood seethed with hatred against Britain and all things British. The Sergeant, however, smiling complacently over his six feet of brawn and his forty-four-inch chest, whisked him off with a dozen other of the boys to the depot at Fermoy, whence in a few weeks they were sent on, with the B 2 THE GREEN FLAG. spade-work kinks taken out of their backs, to the first battalion of the Eoyal Mallows, at the top of the roster for foreign service. The Eoyal Mallows, at about that date, were as strange a lot of men as ever were paid by a great empire to fight its battles. It was the darkest hour of the land struggle, when the one side came out with crowbar and battering-ram by day, and the other with mask and with shot-gun by night. Men driven from their homes and potato-patches found their way even into the service of the Government, to which it seemed to them that they owed their troubles, and now and then they did wild things before they came.' There were recruits in the Irish regiments who would forget to answer to their own names, so short had been their acquaintance with them. Of these the Eoyal Mallows had their full share; and, while they still retained their fame as being one of the smartest corps in the Army, no one knew better than their officers that they were dry-rotted with treason and with bitter hatred of the flag under which they served. And the centre of all the disaffection was C Company, in which Dennis ConoUy found himself enrolled. They were Celts, Catholics, and men of the tenant class to a man; and their whole experience of the British Government had been an inexorable landlord, and a constabulary who seemed to them to be always on the side of the rent-collector. Dennis was not the only THE GRKEN FLAG. 3 moonlighter in the ranks, nor was he alone in having an intolerable family blood-feud to harden his heart. Savagery had begotten savagery in that veiled civil war. A landlord with an iron mortgage weighing down upon him had small bowels for his tenantry. He did but take what the -law allowed ; and yet, with men like Jim Holan, or Patrick McQuire, or Peter Flynn, who had seen the roofs torn from their cottages and their folk huddled among their pitiable furniture upon the roadside, it was ill to argue about abstract law. What matter that in that long and bitter struggle there was many another outrage on the part of the tenant, and many another grievance on the side of the landowner ! A stricken man can only feel his own wound, and the rank and file of the C Company of the Eoyal Mallows were sore and savage to the soul. There were low whisper- ings in barrack-rooms and canteens, stealthy meetings in public-house parlours, bandying of passwords from mouth to mouth, and many other signs which made their officers right glad when the order came which sent them to foreign, and better still to active, service. For Irish regiments have before now been disaffected, and have at a distance looked upon the foe as though he might, in truth, be the friend ; but when they have been put face on to him, and when their officers have dashed to the front with a wave and halloo, those rebel hearts have softened and their gallant Celtic blood has boiled with the mad joy of the fight, until the slower 4 THE GREEN FLAG. Britons have marvelled that they ever could have doubted the loyalty of their Irish comrades. So it would be again, according to the officers, and so it would not be if Dennis ConoUy and a few others could have their way. It was a March morning upon the eastern fringe of the Nubian desert. The sun had not yet risen ; but a tinge of pink flushed up as far as the cloudless zenith, and the long strip of sea lay like a rosy ribbon across the horizon. From the- coast inland stretched dreary sand-plains, dotted over with thick clumps of mimosa scrub and mottled patches of thorny bush. No tree broke the monotony of that vast desert. The dull, dusty hue of the thickets and the yellow glare of the sand were the only colours, save at one point where, from a distance, it seemed that a landslip of snow-white stones had shot itself across a low foot-hill. But as the traveller approached he saw, with a thriU, that these were no stones, but the bleaching bones of a slaughtered army. "With its dull tints, its gnarled viprous bushes, its arid, barren soil, and this death streak trailed across it, it was indeed a nightmare country. Some eight or ten miles inland the roUing plain curved upwards with a steeper slope until it ran into a line of red basaltic rock which zigzagged from north to south, heaping itself up at one point into a fantastic knoll. On the summit of this there stood THE GREEN FLAG. 5 upon that Marcli morning three Arab chieftains— the Slieik Kadra of the Hadendowas, Moussa Wad Abur- hegel, who led the Berber dervishes, and Hamid Wad Hussein, who had come northward with his fighting men from the land of the Baggaras. They had all three just risen from their praying-carpets, and were peering out, with fierce, high-nosed faces thrust forwards, at the stretch of country revealed by the spreading dawn. The red rim of the sun was pushing itself now above the distant sea, and the whole coast-line stood out brilliantly yellow against the rich deep blue beyond. At one spot lay a huddle of white-walled houses, a mere splotch in the distance ; while four tiny cock- boats, which lay beyond, marked the position of three of Her Majesty's ten-thousand-ton troopers and the Admiral's flagship. But it was not upon the distant town, nor upon the great vessels, nor yet upon the sinister white litter which gleamed in the plain beneath them, that the Arab chieftains gazed. Two miles from where they stood, amid the sand-hills and the mimosa scrub, a great parallelogram had been marked by piled- up bushes. From the inside of this dozens of tiny blue smoke-reeks curled up into the still morning air ; while there rose from it a confused deep murmur, the voices of men and the gruntings of camels blended into the same insect buzz. "The unbelievers have cooked their morning food," 6 , THE GREEN FLAG. said the Baggara chief, shading his eyes with his tawny, sinewy hand. " Truly their sleep has been but scanty ; for Hamid and a hundred of his men have fired upon them since the rising of the moon." " So it was with these others," answered the Sheik Kadra, pointing with his sheathed sword towards the old battle-field. " They also had a day of little water and a night of little rest, and the heart was gone out of them ere ever the sons of the Prophet had looked them in the eyes. This blade drank deep that day, and will again before the sun has travelled from the sea to the hill." " And yet these are other men," remarked the Berber dervish. " Well, I know that Allah has placed them in the clutch of our fingers, yet it may be that they with the big hats will stand firmer than the cursed men of Egypt." " Pray Allah that it may be so," cried the fierce Baggara, with a flash of his black eyes. " It was not to chase women that I brought seven hundred men from the river to the coast. See, my brother, already they are forming their array." A fanfare of bugle-calls burst from the distant camp. At the same time the bank of bushes at one side had been thrown or trampled down, and the little army within began to move slowly out on to the plain. Once clear of the camp they halted, and the slant rays of the sun struck flashes from bayonet and from gun- THE GREEN FLAG. 7 barrel as the ranks closed up until the big pith helmets joined into a single long white ribbon. Two streaks of scarlet glowed on either side of the square, but else- where the fringe of fighting-men was of the dull yellow khaki tint which hardly shows against the desert sand. Inside their array was a dense mass of camels and mules bearing stores and ambulance needs. Outside a twinkling clump of cavalry was drawn up on each flank, and in front a thin scattered line of mounted infantry was already slowly advancing over the bush- strewn plain, halting on every eminence, and peering warily round as men might who have to pick their steps among the bones of those who have preceded them. The three chieftains still lingered upon the knoll, looking down with hungry eyes and compressed lips at the dark steel-tipped patch. " They are slower to start than the men of Egypt," the Sheik of the Hadendowas growled in his beard. "Slower also to go back, perchance, my brother," murmured the dervish. " And yet they are not many — three thousand at the most." " And we ten thousand, with the Prophet's grip upon our spear-hafts and his words upon our banner. See to their chieftain, how he rides upon the right and looks up at us with the glass that sees from afar ! It may be that he sees this also." The Arab shook his sword at the small clump of horsemen who had spurred out from the square. 8 THE GREEN FLAG. " Lo ! he beckons," cried the dervish ; " and see those others at the corner, how they bend and heave. Ha ! by the Prophet, I had thought it." As he spoke a little woolly puff of smoke spurted up at the corner of the square, and a seven-pound shell burst with a hard metallic smack just over their heads. The splinters knocked chips from the red rocks around them. '' Bismillah ! " cried the Hadendowa; "if the gun can carry thus far, then ours can answer to it. Eide to the left, Moussa, and tell Ben AU to cut the skin from the Egyptians if they cannot hit yonder mark. And you, Hamid, to the right, and see that three thou- sand men lie close in the wady that we have chosen. Let the others beat the drum and show the banner of the Prophet ; for by the black stone their spears will have drunk deep ere they look upon the stars again." A long, straggling, boulder-strewn plateau lay on the summit of the red hills, sloping very precipitously to the plain, save at one point, where a winding gully curved downwards, its mouth choked with sand-mounds and olive-hued scrub. Along the edge of this position lay the Arab host, a motley crew of shock-headed desert clansmen, fierce predatory slave-dealers of the interior, and wild dervishes from the Upper Nile, all blent together by their common fearlessness and fanaticism. Two races were there, as wide as the poles apart, the thin-lipped, straight-haired Arab, and the THE GREEN FLAG. 9 thick-lipped, curly negro ; yet the faith of Islam had bound them closer than a blood tie. Squatting among the rocks, or lying thickly in the shadow, they peered out at the slow-moving square beneath them, while women with water-skins and bags of dhoora fluttered from group to group, calling out to each other those fighting texts from the Koran which in the hour of battle are maddening as wine to the true believer. A score of banners waved over the ragged, valiant crew, and among them, upon desert horses and white Bishareen camels, were the Emirs and Sheiks who were to lead them against the infidels. As the Sheik Kadra sprang into his saddle and drew his sword there was a wild whoop and a clatter- of waving spears, while the one-ended war-drums burst into a dull crash like a wave upon shingle. For a moment ten thousand men were up on the rocks with brandished arms and leaping figures ; the next they were under cover, again waiting sternly and silently for their chieftain's orders. The square was less than half a mile from the ridge now, and shell after shell from the seven-pound guns were pitching over it. A deep roar on the right, and then a second one showed that the Egyptian Krupps were in action. Sheik Kadra's hawk eyes saw that the shells burst far beyond the mark, and he spurred his horse along to where a knot of mounted chiefs were gathered round the two guns, which were served by their captured crews. 10 THE GBEBN FLAG. "How is this, Ben Ali?" he cried. "It was not thus that the dogs fired when it was their own brothers in faith at whom they aimed ! " A chieftain reined his horse back, and thrust a blood-smeared sword into its sheath. Beside him two Egyptian artillerymen with their throats cut were sobbing out their lives upon the ground. " Who lays the gun this time ? " asked the fierce chief, glaring at the frightened gunners. " Here, thou black-browed child of Shaitan, aim, and aim for thy life." It may have been chance, or it may have been skill, but the third and fourth shells burst over the square. Sheik Kadra smiled grimly and galloped back to the left, where his spearmen were streaming down into the gully. As he joined them a deep growling rose from the plain beneath, like the snarling of a sullen wild beast, and a little knot of tribesmen fell in a struggling heap, caught in the blast of lead from a Gardner. Their comrades pressed on over them, and sprang down into the ravine. From all along the crest burst the hard sharp crackle of Eemington fire. The square had slowly advanced, rippling over the low sandhills, and halting every few minutes to re- arrange its formation. Now, having made sure that there was no force of the enemy in the scrub, it changed its direction, and began to take a line parallel to the Arab position. It was too steep to assail from the THE GllEEN FLAG. 11 front, and if they moved far enough to the right the General hoped that he might turn it. On the top of those ruddy hills lay a baronetcy for him, and a few extra hundreds in his pension, and he meant having them both that day. The Eemington fire was annoy- ing, and so were those two Krupp guns : already there were more cacolets full than he cared to see. But on the whole he thought it better to hold his fire until he had more to aim at than a few hundred of fuzzy heads peeping over a razor-back ridge. lie was a bulky, red- faced man, a fine whist-player, and a soldier who knew his work. His men believed in him, and he had good reason to believe in them, for he had excellent stuff under hitn that day. Being an ardent champion of the short-service system, he took particular care to work with veteran first battalions, and his little force was the compressed essence of an army corps. The left front of the square was formed by four companies of the Eoyal Wessex, and the right by four of the Eoyal Mallows. On either side the other halves of the same regiments marched in quarter column of companies. Behind them, on the right was a battalion of Guards, and on the left one of Marines, while the rear was closed in by a Eifle battalion. Two Eoyal Artillery seven-pound screw-guns kept pace with the square, and a dozen white-bloused sailors, under their blue-coated, tight-waisted officers, trailed their Gardner in front, turning every now and then to spit, up at the ]2 THE GEEEN FLAG. draggled banners which waved over the cragged ridge. Hussars and Lancers scouted in the scrub at each side, and within moved the clump of camels, with humorous eyes and supercilious lips, their comic faces a contrast to the blood-stained men who already lay huddled in the cacolets on either side. The square was now moving slowly on a line parallel with the rocks, stopping every few minutes to pick up wounded, and to allow the screw-guns and Gardner to make themselves felt. The men looked serious, for that spring on to the rocks of the Arab army had given them a vague glimpse of the number and ferocity of their foes ; but their faces were set like stone, for they knew to a man that they must win or they must die — and die, too, in a particularly unlovely fashion. But most serious of all was the General, for he had seen that which brought a flush to his cheeks and a frown to his brow. "I say, Stephen," said he to his galloper, "those Mallows seem a trifle jumpy. The right flank company bulged a bit when the niggers showed on the hill." " Youngest troops in the square, sir," murmured the aide, looking at them critically through his eyeglass. " Tell Colonel Flanagan to see to it, Stephen," said the General ; and the galloper sped upon his way. The Colonel, a fine old Celtic warrior, was over at C Company in an instant. " How are the men, Captain Foley ? " THE GREEN FLAG. 13 " Never better, sir," answered the senior captain, in the spirit that makes a Madras officer look murder if you suggest recruiting his regiment from the Punjaub. " Stiffen them up ! " cried the Colonel. As he rode away a colour-sergeant seemed to trip, and fell forward into a mimosa bush. He made no effort to rise, but lay in a heap among the thorns. " Sergeant O'Eooke's gone, sorr," cried a voice. "Kever mind, lads," said Captain Foley. "He's died like a soldier, fighting for his Queen." " To hell with the Queen ! " shouted a hoarse voice from the ranks. But the roar of the Gardner and the typewriter-like clicking of the hopper burst in at the tail of -the words. Captain Foley heard them, and Subalterns Grice and Murphy heard them ; but there are times when a deaf ear is a gift from the gods. " Steady, Mallows ! " cried the Captain, in a pause of the grunting machine-gun. " We have the honour of Ireland to guard this day." " And well we know how to guard it, Captin ! " cried the same ominous voice; and there was a bu?z from the length of the company. The Captain and the two subs, came together behind the marching line. "They seem a bit out of hand," murmured the Captain. 14 THE OREEN FLAG. " Bedad," said the Galway boy, " they moan to scoot like redshanks." " They nearly broke when the blacks showed on the hill," said Grice. " The first man that turns, my sword is throixgh him," cried Foley, loud enough to be heard by five files on either side of him. Then, in a lower voice, "It's a bitter drop to swallow, but it's my duty to report what you think to the Chief and have a company of JoUies put behind us." He turned away with the safety of the square upon his mind, and before he had reached his goal the square had ceased to exist. In their march in front of what looked like a face of cliff, they had come opposite to the mouth of the gully, in which, screened by scrub and boulders, three thou- sand chosen dervishes, under Hamid Wad Hussein of the Bagarras, were crouching. Tat, tat, tat, went the rifles of three mounted infantrymen in front of the left shoulder of the square, and an instant later they were spurring it for their lives, crouching over the manes of their horses, and pelting over the sandhills with thirty or forty galloping chieftains at their heels. Eocks and scrub and mimosa swarmed suddenly into life. Bushing black figures came and went in the gaps of the bushes. A howl that drowned the shouts of the of&cers, a long quavering yell, burst from the ambus- cade. Two rolling volleys from the Eoyal Wessex, one THE GREEN FLAG. 15 crash from the screw-gun firing shrapnel, and then before a second cartridge could be rammed in, a living, glistening black wave tipped with steel, had rolled over the gun, the Eoyal Wessex had been dashed back among the camels, and a thousand fanatics were hewing and hacking in the heart of what had been the square. The camels and mules in the centre, jammed more and more together as their leaders flinched from the rush of the tribesmen, shut out the view of the other three faces, who could only tell that the Arabs had got in by the yells upon Allah, which rose ever nearer and nearer amid the clouds of sand-dust, the struggling animals, and the dense mass of swaying, cursing men. Some of the Wessex fired back at the Arabs who had passed them, as excited Tommies will, and it is whispered among doctors that it was not always a Remington bullet which was cut from a wound that day. Some rallied in little knots, stabbing furiously with their bayonets at the rushing spearmen. Others turned at bay with their backs against the camels, and others round the General and his staff, who, revolver in hand, had flung themselves into the heart of it. But the whole square was sidling slowly away from the gorge, pushed back by the pressure at the shattered corner. The ofi&cers and men at the other faces were glancing nervously to their rear, uncertain what was going on, 16 THE GREEN FLAG. and unable to take help to their comrades without breaking the formation. " By Jove, they've got through the Wessex ! " cried Grice of the Mallows. " The divils have hurrooshed us, Ted," said his brother subaltern, cocking his revolver. The ranks were breaking and crowding towards Private ConoUy, all talking together as the officers peered back through the veil of dust. The sailors had run their Gardner out, and she was squirting death out of her five barrels into the flank of the rushing stream of savages. " Oh, this bloody gun ! " shouted a voice. " She's jammed again." The fierce metallic grunting had ceased, and her crew were straining and hauling at the breech. " This damned vertical feed ! " cried an officer. " The spanner, Wilson, the spanner ! Stand to your cutlasses, boys, or they're into us." His voice rose into a shriek as he ended, for a shovel- headed spear had been buried in his chest. A second wave of dervishes lapped over the hillocks, and burst upon the machine-gun and the right front of the line. The sailors were overborne in an instant, but the Mallows, with their fighting blood aflame, met the yell of the Moslem with an even wilder, fiercer cry, and dropped two hundred of them with a single point-blank volley. The howling, leaping crew swerved away to THE GREEN FLAG. 17 the right, and dashed on into the gap which had already been made for them. But C Company had drawn no trigger to stop that Hery rush. The men leaned moodily upon their Mar- tinis. Some had even thrown them upon the ground. Conolly was talking fiercely to those about him. Cap- tain Poley, thrusting his way through the press, rushed up to him with a revolver in his hand. " This is your doing, you villain ! " he cried. " If you raise your pistol, Captin, your brains will be over your coat," said a low voice at his side. He saw that several rifles were turned on him. Thg two subs, had pressed forward, and were by his side. "What is it, then?" he cried, looking round from one fierce mutinous face to another. " Are you Irish- men 1 Are you soldiers ? What are you here for but to fight for your coxmtry ? " " England is no country of ours," cried several. " You are not fighting for England. You are fight- ing for Ireland, and for the Empire of which it is part." " A black curse on the Impire ! " shouted Private McQuire, throwing down his rifle. " 'Twas the Impire that backed the man that druv me onto the roadside. May me hand stiffen before I draw thrigger for it." " What's the Impire to us. Captain Foley, and what's the Widdy to us ayther ? " cried a voice. " Let the constabulary foight for her." 18 THE GREEN FLAG-. " Ay, be God, they'd be better imployed than pullin' a poor man's thatch about his ears." " Or shootin' his brother, as they did mine." " It was the Impire laid my groanin' mother by the wayside. Her son will rot before he upholds it, and ye can put that in the charge sheet in the next coort- martial." In vain the three officers begged, menaced, persuaded. The square was still moving, ever moving, with the same bloody fight raging in its entrails. Even while they had been speaking they had been shuffling back- wards, and the useless Gardner, with her slaughtered crew, was already a good hundred yards from them. And the pace was accelerating. The mass of men, tormented and writhing, was trying, by a common instinct, to reach some clearer ground where they could re-form. Three faces were still intact, but the fourth had been caved in, and badly mauled, without its comrades being able to help it. The Guards had met a fresh rush of the Hadendowas, and had blown back the tribesmen with a volley, and the Cavalry had ridden over another stream of them, as they welled out of the gully. A litter of hamstrung horses, and haggled men behind them, showed that a spearman on his face among the bushes can show some sport to the man who charges him. But, in spite of all, the square was still reeling swiftly backwards, trying to shake itself clear of this torment which clung to its heprt. Would THE GREEN FLAG. 19 it break, or would it re-form ? The lives of five regi- ments and the honour of the flag hung upon the answer. Some, at least, were breaking. The C Company of the Mallows had lost all military order, and was pushing back in spite of the haggard officers, who cursed and shoved and prayed in the vain attempt to hold them. Their Captain and the subs, were elbowed and jostled, while the men crowded towards Private ConoUy for their orders. The confusion had not spread, for the other companies, in the dust and smoke and turmoil, had lost touch with their mutinous comrades. Captain Foley saw that even now there might be time to avert a disaster. " Think what you are doing, man," he yelled, rushing towards the ringleader. " There are a thousand Irish in the square, and they are dead men if we break." The words alone might have had little effect on the old moonlighter. It is possible that, in his scheming brain, he had already planned how he was to club his Irish together and lead them to the sea. But at that moment the Arabs broke through the screen of camels which had fended them off. There was a struggle, a screaming, a mule rolled over, a wounded man sprang up in a cacolet with a spear through him, and then through the narrow gap surged a stream of naked •savages, mad with battle, drunk with slaughter, spotted and splashed with blood — blood dripping from their 20 THE GEEEN FLAG. spears, their arms, their faces. Their yells, their bounds, their crouching, darting figures, the horrid energy of their spear- thrusts, made them look like a blast of fiends from the pit. And were these the Allies of Ireland ? Were these the men who were to strike for her against her enemies ? ConoUy's soul rose up in loathing at the thought. He was a man of firm purpose, and yet at the first sight of those howling fiends that purpose faltered, and at the second it was blown to the winds. He saw a huge coal-black negro seize a shrieking camel-driver and saw at his throat with a knife. He saw a shock- headed tribesman plunge his great spear through the back of their own little bugler from Millstreet. He saw a dozen deeds of. blood — the murder of the wounded, the hacking of the unarmed — and caught, too, in a glance, the good wholesome faces of the faced- about rear rank of the Marines. The Mallows, too, had faced about, and in an instant ConoUy had thrown himself into the heart of C Company, striving with the officers to form the men up with their comrades. But the mischief had gone too far. The rank and file had no heart in their work. They had broken before, and this last rush of murderous savages was a hard thing for broken men to stand against. They flinched from the furious faces and dripping forearms. Why should they throw away their lives for a flag- for which they cared nothing ? Why should their THE GREEN FLAG. 21 leader urge them to break, and now shriek to them to re-forni ? They would not re-form. They wanted to get to the sea and to safety. He flung himself among them with outstretched arms, with words of reason, with shouts, with gaspings. It was useless; the tide was beyond his control. They were shredding out into the desert with their faces set for the coast. " Bhoys, will ye stand for this ? " screamed a voice. It was so ringiug, so strenuous, that the breaking Mallows glanced backwards. They were held by what they saw. Private ConoUy had planted his rifle-stock "downwards in a mimosa bush. From the fixed bayonet there fluttered a little green flag with the crownless harp. God knows for what black mutiny, for what signal of revolt, that flag had been treasured up within the Corporal's tunic ! Now its green wisp stood amid the rush, while three proud regimental colours weje reeling slowly backwards, "What for the flag ? " yelled the private. " My heart's blood for it ! and mine ! and mine ! " cried a score of voices. " God bless it ! The flag, boys —the flag ! " C Company were rallying upon it. The stragglers clutched at each other, and pointed. " Here, McQuire, Flynn, O'Hara," ran the shoutings. " Close on the flag ! Back to the flag ! " The three standards reeled back- wards, and the seething square strove for a clearer space where they could form their shattered ranks ; but C 22 THE GREEN FLAG. company, grim and powder- stained, choked with enemies and falling fast, still closed in on the little rebel ensign that flapped from the mimosa bush. It was a good half-hour before the square, having dis- entangled itself from its difficulties and dressed its ranks, began to slowly move forwards over the ground, across which in its labour and anguish it had been driven. The long trail of Wessex men and Arabs showed but too clearly the path they had come. " How many got into us, Stephen ?" asked the General, tapping his snuff-box. " I should put them down at a thousand or twelve hundred, sir." " I did not see any get out again. What the devil were the Wessex thinking about ? The Guards stood well, though ; so did the Mallows." " Colonel Flanagan reports that his front flank com- pany was cut off, sir." " Why, that's the Company that was out of hand when we advanced ! " " Colonel Flanagan reports, sir, that the Company took the whole brunt of the attack, and gave the square time to re-form." "Tell the Hussars to ride forward, Stephen," said the General, " and try if they can see anything of them. There's no firing, and I fear that the Mallows will want to do some recruiting. Let the square take ground by the right, and then advance ! " THE GREEN FLAG. 23 But the Sheik Kadra of the Hadendowas saw from his knoll that the men with the big hats had rallied, and that they were coming back in the quiet business fashion of men whose work was before them. He took counsel with Moussa the Dervish and Hussein the Bagarra, and a woestruck man was he when he learned that the third of his men were safe in the Moslem Paradise. So, having still some signs of victory to show, he gave the word, and the desert warriors flitted off unseen and unheard, even as they had come. A red rock plateau, a few hundred spears and Eemingtons, and a plain which for the second time was strewn with slaughtered men, was all that his day's fighting gave to the English General. It was a squadron of Hussars which came first to the spot where the rebel flag had waved. A dense litter of Arab dead marked the place. Within the flag waved no longer, but the rifle still stood in the mimosa bush, and round it, with their woimds in front, lay the Fenian private and the silent ranks of his Irishry. Sentiment is not an English failing, but the Hussar Captain raised his hilt in a salute as he rode past the blood-soaked ring. The British General sent home dispatches to his Government, and so did the Chief of the Hadendowas to his, though the style and manner differed somewhat in each. " The Sheik Kadra of the Hadendowa people 24 THE GEEEN FLAG. to Mohammed Ahmed, the chosen of Allah, homage and greeting," began the latter. " Know by this that on the fourth day of this moon we gave battle to the Kaffirs who call themselves Inglees, having with us the Chief Hussein with ten thousand of the faithful. By the blessing of Allah we have broken them, and chased them for a mile, though indeed these infidels are different from the dogs of Egypt, and have slain very many of our men. Yet we hope to smite them again ere the new moon be come, to which end I trust that thou wilt send us a thousand Dervishes from Omdurman. la token of our victory I send you by this messenger a flag which we have taken. By the colour it might well seem to have belonged to those of the true faith, but the Kaffirs gave their blood freely to save it, and so we think that, though small, it is very dear to them." CAPTAIN SHARKEY. HOW THE GOVEENOR OF SAINT KITT'S CAME nOME. When the great wars of the Spanish Succession had been brought to an end by the Treaty of Utrecht, the vast number of privateers which had been fitted out by the contending parties found their occupation gone. Some took to the more peaceful but less lucrative ways of ordinary commerce, others were absorbed into the fishing-fleets, and a few of the more reckless hoisted the Jolly Eodger at the mizzen and the bloody flag at the main, declaring a private war upon their own account against the whole human race. With mixed crews, recruited from every nation, they scoured the seas, disappearing occasionally to careen in some lonely inlet, or putting in for a debauch at some outlying port, where they dazzled the inhabitants by their lavishness and horrified them by their brutalities. On the Coromandel Coast, at Madagascar, in the African waters, and above aU in the West Indian and 25 26 CAPTAIN SHARKEY. American seas, the pirates were a constant menace. With an insolent luxury they would regulate their depredations by the comfort of the seasons, harrying New England in the summer and dropping south again to the tropical islands in the winter. They were the more to be dreaded because they had none of that discipline and restraint which made their predecessors, the Buccaneers, both formidable and re- spectable. These Ishmaels of the sea rendered an account to no man, and treated their prisoners accord- ing to the drunken whim of the moment. Flashes of grotesque generosity alternated with longer stretches of inconceivable ferocity, and the skipper who fell into their hands might find himself dismissed with his cargo, after serving as boon companion in some hideous debauch, or might sit at his cabin table with his own nose and his lips served up with pepper and salt in front of him. It took a stout seaman in those days to ply his calling in the Caribbean Gulf. Such a man was Captain John Scarrow, qf the ship Morning Star, and yet he breathed a long sigh of relief when he heard the splash of the falling anchor and swung at his moorings within a hundred yards of the guns of the citadel of Basseterre. St. Kitt's was his final port of call, and early next morning his bowsprit would be pointed for Old England. He had had enough of those robber-haunted seas. Ever since he had left Maracaibo upon the Main, with his full ladin — " A SHADOW BEFORE. 239 " Forty ! " cried a high, thin, clear voice. A buzz rose from the crowd, and they were all on tiptoe again, trying to catch a glimpse of this reckless buyer. Being a tall man, Dodds could see over the others, and there at the side of HoUoway he saw the masterful nose and aristocratic beard of the second stranger in the coffee-room. A sudden personal in- terest added itself to the scene. He felt that he was on the verge of something — something dimly seen — which he could himself turn to account. The two men with strange names, the telegrams, the horses — what was underlying it all ? The salesman was all animation again, and Mr. Jack riynn was sitting up with his white whiskers bristling and his eyes twinkling. It was the best deal which he had ever made in his fifty years of experience. " What naiiie, sir 1 " asked the salesman. "Mr. Mancune." " Address 1 " " Mr, Mancune of Glasgow." " Thank you for your bid, sir. Forty pounds a head has been bid by Mr. Mancune of Glasgow. Any advance upon forty ? " " Forty-one, said Strellenhaus. " Forty-five," said Mancune. The tactics had changed, and it was the turn of Strellenhaus now to advance by ones, while his rival sprang up by fivpg, But the former was as dogged as ever. 240 A SHADOW BEFORE. " Forty-six," said he. " Fifty ! " cried Mancune, It was -unheard of. The most that the horses could possibly average at a retail price was as much as these men were willing to pay wholesale. " Two lunatics from Bedlam," whispered the angry HoUoway. "If I was Flynn I would see the colour of their money before I went any further." The same thought had occurred to the salesman. " As a mere matter of business, gentlemen," said he, " it is usual in such cases to put down a small deposit as a guarantee of hona fides. You will understand how I am placed, and that I have not had the pleasure of doing business with either of you before." " How much ? " asked Strellenhaus, briefly. " Should we say five hundred ? " " Here is a note for a thousand pounds." "And here is another," said Mancune. " Nothing could be more handsome, gentlemen," said the salesman. " It's a treat to see such a spirited com- petition. The last bid was fifty pounds a head from Mancune. The word lies with you, Mr. Strellenhaus." Mr. Jack Flynn whispered something to the sales- man. " Quite so ! Mr. Flynn suggests, gentlemen, that as you are both large buyers, it would, perhaps, be a con- venience to you if he was to add the string of Mr. Tom Flynn, which consists of seventy animals of precisely A SHADOW BEFORE. 241 the same quality, making one hundred and forty in all, Have you any objection, Mr. Mancune ? " "No,, sir." " And you, Mr. Strellenhaus ? " " I should prefer it." " Very handsomo ! Very handsome indeed ! " mur- mured the salesman. " Then I understand, Mr. Man- cune, that your offer of fifty pounds a head extends to the whole of these horses ? " " Yes, sir." A long breath went up from the crowd. Seven thousand pounds at one deal. It was a record for Dunsloe. "Any advance, Mr. Strellenhaus ? " "Fifty-one." " Fifty-five." "Fifty-six." " Sixty." They could hardly believe their ears. HoUoway stood with his mouth open, staring blankly in front of him. The salesman tried hard to look as if such bidding and such prices were nothing unusual. Jack Flynn of Kildare smiled benignly and rubbed his hands together. The crowd listened in dead silence. " Sixty-one," said Strellenhaus. From the beginning he had stood without a trace of emotion upon his round face, like a little automatic figure which bid by clock- v/ork. His rival was of a more excitable nature. His 242 A SHADOW BEFOEE. eyes were sliinirig, and he was for ever twitching at his beard. " Sixty-five," he cried. " Sixty-six." " Seventy." But the clockwork had run down. No answering bid came from Mr. Strellenhaus. " Seventy bid, sir," Mr. Strellenhaus shrugged his shoulders. " I am buying for another, and I have reached his limit," said he. " If you will permit me to send for instructions " " I am afraid, sir, that the sale must proceed." " Then the horses belong to this gentleman." For the first time he turned towards his rival, and their glances crossed like sword-blades. " It is possible that I may see the horses again." " I hope so," said Mr. Mancune ; and his white, waxed moustache gave a feline upward bristle. So, with a bow, they separated. Mr. Strellenhaus walked down to the telegraph-office, where his message was delayed because Mr. Worlington Dodds was already at the end of the wires, for, after dim guesses and vague conjecture, he had suddenly caught a clear view of this coming event which had cast so curious a shadow before it in this little Irish town. Political rumours, names, appearances, telegrams, seasoned horses at any price, there could only be one meaning to it. He held a secret, and he meant to use it. A SHADOW BEFORE. 243 Mr. Warner, who was the partner of Mr. Worlington Uodds, and who was suffering from the same eclipse, had gone down to the Stock Exchange, but had found little consolation there, for the European system was in a ferment, and rumours of peace and of war ^vere succeeding each other with such rapidity and assurance that it was impossible to know which to trust. It was obvious that a fortune lay either way, for every rumour set the funds fluctuating; but without special information it was impossible to act, and no one dared to plunge heavily upon the strength of news- paper surmise and the gossip of the street. Warner knew that an hour's work might resuscitate the fallen fortunes of himself and his partner, and yet he could not afford to make a mistake. He returned to his office in the afternoon, half inclined to back the chances of peace, for of all war-scares not one in ten comes to pass. As he entered the office a telegram lay upon the table. It was from Dunsloe, a place of which he had never heard, and was signed by his absent partner. The message was in cypher, but he soon translated it, for it was short and crisp. " I am a bear of everything German and French. Sell, sell, sell, keep on selling." For a moment Warner hesitated. What could Worlington Dodds know at Dunsloe which was not known in Throgmorton Street ? But he remembered the quickness and decition of his partner. He would 244 A SHADOW BEFORE. not have sent such a message without very good grounds. If he was to act at all he must act at once, so, hardening his heart, he went down to the house, and, dealing upon that curious system by which a man can sell what he has not got, and what he c6uld not pay for if he had it, he disposed of heavy parcels of French and German securities. He had caught the market in one of its little spasms of hope, and there was no lack of buying until his own persistent selling caused others to follow his lead, and so brought about a reaction. When Warner returned to his offices it took him some hours to work out his accounts, and he emerged into the streets in the evening with the absolute certainty that the next settling-day would leave him either hopelessly bankrupt or exceedingly prosperous. It all depended upon WorUngton Dodds' information. What could he possibly have found out at Dunsloe ? ' And then suddenly he saw a newspaper-boy fasten a poster upon a lamp-post, and a little crowd had gathered round it in an instant. One of them waved his hat in the air; another shouted to a friend across the street. Warner hurried up and caught a glimpse of the poster between two craning heads — "France declares War on Germany." " By Jove ! " cried Warner. " Old Dodds was right, after all," THE KING OF THE FOXES It Avas after a hunting dinner, and there were as many scarlet coats as black ones round the table. The con- versation over the cigars had turned, therefore, in the direction of horses and horsemen, -with reminiscences of phenomenal runs where foxes had led the pack from end to end of a county, and been overtaken at last by two or three limping hounds and a huntsman on foot, while every rider in the field had been pounded. As the port circulated the runs became longer and more apocryphal, until we had the whips inquiring their way and failing to understand the dialect of the people who answered them. The foxes, too, became more eccentric, and we had foxes up pollard willows, foxes which were dragged by the tail out of horses' mangers, and foxes which had raced through an open front door and gone to ground in a lady's bonnet-box. The master had told one or two tall reminiscences, and when he cleared his throat for another we were all curious, for he was a bit of an artist in his way and produced his effects in a crescendo fashion. His face wore the earnest, practical, severely accurate expression which heralded some of his finest efforts. 243 246 THE KING OF THE FOXES. " It was before I was master," said lie. " Sir Charles Adair had the hounds at that time, and then afterwards they passed to old Lathom, and then to me. It may possibly have been just after Lathom took them over, but my strong impression is that it was in Adair's time. That would be early in the seventies — about seventy-two, I should say. " The man I mean has moved to another part of the country, but I dare say that some of you can remember him. Danbury was the name — "Walter Danbury, or Wat Danbury, as the people used to call him. He was the son of old Joe Danbury, of High Ascombe, and when his father died he came into a very good thing, for his only brother was drowned when the Magna Charta foundered, so he inherited the whole estate. It was but a few hundred acres, but it was good arable land, and those were the great days of farming. Besides, it was freehold, and a yoeman farmer with- out a mortgage was a warmish man before the great fall in wheat came. Foreign wheat and barbed wire — those are the two curses of this country, for the one spoils the farmer's work and the other spoils his play. " This young Wat Danbury was a ^ery fine fellow, a keen rider, and thorough sportsman, but his head was a little turned at having come, when so young, into a comfortable fortune, and he went the pace for a year or two. The lad had no vice in him, but there was a hard- drinking set in the neighbourhood at that time, and THE KING OF THE FOXES. 247 Danbury got drawn in among them ; and, being an amiable fellow who liked to do what his friends were doing, he very soon took to drinking a great deal more than was good for him. As a rule, a man who takes his exercise may drink as much as he likes in the evening, and do himself no very great harm, if he will leave it alone during the day. Danbury had too many friends for that, however, and it really looked as if the poor chap was going to the bad, when a very curious thing happened which pulled him up with such a sudden jerk that he never put his hand upon the neck of a whisky bottle again. " He had a peculiarity which I have noticed in a good many other men, that though he was always playing tricks with his own health, he was none the less very anxious about it, and was extremely fidgety if ever he had any trivial symptom. Being a tough, open- air fellow, who was always as hard as a nail, it was seldom that there was anything amiss with him ; but at last the drink began to tell, and he woke one morning with his hands shaking and all his nerves tingling like overstretched fiddle-strings. He had been dining at some very wet house the night before, and the wine had, per- haps, been more plentiful than choice ; at any rate, there he. was, with a tongue like a bath-towel and a head that ticked like an eight-day clock. He was very alarmed at his own condition, and he sent for Doctor Middleton, of Ascombe, the father of the man who practises there now. 248 THE KING OF THE FOXES. " Middleton had been a great friend of old Danbury's, and he was very sorry to see his son going to the devil ; so he improved the occasion by taking his case very seriously, and lecturing him upon the danger of his ways. He shook his head and talked about the possi- bility of delirium tremens, or even of mania, if he continued to lead such a life. Wat Danbury was horribly frightened. " ' Do you think I am going to get anything of the sort ? ' he wailed. " ' Well, really, I don't know,' said the doctor, gravely. ' I cannot undertake to say that you are out of danger. Your system is very much out of order. At any time during the day you might have those grave symptoms of which I warn you.' " ' You think I shall be safe by evening ? ' " ' If you drink nothing during the day, and have no nervous symptoms before evening, I think you may consider yourself safe,' the doctor answered. A little fright would, he thought, do his patient good, so he made the most of the matter. " ' What symptoms may I expect ? ' asked Danbury. " ' It generally takes the form of optical delusions.' " ' I see specks floating all about.' '"That is mere biliousness,' said the doctor sooth- ingly, for he saw that the lad was highly strung and he did not wish to overdo it. ' I dare say that you will have no symptoms of the kind, but when they do come THE Sma 01* TEE fOXES. 249 they usually take the shape of insects, or reptiles, or curious animals.' " ' And if I see anything of the kind ? ' " ' If you do, you will at once send for me ; ' and so, •with a promise of medicine, the doctor departed. " Young Wat Danbury rose and dressed and moped about the room feeling very miserable and unstrung, with a vision of the County Asylum for ever in his mind. He had the doctor's word for it that if he could get through to evening in safety he would be all right ; but it is not very exhilarating to be waiting for symp- toms, and to keep on glancing at your bootjack to see •whether it is still a bootjack or whether it has begun to develop antennse and legs. At last he could stand it no longer, and an overpowering longing for the fresh air and the green grass came over him. Why should he stay indoors when the Ascombe Hunt was meeting within half a mile of him ? If he was going to have these delusions which the doctor talked of, he would not have them the sooner nor the worse because he was on horseback in the open. He was sure, too, it would ease his aching head. And so it came about that iu ten minutes he was in his hunting- kit, and in ten more he was riding out of his stable-yard with his roan mare Matilda between his knees. He was a little unsteady in his saddle just at first, but the farther he went the better he felt, until by the time he reached the meet his head was almost clear, and there was nothing troubling 250 THE KING OP THE FOXES. him except those haunting words of the doctor's about the possibility of delusions any time before nightfall. " But soon he forgot that also, for as he came up the hounds were thrown off, and they drew the Gravel Hanger and afterwards the Hickory Copse. It was just the morning for a scent— no wind to blow it away, no water to wash it out, and just damp enough to make it cling. There was a field of forty, all keen men and good riders, so when they came to the^ Black Hanger they knew that there would be some sport, for that's a cover which never draws blank. The woods were thicker in those days than now, and the foxes were thicker also, and that great dark oak-grove was swarming with them. The only difficulty was to make them break, for it is, as you know, a very close country, and you must coax them out into the open before you can hope for a run. "When they came to the Black Hanger the field took their positions along the cover-side wherever they thought that they were most likely to get a good start. Some went in with the hounds, some clustered at the spends of the drives, and some kept outside in the hope of the fox breaking in that direction. Young Wat Danbury knew the country like the palm of his hand, so he made for a place where several drives intersected, and there he waited. He had a feeling that the faster and the farther he galloped the better he should be, and so he was chafing to be off. His mare, too, was in the height of fettle and one of the fastest goers in the THE KING OF THE FOXES. 251 county. Wat was a splendid light-weight rider — under ten stone with his saddle — and the mare was a powerful creature, all quarters and shoulders, fit to carry a lifeguardsman ; and sd it was no wonder that there was hardly a man in the field who could hope to stay with him. There he waited and listened to the shouting of the huntsman and the whips, catching a glimpse now and then in the darkness of the wood of a whisking tail, or the gleam of a white-and-tan side amongst the underwood. It was a well-trained pack, and there was not so much as a whine to tell you that forty hounds were working all round you. " And then suddenly there came one long-drawn yell from one of them, and it was taken up by another, and another, until within a few seconds the whole pack was giving tongue together and running on a hot scent. Danbury saw them stream across one of the drives and disappear upon the other side, and an instant later the three red coats of the hunt-servants flashed after them upon the same line. He might have made a shorter cut down one of the other drives, but he was afraid of heading the fox, so he followed the lead of the hunts- man. Eight through the wood they went in a bee-line, galloping with their faces brushed by their horses' manes as they stooped under the branches. It's ugly going, as you know, with the roots all wriggling about in the darkness, but you can take a risk when you catch an occasional glimpse of the pack running with a 252 THE KING OF THE FOXES. breast-high scent ; so ia and out they dodged, until the wood began to tbia at the edges, and they found them- selves in the long bottom where the river runs. It is clear going there upon grassland, and the hounds were run- ning very strong about two hundred yards ahead, keeping parallel with the stream. The field, who had come round the wood instead of going through, were coming hard over the fields upon the left ; but Danbury, with the hunt-servants, had a clear lead, and they never lost it. Two of the field got on terms with them : Parson Geddes on a big seventeen-hand bay which he used to ride in those days, and Squire Foley, who rode as a feather- weight, and made his hunters out of cast thoroughbreds from the Newmarket sales ; but the others never had a look-in from start to finish, for there was no check and no pulling, and it was clear cross-country racing from start to finish. If you had drawn a line right across the map with a pencil you couldn't go straighter than that fox ran, heading for the South Downs and the sea ; and the hounds ran as surely as if they were running to view, and yet from the beginning no one ever saw the fox, and there was never a hallo forrard to tell them that he had been spied. This, however, is not so sur- prising, for if you've been over that line of country you will know that there are not very many people about. " There were six of them then in the front row : Parson Geddes, Squire Foley, the huntsman, two whips, and Wat Danbury, who had forgotten all about his THE KIXG OF THE FOXES. 253 head and the doctor by this time, and had not a thought for anything but the run. All six were galloping just as hard as they could lay hoofs to the ground. One of the whips dropped back, however, as some of the hounds were tailing off, and that brought them down to five. Then Foley's thoroughbred strained herself, as these slim-legged, dainty-fetlocked thorough- breds will do when the going is rough, and he had to take a back seat. But the other four were still going strong, and they did four or five miles down the river flat at a rasping pace. It had been a wet winter, and the waters had been out a little time before, so there was a deal of sliding and splashing ; but by the time they came to the bridge the whole field was out of sight, and these four had the hunt to themselves. " The fox had crossed the bridge — for foxes do not care to swim a chilly river any more than humans do — and from that point he had streaked away southward as hard as he could tear. It is broken country, rolling heaths, down one slope and up another, and it's hard to say whether the up or the down is the more trying for the horses. This sort of switchback work is all right for a cobby, short- backed, short-legged little horse, but it is killing work for a big, long-striding hunter such as one wants in the Midlands. Anyhow, it was too much for Parson Geddes' seventeen-hand bay, and, though he tried the Irish trick — for he was a rare keen sportsman — of run- ning up the bills by his horse's head, it was all to no use, 254 THE KING OF THE FOXES. and he had to give it up. So then there was only the huntsman, the whip, and Wat Danbury — all going strong. " But the country got worse and worse, and the hills were steeper and more thickly covered in heather and bracken. The horses were over their hocks all the time, and the place was pitted with rabbit-holes ; but the hounds were still streaming along, and the riders could not afford to pick their steps. As they raced down one slope, the hounds were always flowing up the opposite one, until it looked like that game where the one figure in falling makes the other one rise. But never a glimpse did they get of the fox, although they knew very well that he must be only a very short way ahead for the scent to lie so strong. And then Wat Danbury heard a crash and a thud at his elbow, and looking round he saw a pair of white cords and top-boots kick- ing out of a tussock of brambles. The whip's horse had stumbled, and the whip was out of the running. Danbury and the huntsman eased down for an instant ; and then, seeing the man staggering to his feet all right, they turned and settled into their saddles once more. " Joe Clarke, the huntsman, was a famous old rider, known for five counties round ; but he reckoned upon his second horse, and the second horses had all been left many miles behind. However, the one he was riding was good enough for anything with such a horseman upon his back, and he was going as well as when he started. As to Wat Danbury, he jvas going better. THE KING OP THE FOXES. 255 With every stride his. OAvn feelings improved, and the mind of the rider has its influence upon the mind of the horse. The stout little roan was gathering its muscular limbs under it and stretching to the gallop as if it were steel and whalebone instead of flesh and blood. Wat had never come to the end of its powers yet, and to-day he had such a chance of testing them as he had never had before. "There was a pasture country beyond the heather slopes, and for several miles the two riders were either losing ground as they fumbled with their crop-handles at the bars of gates, or gaining it again as they galloped over the fields. Those were the days before this accursed wire came into the country, and you could generally break a hedge where you could not fly it, so they did not trouble the gates more than they could help. Then they were down in a hard lane, where they had to slacken their pace, and through a farm where a man came shouting excitedly after them ; but they had no time to stop and listen to him, for the hounds were on some ploughland, only two fields ahead. It was sloping upwards, that ploughland, and the horses were over their fetlocks in the red, soft soil. When they reached the top they were blowing badly, but a grand- valley sloped before them, leading up to the open country of the South Downs. Between, there lay a belt of pine- woods, into which the hounds were streaming, running nQ\v in a long, straggling line and shedding one here and 256 THE KING OF THE FOXES. one there as they ran. You could see the white -and- tan dots here and there where the limpers were tailing away. But half the pack were still going well, though the pace and distance had both been tremendous— two clear hours now without a check. " There ■was a drive through the pinewood — one of those green, slightly-rutted drives where a horse can get the last yard out of itself, for the ground is hard enough to give him clean going and yet springy enough to help him. Wat Danbury got alongside of the huntsman and they galloped together with their stirrup-irons touching, and the hounds within a hundred yards of them. " ' We have it all to ourselves,' said he. " ' Yes, sir, we've shook off the lot of 'em this time,' said old Joe Clarke. ' If we get this fox it's worth while 'aving 'im skinned an' stuffed, for 'e's a curiosity 'e is.' " ' It's the fastest run I ever had in my life ! ' cried Danbury. '"And the fastest that ever I 'ad, an' that means more,' said the old huntsman. ' But what licks me is that we've never 'ad a look at the beast. 'E must leave an amazin' scent be'ind 'im when these 'ounds can follow 'm like this, and yet none of us have seen 'ira when we've 'ad a clear 'alf mile view in front of us.' " ' I expect we'll have a view of him presently,' said Danbury ; and in his mind he added, ' at least, I shall,' for the huntsman's horse was gasping as it ran, and the white foam was pouring down it like the side of a washing-tub. THE KlNa OF THE FOXES. 257 " They had followed the hounds on to one of the side tracks which led out of the main drive, and that divided into a smaller track still, where the branches switched across their faces as they went and there was barely room for one horse at a time. Wat Danbury took the lead, and he heard the huntsman's horse clumping along heavily behind him, while his own mare was going with less spring than when she had started. She answered to a touch of his crop or spur, however, and he felt that there was something still left to draw upon. And then he looked up, and there was a heavy wooden stild at the end of the narrow track, with a lane of stiff young saplings leading down to it, which was far too thick to break through. The hounds were running clear upon the grassland on the other side, and you were bound either to get over that stile or lose sight of them, for the pace was too hot to let you go round. " Well, Wat Danbury was not the lad to flinch, and at it he went full split, like a man who means what he is doing. She rose gallantly to it, rapped it hard with her front hoof, shook him on to her withers, recovered herself, and was over. Wat had hardly got back into his saddle when there was a clatter behind him like the fall of a woodstack, and there was the top bar in splinters, the horse on its belly, and the huntsman on hands and knees half a dozen yards in front of him. Wat pulled up for an instant, for the fall was a smasher; but he saw old Joe spring to his feet and get to his s •258 THE KING OF THE FOXES. horse's bridle. The horse staggered up, but the moment it put one foot in front of the other Wat saw that it was hopelessly lame — a slipped shoulder and a six weeks' job. There was nothing he could do, and Joe was shouting to him not to lose the hounds, so off he went again, the one solitary survivor of the whole hunt. When a man finds himself there, he can retire from fox-hunting, for he has tasted the highest which it has to offer. I remember once when I was out with the Iloyal Surrey — but I'll tell you that story afterwards. " The pack, or what was left of them, had got a bit ahead during this time; but he had a clear view of them on the downland, and the mare seemed full of pride at being the only one left, for she was stepping out rarely and tossing her head as she went. There were two miles over the green shoulder of a hill, a rattle down a stony, deep-rutted country lane, where the mare stumbled and nearly came down, a jump over a five-foot brook, a cut through a hazel copse, another do3e of heavy ploughland, a couple of gates to open, and then the green, unbroken Downs beyond. ' Well,' said Wat Danbury to himself, ' I'll see this fox run into or I shall see it drowned, for it's all clear going now between this and the chalk cliffs which line the sea." " But he was wrong in that, as he speedily discovered. In all the little hollows of the Downs at that part there are plantations of fir-woods, some of which have grown to a good size. You do not see them until you come THE KING OF THE FOXES. 259 upon tlie edge of the valleys in which they lie. Dan- bury was galloping hard over the short, springy turf ■when he came over the lip of one of these depressions, and there was the dark clump of wood lying in frout of and beneath him. There were only a dozen hounds still running, and they were just disappearing among the trees. The sunlight was shining straight upon the long, olive-green slopes which curved down towards this wood, and Danbury, who had the eyes of a hawk, swept them over this great expanse; but there was nothing moving upon it. A few sheep were grazing far up on the right, but there was no other sight of any living creature. He was certain then that he was very near to the end, for either the fox must have gone to ground in the wood or the hounds' noses must be at his very brush. The mare seemed to know also what that great empty sweep of countryside meant, for she quickened her stride, and a few minutes afterwards Danbury was galloping into the fir-wood. " He had come from bright sunshine, but the wood was very closely planted, and so dim that he could hardly see to right or to left out of the narrow path down which he was riding. You know what a solemn, churchyardy sort of place a fir-wood is. I suppose it is the absence of any undergrowth, and the fact that the trees never move at all. At any rate a kind of chill suddenly struck Wat Danbury, and it flashed through his mind that there had been 260 THE KING OF THE FOXES. some very singular points about this run — its length and its straightness, and the fact that from the first find no one had ever caught a glimpse of the creature. Some silly talk which had been going round the country about the king of the foxes — a sort of demon fox, so fast that it could outrun any pack, and so fierce that they could do nothing with it if they overtook it — suddenly came back into his mind, and it did not seem so laughable now in the dim fir-wood as it had done when the story had been told over the wine and cigars. The nervousness which had been on him in the morning, and which he had hoped that he had shaken off, swept over him again in an overpowering wave. He had beey so proud of being alone, and yet he would have given ten pounds now to have had Joe Clarke's homely face beside him. And then, just at that moment, there broke out from the thickest part of the wood the most frantic hullaballoo that ever he had heard in his life. The hounds had run into their fox. " Well, you know, or you ought to know, what your duty is in such a case. You have to be whip, hunts- man, and everything else if you are the first man up. You get in among the hounds, lash them off, and keep the brUsh and pads from being destroyed. Of course, Wat Danbury knew all about that, and he tried to force his mare through the trees to the place where all this hideQus screaming and howling came from, but the wood was so thick that it was impossible to ride it. TtlE lilSG OP THE IroXES. 261 He sprang off, therefore, left the mare standing, and broke his way through as best he could with his hunt- ing-lash ready over his shoulder. But as he ran forward he felt his flesh go cold and creepy all over. He had heard hounds run into foxes many times before, but he had never heard such sounds as these. They were not the cries of triumph, but of fear. Every now and then came a shrill ye]p of mortal agony. Holding his breath, he ran on until he broke through the inter- lacing branches and found himself in a little clearing with the hounds all crowding round a patch of tangled bramble at the further end. "When he first caught sight of them the hounds were standing iu a half-circle round this bramble-patch with their backs bristling and their jaws gaping. In front of the brambles lay one of them with his throat torn out, all crimson and white-and-tan. Wat came running out into the clearing, and at the sight of him the hounds took heart again, and one of them sprang with a growl into the bushes. At the same instant, a creature the size of a donkey jumped on to its feet, a huge grey hefid, with monstrous glistening fangs and tapering fox jaws, shot out from among the branches, and the hound was thrown several feet into the air, and fell howling among the cover. Then there was a clashing snap like a rat-trap closing, and the howls sharpened into a scream and then were still. "Danbury had been on the look-out for symptoms 262 THE KIXG OF THE FOXES. all day, and now he had found them. He looked once more at the thicket, saw a pair of savage red eyes fixed upon him, and fairly took to his heels. It might only be a passing delusion, or it might be the permanent mania of which the doctor had spoken, but, anyhow, the thing to do was to get back to bed and to quiet, and to hope for the best. He forgot the hounds, the hunt, and everything else in his desperate fears for his own reason. He sprang upon liis mare, galloped her madly over the downs, and only stopped when he found himself at a country station. There he left his mare at the inn, and made back for home as quickly as steam would take him. It was evening before he got there, shivering with apprehension and seeing those red eyes and savage teeth at every turn. He went straight to bed and sent for Dr. Middle ton. " ' I've got 'em, doctor,' said he. 'It came about exactly as you said — strange creatures, optical delusions, and everything. All I ask you now is to save my reason.' " The doctor listened to his story and was shocked as he heard it. " ' It appears to be a very clear case,' said he. ' This must be a lesson to you for life.' " ' Never a drop again if I only come safely through this,' cried Wat Danbury. " ' Wei], my dear boy, if you will stick to that it may prove a blessing in disguise. But the difficulty in this ease is to know where fact ends and fancy begins. TnE KING OF THE FOXKS. 263 You see, it is not as if there was only one delusion. There have been several. The dead dogs, for example, must have been one as well as the creature in the bush.' " ' I saw it all as clearly as I see you.' " ' One of the characteristics of this form of delirium is that what you see is even clearer than reality. I was won- dering whether the whole run was not a delusion also.' " Wat Danbury pointed to his hunting-boots still lying upon the floor, flecked with the splashings of two counties. " ' Hum ! that looks very real, certainly. No doubt, in your weak state, you over-exerted yourself and so brought this attack upon yourself. Well, whatever the cause, our treatment is clear. You will take the soothing mixture which I will send to you, and we shall put two leeches upon your temples to-night to relieve any congestion of the brain.' " So Wat Danbury spent the night in tossing about and' reflecting what a. sensitive thing this machinery of ours is, and how very foolish it is to play tricks with what is so easily put out of gear and so difficult to mend. And so he repeated and repeated his oath that this first lesson should be his last, and that from that time forward he would be a sober, hard-working yeoman as his father had been before him. So he lay, tossing and still repentant, when his door flew open in the morning and in rushed the doctor with a newspaper crumpled up in his hand. " ' My dear boy,' he cried. ' I owe you a thousand apologies. You're the most ill-used lad and I the 204 THE IvIXG OF THE FOXES. greatest numskull in the county. Listen to this ! " And he sat down upon the side of the bad, flattened out his paper upon his knee, and began to read. " The paragraph was headed, ' Disaster to the Ascombe Hounds,' and it went on to say that four of the hounds, shockingly torn and mangled, had been found in Winton Fir Wood upon the South Downs. The run had been so severe that half the pack were Iffmed; but the four found in the wood were actually dead, although the cause of their extraordinary injuries was still unknown. ' So you see,' said the doctor, looking up, ' that I was wrong when I put the dead hounds among the delusions.' " ' But the cause ? ' cried Wat. " ' Well, I think we may guess the cause from an item which has been inserted just as the paper went to press. " Late last night, Mr. Brown, of Smither's Farm, to the east of Hastings, perceived what he imagined to be an enormous dog worrying one of his sheep. He shot the creature, which proves to be a grey Siberian wolf of the variety known as Lupus Giganticus. It is supposed to have escaped from some travelling menagerie." ' " That's the story, gentlemen, and Wat Danbury stuck to his good resolutions, for the fright which he had, cured him of all wish to run such a risk again; and he never touches anything stronger than lime-juice — at least, he hadn't before he left this part of the country, five years ago next Lady Day." THE THREE CORRESPONDENTS. There was only the one little feathery clump of dom palms in all that great wilderness of black rocks and orange sand. It stood high on the bank, and below it the brown Nile swirled swiftly towards the Ambigole Cataract, fitting a little frill of foam round each of the boulders which studded its surface. Above, out of a naked blue sky, the sun was beating down upon the sand, and up again from the sand under the brims of the pith-hats of the horsemen with the scorching glare of a blast-furnace. It had risen so high that the shadows of the horses were no larger than themselves. " Whew ! " cried Mortimer, mopping his forehead, " you'd pay five shillings for this at the hummums." "Precisely," said Scott. "But you are not asked to ride twenty miles in a Turkish bath with a field- glass and a revolver, and a water-bottle and a whole Christmas-treeful of things dangling from you. The hot-house at Kew is excellent as a conservatory, but not adapted for exhibitions upon the horizontal bar. I vote for a camp in the palm-grove and a halt until evening." Mortimer rose on his stirrups and looked hard to 265 266 THE THREE CORRESPONDENTS. the southward. Everywhere were the same black burned rocks and deep orange sand. At one spot only an intermittent line appeared to have been cut through the rugged spurs which ran down to the river. It was the bed of the old railway, long destroyed by the Arabs, but now in process of recon- struction by the advancing Egyptians. There was no other sign of man's handiwork in all that desolate scene. " It's palm trees or nothing," said Scott. " Well, I suppose we must ; and yet I grudge every hour until we catch the force up. What would our editors say if we were late for the action ? " "My dear chap, an old bird like you doesn't need to be told that no sane modern general would ever attack until the Press is up." " You don't mean that ? " said young Anerley. " I thoughtwewere looked upon as an unmitigated nuisance." "'Newspaper correspondents and travelling gentle- men, and all that tribe of useless drones' — being an extract from Lord Wolseley's 'Soldier's Pocket-Book,' " cried Scott. " We know all about that, Anerley ; " and he winked behind his blue spectacles. " If there was going to be a battle we should very soon have an escort of cavalry to hurry us up. I've been in fifteen, and I never saw one where they had not arranged for a reporter's table." " That's very well ; but the enemy may be less considerate," said Mortimer. THE THREE COREESPONDENTS. 267 " They are not strong enough to force a battle." " A skirmish, then ? " "Much more likely to be a raid upon the rear, la that case we are just where we should be." " So we are ! What a score over Eeuter's man up with the advance ! Well, we'll outspan and have our tiffin under the palms." There were three of them, and they stood for three great London dailies. Eeuter's was thirty miles ahead ; two evening pennies upon camels were twenty miles behind. And among them they represented the eyes and ears of the public — the great silent millions and millions who had paid for everything, and who waited so patiently to know the result of their outlay. They were remarkable men these body-servants of the Press; two of them already veterans in camps, the other setting out upon his first campaign, and full of deference for his famous comrades. This first one, who had just dismounted from his bay polo-pony, was Mortimer, of the Intelligence — tall, straight, and hawk-faced, with kharki tunic and riding- breeches, drab putties, a scarlet cummerbund, and a skin tanned to the red of a Scotch fir by sun and witid, and mottled by the mosquito and the sand-fly. The other— small, quick, mercurial, with blue-black, curling beard and hair, a fly-switch for ever flicking in his left hand^was Scott, of the Courier, who had come through more dangers and brought off more brilliant 268 THE THREE COBHESPONDENTS, coups than any man in the profession, save the eminent Chandler, now no longer in a condition to take the field. They were a singular contrast, Mortimer and Scott, and it was in their differences that the secret of their close friendship lay. Each dovetailed into the other. The strength of each was in the other's weakness. Together they formed a perfect unit. Mortimer was Saxon — slow, conscientious, and de- liberate ; Scott was Celtic — quick, happy-go-lucky, and brilliant. Mortimer was the more solid, Scott the more attractive. Mortimer was the deeper thinker, Scott the brighter talker. By a curious coincidence, though each had seen much of warfare, their campaigns had never coincided. Together they covered all recent military history. Scott had done Plevna, the Shipka, the Zulus, Egypt, Suakim; Mortimer had seen the Boer War, the Chilian, the Bulgaria and Servian, the Gordon relief, the Indian frontier, Brazilian rebellion, and Madagascar. This intimate personal knowledge gave a peculiar flavour to their talk. There was none of the second-hand surmise and conjecture which form so much of our conversation; it was all concrete and final. The speaker had been there, had seen it, and there was an end of it. In spite of their friendship there was the keenest professional rivalry between the two men. Either would have sacrificed himself to help his companion, but either would also have sacrificed his companion THE THREE CORRESPONDENTS. 26 & to help his paper. Never did a jockey yearn for a M'inniDg mount as keenly as each of them longed to have a full column in a morning edition whilst every other daily was blank. They were perfectly frank about the matter. Each professed himself ready to steal a march on his neighbour, and each recognized that the other's duty to his employer was far higher than any personal consideration. The third man was Anerley, of the Gazette — young, inexperienced, and rather simple-looking. He had a droop of the lip which some of his more intimate friends regarded as a libel upon his character, and his eyes were so slow and so sleepy that they suggested an affectation. A leaning toward soldiering had sent him twice to autumn manoeuvres, and a touch of colour in his descriptions had induced the proprietors of the Gazette to give him a trial as a war-special. There was a pleasing diffidence about his bearing which recommended him to his experienced com- panions, and if they had a smile sometimes at his guileless ways, it was soothing to them to have a comrade from whom nothing was to be feared. From the day that they left the telegraph-wire behind them at Sarras, the man who was mounted upon a fifteen- guinea thirteen-four Syrian was delivered over into the hands of the owners of the two fastest polo-ponies that ever shot down the Ghezireh ground. The three had dismounted and led their beasts under 270 THE THREE CORRESPONDENTS. the welcome shade. In the brassy, yellow glare every branch above threw so black and solid a shadow that the men involuntarily raised their feet to step over them. " The palm makes an excellent hat-rack," said Scott, slinging his revolver and his water-bottle over the little upward- pointing pegs which bristle from the trunk. "As a shade-tree, however, it isn't an un- qualified success. Curious that in the universal adaptation of means to ends something a little less flimsy could not have been devised for the tropics," " Like the banyan in India." '•' Or the iine hardwood trees in Ashantee, where a whole regiment could picnic under the shade." "The teak tree isn't bad in Burmah, either. By Jove, the baccy has all come loose in the saddle-bag ! That long-cut mixture smokes rather hot for this climate. How about the baggies, Anerleyl" " They'll be here in five minutes." Down the winding path which curved among the rocks the little train of baggage-camels was daintily picking its way. They came mincing and undulating along, turning their heads slowly from side to side with the air of a self-conscious woman. In front rode the three Berberee body-servants upon donkeys, and behind walked the Arab camel-boys. They had been travelling for nine long hours, ever since the first rising of the moon, at the weary camel-drag of two and a half miles an hour, but now they brightened, both beasts THE THREE COEKESPONDENTS. 271 and men, at the sight of the grove and the riderless horses. In a few minutes the loads were unstrapped, the animals tethered, a fire lighted, fresh water carried up from the river, and each camel provided with his own little heap of tibbin laid in the centre of the table- cloth, without which no well-bred Arabian will con- descend to feed. The dazzling light without, the sub- dued half-tones within, the green palm-fronds outlined against the deep blue sky, the flitting, silent-footed Arab servants, the crackling of sticks, the reek of a lighting fire, the placid supercilious heads of the camels, they all come back in their dreams to those who have known them. Scott was breaking eggs into a pan and rolling out a love-song in his rich, deep voice. Anerley, with his head and arms buried in a deal packing-case, was working his way through strata of tinned soups, bully beef, potted chicken and sardines to reach the jams which lay beneath. The conscientious Mortimer, with his notebook upon his knee, was jotting down what the railway engineer had told him at the line- end the day before. Suddenly he raised his eyes and saw the man himself on his chestnut pony, dipping and rising over the broken ground. " Hullo ' here's Merryweather ! " " A pretty lather his pony is in ! He's had her at that hand-gallop for hours, by the look of her. Hullo, Merryweather, hullo ! " The engineer, a small, compact man with a pointed 272 THE THREE CORRESPONDENTS. red beard, had made as though he would ride past their camp without word or halt. Now he swerved, and easing his pony down to a canter, he headed her towards them. " For God's sake, a drink ! " he croaked. " My tongue is stuck to the roof of my mouth." Mortimer ran with the water-bottle, Scott with the whisky-flask, and Anerley with the tin pannikin. The engineer drank until his breath failed him. " Well, I must be off," said he, striking the drops from his red moustache. " Any news ? " " A hitch in the railway constrnction. I must see the General. It's the devil not having a telegraph." " Anything we can report ? " Out came three note- books. " I'll tell you after I've seen the General." " Any dervishes ? " " The usual shaves. Hud-up, Jinny ! Good-bye." With a soft thudding upon the sand and a clatter among the stones the weaiy pony was off upon her journey once more. " Nothing serious, I suppose 1 " said Mortimer, staring after him. " Deuced serious," cried Scott. " The ham and eggs are burned ! No — it's all right — saved, and done to a turn ! Pull the box up, Anerley. Come on, Mortimer, stow that notebook ! The fork is mightier than the pen just at present. What's the matter with you, Anerley ? " THE THREE CORRESPONDENTS. 273 " I was wonderiug whether what we have just seeu was worth a telegram." " Well, it's for the proprietors to say if it's worth it. Sordid money considerations are not for us. We must wire about something just to justify our kharki coats and our putties." " But what is there to say ? " Mortimer's long, austere face broke into a smile ovex the youngster's innocence. " It's not quite usual in our profession to give each other tips," said he. " However, as my telegram is written, I've no objection to your reading it. You may be sure that I would not show it to you if it were of the slightest importance." Anerley took up the slip of paper and read — " Merryweather obstacles stop journey confer General stop nature difficulties later stop rumours dervishes." " This is very condensed," said Anerley, with wrinkled brows. "Condensed!" cried Scott. "Why, it's sinfully garrulous. If my old man got a wire like that his language would crack the lamp-shades. I'd cut out half this; for example, I'd have out 'journey,' and ' nature,' and ' rumours.' But my old man would make a ten-line paragraph of it for all that." " How ? " " Well, I'll do it myself just to show you. Lend me that stylo." He scribbled for a minute in his notebook. " It works out somewhat on these lines — T 274 THE THREE CORRESPONDENTS. " ' Mr. Charles H. Merryweather, the eminent rail- way engineer, who is at present engaged in superin- tending the construction of the line from Sarras to the front, has met with considerable obstacles to the rapid completion of his important task' — of course the old man knows who Merryweather is, and what he is about, so the word ' obstacles ' would suggest all that to him. ' He has to-day been compelled to make a journey of forty miles to the front in order to confer with the General upon the steps which are necessary in order to facilitate the work. Further particulars of the exact nature of the difficulties met with will be made public at a later date. All is quiet upon the line of communi- cations, though the usual persistent rumours of the presence of dervishes in the Eastern desert continue to circulate. — Our own Correspondent.' " How's that ? " cried Scott, triumphantly, and his white teeth gleamed suddenly through his black beard. " That's the sort of flapdoodle for the dear old public." " Will it interest them ? " " Oh, everything interests them. They want to know all about it ; and they like to think that there is a man who is getting a hundred a month simply in order to tell it to them." " It's very kind of you to teach me all this." " Well, it is a little unconventional, for, after all, we are here to score over each other if we can. There are no more eggs, and you must take it out in jam. Of THE THREE CORRESPONDENTS. 275 course, as Mortimer says, such a telegram as this is of no importance one way or another, except to prove to the office that we are, in the Soudan and not at Monte Carlo. But when it comes to serious work it must be every man for himself." " Is that quite necessary ? " " Why, of course it is." " I should have thought if three men were to com- bine and to share their news, they would do better than if they were each to act for himself ; and they would have a much pleasanter time of it." The two older men sat with their bread-and-jam in their hands, and an expression of genuine disgust upon their faces. "We are not here to have a pleasant time," said Mortimer, with a flash through his glasses. " We are here to do our best for our papers. How can they score over each other if we do not do the same. If we all com- bine we might as well amalgamate with Renter at once." " Why, it would take away the whole glory of the profession!" cried Scott. "At present the smartest man gets his stuff first on the wires. What inducement is there to be smart if we all share and share alike." " And at present the man with the best equipment has the best chance," remarked Mortimer, glancing across at the shot-silk polo-ponies and the cheap little Syrian gray. "That is the fair reward of foresight and enterprise. Every man for himself, and let (he best man win." 276 THE THREE COEEESPONDENTS. " That's the way to find who the best man is. Look at Chandler. He would never have got his chance if he had not played always off his own bat. You've heard how he pretended to break his leg, sent his fellow- correspondent off for the doctor, and so got a fair start for the telegraph-office." " Do you mean to say that was legitimate ? " " Everything is legitimate. It's your wits against my wits." " I should call it dishonourable." " You may call it what you like. Chandler's paper got the battle and the other's didn't. It made Chand- ler's name." " Or take Westlake," said Mortimer, cramming the tobacco into his pipe. " Hi, Abdul, you may have the dishes ! Westlake brought his stuff down by pretend- ing to be the Government courier, and using the relays of Government horses. Westlake's paper sold half a million." " Is that legitimate also ? " asked Anerley, thought- fully. " Why not ? " " Well, it looks a little like horse- stealing and lying." " Well, / think I should do a little horse-stealing and lying if I could have a column to myself in a London daily. What do you say, Scott ? " " Anything short of manslaughter." " And I'm not sure that I'd trust you there," THE THREE CORRESPONDENTS. 277 "Well, I don't think I should be guilty of news- paper man-slaughter. That I regard as a distinct breach of professional etiquette. But if any outsider comes between a highly-charged correspondent and an electric wire, he does it at his peril. My dear Anerley, I tell you frankly that if you are going to handicap yourself with scruples you may just as well be in Fleet Street as in the Soudan. Our life is irregular. Our work has never been systematized. No doubt it will be some day, but the time is not yet. Do what you can and how you can, and be first on the wires ; that's my advice to you ; and also, that when next you come upon a campaign you bring with you the best horse that money can buy. Mortimer may beat me or I may beat Mortimer, but at least we know that between us we have the fastest ponies in the country. We have neglected no chance." " I am not so certain of that," said Alortimer, slowly. " You are aware, of course, that though a horse beats a camel on twenty miles, a camel beats a horse on thirty." " What, one of those camels ? " cried Anerley in astonishment. The two seniors burst out laughing. " No, no, the real high-bred trotter — the kind of beast the dervishes ride when they make their lightning raids." " Faster than a galloping horse ? " " Well, it tires a horse down. It goes the same gait all the way, and it wants neither halt nor drink, and it 278 THE THREE CORRESPONDENTS. takes rough ground much better than a horse. They used to have long distance races at Haifa, and the camel always won at thirty." " Still, we need not reproach ourselves, Scott, for we are not very likely to have to carry a thirty -mile message. They will have the field telegraph next week." " Quite so. But at the present moment " " I know, my dear chap ; but there is no motion of urgency before the house. Load baggies at five o'clock ; so you have just three hours clear. Any sign of the evening pennies ? " Mortimer swept the northern horizon with his binoculars. " Not in sight yet." " They are quite capable of travelling during the heat of the day. Just the sort of thing evening pennies tvould do. Take care of your match, Anerley. These palm groves go up like a powder magazine if you set them alight. Bye-bye." The two men crawled under their mosquito-nets and sank instantly into the easy sleep of those whose lives are spent in the opsn. Young Anerley stood with his back against a palm tree and his briar between his lips, thinking over the advice which he had received. After all, they were the heads of the profession, these men, and it was not for him, the newcomer, to reform their methods. If they served their papers in this fashion, then he must do the same. They had at least been frank and generous in THE THREE CORRESPONDENTS. 279 teaching him the rules of the game. If it -svas good enough for them it was good enough for him. It was a broiling afternoon, and those thin frills of foam round the black, glistening necks of the Nile boulders looked delightfully cool and alluring. But it would not be safe to bathe for some hours to come. The air shimmered and vibrated over the baking stretch of sand and rock. There was not a breath of wind, and the droning and piping of the insects inclined one for sleep. Somewhere above a hoopoe was calling. Anerley knocked oiit his ashes, and was turning towards his couch, when his eye caught something moving in the desert to the south. It was a horseman riding towards them as swiftly as the broken ground would permit. A messenger from the army, thought Anerley ; and then, as he watched, the sun suddenly struck the man on the side of the head, and his chin flamed into gold. There could not be two horsemen with beards of such a colour. It was Merrj'weather, the engineer, and he was returning. What on earth was he returning for? He had been so keen to see the General, and yet he was coming back with his mission unaccomplished. Was it that bis pony was hopelessly foundered ? It seemed to be moving well. Anerley picked up Mortimer's binoculars, and a foam-spattered horse and a weary koorbash- cracking man came cantering up the centre of the field. But there was nothing in his appearance to explain the mystery of his return. 280 THE TDftEE COEllESPONDENTS. Then as he watched them they dipped down into a hollow and disappeared. He could see that it was one of those narrow khors which led to the river, and he waited, glass in hand, for their immediate reappearance. But minute passed after minute and there was no sign of them. That narrow gully appeared to have swallowed them up. And then with a curious gulp and start he saw a little gray cloud wreathe itself slowly from among the rocks and drift in a long, hazy shred over the desert. In an instant he had torn Scott and Mortimer from their slumbers. " Get up, you chaps ! " he cried. " I believe Merry- weather has been shot by dervishes." " And Eeuter not here ! " cried the two veterans, exultantly clutching at their notebooks. " Merry- weather shot ! Where ? When ? How ? " In a few words Anerley explained what he had seen. " You heard nothing ? " " Nothing." " Well, a shot loses itself very easily among rocks. By George, look at the buzzards ! " Two large brown birds were soaring in the deep blue heaven. As Scott spoke they circled down and dropped into the little khor. " That's good enough," said Mortimer, with his nose between the leaves of his book. " ' Merry weather headed dervishes stop returned stop shot mutilated stop raid communications.' How's that ? " TSE THREE COHEESPONDENTS. 281 " You think he was headed off ? " " Why else should he return ? " " In that case, if they were out in front of him and others cut him off, there must be several small raiding- parties." " I should judge so." " How ahout the ■ mutilated ' ? " " I've fought against Arabs before." " Where are you off to ? " "Sarras." " I think I'll race you in," said Scott. Anerley stared in astonishment at the absolutely impersonal way in which these men regarded the situation. In their zeal for news it had apparently never struck them that they, their camp and their servants, were all in the lion's mouth. But even as they talked there came the harsh, importunate rat-tat- tat of an irregular volley from among the rocks, and the high, keening whistle of bullets over their heads. A palm spray fluttered down amongst them. At the same instant the six frightened servants came running wildly in for protection. It was the cool-headed Mortimer who organized the defence, for Scott's Celtic soul was so aflame at all this " copy " in hand and more to come, that he was too exuberantly boisterous for a commander. The other, with his spectacles and his stern face, soon had the servants in hand. 282 THE THREE CORRESPONDENTS. " Tali ' henna ! Egri ! What the deuce are you frightened about ? Put the camels between the palm trunks. That's right. Now get the kuee-tethers on them. Quies ! Did you never hear bullets before ? Now put the donkeys here. Not much — you don't get my polo- pony to make a zareba with. Picket the ponies between the grove and the river out of danger's way. These fellows seem to fire even higher than they did in '85;" " That's got home, anyhow," said Scott, as they heard a soft, splashing thud like a stone in a mud-bank. " Who's hit, then ? " " The brown camel that's chewing the cud." As he spoke the creature, its jaw still working, laid its long neck along the ground and closed its large dark eyes. " That shot cost me fifteen pounds," said Mortimer, ruefully. " How many of them do you make ? " "Four, I think." " Only four Bezingers, at any rate ; there may be some spearmen." " I think not ; it is a little raiding-party of riflemen. r>y the way, Anerley, you've never been under fire before, have you ? " " Never," said the young pressman, who was conscious of a curious feeling of nervous elation. " Love and poverty and war, they are all experiences necessary to make a complete life. Pass over those cartridges. This is a very mild baptism that you are undergoing, for behind these camels you are as safe as THE THREE COERESPONDENTS. 283 if you were sitting in the back room of the Authors' Club." "As safe, but hardly as comfortable," said Scott, " A long glass of hock and seltzer would be exceedingly acceptable. But oh, Mortimer, what a chance ! Think of the General's feelings Avhen he hears that the first action of the war has been fought by the Press column. Think of Eeuter, who has been stewing at the front for a week ! Think of the evening pennies just too late for the fun ! By George, that slug brushed a mosquito off me ! " " And one of the donkeys is hit." " This is sinful. It will end in our having to carry^ our own kits to Khartoum." " Never mind, my boy, it all goes to make copy. I can see the headlines — ' Eaid on Communications ' : ' Murder of British Engineer ' : ' Press Column Attacked.' Won't it be ripping ? " " I wonder what the next line will be," said Anerley. " ' Our Special Wounded ! ' " cried Scott, rolling over on to his back. " No harm done," he added, gathering himself up again ; " only a chip off my knee. This is getting sultry. I confess that the idea of that back room at the Authors' Club begins to grow upon me." " I have some diachylon." " Afterwards will do. We're having ' a 'appy day with Fuzzy on the rush.' I wish he tvould rush." " They're coming nearer." " This is an excellent revolver of mine if it didn't 284 THE THREE COEHESPONDENTS. throw so devilish high. I always aim at a man's toe3 if I want to stimulate his digestion. Lord, there's our kettle gone ! " With a boom like a dinner-gongaEemington bullet had passed through the kettle, and a cloud of steam hissed up from the fire. A wild shout came from the rocks above. "The idiots think that they have blown us up. They'll rush us now, as sure as fate ; then it will be our turn to lead. Got your revolver, Anerley ? " " I have this double-barrelled fowling-piece." " Sensible man ! It's the best weapon in the world at this sort of rough-and tumble work. What cartridges ? " " Swan-shot." " That will do all right. I carry this big bore double- barrelled pistol loaded with slugs. You might as well try to stop one of these fellows with a peashooter as with a service revolver." "There are ways and means," said Scott. "The Geneva Convention does not hold south of the first cataract. It's easy to make a bullet mushroom by a little manipulation of the tip of it. When I was in the broken square at Tamai " "Wait a bit," cried Mortimer, adjusting his glasses. " I think they are coming now." "The time," said Scott, snapping up his watch, " being exactly seventeen minutes past four." Anerley had been lying behind a camel, staring with an interest which bordered upon fascination at the rocks THE THEEE CORRESPONDENTS. 285 opposite. Here was a little woolly piiff of smoke, aod there was another one, but never once had they caught a glimpse of the attackers. To him there was some- thing weird and awesome in these unseen, persistent men who, minute by minute, "were drawing closer to them. He had heard them cry out when the kettle was broken, and once, immediately afterwards, an enormously strong voice had roared something which had set Scott shrugging his shoulders. " They've got to take us first," said he, and Anerley thought his nerve might be better if he did not ask for a translation. The firing had begun at a distance of some hundred yards, which put it out of the question for them, with their lighter weapons, to make any reply to it. Had their antagonists continued to keep that range the defenders must either have made a hopeless sally or tried to shelter themselves behind their zareba as best they might on the chance that the sound might bring up help. But luckily for them the African had never taken kindly to the rifle, and his primitive instinct to close with his enemy is always too strong for his sense of strategy. They were drawing in, therefore, and now for the first time Anerley caught sight of a face looking at them from over a rock. It was a huge, virile, strong- jawed head of a pure negro type, with silver trinkets gleaming ia the ears. The man raised a great arm from behind the rock and shook his Eemington at them. 286 THE THREE COBRBSPONDENTS. " Shall I fire ? " asked Anerley. " IsTOj no, it is too far ; your shot would scatter all over the place." " It's a picturesque ruffian," said Scott. " Couldn't you kodak him, Mortimer ? There's another ! " A fine-featured brown Arab, with a black, pointed beard, was peeping from behind another boulder. He wore the green turban which proclaimed him hadji, and his face showed the keen, nervous exultation of the religious fanatic. " They seem a piebald crowd," said Scott. " That last is one of the real fighting Baggara," remarked Mortimer. " He's a dangerous man." " He looks pretty vicious. There's another negro ! " " Two more ! Dingas, by the look of them. Just the same chaps we get our own black battalions from. As long as they get a fight they don't mind who it's for ; but if the idiots had only sense enough to understand, they would know that the Arab is their hereditary enemy, and we their hereditary friends. Look at the silly juggins gnashing his teeth at the very men who put down the slave trade ! " " Couldn't you explain ? " " I'll explain with this pistol when he comes a little nearer. Now sit tight, Anerley. They're off! " They were indeed. It was the brown man with the green turban who headed the rush. Close at his heels was the negro with the silver earrings — a giant of a THE THKEE CORRESrONDENTS. 287 mau, and the other two were only a little behind. As they sprang over the rocks one after the other, it took Anerley back to the school sports when he held the tape for the hurdle-race. It was magnificent, the wild spirit and abandon of it, the flutter of the chequered galabeeahs, the gleam of steel, the wave of black arms, the frenzied faces, the quick pitter-patter of the rushing feet. The law-abiding Briton is so imbued with the idea of the sanctity of human life that it was hard for the young pressman to realize that these men had every intention of killing him, and that he was at per- fect liberty to do as much for them. He lay staring as if this were a show and he a spectator. " Now, Anerley, now ! Take the Arab ! " cried some- body. He put up the gun and saw the brown fierce face at the other end of the barrel. He tugged at the trigger, but the face grew larger and fiercer with every stride. Again and again he tugged. A revolver-shot rang out at his elbow, then another one, and he saw a red spot spring out on the Arab's brown breast. But he was still coming on. " Shoot, you ass, shoot ! " screamed Scott. Again he strained unavailingly at the trigger. There were two more pistol-shots, and the big negro had fallen and risen and fallen again. •'■■ Cock it, you fool ! " shouted a furious voice ; and at the same instant, with a rush and flutter, the Arab 288 THE THREE CORRESPONDENTS. bounded over the prostrate camel and came down with his bare feeb upon Anerley's chest. In a dream he seemed to be struggling frantically with some one upon the ground, then he was conscious of a tremendous explosion in his very face, and so ended for him the first action of the war. " Good-bye, old chap. You'll be all right. Give yourself time." It was Mortimer's voice, and he became dimly conscious of a iong-spectacled face, and of a heavy hand upon his shoulder. " Sorry to leave you. We'll be lucky now if we are in time for the morning editions." Scott was tightening his girth as he spoke. " We'll put in our wire that you have been hurt, so your people will know why they don't hear from you. If Eeuter or the evening pennies come up, don't give the thing away. Abbas will look after you, and we'll be back to-morrow afternoon. Bye-bye ! " Anerley heai-d it all, though he did not feel energy enough to answer. Then, as he watched two sleek brown ponies with their yellow-clad riders dwindling among the rocks, his memory cleared suddenly, and he realized that the first great journalistic chance of his life was slipping away from him. It was a small fight, but it was the first of the war, and the great public at home was all athirst for news. They would have it in the Courier ; they would hav§ it in the Intellir/encc, and not THE THREE COERESPONDBNTS. 289 a word in the Gazette. The thought brought him to his feet, though he had to throw his arm round the stem of the palm tree to steady his swimming head. There was the big black man lying where he had fallen, his huge chest pocked with bullet-marks, every wound rosetted with its circle of flies. The Arab was stretched out within a few yards of him, with two hands clasped over the dreadful thing which had been his head. Across him was lying Anerley's fowling-piece, one barrel dis- charged, the other at half cock. " Scott effendi shoot him your gun," said a voice. It was Abbas, his English-speaking body-servant. Anerley groaned at the disgrace of it. He had lost his head so completely that he had forgotten to cock his gun ; and yet he knew that it was not fear but interest which had so absorbed him. He put his hand up to his head and felt that a wet handkerchief was bound round his forehead. " Where are the two other dervishes ? " " They ran away. One got shot in arm." " What's happened to me ? " " Effendi got cut on head. Effendi catch bad man by arms, and Scott effendi shoot him. Face burn very bad." Anerley became conscious suddenly that there was a pringling about his skin and an overpowering smell of burned hair under his nostrils. He put his hand to his moustache. It was gone. His eyebrows too ? He could not find them. His head, no doubt, was very near U 290 THE THREE CORRESPONDENTS. to the dervish's when they were rolling upon the ground together, and this was the effect of the explosion of his own gun. Well, he would have time to grow some more hair before he saw Fleet Street again. But the cut, perhaps, was a more serious matter. Was it enougli to prevent him from getting to the telegraph-office at Sarras ? The only way was to try and see. But there was only that poor little Syrian gray of his. There it stood in the evening sunshine, with a sunk head and a bent knee, as if its morning's work was still heavy upon it. What hope was there of being able to do thirty-five miles of heavy going upon that ? It would be a strain upon the splendid ponies of his com- panions—and they were the swiftest and most enduring in the country. The most enduring ? There was one creature more enduring, and that was a real trotting camel. If he had had one he might have got to the wires first after all, for Mortimer had said that over thirty miles they have the better of any horse. Yes, if he had only had a real trotting camel ! And then like a flash came Mortimer's words, " It is the kind of beast that the dervishes ride when they make their lightning raids." The beasts the dervishes ride ! What had these dead dervishes ridden ? In an instant he was clambering up the rocks, with Abbas protesting at his heels. Had the two fugitives carried away all the camels, or had they been content to save themselves ? The brass gleam from a litter of empty Eemington cases caught his eye, and THE THREE CORRESPONDENTS. 291 showed where the enemy had been crouching. And then he could have shouted for joy, for there, in the hollow, some little distance off, rose the high, graceful white neck and the elegant head of such a camel as he had never set eyes upon before — a swan-like, beautiful creature, as far from the rough, clumsy baggies as the cart-horse is from the racer. The beast was kneeling under the shelter of the rocks with its waterskin and bag of doora slung over its shoul- ders, and its forelegs tethered Arab fashion with a rope round the kness. Anerley threw his leg over the front pommel while Abbas slipped off the cord. Forward flew Anerley towards the creature's neck, then violently backwards, clawing madly at anything which might save him, and then, with a jerk which nearly snapped his loins, he was thrown forward again. But the camel was on its legs now, and the young pressman was safely seated upon one of the fliers of the desert. It was as gentle as it was swift, and it stood oscillating its long neck and gazing round with its large brown eyes, whilst Anerley coiled his legs round the peg and grasped the curved camel-stick which Abbas had handed up to him. There were two bridle-cords, one from the nostril and one from the neck, but he remembered that Scott had said that it was the servant's and not the house-bell which had to be pulled, so he kept his grasp- upon the lower. Then he touched the long, vibrating neck with his stick, and in an instant Abbas' farewells seemed 292 THE THREE CORRESPONDENTS. to come from far behind him, and the black rocks and yellow sand were dancing past on either side. It was his first experience of a trotting camel, and at first the motion, although irregular and abrupt, was not unpleasant. Having no stirrup or fixed point of any kind, he could not rise to it, but he gripped as tightly as he could with his knee, and he tried to sway backwards and forwards as he had seen tlie Arabs do. It was a large, very concave Makloofa saddle, and he was conscious that he was bouncing about on it with as little power of adhesion as a billiard-ball upon a tea- tray. He gripped the two sides with his hands to hold himself steady. The creature had got into its long, swinging, stealthy trot, its sponge-like feet making no sound upon the hard sand. Anerley leaned back with his two hands gripping hard behind him, and he whooped the creature on. The sun had already sunk behind the line of black volcanic peaks, which look like huge slag-heaps at the mouth of a mine. The western sky had taken that lovely light-green and pale-pink tint which makes evening beautiful upon the Nile, and the old brown river itself, swirling down amongst the black rocks, caught some shimmer of the colours above. The glai-e, the heat, and the piping of the insects had all ceased together. In spite of his aching head, Anerley could have cried out for pure physical joy as the swift creature beneath him flew along with him through that cool, THE THREE CORIIESPONDENTS. 293 invigorating air, with the virile north Avind soothing his pringling face. He had looked at his M'atch, and now he made a swift calculation of times and distances. It was past six when he had left the camp. Over broken ground it was impossible that he could hope to do more than seven miles an hour — less on bad parts, more on the smooth. His recollection of the track was that there were few smooth and many bad. He would be lucky, then, if he reached Sarras anywhere from twelve to one. Then the messages took a good two hours to go through, for they had to be transcribed at Cairo. At the best he could only hope to have told his story in Fleet Street at two or three in the morning. It was possible that he might manage it, but the chances seemed enormously against him. About three the morning edition would be made up, and his chance gone for ever. The one tiling clear was that only the first man at the wires would have any chance at all, and Anerley meant to be first if hard riding could do it. So he tapped away at the bird-like neck, and the creature's long, loose limbs went faster and faster at every tap. Where the rocky spurs ran down to the river, horses would have to go round, while camels might get across, so that Anerley felt that he was always gaining upon his companions. But there was a price to be paid for the feeling. He had heard of men who had burst when on camel journeys, and he knew that the Arabs swathe their 294 THE THREE CORRESPONDENTS. bodies tightly in broad cloth bandages when they pre- pare for a long march. It had seemed unnecessary and ridiculous when he first began to speed over the level track, but now, when he got on the rocky paths, he understood what it meant. Never for an instant was he at the same angle. Backwards, forwards he swung, with a tingling jar at the end of each sway, until he ached from his neck to his knee. It caught him across the shoulders, it caught him down the spine, it gripped him over the loins, it marked the lower line of his ribs with one heavy, dull throb. He clutched here and there with his hand to try and ease the strain upon his muscles. He drew up his knees, altered his seat, and set his teeth with a grim determination to go through with it should it kill him. His head was splitting, his flayed face smart- ing, and every joint in his body aching as if it were dis- located. But he forgot all that when, with the rising of the moon, he heard the clinking of horses' hoofs down upon the track by the river, and knew that, unseen by them, he had already got well abreast of his companions. But he was hardly halfway and the time already eleven. All day the needles had been ticking away without intermission in the little corrugated iron hut which served as a telegraph station at Sarras. With its bare walls and its packing-case seats it was none the less for the moment one of the vital spots upon the earth's surface, and the crisp, importunate ticking might have come from the world-old clock of Destiny. Many THE THREE CORRESPONDENTS. 295 august people Lad been at the other end of those wires, and had communed with the moist-faced military clerk. A French Premier had demanded a pledge, and an English marquis had passed on the request to the General in command, with a question as to how it would affect the situation. Cipher telegrams had nearly driven the clerk out of his wits, for of all crazy occupations the taking of a cipher message, when you are without the key to the cipher, is the worst. Much high diplomacy had been going on all day in the inner- most chambers of European chancellaries, and the results of it had been whispered into this little corru- gated iron hut. About two in the morning an enormous despatch had come at last to an end, and the weary operator had opened the door, and was lighting his pipe in the cool, fresh air, when he saw a camel plump down in the dust, and a man, who seemed to be in the last stage of drunkenness, come rolling towards him. "What's the time?" he cried, in a voice which appeared to be the only sober thing about him. It was on the clerk's lips to say that it was time that the questioner was in his bed, but it is not safe upon a campaign to be ironical at the expense of kharki-clad men. He contented himself therefore with the bald statement that it was after two. But no retort that he could have devised could have had a more crushing effect. The voice turned drunken also, and the man caught at the door-post to uphold him. 256 THE THfiEE COfeRESPOKDENTS. " Two o'clock ! I'm clone after all I " said lie. His head was tied up in a bloody handkerchief, his face was crimson, and he stood with his legs crooked as if the pith had all gone out of his back. The clerk began to realize that something out of the ordinary was in the wind. " How long does it take to get a wire to London ? " " About two hours." " And it's two now. I could not get it there before four." " Before three." " Four." " No, three." " But you said two hours." " Yes, but there's more than an hour's difference in longitude." " By Heaven, I'll do it yet ! " cried Anerley, and staggering to a packing-case, he began the dictation of his famous despatch. And so it came about that the Gazette had a long column, with headlines like an epitaph, when the sheets of the Intelligence and the Courier were as blank as the faces of their editors. And so, too, it happened tliat when two weary men, upon two foundered horses, arrived about four in the morning at the Sarras post- oiSce they looked at each other in silence and departed noiselessly, with the conviction that there are some situations with which the English language is not capable of dealing. THE NEW CATACOMB. -*LoOK here, Burger,' said Kennedy, " I do wish tliat you would confide in me." The two famous students of Eoman remains sat together in Kennedy's comfortable room overlooking the Corso. The night was cold, and they had both pulled up their chairs to the unsatisfactory Italian stove which threw out a zone of stuffiness rather than of warmth. Outside under the bright winter stars lay the modern Eome, the long, double chain of the electric lamps, the brilliantly lighted cafes, the rushing carriages, and the dense throng upon the footpaths. But inside, in the sumptuous chamber of the rich young English archaeologist, there was only old Eome to be seen. Cracked and time-worn friezes hung upon the walls, grey old busts of senators and soldiers with their fighting heads and their hard, cruel faces peered out from the corners. On the centre table, amidst a litter of inscrip- tions, fragments, and ornaments, tliere stood the famous reconstruction by Kennedy of the Baths of Caracalla, which excited such interest and admiration when it was exhibited in Berlin. Amphorae hung from the ceiling, and a litter of curiosities strewed the rich red 297 298 THE NEW CATACOMB. Turkey carpet. And of them all there was not one which was not of the most unimpeachable authenticity, and of the utmost rarity and value; for Kennedy, though little more than thirty, had a European repu- tation in this particular branch of research, and was, moreover, provided with that long purse which either proves to be a fatal handicap to the student's energies, or, if his mind is still true to its purpose, gives him an enormous advantage in the race for fame. Kennedy had often been seduced by whim and pleasure from his studies, but his mind was an incisive one, capable of long and concentrated efforts which ended in sharp reactions of sensuous languor. His handsome face, with its high, white forehead, its aggressive nose, and its somewhat loose and sensual mouth, was a fair index of the compromise between strength and weak- ness in his nature. Of a very different type was his companion, Julius Burger. He came of a curious blend, a German father and an Italian mother, with the robust C[ualities of the Nortli mingling strangely with the softer graces of the South. Blue Teutonic eyes lightened his sun- browned face, and above them rose a square, massive forehead, with a fringe of close yellow curls lying round it. His strong, firm jaw was clean-shaven, and his companion had frequently remarked how much it suggested those old Eoman busts which peered out from the shadows in the corners of his chamber. THE NEW CATACOMB, 299 Under its bluff German strength there lay always a suggestion of Italian subtlety, but the smile was so honest, and the eyes so frank, that one understood that this was only an indication of his ancestry, with no actual bearing upon his character. In age and in reputation he was on the same level as his Englisli companion, but his life and his work had both been far more arduous. Twelve years before, he had come a.s a poor student to Eome, and had lived ever since upon some small endowment for research which had been awarded to him by the University of Bonn. Painfully, slowly, and doggedly, with extraordinary tenacity and single-mindedness, he had climbed from rung to rung of the ladder of fame, until now he was a member of the Berlin Academy, and there was every reason to believe that he would shortly be promoted to the Chair of the greatest of German Universities. But the singleness of purpose which had brought him to the same high level as the rich and brilliant English- man, had caused him in everything outside their work to stand infinitely below him. He had never found a pause in his studies in which to cultivate the social graces. It was only when he spoke of his own subject that his face was filled with life and soul. At other times he was silent and embarrassed, too conscious of his own limitations in larger subjects, and impatient of that small talk which is the conventional refuge of those who have no thoughts to express. 300 THE NEW CATACOMB. And yet for some years there had been an acquaint- anceship which appeared to be slowly ripening into a friendship between these two very different rivals. The base and origin of this lay in the fact that in their own studies each was the only one of the younger men who had knowledge and enthusiasm enough to properly appreciate the other. Their common interests and pursuits had brought them together, and each had been attracted by the other's knowledge. And then gradually something had been added to this. Kennedy had been amused by the frankness and simplicity of his rival, while Burger in turn had been fascinated by the brilliancy and vivacity which had made Kennedy such a favourite in Eoman society. I say "had," because just at the moment the young Englishman was somewhat under a cloud. A love-aSair, the details of which had never quite come out, had indicated a heartlessness and callousness upon his part which shocked many of his friends. But in the bachelor circles of students and artists in which he preferred to move there is no very rigid code of honour in such matter.?, and though a head might be shaken or a pair of shoulders shrugged over the flight of two and the retiirn of one, the general sentiment was probably one of curiosity and perhaps of envy rather than of reprobation. " Look here. Burger," said Kennedy, looking hard at the placid face of his companion, " I do wish that you would confide in me." THE NEW CATACOMB. 301 As he spoke he waved his hand in the direction of a rug which lay upon the floor. On the rug stood a long, shallow fruit-basket of the light wicker-work which is used in the Campana, and this was heaped with a litter of objects, inscribed tiles, broken inscriptions, cracked mosaics, torn papyri, rusty metal ornaments, which to the uninitiated might have seemed to have come straight from a dustman's bin, but which a specialist would have speedily recognized as unique of their kind. The pile of odds and ends in the flat wicker-work basket supplied exactly one of those missing links of social development which are of such interest to the student. It was the German who had brought them in, and the Englishman's eyes were hungry as he looked at them. " I won't interfere with your treasure-trove, but I should very much like to hear about it," he continued, while Burger very deliberately lit a cigar, " It is evidently a discovery of the first importance. These inscriptions will make a sensation throughout Europe." " For every one here there are a million there ! " said the German. " There are so many that a dozen savants might spend a lifetime over them, and build up a reputation as solid as the Castle of St. Angelo." Kennedy sat thinking with his fine forehead wrinkled and his fingers playing with his long, fair moustache. " You have given yourself away. Burger ! " said he at last. " Your words can only apply to one thing. You have discovered a new catacomb." 302 THE NEW CATACOMB. " I had no doubt that you had already couie to that couclusion from an examination of these objects." " Well, they certainly appeared to indicate it, but your last remarks make it certain. There is no place except a catacomb which could contaiu so vast a store of relics as you describe." " Quite so. There is no mystery about that. I have discovered a new catacomb." " Where ? " " Ah, that is my secret, my dear Kennedy. Suffice it that it is so situated that there is not one chance in a million of any one else coming upon it. Its date is different from that of any known catacomb, and it has been reserved for the burial of the highest Christians, so that the remains and the relics are CLuite different from anything which has ever been seen before. If I was not aware of your knowledge and of your energy, my friend, I would not hesitate, under the pledge of secrecy, to tell you everything about it. But as it is I think that I must certainly prepare my own report of the matter before I expose myself to such formidable competition." Kennedy loved his subject with a love which was almost a mania — a love which held him true to it, amidst all the distractions which come to a wealthy and dissipated young man. He had ambition, but his ambition was secondary to his mere abstract joy and interest in everything which concerned the old life THE NEW CATACOMB. 803 and history of the city. He yearned to see this new underworld which his companion had discovered. "Look here, Burger," said he, earnestly, "I assure you that you can trust me most implicitly in the matter. Jfothing would induce me to put pen to paper about anything which I see until I have your express permission. I quite understand your feeling and I think it is most natural, but you have really nothing whatever to fear from me. On the other hand, if you don't tell me I shall make a systematic search, and I shall most certainly discover it. In that case, of course, I should make what use I liked of it, since I should be under no obligation to you." Burger smiled thoughtfully over his cigar. " I have noticed, friend Kennedy," said he, " that when I want information over any point you are not always so ready to supply it." " When did you ever ask me anything that I did not tell you ? You remember, for example, my giving you the material for your paper about the temple of the Vestals." " Ah well, that was not a matter of much importance. If I were to question you upon some intimate thing would you give me an answer, I wonder! This new catacomb is a very intimate thing to me, and I should certainly expect some sign of confidence in return." " What you are driving at I cannot imagine," said the Englishman, "but if you mean that you will answer my (question abo;it the catacomb if I answer 304 THE NEW CATACOMB. any question which you may put to me I can assure you that I will certainly do so." " Well, then," said Burger, leaning luxuriously back in his settee, and puffing a blue tree of cigar-smoke into the air, "tell me all about your relations with Miss Mary Saunderson." Kennedy sprang up in his chair and glared angi'ily at his imj)assive companion. '' What the devil do you mean ? " he cried. " What sort of a question is this ? You may mean it as a joko, but you never made a worse one." " No, I don't mean it as a joke," said Burger, simply, " I am really rather interested in the details of the matter. I don't know much about the world and women and social life and that sort of thing, and such an incident has the fascination of the unknown for me. I know you, and I knew her by sight — I had even spoken to her once or twice. I should very much like to hear froni your own lips exactly what it was which occurred between you." " I won't tell you a word." " That's all right. It was only my whim to see if you would give up a secret as easily as you expected me to give up my secret of the new catacomb. You wouldn't, and I didn't expect you to. But why should you expect otherwise of me ? There's Saint John's clock striking ten. It is quite time that I was going home." " No ; wait a bit. Burger," said Kennedy ; " this is THE NEW CATACOMB. 305 really a ridiculous caprice of yours to wish to know about an old love-affair wMcli has burned out months ago. You know we look upon a man who kisses and tells as the greatest coward and villain possible." " Certainly," said the German, gathering up his basket of curiosities, "when he tells anything about a girl which is previously unknown he must be so. But in this case, as you must be aware, it was a public matter which was the common talk of Eome, so that you are not really doing Miss Mary Saunderson any injury by discussing her case with me. But still, I respect your scruples, and so good night ! " " Wait a bit. Burger," said Kennedy, laying his hand upon the other's arm ; " I am very keen upon this catacomb business, and I can't let it drop quite so easily. Would you mind asking me something else in return — something not quite so eccentric this time ? " " No, no ; you have refused, and there is an end of it,'' said Burger, with his basket on his arm. " No doubt you are quite right not to answer, and no doubt I am quite right also — and so again, my dear Kennedy, good night ! " The Englishman watched Burger cross the room, and he had his hand on the handle of the door before his host sprang up with the air of a man who is making the best of that which cannot be helped. " Hold on, old fellow," said he ; "I think you are behaving in a most ridiculous fashion ; but still, if this is your condition, I suppose that I must submit to it. X 306 THE NEW CATACOMB. I hate saying anything about a girl, but, as you say, it is all over Eome, and I don't suppose I can tell you anything which you do not know already. What was it you wanted to know ? " The German came back to the stove, and, laying do'.vn his basket, he sank into his chair once more. " May I have another cigar ? " said he. " Thank you very much ! I never smoke when I work, but I enjoy a chat much more when I am under the influence of tobacco. Now, as regards this young lady, with whom you had this little adventure. What in the world ha.s become of her ? " " She is at home with her own people." " Oh, really— in England ? " "Yes." " What part of England— London ? " " No, Twickenham." " You must excuse my curiosity, my dear Kennedy, and you must put it down to my ignorance of the world. No doubt it is quite a simple thing to persuade a young lady to go off with you for three weeks or so, and then to hand her over to her own family at — what did you call the place ? " " Twickenham." " Quite so — at Twickenham. But it is something so entirely outside my own experience that I cannot even imagine how you set about it. For example, if you had loved this girl your love could hardly disappear ia THE NEW CATACOMB. 307 llirec weeks, so I presume that you could not have loved her at all. But if you did not love Iier wliy should you make this great scandal which has damaged you and ruined her ? ' Kennedy looked moodily into the red eye of the stove. "That's a logical way of looking at it, certainly," said he. " Love is a big word, and it represents a good many different shades of feeling. I liked her, and— well, you say you've seen her — you know how charming she could look. But still I am willing to admit, looking back, that I could never have really loved her." " Then, my dear Kennedy, why did you do it ? " " The adventure of the thing had a great deal to do with it." " What ! You are so fond of adventures ! " "Where would the variety of life be without them. It was for an adventure that I first began to pay my attentions to her. I've chased a good deal of game in my time, but there's no chase like that of a pretty woman. There was the piquant difiiculty of it also, for, as she was the companion of Lady Emily Eood, it was almost im- possible to see her alone. On the top of all the other obstacles which attracted me, I learned from her own lips very early in the proceedings that she was engaged." " Mein Gott ! To whom ? " " She mentioned no names." " I do not think that any one knows that. So that made the adventure more alluring, did it ? " 808 THE NEW CATACOMB. " Well, it did certainly give a spice to it. Don't you think so ? " " I tell yoii that I am very ignorant about these things." " My dear fellow, you can remember that the apple you stole from your neighbour's tree was always sweeter than that which fell from your own. And then I found that she cared for me." " What— at once ? " " Oh no, it took about three months of sapping and mining. But at last I won her over. She understood that my judicial separation from my wife made it im- possible for me to do the right thing by her — but she came all the same, and we had a delightful time, as long as it lasted." " But how about the other man ? " Kennedy shrugged his shoulders. " I suppose it is the survival of the iittest," said he. '' If he had been the better man she would not have deserted him. Let's drop the subject, for I have had enough of it ! " " Only one other thing. How did you get rid of her in three weeks ? " " Well, we had both cooled down a bit, you under- stand. She absolutely refused, under any circumstances, to come back to face the people she had known in Eome. Now, of course, Eome is necessary to me, and I was already pining to be back at my work— so there was THE NEW CATACOMB. 309 one obvious cause of separation. Then, again, her old father turned up at the hotel in London, and there was a scene, and the whole thing became so unpleasant that really— though I missed her dreadfully at first — I was very glad to slip out of it. Now, I rely upon you not to repeat anything of what I have said." " My dear Kennedy, I should not dream of repeating it. But all that you say interests me very much, for it gives me an insight into your way of looking at things, which is entirely different from mine, for I have seen so little of life. And now you want to know about my new catacomb. There's no use my trying to describe it, for you would never find it by that. There is only one thing, and that is for me to take you there." " That would be splendid." " When would you like to come ? " " The sooner the better, I am all impatience to see it." "Well, it is a beautiful night — though a trifle cold. Suppose we start in an hour. We must be very careful to keep the matter to ourselves. If any one saw us liunting in couples they would suspect that there was something going on." "We can't be too cautious," said Kennedy. "Is it far?" " Some nules." " Not too far to walk ? " " Oh no, we could walk there easily." " We had better do so, then. A cabman's suspicions 310 TUE NEW CATACOMB. would be aroused if he dropped us both at some lonely spot in the dead of the night." " Quite so. I think it would be best for us to meet at the Gate of the Appian Way at midnight. I must go back to my lodgings for the matches and candles and things." " All right, Burger ! I think it is very kind of you to let me into this secret, and I promise you that I will write nothing about it until you have published your report. Good-bye for the present ■ You will find me at the Gate at twelve." The cold, clear air was filled with the musical chimes from that city of clocks as Burger, wrapped in an Italian overcoat, with a lantern hanging from his hand, walked up to the rendezvous. Kennedy stepped out of the shadow to meet him. " You are ardent in work as well as in love ! " said the German, laughing. " Yes ; I have been waiting here for nearly half an hour." " I hope you left no clue as to where we were going." " Not such a fool ! By Jove, I am chilled to the bone ! Come on. Burger, let us warm ourselves by a spurt of hard walking." Their footsteps sounded loud and crisp upon the rough stone paving of the disappointing road which is all that is left of the most famous highway of the world. A peasant or two going home from the -wine-shop, and THE NEW CATACOMB. 311 a few carts of country produce coming up to Eome, were the only things which they met. They swung along, with the huge tombs looming up through the darkness upon each side of them, until they had come as far as the Catacombs of St. Calixtus, and saw against a rising moon the great circular bastion of Cecilia Metella in front of them. Then Burger stopped with his hand to his side. "Your legs are longer than mine, and you are more accustomed to walking," said he, laughing. "I think that the place where we turn off is somewhere here. Yes, this is it, round the corner of the trattoria. Now, it is a very narrow path, so perhaps I had better go in front and you can follow." He had lit his lantern, and by its light they were . enabled to follow a narrow and devious track which wound across the marshes of the Campaiia. The great Aqueduct of old Eome lay like a monstrous caterpillar across the moonlit landscape, and their road led them under one of its huge arches, and past the circle of crumbling bricks which marks the old arena. At last Burger stopped at a solitary wooden cowhouse, and he drew a key from his pocket. " Surely your catacomb is not inside a house ! " cried Kennedy. " The entrance to it is. That is just the safeguard which we have against any one else discovering it." " Does the proprietor know of it ? " 312 TEE NEW CATACOMB, " Not he. lie had found one or two objects whieh made me almost certain that his house was built on the entrance to such a place. So I rented it from him, and did my excavations for myself. Come in, and shut the door behind you." It was a long, empty building, with the mangers of the cows along one wall. Burger put his lanter;i down on the ground, and shaded its light in all directions save one by draping his overcoat round it. " It might excite remark if any one saw a light in this lonely place," said he. " Just help me to move this boarding." The flooring was loose in the corner, and plank by plank the two savants raised it and leaned it against the wall. Below there was a square aperture and a stair of old stone steps which led away down into the bowels of the earth. " Be careful ! " cried Burger, as Kennedy, in his impa- tience, hurried down them. "It is a perfect rabbit's- warren below, and if you were once to lose your way there the chances would be a hundred to one against your ever coming out again. Wait until I bring the light." " How do you find your own way if it is so complicated ? " " I had some very narrow escapes at first, but I have gradually learned to go about. There is a certain system to it, but it is one which a lost man, if he were in the dark, could not possibly find out. Even now I always THE NEW CATACOMB. 313 sj>ili out a ball of string behind me when I am going far into the catacomb. You can see for yourself that it is difficult, but every one of these passages divide and subdivide a dozen times before you go a hundred yards." They had descended some twenty feet from the level of the byre, and they were standing now in a square chamber cut out of the soft tufa. The lantern cast a flickering light, bright below and dim above, over the cracked brown walls. In every direction were the black openings of passages which radiated from this common centre. " I want you to follow me closely, my friend," said Burger. " Do not loiter to look at anything upon the way, for the place to which I will take you contains all that you can see, and more. It will save time for us to go there direct." He led the way down one of the corridors, and the Englishman followed closely at his heels. Every now and then the passage bifurcated, but Burger was evi- dently following some secret marks of his own, for he neither stopped nor hesitated. Everywhere along the walls, packed like the berths upon an emigrant ship, lay the Christians of old Eome. The yellow light flickered over the shrivelled features of the mummies, and gleamed upon rounded skulls and long, white armbones crossed over fleshless chests. And everywhere as he passed Kennedy looked with wistful eyes upon inscrip- tions, funeral vessels, pictures, vestments, utensils, all lying as pious hands had placed them so many centuries 314 THE NEW CATACOMB. ago. It was apparent to him, even in those hurried, passing glances, that this was the earliest and finest of the catacombs, containing such a storehouse of Eoman remains as had never before come at one time under the observation of the student. "What would happen if the light went out?" he asked, as they hurried onwards. " I have a spare candle and a box of matches in my pocket. By the way, Kennedy, have you any matches ? " " No ; you had better give me some." "Oh, that is all right. There is no chance of our separating." " How far are we going ? It seems to me that we have walked at least a quarter of a mile." " More than that, I think. There is really no limit to the tombs — at least, I have never been able to find any. This is a very difficult place, so I think that I will use our ball of string." He fastened one end of it to a projecting stone and he carried the coil in the breast of his coat, paying it out as he advanced. Kennedy saw that it was no un- necessary precaution, for the passages had become more complex and tortuous than ever, with a perfect network of intersecting corridors. But these all ended in one large circular hall with a square pedestal of tufa topped with a slab of marble at one end of it. " By Jove ! " cried Kennedy in an ecstasy, as Burger swung his lantern over the marble. " It is a Christian THE NEW CATACOMB. 315 altar-— probably the first one in existence. Here is the little consecration cross cut upon the corner of it. No doubt this circular space was used as a church." " Precisely," said Burger. " If I had more time I should like to show you all the bodies which are buried in these niches upon the walls, for they are the early popes and bishops of the Church, with their mitres, their croziers, and full canonicals. Go over to that one and look at it ! " Kennedy went across, and stared at the ghastly head which lay loosely on the shredded and mouldering mitre. "This is most interesting," said he, and his voice seemed to boom against the concave vault. "As far as my experience goes, it is unique. Bring the lantern over. Burger, for I want to see them all." But the German had strolled away, and was standing in the middle of a yellow circle of light at the other side of the hall. " Do you know how many wrong turnings there are between this and the stairs ? " he asked. " There are over two thousand. No doubt it was one of the means of protection which the Christians adopted. The odds are two thousand to one against a man getting out, even if he had a light ; but if he were in the dark it would, of course, be far more difficult." " So I should think." " And the darkness is something dreadful. I tried it once for an experiment. Let us try it again ! " He 31 G THE NEW CATACOMB. stooped to the lantern, and in an instant it was as if an invisible hand was sc[ueezed tightly over each of Kennedy's eyes. Never had he known what such darkness was. It seemed to press upon hiai and to smother him. It was a solid obstacle against whicli the body shrank from advancing. He put his hands out to push it back from him. " That will do, Burger," said he, " let's have the light again." But his companion began to laugh, and in that circular room the sound seemed to come from every side at once. " You seem uneasy, friend Kennedy," said he. " Go on, man, light the candle ! " said Kennedy, im- patiently. " It's very strange, Kennedy, but I could not in the least tell by the sound in which direction you stand. Could you tell where I am ? " " No ; you seem to be on every side of me." " If it were not for this string which I hold in my hand I should not have a notion which way to go." " I dare say not. Strike a light, man, and have an end of this nonsense.'' "Well, Kennedy, there are two things which I understand that you are very fond of. The one is an adventure, and the other is an obstacle to surmount. The adventure must be the finding of your way out of this catacomb. The obstacle will be the darkness and the two thousand wrong turns which make the THE NEW CATACOMB. 317 way a little difficult to find. Eut you need not hurry, for you have plenty of time, and when you halt for a rest now and then, I should like you just to think of Miss Mary Saunderson, and whether you treated her quite fairly." " You devU, what do you mean ? " roared Kennedy. He was running about in little circles and clasping at the solid blackness with both hands. " Good-bye," said the mocking voice, and it was already at some distance. " I really do not think, Kennedy, even by your own showing that you did the right thing by that girl. There was only one little thing which you appeared not to know, and I can supply it. Miss Saunderson was engaged to a poor, ungainly devil of a student, and his name was Julius Burger." There was a rustle somewhere, the vague sound of a foot striking a stone, and then there fell silence upon that old Christian church — a stagnant, heavy silence which closed round Kennedy and shut him in like water round a drowning man. Some two months afterwards the following paragraph made the round of the European Press : — "One of the most interesting discoveries of recent years is that of the new catacomb in Eome, which lies some distance to the east of the well-known vaults of St. Calixtus. The finding of this important burial-place, which is exceedingly rich in most interesting early 318 THE NEW CATACOMB. Cliristiaa remains, is due to the energy and sagacity of Dr. Julius Burger, the young German specialist, who is rapidly taking the first place as an authority upon ancient Eome. Although the first to publish his dis- covery, it appears that a less fortunate adventurer had anticipated Dr. Burger. Some months ago Mr. Ken- nedy, the well-known English student, disappeared suddenly from his rooms in the Corso, and it was con- jectured that his association with a recent scandal had driven him to leave Eome. It appears now that he had in reality fallen a victim to that fervid love of archaeology which had raised him to a distinguished place among living scholars. His body was discovered in the heart of the new catacomb, and it was evident from the con- dition of his feet and boots that he had tramped for days through the tortuous corridors which make these subterranean tombs so dangerous to explorers. The deceased gentleman had, with inexplicable rashness, made his way into this labyrinth without, as far as can be discovered, taking with him either candles or matches, so that his sad fate was the natural result of his own temerity. What makes the matter more painful is that Dr. Julius Burger was an intimate friend of the deceased. His joy at the extraordinary find which he has been so fortunate as to make has been greatly marred by the terrible fate of his comrade and fellow- worker." THE DEBUT OF BIMBASHI JOYCE. It was in the days when the tide of Mahdism, which had swept in such a flood from the great Lakes and Darfur to the confines of Egypt, had at last come to its full, and even begun, as some hoped, to show signs of a turn. At its outset it had been terrible. It had en- gulfed Hicks's army, swept over Gordon and Khartoum, rolled behind the British forces as they retired down the river, and finally cast up a spray of raiding parties as far north as Assouan. Then it found other channels to east and to west, to Central Africa and to Abyssinia, and retired a little on the side of Egypt. For ten years there ensued a lull, during which the frontier garrisons looked out upon those distant blue hills of Dongola. Behind the violet mists which draped them, lay a land of blood and horror. From time to time some adven- turer went south towards those haze-girt mountains, tempted by stories of gum and ivory, but none ever returned. Once a mutilated Egyptian and once a Greek woman, mad with thirst and fear, made their way to the lines. They were the only exports of that country of darkness. Sometimes the sunset would turn those distant mists into a bank of crimson, and the dark 319 320 THE DtBUT OF BIMBASHI JOYCE, mountains would rise from that sinister reek like islands in a sea of blood. It seemed a grim symbol in the southern heaven when seen from the -fort-capped hills by Wady Haifa. Ten years of lust in Khartoum, ten years of silent work in Cairo, and then all was ready, and it was time for civilization to take a trip south once more, travelling as her wont is, in an armoured train. Everything was ready, down to the last pack-saddle of the last camel, and yet no one suspected it, for an unconstitutional Government has its advantages. A great administrator had argued, and managed, and cajoled ; a great soldier had organized and planned, and made piastres do the work of pounds. And then one night these two master spirits met and clasped hands, and the soldier vanished away upon some business of his own. And just at that very time Bimbashi Hilary Joyce, seconded from the Eoyal Mallow Fusiliers, and temporarily attached to the Ninth Soudanese, made his first appearance in Cairo. Wapoleon had said, and Hilary Joyce had noted, that great reputations are only to be made in the East. Here he was in the East with four tin cases of baggage, a AVilkinson sword, a Bond's slug-throwing pistol, and a copy of " Green's Introduction to the Study of Arabic." With such a start, and the blood of youth running hot in his veins, everything seemed easy. He was a little frightened of the General, he had heard stories of his THE DSbUT op BIMBASHI JOYCE, 321 sternness to young officers, but with tact and suavity he hoped for the best. So, leaving his effects at Shep- heard's Hotel, he reported himself at headquarters. It was not the General, but the head of the Intelli- gence Department who received him, the Chief being still absent upon that business which had called him. Hilary Joyce found himself in the presence of a short, thick-set officer, with a gentle voice and a placid ex- pression which covered a remarkably acute and energetic spirit. With that quiet smile and guileless manner he had undercut and outwitted the most cunning of Orientals. He stood, a cigarette between his fingers, looking at the newcomer. " I heard that you had come. Sorry the Chief isn't here to see you. Gone up to the frontier, you know." " My regiment is at Wady Haifa. I suppose, sir, that I should report myself there at once ? " " No ; I was to give you your orders." He led the way to a map upon the wall, and pointed with the end of his cigarette. " You see this place. It's the Oasis of Kurkur — a little quiet, I am afraid, but excellent air. You are to get out there as quick as possible. You'll find a company of the Ninth, and half a squadron of cavalry. You will be in command." Hilary Joyce looked at the name, printed at the intersection of two black lines, without another dot upon the map for several inches roimd it. " A village, sir ? " Y 322 THE DltlBUT OF BIMBASHI JOYCE. " No, a well. Not very good water, I'm afraid, but you soon get accustomed to natron. It's an important post, as being at the junction of two caravan routes. All routes are closed now, of course, but still you never know who might come along them." " We are there, I presume, to prevent raiding ? " " Well, between you and me, there's really nothing to raid. You are there to intercept messengers. They must call at the wells. Of course you have only just come out, but you probably understand already enough about the conditions of this country to know that there is a great deal of disaffection about, and that the Khalifa is likely to try and keep in touch with his adherents. Then, again, Senoussi lives up that way " — he waved his cigarette to the westward — " the Khalifa might send a message to him along that route. Any- how, your duty is to arrest every one coming along, and get some account of him before you let him go. You don't talk Arabic, I suppose ? " " I am learning, sir." "Well, well, you'll have time enough for study there. And you'll have a native officer, Ali something or other, who speaks English, and can interpret for you. Well, good-bye— I'll tell the Chief that you reported yourself. Get on to youi' post now as quickly as you can." Eailway to Baliani, the post-boat to Assouan, and then two days on a camel in the Libyan Desert, with THE DISbUT op BIMBASHI JOYCE. 323 an Ababdeh guide, and three baggage-camels to tie one down to their own exasperating pace. However, even two and a half miles an hour mount up in time, and at last, on the third evening, from the blackened slag-heap of a hill which is called the Jebel Kurkur, Hilary- Joyce looked down upon a distant clump of palms, and thought that this cool patch of green in the midst of the merciless blacks and yellows was the fairest colour effect that he had ever seen. An hour later he had ridden into the little camp, the guard had turned out to salute him, his native subordinate had greeted him in excellent English, and he had fairly entered into his own. It was not an exhilarating place for a lengthy residence. There was one large bowl-shaped, grassy depression sloping down to the three pits of brown and brackish water. There was the grove of palm trees also, beautiful to look upon, but exasperating in view of the fact that Nature has provided her least shady trees on the very spot where shade is needed most. A single widespread acacia did something to restore the Ijalance. Here Hilary Joyce slumbered in the heat, and in the cool he inspected his square-shouldered, spindle-shanked Soudanese, with their cheery black faces and their funny little pork-pie forage caps. Joyce was a martinet at drill, and the blacks loved being drilled, so the Bimbashi was soon popular among them. But one day was exactly like another. The weather, the view, 324 THE DtiBUT OP BIMBASHI JOYCE. the employment, the food — everything was the same. At the end of three weeks he felt that he had been there for interminable years. And then at last there came something to break the monotony. One evening, as the sun was sinking, Hilary Joyce rode slowly down the old caravan road. It had a fascination for him, this narrow track, winding among the boulders and curving up the nullahs, for he re- membered how in the map it had gone on and on, stretching away into the unknown heart of Africa. The countless pads of innumerable camels through many centuries had beaten it smooth, so that now, unused and deserted, it still wound away, the strangest of roads, a foot broad, and perhaps two thousand miles in length. Joyce wondered as he rode how long it was since any traveller had journeyed up it from the south, and then he raised his eyes, and there was a man coming along the path. For an instant Joyce thought that it might be one of his own men, but a second glance assured him that this could not be so. The stranger was dressed in the flow- ing robes of an Arab, and not in the close-fitting khaki of a soldier. He was very tall, and a high turban made him seem gigantic. He strode swiftly along, with head erect, and the bearing of a man who knows no fear. Who could he be, this formidable giant coming out of the unknown 1 The precursor possibly of a horde of savage spearmen. And where could he have walked THE DISbUT of BIMBASHI JOYCE, 325 from ? The nearest well was a long hundred miles down the track. At any rate the frontier post of Kurkur could not afford to receive casual visitors. Hilary Joyce whisked round his horse, galloped into camp, and gave the alarm. Then, with twenty horse- men at his back, he rode out again to reconnoitre. The man was still, coming on in spite of these hostile preparations. For an instant he had hesitated when first he saw the cavalry, but escape wks out of the question, and he advanced with the air of one who makes the best of a bad job. He made no resistance, and said nothing when the hands of two troopers clutched at his shoulders, but walked quietly be- tween their horses into camp. Shortly afterwards the patrols came in again. There were no signs of any Dervishes. The man was alone. A splendid trotting camel had been found lying dead a little way down the track. The mystery of the stranger's arrival was explained. But why, and whence, and whither ? — these were questions for which a zealous officer must find an answer. Hilary Joyce was disappointed that there were no Dervishes. It would have been a great start for him in the Egyptian army had he fought a little action on his own account. But even as it was, he had a rare chance of impressing the authorities. He would love to show his capacity to the head of the Intelligence, and even more to that grim Chief who never forgot 326 THE DEBUT OF BIMBASHI JOYCE. what was smart, or forgave what was slack. The prisoner's dress and bearing showed that he was of importance. Mean men do not ride pure-bred trotting camels. Joyce sponged his head with cold water, drank a cup of strong coffee, put on an imposing official tarboosh instead of his sun-helmet, and formed himself into a court of inquiry and judgment under the acacia tree. He would have liked his people to have seen him now, with his two black orderlies in waiting, and his Egyptian native officer at his side. He sat behind a camp-table, and the prisoner, strongly guarded, was led up to him. The man was a handsome fellow, with bold grey eyes and a long black beard. " Why ! " cried Joyce, " the rascal is making faces at me." A curious contraction had passed over the man's features, but so swiftly that it might have been a nervous twitch. He was now a model of Oriental gravity. " Ask him who he is, and what he wants ? " The native officer did so, but the stranger made no reply, save that the same sharp spasm passed once more over his face. " Well, I'm blessed ! " cried Hilary Joyce. " Of aU the impudent scoundrels ! He keeps on winking at me. Who are you, you rascal ? Give an account of yourself! D'ye hear ? " THE DiBU'r OP BIMBASHI JOYCE. 327 But the tall Arab was as impervious to English as to Arabic. The Egyptian tried again and again. The prisoner looked at Joyce with his inscrutable eyes, and occasionally twitched his face at him, but never opened his mouth. The Bimbashi scratched his head in bewilderment. " Look here, Mahomet Ali, we've got to get some sense out of this fellow. You say there are no papers on him ? " " N"o, sir ; we found no papers." " N"o clue of any kind ? " " He has come far, sir. A trotting camel does not die easily. He has come from Dongola, at least." " Well, we must get him to talk." " It is possible that he is deaf and dumb." " Not he. I never saw a man look more all there in my, life." " You might send him across to Assouan." " And give some one else the credit ! No, thank you. This is my bird. But how are we going to get him to find his tongue ? " The Egyptian's dark eyes skirted the encampment and rested on the cook's fire. "Perhaps," said he, "if the Bimbashi thought fit " He looked at the prisoner and then at the burning wood. " No, no, it wouldn't do. No, by Jove, that's going too far." 328 THE Dl^BUT OF BlMBASIil JOYCE. " A very little might do it/' " No, no. It's all very well here, but it would sound just awful if ever it got as far as Meet Street. But, I say," he whispered, "we might frighten him a bit. There's no harm in that." " No, sir." " Tell them to undo the man's galabeeah. Order them to put a horseshoe in the fire and make it red-hot." The prisoner watched the proceedings with an air which had more of amusement than of uneasiness. He never winced as the black sergeant approached with the glowing shoe held upon two bayonets. "Will you speak now?" asked the Bimbashi, savagely. The prisoner smUed gently and stroked his beard. " Oh, chuck the infernal thing away ! " cried Joyce, jumping up in a passion. " There's no use trying to bluff the fellow. He knows we won't do it. But I can and I will flog him, and you tell him from me that if he hasn't found his tongue by to-morrow morning, I'll take the skin off his back as sure as my name's Joyce. Have you said all that ? " " Yes, sii-." " Well, you can sleep upon it, you beauty, and a good n^ht's rest may it give you ! " ■, He adjourned the Court, and the prisoner, as im- perturbable as ever, was led away by the guard to his supper of rice and water. THE D±BUT OP BlMBASHl JOYCE. 329 Hilary Joyce was a kind-hearted man, and his own sleep was considerably disturbed by the prospect of the punishment which he must inflict next day. He had hopes that the mere sight of the koorbash and the thongs might prevail over his prisoner's obstinacy. And then, again, he thought how shocking it would be if the man proved to be really dumb after all. The possibility shook him so that he had almost determined by daybreak that he would send the stranger on unhurt to Assouan. And yet what a tame conclusion it would be to the incident! He lay upon his angareeb still debating it when the question suddenly and effectively settled itself. Ali Mahomet rushed into his tent. " Sir," he cried, " the prisoner is gone ! " "Gone!" " Yes, sir, and your own best riding camel as well. There is a slit cut in the tent, and he got away unseen in the early morning." ' The Bimbashi acted with all energy. Cavalry rode along every track ; scouts examined the soft sand of the wadys for signs of the fugitive, but no trace was discovered. The man had utterly disappeared. With a heavy heart Hilary Joyce wrote an official report of the matter and forwarded it to Assouan. Five days later there came a curt order from the Chief that he should report himself there. He feared the worst from the stern soldier, who spared others as little as he spared himself. 330 THE D]5bDT op BIMBASHI JOYCE. And his worst forebodings were realized. Tiavel- stained and weary, he reported himself one night at the General's quarters. Behind a table piled with papers and strewn with maps the famous soldier and his Chief of Intelligence were deep in plans and figures. Their greeting was a cold one. "I understand, Captain Joyce," said the General, " that you have allowed a very important prisoner to slip through your fingers." " I am sorry, sir.' ' " No doubt. But that will not mend matters. Did you ascertain anything about him before you lost him ? " "No, sir." " How was that ? " " I could get nothing out of him, sir." " Did you try ? " " Yes, sir ; I did what I could." " What did you do ? " " Well, sir, I threatened to use physical force." " What did he say ? " " He said nothing." " What was he like ? " " A tall man, sir. Eather a desperate character^ I should think." — " Any way by which we could identify him ? " " A long black beard, sir. Grey eyes. And a nervous way of twitching his face.'' TDE D^BDT OF BlMBASHl JOYCE. 331 " Well, Captain Joyce," said the General, in his stern, inflexible voice, " I cannot congratulate you upon your first exploit in the Egyptian army. You are aware that every English officer in this force is a picked man. I have the whole British army from which to draw. It is necessary, therefore, that I should insist upon the very highest efficiency. It would be unfair upon the others to pass over any obvious want of zeal or intelli- gence. You are seconded from the Royal Mallows, I understand ? " " Yes, sir." " I have no doubt that your Colonel wiU be glad to see you fulfilling your regimental duties again." Hilary Joyce's heart was too heavy for words. He was silent. " I will let you know my final decision to-morrow morning." Joyce saluted and turned upon his heel. " You can sleep upon that, you beauty, and a good night's rest may it give you ! " Joyce turned in bewilderment. Where had those words been used before 1 Who was it who had used them? The General was standing erect. Both he and the Chief of the Intelligence were laughing. Joyce stared at the taU figure, the erect bearing, the inscrutable grey eyes. " Good Lord ! " he gasped. 332 THE DliiBUT OF BIMBASHI JOYCE. " Well, well, Captain Joyce, we are quits ! " said the General, holding out his hand. " You gave me a bad ten minutes with that infernal red-hot horseshoe of yours. I've done as much for you. I don't think we can spare you for the Eoyal Mallows just yet awhile." " But, sir ; but ! " "The fewer questions the better, perhaps. But of course it must seem rather amazing. I had a little private business with the Kabbabish. It must be done in person. I did it, and came to your post in my return. I kept on winking at you as a sign that I wanted a word with you alone." " Yes, yes. I begin to understand." " I couldn't give it away before all those blacks, or where should I have been the next time I used my false beard and Arab dress ? You put me in a very awkward position. But at last I had a word alone with your Egyptian of&cer, who managed my escape all right." "He! Mahomet AH!" "I ordered him to say nothing. I had a score to settle with you. But we dine at eight. Captain Joyce. We live plainly here, but I think I can do you a little better than you did me at Kurkur." A FOREIGN OFFICE ROMANCE. TllEKE are many folk who knew Alphonse Lacour in his old age. From about the time of the Eevolution of '48 until he died in the second year of the Crimean War he was always to be found in the same corner of the Cafe de Provence, at the end of the Rue St. Honore, coming down about nine in the evening, and going when he could find no one to talk with. It took some self-restraint to listen to the old diplomatist, for his stories were beyond all belief, and yet he was quick at detecting the shadow of a smile or the slightest little raising of the eyebrows. Then his huge, rounded back would straighten itself, his bulldog chin would project, and his r's would burr like a kettle-drum. "When he got as far as " Ah, monsieur r-r-r-rit ! " or " Vous ne mo cr-r-r-royez pas done ! " it was quite time to remember that you had a ticket for the opera. There was his story of Talleyrand and the five oyster- shells, and there was his utterly absurd account of Napoleon's second visit to-Ajaccio. Then there was that most circumstantial romance (which he never ventured upon until his second bottle had been un- corked) of the Emperor's escape from St. Helena — how 333 334: A FOREIGN OFFICE ROMANCE. he lived for a whole year in Philadelphia, while Count Herbert de Bertrand, who was his living image, per- sonated him at Longwood. But of all his stories there was none which was more notorious than that of the Koran and the Foreign OfBce messenger. And yet when Monsieur Otto's memoirs were written it was found that there really was some foundation for old Lacour's incredible statement. " You must know, monsieur," he would say, " that I left Egypt after Kleber's assassination. I would gladly have stayed on, for I was engaged in a translation of the Koran, and between ourselves I had thoughts at the time of embracing Mahometanism, for I was deeply struck by the wisdom of their views about marriage. They had made an incredible mistake, however, upon the subject of wine, and this was what the Mufti who attempted to convert me could never get over. Then when old Kleber died and Menou came to the top, I felt that it was time for me to go. It is not for me to speak of my own capacities, monsieur, but you will readily understand that the man does not care to be ridden by the mule. I carried my Koran and my papers to London, where Monsieur Otto had been sent by the first Consul to arrange a treaty of peace ;- for both nations were very weary of the war, which had already lasted ten years. Here I was most useful to Mon- sieur Otto on account of my knowledge of the English tongue, and also, if I may say so, on account of my A FOREIGN OFFICE ROMANCE. 335 natural capacity. They were happy days during which I lived in the Square of Bloomsbury. The climate of monsieur's country is, it must be confessed, detestable. But then what would you have ? Flowers grow best in the rain. One has but to point to monsieur's fellow- countrywomen to prove it. "Well, Monsieur Otto, our Ambassador, was kept terribly busy over that treaty, and all of his staff were worked to death. We had not Pitt to deal with, which was perhaps as well for us. He was a terrible man that Pitt, and wherever half a dozen enemies of Prance were plotting together, there was his sharp-pointed nose right in the middle of them. The nation, however, had been thoughtful enough to put him out of office, and we had to do with Monsieur Addington. But Mi- lord Hawkesbury was the Foreign Minister, and it was with him that we were obliged to do our bargaining. "You can understand that it was no child's play. After ten years of war each nation had got hold of a great deal which had belonged to the other, or to the other's allies. What was to be given back? And what was to be kept? Is this island worth that peninsula ? If we do this at Venice, will you do that at Sierra Leone ? If we give up Egypt to the Sultan, will you restore the Cape of Good Hope, which you have taken from our allies the Dutch. So we wrangled and, wrestled ; and I have seen Monsieur Otto come back to the Embassy so exhausted that his 336 A FOREIGN OFFICE HOMANCE. secretary and I had to help him from his carriage to his sofa. But at last things adjusted themselves, and the night came round when the treaty was to be finally signed. " Now you must know that the one great card which we held, and which we played, played, played at every point of the game, was that we had Egypt. The Eno-lish were very nervous about our being there. It gave us a foot on each end of the Mediterranean, you see. And they were not sure that that wonderful little Napoleon of ours might not make it the base of an advance against India. So whenever Lord Hawkes- bury proposed to retain anything, we had only to reply, ' In that case, of course, we cannot consent to evacuate Egypt,' and in this way we quickly brought him to reason. It was by the help of Egypt that we gained terms which were remarkably favourable, and especially that we caused the English to consent to give up the Cape of Good Hope; we did not wish your people, monsieur, to have any foothold in South Africa, for history has taught us that the British foothold of one half-century is the British Empire of the next. It is not your array or your navy against which we have to guard, but it is your terrible younger son and your man in search of a career. When we French have a posses- sion across the seas, we like to sit in Paris and to felicitate ourselves upon it. With you it is different. You take your wives and your children, and you run A FOREIGN OFFICE ROMANCE. 337 away to see what kind of place this may be, and after that we might as well try to take that old Square of Bloomsbury away from you. "Well, it was upon the first of October that the treaty was finally to be signed. In the morning I was congratulating Monsieur Otto upon the happy conclu- sion of his labours. He was a little pale shrimp of a man, very quick and nervous, and he was so delighted now at his own success that he could not sit still, but ran about the room chattering and laughing, while I sat on a cushion in the corner, as I had learned to do in the East. Suddenly, in came a messenger with a letter which had been forwarded from Paris. Monsieur Otto cast his eyes upon it, and then, without a word, his knees gave way, and he fell senseless upon the floor. I ran to him, as did the courier, and between us we carried him to the sofa. He might have been dead from his appearance, but I could still feel his heart thrilling beneath my palm. " ' What is this, then ? ' I asked. " ' I do not know,' answered the messenger. ' Mon- sieur Talleyrand told me to hurry as never man hurried before, and to put this letter into the hands of Monsieur Otto. I was in Paris at midday yesterday.' " I know that I am to blame, but I could not help glancing at the letter, picking it out of the senseless hand of Monsieur Otto. My God ! the thunderbolt that it was! I did not faint, but I sat down beside my. z 338 A FOREIGN OFFICE ROMANCE, chief and I burst into tears. It was but a few words, but they told us that Egypt had been evacuated by our troops a month before. All our treaty was undone then, and the one consideration which had induced our enemies to give us good terms had vanished. In twelve hours it would not have mattered. But now the treaty was not yet signed. We should have to give up the Cape. We should have to let England have Malta. Now that Egypt was gone we had nothing to offer in exchange. " But we are not so easily beaten, we Frenchmen. You English misjudge us when you think that because we show emotions which you conceal, that we are therefore of a weak and womanly nature. You cannot read your histories and believe that. Monsieur Otto recovered his senses presently, and we took counsel what we should do. " ' It is useless to go on, Alphonse,' said he. ' This Englishman will laugh at me when I ask him to sign.' " * Courage ! ' I cried ; and. then a sudden thought coming into my head — 'How do we know that the English will have news of this ? Perhaps they may sign the treaty before they know of it.' "Monsieur Otto sprang from the sofa and flung himself into my arms. " ' Alphonse,' he cried, ' you have saved me ! Why should they know about it-? Our news has come from A FOREIGN OFFICE ROMANCE. 339 Toulon to Paris, and thence straight to London. Theirs will come by sea through the Straits of Gibraltar. At this moment it is unlikely that any one in Paris knows of it, save only Talleyrand and the first Consul. If we keep our secret, we may still get our treaty signed.' " Ah, monsieur, you can imagine the horrible uncer- tainty in which we spent the day. Never, never shall I forget those slow hours during which we sat together, starting at every distant shout, lest it should be the first sign of the rejoicing which this news would cause in London. Monsieur Otto passed from youth to age in a day. As for me, I find it easier to go out and meet danger than to wait for it. I set forth, therefore, towards evening. I wandered here, and wandered there. I was in the fencing-rooms of Monsieur Angelo, and in the salon-de-boxe of Monsieur Jackson, and in the club of Brooks, and in the lobby of the Chamber of Deputies, but nowhere did I hear any news. Still, it was possible that Milord Hawkesbury had received it himself just as we had. He lived in Harley Street, and there it was that the treaty was to be finally signed that night at eight. I entreated Monsieur Otto to drink two glasses of Burgundy before he went, for I feared lest his haggard face and trembling hands should rouse suspicion in the English minister. "Well, we went round together in one of the Embassy's carriages, about half-past seven, Monsieur 340 A FOREiaN OFFICE ROMANCE. Otto went in alone; but presently, on excuse of getting his portfolio, he came out again, with his cheeks flushed with joy, to tell me that all was well. '"He knows nothing,' he whispered. 'Ah, if the next half-hour were over ! ' " ' Give me a sign when it is settled,' said I. " ' For what reason ? ' '"Because until then no messenger shall interrupt you. I give you my promise — I, Alphonse Lacour.' " He clasped my hand in both of his. ' I shall make an excuse to move one of the candles on to the table in the window,' said he, and hurried into the house, whilst I was left waiting beside the carriage. " Well, if we could but secure ourselves from inter- ruption for a single half-hour the day would be our own. I had hardly begun to form my plans when I saw the lights of a carriage coming swiftly from the direction of Oxford Street. Ah, if it should be the messenger ! What could I do ? I was prepared to kill him — yes, even to kill him, rather than at this last moment allow our work to be undone. Thousands die to make a glorious war. Why should not one die to make a glorious peace ? What though they hurried me to the scaffold ? I should have sacrificed myself for my country. I had a little curved Turkish knife strapped to my waist. My hand was on the hilt of it when the carriage which had alarmed me so rattled safely past me. " But another might come, I must be prepared. A FOREIGN OFFICE ROMANCE. 341 Above all, I must not compromise the Embassy. I ordered our carriage to move on, and I engaged what you call a hackney coach. Then I spoke to the driver, and gave him a guinea. He understood that it was a special service. " ' You shall have another guinea if you do what yoix are told,' said I. " ' All right, master,' said he, turning his slow eyes upon me without a trace of excitement or curiosity. " ' If I enter your coach with another gentleman, you will drive up and down Harley Street and take no orders from any one but me. When I get out, you will carry the other gentleman to Watier's Club in Bruton Street.' " ' All right, master,' said he again. " So I stood outside Milord Hawkesbury's house, and you can think how often my eyes went up to that window in the hope of seeing the candle twinkle in it. Five minutes passed, and another five. Oh, how slowly they crept along ! It was a true October night, raw and cold, with a white fog crawling over the wet, shining cobblestones, and blurring the dim oil-lamps. I could not see fifty paces in either direction, but my ears were straining, straining, to catch the rattle of hoofs or the rumble of wheels. It is not a cheering place, monsieur, that Street of Haiiey, even upon a sunny day. The houses are solid and very respectable over yonder, but there is nothing of the feminine about them. It is a 342 A FOREIGN OFFICE EOMANOB, city to be inhabited by males. But on that raw night, amid the damp and the fog, with the anxiety gnawing at my heart, it seemed the saddest, weariest spot in the whole wide world. I paced up and down, slapping my hands to keep them warm, and still straining my ears. And then suddenly out of the dull hum of the traffic down in Oxford Street I heard a sound detach itself, and grow louder and louder, and clearer and clearer with every instant, until two yellow lights came flashing through the fog, and a light cabriolet whirled up to the door of the Foreign Minister. It had not stopped before a young fellow sprang out of it and hurried to the steps, while the driver turned his horse and rattled off into the fog once more. " Ah, it is in the moment of action that I am best, monsieur. You, who only see me when I am drinking my wine in the Cafe de Provence, cannot conceive the heights to which I rise. At that moment, when I knew that the fruits of a ten-years' war were at stake, I was magnificent. It was the last French campaign, and I the General and army in one. " ' Sir,' said I, touching him upon the arm, ' are you the messenger for Lord Hawkcsbury ? ' " ' Yes,' said he. " ' I have been waiting for you half an hour,' said I. ' You are to follow me at once. He is with the French Ambassador.' " I spoke with such assurance that he never hesitated A FOREIGN OFFICE ROMANCE. 343 for an instant. When he entered the hackney coach and I followed him in, my heart gave such a thrill of joy that I could hardly keep from shouting aloud. He was a poor little creature, this Foreign Office messenger, not much bigger than Monsieur Otto, and I — monsieur can see my hands now, and imagine what they were like when I was seven-and- twenty years of age. "Well, now that I had him in my coach, the question was what I should do with him. I did not wish to hurt him if I could help it. " ' This is a pressing business,' said he. ' I have a despatch which I must deliver instantly.' " Our coach had rattled down Harley Street, but now, in accordance with my instruction, it turned and began to go up again. " ' Hullo ! ' he cried. ' What's this ? ' " ' What then ? ' I asked. " ' We are driving back. Where is Lord Hawkes- bury ? ' " ' We shall see him presently.' " ' Let me out ! ' he shouted. ' There's some trickery in this. Coachman, stop the coach! Let me out, I say ! ' " I dashed him back into his seat as he tried to turn the handle of the door. He roared for help. I clapped my palm across his mouth. He made his teeth meet through the side of it. I seized his own cravat and bound it over his lips. He still mumbled and 344 A FOEEIGN OFFICE ROMANCE. gurgled, but the noise was covered by the rattle of our wheels. We were passing the minister's house, and there was no candle in the window. " The messenger sat quiet for a little, and I could see the glint of his eyes as he stared at me through the gloom. He was partly stunned, I think, by the force with which I had hurled him into his seat. And also he was pondering, perhaps, what he should do next. Presently he got his mouth partly free from the cravat. " ' You can have my watch and my purse if you will let me go,' said he. " ' Sir,' said I, ' I am as honourable a man as you are yourself.' " ' Who are you, then ? ' " ' My name is of no importance.' " ' What do you want with me ? ' " ' It is a bet.' " ' A bet ? What d'you mean ? Do you understand that I am on the Government service, and that you will see the inside of a jail for this ? ' " ' That is the bet. That is the sport,' said I. " ' You may find it poor sport before you finish,' he cried. ' What is this insane bet of yours, then ? ' '"I have bet,' I answered, 'that I will recite a chapter of the Koran to the first gentleman whom I should meet in the street.' "I do not know what made me think of it, save that my translation was always running in my head. A POSEIGN OFFICE ROMANCE. 345 He clutched at the door-handle, and again I had to hurl him back into his seat. " ' How long will it take ? ' he gasped. " ' It depends on the chapter/ I answered. " ' A short one, then, and let me go ! ' " ' But is it fair ? ' I argued. ' When I say a chapter I do not mean the shortest chapter, but rather one which should be of average length.' " ' Help ! help ! help ! ' he squealed, and I was compelled again to adjust, his cravat. " ' A little patience,' said I, ' and it will soon be over. I should like to recite the chapter which would be of most interest to yourseK. You will confess that I am trying to make things as pleasant as I can for you?' " He slipped his mouth free again. " ' Quick, then, quick ! ' he groaned. " ' The Chapter of the Camel ? ' I suggested. " ' Yes, yes.' " ' Or that of the Fleet Stallion ? ' " • Yes, yes. Only proceed ! ' "We had passed the window and there was no candle. I settled down to recite the Chapter of the Stallion to him. " Perhaps you do not know your Koran very well, monsieur ? Well, I knew it by heart then, as I know it by heart now. The style is a little exasperating for any one who is in a hurry. But, then, what would you 346 A FOREIGN OFFICE ROMANCE. have ? The people in the East are never in a huiTy, and it was written for them. I repeated is all with the dignity and solemnity which a sacred book demands, and the young Englishman he wriggled and groaned. " ' When the horses, standing on three feet and placing the tip of their fourth foot upon the ground, were mustered in front of him in the evening, he said, "I have loved the love of earthly good above the remembrance of things on high, and have spent the time in viewing these horses. Bring the horses back to me." And when they were brought back he began to cut off their legs and ' " It was at this moment that the young Englishman sprang at me. My God! how little can I remember of the next few minutes ! He was a boxer, this shred of a man. He had been trained to strike. I tried to catch him by the hands. Pac, pac, he came upon my nose and upon my eye. I put down my head and thrust at him with it. Pac, he came from below. But ah ! I was too much for him. I hurled myself upon him, and he had no place where he could escape from my weight. He fell flat upon the cushions, and I seated myself upon him with such conviction that the wind flew from him as from a burst bellows. " Then I searched to see what there was with which I could tie him. I drew the strings from my shoes, and with one I secured his wrists, and with another his ankles. Then 1 tied the cravat round his mouth A FOEEiaN OFFICE ROMANCE. 347 again, so that he could only lie and glare at me. When I had done all this, and had stopped the bleeding of my own nose, I looked out of the coach, and ah, monsieur, the very first thing which caught my eyes was that candle, that dear little candle, glimmering in the window of the minister. Alone, vith these two hands, I had retrieved the capitulation of an army and the loss of a province. Yes, monsieur, what Abercrombie and five thousand men had done upon the beach at Aboukir was undone by me, single-handed, in a hackney coach in Harley Street. " Well, I had no time to lose, for at any moment Monsieur Otto might be down. I shouted to my driver, gave him his second guinea, and allowed him to proceed to Watier's. For myself, I sprang into our Embassy carriage, and a moment later the door of the minister opened. He had himself escorted Monsieur Otto downstairs, and now so deep was he in talk that he walked out bareheaded as far as the carriage. As he stood there by the open door, there came the rattle of wheels, and a man rushed down the pavement. " ' A despatch of great importance for Milord Hawkesbury ! ' he cried. "I could see that it was not my messenger, but a second one. Milord Hawkesbury caught the paper from his hand, and read it by the light of the carriage lamp. His face, monsieur, was as white as this plate before he had finished. S48 A FOREIGN OFFICE ROMANCE. '"Monsieur Otto/ he cried, 'we have signed this treaty upon a false understanding. Egypt is in our hands.' " ' What ! ' cried Monsieur Otto. ' Impossible ! ' " ' It is certain. It fell to Abercrombie last month.' '"In that case,' said Monsieur Otto, 'it is very fortunate that the treaty is signed.' " ' Very fortunate for you, sir,' cried Milord Hawkes- bury, and he turned back to the house. " Next day, monsieur, what they call the Bow Street runners were after me, but they could not run across salt water, and Alphonse Lacour was receiving the congratulations of Monsieur Talleyrand and the first Consul before ever his pursuers had got as far as Dover." THE END. PBIllTIilD BX WILLIAM CLOWiSS AKD SONS, LIUIT&D, LOKDON AKD BECCLES. NOVELS BY CONAN DOYLE. A STORY OF THE SOUDAH-. New and Cheaper Edition, with Forty full-page Illustrations. Crown 8vo. y. (>d. THE TRAGEDY OF THE KOROSKO. The SPEAKER,—* It is dangerous to describe any work of 6ction in these days of a prolific press as a masterpiece, yet there cannot be any doubt that the word is strictly applicable to Mr. Conan Doyle's "Tragedy of the Korosko."* The DAILY NEWS. — * A fine story, the interest of which arrests the reader's attention at the start, and holds it to the close. The characterization thronghout is strong, clear, and very delicate. Impressive, pulsating with emotion, informed with a great air of reality, this story will sustain and enhance its author's already high reputation.' *Dr. Conan, Doyle's fascinating »«ory.'— Daily News. Second Edition. With Twelve full-page Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 6s. UNCLE BERNAC : a Memory of the Empire. The DAILY CHRONICLE.— '"Uncle Bernac" is for a truth Dr. Doyle's Napoleon. Viewed as a picture of the little man in the grey coat \t must take rank before anything he has written. The fascination of it is extraordinary. It reaches everywhere a high literary level.* • A notable and very brilliant work of genius.* — The Speaker. New and Cheaper Illustrated Edition. With Eight full-page Illustrations. Crown 8vo. ^s. 6d. RODNEY STONE. The DAILY TELEGRAPH.— 'The story goes so gallantly from start to finish that we are fairly startled out of our Jin de siecie indifference and carried along in bieaihless excitement to learn the fate of the boy hero and the inimitable dandy.* PUNCH. — ' There is not a dull page in it from first to last. All is light, colour, movement, blended and inspired by a master hand.' New and Cheaper Illustrated Edition (the 25th Edition), With Eight full-page Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3i-, ()d» THE WHITE COMPANY. TIMES. — ' We could not desire a more stirring romance, or one more flattering to our national traditions. We feel throughout that Mr. Conan Doyle's story is not a mere item in the catalogue of exciting romances. It is real literature.' THE GREEN FLAQ and other Stories of War and Sport New and Cheaper Edition, with a Frontispiece. Crown 8yo. 3^. 6d. YORKSHIRE POST.—' There is not a weak story or a dull page in this volume. Constructive skill, genuine humour, and a masterly style, combine to make this the most attractive vo'ume of short stories we have for some time seen.' DAILY TELEGRAPH.—' Few novelists of our time would have told the story in such St rring language, and the battle picture is perfect of its kind. Altogether the volume is admirable.' DR. CONAN DOYLE'S VOLUME OF VERSE. Fourth Imfression. Small crown 8vo. 51. SONGS OF ACTION. PUNCH.— 'Dr. Conan Doyle has well named his verse *' Songs of Action." It pulsates with life and movement, whether the scenes be laid on sea or land, on ship or on horseback.' WORLD. — *Dr. Conan Doyle has the gift of writing gocd rattling songs with all the vestige of liking for good, virile, stirring stuff will enjoy " Coiut HannibaL" ' FIFTH BDITION. With a Frontispleee. Crown 8to. ai. THE CASTLE INN. TIMES,— * k Story which the reader follows with excited cnrlodtv, and Us diaracters are not only admirable in themselves, but tme to their period. The opening scene is of the essence of romance, and worthy of Dumas. In brief, author and readers are to be congratulated, andi as the Toad in the Hole says, '* This Is what yoa can recommend to a friend.** SPECTATOR.— * ik. happy combination of the qnaliUes of hb earlier and later works— alert narrative and wealth of incident, conj^ed with carefhl portraitnrs and development of character.' GUARDIAN.— ^Th^ story Is told In Mr. Veymao's best mamwi^-Bnd how good that is nobody needs to learn at this time of day.' QUEEy.—*\ most fasdnating book. Mr. Wejman has glreii ni one of the fina heromes of fiction, and almost from the start to the miish we are kept on tenteriuoks ta know what is abont to happeo to oor fasrlnating Jnlia.' Fep. 8vo. boards. Pictorial Cotof, 2i. ; or Ump red eloth, 2i. 6d. THE NEW RECTOR. ILLVSTRA TED LONDON NEWTS.-' If he did not know that Anthony TroUop. was no more, a reader who took np " The New Rector " might well suppose that he was reading TroUope, and daring that novelist's best period.' BRITISH WEEKLY.— 'XtL "The New Rector" Mr. Stanley J. Weyman has Ichieved a distinct snccess. The book is carefully planned^ admirably written, withont a single superfluous word, and full of a gentle and wis. chanty. It will add much to th. author's already high reputation.' PALL MALL GAZETTE.—' Mr. Weyman certainly knows how to wilt., and h( .rites abont what he knows. . . . "The New Rector" Is a book of gennina Interest.' London : SMITH, ELDER, & CO., ij Waterloo PUtx, S.W, WUKK5 BY W. H. FITCHETT, B.A., LL.D. Nelson and His Captains: Sketches of Famous Seamen. Wiih ii Portraits and a Facsimile Letter. Second Impression. Crown ovo. bs. .I,- ^W1"-~l'^y. Baronite, having read all Dr. Fitchett's tales of battle on land, thinks his best piece is his sea piece. . . . Saxon and Celt reading the glowing narrative will feel proud to know it s all true. = = o .1, ■^'\^^^^y-—'^ spifitcd picture of Nelson and his times. . . . The story which the author has to tell is almost incredible in its directness of detail, but certainly fascina- ting in Its charm.' ' The Tale of the Great Mutiny, third impressiox. With 8 Portraits and 4 Plans. Crown 8vo. 6s. GUARDIAN.—' It is almost impossible to lay the book down. The story of those summer months of 1857 must ever appeal to English readers.' . BOO/CMAN.—'yfnlten with all the swing and dash, with all the careful accuracy and brilliant descriptive power which have made Dr. Fitchett's books so deservedly popular. ' How England Saved Europe : the Story of theareatWar(i793.i8is). SECOND IMPRESSION. In 4 vols, crown 8vo. with Portraits, Facsimiles, and Plans, 6s. each. TIMES.—' The story is broadly told, but very vigorously. It is not without signifi- cance that this eicellent "Story of the Great War." at once popular in the best sense, well-informed, fiill of instruction, and very attractively written, should be the work of a Colonial writer. GUARDIAN.^' Mr. Fitchett has achieved a real success, and the boy who cannot read these volumes with pleasure (and profit) is hopeless. Xhey are, if boyhood would but see it, more enthralling than half the novels published.' rights for the rlag. second edition, with le Portraits, 13 Plans, and aFacsimile Letter of the Duke of Marlborough. Crown Bvo. 61. 5/'^Cr^rO^.— "'Fights for the Flag" is as good as "Deeds that Won the Empire." To say more than this in praise of the book before us is unnecessary, for " Deeds that Won the Empire " was one of the best collection of popuhr battle studies ever given to the public' REVIEW OF REVIEWS.—' As a gift-book, or as a book to fake up and read at odd moments, or to devour at a prolonged sitting, this book has few equals, and will probably equal or eclipse the popularity of its predecessors.' Deeds that Won the Empire, seventeenth edition. With 16 Portraits and ii Plans. Crown 8vo. 6j. SPECTATOR.— *'i^oX. since Macaulay ceased to write has English literature produced a writer capable of infusing such life and vigour into historical scenes. The wholesome and manly tone of Mr. Fitchett's book is specially satisfactory. . . . The book cannot but take the reader by storm wherever it finds him.* 7Yil/.£iy;— '"Deeds that Won the Empire" is admirably conceived and written. Wolfe's striking feat of arms at Quebec, Hawke's splendid victory in Quiberon Bay, Busaco, Albuera, the Nile, the action of the Shannon and Chesapeake^ with other memorable fights by sea and land, are vividly described. Mr. Fitchett has not sacrificed historical accuracy to dramatic effect, and his words ring true.* Wellington's Men : some Soldier-Autobiographies. [' Kincaid's Adventures in the Kifie Brigade*; 'Rifleman Harris*; Anton's * Military Life * ; Mercer's ' Waterloo.'] Edited by W. H. Fitchett, B.A., LL.D. Crown 8vo. 6j. SPECTATOR.^* Mr. Fitchett has ere this sounded the clarion and filled the fife to good purpose, but he has never done better work than in rescuing from oblivion the narratives which appear in this volume. Here we have the incidents of war told by the actors themselves, and each actor saw a different side of the thing, and had his own way of telling about it. We feel very grateful to Mr. Fitchett for hb skilful editing of four stories which ought not to be allowed to die.' London : SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 Waterloo Place, S.W. " Author's Edition " of A. Conan Doyle's Noyels. A. Conan Doyle's Novels. IN TWELVE VOLUMES. With an Introductory Preface and Two Photogravure Illustrations to each volume. Large crown 8vo, 6^. each net. This Edition of SIR A. CONAN DOYLE'S No^eU is limited to itxx sets, the Jirsl volume of each set beine: signed and numbered^ and the volumes are not sold separately. The Author's future work -will in due time be added to the edition. Prospectus post free on application. CONTENTS OF THE VOLUMES: 1. The WUte Company. 2. Mloab Clarke. 3. The Refugees. 4. Rodney Stone. [Holmes. 5. Adventures of Sherlock 6. Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. 7. A Study in Scarlet ; The Sicn of Four. 8. The Great Shadow; Uncle Bemac. 9. A Duet, with an Occasional Chorus. 10. The Tragedy of the "Ko- rosko;" The Green Flag; and other Stories of War and Sport. 11. The Stark-Mnnro Letters; Round the Red Lamp. 12. The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard. " Author, publisher, and owners of the volumes are alike to be congratulated. . . . The edition is fine, and the matter contained in it fine also.*' — Academy. " Nothing could be more excellent. . . . The volumes are, in fact, perfect in pro- ductinn." — Daily Chronicle. '■ Tastefully bound in red with gilt lettering, adorned with choice artistic full-page illustrations, and printed on a large page in bold readable type, these volumes should attract hosts of new readers to Dr. Doyle." — Scotsman. '* In every respect it is worthy of the popularity which the author's stories have won . ' ' — Standard. " Sure to be speedily snapped up by admirers of this popular writer. The volumes are handsomely printed and bound. — Truth. THOROUGHLY REVISED, ENLARGED, AND COMPLETED EDITION OF A. CONAN DOYLE'S " THE GREAT BOER IVAR." Nineteenth Impression, comprising over 67,000 copies prinlel. With Maps, large post 8vo, ioj. 6ai/i/ Teegrapk. " I he work is worthy of the subject ; it is a dear, comprehensive narrative of events, f.nly and exactly set forth. It is the first full history, the most ambitious attempt to give an exhaustive account of the whole war ; and, as such, and from its own intrinsic merit, it must hold the ground for some lime to come." — Army and Navy Gazette. London: SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 Waterloo Place, S.W. PR4621.G7"T905""'"''""-"'"'^ The green flag, and other stories of war 3 1924 013 342 146 DATE DUE M/\Y " 1. onnc_ 1 GAYLORD PRINTED IN U.S.A.