The Truants Part 24

"Yes, Ma.r.s.eilles. Pa.s.sed by the doctor Paul as sound of body. Yes,"

and he resumed his questions.

"Nationality?"

"Swede."

Captain Tavernay had a smattering of most languages, and he was greatly inclined to try his new recruit with a few questions in the Swedish tongue. But the etiquette of the Legion forbade. He went on without a smile--

"Age?"

"Thirty."

"Vocation?"

"Fisherman."

Captain Tavernay looked up. This time he could not help smiling.

"Well, it is as good as any other," said he; and suddenly there was a sound of cries, and three soldiers burst out of a narrow entrance on the further side of the parade-ground and came running across the square to the Captain's quarters. Both Tavernay and Stretton looked through the door. There was not a tree in that great square; the sunlight poured down upon the bare brown s.p.a.ce with a blinding fierceness. All the recruits but Stretton had marched off; a second ago it had been quite empty and very silent. Now these three men were hurrying across it, shouting, gesticulating with their hands. Stretton looked at them with surprise. Then he noticed that one of them, the man running in the middle and a little ahead of the others, carried a revolver in his hand and brandished it. Moreover, from the look of his inflamed face, he was shouting threats; the others were undoubtedly shouting warnings. Sc.r.a.ps of their warnings came to Stretton's ears.

"Mon Capitaine!" "Il veut vous tuer!" "Rentrez!" They were straining every muscle to catch the threatening soldier up.

Stretton strode to the door, and a voice behind him cried--

"Halt!"

It was Tavernay who was speaking.

"But he is already halfway across the square."

"Halt!"

And there was no disobeying the command. Captain Tavernay walked to the door.

"A Spanish corporal whom yesterday I degraded to the ranks," said he.

"Half a pint of _aguardiente_, and here's the result."

Captain Tavernay stepped out of the door and leisurely advanced towards the running men. He gave an order, he raised his hand, and the two soldiers who warned him fell back and halted. Certainly Captain Tavernay was accustomed to obedience. The Spanish ex-corporal ran on alone, straight towards Tavernay, but as he ran, as he saw the officer standing there alone, quietly waiting his onslaught, his threats weakened, his pace slackened. He came to a stop in front of Tavernay.

"I must kill yon!" he cried, waving his revolver.

"Yon shall kill me from behind, then," said Tavernay, calmly. "Follow me!" And he turned round, and with the same leisurely deliberation walked back to his room. The ex-corporal hesitated and--obeyed. He followed Captain Tavernay into the room where Stretton stood.

"Place your revolver on the table."

The Spaniard again obeyed. Tavernay pushed open the door of an inner room.

"You are drunk," he said. "You must not be seen in this condition by your fellow-soldiers. Go in and lie down!"

The Spaniard stared at his officer stupidly, tottering upon his limbs.

Then he staggered into the Captain's room. Tavernay turned back to Stretton and a ghost of a smile crept into his face.

"_C'est du theater_," he said, with a little shrug of the shoulders.

"But what would you have, monsieur?" And he spoke to Stretton as to an equal. "You are astonished. It is very likely not your way in your-fis.h.i.+ng-boats," he continued, with a chuckle. Stretton knew very well that he meant "army." "But there is no Foreign Legion amongst your--fishermen." He laughed again; and gathering up his papers dismissed Stretton to the tailor's. But after Stretton had taken a few steps across the parade, Tavernay called him back again. He looked at him with a very friendly smile.

"I, too, enlisted at Ma.r.s.eilles," he said. "One can rise in the Foreign Legion by means of these"--and he touched lightly the medals upon his breast. This was Tony Stretton's introduction to the Foreign Legion.

CHAPTER XVII

CALLON LEAVES ENGLAND

Spring that year drew summer quickly after it. The lilac had been early in flower, the days bright and hot. At nine o'clock on a July morning Callon's servant drew up the blinds in his master's room and let the sunlight in. Lionel Callon stretched himself in bed and asked for his letters and his tea. As he drank the tea he picked up the letters one by one, and the first at which he looked brought a smile of satisfaction to his face. The superscription told him that it was from Millie Stretton. That little device of a quarrel had proved successful, then. He tore open the envelope and read the letter.

Millie wrote at no great length, but what was written satisfied Callon. She could not understand how the quarrel had arisen. She had been thinking over it many times since it happened, and she was still baffled. She had not had a thought of hurting him. How could she, since they were friends? She had been hoping to hear from him, but since some time had pa.s.sed and no word had reached her, she must write and say that she thought it sad their friends.h.i.+p should have ended as it had.

It was a wistful little letter, and as Callon laid it down he said to himself, "Poor little girl"; but he said the words with a smile rather than with any contrition. She had been the first to write--that was the main point. Had he given in, had he been the one to make the advance, to save her the troubled speculations, the sorrow at this abrupt close to their friends.h.i.+p. Millie Stretton would have been glad, no doubt, but she would have thought him weak. Now he was the strong man. He had caused her suffering and abased her to seek a reconciliation. Therefore he was the strong man. Well, women would have it so, he thought, with a chuckle, and why should he complain?

He wrote a note to Millie Stretton, announcing that he would call that afternoon, and despatched the note by a messenger. Then he turned to his other letters, and amongst them he found one which drove all the satisfaction from his thoughts. It came from a firm of solicitors, and was couched in a style with which he was not altogether unfamiliar.

Sir,--Messrs. Deacon & Sons (Livery Stables, Montgomery Street) having placed their books in our hands for the collection of their outstanding debts, we must ask you to send us a cheque in settlement of your account by return of post, and thus save further proceedings.

We are, yours, &c.,

Humphreys & Neill.

Callon allowed the letter to slip from his fingers, and lay for a while very still, feeling rather helpless, rather afraid. It was not merely the amount of the bill which troubled him, although that was inconveniently large. But there were other reasons. His eyes wandered to a drawer in his dressing-table. He got out of bed and unlocked it.

At the bottom of that drawer lay the other reasons, piled one upon the other--letters couched in just the same words as that which he had received this morning, and--still worse!---signed by this same firm of Humphreys and Neill. Moreover, every one of those letters had reached him within the last ten days. It seemed that all his tradesmen had suddenly placed their books in the hands of Messrs. Humphreys and Neill.

Callon took the letters back to his bed. There were quite an astonis.h.i.+ng number of them. Callon himself was surprised to see how deep he was in debt. They littered the bed--tailors' bills; bills for expensive little presents of jewellery; bills run up at restaurants for dinners and suppers; bills for the hire of horses and carriages; bills of all kinds--and there were just Mr. Callon's election expenses in Mr. Callon's exchequer that morning. Even if he parted with them, they would not pay a third part of the sum claimed. Fear invaded him; he saw no way out of his troubles. Given time, he could borrow enough, no doubt, sc.r.a.pe enough money together one way or another to tide himself over the difficulty. His hand searched for Millie Stretton's letter and found it, and rejected it. He needed time there; he must walk warily or he would spoil all. And looking at the letters he knew that he had not the time.

It was improbable, nay more than improbable, that all these bills were in the hands of one firm by mere chance. No; somewhere he had an enemy. A man--or it might be a woman--was striking at him out of the dark, striking with knowledge too. For the blow fell where he could least parry it. Mr. Mudge would have been quite satisfied could he have seen Callon as he lay that morning with the summer sunlight pouring into his bedroom. He looked more than his age, and his face was haggard. He felt that a hand was at his throat, a hand which gripped and gripped with an ever-increasing pressure.

He tried to guess who his enemy might be. But there were so many who might be glad to do him an ill-turn. Name after name occurred to him, but amongst those names was not the name of Mr. Mudge. That shy and inoffensive man was the last whom he would have suspected to be meddling with his life.

Callon sprang out of bed. He must go down to Lincoln's Inn Fields and interview Messrs. Humphreys and Neill. Summonses would never do with a general election so near. He dressed quickly, and soon after ten was in the office of that firm. He was received by a bald and smiling gentleman in spectacles.

"Mr. Callon?" said the smiling gentleman, who announced himself as Humphreys. "Oh yes. You have come in reference to the letters which our clients have desired us to send you?"

"Yes," replied Callon. "There are a good number of letters."

The smiling gentleman laughed genially.

"A man of fas.h.i.+on, Mr. Callon, has of course many expenses which we humdrum business people are spared. Let me see. The total amount due is----" And Mr. Humphreys made a calculation with his pen.

"I came to ask for an extension of time," Callon blurted out; and the smiling gentleman ceased to smile. He gazed through his spectacles with a look of the utmost astonishment. "You see, Mr. Humphreys, all these bills, each one accompanied with a peremptory demand for payment, have been presented together, almost as it were by the same post."