'I should have to interpret the Oracle itself before I could be clear as to the meaning of its answer,' Ericson said composedly.
Soame Rivers knew pretty well by the words and by the tone that if he did not like the Dictator, neither did the Dictator very much like him.
'You must not mind Rivers and his cynicism,' Sir Rupert said, intervening somewhat hurriedly; 'he doesn't mean half he says.'
'Or say half he means,' Rivers added.
'But, as I was telling you, about the police organisation of Siam,' Sir Lionel broke out anew. And this time the others went back without resistance to a few moments more of Siam.
CHAPTER X
A SOLDIER OF FORTUNE
Captain Oisin Sarrasin came one morning to see the Dictator by appointment.
Captain Oisin Sarrasin had described himself in his letter to the Dictator as a soldier of fortune. So he was indeed, but there are soldiers and soldiers of fortune. Ho was not the least in the world like the Orlando the Fearless, who is described in Lord Lytton's 'Rienzi,' and who cared only for his steed and his sword and his lady the peerless. Or, rather, he was like him in one respect—he did care for his lady the peerless. But otherwise Captain Oisin Sarrasin resembled in no wise the traditional soldier of fortune, the Dugald Dalgetty, the Condottiere, the 'Heaven's Swiss' even. Captain Sarrasin was terribly in earnest, and would not lend the aid of his bright sword to any cause which he did not believe to be the righteous cause, and, owing to the nervous peculiarities of his organisation, it was generally the way of Captain Sarrasin to regard the weaker cause as the righteous cause. That was his ruling inclination. When he entered as a volunteer the Federal ranks in the great American war, he knew very well that he was entering on the side of the stronger. He was not blinded in the least, as so many Englishmen were, by the fact that in the first instance the Southerners won some battles. He knew the country from end to end, and he knew perfectly well what must be the outcome of such a struggle. But then he went in to fight for the emancipation of the negroes, and he knew that they were the weakest of all the parties engaged in the controversy, and so he struck in for them.