The Kingdom of the Blind | Page 8

she asked.
"Why should I?" he replied. "After all, I am not really a fighting man,
you see."
"It's so becoming," she sighed.
He seemed to catch the reminiscent flash in her eyes as she looked
down the street, and a shadow of foreboding clouded his mind.
"You found Captain Granet interesting?"
"Very," she assented heartily. "I think he is delightful, don't you?"
"He certainly seems to be a most attractive type of young man,"
Thomson admitted.
"And how wonderful to have had such adventures!" she continued.
"Life has become so strange, though, during the last few months. To
think that the only time I ever saw him before was at a polo match, and
to-day we sit side by side in a restaurant, and, although he won't speak
of them, one knows that he has had all manner of marvellous
adventures. He was one of those who went straight from the playing
fields to look for glory, wasn't he, Hugh? He made a hundred and
thirty-two for Middlesex the day before the war was declared."
"That's the type of young soldier who's going to carry us through, if any
one can," Major Thomson agreed cheerfully.
She suddenly clutched at his arm.
"Hugh," she exclaimed, pointing to a placard which a newsboy was
carrying, "that is the one thing I cannot bear, the one thing which I
think if I were a man would turn me into a savage!"
They both paused and read the headlines--
PASSENGER STEAMER TORPEDOED WITHOUT WARNING IN
THE IRISH SEA. TWENTY-TWO LIVES LOST.

"That is the sort of thing," she groaned, "which makes one long to be
not a man but a god, to be able to wield thunderbolts and to deal out
hell!"
"Good for you, Gerry," a strong, fresh voice behind them declared.
"That's my job now. Didn't you hear us shouting after you, Olive and I?
Look!"
Her brother waved a telegram.
"You've got your ship?" Thomson inquired.
"I've got what I wanted," the young man answered enthusiastically.
"I've got a destroyer, one of the new type--forty knots an hour, a dear
little row of four-inch guns, and, my God! something else, I hope,
that'll teach those murderers a lesson," he added, shaking his fist
towards the placard.
Geraldine laid her hand upon her brother's arm.
"When do you join, Ralph?"
"To-morrow night at Portsmouth," he replied. "I'm afraid we shall be
several days before we are at work. It's the Scorpion' they're giving me,
Gerald--or the mystery ship, as they call it in the navy."
"Why?" she asked.
His rather boyish face, curiously like his sister's, was suddenly
transformed.
"Because we've got a rod in pickle for those cursed pirates--"
"Conyers!" Thomson interrupted.
The young man paused in his sentence. Thomson was looking towards
him with a slight frown upon his forehead.
"Don't think I'm a fearful old woman," he said. "I know we are all

rather fed up with these tales of spies and that sort of thing, but do you
think it's wise to even open your lips about a certain matter?"
"What the dickens do you know about it?" Conyers demanded.
"Nothing," Thomson assured him hastily, "nothing at all. I am only
going by what you said yourself. If there is any device on the Scorpion
for dealing with these infernal craft, I'd never breathe a word about it, if
I were you. I'd put out to sea with a seal upon my lips, even before
Geraldine here and Miss Moreton."
The young man's cheeks were a little flushed.
"Perhaps you're right," he admitted. "I was a little over-excited. To get
the Scorpion was more, even, than I had dared to hope fore. Still,
before the girls it didn't seem to matter very much. There are no spies,
anyhow, hiding in the tress of Berkeley Street," he added, glancing
about them.
Thomson held up his finger and stopped a taxicab.
"You won't be annoyed with me, will you?" he said to Conyers. "If
you'd heard half the stories I had of the things we have given away
quite innocently--"
"That's all right," the young man interrupted, "only you mustn't think
I'm a gas-bag just because I said a word or two here before Gerry and
Olive and you, old fellow."
"Must you go, Hugh?" Geraldine asked.
"I am so sorry," he replied, "but I must. I really have rather an
important appointment this afternoon."
"An appointment!" she grumbled. "You are in London for so short a
time and you seem to be keeping appointments all the while. I sha'nt let
you go unless you tell me what it's about."
"I have to inspect a new pattern of camp beadstead," he explained

calmly. "If I may, I will telephone directly I am free and see if you are
at liberty."
She shrugged