“Lewin!—Ally!—what about him?”
“He’s dead!”
Nugent caught at the wooden banister as if White had struck him, and turned sharply from one to the other with the words he could not utter on his lips. They answered his questions amongst themselves without his asking them.
“He made a mess of things over the East African business, and—and cleared out of it.” Young Rennie spoke first, but shied off the explanation like a frightened horse. There was some darker meaning here than the natural fate which overtakes any man. Nugent’s face grew sharper with anxiety.
“Poor young fool!” said White. “He was the wrong man in the wrong place. Fell in with his own regiment too, and made a night of it—got drunk most likely, and talked.”
“Talked Government secrets too—Gregory’s secrets! There will be a devil of a row to hush up now. Gregory may have to go himself.”
“Serve him right!” put in the little Chaplain with unexpected savagery. “What did he want sending a harmless fool like Ally into such a tight place? It was Halton’s job.”
“Lewin went away like a sick beast, poor devil, somewhere into the interior.” It was Arthur White who seemed to know by instinct the raging questions Nugent could not frame, and answered them with more coherence than the rest. “That was how it was they never found him for so long, and the news was delayed. It only came down to Capetown a few days since, and the mail picked up Hanney’s letter at Beira.”
“How did he die?” Brissy had found his voice at last. The curt words surprised himself that they should be in his ordinary tone. He had fancied, with his throat dry and burning like that, that he must be hoarse. “Was it fever or a scrimmage?”
There was a brief pause, and the men looked at each other.