Part 26 (1/2)

”Well?” said Mudge.

”Wait a moment!”

Pamela Mardale was Millie Stretton's friend. There was that incident in the hall--Millie Stretton coming down the stairs and Pamela in front of the mirror over the mantelpiece. Finally there was Pamela's persistent presence at Millie Stretton's house this afternoon. One by one the incidents gathered in his recollections and fitted themselves together and explained each other. Was this offer a pretext to get him out of the way? Callon, after all, was not a fool, and he asked himself why in the world Mr. Mudge should, just at this moment when he was in desperate straits, offer him 2000_l_. a year to superintend a railway in Chili?

”Well?” said Mudge again.

”I must have time to think over the proposition,” replied Callon. He meant that he must have time to obtain an interview with Millie Stretton. But Mudge was ready for him.

”Certainly,” said he. ”That is only reasonable. It is seven o'clock now. You dine with me at eight. Give me your answer then.”

”I should like till to-morrow morning,” said Callon.

Mr. Mudge shook his head.

”That, I am afraid, is impossible. We shall need all tomorrow to make the necessary arrangements and to talk over your duties. For if you undertake the work you must leave England on the day after.”

Callon started up in protest. ”On the day after!” he exclaimed.

”It gives very little time, I know,” said Mudge. Then he looked Callon quietly and deliberately in the eyes. ”But, you see, I want to get you out of the country at once.”

Callon no longer doubted. He had thought, through Mr. Mudge's help, to laugh at his enemy; and lo! the enemy was Mudge himself. It was Mudge who had bought up his debts, who now held him in so secure a grip that he did not think it worth while to practise any concealment. Callon was humiliated to the verge of endurance. Two years in Chili, pretending to supervise a railway! He understood the position which he would occupy; he was within an ace of flinging the offer back. But he dared not.

”Very well,” he said. ”I will give you my answer at eight.”

”Thanks. Be punctual.” Mr. Mudge sauntered away. There could only be the one answer. Mr. Lionel Callon might twist and turn as he pleased, he would spend two years in Chili. It was five minutes past seven, besides. Callon could hardly call at the house in Berkeley Square with any chance of seeing Lady Stretton between now and eight. Mudge was contented with his afternoon.

At eight o'clock Callon gave in his submission and pocketed the cheque. At eleven he proposed to go, but Mudge, mindful of an evening visit which he had witnessed from a balcony, could not part from his new manager so soon. There was so little time for discussion even with every minute of Callon's stay in England. He kept Callon with him until two o'clock in the morning; he made an appointment with him at ten, and there was a note of warning in his voice which bade Callon punctually keep it. By one s.h.i.+ft and another he kept him busy all the next day, and in the evening Callon had to pack, to write his letters, and to make his arrangements for his departure. Moreover, Pamela Mardale dined quietly with Millie Stretton and stayed late. It thus happened that Callon left England without seeing Millie Stretton again. He could write, of course; but he could do no more.

CHAPTER XVIII

SOUTH OF OUARGLA

”Halt!” cried Captain Tavernay.

The bugler at his side raised his bugle to his lips and blew. The dozen cha.s.seurs d'Afrique and the ten native scouts who formed the advance guard stopped upon the signal. A couple of hundred yards behind them the two companies of the Foreign Legion came to a standstill. The convoy of baggage mules upon the right flank, the hospital equipment, the artillery section, the herd of oxen which was driven along in the rear, in a word, the whole expedition, halted in a wood of dwarf-oaks and junipers at three o'clock in the afternoon.

The order was given to gather wood for the night's camp fires, and the companies were dismissed. Each soldier made his little bundle and fixed it upon his shoulders. Again the bugle rang out, sounding the ”Fall in.” And the tiny force marched out from the trees of the high plateaux into the open desert. It was extraordinary with what abruptness that transition was made. One minute the companies were treading upon turf under rustling leaves, the next they were descending a slope carpeted with halfa-gra.s.s, which stretched away to the horizon's rim, with hardly a bush to break its bare monotony. At the limit of vision, a great arc like a mirror of silver glittered out of the plain.

”Water,” said a tall, bearded soldier, who marched in the front rank of the first company. It was he who had stepped from the train at Bel-Abbes with a light dust-coat over his evening dress suit. He pa.s.sed now as Fusilier Barbier, an ex-engineer of Lyons.

”No,” replied Sergeant Ohlsen, who marched at his side: ”the crystals of a dry salt lake.”

In the autumn of last year Ohlsen--or, rather, to give him his right name, Tony Stretton--had marched upon an expedition from Mesheria to the Chott Tigri, and knew, therefore, the look of those tantalising salt lakes. That expedition, which had conducted a surrey for a road to the Figuig oasis, had brought him his promotion.

”But we camp by the lake to-night,” he added. ”The wells of El-Guethifa are close.”

The companies went forward, and above that salt lake they saw the mirages begin to s.h.i.+mmer, citadels and hanging gardens, tall towers and waving woods and majestic galleons, topsail over topsail, floating upon summer seas. At the wells the sheikh of the district was waiting upon a mule.

”I want fifty camels with their saddles and their drivers at five o'clock to-morrow morning,” said Tavernay; and although as far as the eye could reach there was no moving thing upon that vast plain except the small group of Arabs and soldiers about the well, by five o'clock the camels were squatting upon the sand with their drivers beside them. The mules were sent back from El-Guethifa that morning, the baggage was packed upon the camels, and the little force, insufficient in numbers and supplies, went forward on its long and untoward march.