In spite of these civilities, however, this evening was unlike any that the colonel's friends had spent at the cottage. The bishop only remained for about an hour, and Harwood and Markham soon afterwards took their departure.
“I'll take a seat with you, Oswin, my boy,” said Despard. “We'll be at the same hotel in Cape Town, and we may as well all go together.”
And they did all go together.
“Fine fellow, the colonel, isn't he?” remarked Despard, before they had got well out of the avenue. “I called him general on chance when I saw him for the first time to-day—you're never astray in beginning at general and working your way down, with these military nobs. And the bishop is a fine old boy too—rather too much palm-oil and glycerine about him, though—too smooth and shiny for my taste. I expect he does a handsome trade amongst the Salamanders. A smart bishop could make a fortune there, I know. And then the king—the Irish king as he calls himself—well, maybe he's the best of the lot.”
There did not seem to be anything in Mr. Despard's opening speech that required an answer. There was a considerable pause before Harwood remarked quietly: “By the way, Mr. Despard, I think I saw you some time ago. I have a good recollection for faces.”
“Did you?” said Despard. “Where was it? At 'Frisco or Fiji? South Carolina or South Australia?”
“I am not recalling the possibilities of such faraway memories,” said Harwood. “But if I don't mistake, you were the person in the audience at Pietermaritzburg who made some remark complimentary to Markham.”
The man laughed. “You are right, mister. I only wonder I didn't shout out something before, for I never was so taken aback as when I saw him come out as that Prince. A shabby trick it was you played on me the next morning, Oswin—I say it was infernally shabby. You know what he did, mister: when I had got to the outside of more than one bottle of Moët, and so wasn't very clear-headed, he packed me into one of the carts, drove me to Durban before daylight, and sent me aboard the Virginia brig that I had meant to leave. That wasn't like friendship, was it?”
But upon this delicate question Mr. Harwood did not think it prudent to deliver an opinion. Markham himself was mute, yet this did not seem to have a depressing effect upon Mr. Despard. He gave a résumé of the most important events in the voyage of the Virginia brig, and described very graphically how he had unfortunately become insensible to the fact that the vessel was leaving Simon's Bay on the previous morning; so that when he awoke, the Virginia brig was on her way to New York city, while he was on a sofa in the hotel surrounded by empty bottles.
When Markham was alone with this man in a room at the hotel at Cape Town, Despard became even more talkative.