"There could be no better, sir. But if only I could have died instead of him!"
Sir Edmund frowned. "These things are not in our hands. If Charteris's work was done, no efforts of yours or mine could have saved him. If your work is not done, all the powers of hell could not prevail to bring about your death."
"But his work was not complete, sir. There was so much in him that no one realised—he had had no opportunity to display it. You and I, and one other person, have some faint idea of what he really was, but no one else can possibly know—the world can never know."
Colonel Antony pushed back his papers. "And what then?" he asked sharply. "How dare you say that his work was not complete because the world knew nothing of it? The world! The world does not make a man great, any more than it is the world's recognition that makes his work valuable. The value of the work lies in the spirit in which it is done. I tell you"—he spoke as though to himself, with a far-away look in his eyes—"I have seen something of work and the world's recognition of it. You know the interest that I take in the history of our people in India, how my wife and I are always poking and prying among old manuscripts and records wherever we go. I have found there the histories of scores of forgotten heroes—men whose names, in any other service or any other country, would have been inscribed upon the nation's roll of honour. They marched half across India—hostile country, every foot of the way—at the head of a few hundred men, and faced and fought the might of empires at the end. They captured cities single-handed, and ruled them afterwards, and they pacified whole provinces, in spite of famine and plague and fever. Oh, they got their recognition—the thanks of the Directors, sometimes even of Parliament, swords of honour and trash of that kind. But who remembers even their names now? You will find their graves sometimes, neglected and defaced, in deserted cantonments, or the remains of their great bungalows grown over with jungle, and perhaps a legend or two will be hanging about among the natives—silly superstitious things, of no value in recalling the man as he was. They did their work, and good work—completed work, as you would say—and they had their recognition, but they are no more remembered now than Charteris will be next year, except by you and one or two more. Ah, Gerrard, we are all very anxious to see our names carved on the stones that men may remember us, but we have to learn that it is enough if God deigns even to build our bodies into the wall. If Charteris did well what he was permitted to do, he could have done no more if he had lived a hundred years."
The rapt gaze faltered, and the soldier-mystic became the keen administrator once more.
"How much longer are you to be on the sick-list, Gerrard? I am going to send you to Darwan."
"I shall not be able to use this arm for some time, sir. Otherwise the doctor said he would let me off in another week. But you were not suggesting that I should take up Charteris's work?"
"That is exactly what I do suggest. I have no other man to send, and no other place at this moment that is crying out for you. I should not send you to Agpur again, and you would hardly wish to go, I imagine. What is your objection to Darwan?"
"Simply that it was his work, sir. We were so different in every way—I had rather try almost anything else——"
"Do you wish to decline the post?"