Revenge! Part 28

"There has been too much force and too much expenditure about African travel. I do not intend to cross the Continent with arms and the munitions of war. As you remarked a while ago, I know several European languages, and if you will forgive what sounds like boasting, I may say that I have a gift for picking up tongues. I have money enough to fit myself out with some necessary scientific instruments, and to pay my pa.s.sage to the coast. Once there, I shall win my way across the Continent through love and not through fear."

"You will lose your head," said King Charles; "they don't understand that sort of thing out there, and, besides, the idea is not original.

Didn't Livingstone try that tack?"

"Yes, but people have forgotten Livingstone and his methods. It is now the explosive bullet and the elephant gun. I intend to learn the language of the different native tribes I meet, and if a chief opposes me and will not allow me to pa.s.s through his territory, and if I find I cannot win him over to my side by persuasive talk, then I shall go round."

"And what is to be the outcome of it all?" cried Charles. "What is your object?"

"Fame, my boy, fame," cried Cromwell, enthusiastically, flinging the chair from under him and pacing the narrow room. "If I can get from coast to coast without taking the life of a single native, won't that be something greater than all the play-acting from now till Doomsday?"

"I suppose it will," said the King, gloomily; "but you must remember you are the only friend I have, and I have reached an age when a man does not pick up friends readily."

Cromwell stopped in his walk and grasped the King by the hand. "Are you not the only friend I have," he said; "and why can you not abandon this ghastly sham and come with me, as I asked you to at first? How can you hesitate when you think of the glorious freedom of the African forest, and compare it with this cribbed and cabined and confined business we are now at?"

The King shook his head slowly, and knocked the ashes from his pipe. He seemed to have some trouble in keeping it alight, probably because of the prohibition on the wall.

"As I said before," replied the King, "I am too old. There are no pubs in the African forest where a man can get a gla.s.s of beer when he wants it. No, Ormond, African travel is not for me. If you are resolved to go, go and G.o.d bless you; I will stay at home and carefully nurse your fame. I shall from time to time drop appetising little paragraphs into the papers about your wanderings, and when you are ready to come back to England, all England will be ready to listen to you. You know how interest is worked up in the theatrical business by judicious puffing in the papers, and I imagine African exploration requires much the same treatment. If it were not for the Press, my boy, you could explore Africa till you were blind and n.o.body would hear a word about it, so I will be your advance agent and make ready for your home-coming."

At this point in the conversation between these two historic characters, the janitor of the theatre put his head into the room and reminded the celebrities that it was very late, whereupon both King and Commoner rose, with some reluctance, and washed themselves; the King becoming, when he put on the ordinary dress of an Englishman, Mr. James Spence, while Cromwell, after a similar transformation, became Mr.

Sidney Ormond; and thus, with nothing of Royalty or Dictatorship about them, the two strolled up the narrow street into the main thoroughfare and entered their favourite midnight restaurant, where, over a belated meal, they continued the discussion of the African project, which Spence persisted in looking upon as one of the maddest expeditions that had ever come to his knowledge; but the talk was futile, as most talk is, and within a month from that time Ormond was on the ocean, his face set towards Africa.

Another man took Ormond's place at the theatre, and Spence continued to play his part, as the papers said, in his usual acceptable manner. He heard from his friend, in due course, when he landed. Then at intervals came one or two letters showing how he had surmounted the numerous difficulties with which he had to contend. After a long interval came a letter from the interior of Africa, sent to the coast by messenger.

Although at the beginning of this letter Ormond said he had but faint hope of reaching his destination, he, nevertheless, gave a very complete account of his wanderings and dealings with the natives, and up to that point his journey seemed to be most satisfactory. He inclosed several photographs, mostly very bad ones, which he had managed to develop and print in the wilderness. One, however, of himself was easily recognisable, and Spence had it copied and enlarged, hanging the framed enlargement in whatever dressing-room fate a.s.signed to him; for Spence never had a long engagement at any one theatre. He was a useful man who could take any part, but had no specialty, and London was full of such.

For a long time he heard nothing from his friend, and the newspaper men to whom Spence indefatigably furnished interesting items about the lone explorer, began to look upon Ormond as an African Mrs. Harris, and the paragraphs, to Spence's deep regret, failed to appear. The journalists, who were a flippant lot, used to accost Spence with "Well, Jimmy, how's your African friend?" and the more he tried to convince them, the less they believed in the peace-loving traveller.

At last there came a final letter from Africa, a letter that filled the tender, middle-aged heart of Spence with the deepest grief he had ever known. It was written in a shaky hand, and the writer began by saying that he knew neither the date nor his locality. He had been ill and delirious with fever, and was now, at last, in his right mind, but felt the grip of death upon him. The natives had told him that no one ever recovered from the malady he had caught in the swamp, and his own feelings led him to believe that his case was hopeless. The natives had been very kind to him throughout, and his followers had promised to bring his boxes to the coast. The boxes contained the collections he had made, and also his complete journal, which he had written up to the day he became ill.

Ormond begged his friend to hand over his belongings to the Geographical Society, and to arrange for the publication of his journal, if possible. It might secure for him the fame he had died to achieve, or it might not; but, he added, he left the whole conduct of the affair unreservedly to his friend, in whom he had that love and confidence which a man gives to another man but once in his life--when he is young. The tears were in Jimmy's eyes long before he had finished the letter.

He turned to another letter he had received by the same mail, and which also bore the South African stamp upon it. Hoping to find some news of his friend he broke the seal, but it was merely an intimation from the steamship company that half-a-dozen boxes remained at the southern terminus of the line addressed to him; but, they said, until they were a.s.sured the freight upon them to Southampton would be paid, they would not be forwarded.

A week later, the London papers announced in large type, "Mysterious disappearance of an actor." The well-known actor, Mr. James Spence, had left the theatre in which he had been playing the part of Joseph to a great actor's Richelieu, and had not been heard of since. The janitor remembered him leaving that night, for he had not returned his salutation, which was most unusual. His friends had noticed that for a few days previous to his disappearance he had been apparently in deep dejection, and fears were entertained. One journalist said jestingly that probably Jimmy had gone to see what had become of his African friend; but the joke, such as it was, was not favourably received, for when a man is called Jimmy until late in life, it shows that people have an affection for him, and every one who knew Spence was sorry he had disappeared, and hoped that no evil had overtaken him.

It was a year after the disappearance that a wan, living skeleton staggered out of the wilderness in Africa, and blindly groped his way to the coast as a man might who had lived long in darkness and found the light too strong for his eyes. He managed to reach a port, and there took steamer homeward bound for Southampton. The sea-breezes revived him somewhat, but it was evident to all the pa.s.sengers that he had pa.s.sed through a desperate illness. It was just a toss-up whether he could live until he saw England again. It was impossible to guess at his age, so heavy a hand had disease laid upon him, and he did not seem to care to make acquaintances, but kept much to himself, sitting wrapped up in his chair, gazing with a tired-out look at the green ocean.

A young girl frequently sat in a chair near him, ostensibly reading, but more often glancing sympathetically at the wan figure beside her.

Many times she seemed about to speak to him, but apparently hesitated to do so, for the man took no notice of his fellow-pa.s.sengers. At length, however, she mustered up courage to address him, and said: "There is a good story in this magazine: perhaps you would like to read it?"

He turned his eyes from the sea and rested them vacantly upon her face for a moment. His dark moustache added to the pallor of his face, but did not conceal the faint smile that came to his lips; he had heard her, but had not understood.

"What did you say?" he asked, gently.

"I said there was a good story here, ent.i.tled 'Author! Author!' and I thought you might like to read it," and the girl blushed very prettily as she said this, for the man looked younger than he had done before he smiled.

"I am afraid," said the man, slowly, "that I have forgotten how to read. It is a long time since I have seen a book or a magazine. Won't you tell me the story? I would much rather hear it from you than make an attempt to read it myself in the magazine."

"Oh," she cried, breathlessly, "I'm not sure that I could tell it; at any rate, not as well as the author does; but I will read it to you if you like."

The story was about a man who had written a play, and who thought, as every playwright thinks, that it was a great addition to the drama, and would bring him fame and fortune. He took this play to a London manager, but heard nothing of it for a long time, and at last it was returned to him. Then, on going to a first night at the theatre to see a new tragedy, which this manager called his own, he was amazed to see his rejected play, with certain changes, produced upon the stage, and when the cry "Author! Author!" arose, he stood up in his place; but illness and privation had done their work, and he died proclaiming himself the author of the play.

"Ah," said the man, when the reading was finished, "I cannot tell you how much the story has interested me. I once was an actor myself, and anything pertaining to the stage appeals to me, although it is years since I saw a theatre. It must be hard luck to work for fame and then be cheated out of it, as was the man in the tale; but I suppose it sometimes happens, although, for the honesty of human nature, I hope not very often."

"Did you act under your own name, or did you follow the fashion so many of the profession adopt?" asked the girl, evidently interested when he spoke of the theatre.

The young man laughed for, perhaps, the first time on the voyage. "Oh,"

he answered, "I was not at all noted. I acted only in minor parts, and always under my own name, which, doubtless, you have never heard--it is Sidney Ormond."

"What!" cried the girl in amazement; "not Sidney Ormond the African traveller?"

The young man turned his wan face and large, melancholy eyes upon his questioner.

"I am certainly Sidney Ormond, an African traveller, but I don't think I deserve the 'the,' you know. I don't imagine anyone has heard of me through my travelling any more than through my acting."

"The Sidney Ormond I mean," she said, "went through Africa without firing a shot; whose book, _A Mission of Peace_, has been such a success, both in England and America. But, of course, you cannot be he; for I remember that Sidney Ormond is now lecturing in England to tremendous audiences all over the country. The Royal Geographical Society has given him medals or degrees, or something of that sort-- perhaps it was Oxford that gave the degree. I am sorry I haven't his book with me, it would be sure to interest you; but some one on board is almost certain to have it, and I will try to get it for you. I gave mine to a friend in Cape Town. What a funny thing it is that the two names should be exactly the same."

"It is very strange," said Ormond gloomily, and his eyes again sought the horizon and he seemed to relapse into his usual melancholy.

The girl arose from her seat, saying she would try to find the book, and left him there meditating. When she came back, after the lapse of half an hour or so, she found him sitting just as she had left him, with his sad eyes on the sad sea. The girl had a volume in her hand.

"There," she said, "I knew there would be a copy on board, but I am more bewildered than ever; the frontispiece is an exact portrait of you, only you are dressed differently and do not look--" the girl hesitated, "so ill as when you came on board."

Ormond looked up at the girl with a smile, and said--

"You might say with truth, so ill as I look now."

"Oh, the voyage has done you good. You seem ever so much better than when you came on board."

"Yes, I think that is so," said Ormond, reaching for the volume she held in her hand. He opened it at the frontispiece and gazed long at the picture.

The girl sat down beside him and watched his face, glancing from it to the book.

"It seems to me," she said at last, "that the coincidence is becoming more and more striking. Have you ever seen that portrait before?"

"Yes," said Ormond slowly. "I recognise it as a portrait I took of myself in the interior of Africa which I sent to a dear friend of mine; in fact, the only friend I had in England. I think I wrote him about getting together a book out of the materials I sent him, but I am not sure. I was very ill at the time I wrote him my last letter. I thought I was going to die, and told him so. I feel somewhat bewildered, and don't quite understand it all."

"I understand it," cried the girl, her face blazing with indignation.

"Your friend is a traitor. He is reaping the reward that should have been yours, and so poses as the African traveller, the real Ormond. You must put a stop to it when you reach England, and expose his treachery to the whole country."

Ormond shook his head slowly and said--

"I cannot imagine Jimmy Spence a traitor. If it were only the book, that could be, I think, easily explained, for I sent him all my notes of travel and materials; but I cannot understand him taking the medals or degrees."

The girl made a quick gesture of impatience.

"Such things," she said, "cannot be explained. You must confront him and expose him."

"No," said Ormond, "I shall not confront him. I must think over the matter for a time. I am not quick at thinking, at least just now, in the face of this difficulty. Everything seemed plain and simple before, but if Jimmy Spence has stepped into my shoes, he is welcome to them.

Ever since I came out of Africa I seem to have lost all ambition.

Nothing appears to be worth while now."