"It was a bright morning in the North Sea," he talked on, but not to me now. "Nobody but ourselves knew just what was to be done, but everybody hoped—they didn't know what. It was a desperate England from which we sailed away. We hadn't long to wait—the second morning. There were their ships, the triumphant long lines of the invader. There were their crowded transports, the soldiers coming to crucify England as they had [pg 341] crucified Belgium—thousands and tens of thousands of them. Then—we did it. German power was wiped off the face of the earth. German arrogance was ended for all time. And that was the last I knew," said General Cochrane. "I was conscious till it was known that the trick had worked. Of course it couldn't be otherwise, yet it was so beyond anything which mankind had dreamed that I couldn't believe it till I knew. Then, naturally, I didn't much care if I lived or died. I'd done the turn as the Sirdar told me, and one life was a small thing to pay. I dropped into blackness quite happily, and when I woke up to this good earth I was glad. England was right. The Sirdar had saved her."
"And the Sirdar?" I asked him. "Was it—himself?"
"Himself? Most certainly."
"I mean—well—" I stammered. And then I plunged in. "I must know," I said. "Was it Lord Kitchener in flesh and blood? Had he been a prisoner in Germany and escaped? Or was it—his ghost?"
The old lion rubbed his cheek consideringly. "Ah, there you have me," and he smiled. "Didn't I tell you this was a tale which could be told to few people?" he demanded. "'Flesh and blood'—ah, that's what I can't tell you. But—himself? Those people, the immense crowd which saw him and recognized him, they knew. Afterwards they begged the question. The papers were full of a remarkable speech made by an unknown officer who strikingly resembled Kitchener. That's the way they got out of it. But those people knew, that day. There wasn't any doubt in their minds when that roar of his name went up. They knew! But people are ashamed to own to the supernatural. And yet it's all around us," mused General Cochrane.
"Could it have been—did you ever think—" I began, and dared not go on.
"Did I ever think what, child?" repeated the old officer, with his autocratic friendliness. "Out with it. You and I are having a truth-feast."
"Well, then," I said, "if you won't be angry—"
"I won't. Come along."
"Did you ever think that it might have been that—you were only a boy, and wounded and weak and overstrained—and full of longing for your godfather. Did you ever think that you might have mistaken the likeness of the officer for Kitchener himself? That the thought of Dundonald's Destroyer was working in your mind before, and that it materialized at that moment and you—imagined the words he said. Perhaps imagined them afterwards, as you searched for him over London. The two things might have suggested each other in your feverish boy's brain."