Ensign Knightley | Page 3

though he needed support. Tessin sprang up from his chair, and half crossed the room.
The stranger took an uncertain step forward. His legs rattled as he moved, and Wyley saw that the links of broken fetters were twisted about his ankles.
"Have two years made so vast a difference?" he asked. "Well, they were years of the bastinado, and I do not wonder."
Tessin peered into his face. "By God, it is!" he exclaimed. "Knightley!"
"Thanks," said Knightley with a smile.
Tessin reached out to take Knightley's hands, then instantly stopped, glanced from Knightley to Scrope and drew back.
"Knightley!" cried the Major in a voice of welcome, rising in his seat. Then he too glanced expectantly at Scrope and sat down again. Scrope made no movement, but stood with his eyes cast down on the table like a man lost in thought. It was evident to Wyley that both Shackleton and Tessin had obeyed the sporting instinct, and had left the floor clear for the two men. It was no less evident that Knightley remarked their action and did not understand it. For his eyes travelled from face to face, and searched each with a wistful anxiety for the reason of their reserve.
"Yes, I am Knightley," he said timidly. Then he drew himself to his full height. "Ensign Knightley of the Tangier Foot," he cried.
No one answered. The company waited upon Scrope in a suspense so keen that even the ringing challenge of the words passed unheeded. Knightley spoke again, but now in a stiff, formal voice, and slowly.
"Gentlemen, I fear very much that two years make a world of difference. It seems they change one who had your goodwill into a most unwelcome stranger."
His voice broke in a sob; he turned to the door, but staggered as he turned and caught at a chair. In a moment Major Shackleton was beside him.
"What, lad? Have we been backward? Blame our surprise, not us."
"Meanwhile," said Wyley, "Ensign Knightley's starving."
The Major pressed Knightley into a chair, called for an orderly, and bade him bring food. Wyley filled a glass with wine from the bottle on the table, and handed it to the Ensign.
"It is vinegar," he said, "but--"
"But Tangier is still Tangier," said Knightley with a laugh. The Major's cordiality had strengthened him like a tonic. He raised the glass to his lips and drank; but as he tilted his head back his eyes over the brim of the glass rested on Scrope, who still stood without movement, without expression, a figure of stone, but that his chest rose and fell with his deep breathing. Knightley set down his glass half-full.
"There is something amiss," he said, "since even Captain Scrope retains no memory of his old comrade."
"Captain?" exclaimed Wyley. So Scrope had been more than a lieutenant. Here was an answer to the question which had perplexed him. But it only led to another question: "Had Scrope been degraded, and why?" He did not, however, speculate on the question, for his attention was seized the next moment. Scrope made no sort of answer to Knightley's appeal, but began to drum very softly with his fingers on the table. And the drumming, at first vague and of no significance, gradually took on, of itself as it seemed, a definite rhythm. There was a variation, too, in the strength of the taps--now they fell light, now they struck hard. Scrope was quite unconsciously beating out upon the table a particular tune, although, since there was but the one note sounded, Wyley could get no more than an elusive hint of its character.
Knightley watched Scrope for a little as earnestly as the rest. Then--"Harry!" he said, "Harry Scrope!" The name leaped from his lips in a pleading cry; he stretched out his hands towards Scrope, and the chain which bound them reached down to the table and rattled on the wood.
There was a simultaneous movement, almost a simultaneous ejaculation of bewilderment amongst those who stood about Knightley. Where they had expected a deadly anger, they found in its place a beseeching humility. And Scrope ceased from drumming on the table and turned on Knightley.
"Don't shake your chains at me," he burst out harshly. "I am deaf to any reproach that they can make. Are you the only man that has worn chains? I can show as good, and better." He thrust the palm of his left hand under Knightley's nose. "Branded, d'ye see? Branded. There's more besides." He set his foot on the chair and stripped the silk stocking down his leg. Just above the ankle there was a broad indent where a fetter had bitten into the flesh. "I have dragged a chain, you see; not like you among the Moors, but here in Tangier, on that damned Mole, in sight of these my brother officers. By the