The Great Impersonation | Page 3

the boat."
"And why the devil did the doctor here tell me that your name was Von
Ragastein?"
"Because it happens to be the truth," was the somewhat measured reply.
"Devinter is my family name, and the one by which I was known when
in England. When I succeeded to the barony and estates at my uncle's
death, however, I was compelled to also take the title."
"Well, it's a small world!" Dominey exclaimed. "What brought you out
here really--lions or elephants?"
"Neither."
"You mean to say that you've taken up this sort of political business
just for its own sake, not for sport?"
"Entirely so. I do not use a sporting rifle once a month, except for
necessity. I came to Africa for different reasons."
Dominey drank deep of his hock and seltzer and leaned back, watching
the fireflies rise above the tall-bladed grass, above the stumpy clumps

of shrub, and hang like miniature stars in the clear, violet air.
"What a world!" he soliloquised. "Siggy Devinter, Baron Von
Ragastein, out here, slaving for God knows what, drilling niggers to
fight God knows whom, a political machine, I suppose, future
Governor-General of German Africa, eh? You were always proud of
your country, Devinter."
"My country is a country to be proud of," was the solemn reply.
"Well, you're in earnest, anyhow," Dominey continued, "in earnest
about something. And I--well, it's finished with me. It would have been
finished last night if I hadn't seen the smoke from your fires, and I don't
much care--that's the trouble. I go blundering on. I suppose the end will
come somehow, sometime-- Can I have some rum or whisky,
Devinter--I mean Von Ragastein-- Your Excellency--or whatever I
ought to say? You see those wreaths of mist down by the river? They'll
mean malaria for me unless I have spirits."
"I have something better than either," Von Ragastein replied. "You
shall give me your opinion of this."
The orderly who stood behind his master's chair, received a whispered
order, disappeared into the commissariat hut and came back presently
with a bottle at the sight of which the Englishman gasped.
"Napoleon!" he exclaimed.
"Just a few bottles I had sent to me," his host explained. "I am delighted
to offer it to some one who will appreciate it."
"By Jove, there's no mistake about that!" Dominey declared, rolling it
around in his glass. "What a world! I hadn't eaten for thirty hours when
I rolled up here last night, and drunk nothing but filthy water for days.
To-night, fricassee of chicken, white bread, cabinet hock and Napoleon
brandy. And to-morrow again--well, who knows? When do you move
on, Von Ragastein?"

"Not for several days."
"What the mischief do you find to do so far from headquarters, if you
don't shoot lions or elephants?" his guest asked curiously.
"If you really wish to know," Von Ragastein replied, "I am annoying
your political agents immensely by moving from place to place,
collecting natives for drill."
"But what do you want to drill them for?" Dominey persisted. "I heard
some time ago that you have four times as many natives under arms as
we have. You don't want an army here. You're not likely to quarrel with
us or the Portuguese."
"It is our custom," Von Ragastein declared a little didactically, "in
Germany and wherever we Germans go, to be prepared not only for
what is likely to happen but for what might possibly happen."
"A war in my younger days, when I was in the Army," Dominey mused,
"might have made a man of me."
"Surely you had your chance out here?"
Dominey shook his head.
"My battalion never left the country," he said. "We were shut up in
Ireland all the time. That was the reason I chucked the army when I was
really only a boy."
Later on they dragged their chairs a little farther out into the darkness,
smoking cigars and drinking some rather wonderful coffee. The doctor
had gone off to see a patient, and Von Ragastein was thoughtful. Their
guest, on the other hand, continued to be reminiscently discursive.
"Our meeting," he observed, lazily stretching out his hand for his glass,
"should be full of interest to the psychologist. Here we are, brought
together by some miraculous chance to spend one night of our lives in
an African jungle, two human beings of the same age, brought up

together thousands of miles away, jogging on towards the eternal
blackness along lines as far apart as the mind can conceive."
"Your eyes are fixed," Von Ragastein murmured, "upon that very
blackness behind which the sun will rise at dawn. You will see it come
up from behind the mountains in that precise spot, like a new and
blazing world."
"Don't put me off with allegories," his