Denis, having had his own way, had quite recovered his temper, and was in exuberant spirits when Walter joined him.
"I wondered how long you were going to leave me to my own meditations, with no light but that of my cigar, while you enjoyed the intellectual conversation of your niggers, so soon to be exchanged for company so insipid as mine!" he said, laughing, as Walter entered the room.
Young Gurney, by lighting a lamp, soon dispelled the darkness. In the gaiety of his heart Denis drew his chair closer to Walter's, and was inclined to be quite confidential.
"I don't mind telling you, old boy—for I know you'll be silent as the grave—what is my great object in pushing on beyond the border. You'll not breathe a word to a soul alive."
"Mr. Denis," said Walter, "we are going amongst Afghans, one of whose characteristics is intense curiosity. We shall be questioned and cross-questioned on every point, and often silence is in itself a reply."
"Oh, I'm a match for Afghans!" cried Denis lightly; "I can lie like a Persian—only, unluckily, I don't know the language they lie in!"
"I do know the language, and I cannot lie," observed Walter; "therefore I had better be in ignorance of anything that you wish to remain concealed."
"You mean that ignorance would be bliss to you, and safety to me!" cried Denis. "You would not wilfully let the cat out of the bag, but you could not help her mewing in it. Well, be it as you wish; I will not reveal to you my great object. But—oh here's just what I want, a supply of paper; I've a bottle of ink, and pens, but I quite forgot the paper!" Denis's hand was upon about a quire of letter-sized paper, on the first six or seven pages of which something had been written, which he was about to tear off in order to throw them away.
"Hold!" exclaimed Walter hastily, laying his hand on the Irishman's arm. "That's valuable; that's my father's writing,—a translation of the Gospel into Pushtoo which he began but never lived to finish. You shall have other paper. I mean to take this with me," and he put the manuscript into his bosom.
"Now there's one thing I want to say to you, Walter Gurney," began Dermot Denis, looking his companion full in the face; "you've been brought up in the midst of a great deal of religious talk with all sort of puritanical notions, till I daresay you think it a deadly sin to look at a bottle, or dance a polka, or shuffle a pack of cards. You're welcome to your thoughts if you keep them to yourself. But we're going amongst a pack of rabid Moslems, and if they come on the subject of religion, the least contradiction on your part will make them fly at our throats. I'm not going to wave a red flag in the face of a bull. If the bigots question me I'll say I'm a philosopher, with no particular notions; that will save me from all the troublesome arguments on ticklish subjects that I don't understand. And I desire you'll do just the same."