“No, I did not,” said Mr. Harwood quietly; and the servant left the room.
Here was something additional for the special correspondent of the Dominant Trumpeter to ponder over and reduce to the terms of a problem. He reflected upon his early suspicions of Oswin Markham. Had he not even suggested that Markham's name was probably something very different from what he had called himself? Mr. Harwood knew well that men have a curious tendency to call themselves by the names of the persons to whom bank orders are made payable, and he believed that such a subtle sympathy might exist between the man who had been picked up at sea and the document that was found in his possession. Yes, Mr. Harwood felt that his instincts were not perhaps wholly in error regarding Mr. Oswin Markham, cleverly though he had acted the part of the Prince in that stirring drama on the previous evening.
On the afternoon of the following day, however, Oswin Markham entered the hotel at Pietermaritzburg and walked into the room where Harwood was working up a letter for his newspaper, descriptive of life among the Zulus.
“Good heavens!” cried the “special,” starting up; “I did not expect you back so soon. Why, you could only have stayed a few hours at the port.”
“It was enough for me,” said Oswin, a smile lighting up his pale face; “quite enough for me. I only waited to see the vessel with my friend aboard safely over the bar. Then I returned.”
“You went away from here in something of a hurry, did you not, Markham?”
Oswin laughed as he threw himself into a chair.
“Yes, something of a hurry. My friend is—let us say, eccentric. We left without going to bed the night before last. Never mind, Harwood, old fellow; he is gone, and here I am now, ready for anything you propose—an excursion across the Tugela or up to the Transvaal—anywhere—anywhere—I'm free now and myself again.”
“Free?” said Harwood curiously. “What do you mean by free?”
Oswin looked at him mutely for a moment, then he laughed, saying: