“I don’t think you will blame me, sir, or his lordship either, when I tell you about it. He came at me like a leopard. As you know, I meant him no harm.”
“I know you did not, captain. We are so far from blaming you that we are only sorry you should have been so hurt. It was a dastardly attack.”
“Aye. A proper dago’s trick,” said Welfare. He paused to sip a glass of hot milk and brandy which he had prescribed for himself, and which certainly seemed to revive him in a remarkable degree.
“It was quite dark in that passage,” he continued. “I stood about half way up it, wondering would you have got my message. It seemed a long time waiting, but at last I heard the door open and shut, and then footsteps coming very quietly on. I flashed an electric torch to show I was there, and the footsteps stopped. I waited, and then as I heard no more I went up the passage searching it with the torch.
“Presently I saw someone crouching at the side. ‘Is that Jakoub?’ I asked, but there was no answer. ‘It’s all right,’ I said, ‘it’s me, Captain Ringrose,’ which was the name he knew me by. Then he seemed to take a little run, stooping like an animal; I saw the glint of a knife, and he was on me. I don’t rightly know how things happened then. Them natives always strike at your neck. Either I ducked or I happened to knock his hand up, but I felt the knife ripping my scalp. ‘You rob me, devil, I kill you,’ he says in a kind of snarl, as I closed on him, and then by good luck I got his wrist in my left hand. He twisted round me like a snake, but I used my weight and crushed him against the side of the passage. I knew he was struggling to get the knife in his other hand. He gave another twist and was almost free, but I managed to hold his wrist, and I felt both bones of his arm snap, but that didn’t quieten him, and then I got my right hand on his throat.
“I knew my strength would go in a minute with the blood I was losing, and if I didn’t quiet him I was done for. I felt him stiffen like a steel spring as I gripped his throat. Then a buzzing came in my ears. He went limp like, and we fell together, me still holding him.
“I suppose the fainting stopped my bleeding for a bit. Anyhow I came to, and Jakoub was still there half under me. He wasn’t breathing, and the blood started pumping out of my cut again, so I knotted my scarf as tight as I could over it and kept quiet to give it a chance of stopping. I felt about for the torch and found it, but it was broken. I was very giddy and sick, and I think I went over again. I seemed to be there a long while in the dark, and Jakoub never stirred. I put a hand on his face. His mouth was open, and his cheeks were dead cold.”
Captain Welfare paused, exhausted by his long statement. Nobody spoke, or questioned him while he took another drink. The end of the story was already clear to us, and Edmund, of course, had already been told. The long intrigue of infamy had ended in battle, murder and sudden death.
Captain Welfare was evidently distressed at our silence, interpreting it as meaning condemnation.
“I think, gentlemen,” he continued, “you will see it was self-defence. I didn’t mean him no harm, I was there to help him. But he meant doing me in right enough, and very nearly did. I could do nothing for him myself, but I tried to get help for him in case there was a chance still. I started to crawl for the house, as I thought, but I had lost my bearings, and when I came round a bend I saw the moonlight at the other end of the passage. Then the bleeding broke out again and I had to wait. Half an hour I should think I waited, and when I got back to Jakoub there was no mistake about it any more. He was dead right enough. But I swear, my lord, if I never speak another word, it was self-defence. I didn’t mean to kill him. I didn’t want to kill him. What did he want to kill me for?”