“As to what I want you to do,” I went on, “I want you to find someone who understands explosives, and will undertake the business of blowing up the Fung idol.”
“Well, that’s easy enough, anyhow,” said the Professor, pointing to Captain Orme with the bowl of his pipe, and adding, “he is an engineer by education, a soldier and a very fair chemist; also he knows Arabic and was brought up in Egypt as a boy—just the man for the job if he will go.”
I reflected a moment, then, obeying some sort of instinct, looked up and asked:
“Will you, Captain Orme, if terms can be arranged?”
“Yesterday,” he replied, colouring a little, “I should have answered, ‘Certainly not.’ To-day I answer that I am prepared to consider the matter—that is, if Higgs will go too, and you can enlighten me on certain points. But I warn you that I am only an amateur in the three trades that the Professor has mentioned, though, it is true, one with some experience.”
“Would it be rude to inquire, Captain Orme, why twenty-four hours have made such a difference in your views and plans?”
“Not rude, only awkward,” he replied, colouring again, this time more deeply. “Still, as it is best to be frank, I will tell you. Yesterday I believed myself to be the inheritor of a very large fortune from an uncle whose fatal illness brought me back from South Africa before I meant to come, and as whose heir I have been brought up. To-day I have learned for the first time that he married secretly, last year, a woman much below him in rank, and has left a child, who, of course, will take all his property, as he died intestate. But that is not all. Yesterday I believed myself to be engaged to be married; to-day I am undeceived upon that point also. The lady,” he added with some bitterness, “who was willing to marry Anthony Orme’s heir is no longer willing to marry Oliver Orme, whose total possessions amount to under £10,000. Well, small blame to her or to her relations, whichever it may be, especially as I understand that she has a better alliance in view. Certainly her decision has simplified matters,” and he rose and walked to the other end of the room.
“Shocking business,” whispered Higgs; “been infamously treated,” and he proceeded to express his opinion of the lady concerned, of her relatives, and of the late Anthony Orme, shipowner, in language that, if printed, would render this history unfit for family reading. The outspokenness of Professor Higgs is well known in the antiquarian world, so there is no need for me to enlarge upon it.
“What I do not exactly understand, Adams,” he added in a loud voice, seeing that Orme had turned again, “and what I think we should both like to know, is your exact object in making these proposals.”
“I am afraid I have explained myself badly. I thought I had made it clear that I have only one object—to attempt the rescue of my son, if he still lives, as I believe he does. Higgs, put yourself in my position. Imagine yourself with nothing and no one left to care for except a single child, and that child stolen away from you by savages. Imagine yourself, after years of search, hearing his very voice, seeing his very face, adult now, but the same, the thing you had dreamed of and desired for years; that for which you would have given a thousand lives if you could have had time to think. And then the rush of the howling, fantastic mob, the breakdown of courage, of love, of everything that is noble under the pressure of primæval instinct, which has but one song—Save your life. Lastly, imagine this coward saved, dwelling within a few miles of the son whom he had deserted, and yet utterly unable to rescue or even to communicate with him because of the poltroonery of those among whom he had refuged.”