Be that as it may, this tardy decision to sail on the Orissa at least put an end to my trials of irresolution, of which I could not help feeling heartily ashamed; and as the very brief intervening time was fully employed in packing my effects and in making other preparations for departure, I was spared the usual cycle of farewell visits of ceremony which I greatly dreaded. On the day appointed therefore I found myself settled on the Orissa, a comfortable boat, and we proceeded on our homeward voyage, which proved wholly uneventful until we reached the Suez Canal. Here for the first time we received ominous reports of a colossal upheaval amongst the Great Powers of Europe, whilst our natural alarm was increased tenfold on learning at Port Said of the impending declaration of war between England and the German Empire. I shall not linger over the seething excitement on board our ship as we hurried at full speed through the Mediterranean in hourly fear of being sighted by the Goeben or some other German cruiser. It was therefore with an immense sense of relief that we found ourselves under lee of the guns of Gibraltar before we emerged thence into the waters of the Atlantic. We were about a day's sail from the Straits, with the weather still very hot and enervating, although we were north of the tropics, when at my usual hour for retiring I sought my cabin. I am generally a light but restful sleeper, and have rarely experienced even in its most transient form the curse of insomnia; but on this particular night, which was the seventh of August, I found myself a prey to a perfect demon of unrest. It was not the effect of the heat, to which I am thoroughly accustomed; nor was it the strain and stress of the late intelligence of war, for my extensive reading in the domain of the supernatural has long divested my mind of all sublunary foreboding; no, it was, I am convinced, the close approach of some event of the first magnitude in which I was marked out to play a considerable part. (But perhaps I am describing my predominant sensations by the light of subsequent happenings; still I can at least faithfully aver I was conscious of some imminent crisis that demanded my fullest energies.)
For several hours I lay thus in my berth, my brain active and alert and prepared to detect the smallest sound or motion that was suspicious amid the ordinary routine of ship life during the night watches. But no such occasion arose, nor was there any conceivable excuse for my nervous tension and distressing wakefulness, which grew so unbearable that the first luminous flush of early dawn forced me to leave my bed. With a deep sigh of relief I vaulted to the floor, donned my overcoat and slippers, seized my pipe and tobacco pouch, and thus lightly equipped sought the open air.
Day was breaking with more than the usual riot of variegated colour over a calm, glassy sea when I reached the boat deck, which I set to pace hurriedly in order to quieten the throbbings of my unrested brain. Scarcely had I thrice tramped the planks before I heard a sharp shrill call from the bridge, and casting my eyes in the direction of the sound, I observed the officer on watch staring intently at something high in the air on the port side of the vessel. Leaning over the taffrail I quickly espied an object in the sky at no great distance from the Orissa—an object which I can best compare in shape to a huge carp and of a silvery hue in the encroaching sunlight. Even as I gazed intently, I perceived the thing fall swiftly in a wavering course till it touched the sea, its actual collapse synchronising with the blast of the officer's whistle and the tinkle of two bells, for it was just five o'clock in the morning. All was now bustle, though without confusion; the steamer's reversed engines echoed with resounding thuds; the boat deck was peopled by bare-footed seamen who were disengaging one of the boats from its davits; there were calls for this person and that, including the ship's doctor, who I knew to be heavily sleeping off the potations of the previous night. All the hands required were quickly on the spot with the sole exception of the dissipated surgeon, whom a steward had hurried below to awaken. But the captain was too impatient to brook the least delay, and suddenly turning to myself, begged me to enter the waiting boat instead of the laggard absentee, a proposal I willingly accepted. Our boat was now lowered to the water; our swift strokes brought us closer and closer to the scene of the late mishap; we duly reached the spot. Not a sign of any wreckage, not a ripple on the surface, only the figure of a solitary survivor swimming or floating in the tepid crystalline sea.
We steered straight towards the supposed aeronaut and soon pulled him aboard without difficulty. He was certainly a remarkable man; slender but of immense height and clothed in a strange outlandish attire such as I had never seen before; yet he appeared to be of English or possibly of Scandinavian nationality from the extreme whiteness of his skin and the flaxen yellow of his hair, which was of a prodigious length. His eyes were tightly closed and the face was pallid, but I quickly reassured myself on testing the action of the heart and pulse that our derelict was practically uninjured by his recent fall. During our passage back to the Orissa, I placed the rescued man in as comfortable a pose as I could contrive, keeping his head with its dripping golden mane on my knees. I tried to pour brandy down his throat, but failed to open the clenched white teeth that resisted stoutly, and I saw no special reason to persist in my endeavour. Once during our transit my patient for an instant opened a pair of great sapphire-blue eyes and smiled faintly up to my face; and the strangeness of that fleeting glance increased the compassion and curiosity and interest which had already, naturally enough, been awakened in me.
Conveyed to my cabin, the strange man had to be stripped of his soaked garments consisting of a tunic and under-vest of fine texture; a small bag depending by a chain from his neck he fiercely defended, but otherwise was tractable enough, and seemed grateful for our attentions though he never uttered a word. With no small difficulty I managed to dismiss inquisitive stewards and fellow-passengers and ministered myself to the needs of my unexpected guest, who finally fell into a deep refreshing sleep.
Towards evening he awoke, smiled on me graciously, and then extended his right hand towards me with a gesture that was at once half-wistful, half-imperious; but when I grasped it according to wont, he seemed manifestly surprised. This puzzled me, but since that time I have grown to learn and understand many matters, great and small, which I failed to comprehend in these early days of our acquaintance. At first, I confess, I harboured some doubts as to the sanity of my mysterious stranger, but I soon perceived that though he spoke English in somewhat halting fashion and his brain worked with some degree of deliberation, yet of the acuteness of his reasoning powers there could be no question. In certain appeals of mine he deferred eventually to my arguments and acknowledged their justice, submitting amongst other things to have his thick chevelure clipped to a more conventional length, in order to avoid vulgar comment. After some reflection too he ultimately agreed with me as to the desirability of his adopting some name in consonance with the regulations for landing at Liverpool. Nevertheless, he utterly refused to declare his identity, but merely kept repeating with a smiling face, "Call me King!" to which pseudonym of his choice I ventured to add the Christian name of Theodore, promptly recalling the case of the impoverished King of Corsica on whom "Fate bestowed a kingdom yet denied him bread," for (quite erroneously) I then deemed him fully as destitute as that historic royal pauper.
I do not think I need dwell on our subsequent adventures in London and in Wales, for they have all been amply and faithfully set forth in the narrative of "Theodore King" himself. In his manuscript he mentions my name on many occasions in kindly but perhaps not always in highly flattering terms. Not that I rebel, for I am now well aware how often my petty scruples and my lack of perception must have irritated the Superior Being whom I was thus privileged to assist during his brief sojourn on our Earth. Nor shall I attempt here to analyse the causes that operated to attach me so closely to the service of one who drew first my interest, then my devotion, and lastly my whole fund of loyalty. Imagine me then at an early stage of our strange alliance as placing myself wholly at the disposal of this stranger, whose semi-divine attributes I was quick to perceive and acknowledge; and merely venturing at certain times to proffer such humble aid in mundane details and trifles as would naturally fall beneath the notice of a King of Meleager, transported to Earth and torn with celestial anguish as to his future duties towards his relinquished realm. And in this blind mental servitude I refuse to see anything dishonourable; on the contrary, my feeling is that of a man who has for a few moments been permitted of grace so to clutch at the fringe of the robe of the Superhuman; as a child of Earth who has succeeded in tracking the rainbow to its hidden source and bathed his hands in its fabled shower of golden dew.
Whither our strange alliance was tending or what would eventuate with regard to my companion, I purposely refrained from debating even with myself. I merely stood aside and awaited all developments with perfect calm. I never sought to pry into the nature of the visits of the outlandish wanderers who pursued our steps both in London and at our quiet Welsh retreat. Yet I was fully aware of the gradual unravelling of some wondrous skein of Fate, wherewith I had only an indirect and subsidiary interest. For "Theodore King" was usually silent, and it was only during his last days prior to his final disappearance that he ever exhibited the smallest desire to take me into his confidence, and even then his statements to me were vague, and rather hinted at services to be rendered by me in the future than at an elucidation of the past. At the same time I was not overtaken by surprise when the final event supervened, and I awoke one morning to find my Superior Being flown from this Earth whereon he felt so little inclination to linger.
In the manuscript the reader will observe the writer describes his feelings and movements till the supreme moment of leaving his abode in order to sail back to Meleager. Up till that point therefore I shall not presume to interpose my own account, and there is little further to report after that climax to my unique adventure. It was my daily custom to enter "Theodore King's" bed-chamber at about eight o'clock, and on fulfilling my normal visit on the morning of 27th October I saw at once the bed had never been slept in, whilst a large package addressed to myself lay in a prominent place on the table. It contained the manuscript, the copy of Edward Cayley's book, a private letter to myself and the bag of gems. At the same time I found in another place an envelope containing a short but perfectly drafted will signed by Theodore King and witnessed by two persons at Pen Maelgwyn farm, bequeathing everything he possessed to "his excellent friend and physician, Charles Wayne, late of Rangoon." Nor had I later on the least difficulty in obtaining probate. Apparently there was nothing of value to leave, for I did not think it necessary to mention the existence of the Meleagrian jewels to any outsider, whilst I was touched and flattered by the kind thought. I have my own intentions with regard to applying the considerable sum of money represented by those splendid gems; and if God in His mercy be pleased to bring back our unhappy land into the old paths of peace and prosperity I hope to carry out my plan. But this lies altogether outside the pale of my present task.
Having mastered the contents of the letter and the concluding portion of the manuscript I duly aroused the household, affecting an anxiety I did not feel, for of course I thoroughly understood what had occurred. An excited crowd, we searched hither and thither for traces of the missing stranger, and it was not long before Deio, the old ostler, had made a discovery which did not in the least astonish me. This was the finding of some clothing held down with heavy stones at the edge of the promontory only a quarter of a mile from the inn. Here the demented man, long recognised as an eccentric by the neighbourhood, must obviously have committed the act of self-destruction by throwing himself over the cliff into the cold grey surge below. Although it was wet and stormy, boatmen attempted to find further evidences of the suicide at the base of the crags, but needless to add their search was fruitless. There followed the usual tale of police inquiries ending in nothing; of long columns in the local journals, and of short paragraphs in the bigger organs of the Press, concerning the mysterious affair at Glanymôr; but all this excitement died down with a rapidity that might only have been expected in that period of tense anxiety which marked the furious campaign on the Belgian frontier towards the close of October. Interest in the strange occurrence soon flickered out before such engrossing themes of comment and speculation, even in so remote a spot as Glanymôr. Certainly a farm-hand at Pen Maelgwyn affirmed he had heard the buzzing noise of an aeroplane that very night above the Glanymôr cliffs, despite its being too dark for him to distinguish any object; and though everybody belittled or disbelieved this statement, its author stoutly maintained to the last that he was positive he had not been mistaken in his surmise.