“In that town,” said Blake to himself, peering cautiously through the scrub, “is Mannering’s grave, and the wreck of a brave man’s life-work. O, Sergeant, if those two beggarly Nyam-Nyams try to run away, deal with them straightly. At moonset we will go down.”

“O sons of Eblis,” murmured the Haussa sergeant with a grin, “scum of the market-place, little frogs of the mud-puddles of Wakonda, in that town is good soured milk, much grain, and the chickens and goats as many as the prayers of the prophet. At moonset we will go down.”

The command gurgled pleasantly to itself and lay closer. Blake crawled nearer Macartney, who was raking the silver-patched blackness with a pair of night-glasses wrapped in dark cloth.

“I can make out a tin roof,” whispered Macartney at last; “that will be the roof of the residency.”

“Where Mannering was speared on his own door-step,” said Jim Blake, taking the glasses. “Dead, down and dead, wiped out, absolute failure, Mannering. I can’t get over that, you know. He was such a keen old beggar; so wrapped up in his work. He simply spent himself on this beastly country. And he cleared out Wakonda, as far as mortal eye can see, on purpose to make room for seven other devils worse than the late king.”

“Couldn’t be,” put in Macartney.

“It’s not being speared that’s the worst part of it,” persisted Blake; “we all come to that sooner or later. It’s having absolutely nothing to show for his life or his death. Nothing even for the next man to build on. It’s that,” he continued, shivering as the dawn chill blew up the valley, “which I fancy must worry old Mannering—still.”

“What you need is chlorodyne,” whispered Macartney, indignantly.

They lay silent in the dark, upland grass, and the dew beaded and dripped on the thorns overhead. The command hunted for prickles in its feet, tightened belts, and babbled softly of stewed fowl.

From immense spaces, as spun out and as thin as a thread, came the hunting-cry of a lion. The Haussa sergeant crept up and touched Blake’s foot.

“The moon sets, O Effendi, and it is not yet dawn.”

Blake rose to his feet and looked at the sky. “We be ready,” he said.

The command moved as one man, eyes glinting whitely under the tarbooshes. The last few days had been hungry ones. Below in the valley was good food; it was only to fight a little, and all would be full.

“Ya Illah, brethren, let us go down.”

They went down. Blake was no tactician, and his plan in such cases was simple. You took the main gate, held it, and swept the obstructionists out of the other gates or over the mud walls, broom fashion. He had worked with his present command for a year, and they followed him like a football team. The sergeant at his elbow presently touched his sleeve.

“There is made ground here.”

“Made ground?”

“Yes. The road built by Mannering Bimbashi.”

Already the road built by Mannering for the grain dealers and spice merchants was no more than a track in the under-growth, and the grass swept to the thigh. Their way dipped sharply, and a river valley swirling in mist took them like shadows. Blake felt under his feet the rotten piles of a bridge, and a rifle clanged against rusted iron.

“I think these cattle of Wakonda have the alarm,” said the sergeant as they grunted up the opposite slope.

“Why?”

“There was a watchman at the bridge end; we should have crossed by the ford farther down. But these Wakonda cannot fight, and all is as Allah wills. O Ibrahim, son of Suleiman, keep thy rifle dry and remember to get under the walls.”

The town was clattering like a frightened hen-roost when a company of shadows flitted through the fog, and flung themselves under the walls and against the main gate. Five minutes of noisy, scrambling, hit-or-miss fighting followed, and they were inside, with their hardest work before them. Their ire had driven back the defenders, but they themselves had for the moment no cover. Presently the slugs began to flop on the walls behind them, and two men fell. Blake felt a stinging blow on the knee, and went down on all fours. He rose, laughing rather shakily into Macartney’s scared face.

“A spent bullet,” he cried in the din; “can’t put my foot to the ground. Clear those houses, old man; I’ll hold the gate.”

Macartney nodded and was gone, his men after him. Blake and his handful took cover behind a mud buttress and a dead camel, and prepared to hold the gate. It was only then that Blake saw the sergeant.

“Why art thou here?”

“I stay with thee, O Effendi. Besides,”—he sniffed wistfully,—“in that house they have been cooking good mutton. I would not go too far.”

The din and turmoil of the narrow ways rose and fell like the froth of the sea. The roofs were beginning to burn in a dozen places as Macartney, in rough-and-ready fashion, cleared out the slug-shooters. The red light of burning thatch danced in the fog and the thinning dark, and by this light Blake saw a score of white-wrapped figures leap from the reek and rush for the gate, shouting as they came.

“Steady, men, steady!”

“By the prophet’s beard!” cried the Haussa sergeant, flinging himself flat behind the camel, “these be no Wakonda, but ghazis of the far desert. Shoot well, O my children!”

It was all happening with the jerky rapidity of a cinematograph film, and the noise passed hearing. The command, inspired with visions of buttered mutton, loaded and fired as one man. Two, three close-range volleys swept between the walls, and the alley was blotched with whitish bundles that were the bodies of the desert men. But the others came on, and suddenly Blake was on his feet in the shadow of the gate, fighting hand to hand for his life.

“Stand firm, O my children!”

The sergeant’s voice echoed his. He was the centre of an indescribable confusion. Under the gate the smoke of the volleys hung heavily. Through this broke first one fierce face, then another, the gleams of arms, the surge and retreat of the attack, the blows and outcries of men. Ibrahim, the son of Suleiman, fell across Blake’s feet and coughed his life out in ten seconds. Another of his best men was down, speared through the heart. And then, as suddenly as they had come, the desert men retreated to the shelter of the huts, and Blake, looking up, saw that it was day.

“They are gone,” said the sergeant, looking at the dead, “but they will come again. O Effendi, this is no good place.”

“I should have kept more men,” Blake was thinking clearly and rapidly. “If Mac doesn’t come back inside ten minutes, it will be too late for us, and he’ll have to cut his way out.”

A moment’s dreamlike quiet had succeeded the dreamlike noise. Over his head the sky was clear and growing gold, barred with the black flocks of wild-fowl that flew to their feeding grounds in the valley. The sun rose with the hard flash of metal, and the blink of metal answered from the ruined roof of Mannering’s house. Blake’s breath drew cold. Was he also to die uselessly, wastefully, his work unfinished, under the spears of Wakonda? “Steady, men, steady, and fire slowly! It is ours to hold the gate.”

The Haussa sergeant leaped to his feet.

“They come again! O jackals of the sands, we men are ready—”

“Silence—and lie down!”

Again with that dreaming sense of unreality Blake watched the rush of fluttering figures up the valley. The men were loading and firing as fast as they could, but the rush was scarcely checked. Someone behind him began to croon a wild death-song. A thrown spear flickered before his eyes and struck his head a glancing blow. He looked at it curiously as it clattered down on his boots, and wondered why his hands felt so weak, and why the earth reeled under his feet like an outrolled ribbon. Then everything was lost in a warm red mist through which savage faces seemed to peer and yell. Blinded and dizzy, he braced himself for the shock of the charge, the while some voice in his head was buzzing busily, “you will go down as Mannering did, a failure, a failure. . .”

An utter pity for Mannering filled him. He leaned back against the wall, levelled his revolver as well as he could on his knee, and waited—as Mannering had waited.

“Ya Illah!” shouted the sergeant hoarsely. “Who be these?”

Blake cleared the blood from his eyes and looked. The attack had wavered and had turned upon itself, for a compact little force of ten had filed out from behind a house and fallen upon the desert men in the rear. They were in all degrees of dress and undress. Their leader was very tall and very thin, with a great bush of hair, upon which he wore the remains of a tarboosh, and he had an empty bandoleer round his neck. He and his were armed variously, ranging from a damaged Martini to an inlaid jesail from the North. These weapons they were using variously, in disciplined silence. So much Blake saw in a photographic flash of amazement. Then strength came back to him, and he and the sergeant flung themselves across the dead camel.

“Come on, you black rascals!” shouted Blake, staggering as he stood.

“Follow me, sons of darkness!” yelled the sergeant.

The men obeyed with howls. Caught between two forces, the enemy fighting like wolves, were driven down alleys, cut down in corners, scattered and broken. In five minutes Blake’s men and their unknown allies were staring and panting under the gate, their work done.

“Now,” suggested the Haussa, patting Blake all over with his delicate black hands in a search for fatal injuries—“now I go and picket that street whence came the cooking smell.”

“Wait!” commanded Blake. He looked at the gate; at the dead lying in the light and the black shadows. Even now the gold had scarcely gone from the faint, hot blue sky; scattered bands of birds still flew across it, and the high air seemed stirred with a multitude of wings. He looked at the leader of the allies, who was standing on one leg and grinning anxiously.

“Who art thou?”

The man drew his dusty heels together and carefully saluted.

“We be the men of Mannering Bimbashi.”

“Of Mannering Bimbashi?”

“Yea, Master. I was a policeman of the force wherewith he policed this town. He said to us, ‘Go here’ or ‘Go there,’ and we went and punished the evil-doers. Twice and thrice have I fought under Mannering Bimbashi.” He gazed contemptuously at his command. “These others are also of his force, or of his house—warriors, as I am, or gardeners and herders of goats; but all Mannering Bimbashi’s men.”

“Go on,” said Blake quietly.

“Mannering Bimbashi was slain, and many of his folk; but I was left. I remembered. I gathered these others together, and bade them remember also. Mannering Bimbashi was dead, but we were not freed from our service. We had to live. I was a seller of rock-salt in the market-place, and these others did work after their kind. Sometimes we met and spoke together. None knew us for his men, and his name might not be upon our lips; but we laid our hands upon our mouths—so—and then we remembered.”

“Go on.”

“There is no more. It is very difficult to remember. But I knew the English would come in the footsteps of our Bimbashi and I held these of his together in readiness, as thou hast seen. But our Bimbashi—on whom be peace!—has been dead a long time, and now we would take service with thee, O master.”

“Thou hast done well.” Blake’s voice shook a little as he thought how well. “Thou hast done very well. But why?”

The man was very ugly and very black, but all the poetry and sadness of the Arab were in his face as he answered:

“We were his men. We loved him.”

Blake’s eyes were dim as he looked across at the ruined house. There, Mannering had gone down, and his hope, his work, his deeds—all these had gone down with him into dust.

“But even here there was love left,” said Blake aloud, with a kind of wonder; “even here there was love left!”

Then he took his men and Mannering’s and went to join Macartney in the ordering of Wakonda.

Admission was by ticket only, and Hillard wondered how and where the man sitting next him had obtained one. He was, in that decorously neutral assembly, as conspicuous in his way as a game-cock among crows. His coat was of some sort of greenish khaki, strapped, patched and pocketed over almost every available inch of its surface; his trousers did not fit him or the coat; his boots—Hillard could not see his boots, but he thought they were tan; his tie looked like a knotted red handkerchief; his hair was red, and he himself so scorched and reddened by sun that it seemed as if his cool grey eyes should have melted amid the fervent heat of his face. So much Hillard saw in his first casual inspection, as he sat awaiting boredom. After a bishop had introduced the speaker and the lecture had begun, he was too much interested in the slight black figure on the platform to spare much attention elsewhere. You know those bioscope pictures that show in a few minutes the life-cycle of a plant from seed to seed? Hillard says that Paul Raynor, with the aid of a magic lantern and his own simplicity, was showing them thus the birth of a seed of law and love, the growth of light in darkness, of safety in the shadow of death. Not a soul in the audience could remain quite unmoved.

It was about half-way through that Hillard felt a tug at his sleeve. The man in the khaki coat was leaning forward intently, his elbow on the back of the chair ahead and his hand at his ear.

“What did he say, mister?”

“I beg your pardon. When?”

The man lifted his hand impatiently. “Then. Before the last picture. I couldn’t be sure . . .”

“Oh, he said he was probably the only man in the country who knew the language.”

“Meanin’ himself? Raynor?”

“Yes.”

“Ah”—the man spoke with a certain jealous satisfaction—“so he thinks. But it ain’t so. It ain’t true.”

“Indeed?” Hillard was curt.

“Nah. I know it.”

Hillard looked at the interrupter who, quick as an animal to read a rebuff, had drawn away and was once more listening to the lecturer with a bitter intentness. Something made Hillard sorry he had been curt; so that when the audience broke up in unusual enthusiasm, and he found himself descending the stairs, shoulder to shoulder with the khaki coat, he followed the impulse of repentance and spoke.

“An uncommonly interesting talk, eh?”

“Interestin’?” The man eyed him warily. “Yes, I guess it was interestin’ all right.”

Hillard: “And you must have found it specially so knowing the country and the people.”

They had reached the pavement, and the man swung round almost threateningly. “Who says I know the country?”

“Well, I thought it likely, as you said you knew the language.”

“Ah, so I did, mister, so I did. . . And you was interested?”

“Why, yes. I think anyone would be. To see the school, the little thatched church, the neat fields, all grown up in a couple of years, and all the work of two white men. . . They’re brave fellows out there; good men.”

They had turned into the Park, pleasant with a sense of cool grass and damp borders. The man in khaki paused and sniffed luxuriously; the wariness had gone out of his face. “Yes,” he said, gravely, “they’re good men. That man Raynor, now, he’s a mix of holiness and horse-sense which you’d call uncommon. Yes, sir, uncommon. And all that good man has”—he turned suddenly and laid his hand on Hillard’s arm—“all that good man has, all he’s done, he owes to Brad Timmins, who weren’t good in any sense o’ the word. Queer, ain’t it?”

Hillard took him deftly by the elbow, turned him to a bench, and said, “Go on.”

It came something like this:

“We were days and days in the grass country, and that’s a thing very bad for the nerves. You see nothing but grass, close-packed, stem and blade. We travelled blind as if we was in a tunnel, and the roof of the tunnel was the achin’ sky. We’d brush through the grass as endless as water. And hot. . . Brad and I we quarreled all the way up, and, what made it worse, we had to quarrel amiable. In a friendly voice, I mean, so the niggers wouldn’t know. It’s that way. It was about a girl; and he’d curse me to kingdom come in a tea-and-ices sort of tone that made me sick, and I’d answer accordin’. He was a hard case, was Brad. But pretty soon he forgot about the girl, and thought of nothing but what we’d come for.

“The heat was such, and the glare on all them leagues of yellowish grass, I give you my word I scarce knew when we got among the trees. I just looked up, saw it was dark, felt a warm splash on my face, and there we was in the forest. Nothing gradual about that country. One hour that blazin’ grass, the next, them everlastin’ trees. Grass couldn’t have been no grassier, forest couldn’t have been no treeier. It’s that way. . .”

He looked at a taxi throbbing beside the curb, watched it as it slid away on the smooth asphalt. “Over there we don’t overrun things—dead things, I mean, like earth and trees and rivers. . . Or are they so dead? Well, over here it’s us that count; over there it’s them. Our life’s nothin’. And it’s not the people either; they may be little better than beasts. But you could plant London, Paris, and Noo York among them trees, and it wouldn’t make no difference—at least, not to last. Them things are so strong. It’s that way.

“We was after ivory, and not green stuff that’s been buried for years, waiting for a good bargain, either. Brad he wanted it fresh. He wanted a good village on the edge of the forest where he could get more hunters and porters, and store his ivory, and send it back in lots. He didn’t think or pray or want for a thing but ivory.

“We found a village. . . Yes, Raynor’s village. There wasn’t no church then, nor no school, and the trees was thicker. Raynor thinned ’em a lot and quite wise. But I see he’s took down some of our stockade, which ain’t so wise. You see that picture of the reclaimed witch-doctor with the locket round his neck, a hoeing his pumpkin-patch? Well, that feller, he run things, and the young headman was under his thumb. He was too clever for a nigger—he favoured us for his reasons, and we favoured him for ours, and things was very pleasant and comfortable all around.

“Brad and me we’d go off in the grass country for days after the herds. Yes, and we had good luck. You wouldn’t get such luck now, not anywheres. A wonderful great country under the moon, and the elephants moving. . . Well, it’s that way. And then we’d go back to our clean grass huts huddling on the edge of the trees, and we’d see the little fires at night and hear the girls chatter, and it would seem ’most like home. Then the young chief he’d come in and talk. A bright young feller and we sort o’ fascinated him. He got terribly fond of Brad Timmins. Brad he was a big, open-faced, hearty-speakin’ sort, and it wasn’t till you know’d him well that you’d see how tight his mouth shut and how hard his eyes was. He was always most fair and friendly with the natives, and they thought no end of him. Only that old witch-doctor, squatting in his hut among the rags and chickens—only he saw through Brad. He’d say: ‘That white man would burn a whole village for the sake of one tusk,’ and it was quite true. But the young headman would say: ‘I’m black and he is white, but he is my friend.’ And the doctor, blinking his black eyelids with the gray lashes like a monkey’s, he’d laugh.

“We sent off three lots of ivory down country. We’d a pile growing, and I—I was getting a bit tired of it. I wanted to take my share and make for the coast, and enjoy myself awhile. Well, it’s that way with me. I ain’t hard like Brad was. But he was a shark over the ivory. He never got enough. He killed out that country—not for the lust to kill that sometimes takes a man, but because of the money in the ivory, which, I give you my word, is quite a different thing, mister. He was like a miser too. He’d a store of the very finest tusks wrapped up like babies and buried under the floor of his hut. He just couldn’t bear to part with ’em, though he knew they might sp’ile. He just loved ’em. No one knew they was there, but me, and he didn’t know I knew. They was his secret hoard, like in a book. I didn’t care. I give you my word that I was half-scared o’ Brad Timmins them days, he was that mad on the ivory, though always most fair and friendly to them that helped him to it.

“I’m nothing to boast of in the way of softness, mister, as you can guess; but there’s things. . . Well, it’s that way with me. You’ll find a feelin’ if you dig far enough, as the dentist said. There’s a few things that reach home to me, and that young headman he was one of them when he pulled Brad out from a charging bull. Yes, sir; right out from under. And boosted him up a tree, and nipped up himself, and Brad he shot the bull. It was a fine thing. ‘You’ll give him a gun for that,’ I says to Brad. And Brad, he says; ‘You mind your own business. I’ve no guns to spare.’ Then I knew he’d do it cheap, and I was ashamed, and I give the nigger my own third gun, and told him it came from Brad, and not because of the gun, but because he’d saved his life. Yes, it’s that way. Queer, ain’t it?

“Well, that country was just about used up; all our ivory was on its way south, and I wanted to follow it. But Brad he would go on. He was set on travelling round the edge of the tree belt till we found fresh elephant country, using the village as a base camp. He had his way, as a man who don’t care nothin’ for nobody else most generally does. The village howled with grief, all but the old witch-doctor, who made our arrangements for us. At the end of the talk he said something that sounded like ‘Mabendy.’

“What’s that?” said I.

“He waved his hands toward the forest. ‘Very bad people,’ he said, ‘come and fight, try and take the village. If they take it, they eat us.’

“And a tough morsel you’d be,” I thought to myself. And Brad, he laughed. The headman was there, too, and generally when Brad laughed he’d laugh. He didn’t now. He said: ‘It is very bad. They are as many as the leaves, and their arrows are strong. They came once before and we beat them off, but they killed many of our fighting men. Now our huts are full of children again, but they are little, and I have just taken my third wife, whom I love. It is very bad.’ He laid his hand, which was black as a coal and delicate as a girl’s, for a moment on Brad’s. ‘It is very bad if they come while you, a great warrior, are away. But I will send a messenger, and then you will return and help us.’

“Yes. He said it just like that. Not as a question. He thought Brad was his friend, you see, and spoke accordin’.

“Brad Timmins he looked at me with one big wink, but I looked at my boots. Later I said to him: ‘If Mabendy—whoever he or they are—comes, and you’re sent for and you don’t go, you’ll lose your face. You won’t get no more hunters and beaters out o’ that village.’ And he swore at me with pure astonishment as a meddlesome grannie that minded what a pack of niggers thought. Yes, he swore amazin’.”

A girl passed, wearing small, high-heeled, patent-leather shoes; the man in khaki watched them gravely until the girl was out of sight. Then he said, suddenly, “But not so bad as when the message come”—and was once more silent.

“Then Mabendy came?”

The man in khaki looked at Hillard, nodding gravely, “Yes, mister. As we heard by special messenger, two days out—a boy with a rag round his head. He come reeling up our line and rolled at Brad’s feet, gasping out a word or two. And Brad he began kickin’ him cruel.

“ ‘Whatever are you doin’?’ I says, pulling Brad back. He was in a breathless rage, and couldn’t speak for a minute.

“ ‘Those f-fools,’ he stutters, ‘those fools! Do they think. . .’ His voice ran up to a sort of yell. And then, all of a sudden he stopped, gapin’ at me like a fish, and his jaw workin’.

“ ‘What is it now?’ I says.

“He lets out a sort of whisper—’ My tusks—and the next moment, mister, I give you my word, he was beatin’ our boys with a gun-butt to turn ’em round quicker.”

The man leaned down and brushed some dust from his outrageous trousers. “Yes. He’d remembered those tusks, you see—those choice tusks that I wasn’t expected to know of. Yes; buried under the floor of his hut. He was afraid Mabeady’d find ’em. So we was goin’ back. . . . . .”

He was silent again. When he did speak it was unexpected.

“These pants ’re his.”

“Whose?”

“Brad’s. He was a bigger man than me.”

“Did he give them to you!”

“No, mister; I shouldn’t say gave. . . Found ’em, I did—aft. Couldn’t find anything else; it’d been all took and distributed. No, not exactly stole; more for relics, like the Cath’lics.”

“Then you got back to the village?”

“Yes, we got back—in a little more than thirty hours—half dead, because of the ivory. . . . There was a little hillock beyond arrow-shot, overlooking the village. We was goin’ to spy out a bit from this. We hadn’t met no enemy. The sun was settin’ behind us, behind the great grass-country—settin’ terrible bright, and every leaf and branch on the edge of the forest was sharp and distinct in a great blaze of gold light. Never see such light here, mister. We left our boys on the ground, and Brad and me we crawled up that hillock to have a look. . . .

“The first thing that struck me was the quiet. It was all so quiet. Not till you saw that little black ripple and eddy among the huts would you have guessed that it was men fighting—for their homes and their kids—as you or me might do. It was the absence of firearms that made it seem so quiet.

“I didn’t see it all so quick as Brad; he was ahead of me. When he saw the fight among the huts he gave a cry, kind of as if he was hurt. I guess he was. Then his breath seemed to go from him, and he stood up clear on the top of the mound, his arms out, cursing in whispers—because of the ivory.

“That great gold light seemed to beat on him like water. I can’t describe it, mister. He seemed to grow bigger, to tower over the huts, to be as huge as one of the trees. To those poor harried folk in the shadow he must have shown, I take it, like a god, a deliverer,—a saviour—there in the light with his arms spread out. Come to save ’em, eh?

“I give you my word for it, the whole fight was held up while you could count twenty, while they stared up at the great gold figure on the hillock. Then—we was out of arrow-range, but some one had an old breech-loader—Brad he went down coughing. When I ran up, ‘Damn you,’ he groans. ‘Don’t stop here. Get the tusks out, you fool’. . . Yes, he’d forgot I wasn’t supposed to know about them. They was the last thing he thought of, I guess—this side.

“Then . . .?”

He began again with a start. “Then our men from the village rushed up behind me, mad. And we went down. . .

“I don’t remember much else, mister, I never do. Some takes it this way and some that. I got a crack on the head, too, and when I come round a few days after, Brad Timmins he was dead and buried and what you might call canonized. Yes, sir.

“Which way? Well, for coming back at the call of his friend in need, I suppose, and losin’ his life over it. ‘A man of great heart is he who will go into the dark night at the word of his brother,’ said the young headman to me; I believe it says much the same thing in the Bible. . . And the old witch-doctor pipes up, ‘If he was indeed a man, O child!’

“Mister, I saw the beginning of what you and your kind would call a very curious process—the making of a god. Me, I simply didn’t count, though I’d done a lot more than stand on top of a hill in the sunset. Why, I was all blacked up with the back-spit of my old Colt. It’s that way. . . . I went to look at Brad’s grave, and it was all planted round with holy bushes and a mess of rags and feathers and pots and pumpkins. And while I stood there a woman led her little boy up to the grave and set his little black hand like a monkey’s paw on the earth, and said something to Brad. And in two weeks it was rumoured that Brad didn’t like folks round there after dark. And in three it was said that as he stood on the hillock he’d gathered the sun’s rays in his hands and turned them into the blinded faces of Mabendy. Our village had got off uncommon cheap, and it was all laid down to Brad Timmins. ‘Most unreasonable. But it’s that way. . . .

“And the stamp of Brad Timmins was on every white man after that. He became the type—what you’d call the symbol, mister. He, in his grave there, smoothed the way for Raynor. Raynor, he was listened to because of Brad Timmins. You may say the church was built by Brad, and the schools laid on him as a foundation stone. And all the time. . . Well, what gets me is, who’ll have the credit, eh?”

“And the ivory?”

The man in khaki coughed uneasily. “I give you my word, and you may set me down for a fool, I left the ivory where it was. I guess it’s there still. They’d have known. . . poor devils in the dark. . . I guess I’ve kept you an uncommon time, mister.”

“Not too long.” Hillard drew out a card. “This is my name and address. Will you take it, and—come and tell me some more any time you’re inclined?”

“Thank you; I’d be pleased.” He got up and shook hands absently, and turned away. But he came back.

“Raynor and his kind they don’t know. They can’t know. Stands to reason. . . But you saw the picture of that old witch-doctor hoeing his pumpkins that innocent? Yes? And the locket made o’ cocoa tins round his neck? Yes? There’s the heart of Brad Timmins in them cocoa-tins.” He moved off again, pausing only to say, gravely over his shoulder, “And I guess it rattles about inside like a dried bean.”

Then he went, and Hillard watched him walking cautiously among the well-dressed crowd, as if he were afraid of tripping over the roots of trees, the blinding spears of the elephant grass.

Tonio brought the news after dinner with the turgid mix he called coffee. “Concepcion says,” he remarked, “that there has been a battle beyond Cienaga and all the insurgents have been destroyed. But Concepcion is a liar anyway, and does the señor wish me to open another tin of milk? There is no more fresh. The cow is dead.”

Fellowes lifted his head with a jerk from the sticky leather cushion where he had just laid it, too tired even to swear. “Hello! say that again.”

“The cow is dead and Pepita wept. There is no doubt that it is dead . . .”

“Never mind. I mean about the battle.”

“Saints! Concepcion says there has been one beyond Cienaga, and all the insurgentes have been killed.”

“Who told him?”

“A man who fought in the battle, señor, a man who was there. Pedro is hiding him in the cafetaria.”

“Why?”

“Quien sabe? Pedro says he is frightened. And there is no fresh milk. Little Mother of God, that cow was exhausta . . .”

“Be quiet. Give me my boots again.”

For all his tiredness, Fellowes dropped out of the hammock lightly enough. If there really had been a battle, and the insurgentes really had been wiped out, then the victorious troops would probably straggle back to the Town for rest and refreshment. In that case the Company must be warned, and the Company’s loose property swept up and secured. “Damn all governments, anyway,” said Fellowes, as he struggled with the boots, and wondered where he might lay hand on one of his foremen.

After the heat of the lighted room behind the nettings, the dusk was almost cool as he plunged into it. A storm was coming, and the sun had dropped early into dark cloud. Sky and forest were so much of a blackness that it looked as if the trees had suddenly and silently surged upward and swallowed the day. The foul little roads were dim and deserted; only the square flared with uncertain light. The church seemed at one moment to waver near the ground; the next, it flickered aloft, striking into the inverted pits of dark like a reflection in a well. Only in front of the café a compact and sweating crowd fought and screamed whole-heartedly, tiny by contrast of the night.

A man whirled from the outskirts of the crowd as Fellowes paused, and caught him by the coat. “There is a man!” he shrieked above the din. “One who has seen the battle!” Fellowes shook him off, lowered his head, and drove through the mob by sheer weight of bone. They took his charge with perfect good-temper. Brown hands caught at him, eyes gleamed and darkened, and half the mouths in the Town screamed at him in unison.

“There is a man in the café. A man who saw the battle! Little Mother of God, a man who was there!”

He was in the hard-breathing front rank, pressed against the wall. The closed door of the café was in front of him. He could see a pale blot wavering like a moth within the glass,—the anxious face of Pedro. Then a darkness appeared in the blot, and two smaller blots appeared with cautious gestures. Fellowes worked forward till he leaned against the door. It opened suddenly. Fat hands dragged him within. And Pedro clapped to the door again in the excited faces of his friends.

“That was well done,” said Pedro, puffing heavily. “I saw the señor. I thought, he wishes to question me, to ask me the truth; I will admit him. And you are here, señor.”

Fellowes looked round. The thick-walled room was cool and dark, bitter with the smell of stale cheap wine, and as still as a chapel. The noise outside penetrated only as a murmur. “And the man?” he asked, with a breath of relief. “You have him here?”

“The man who was there?” said Pedro. “Yes, señor. You wish to ask him of the battle? Yes, señor. I will give light.”

He brought a little reeking lamp of the sort they light in shrines. Shapes dawned on them cloudily,—barrels, jars, an old door like a cave’s mouth, and a flight of steps. “He is . . .?” began Fellowes in some astonishment. And Pedro finished quickly, “In the cellar? Yes, señor. Why? Because he is afraid.”

The last word came back deep and hollow as Pedro led the way into the cellars. “Afraid . . .”

If the upper floor had been as still as a chapel, the cellar was as still as a tomb. The steps led straight down into a square room full of broad mud pillars; on three sides of this room smaller ones opened, bins and cupboards for storing the wine and the aguardiente. Each opening was hung with a rough door, and every door stood open, so that beyond the circling shadows of the pillars there seemed to wait a monstrous company of wings. Fellowes turned mechanically to close the door at the foot of the stairs. And a voice cried to him quickly, “Señor, señor, leave the door open, in the name of God.”

“Yes,” said the fat Pedro in a whisper, “that is the man. Leave the door open, señor. In the name of God.”

Fellowes looked. The soldier sat on a straw mattress with his back against the far wall, so that all the open doors were in view. His slender brown feet were wrapped in strips of native cloth that had once been white, but were now stained a thick dark brown. His knees were drawn up and his hands clasped them. He wore some sort of uniform-coat with gaudy yellow flannel facings, and a broad hat lay beside him, together with an untouched bottle of Pedro’s wine. His voice, singularly sharp and quick, was yet the voice of a sound man.

“Are you . . .” began Fellowes, and then stopped. The face touched with a strange reflection not of light, but of darkness, answered him. It was the only answer he had. For the soldier was counting the doors on his fingers,—“Four—seven—nine, and all open.”

Fellowes turned to Pedro. “Is this man—is he a little mad?”

“O no, señor. He is only afraid.”

“Of what?”

“Of a closed door, señor. He is not mad. He was there, beyond Cienaga. Wait. I will speak for you.”

He leaned forward and spoke loudly, a fat hand on either knee. “This caballero wishes to ask if you were in the fight beyond Cienaga.”

The echoes of the deep voice rolled in little thunders; each echo died before the man answered in his sharp, breathless voice.

“Yes, I was there.”

“He wishes to hear about the battle. Will you tell him all you know?”

Another silence. Then,—“Yes, I will tell him all I know. But do not shut the doors.”

Fellowes took it up eagerly in his best Spanish. “Tell me all you know, my friend, and I’ll make it well worth your while.” He felt in his pocket for a pencil and a scrap of paper. “Go on. I’m ready.”

“There was a river,” said the soldier quickly, “and a house with a yellow roof in a clearing.”

“Yes. Go on, please.”

“A house with a yellow roof. I was in the house.”

“Yes, but before that?”

“Before that, the swamps, señor. Then the river, and the village, and the house with the yellow roof. I was in the house.”

“But—this is no use.” Fellowes turned to Pedro. “I want facts, all he knows—”

Pedro’s full-moon face was turned gravely on the soldier; his eyes, gentle as a girl’s, watched him only. “Señor,” he said, with an air slightly absent, “I think he will tell you all he knows. Listen. In the name of God.”

Pedro’s voice, the little shrine-lamp sending up a thin black finger to the roof, the shadows, the open doors,—all these chilled Fellowes a little. He glanced curiously from Pedro to the soldier. “Let him tell it in his own way, then.”

The soldier began again, as if he were speaking for the first time.

“There was the house with the yellow roof. But before that we crossed the swamps. It’s very bad in the swamps. We walked one behind the other on logs laid down in the mud; they were very old logs, very slippery. We walked for a long time, I don’t know how long. One man took the quick fever, and when the pain came, he cried and fell into the mud, in a deep place. He was gone before one could cry on the saints, and his gun too, which was a pity. This man was the first who died. I forget his name now, but he was very lucky at cockfighting.

“It was very dark in the swamps, too, dark almost like night. Sometimes the trees broke, and a line of light lay across the mud. As the long trail of men crawled along the logs, each as he passed under the light would go very slowly, and lift his face to it, until he was pushed on by the man behind who wanted to feel the sun on his eyes too. In this way two more men were drowned in the mud. But I was safe, and so was the man in front of me. I was glad of that, because he was my friend.”

“But can’t you remember how long you were in the swamps?” asked Fellowes, gently. “Who your captain was? Anything that happened?”

The soldier looked troubled. “No, I don’t remember. But I had a gun, and cartridges, and a bayoneta; and I was afraid of the insurgentes. I was afraid they would come up behind us. We didn’t know where they were. The man in front of me didn’t care. He was a young man and merry, with no hatred in him. He said, ‘If a Señor Insurgente gave me a good dinner, I’d build him a shrine.’ But I was afraid of the insurgentes. They were devils.

“When we came out of the swamps many of us had fever, and our feet were sore with leech-bites. There was a road, but it was very bad. Soon one part of our army was far ahead of the other. Those who went in front had shoes, those who went slowly, hadn’t any. I was afraid the insurgentes would catch us, but I couldn’t go fast. My friend had shoes, but he stayed with me. And one day he went off by himself, and came back laughing with a pair for me. ‘There’s a village yonder,’ he told me, ‘all shut up except the church. A poor place. Only the fleas are fat. I said a prayer in the church, amigo, and stole the jefe’s shoes for you.’

“Now that we both had shoes we left the rearguard behind us, the men who had none. I don’t remember where we went. We went on for a long time, and there was fighting in front of us. I think we fought too, because I remember hiding in some thick bushes covered with pink flowers. There was a dead man near us, and when I fired my gun, the pink flowers fell until he was almost buried,—only his feet out. There were lots of dead men, though, we didn’t mind them. But there were a few who were not dead. Those insurgentes are devils. I was not afraid of fighting—I was afraid of insurgentes. I would call to my friend in daylight, like a child at night. ‘Are they here, have they come, amigo?’ And he would say ‘No, we must still keep the dinner hot for them.’ He was a merry man even when he was hungry.

“I still had my gun, and some cartridges and my bayoneta; but we had no food. When we came to the river, and the village, and the house with the yellow roof, my friend went away to find food. I hid in the house with the yellow roof, waiting for him; I hid in a corner of the lower room behind the door, where there was a little window, high up. I had my gun, and my cartridges, and my bayoneta. I was going to fire on the rebels through the window if they came. But they didn’t come.

“It was very still in that house. The room was a very nice one, very clean. A water-pot hung under the eaves and dripped, and that was often the only sound I could hear. A child’s shoe lay in the middle of the floor; they must have been well-to-do folk if even the children had shoes. But I couldn’t find anything to eat, not so much as a mouldy plantain or a bit of bread. The door was open. I left it open and stood in the shadow behind it with my gun and my cartridges and my bayoneta, looking out of the little window and wondering where my friend was. There was a clearing outside, surrounded with tall trees. Sunlight hung like ropes made from gold between the trees. Birds talked; one flew in at the open door of the room where I hid. It was so quiet you woauld never have thought of fighting, of anger, of dead men. Except when the sunny wind blew off the woods.”

As if the remembered quietness locked his lips, the soldier was silent. The door at the foot of the stairs swung in a draught and he watched it anxiously with drawn-in lips until it was still. Then he went on breathlessly: “I will tell the gentleman all I can remember. It is not much. But there was fighting, but I don’t remember where or what it was all about. It is all gone. Only I was in the lower room of the house with the yellow roof, behind the door. And the door was open. I was waiting for my friend. I waited a long time, but he came at last.

“He broke through the trees on the far side of the clearing, running as if he were mad, and leaping from side to side. He had a dead fowl under each arm, and as he ran, their long necks jerked together. His tunic was all stuffed out with things, and his ragged trousers fluttered round his legs like flags round a flag-pole at a fiesta. He looked very funny. He was laughing as he ran. I laughed too, and I was just going to run and meet him, when I thought, is there a kettle here to cook the fowl in? I looked for the kettle, and looked back through the window. And I saw the little blue puff break from the trees . . .

“The crack followed, little and foolish in that big quietness as the crack of a twig. And three men ran out of the trees after my friend. They were insurgentes. I had never seen them so close before. I was afraid. But he wasn’t, I saw his white teeth flashing as he ran for the open door. He ran as fast as a dog, with the fowls’ heads jerking against his knees. And he laughed.

“I became very cold, there behind the door. Something jerked in my chest, and the gun jerked in my hand. I wondered what I should do. If I fired, I might have hit my friend. I didn’t fire. I watched the insurgentes coming nearer. I saw their faces, as they ran through the streaks of light and shadow in the clearing, now bright, now dark, and all with one thought in them . . . Then I was afraid. Afraid as I hadn’t been before. The light went out, my flesh trembled, my sinews shook against my bones. Mother of God, I died,—died many times.”

The soldier bent forward, panting. His eyes for the first time met Fellowes’.

“I was there. I will tell you all I know, señor. He was my friend. I was afraid.

“I shut the door.”

The cellar was very still. The lamp-fire trembled, and Pedro’s immense squat shadow surged like a cloud.

“I shut the door. The square of sunlight on the floor grew thin and went out. There was a place for a bolt, but no bolt. I drove in my bayoneta,—drove it in with the child’s shoe I picked up from the floor. I leaned against the door, staring at the floor where the sunlight had been. My hands were over my ears, but I could hear everything, rolling like stones in my heart, in my head . . .

“I shut the door. It was fast when he flung himself against it, calling me to open in the name of God. I wanted to open it, then, señor, I wanted to open it. But I couldn’t move. I was afraid. And they killed him against it. They didn’t shoot. They killed him with their bayonets. The points came through to the other side and pricked me,—twice,—as I leaned against it. Then they took the fowls and went away. I don’t know how many there were or why they went away. Perhaps they didn’t see the door had been open.

“It was very quiet again. I crushed my ear against my side of the door, but there was no sound from his side. I put my lips to the wood and spoke to him in a whisper for fear the insurgentes should hear and come back. I couldn’t believe that he didn’t hear. I thought he was listening in silence and laughing,—just to pay me out—but there was no sound but the drip from the water-jar. It was very loud, like a bell. A drop would flash in the shadow and fall, and then the sound would come in my head,—‘Boom.’ Soon I saw that there were two ‘Booms’ to every drip that fell. I couldn’t understand it at first. But the other drip, the other noise, were outside. I looked down at my feet. The jefe’s shoes he had stolen for me were very dark, very wet, with—with what had dripped and run under the closed door from his side to mine . . .

“I was afraid again. I kicked off the shoes and ran round and round the room. I couldn’t believe that he was dead. He was such a merry one. As I ran, I kept saying, ‘I’m afraid of the insurgentes, afraid of the insurgentes,’ and I called, ‘Are you here, amigo, have they come? But he didn’t answer ‘We must keep the soup hot.’ Then I knew I wasn’t afraid of the insurgentes, but of my amigo on the other side of the door.

“When it was dark, so dark I could see nothing, I went to the door. My hands were quite steady as I worked out the bayoneta. But I opened it the breadth of a hand. Señor, the door opened inwards. As it came, something came with it, heavy, dragging on the ground—pinned to it as a bat’s skin’s pinned on a board . . .

“I don’t remember much. I shut the door again. I was very cold. I took my gun and broke down the window and climbed out that way.

“The clearing was in very dark shadow, but the tops of the trees were white in the coming moonlight. I knew I must be away before the moonlight shone on the door. I dropped from the window and my foot struck something,—a loaf of bread. His tunic was all fat with things as he ran and laughed . . .

“I was very hungry. I caught it up and ran, wondering why the insurgentes had left it. I went on and on. The moon rose and the light came on my hands. They were dark, señor, the bread was dark. No wonder the insurgentes had left it. It was all spoiled . . .

“I don’t remember much more. I went on,—went on. Then it was day, and there was a town, one of our towns. When they saw my feet, they let me ride in the wagons. They offered me bread, but I couldn’t eat it. They thought I was wounded and starved. They thought I had fought the rebels. Perhaps I had. But I only remember that I was afraid. And so I shut the door.”

“But the fighting?” asked Fellowes under his breath. “Under whose command? Who cut off the insurgentes? Where will the troops retire? He must . . .”

“Hush, señor.” Pedro lifted his hand and turned on his heel. “Hush. He knows no more.”

“More?” The man in the yellow facings caught at the word. “Tell the gentleman that’s all. There was a house, and an open door, and I shut the door.”

“Come,” said Pedro again, “there is no more. He has told you all he knows.”

They went softly up the steps. And behind them the breathless voice called: “Señor, señor, for the pity of God, do not close the door!”