"It is a vile idea, and I will not listen to it," I replied, with some inward sense of outrage on our race; "I have never seen Hafer for a close examination, and am not sure that I could swear to him, if he stood before me now. But from the glimpses I have had of him, I know this—he is as different from the grand Sûr Imar, as a blackberry bush is from a Muscat vine."
"Yet the one may be grafted on the other, I believe. The difficulty is not concerning that, George Cranleigh; the difficulty is about the woman's motives. Prove that it would suit her purposes to bring such a horrible affair about, and the horror of it is no obstacle to the fact. What makes me doubt my own suggestion is, that I cannot see how the scheme would work for the benefit of Madame Marva. All other objections on the score of human nature, or what human nature ought to be, are as nothing to the will of such a woman. Remember that she has a double object—to make herself the Queen of both the tribes, and to avenge her husband's death."
Wicked, and ruthless, and inhuman, as the sister of that lofty and noble-minded man might be, I could not bring myself to believe her capable of any such horrible design. But the misery, agony, and anxiety for the pure and innocent Dariel, and her father already so cruelly tried by the dark decree of Heaven, also my deep and abiding fury at bloodthirsty treachery, and the terror of being too late for the rescue, all together these drove me to the verge of madness, when the rotten old hulk they called a steamer yawed to this side and to that, and quivered, and rattled, and groaned, and the decrepit engines panted, and the craven crew fell upon their knees and wept; and it was announced in three languages, that we had done miracles of daring, and must tempt the Lord no longer, but thank Him for saving us from our own valour. The Rion was in such high flood that we must cast anchor, and wait for three days outside the Bar, till the rush of snow-water subsided.
CHAPTER XLIV THE LAND OF PROMETHEUS
There are thousands of people (Englishmen especially, and Germans universally) who would find terrible fault with me—if they ever heard of it—for the absence of calmness and self-command, which I ought to have helped, but couldn't. Taking myself, as it ought to be, and always is in theory, I must have gone out of it, without asking leave, or even knowing that it took leave of me. Others, who have been in the like condition, and perhaps they may be counted by the million, will freely allow for all I did, and all I said—which was a great deal worse. Even Strogue, though acquainted with many languages, and tolerant of all their excesses, admitted at last that there must be a power in our own, beyond all foreign scope.
"You never use a wicked word," he said to me; "or at any rate none that could be scored against you, by any angel that understands our tongue; and yet you contrive to put things in such a way, that I would rather not stand by you in a thunderstorm."
That of course was rubbish; for I spoke most mildly, and if ever I used a strong expression, the sound of my own voice hurt me. I was trying, throughout the long trial, to be of the large mind, which I admired so much whenever to be found for certain, in any human beings within my knowledge; and these being unsatisfactorily scarce, I went back to the many I had read of, in my early days at Winchester, and did my utmost to believe in them, and shape myself accordingly.