“And it came to pass, when Joab observed the city, that he assigned Uriah unto a place where he knew that valiant men were.
“And the men of the city went out and fought with Joab; and there fell some of the people of the servants of David; and Uriah the Hittite died also.”
For, as Gregory had said, he had been home before he came on to the bungalow, and there he found that during his absence in Port Albert news had arrived, and awaited him.
There had been a cable from Capetown.
CHAPTER XVI
“Quos Deus vult perdere, dementat prius!”—Latin Proverb.
The Post Office at Port Victoria is in the same block of buildings as the Government Office, though on a lower floor, and the busy staircase is thronged by officials as well as people coming for their mail or posting letters. There is no delivery in Port Victoria, for two excellent reasons—local communication is carried on solely through the telephone, or notes by bearer, and on mail days the recipients of letters besiege the office for their mail, long before the sorting is over. Most of the residents have a box, and prefer to call for their letters to having them delivered, so the postman’s duties are a farce, and by the time he goes his rounds he has no letters to carry.
Bristow Nugent rode into town early that mail day, but he had business at the A.S.C. yard, and at the garrison office, and by the time he reached the Post Office it was one o’clock, and his letters had been waiting for him in the box for two hours. At the foot of the rough staircase were a group of men he knew—Arthur White, Archie Lysle the regimental chaplain, the harbour master, Hamilton Gurney, and young Rennie—and before he had spoken a word to them their concerned faces had told him that something was wrong. Although knowing that his private affairs could not have reached them before himself, his heart contracted with the sick throb of fear peculiar to men stationed in distant corners of the earth, and feeling themselves helplessly out of reach of their nearest and dearest, and the good-looking animal face under the white helmet suddenly blanched.
“What’s up?” he said characteristically.
“It’s Lewin——” the Attorney-General answered as briefly and to the point as he was asked. “They cabled from Capetown last night, and the details are in to-day.”