Part 3 (2/2)
”It is a great scheme,” the doctor murmured enthusiastically.
”It is a wonderful one! That great and unrevealed Power, Schmidt, which watches over our country and which will make her mistress of the world, must have guided this man to us. My position in England will be unique.
As Sir Everard Dominey I shall be able to penetrate into the inner circles of Society--perhaps, even, of political life. I shall be able, if necessary, to remain in England even after the storm bursts.”
”Supposing,” the doctor suggested, ”this man Dominey should return to England?”
Von Ragastein turned his head and looked towards his questioner.
”He must not,” he p.r.o.nounced.
”So!” the doctor murmured.
Late in the afternoon of the following day, Dominey, with a couple of boys for escort and his rifle slung across his shoulder, rode into the bush along the way he had come. The little fat doctor stood and watched him, waving his hat until he was out of sight. Then he called to the orderly.
”Heinrich,” he said, ”you are sure that the Herr Englishman has the whisky?”
”The water bottles are filled with nothing else, Herr Doctor,” the man replied.
”There is no water or soda water in the pack?”
”Not one drop, Herr Doctor.”
”How much food?”
”One day's rations.”
”The beef is salt?”
”It is very salt, Herr Doctor.”
”And the compa.s.s?”
”It is ten degrees wrong.”
”The boys have their orders?”
”They understand perfectly, Herr Doctor. If the Englishman does not drink, they will take him at midnight to where His Excellency will be encamped at the bend of the Blue River.”
The doctor sighed. He was not at heart an unkindly man.
”I think,” he murmured, ”it will be better for the Englishman that he drinks.”
CHAPTER III
Mr. John Lambert Mangan of Lincoln's Inn gazed at the card which a junior clerk had just presented in blank astonishment, an astonishment which became speedily blended with dismay.
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