Colonel Grey sat alone on his stoep in the darkness and listened, as once before he had listened, to the quick, measured step of the man whose claim upon his consideration had rested solely on a reputation for valour.
The Colonel had believed strongly hitherto in his own discernment. Now he doubted, not only his judgment in human affairs, but his qualification for the responsible mission he had undertaken to carry successfully through. Twice he had been mistaken in the persons he had employed. He had paid off the one a month before, and had satisfied himself that the boy had taken his passage to Durban, and gone aboard with his broken head still encased in bandages, and with more money in his pockets than was good for him. The other case could not be disposed of in the same manner. In so far as their dealings together went, the man had given no cause either for satisfaction or complaint. Up to the present nothing definite had been accomplished. Colonel Grey doubted that anything would be accomplished. He mistrusted his man—the man whose reputation for courage he now knew to be spurious,—who was further accredited with being a traitor. The thing stuck in the Colonel’s mind and inflamed it. In a quiet, controlled way he was furious that he should have been led into having anything to do with the scoundrel. He was impatient to face him, to confound him with the knowledge of his disgrace. He wondered whether the fellow would try to bluff it, or if he would cave in...
And then the man he was thinking about arrived, and stepping up to the stoep with his firm, decided tread, stood before him, as he had stood on the night of their first meeting, looking at him inquiringly with those strangely penetrating, inscrutable grey eyes.
“You sent for me,” he said briefly, and waited to learn the reason of the summons.
The other man rose without speaking, and led the way into the house, closing the French windows behind them as he had done before.
“You are sure you were not followed?” he asked, as he drew a chair out from the table and seated himself.
“I think not. I saw no one.”
“Ah! ... I fancied I heard footsteps in the road.”
“You have good ears,” Lawless answered. “I heard nothing, and I was on the alert.”
Colonel Grey regarded him attentively. It was an extraordinary thing, but the sight of the purposeful face, with the steady eyes, and the deep, slanting scar, was strangely reassuring. Unaccountably, he felt his resentment dying. Against his reason, against his volition, he had a liking for the man. In face of his liking the charges against him seemed monstrous. It was almost incredible that he should have been cashiered from the Army for cowardice—“misbehaviour in the Field in the face of the enemy,” that was the wording of the indictment. He had received the information from an unquestionable source. Through the same channel he had learnt that subsequently, under another name, he had taken up arms against his country. The first was a grave enough offence in the Colonel’s opinion, the second was unpardonable.