“My cousin is too fond of waiting to be called upon,” he said. “I wish to make him act of his own accord.”
“A bomb, sir?” suggested one of the witnesses, an eager-faced student who had run away from a theological seminary to join the band. “Only a small one, of course—merely to frighten, not to hurt any one.”
“You might blow up all England before you would frighten Maurice Teffany back to Emathia. No, what I mean to use is a domestic bombshell. Write down that while the principal of the trust-money can only be touched by husband and wife acting together, the interest may be used, for the purposes of the trust, by the Princess Eirene at her own discretion. I think my friend Maurice will find himself in Emathia sooner than he expects. You will write out the codicil twice, if you please,” he added to Nilischeff, “and I will sign both copies, so that you and our friend Terminoff may each keep one.” The smile expressed what he did not add, that the mutual jealousy of the two men would ensure the due production of the document.
“Maurice Teffany?” said the second witness, when the matter had been explained to him. “Why, that was one of the European travellers we captured four years ago, when I was in Stoyan’s band. He called himself Ismit (Smith), but we heard afterwards that he was a Greek prince, and we ought to have killed him. ‘If I were your leader——!’ he said one day, and we laughed, not knowing. And will the other man come with him, the Capitan with the blue eyes? If he does, I tell you there is no one left of Stoyan’s band that will not rather fight with him than against him!”
With some difficulty the garrulous ex-brigand was silenced, and induced to affix his mark to the two papers. When this had been done, and the sick man was resting, Dr Terminoff escorted Nilischeff down the hill again and past his outposts. The lawyer’s brain was working busily.
“I see a way of turning this to account,” he said. “I am sending off despatches to-morrow, and I will mention the sad death of the noble-hearted British philanthropist, Teffany-Wise. It will appear in all the English papers how he gave his declining years to the service of freedom, visiting Emathia with relief for the oppressed, and was pursued from place to place by the Roumis thirsting for his blood. Imagine it—he dies in a cave, deprived of every comfort, but with his last breath bequeathing to the cause all he has to leave. A fine moral effect, is it not?”
CHAPTER I.
PRACTICAL POLITICS.
“It is Colonel Wylie, isn’t it? I say, I beg your pardon if I’ve made a mistake.” The speaker’s boyish tones grew doubtful as he looked at the grey hair and hollow cheeks of the fellow-passenger to whom he spoke, but the sunken eyes, peculiarly blue in contrast with the leaden complexion, reassured him. “It is you, Wylie, after all. But what have you been doing to yourself?”
“Spending five years in the Nile swamps. I don’t wonder you didn’t know me. I came face to face with myself in a big mirror on the hotel stairs at Cairo, and got a shock—wondered who the poor devil was with the cadaverous countenance.”
“Miss Teffany knew you at once.”