Upon the face of Lieutenant Sutch there came a look of great and unexpected happiness. Here was an issue of which he had never thought; and it was the only issue, as he knew for certain, once he was aware of it. This student of human nature disregarded without a scruple the prudence and the calculation proper to the character which he assumed. The obstacles in Harry Feversham's way, the possibility that at the last moment he might shrink again, the improbability that three such opportunities would occur-these matters he overlooked. His eyes already shone with pride; the three feathers for him were already taken back. The prudence was on Harry Feversham's side.
'There are endless difficulties,' he said. 'Just to cite one: I am a civilian, these three are soldiers, surrounded by soldiers; so much the less opportunity therefore for a civilian.'
'But it is not necessary that the three men should be themselves in peril,' objected Sutch, 'for you to convince them that the fault is retrieved.'
'Oh, no. There may be other ways,' agreed Feversham. 'The plan came suddenly into my mind, indeed at the moment when Ethne bade me take up the feathers, and added the fourth. I was on the point of tearing them across when this way out of it sprang clearly up in my mind. But I have thought it over since during these last weeks while I sat listening to the bugles in the barrack-yard. And I am sure there is no other way. But it is well worth trying. You see, if the three take back their feathers,'-he drew a deep breath, and in a very low voice, with his eyes upon the table so that his face was hidden from Sutch, he added-'why, then she perhaps might take hers back too.'
'Will she wait, do you think?' asked Sutch; and Harry raised his head quickly.
'Oh, no,' he exclaimed, 'I had no thought of that. She has not even a suspicion of what I intend to do. Nor do I wish her to have one until the intention is fulfilled. My thought was different'-and he began to speak with hesitation for the first time in the course of that evening. 'I find it difficult to tell you-Ethne said something to me the day before the feathers came-something rather sacred. I think that I will tell you, because what she said is just what sends me out upon this errand. But for her words, I would very likely never have thought of it. I find in them my motive and a great hope. They may seem strange to you, Mr. Sutch; but I ask you to believe that they are very real to me. She said-it was when she knew no more than that my regiment was ordered to Egypt-she was blaming herself because I had resigned my commission, for which there was no need, because-and these were her words- because had I fallen, although she would have felt lonely all her life, she would none the less have surely known that she and I would see much of one another-afterwards.'
Feversham had spoken his words with difficulty, not looking at his companion, and he continued with his eyes still averted: 'Do you understand? I have a hope that if-this fault can be repaired,'-and he pointed to the feathers, — 'we might still, perhaps, see something of one another-afterwards.'
It was a strange proposition, no doubt, to be debated across the soiled tablecloth of a public restaurant, but neither of them felt it to be strange or even fanciful. They were dealing with the simple serious issues, and they had reached a point where they could not be affected by any incongruity in their surroundings. Lieutenant Sutch did not speak for some while after Harry Feversham had done, and in the end Harry looked up at his companion, prepared for almost a word of ridicule; but he saw Sutch's right hand outstretched towards him.
'When I come back,' said Feversham, and he rose from his chair. He gathered the feathers together and replaced them in his pocket-book.
'I have told you everything,' he said. 'You see, I wait upon chance opportunities; the three may not come in Egypt. They may never come at all, and in that case I shall not come back at all. Or they may come only at the very end and after many years. Therefore I thought that I would like just one person to know the truth thoroughly in case I do not come back. If you hear definitely that I never can come back, I would be glad if you would tell my father.'
'I understand,' said Sutch.
'But don't tell him everything-I mean, not the last part, not what I have just said about Ethne and my chief motive, for I do not think that he would understand. Otherwise you will keep silence altogether. Promise!'
Lieutenant Sutch promised, but with an absent face, and Feversham consequently insisted.
'You will breathe no word of this to man or woman, however hard you may be pressed, except to my father under the circumstances which I have explained,' said Feversham.
Lieutenant Sutch promised a second time and without an instant's hesitation. It was quite natural that Harry should lay some stress upon the pledge, since any disclosure of his purpose might very well wear the appearance of a foolish boast, and Sutch himself saw no reason why he should refuse it. So he gave the promise and fettered his hands. His thoughts, indeed, were occupied with the limit Harry had set upon the knowledge which was to be imparted to General Feversham. Even if he died with his mission unfulfilled, Sutch was to hide from the father that which was best in the son, at the son's request. And the saddest part of it, to Sutch's thinking, was that the son was right in so requesting. For what he said was true-the father could not understand. Lieutenant Sutch was brought back to the causes of the whole miserable business: the premature death of the mother, who could have understood; the want of comprehension in the father, who was left; and his own silence on the Crimean night at Broad Place.
'If only I had spoken,' he said sadly. He dropped the end of his cigar into his coffee-cup, and standing up, reached for his hat. 'Many things are irrevocable, Harry,' he said, 'but one never knows whether they are irrevocable or not until one has found out. It is always worth while finding out.'
The next evening Feversham crossed to Calais. It was a night as wild as that on which Durrance had left England; and, like Durrance, Feversham had a friend to see him off, for the last thing which his eyes beheld as the packet swung away from the pier, was the face of Lieutenant Sutch beneath a gas-lamp. The lieutenant maintained his position after the boat had passed into the darkness and until the throb of its paddles could no longer be heard. Then he limped through the rain to his hotel, aware, and regretfully aware, that he was growing old. It was long since he had felt regret on that account, and the feeling was very strange to him. Ever since the Crimea he had been upon the world's half-pay list, as he had once said to General Feversham, and what with that and the recollection of a certain magical season before the Crimea, he had looked forward to old age as an approaching friend. To-night, however, he prayed that he might live just long enough to welcome back Muriel Graham's son with his honour redeemed and his great fault atoned.
Chapter VII — The Last Reconnaissance
'No one,' said Durrance, and he strapped his field-glasses into the leather case at his side.
'No one, sir,' Captain Mather agreed.
'We will move forward.'
The scouts went on ahead, the troops resumed their formation, the two seven-pounder mountain-guns closed up behind, and Durrance's detachment of the Camel Corps moved down from the gloomy ridge of Khor Gwob, thirty-five miles southwest of Suakin, into the plateau of Sinkat. It was the last reconnaissance in strength before the evacuation of the eastern Soudan.
All through that morning the camels had jolted slowly up the gulley of shale between red precipitous rocks, and when the rocks fell back, between red mountain-heaps all crumbled into a desolation of stones. Hardly a patch of grass or the ragged branches of a mimosa had broken the monotony of ruin. And after that arid journey the green bushes of Sinkat in the valley below comforted the eye with the pleasing aspect of a park. The troopers sat their saddles with a greater alertness.
They moved in a diagonal line across the plateau toward the mountains of Erkoweet, a silent company on a plain still more silent. It was eleven o'clock. The sun rose toward the centre of a colourless, cloudless sky, the shadows of the camels shortened upon the sand, and the sand itself glistened white as a beach of the Scilly Islands. There was no draught of air that morning to whisper amongst the rich foliage, and the shadows of the branches lay so distinct and motionless upon the ground that they might themselves have been branches strewn there on some past day by a storm. The only sounds that were audible were the sharp clank of weapons, the soft ceaseless padding of the camels' feet, and at times the whirr of a flight of pigeons disturbed by the approaching cavalcade. Yet there was life on the plateau, though of a noiseless kind. For as the leaders rode along the curves of sand, trim and smooth between the shrubs like carriage drives, they would see from time to time, far ahead of them, a herd of gazelle start up from the ground and race silently, a flash of dappled brown and white, to the enclosing hills. It
