Rallywood smiled. He was thinking of a certain elderly diplomat who, rumour said, had been moved out of his usual composure on one occasion only. It was at the moment when he heard that Captain Rallywood of the Maäsaun Guard was sentenced to be shot.
'By the way,' resumed Counsellor, 'did I tell you that I saw von Elmur yesterday at Charing Cross? He said he was starting for Constantinople. I bade him good-bye, but he corrected me, "Au revoir, my dear Major," and kissed the tips of his fingers to me as the train passed. So perhaps the end is not yet.'
'God bless the present!' said Rallywood.
And while they walk and talk over the past and the future in the pleasant places of England, the surf is beating round an island off the Maäsaun coast, upon which a storm-stricken fortification has been adapted to the use of a certain political prisoner, Count Simon of Sagan. There he frets, and schemes, and longs through the endless afternoons. He does not accept his destiny as final, his hopes are unimpaired, his resolves as strong as in the old keen days at Sagan. He clings to a blind conviction that Time and the Man must inevitably meet together, and he lives for that meeting.
There, too, Anthony Unziar serves his country and his sovereign, relentlessly watchful through the dead monotony of the days. At his own urgent request he was given charge of the lonely prison, its solitude appearing to him the one bearable condition of life. He has his work to do and he does it well, and always between Count Sagan and his dreams stands the irrevocable figure of the young Maäsaun.
Sometimes Sagan taunts him with his hopeless love, but he only answers by a look. And each knows that wherever he may turn, he will find the other standing up against him—the fierce imbruted prisoner with his royal fearlessness, and his intense and frigid guard.
They are waiting. They have each his dream. Sagan's of empire and revenge, for he is after all a splendid ruffian, untamable, gallant, a man who could never be compelled to cry 'Enough' to evil fortune.
Sometimes deep in the night, while the two enemies play their long games together, Sagan flings down the cards and laughs and speaks of another game which will find its conclusion in the dim paths of the future. But Unziar only smiles. If that day should ever come it will find him ready. But to-day is not to-morrow, and 'God bless the present!' as Rallywood said.