The sage seemed to open his half-shut eyes, and I thought I saw the opaque brightness which comes from drug-taking.
“Him whom you would make your slave,” he said, “you first strip of memory, and then attune to your own will. To keep him attuned you must be with him often and reinforce the control. But this is burdensome, and if the slave be kept apart and seen rarely the influence will ebb—except, as I have said, in the case of a young child. There is a way to rivet the bondage and it is this. Take him or her whom you govern into the same life as they have been accustomed to live before, and there, among familiar things, assert your control. Your influence will thus acquire the sanction of familiarity—for though the conscious memory has gone, the unconscious remains—and presently will be a second nature.”
“I see,” said Medina abstractedly. “I had already guessed as much. Tell me, master, can the dominion, once it is established, be shaken off?”
“It cannot save by the will of him who exercises it. Only the master can release.”
After that they spoke again in the foreign tongue of I know not what devilry. It seemed to me that the sage was beginning to tire of the interview, for he rang a bell and when the servant appeared gave him some rapid instructions. Medina rose, and kissed the hand which was held out to him, and I, of course, followed suit.
“You stay here long, master?” he asked.
“Two days. Then I have business in Paris and elsewhere. But I return in May, when I will summon you again. Prosper, brother. The God of Wisdom befriend you.”
We went downstairs to the dancing and the supper parties. The regimental dinner was breaking up and Tom Machin was holding forth in the hall to a knot of be-medalled friends. I had to say something to Medina to round off the evening, and the contrast of the two scenes seemed to give me a cue. As we were putting on our coats I observed that it was like coming from light to darkness. He approved. “Like falling from a real world into shadows,” he said.
He evidently wished to follow his own thoughts, for he did not ask me to walk home with him. I, too, had a lot to think about. When I got back to the Club I found a note signed “Spion Kop,” and with an English postmark.
“Meet me,” it said, “on the 21st for breakfast at the inn called ‘The Silent Woman’ on the Fosse Way as you go over from Colne to Windrush. I have a lot to tell you.”
I thanked Heaven that Sandy was home again, though he chose fantastic spots for his assignations. I, too, had something to say to him. For that evening had given me an insight into Medina’s mind, and, what was more, the glimmerings of a plan of my own.
X
Confidences at a Wayside Inn
My first impulse was to go to Macgillivray about this Kharáma fellow, who I was certain was up to mischief. I suspected him of some kind of political intrigue; otherwise what was he doing touring the capitals of Europe and putting up at expensive hotels? But on second thoughts I resolved to let the police alone. I could not explain about Kharáma without bringing in Medina, and I was determined to do nothing which would stir a breath of suspicion against him. But I got the chit from my doctor, recommending a week’s rest, and I went round to see Medina on the morning of the 19th. I told him I had been feeling pretty cheap for some days and that my doctor ordered me to go home and go to bed. He didn’t look pleased, so I showed him the doctor’s letter, and made a poor mouth, as if I hated the business but was torn between my inclinations and my duty. I think he liked my producing that chit, like a second-lieutenant asking for leave, anyhow he made the best of it and was quite sympathetic. “I’m sorry you’re going out of town,” he said, “for I want you badly. But it’s as well to get quite fit, and to lie up for a week ought to put you all right. When am I to expect you back?” I told him that without fail I would be in London on the 29th. “I’m going to disappear into a monastery,” I said. “Write no letters, receive none, not at home to visitors, only sleep and eat. I can promise you that my wife will watch me like a dragon.”
Then I hunted up Archie Roylance, whom I found on the very top of his form. He had seen Hansen, and discovered that on the island of Flacksholm, just off the mouth of the Merdalfjord, there was good landing. It was a big flattish island with a loch in the centre, and entirely uninhabited except for a farm at the south end. Archie had got a machine, a Sopwith, which he said he could trust, and I arranged with him to be at Flacksholm not later than the 27th, and to camp there as best he could. He was to keep watch by day for a motorboat from the Merdalfjord, and at night if he saw a green light he was to make for it. I told him to take ample supplies, and he replied that he wasn’t such a fool as to neglect the commissariat. He said he had
