David Malcolm

by Nelson Lloyd

Rufus Blight sat down in his old chair and stared at me. "In two years? Why, David, we need him now. He must come now. We will bring him home—you and I."

"But we can't," said I. "He is far from here now; he went away last winter."

"You saw him and did not bring him home!" Rufus Blight's voice rose to a pitch of indignation. "I don't understand. Did you tell him how we wanted him—Penelope and I—how we had searched for him everywhere?" I nodded. "You told him that and he would not come?" He leaned toward me angrily. "Well, why didn't you let me know about him?"

"Because it could have done no good," I answered. "I had to promise him that I would not, yet because he feared that I should break my promise, he slipped away. I saw him but once. When I went to see him again he was gone—to Argentina."

"I see," said Rufus Blight more gently. "You must pardon my losing my temper, but it was hard to think that he was near us and yet we never knew it; strange that you did not tell us of it earlier."

"I should not tell you now were there not certain circumstances connected with my meeting with your brother that it is best that you know," I returned.

I went on with my story very quietly, as if it were one in which I had little personal concern. I knew that Rufus Blight was not quick to catch the hidden meaning of a word or tone, so that it was not from any fear of him discovering my biassed mind that I made my statement so unimpassioned. It was because I wanted to satisfy myself that I was acting alone for Penelope's good and disclosing the truth, uncolored, for her to judge. Slowly I told it all, in a dry, unvarnished sequence of facts. I told him of my visit to O'Corrigan's; of the fight and my interference; of my hours with his brother and his account of his wanderings and trials; of my vain plea to bring him back to Penelope and his refusal to surrender his search for that chimerical prize for which he had struggled so futilely. To me the vital part of my story had to do with Herbert Talcott. But for its apparent effect on Rufus Blight I had as well discovered his brother thrashing Tom Marshall. To him that incident was trivial. What he wanted to know was how Henderson looked. Was he well? Was he in absolute poverty? Did he speak as though he really meant to come home in two years? When I had finished he asked me these questions again and again. He thrashed the whole story over, all but the essential part. He leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. Henderson in want? To think of his brother in want and he so willing to share with him the fruits of his enormous prosperity. Henderson going afoot to Tibet? What a man he was! That was just the kind of thing he would do—some wild chase like that. And the South Seas? How I should like to hear him tell about them, David! He will come back—he has promised—in two years. He will fail. Poor old Hendry always fails, but it will be good to have him—he in that chair, I in this—and to hear him talk of it all.

So always was the essential fact missed. I was angry with Rufus Blight. I wanted to shake him, to shout into his ear, to drive into his dull brain the real purpose of my story. But I held my temper and reverted to the fight with quiet but meaning emphasis.

"Hendry was always a handy man with his fists, David," said Rufus Blight. "In his younger days he was hard to arouse, but get him angry and he was the devil himself. He wasn't afraid of anything. It was just like him to start alone to Lhasa—just like him, David."

I had begun to suspect that Rufus Blight was not so obtuse as I judged him, but was passing over that part of my story which had to do with Talcott, because he really liked Talcott and was inclined to lighten the shadow which his conduct that night had thrown on his exemplary character. I had told him all. I had repeated the exact words which the Professor had given me as the cause of the assault, and now in his brother's mind they were lost in a rapt interest in his adventures. If with design, then my mission had been futile, and it was wisdom to retreat. If without design, I could not bring myself to the rôle of a prosecutor, and to argue was to tread on dangerous ground. I had done what I believed right. I had kept my promise. So I rose to go. I must have given Rufus Blight a strange look as I held out my hand. I was furious at him for his obtuseness or his cunning, and I must have shown it, for he returned my gaze with a puzzled stare. Then a gleam of light filtered into that brain, so competent to deal with steel-works, so hopelessly dull on other matters.