“What in the world is the matter with the Chief?” whispered Stratford, quickly; for Sir Dugald was walking as though his feet refused to carry him in a straight line: first a few steps to the right, then a valiant attempt to reach the steps, then a divergence to the left. The men on the terrace watched him in amazement and horror.
“He walks as though he was drunk!” said Kustendjian, in a voice of bewilderment.
“I wish to goodness he might be!” was the astonishing aspiration which broke from Dick as he ran down into the court, while Stratford turned a look upon the interpreter which made him shake in his shoes.
“Give me your arm up the steps, North,” said Sir Dugald, looking at Dick in a puzzled, almost appealing fashion. “I don’t feel very well. Is Anstruther there?”
“Yes, sir. Do you want him to write anything?”
“Yes. It must be done at once.”
They had reached the top of the steps, and the horrified group on the terrace saw that Sir Dugald’s face was working strangely, and that his lips were twitching and refused to be controlled.
“Dugald,” cried his wife, rushing to him, “you are ill! Come indoors and lie down;” but he pushed her away from him with a shaking hand.
“Not yet, not yet,” he said, impatiently. “Sit down, Anstruther, and write. Quick!” as the boy’s frightened fingers bungled over their task. “Say this: ‘Fearing the approach of severe illness, I hereby appoint Egerton Stratford to the command of this Mission until her Majesty’s pleasure is known, charging him——’” here he became incapable of speech for a moment, and passed his hand over his lips to steady them—“‘to secure, if possible, the conclusion of the treaty originally agreed upon; but in any case to conduct the Mission back to British territory without provoking, for any cause whatever, a conflict with the Ethiopian authorities.’ Now let me sign it.”
He sat down heavily in the chair which Fitz vacated, and groaned aloud as the pen dropped from his fingers.