CHAPTER VI
I was the Flail of the Lord
Lord John Roxton and I turned down Vigo Street together and through thedingy portals of the famous aristocratic rookery. At the end of a longdrab passage my new acquaintance pushed open a door and turned on anelectric switch. A number of lamps shining through tinted shadesbathed the whole great room before us in a ruddy radiance. Standing inthe doorway and glancing round me, I had a general impression ofextraordinary comfort and elegance combined with an atmosphere ofmasculine virility. Everywhere there were mingled the luxury of thewealthy man of taste and the careless untidiness of the bachelor. Richfurs and strange iridescent mats from some Oriental bazaar werescattered upon the floor. Pictures and prints which even myunpractised eyes could recognize as being of great price and rarityhung thick upon the walls. Sketches of boxers, of ballet-girls, and ofracehorses alternated with a sensuous Fragonard, a martial Girardet,and a dreamy Turner. But amid these varied ornaments there werescattered the trophies which brought back strongly to my recollectionthe fact that Lord John Roxton was one of the great all-round sportsmenand athletes of his day. A dark-blue oar crossed with a cherry-pinkone above his mantel-piece spoke of the old Oxonian and Leander man,while the foils and boxing-gloves above and below them were the toolsof a man who had won supremacy with each. Like a dado round the roomwas the jutting line of splendid heavy game-heads, the best of theirsort from every quarter of the world, with the rare white rhinoceros ofthe Lado Enclave drooping its supercilious lip above them all.
In the center of the rich red carpet was a black and gold Louis Quinzetable, a lovely antique, now sacrilegiously desecrated with marks ofglasses and the scars of cigar-stumps. On it stood a silver tray ofsmokables and a burnished spirit-stand, from which and an adjacentsiphon my silent host proceeded to charge two high glasses. Havingindicated an arm-chair to me and placed my refreshment near it, hehanded me a long, smooth Havana. Then, seating himself opposite to me,he looked at me long and fixedly with his strange, twinkling, recklesseyes--eyes of a cold light blue, the color of a glacier lake.
Through the thin haze of my cigar-smoke I noted the details of a facewhich was already familiar to me from many photographs--thestrongly-curved nose, the hollow, worn cheeks, the dark, ruddy hair,thin at the top, the crisp, virile moustaches, the small, aggressivetuft upon his projecting chin. Something there was of Napoleon III.,something of Don Quixote, and yet again something which was the essenceof the English country gentleman, the keen, alert, open-air lover ofdogs and of horses. His skin was of a rich flower-pot red from sun andwind. His eyebrows were tufted and overhanging, which gave thosenaturally cold eyes an almost ferocious aspect, an impression which wasincreased by his strong and furrowed brow. In figure he was spare, butvery strongly built--indeed, he had often proved that there were fewmen in England capable of such sustained exertions. His height was alittle over six feet, but he seemed shorter on account of a peculiarrounding of the shoulders. Such was the famous Lord John Roxton as hesat opposite to me, biting hard upon his cigar and watching me steadilyin a long and embarrassing silence.
Well, said he, at last, we've gone and done it, young fellah mylad. (This curious phrase he pronounced as if it were all oneword--young-fellah-me-lad.) Yes, we've taken a jump, you an' me. Isuppose, now, when you went into that room there was no such notion inyour head--what?
No thought of it.
The same here. No thought of it. And here we are, up to our necks inthe tureen. Why, I've only been back three weeks from Uganda, andtaken a place in Scotland, and signed the lease and all. Pretty goin'son--what? How does it hit you?
Well, it is all in the main line of my business. I am a journalist onthe Gazette.
Of course--you said so when you took it on. By the way, I've got asmall job for you, if you'll help me.
With pleasure.
Don't mind takin' a risk, do you?
What is the risk?
Well, it's Ballinger--he's the risk. You've heard of him?
No.
Why, young fellah, where HAVE you lived? Sir John Ballinger is thebest gentleman jock in the north country. I could hold him on the flatat my best, but over jumps he's my master. Well, it's an open secretthat when he's out of trainin' he drinks hard--strikin' an average, hecalls it. He got delirium on Toosday, and has been ragin' like a devilever since. His room is above this. The doctors say that it is all upwith the old dear unless some food is got into him, but as he lies inbed with a revolver on his coverlet, and swears he will put six of thebest through anyone that comes near him, there's been a bit of a strikeamong the serving-men. He's a hard nail, is Jack, and a dead shot,too, but you can't leave a Grand National winner to die likethat--what?
What do you mean to do, then? I asked.
Well, my idea was that you and I could rush him. He may be dozin',and at the worst he can only wing one of us, and the other should havehim. If we can get his bolster-cover round his arms and then 'phone upa stomach-pump, we'll give the old dear the supper of his life.
It was a rather desperate business to come suddenly into one's day'swork. I don't think that I am a particularly brave man. I have anIrish imagination which makes the unknown and the untried more terriblethan they are. On the other hand, I was brought up with a horror ofcowardice and with a terror of such a stigma. I dare say that I couldthrow myself over a precipice, like the Hun in the history books, if mycourage to do it were questioned, and yet it would surely be pride andfear, rather than courage, which would be my inspiration. Therefore,although every nerve in my body shrank from the whisky-maddened figurewhich I pictured in the room above, I still answered, in as careless avoice as I could command, that I was ready to go. Some further remarkof Lord Roxton's about the danger only made me irritable.
Talking won't make it any better, said I. Come on.
I rose from my chair and he from his. Then with a little confidentialchuckle of laughter, he patted me two or three times on the chest,finally pushing me back into my chair.
All right, sonny my lad--you'll do, said he. I looked up in surprise.
I saw after Jack Ballinger myself this mornin'. He blew a hole in theskirt of my kimono, bless his shaky old hand, but we got a jacket onhim, and he's to be all right in a week. I say, young fellah, I hopeyou don't mind--what? You see, between you an' me close-tiled, I lookon this South American business as a mighty serious thing, and if Ihave a pal with me I want a man I can bank on. So I sized you down,and I'm bound to say that you came well out of it. You see, it's allup to you and me, for this old Summerlee man will want dry-nursin' fromthe first. By the way, are you by any chance the Malone who isexpected to get his Rugby cap for Ireland?
A reserve, perhaps.
I thought I remembered your face. Why, I was there when you got thattry against Richmond--as fine a swervin' run as I saw the whole season.I never miss a Rugby match if I can help it, for it is the manliestgame we have left. Well, I didn't ask you in here just to talk sport.We've got to fix our business. Here are the sailin's, on the firstpage of the Times. There's a Booth boat for Para next Wednesday week,and if the Professor and you can work it, I think we should takeit--what? Very good, I'll fix it with him. What about your outfit?
My paper will see to that.
Can you shoot?
About average Territorial standard.
Good Lord! as bad as that? It's the last thing you young fellahsthink of learnin'. You're all bees without stings, so far as lookin'after the hive goes. You'll look silly, some o' these days, whensomeone comes along an' sneaks the honey. But you'll need to hold yourgun straight in South America, for, unless our friend the Professor isa madman or a liar, we may see some queer things before we get back.What gun have you?
He crossed to an oaken cupboard, and as he threw it open I caught aglimpse of glistening rows of parallel barrels, like the pipes of anorgan.
I'll see what I can spare you out of my own battery, said he.
One by one he took out a succession of beautiful rifles, opening andshutting them with a snap and a clang, and then patting them as he putthem back into the rack as tenderly as a mother would fondle herchildren.
This is a Bland's .577 axite express, said he. I got that bigfellow with it. He glanced up at the white rhinoceros. Ten moreyards, and he'd would have added me to HIS collection.
'On that conical bullet his one chance hangs, 'Tis the weak one's advantage fair.'
Hope you know your Gordon, for he's the poet of the horse and the gunand the man that handles both. Now, here's a useful tool--.470,telescopic sight, double ejector, point-blank up to three-fifty.That's the rifle I used against the Peruvian slave-drivers three yearsago. I was the flail of the Lord up in those parts, I may tell you,though you won't find it in any Blue-book. There are times, youngfellah, when every one of us must make a stand for human right andjustice, or you never feel clean again. That's why I made a little waron my own. Declared it myself, waged it myself, ended it myself. Eachof those nicks is for a slave murderer--a good row of them--what? Thatbig one is for Pedro Lopez, the king of them all, that I killed in abackwater of the Putomayo River. Now, here's something that would dofor you. He took out a beautiful brown-and-silver rifle. Wellrubbered at the stock, sharply sighted, five cartridges to the clip.You can trust your life to that. He handed it to me and closed thedoor of his oak cabinet.
By the way, he continued, coming back to his chair, what do you knowof this Professor Challenger?
I never saw him till to-day.
Well, neither did I. It's funny we should both sail under sealedorders from a man we don't know. He seemed an uppish old bird. Hisbrothers of science don't seem too fond of him, either. How came youto take an interest in the affair?
I told him shortly my experiences of the morning, and he listenedintently. Then he drew out a map of South America and laid it on thetable.
I believe every single word he said to you was the truth, said he,earnestly, and, mind you, I have something to go on when I speak likethat. South America is a place I love, and I think, if you take itright through from Darien to Fuego, it's the grandest, richest, mostwonderful bit of earth upon this planet. People don't know it yet, anddon't realize what it may become. I've been up an' down it from end toend, and had two dry seasons in those very parts, as I told you when Ispoke of the war I made on the slave-dealers. Well, when I was upthere I heard some yarns of the same kind--traditions of Indians andthe like, but with somethin' behind them, no doubt. The more you knewof that country, young fellah, the more you would understand thatanythin' was possible--ANYTHIN'! There are just some narrowwater-lanes along which folk travel, and outside that it is alldarkness. Now, down here in the Matto Grande--he swept his cigar overa part of the map--or up in this corner where three countries meet,nothin' would surprise me. As that chap said to-night, there arefifty-thousand miles of water-way runnin' through a forest that is verynear the size of Europe. You and I could be as far away from eachother as Scotland is from Constantinople, and yet each of us be in thesame great Brazilian forest. Man has just made a track here and ascrape there in the maze. Why, the river rises and falls the best partof forty feet, and half the country is a morass that you can't passover. Why shouldn't somethin' new and wonderful lie in such a country?And why shouldn't we be the men to find it out? Besides, he added,his queer, gaunt face shining with delight, there's a sportin' risk inevery mile of it. I'm like an old golf-ball--I've had all the whitepaint knocked off me long ago. Life can whack me about now, and itcan't leave a mark. But a sportin' risk, young fellah, that's the saltof existence. Then it's worth livin' again. We're all gettin' a dealtoo soft and dull and comfy. Give me the great waste lands and thewide spaces, with a gun in my fist and somethin' to look for that'sworth findin'. I've tried war and steeplechasin' and aeroplanes, butthis huntin' of beasts that look like a lobster-supper dream is abrand-new sensation. He chuckled with glee at the prospect.
Perhaps I have dwelt too long upon this new acquaintance, but he is tobe my comrade for many a day, and so I have tried to set him down as Ifirst saw him, with his quaint personality and his queer little tricksof speech and of thought. It was only the need of getting in theaccount of my meeting which drew me at last from his company. I lefthim seated amid his pink radiance, oiling the lock of his favoriterifle, while he still chuckled to himself at the thought of theadventures which awaited us. It was very clear to me that if dangerslay before us I could not in all England have found a cooler head or abraver spirit with which to share them.
That night, wearied as I was after the wonderful happenings of the day,I sat late with McArdle, the news editor, explaining to him the wholesituation, which he thought important enough to bring next morningbefore the notice of Sir George Beaumont, the chief. It was agreedthat I should write home full accounts of my adventures in the shape ofsuccessive letters to McArdle, and that these should either be editedfor the Gazette as they arrived, or held back to be published later,according to the wishes of Professor Challenger, since we could not yetknow what conditions he might attach to those directions which shouldguide us to the unknown land. In response to a telephone inquiry, wereceived nothing more definite than a fulmination against the Press,ending up with the remark that if we would notify our boat he wouldhand us any directions which he might think it proper to give us at themoment of starting. A second question from us failed to elicit anyanswer at all, save a plaintive bleat from his wife to the effect thather husband was in a very violent temper already, and that she hoped wewould do nothing to make it worse. A third attempt, later in the day,provoked a terrific crash, and a subsequent message from the CentralExchange that Professor Challenger's receiver had been shattered.After that we abandoned all attempt at communication.
And now my patient readers, I can address you directly no longer. Fromnow onwards (if, indeed, any continuation of this narrative should everreach you) it can only be through the paper which I represent. In thehands of the editor I leave this account of the events which have ledup to one of the most remarkable expeditions of all time, so that if Inever return to England there shall be some record as to how the affaircame about. I am writing these last lines in the saloon of the Boothliner Francisca, and they will go back by the pilot to the keeping ofMr. McArdle. Let me draw one last picture before I close thenotebook--a picture which is the last memory of the old country which Ibear away with me. It is a wet, foggy morning in the late spring; athin, cold rain is falling. Three shining mackintoshed figures arewalking down the quay, making for the gang-plank of the great linerfrom which the blue-peter is flying. In front of them a porter pushesa trolley piled high with trunks, wraps, and gun-cases. ProfessorSummerlee, a long, melancholy figure, walks with dragging steps anddrooping head, as one who is already profoundly sorry for himself.Lord John Roxton steps briskly, and his thin, eager face beams forthbetween his hunting-cap and his muffler. As for myself, I am glad tohave got the bustling days of preparation and the pangs of leave-takingbehind me, and I have no doubt that I show it in my bearing. Suddenly,just as we reach the vessel, there is a shout behind us. It isProfessor Challenger, who had promised to see us off. He runs afterus, a puffing, red-faced, irascible figure.
No thank you, says he; I should much prefer not to go aboard. Ihave only a few words to say to you, and they can very well be saidwhere we are. I beg you not to imagine that I am in any way indebtedto you for making this journey. I would have you to understand that itis a matter of perfect indifference to me, and I refuse to entertainthe most remote sense of personal obligation. Truth is truth, andnothing which you can report can affect it in any way, though it mayexcite the emotions and allay the curiosity of a number of veryineffectual people. My directions for your instruction and guidanceare in this sealed envelope. You will open it when you reach a townupon the Amazon which is called Manaos, but not until the date and hourwhich is marked upon the outside. Have I made myself clear? I leavethe strict observance of my conditions entirely to your honor. No, Mr.Malone, I will place no restriction upon your correspondence, since theventilation of the facts is the object of your journey; but I demandthat you shall give no particulars as to your exact destination, andthat nothing be actually published until your return. Good-bye, sir.You have done something to mitigate my feelings for the loathsomeprofession to which you unhappily belong. Good-bye, Lord John.Science is, as I understand, a sealed book to you; but you maycongratulate yourself upon the hunting-field which awaits you. Youwill, no doubt, have the opportunity of describing in the Field how youbrought down the rocketing dimorphodon. And good-bye to you also,Professor Summerlee. If you are still capable of self-improvement, ofwhich I am frankly unconvinced, you will surely return to London awiser man.
So he turned upon his heel, and a minute later from the deck I couldsee his short, squat figure bobbing about in the distance as he madehis way back to his train. Well, we are well down Channel now.There's the last bell for letters, and it's good-bye to the pilot.We'll be down, hull-down, on the old trail from now on. God blessall we leave behind us, and send us safely back.