'Look! look!' he cried.
They both watched the churchgoer as he passed up the steps. Then he was gone from their view.
In the afternoon of the next day, when the triumphal services of Dedication were over, the Bishop was being driven to a farmhouse not very far distant. It was not till his mule-cart had almost reached home again that his driver ventured to question him. He had seemed rather preoccupied that driver all the dusty journey. Now he asked a question that was being wildly debated in native circles that very afternoon. 'My lord, has Mr. Smythe paid all the thousand pounds yet?'
The Bishop started and stared; then he laughed. 'What do you know of Mr. Smythe's thousand pounds?' he asked. Then he answered, 'No, Jack; why should he?'
Why indeed? So Mombe, the ox-man to give him his native name was trying to evade his obligations, was he? Almost bursting with importance, Jack told his master what Jim and he had seen last night. The Bishop listened carefully, and asked two or three questions. Then he told Jack that he might want him and his stable-boy later on that evening. He felt sure that the story was no mere willful fiction. When they were home he wrote a letter to Smythe asking him if he could come over and smoke after dinner. Then he went off to his sunset Evensong.
Conyers Smythe came about an hour afterwards. The Bishop and he had had but two bookish evenings together since that rather bizarre one in Christmas week. They met cordially enough on this April night.
Smythe was looking far from well. He had been worried about his wife's health she was away in England. The last news of it had been rather disquieting. Smythe was glad enough of sympathy; he was in no truculent mood.
They smoked by the fire in the Bishop's study as the night was cold. The Bishop had some new books to show and points to debate.
The two began with Greek pagan cults, but passed on to Christian hagiology, and discussed the legend of St. Mark with a fair measure of agreement. Then, when the coffee had come in, and they had I become friends at ease and amity, the Bishop told Smythe the boys' tale.
Smythe grew curiously white and seemed angry.