“No, they are not. If we could establish that essential relationship we should have achieved the ideal State. Probably that was what Plato really meant. But now we must come down to sordid details. Assuming that this Arab escapes the police and finds you here, have you any plan for dealing with him?”
“None. We have discussed it up and down since yesterday, but could come to no conclusion.”
“I should be inclined to offer him a chance to accompany your brother and Captain Welfare, that is if they decided to go to Nyasaland. We could offer him congenial employment, fair pay, and above all a chance of escape from ‘justice.’ We must remember that the one strength of our position is that he is a hunted man. A desperate man is dangerous, therefore the proper treatment for him is to offer him hope.”
We spent a long time discussing what our course should be if the worst came to pass, and how we were to make a future for Edmund when he should have purged his folly. The afternoon was fading into evening, when Bates came in with a perturbed expression.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said, “there is a man at the door who refuses to go away until he has seen you.”
“Well, Bates? Why should he not see me? What is his business?”
“He wouldn’t say, sir. Excuse me, sir, but he is a foreign looking person, though not dressed as such. I think he is one of those Arabs that came in the yacht, sir.”
The bishop and I looked at each other with a great relief. Here was Jakoub, and he was still at liberty, the worst had not yet come to pass.
“I’ll go and see him, Bates,” I said; “will you excuse me, bishop?”
“Don’t mind me if you wish to bring him in here,” the bishop answered in a perfectly natural manner.