Donovan Pasha and Some People of Egypt | Page 7

Kong."
"Officer?"
"In the Buffs."
Dicky drew a long breath. "He's paid the piper."
"Naturally. He cheated twice."
"Cheated twice--at cards!" Dicky's voice was hard now. "Who was he?"
"Heatherby--Bob Heatherby!"
"Bob Heatherby--gad! Fielding, I'm sorry--I couldn't have guessed, old man. Mrs. Henshaw's brother!"
Fielding nodded. Dicky turned his head away; for Fielding was in love with Mrs. Henshaw, the widow of Henshaw of the Buffs. He realised now why Fielding loathed Hasha so.
"Forgive me for asking him to mess, guv'nor."
Fielding laughed a little uneasily. "Never mind. You see, it isn't the old scores only that bar him. He's been a sweep out here. Nothing he hasn't done. Gone lower and lower and lower. Tax-gatherer with a kourbash for old Selamlik the beast. Panderer for the same. Sweep of the lowest sort!"
Dicky's eyes flashed. "I say, Fielding, it would be rather strange if he hadn't gone down, down, down. A man that's cheated at cards never finds anybody to help him up, up, up. The chances are dead against him. But he stood up well to-day, eh?"
"I suppose blood will tell at last in the very worst."
"'And while the lamp holds out to burn The vilest sinner may return--'"
hummed Dicky musingly. Then he added slowly: "Fielding, fellows of that kind always flare up a bit according to Cavendish, just before the end. I've seen it once or twice before. It's the last clutch at the grass as they go slip--slip--slipping down. Take my word for it, Heatherby's near the finish."
"I shouldn't wonder. Selamlik, the old leper, 'll lay in wait for him. He'll get lost in the sugar-cane one of these evenings soon."
"Couldn't we . . ." Dicky paused.
Fielding started, looked at Dicky intently, and then shook his head sadly. "It's no good, Dicky. It never is."
"'While the lamp holds out to burn . . .'" said Dicky, and lighted another cigarette.
Precisely at seven o'clock Heatherby appeared. He had on a dress-suit, brown and rusty, a white tie made of a handkerchief torn in two, and a pair of patent leather shoes, scraggy and cracked.
Fielding behaved well, Dicky was amiable and attentive, and the dinner being ready to the instant, there was no waiting, there were no awkward pauses. No names of English people were mentioned, England was not named; nor Cairo, nor anything that English people abroad love to discuss. The fellah, the pasha, the Soudan were the only topics. Under Fielding's courtesy and Dicky's acute suggestions, Heatherby's weakened brain awaked, and he talked intelligently, till the moment coffee was brought in. Then, as Mahommed Seti retired, Heatherby suddenly threw himself forward, his arms on the table, and burst into sobs.
"Oh, you fellows, you fellows!" he said. There was silence for a minute, then he sobbed out again: "It's the first time I've been treated like a gentleman by men that knew me, these fifteen years. It--it gets me in the throat!"
His body shook with sobs. Fielding and Dicky were uncomfortable, for these were not the sobs of a driveller or a drunkard. Behind them was the blank failure of a life--fifteen years of miserable torture, of degradation, of a daily descent lower into the pit, of the servitude of shame. When at last he raised his streaming eyes, Fielding and Dicky could see the haunting terror of the soul, at whose elbow, as it were, every man cried: "You are without the pale!" That look told them how Heatherby of the Buffs had gone from table d'hote to table d'hote of Europe, from town to town, from village to village, to make acquaintances who repulsed him when they discovered who he really was.
Shady Heatherby, who cheated at cards!
Once Fielding made as if to put a hand on his shoulder and speak to him, but Dicky intervened with a look. The two drank their coffee, Fielding a little uneasily; but yet in his face there was a new look: of inquiry, of kindness, even of hope.
Presently Dicky flashed a look and nodded towards the door, and Fielding dropped his cigar and went on deck, and called down to Holgate the engineer:
"Get up steam, and make for Luxor. It's moonlight, and we're safe enough in this high Nile, eh, Holgate?"
"Safe enough, or aw'm a Dootchman," said Holgate. Then they talked in a low voice together. Down in the saloon, Dicky sat watching Heatherby. At last the Lost One raised his head again.
"It's worth more to me, this night, than you fellows know," he said brokenly.
"That's all right," said Dicky. "Have a cigar?"
He shook his head. "It's come at the right time. I wanted to be treated like an Englishman once more--just once more."
"Don't worry. Take in a reef and go steady for a bit. The milk's spilt, but there are other meadows. . . ." Dicky waved an arm up the river, up towards the Soudan!
The Lost One