body, and down I went in a heap. . . .
* * *
When I recovered consciousness, Mary Vanbrugh and a very white-faced Maudie were in the tent, and I was lying, bandaged, on some rugs.
Dear Becque and I--side by side!
"Brandy," said Mary Vanbrugh to Maudie, as I opened my eyes. Maudie poured some out, and gave it to me. I drank the cognac, and was very soon my own man again. How often was this drama to be repeated? . . . First the Touareg bullet; now Becque's sword. What would the third be?
I was soon to know.
I sat up, got to my feet, stiff, sore, bruised and giddy, but by no means a "cot-case."
"Lie down again at once, Killer," said Mary Vanbrugh sharply.
"Thank you, Miss Vanbrugh," I replied. "I am all right again now, and very greatly regret the trouble I have given you. I am most grateful. . . ."
"I do not desire your gratitude, Killer," interrupted the pale, competent, angry girl.
". . . To Becque--I was going to say--for being so tender with me," I continued. And then I said a thing that I have regretted ever since--and when I think of it, I have to find some peace in the excuse that I was a little off my balance.
"It is not so long since you were fairly glad of the killing-powers of a Killer, Miss Vanbrugh," I went on, and felt myself a cad as I said it. . . . "On a certain roof in Zaguig, the Killer against eight, and your life in the balance. . . . I apologize for reminding you. . . . I am ashamed . . ."
"I am ashamed . . . I apologize--humbly, Major de Beaujolais," she replied, and her eyes were slightly suffused as I took her hand and pressed it to my lips. . . . "But oh! why do you . . . why must you . . . all these fine men . . . that Mr. Dufour, Achmet, Djikki, and now this poor mangled, butchered creature. . . . Can you find no Duty that is help and kindness and love, instead of this Duty of killing, maiming, hurting . . . ?"
* * *
Yes--I was beginning to think that I could find a Duty that was Love. . . .
§ 3
Becque rallied that night, incredibly. His strong spirit flickered, flared up, and then burnt clearly.
I was getting myself a drink, being consumed with thirst, when he spoke:
"So you win, de Beaujolais," he said quietly.
"I win, Becque," I replied.
I would not rejoice over a fallen foe, and I would not express regret to a villainous renegade and a treacherous cur--who, moreover, had plotted the death, mutilation and dishonour of two white girls (and one of them Mary Vanbrugh).
"It's a queer world," he mused. "You all but shot me that day, and I all but got you hanged. . . . The merest chance saved me, and luck saved you. . . ."
I supposed this to be the semi-delirious wanderings of a fevered mind. . . . But the brave evil Becque did not look, nor sound, delirious.
"What do you mean?" I said, more for the sake of saying something than seriously to ask a question.
"Ah--the brilliant de Beaujolais--Beau Sabreur of the Blue Hussars and the Spahis! . . . Bright particular star of the Bureau Arabe, the Secret Service, the Intelligence Department of the French Army in Africa! . . . You think you know a lot, don't you, and you're very pleased with your beautiful self--but you don't know who it was that turned your own men from downtrodden slaves into bloodthirsty mutineers, do you? . . . And you were never nearer death in all your days. . . . Do you know, my clever friend, that if those cursed Arabs had not attacked at that moment, nothing could have saved you--thanks to me? . . . Do you know that your own men were going to hang you to the flag-staff and then burn the place and march off? . . . 'Another mutiny in the discontented and rotten French Army'! . . . Headlines in the foreign Press! . . . Encouragement to the enemies of France! . . . That would have been splendid, eh?"
I thought hard, and cast back in my memory. . . .
Most certainly I had never attempted to shoot Becque, and still more certainly I had never been in danger of hanging, at the hands of the gentleman.
In spite of his apparent command of his faculties, he must be wandering in his mind--indeed, a place of devious and tortuous paths in which to wander.
Silence fell, disturbed only by the droning of the flies which I whisked from his face.
A few minutes later the closed eyes opened and glared at me like those of a serpent.
"Beautiful, brainy de Beaujolais," the hateful voice began again. "How nearly I got you that day and how I have cursed those Arabs ever since--those black devils from Hell that saved you. . . ."
Delirium, undoubtedly. . . . I brushed the flies again from the sticky lips and moistened them with a corner of a handkerchief dipped in lemon-juice.
"And when and where was that, Becque?" I asked conversationally.
"I suppose the mighty warrior, the Beau Sabreur, the brain of the French Army, has forgotten the little episode of Zinderneuf? . . ."
Zinderneuf! . . .
What could this Becque know of Zinderneuf? . . .
Was yet another mystery to be added to those that clustered, round the name of that ill-omened shambles?
Zinderneuf! . . . Mutiny . . .
What was it Dufour had said to me when I ordered the parade before entering that silent fort, garrisoned by the Dead, every man on his feet and at his post. . . . ("The Dead forbidden to die. The Fallen who were not allowed to fall?"). . . . He had said "There is going to be trouble. . . . They are rotten with cafard and over-fatigue. . . . They will shoot you and desert en masse! . . ."
Could this Becque have been there? . . . Utterly impossible. . . .
Again I thought hard, cast back in my memory, and concentrated my whole mind upon the events of that terrible day. . . .
Dufour was there, of course. . . .
Yes, and that excellent Sergeant Lebaudy, I remembered, the man who was said to have the biggest voice in the French Army. . . .
And that punishing Corporal Brille whom I once threatened with a taste of the crapaudine, when I found him administering it unlawfully. . . . I could see their faces. . . . Yes. . . . And that trumpeter who volunteered to enter that House of the Dead. . . . Of course . . . he was one of the three Gestes, as I learned when I went to Brandon Abbas in England to be best man at George Lawrence's wedding. . . . Lady Brandon was their aunt. . . .
Yes, and I remembered two fine American soldiers with whom I spoke in English--men whom I had, alas, sent to their deaths by thirst or Arabs, in an attempt to warn St. André and his Senegalese, that awful night.
I could recall no one else. . . . No one at all. . . .
"And what do
