“I do.”
“And yet it is very singular! What can connect two men whose experiences in every way are so dissimilar?”
“I tell you again that he will be instrumental in confounding your enemies.”
“You know who they are—or rather, who he is. I have but one.”
“Not two, Captain?”
“Not two. No, Blurosset. There is but one on whom I would wreak a deep and deadly vengeance.”
“And for the other?”
“Pity and forgiveness. Do not speak of that. There are some things which even now I am not strong enough to hear spoken of. That is one of them.”
“The history of your faithful Mujeebez there is a singular one, is it not?” asks the student, rising from his books, and advancing to the window.
“A very singular one. His master, an Englishman, with whom he came from Calcutta, and to whom he was devotedly attached—”
“I was indeed, sahib,” said the Indian, in very good English, but with a strong foreign accent.
“This master, a rich nabob, was murdered, in the house of his sister, by his own nephew.”
“Very horrible, and very unnatural! Was the nephew hung?”
“No. The jury brought in a verdict of insanity: he was sent to a madhouse, where no doubt he still remains confined. Mujeebez was not present at the trial; he had escaped by a miracle with his own life; for the murderer, coming into the little room in which he slept, and finding him stirring, gave him a blow on the head, which placed him for some time in a very precarious state.”
“And did you see the murderer’s face, Mujeebez?” asks Monsieur Blurosset.
“No, sahib. It was dark, I could see nothing. The blow stunned me: when I recovered my senses, I was in the hospital, where I lay for months. The shock had brought on what the doctors called a nervous fever. For a long time I was utterly incapable of work; when I left the hospital I had not a friend in the world; but the good lady, the sister of my poor murdered master, gave me money to return to India, where I was kitmutghar for some time to an English colonel, in whose household I learned the language, and whom I did not leave till I entered the service of the good Captain.”
The “good Captain” laid his hand affectionately on his follower’s white-turbaned head, something with the protecting gesture with which he might caress a favourite and faithful dog.
“After you had saved my life, Mujeebez,” he said.
“I would have died to save it, sahib,” answered the Hindu. “A kind word sinks deep in the heart of the Indian.”
“And there was no doubt of the guilt of this nephew?” asks Blurosset.
“I cannot say, sahib. I did not know the English language then; I could understand nothing told me, except my poor master’s nephew was not hung, but put in a madhouse.”
“Did you see him—this nephew?”
“Yes, sahib, the night before the murder. He came into the room with my master when he retired to rest. I saw him only for a minute, for I left the room as they entered.”
“Should you know him again?” inquired the student.
“Anywhere, sahib. He was a handsome young man, with dark hazel eyes and a bright smile. He did not look like a murderer.”
“That is scarcely a sure rule to go by, is it, Laurent?” asks the Captain, with a bitter smile.
“I don’t know. A black heart will make strange lines in the handsomest face, which are translatable to the close observer.”
“Now,” says the officer, rising, and surrendering his pipe to the hands of his watchful attendant—“now for my morning’s ride, and you will have the place to yourself for your scientific visitors, Laurent.”
“You will not go where you are likely to meet—”
“Anyone I know? No, Blurosset. The lonelier the road the better I like it. I miss the deep jungle and the tiger-hunt, eh, Mujeebez?—we miss them, do we not?”
The Hindu’s eyes brightened, as he answered eagerly, “Yes, indeed, sahib.”
Captain Lansdown (that is the name of the officer) is of French extraction; he speaks English perfectly, but still with a slightly foreign accent. He has distinguished himself by his marvellous courage and military genius in the Punjab, and is over in England on leave of absence. It is singular that so great a friendship should exist between this impetuous, danger-loving soldier, and the studious French chemist and pseudo-magician, Laurent Blurosset; but that a very firm friendship does exist between them is evident. They live in the same house; are both waited upon by Egerton Lansdown’s Indian servant, and are constantly together.
Laurent Blurosset, after becoming the fashion in Paris, is now the rage in London. But he rarely stirs beyond the threshold of his own door, though his presence is eagerly sought for in scientific coteries, where opinion is still, however, divided as to whether he is a charlatan or a great man. The materialists sneer—the spiritualists believe. His disinterestedness, at any rate, speaks in favour of his truth. He will receive no money from any of his numerous visitors. He will serve them, he says, if he can, but he will not sell the wisdom of the mighty dead; for that is something too grand and solemn to be made a thing of barter. His discoveries in chemistry have made him sufficiently rich; and he can afford to devote himself to science, in the hope of finding truth for his reward. He asks no better recompense than the glory of the light he seeks. We leave him, then, to his eager and inquisitive visitors, while the Captain rides slowly through Oxford Street, on his way to the Edgware Road, through which he emerges into the country.
V
The New Milkman in Park Lane
The post of kitchenmaid in the household of the Count de Marolles is no unimportant one, and Mrs. Moper is accounted a person of some consequence in the servants’ hall. The French chef, who has his private
