Part 9 (1/2)
The youth at the door nodded superciliously towards Mitchelbourne.
”True, these are dialectics,” said he with a smack of the lips upon the word. It was a good cunning scholarly word, and the man who could produce it so aptly worthy of admiration.
”You make a further error, gentlemen,” continued Mitchelbourne, ”you no doubt are expecting some one, but you were most certainly not expecting me. For I am here by the purest mistake, having been misdirected on the way.” Here the three men smiled to each other, and their spokesman retorted with a chuckle.
”Misdirected, indeed you were. We took precautions that you should be.
A servant of mine stationed at the parting of the roads. But we are forgetting our manners,” he added rising from his chair. ”You should know our names. The gentleman at the door is Cornet Lashley, this is Captain Ba.s.sett and I am Major Chantrell. We are all three of Trevelyan's regiment.”
”And my name,” said Mitchelbourne, not to be outdone in politeness, ”is Lewis Mitchelbourne, a gentleman of the County of Middles.e.x.”
At this each of the officers was seized with a fit of laughter; but before Mitchelbourne had time to resent their behavior, Major Chantrell said indulgently:
”Well, well, we shall not quarrel about names. At all events we all four are lately come from Tangier.”
”Oh, from Tangier,” cried Mitchelbourne. The riddle was becoming clear. That extraordinary siege when a handful of English red-coats unpaid and ill-fed fought a breached and broken town against countless hordes for the honour of their King during twenty years, had not yet become the property of the historian. It was still an actual war in 1681. Mitchelbourne understood whence came the sunburn on his antagonists' faces, whence the stains and the worn seams of their clothes. He advanced to the table and spoke with a greater respect than he had used.
”Did one of you,” he asked, ”leave a Moorish pipe behind you at an inn of Saxmundham?”
”Ah,” said the Major with a reproachful glance at Captain Ba.s.sett. The Captain answered with some discomfort:
”Yes. I made that mistake. But what does it matter? You are here none the less.”
”You have with you some of the Moorish tobacco?” continued Mitchelbourne.
Captain Ba.s.sett fetched out of his pocket a little canvas bag, and handed it to Mitchelbourne, who untied the string about the neck, and poured some of the contents into the palm of his hand. The tobacco was a fine, greenish seed.
”I thought as much,” said Mitchelbourne, ”you expected Mr. Lance to-night. It is Mr. Lance whom you thought to misdirect to this solitary house. Indeed Mr. Lance spoke of such a place in this neighbourhood, and had a mind to buy it.”
Captain Ba.s.sett suddenly raised his hand to his mouth, not so quickly, however, but Mitchelbourne saw the grim, amused smile upon his lips.
”It is Mr. Lance for whom you now mistake me,” he said abruptly.
The young man at the door uttered a short, contemptuous laugh, Major Chantrell only smiled.
”I am aware,” said he, ”that we meet for the first time to-night, but you presume upon that fact too far. What have you to say to this?” And dragging a big and battered pistol from his pocket, he tossed it upon the table, and folded his arms in the best transpontine manner.
”And to this?” said Captain Ba.s.sett. He laid a worn leather powder flask beside the pistol, and tapped upon the table triumphantly.
Mr. Mitchelbourne recognised clearly that villainy was somehow checkmated by these proceedings and virtue restored, but how he could not for the life of him determine. He took up the pistol.
”It appears to have seen some honourable service,” said he. This casual remark had a most startling effect upon his auditors. It was the spark to the gun-powder of their pa.s.sions. Their affectations vanished in a trice.
”Service, yes, but honourable! Use that lie again, Mr. Lance, and I will ram the b.u.t.t of it down your throat!” cried Major Chantrell. He leaned forward over the table in a blaze of fury. Yet his face did no more than match the faces of his comrades.
Mitchelbourne began to understand. These simple soldier-men had endeavoured to conduct their proceedings with great dignity and a judicial calmness; they had mapped out for themselves certain parts which they were to play as upon a stage; they were to be three stern imposing figures of justice; and so they had become simply absurd and ridiculous. Now, however, that pa.s.sion had the upper hand of them, Mitchelbourne saw at once that he stood in deadly peril. These were men.
”Understand me, Mr. Lance,” and the Major's voice rang out firm, the voice of a man accustomed to obedience. ”Three years ago I was in command of Devil's Drop, a little makes.h.i.+ft fort upon the sands outside Tangier. In front the Moors lay about us in a semicircle. Sir, the diameter was the line of the sea at our backs. We could not retire six yards without wetting our feet, not twenty without drowning. One night the Moors pushed their trenches up to our palisades; in the dusk of the morning I ordered a sortie. Nine officers went out with me and three came back, we three. Of the six we left behind, five fell, by my orders, to be sure, for I led them out; but, by the living G.o.d, you killed them. There's the pistol that shot my best friend down, an English pistol. There's the powder flask which charged the pistol, an English flask filled with English powder. And who sold the pistol and the powder to the Moors, England's enemies? You, an Englishman. But you have come to the end of your lane to-night. Turn and turn as you will you have come to the end of it.”
The truth was out now, and Mitchelbourne was chilled with apprehension. Here were three men very desperately set upon what they considered a mere act of justice. How was he to dissuade them? By argument? They would not listen to it. By proofs? He had none to offer them. By excuses? Of all unsupported excuses which can match for futility the excuse of mistaken ident.i.ty? It springs immediate to the criminal's lips. Its mere utterance is almost a conviction.
”You persist in error, Major Chantrell,” he nevertheless began.