Smith shook his head. “I do not understand him,” he said. “He is the one man there that I do not see through. He is straight—yes, but then he has plenty. He does not take much care of his own skin. I myself have seen him risk his life—just for a game, for the sport. Why not then also for the sake of the men with whom he has lived for so long?”
“But you think he means us no harm now?”
The King waved his hand, as though to put the suggestion aside. “I leave him here alone with you. He takes you out—you and your niece—shows you the island. Very well. Every day he has a hundred chances, if he meant harm. If I did not know that he meant no harm he would have no chance at all. You are the guest of the King of Faloo, and that is an important thing with me. Besides, on your safety all my plan depends.”
“I’m glad you think that way about him now. You certainly would not be able to convince me of the opposite. Why did he ever come to Faloo?”
The King shrugged his shoulders. “I did once ask him that question. I have not asked it of many of the exiles. The man they call Charles will chat and laugh about anything, past or present. Bassett once, when he had drunk a little cognac, told me about himself. Mast has made confessions when he was drunk, and said they were all lies when he was sober again. But most of them will not speak of the past, and questions make them very angry. However, I was very sick, and Pryce looked after me. Perhaps he saved my life—who knows? So I thought he would make me his friend, and one night when he had sat late with me I did ask him.”
“And what did he say?”
“He said, ‘Go to the devil!’ and put the little thermometer-machine in my mouth.”
“Well,” said Lechworthy, “I’ve half a mind to ask him myself.”
“If you take my advice, then no. If he wishes to tell you, he will tell you. If he does not wish it will be no good to ask.”
The general tendency of Lechworthy’s mind was optimistic. His perplexities did not lead him to depression. With a complete confidence in an omnipotent power of good, cognisant of and concerned in the smallest details of even the least of the human swarm, pessimism is impossible. Side by side with “I do not understand” comes the consolatory “I do not need to understand.” It is probable that a patient submission to the limitation of knowledge, at those very points where the thirst to know is most acute, is one of the conditions of happiness. It is rare among the thoughtful men of the day.