“Seems strange, doesn’t it?” he said, “but I felt I could do that from the very first. I’ve had no fool of an experience in my time, you see, and I know one man from another when I see him. Now, I knew you weren’t a liar directly I clapped eyes on you; I knew, too, you were a coiny chap, never mind how—there’s something I can read these things by. See here, I don’t want to rush you through this business; think it over. I’ll look round at sundown, and then we’ll draw up our little agreement.”
This sounded well. If he were rough the man seemed not without a sense of fair dealing. Wagram was duly impressed; yet he need not have been, for the stranger’s real motive was a very different one. He had purposely taken Wagram to see one of “the sights” of the place which he knew would revolt and horrify him; now his object was to give him time to think about it; time and solitude could not fail to work the horror deeper into his system—so would his own terms meet with readier acceptation.
At the hut Wagram had occupied the stranger left him; and now, alone once more, the revulsion of feeling was well-nigh oppressive. He would soon be away from here, would soon be back in the home that he loved, and among those who loved him. This horrible experience—well, it, coming as the culminating point to his wanderings, had effected a certain sort of mental cure. Looking back, it seemed as if he had needed a mental shaking-up and—he had got it. Yes; he had been making an idol of “the pride of life,” and that pride had received a sudden, perhaps necessary, fall. What act of thanksgiving could he make for this unlooked-for deliverance? was his first thought as he found himself alone once more. The dank shades of the tropical forest, the repulsive picturesqueness of the savage town, the acrid odour of blood which still seemed to hang upon the air—all had faded now—had given way to the hawthorn hedges and running streams around Hilversea Court, as the splendid old pile arose against its background of embowering elms; the wholesome, clear English sunlight instead of the sickly tropical glare; the scent of innumerable wild flowers and the glad shout of the cuckoo, and, with it all, deeper and holier thoughts, enshrined amid the associations of the dearly-loved place; and then—he started wide awake.
“Here I am!” was saying the strong, harsh voice of the stranger. “Been asleep? Well, you’ll feel the better for it.”
“I believe I have,” said Wagram, sitting up. “Well, have you brought the draft of our agreement?”
“Ay, ay! here it is. Look through it and see if it’s all ship-shape.”
Wagram read the document carefully. It was short, even to conciseness, and set forward how the undersigned was to pay the bearer the sum of fifteen thousand pounds, within fifteen days of being landed at Sierra Leone, in consideration of having been landed there within one month from date.
“You have a code cable with your solicitors, of course?” said the stranger. “You can have the cash cabled there?”
“Yes; I have a code cable. But you say ‘the bearer.’ Why not have it paid in to your own name?”
“That’s my business,” was the answer. “For the rest, is it all ship-shape?”