“I thank you, Herr Professor, but I cannot accept—for myself.” Birnier stared at him. “I wish you to understand that for myself that is impossible.” The tall figure seemed to straighten in the chair. “But as I have the honour to serve his Imperial Majesty I am bound to preserve to the best of my ability my body in order to answer for my culpable negligence which has [pg 315] resulted in the loss of my two companies. Most distinctly, Herr Professor, I wish you to know that I accept your offer in order to place myself before the Court Martial that awaits me.”
Birnier almost gasped. That this anomaly of a man, who was capable of cold-blooded murder at the prompting of an hallucination, and who now appeared equally capable of the utter annihilation of self at the service of his Imperial Master, meant what he said, Birnier did not doubt. Yet it was not anomalous. Logical in fact; the capability of supreme sacrifice for either of his idols.
“I understand you, Lieutenant,” said he courteously. “I——” The two letters in his hand crackled. Before he could master the mean desire he had handed the second letter to zu Pfeiffer with the words:
“Forgive me, I have here a letter which it is my duty to return to you.”
The sapphires winked as zu Pfeiffer held up the letter in the shaft of moonlight. There was a suppressed grunt as of pain. Zu Pfeiffer rose stiffly and walked to the door. His tall figure was silhouetted in profile against the green sky and as Birnier watched he saw a gleam as of crystal upon an eyelash. Birnier, ashamed of his sole vengeance, turned away.
But as if revenge were recoiling upon him came in the wake of that satisfied primitive instinct a surge of longing for Lucille. Lucille! Lucille! God! how he desired to see those eyes again! Feel those lips and hear the gurgle of her laughter! Sense the perfume of her hair as she murmured: “Mon petit loup!” Birnier sat holding the letter. He fought with an impulse to abandon everything to go to her—if he [pg 316] could get out! How stale and monotonous the adventure and the scientific interest suddenly seemed! After all, what had he accomplished? What could he accomplish? Even yet he had learned but little of the secrets of the witch-doctor’s craft. Perhaps there was little or nothing to learn? And zu Pfeiffer? He stared across at the portrait of Lucille. And as he gazed a wave of pity rose within him for this boy made mad by the witchery of those eyes and the music of that voice. A sentence in Lucille’s letter appeared to stand out from the context: “Mon Dieu, they are as thick as the blackberries!”
And yet—and yet—— Why the devil had she taken it into her head to come out to Uganda above all places? he asked himself. She was so damnably near to him. He smiled satirically as he recollected her phrase about those fools who made of love a nuisance, and yet now what was she doing? After all the suspicion in his mind that love is everything to a woman seemed proven true.
But how adorable she was! He fingered the letter as if it were part of her. Well, she was young; success and adulation from one capital to another had interested and amused her for a few years, but when Milady had suddenly discovered that the Career bored her she had thrown up everything and logically—to her mind—expected her mate to do likewise! With what insouciance had she treated the affair of zu Pfeiffer and the youngster whom he had struck. When Birnier had met her she had had a story of a young fool count in Paris who had shot himself, merely because she would not listen to his suit; and she had protested with one of those wonderful shrugs and a moue, saying that she [pg 317] could not marry all the men in the world! That apparently bloodthirsty indifference had of course tended to make more men “crazy wild,” as she put it, about her. And that reputation had added to her numerous attractions even to Birnier.
He could escape if he wished—with zu Pfeiffer. He could take Mungongo with him. Yet would Mungongo dare the tabu at his bidding? Birnier doubted it. Would Mungongo even consent to let him, Birnier, who was now in his eyes the King-God, go and so imperil the foundations of the native world? Birnier was certain that he would not. They were all dominated by this confounded idol of wood, he reflected. Bakahenzie, or even Mungongo, would cheerfully sacrifice him if either imagined that the damned Unmentionable One desired it, at the suppositious bidding of something which was nothing.
Through the sweet scent of her in the air like a compelling aura about him, came suddenly zu Pfeiffer’s voice speaking in the accents of agony; yet all he said was: