And suddenly above the din Blacker"s voice rose warningly.
"Don"t let"s lose our heads! That"s the great thing! Let us keep as calm as we can and think out our questions very carefully lest the Heaven-sent Bearer of Great Tidings should depart without revealing all he knows."
Chairs were hitched a little closer about Hillyard. The care which had brooded in that room was quite dispelled.
"Have some more port, sir," said the youngest of that gathering, eagerly pushing across the bottle. Hillyard filled his gla.s.s. Port was his, and prestige too. He might write a successful play. That was all very well.
He might go shooting for eight months along by the two Niles and the Dinder. That was all very well too. He was welcome at the Senga Mess.
But he knew Sir Chichester Splay! He acquired in an instant the importance of a prodigy.
"But, since he is an honorary member of your mess, you must know him too," cried Hillyard. "He must have come this way."
"My dear Martin!" Luttrell expostulated, as one upbraiding a child. "Sir Chichester Splay out of London! The thing"s inconceivable!"
"Inconceivable! Why, he lives in the country."
A moment of consternation stilled all voices. Then the Doctor spoke in a whisper.
"Is it possible that we are all wrong?"
"He lives at Rackham Park, in Suss.e.x."
Mr. Blacker fell back in relief.
"I know the house. He is a new resident. It is near to Chichester. He went there on the h.o.m.oeopathic principle."
The conjecture was actually true. Sir Chichester Splay, spurred by his ambition to be a country gentleman with a foot in town, had chosen the neighbourhood on account of his name, so that it might come to be believed that he had a territorial connection.
"Describe him to us," they all cried, and, when Hillyard had finished:
"Well, he might be like that," Luttrell conceded. "It was not our idea."
"No," said Colin Rayne. "You will remember I always differed from all of you, but it seems that I am wrong too. I pictured him as a tall, melancholy man, with a conical bald head and with a habit of plucking at a black straggling beard--something like the portraits of Tennyson."
"To me," said Luttrell, "he was always fat and fussy, with white spats."
"But why are you interested in him at all?" cried Hillyard.
"We will explain the affair to you on the balcony," answered Luttrell, as he rose.
They moved into the dark and coolness of this s.p.a.cious place, and, stretching themselves in comfort on the long cane chairs, they explained to Hillyard this great mystery. Rayne began the tale.
"You see, we don"t get a mail here so very often. Consequently we pay attention when it comes. We read the _Searchlight_, for instance, with care."
Mr. Blacker s.n.a.t.c.hed the narrative away at this point.
"And Sir Chichester Splay occurs in most issues and in many columns. At first we merely noticed him. Some one would say, "Oh, here"s old Splay again," as if--it seems incredible now--the matter was of no importance.
It needed Luttrell to discover the real significance of Sir Chichester, the man"s unique and astounding quality."
Harry Luttrell interrupted now.
"Yes, it was I," he said with pride. "Sir Chichester one day was seen at a Flower Show in Chelsea. On another he attended the first performance of a play. On a third day he honoured the Private View of an Exhibition of Pictures. On a fourth he sat amongst the Distinguished Strangers in the Gallery of the House of Commons. But that was all! This is what I alone perceived. Always that was all!"
Luttrell leaned back and relit his cigar.
"When other people come to be mentioned in the newspapers day after day, sooner or later some information about them slips out, some characteristic thing. If you don"t get to know their appearance, you learn at all events their professions, their opinions. But of Sir Chichester Splay--never anything at all. Yet he is there always, nothing can happen without his presence, a man without a shadow, a being without a history. To me, a simple soldier, he is admirable beyond words. For he has achieved the inconceivable. He combines absolute privacy of life with a world-wide notoriety. He may be a stamp-collector. Do I know that? No. All I know is that if there were an Exhibition of Stamp Collections, he would be the first to pa.s.s the door." Luttrell rose from his chair.
"Therefore," he added in conclusion, "Sir Chichester is of great value to us at Senga. We elected him to the mess with every formality, and some day, when we have leisure, we shall send a deputation up the Nile to shoot a Mrs. Grey"s Antelope to decorate Rackham Park." He turned to Hillyard. "We have a few yards to walk, and it is time."
The two friends walked down the stairs and turned along the road, Hillyard still debating what was, after all, the value of Sir Chichester Splay to the Senga mess. It had seemed to him that Luttrell had not wished for further questions on the balcony, but, now that the two were alone, he asked:
"I don"t see it," he said; and Luttrell stopped abruptly and turned to him.
"Don"t you, Martin?" he asked gently. All the merriment had gone from his face and voice. "If you were with us for a week you would. It"s just the value of a little familiar joke always on tap. Here are a handful of us. We eat together, morning, noon, and night; we work together; we play polo together--we can never get away from each other. And in consequence we get on each other"s nerves, especially in the months of hot weather.
Ill-temper comes to the top. We quarrel. Irreparable things might be said. That"s where Sir Chichester Splay comes in. When the quarrel"s getting bitter, we refer it to his arbitration. And, since he has no opinions, we laugh and are saved." Luttrell resumed his walk to the Governor"s house.
"Yes, I see now," said Hillyard.
"You had an instance to-night," Luttrell added, as they went in at the door. "It"s a serious matter--the order of a Province and a great many lives, and the cost of troops from Khartum, and the careers of all of us are at stake. I think that I am right, and it is for me to say. They disagree. Yes, Sir Chichester Splay saved us to-night, and"--a smile suddenly broke upon his serious face--"I really should like to meet him."
"I will arrange it when we are both in London," Hillyard returned.
He did not forget that promise. But he was often afterwards to recall this moment when he made it--the silent hall, the door open upon the hot, still night, the moon just beginning to gild the dark sky, and the two men standing together, neither with a suspicion of the life-long consequences which were to spring from the casual suggestion and the careless a.s.sent.
"You are over there," said Luttrell, pointing to the other side of the hall. He turned towards his own quarters, but a question from Hillyard arrested him.
"What about that message for me?"
"I know nothing about it," Luttrell answered, "beyond what I wrote. The telegram came from Khartum. No doubt they can tell you more at Government House. Good night!"
CHAPTER VII
IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN
Just outside Senga to the north, in open country, stands a great walled zareba, and the s.p.a.ce enclosed is the nearest approach to the Garden of Eden which this wicked world can produce. The Zoological Gardens of Cairo and Khartum replenish their cages from Senga. But there are no cages at Senga, and only the honey-badger lives in a tub with a chain round his neck, like a bull-dog. The buffalo and the elephant, the wart-hog and the reed-buck, roam and feed and sleep together. Nor do they trouble, after three days" residence in that pleasant sanctuary, about man--except that specimen of man who brings them food.
All day long you may see, towering above the wall close to the little wooden door, the long necks and slim heads of giraffes looking towards the city and wondering what in the world is the matter with the men to-day, and why they don"t come along with the buns and sugar. Once within the zareba, once you have pushed your way between the giraffes and got their noses out of your jacket-pockets, you have really only to be wary of the ostrich. He, mincing delicately around you with his little wicked red eye blinking like a camera shutter, may try with an ill-a.s.sumed air of indifference to slip up unnoticed close behind you.
If he succeeds he will land you one. And one is enough.
Into this zareba Harry Luttrell led Martin Hillyard on the next morning.
Luttrell had an hour free, and the zareba was the one spectacle in Senga. He kicked the honey-badger"s tub in his little reed-house and brought out that angry animal to the length of his strong chain and to within an inch of his own calves.
"Charming little beast, isn"t he? See the buffalo in the middle? The little elephant came in a week ago from just south of the Khor Galagu.
You had something private to say to me? Now"s your time. Mind the ostrich, that"s all. He looks a little ruffled."