He was a man of about forty-eight years of age, and some six feet in height. He was handsome, strong, and sinewy—all muscles and flesh, and no fat. He had a deep olive complexion and dark-brown hair and eyes—eyes that in certain lights looked almost black.
He was a silent man habitually, but given anything to talk about in which he felt any interest and he could talk on for ever.
Unlike the ordinary soldier of fortune, he was not in the least thrasonical. He hardly ever talked of himself—he hardly ever told people of where he had been and what campaigns he had fought in. He looked soldierly; but the soldier in him did not really very much overbear the demeanour of the quiet, ordinary gentleman. At the moment he is a leader-writer on foreign subjects for a daily newspaper in London, and is also retained on the staff in order that he may give advice as to the meaning of names and places and allusions in late foreign telegrams. There is a revolution, say, in Burmah or Patagonia, and a late telegram comes in and announces in some broken-kneed words the bare fact of the crisis. Then the editor summons Captain Sarrasin, and Sarrasin quietly explains:—'Oh, yes, of course; I knew that was coming this long time. The man at the head of affairs was totally incompetent. I gave him my advice many a time. Yes, it's all right. I'll write a few sentences of explanation, and we shall have fuller news to-morrow.' And he would write his few sentences of explanation, and the paper he wrote for would come out next morning with the only intelligible account of what had happened in the far-off country.
The Dictator did not know it at the time, but it was certain that Captain Sarrasin's description of the rising in Gloria and the expulsion of Gloria's former chief had done much to secure a favourable reception of Ericson in London. The night when the news of the struggle and the defeat came to town no newspaper man knew anything in the world about it but Oisin Sarrasin. The tendency of the English Press is always to go in for foreign revolutions. It saves trouble, for one thing. Therefore, all the London Press except the one paper to which Oisin Sarrasin contributed assumed, as a matter of course, that the revolution in Gloria was a revolution against tyranny, or priestcraft, or corruption, or what not—and Oisin Sarrasin alone explained that it was a revolution against reforms too enlightened and too advanced—a revolution of corruption against healthy civilisation and purity—of stagnation against progress—of the system comfortable to corrupt judges and to wealthy suitors, and against judicial integrity. It was pointed out in Captain Sarrasin's paper that this was the sort of revolution which had succeeded for the moment in turning out the Englishman Ericson—and the other papers, when they came to look into the matter, found that Captain Sarrasin's version of the story was about right—and in a few days all the papers when they came out were glorifying the heroic Englishman who had endeavoured so nobly to reorganise the Republic of Gloria on the exalted principles of the British Constitution, and had for the time lost his place and his power in the generous effort. Then the whole Press of London rallied round the Dictator, and the Dictator became a splendid social success.
Oisin Sarrasin had been called to the English bar and to the American bar. He seemed to have done almost everything that a man could do, and to have been almost everywhere that a man could be. Yet, as we have said, he seldom talked of where he had been or what he had done. He did not parade himself—he was found out. He never paraded his intimate knowledge of Russia, but he happened at Constantinople one day to sit next to Sir Mackenzie Wallace at a dinner party, and to get into talk with him, and Sir Mackenzie went about everywhere the next day telling everybody that Captain Sarrasin knew more about the inner life of Russia than any other Englishman he had ever met. It was the same with Stanley and Africa—the same with Lesseps and Egypt—the same with South America and the late Emperor of Brazil, to whom Captain Sarrasin was presented at Cannes. There was a story to the effect that he had lived for some time among the Indian tribes of the Wild West—and Sarrasin had been questioned on the subject, and only smiled, and said he had lived a great many lives in his time—and people did not believe the story. But it was certain that at the time when the Wild West Show first opened in London, Oisin Sarrasin went to see it, and that Red Shirt, the fighting chief of the Sioux nations, galloping round the barrier, happened to see Sarrasin, suddenly wheeled his horse, and drew up and greeted Sarrasin in the Sioux dialect, and hailed him as his dear old comrade, and talked of past adventures, and that Sarrasin responded, and that they had for a few minutes an eager conversation. It was certain, too, that Colonel Cody (Buffalo Bill), noticing the conversation, brought his horse up to the barrier, and, greeting Sarrasin with the friendly way of an old comrade, said in a tone heard by all who were near, 'Why, Captain, you don't come out our way in the West as often as you used to do.' Sarrasin could talk various languages, and his incredulous friends sometimes laid traps for him. They brought him into contact with Richard Burton, or Professor Palmer, hoping in their merry moods to enjoy some disastrous results. But Burton only said in the end, 'By Jupiter, what a knowledge of Asiatic languages that fellow has!' And Palmer declared that Sarrasin ought to be paid by the State to teach our British officers all the dialects of some of the East Indian provinces. In a chance mood of talkativeness, Sarrasin had mentioned the fact that he spoke modern Greek. A good-natured friend invited him to a dinner party with M. Gennadius, the Greek Minister in London, and presented him as one who was understood to be acquainted with modern Greek. The two had much conversation together after dinner was over, and great curiosity was felt by the sceptical friends as to the result. M. Gennadius being questioned, said, 'Oh, well, of course he speaks Greek perfectly, but I should have known by his accent here and there that he was not a born Greek.'
The truth was that Oisin Sarrasin had seen too much in life—seen too much of life—of places, and peoples, and situations, and so had got his mind's picture painted out. He had started in life too soon, and overclouded himself with impressions. His nature had grown languorous under their too rich variety. His own extraordinary experiences seemed commonplace to him; he seemed to assume that all men had gone through just the like. He had seen too much, read too much, been too much. Life could hardly present him with anything which had not already been a familiar object or thought to him. Yet he was always on the quiet look-out for some new principle, some new cause, to stir him into activity. He had nothing in him of the used-up man—he was curiously the reverse of the type of the used-up man. He was quietly delighted with all he had seen and done, and he still longed to add new sights and doings to his experiences, but he could not easily discover where to find them. He did not crave merely for new sensations. He was on the whole a very self-sufficing man—devoted to his wife as she was devoted to him. He could perfectly well have done without new sensations. But he had a kind of general idea that he ought to be always doing something for some cause or somebody, and for a certain time he had not seen any field on which to develop his Don Quixote instincts. The coming of Ericson to London reminded him of the Republic of Gloria, and of the great reforms that were only too great, and, as we have said, he wrote Ericson up in his newspaper.
Captain Sarrasin had a home in the far southern suburbs, but he had lately taken a bedroom in Paulo's Hotel. The moment Captain Sarrasin entered the room the Dictator remembered that he had seen him before. The Dictator never forgot faces, but he could not always put names to them, and he was a little surprised to find that he and the soldier of fortune had met already.
He advanced to meet his visitor with the smile of singular sweetness which was so attractive to all those on whom it beamed. The Dictator's sweet smile was as much a part of his success in life—and of his failure, too, perhaps—as any other quality about him—as his nerve, or his courage, or his good temper, or his commander-in-chief sort of genius.
'We have met before, Captain Sarrasin,' he said. 'I remember seeing you in Gloria—I am not mistaken, surely?'
'I was in Gloria,' Captain Sarrasin answered, 'but I left long before the outbreak of the revolution. I remained there a little time. I think I saw even then what was coming. I am on your side altogether.'