The Great Impersonation | Page 2

The finely
shaped features remained, but the eyes had lost their lustre, his figure
its elasticity, his mouth its firmness. He had the look of a man run
prematurely to seed, wasted by fevers and dissipation. Not so his
present companion. His features were as finely shaped, cast in an even
stronger though similar mould. His eyes were bright and full of fire, his
mouth and chin firm, bespeaking a man of deeds, his tall figure lithe
and supple. He had the air of being in perfect health, in perfect mental
and physical condition, a man who lived with dignity and some
measure of content, notwithstanding the slight gravity of his

expression.
"Yes," the Englishman muttered, "there's no doubt about the likeness,
though I suppose I should look more like you than I do if I'd taken care
of myself. But I haven't. That's the devil of it. I've gone the other way;
tried to chuck my life away and pretty nearly succeeded, too."
The dried grasses were thrust on one side, and the doctor entered,--a
little round man, also clad in immaculate white, with yellow-gold hair
and thick spectacles. His countryman pointed towards the bed.
"Will you examine our patient, Herr Doctor, and prescribe for him what
is necessary? He has asked for drink. Let him have wine, or whatever is
good for him. If he is well enough, he will join our evening meal. I
present my excuses. I have a despatch to write."
The man on the couch turned his head and watched the departing figure
with a shade of envy in his eyes.
"What is my preserver's name?" he asked the doctor.
The latter looked as though the questions were irreverent.
"It is His Excellency the Major-General Baron Leopold Von
Ragastein."
"All that!" Dominey muttered. "Is he the Governor, or something of
that sort?"
"He is Military Commandant of the Colony," the doctor replied. "He
has also a special mission here."
"Damned fine-looking fellow for a German," Dominey remarked, with
unthinking insolence.
The doctor was unmoved. He was feeling his patient's pulse. He
concluded his examination a few minutes later.
"You have drunk much whisky lately, so?" he asked.

"I don't know what the devil it's got to do with you," was the curt reply,
"but I drink whisky whenever I can get it. Who wouldn't in this
pestilential climate!"
The doctor shook his head.
"The climate is good as he is treated," he declared. "His Excellency
drinks nothing but light wine and seltzer water. He has been here for
five years, not only here but in the swamps, and he has not been ill one
day."
"Well, I have been at death's door a dozen times," the Englishman
rejoined a little recklessly, "and I don't much mind when I hand in my
checks, but until that time comes I shall drink whisky whenever I can
get it."
"The cook is preparing you some luncheon," the doctor announced,
"and it will do you good to eat. I cannot give you whisky at this
moment, but you can have some hock and seltzer with bay leaves."
"Send it along," was the enthusiastic reply. "What a constitution I must
have, doctor! The smell of that cooking outside is making me
ravenous."
"Your constitution is still sound if you would only respect it," was the
comforting assurance.
"Anything been heard of the rest of my party?" Dominey enquired.
"Some bodies of Askaris have been washed up from the river," the
doctor informed him, "and two of your ponies have been eaten by lions.
You will excuse. I have the wounds of a native to dress, who was bitten
last night by a jaguar."
The traveller, left alone, lay still in the hut, and his thoughts wandered
backwards. He looked out over the bare, scrubby stretch of land which
had been cleared for this encampment to the mass of bush and
flowering shrubs beyond, mysterious and impenetrable save for that

rough elephant track along which he had travelled; to the broad-
bosomed river, blue as the sky above, and to the mountains fading into
mist beyond. The face of his host had carried him back into the past.
Puzzled reminiscence tugged at the strings of memory. It came to him
later on at dinner time, when they three, the Commandant, the doctor
and himself, sat at a little table arranged just outside the hut, that they
might catch the faint breeze from the mountains, herald of the
swift-falling darkness. Native servants beat the air around them with
bamboo fans to keep off the insects, and the air was faint almost to
noxiousness with the perfume of some sickly, exotic shrub.
"Why, you're Devinter!" he exclaimed suddenly,--"Sigismund Devinter!
You were at Eton with me--Horrock's House--semi-final in the
racquets."
"And Magdalen afterwards, number five in