The Disentanglers Part 33

Bude walked to a small case of instruments that stood on a table in the smoking-room. He unlocked it, took out a lancet, brought a Rhodian bowl from a shelf, and bared his arm.

'Do you want proof?'

'Proof that you saw a hen Moa sitting?' asked Merton in amazement.

'Not exactly, but proof that Te-iki-pa knew a thing or two, quite as out of the way as the habitat of the Moa.'

'What do you want me to do?'

'Bare your arm, and hold it over the bowl.'

The room was full of the yellow dusky light of an early summer morning in London. Outside the heavy carts were rolling by: in full civilisation the scene was strange.

'The Blood Covenant?' asked Merton.

Bude nodded.

Merton turned up his cuff, Bude let a little blood drop into the bowl, then performed the same operation on his own arm.

'This is all rot,' he said, 'but without this I cannot show you, by virtue of my oath to Te-iki-pa, what I mean to show you. Now repeat after me what I am going to say.'

He spoke a string of words, among which Merton, as he repeated them, could only recognise _mana_ and _atua_. The vowel sounds were as in Italian.

'Now these words you must never report to any one, without my permission.'

'Not likely,' said Merton, 'I only remember two of them, and these I knew before.'

'All right,' said Bude.

He then veiled his face in a piece of silk that lay on a sofa, and rapidly, in a low voice, chanted a kind of hymn in a tongue unknown to Merton. All this he did with a bored air, as if he thought the performance a superfluous mummery.

'Now what shall I show you? Something simple. Look at the bookcase, and think of any book you may want to consult.'

Merton thought of the volume in M. of the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_. The volume slowly slid from the shelf, glided through the air to Merton, and gently subsided on the table near him, open at the word _Moa_.

Merton walked across to the bookcase, took all the volumes from the shelf, and carefully examined the backs and sides for springs and mechanical advantages. There were none.

'Not half bad!' he said, when he had completed his investigation.

'You are satisfied that Te-iki-pa knew something? If you had seen what I have seen, if you had seen the three days dead--' and Bude shivered slightly.

'I have seen enough. Do you know how it is done?'

'No.'

'Well, a miracle is not what you call logical proof, but I believe that you did see the Moa, and a still more extraordinary bird, Te-iki-pa.'

'Yes, they talk of strange beasts, but "nothing is stranger than man."

Did you ever hear of the Berbalangs of Cagayan Sulu?'

'Never in my life,' said Merton.

'Heaven preserve me from _them_,' said Bude, and he gently stroked the strange muddy pearls in the sleeve-links on his loose shirt-cuff. 'Angels and ministers of grace defend us,' he exclaimed, crossing himself (he was of the old faith), and he fell silent.

It was a moment of emotion. Six silvery strokes were sounded from a little clock on the chimney-piece. The hour of confidences had struck.

'Bude, you are serious about Miss McCabe?' asked Merton.

'I mean to put it to the touch at Goodwood.'

'No use!' said Merton.

Bude changed colour.

'Are _you_?'

'No,' interrupted Merton. 'But she is not free.'

'There is somebody in America? n.o.body here, I think.'

'It is hardly that,' said Merton. 'Can you listen to rather a long story? I'll cut it as much as possible. You must remember that I am practically breaking my word of honour in telling you this. My honour is in your hands.'

'Fire away,' said Bude, pouring a bottle of Apollinaris water into a long tumbler, and drinking deep.

Merton told the tale of Miss McCabe's extraordinary involvement, and of the wild conditions on which her hand was to be won. 'And as to her heart, I think,' he added, 'if you pull off the prize--

If my heart by signs can tell, Lordling, I have marked her daily, And I think she loves thee well.'

'Thank you for that, old c.o.c.k,' replied the peer, shaking Merton's hand.

He had recovered from his emotion.

'I'm on,' he added, after a moment's silence, 'but I shall enter as Jones Harvey.'

'His name and his celebrated papers will impress the trustees,' said Merton. 'Now what variety of nature shall you go for? Wild _men_ count.

Shall you fetch a Berbalang of what do you call it?'

Bude shuddered. 'Not much,' he said. 'I think I shall fetch a Moa.'

'But no steamer could hold that gigantic denizen of the forests.'

'You leave that to Jones Harvey. Jones is 'cute, some,' he said, reminiscent of the adored one, and he fell into a lover's reverie.

He was aroused by Merton's departure: he finished the Apollinaris water, took a bath, and went to bed.

II. The Adventure of the Muddy Pearls