III
The Gentleman sauntered forward.
"I am sorry to be so importunate," he said gravely, "but I must have those despatches and I mean to have them."
He stopped.
"The position is this: Nelson is mine." He brought down his right fist on his left. "Nothing can save him now—nothing. This time to-morrow, so sure as that sun will rise, he will be dead or on the way to Verdun. That has been arranged."
"How?" thundered the Parson. "How has it been arranged?"
The Gentleman was pacing to and fro before the window; and his eyes were down.
"It's enough for you to know," he said at last, "that I—I have influence with a lady, who—who has influence with Nelson."
"What does he mean?" whispered Kit.
The Parson had turned very white.
He knew that woman, by nature so noble; and he knew something of her history—the history of the shame of man.
"D'you mean to tell me She's going to sell her Nelson to that organ-grinder's monkey from Corsica?" he roared. "Because if you'll tell me that, I'll tell you you're a liar."
The Gentleman still paced before the window.
"I'll tell you nothing of the sort," he said. "She believes herself to be serving her country." He was speaking very slowly, almost mincing his words. "She has—has come into possession of information…."
The man, usually so self-possessed, stuttered and stopped dead.
"And how did she come into possession of that information, I wonder?" asked the Parson, slow and white.
The Gentleman flashed his face up.
"I'll put it in brutal English so that even you can understand. I made a fool of a woman who thought she was making a fool of me."
There was a lengthy silence.
"And they call him the Gentleman!" came the Parson's voice at last— "the Gentleman!"
The other had resumed his pacing.
"He sneaks himself into the confidence of a lady," continued the
Parson quietly. "He conceals his identity—"
Again the other flashed his eyes up.
"I did not!" he shouted, hammering with his hand. "The first words I ever spoke to her in the drawing-room at Merton were to tell her who I was. That night she told Pitt over his port. And Pitt told her—but there!—I needn't go into that…. And when she asked me what brought me to Merton, I answered truthfully—'Love of adventure and the fairest face in Europe.'"
The Parson leaned out.
"I understand you now. You take advantage of that face of yours; you worm yourself into the confidence of a woman, a noble woman; and you—"
The Gentleman blazed appalling eyes up at him.
"And you have not seen my Ireland suffer!"
The Parson quailed before the white blast of the other's anger. It was as though a hail of lightnings had struck him.
"His Ireland! ass!" was the only retort he could think of.
"Nelson then let us put aside," continued the other, cold again. "There remain—you and the despatches. I want the despatches. You want yourselves. Shall we exchange?"
"No, we shan't," snapped the Parson.
"I know your straits," continued the other. "You're short of provisions—"
"Short of provisions!" guffawed the Parson. "Why, step this way, and
I'll show you a boy with the bellyache."
"And short of men," the other continued, quite himself again. "What does your garrison consist of?—one holy padre, one half an old sailor, Monsieur Mooncalf, and Little Chap."
"And what's your own lot?" bellowed the Parson—"one dozen of sweepings of France, one dozen of the picked scum of our country, and one conceited young whipper-snapper, who swaggers about in breeches and boots all day and was never on a horse in his life to my certain knowledge!"
The Gentleman waved his hand.
"Take the consequences then," he said. "A rivederci."
"Take the consequences yourself!" roared the Parson—"you and your river dirties. I'll see your friends hung high as Haman yet."
The other shook his head.
"You won't live to see that, dear man," he said quietly, and turned away.