The sun was slowly sinking behind the dense wall of jungle which hems in, on the southern side, the frontier station of Nampoung. In the river below there is a Ford, which has a distinguished claim on fame, inasmuch as it is one of the gateways from Burmah into Western China. This Ford is guarded continually by a company of Sikhs, under the command of an English officer. To be candid, it is not a post that is much sought after. Its dullness is extraordinary. True, one can fish there from morning until night, if one is so disposed; and if one has the good fortune to be a botanist, there is an inexhaustible field open for study. It is also true that Nampoung is only thirty miles or so, as the crow flies, from Bhamo, and when one has been in the wilds, and out of touch of civilization for months at a time, Bhamo is by no means a place to be despised. So thought Gregory, of the 123rd Burmah Regiment, as he threw his line into the pool below him.
“It’s worse than a dog’s life,” he said to himself, as he looked at the Ford a hundred yards or so to his right, where, at the moment, his subaltern was engaged levying toll upon some Yunnan merchants who were carrying cotton on pack-mules into China. After that he glanced behind him at the little cluster of buildings on the hill, and groaned once more. “I wonder what they are doing in England,” he continued. “Trout-fishing has just begun, and I can imagine the dear old Governor at the Long Pool, rod in hand. The girls will stroll down in the afternoon to find out what sport he has had, and they’ll walk home across the Park with him, while the Mater will probably meet them half way. And here am I in this God-forsaken hole with nothing to do but to keep an eye on that Ford there. Bhamo is better than this; Mandalay is better than Bhamo, and Rangoon is better than either. Chivvying dakus is paradise compared with this sort of thing. Anyhow, I’m tired of fishing.”
He began to take his rod to pieces preparatory to returning to his quarters on the hill. He had just unshipped the last joint, when he became aware that one of his men was approaching him. He inquired his business, and was informed in return that Dempsey, his sub, would be glad to see him at the Ford. Handing his rod to the man he set off in the direction of the crossing in question, to become aware, as he approached it, of a disreputable figure propped up against a tree on the nearer bank.
“What’s the matter, Dempsey?” he inquired. “What on earth have you got there, man?”
“Well, that’s more than I can say,” the other replied. “He’s evidently a white man, and I fancy an Englishman. At home we should call him a scarecrow. He turned up from across the Ford just now, and tumbled down in the middle of the stream like a shot rabbit. Never saw such a thing before. He’s not a pretty sight, is he?”
“ ‘POOR DEVIL,’ SAID GREGORY. ‘HE SEEMS TO BE ON HIS LAST LEGS.’ ”
“Poor devil,” said Gregory. “He seems to be on his last legs. I wonder who the deuce he is, and what brought him into this condition.”
“I’ve searched, and there’s nothing about to tell us,” said Dempsey. “What do you think we had better do with him?”
“Get him up the hill,” said his superior, without hesitation. “When he’s a bit stronger we’ll have his story out of him. I’ll bet a few years’ pay it will be interesting.”
A file of men were called, and the mysterious stranger was carried up to the residence of the English officers. It was plain to the least observant that he was in a very serious condition. Such clothes as he possessed were in rags; his face was pinched with starvation, and moreover he was quite unconscious. When his bearers, accompanied by the two Englishmen, reached the cluster of huts, he was carried to a small room at the end of the officers’ bungalow and placed upon the bed. After a little brandy had been administered, he recovered consciousness and looked about him. Heaving a sigh of relief, he inquired where he might be.
“You are at Nampoung,” said Gregory, “and you ought to thank your stars that you are not in Kingdom Come. If ever a man was near it, you have been. We won’t ask you for your story now; however, later on, you shall bukh to your heart’s content. Now I am going to give you something to eat. You look as if you want it badly enough.”
Gregory looked at Dempsey and made a sign, whereupon the other withdrew, to presently return carrying a bowl of soup. The stranger drank it ravenously, and then lay back and closed his eyes once more. He would have been a clever man who could have recognized in the emaciated being upon the bed, the spruce, well-cared-for individual who was known to the Hotel of the Three Desires in Singapore as Gideon Hayle.
“You’d better rest a while now,” said Gregory, “and then perhaps you’ll feel equal to joining us at mess, or whatever you like to call it.”
“Thanks very much,” the man replied, with the conventional utterance of an English gentleman, which was not lost upon his audience. “I hope I shall feel up to it.”
“Whoever the fellow is,” said Gregory, as they passed along the verandah a few minutes later, “he has evidently seen better days. Poor beggar, I wonder where he’s been, and what he has been up to?”
“We shall soon find out,” Dempsey answered. “All he said when we fished him out of the water was ’at last,’ and then he fainted clean away. I am not more curious than my neighbours, but I don’t mind admitting that I am anxious to hear what he has to say for himself. Talk about Rip Van Winkle, why, he is not in it with this fellow. He could give him points and beat him hollow.”
An hour later the stranger was so far recovered as to be able to join his hosts at their evening meal. Between them they had managed to fit him out with a somewhat composite set of garments. He had shaved off his beard, had reduced his hair to something like order, and in consequence had now the outward resemblance at least of a gentleman.
“Come, that’s better,” said Gregory as he welcomed him. “I don’t know what your usual self may be like, but you certainly have more the appearance of a man, and less that of a skeleton than when we first brought you in. You must have been pretty hard put to it out yonder.”
The recollection of all he had been through was so vivid, that the man shuddered at the mere thought of it.
“I wouldn’t go through it again for worlds,” he said. “You don’t know what I’ve endured.”
“Trading over the border alone?” Gregory inquired.
The man shook his head.
“Tried to walk across from Pekin,” he said, ”via Szechuen and Yunnan. Nearly died of dysentery in Yunnan city. While I was there my servants deserted me, taking with them every halfpenny I possessed. Being suspected by the Mandarins, I was thrown into prison, managed eventually to escape, and so made my way on here. I thought to-day was going to prove my last.”
“You have had a hard time of it, by Jove,” said Dempsey; “but you’ve managed to come out of it alive. And now where are you going?”
“I want, if possible, to get to Rangoon,” the other replied. “Then I shall ship for England as best as I can. I’ve had enough of China to last me a lifetime.”
From that moment the stranger did not refer again to his journey. He was singularly reticent upon this point, and feeling that perhaps the recollection of all he had suffered might be painful to him, the two men did not press him to unburden himself.
“He’s a strange sort of fellow,” said Gregory to Dempsey, later in the evening, when the other had retired to rest. “If he has walked from Pekin here, as he says, he’s more than a little modest about it. I’ll be bound his is a funny story if only he would condescend to tell it.”
They would have been more certain than ever of this fact had they been able to see their guest at that particular moment. In the solitude of his own room he had removed a broad leather belt from round his waist. From the pocket of this belt he shook out upwards of a hundred rubies and sapphires of extraordinary size. He counted them carefully, replaced them in the belt, and then once more secured the latter about his waist.
“At last I am safe,” he muttered to himself, “but it was a close shave — a very close shave. I wouldn’t do that journey again for all the money the stones are worth. No! not for twice the amount.”
Once more the recollection of his sufferings rose so vividly before him that he could not suppress a shudder. Then he arranged the mosquito-curtains of his bed, and laid himself down upon it. It was not long before he was fast asleep.
Before he went to his own quarters, Gregory looked in upon the stranger to find him sleeping heavily, one arm thrown above his head.
“Poor beggar!” said the kind-hearted Englishman, as he looked down at him. “One meets some extraordinary characters out here. But I think he’s the strangest that has come into my experience.”
The words had scarcely left his lips before the stranger was sitting up in bed with a look of abject terror in his eyes. The sweat of a living fear was streaming down his face. Gregory ran to him and placed his arm about him.
“What’s the matter?” he asked. “Pull yourself together, man, there’s nothing for you to fear here. You’re quite safe.”
The other looked at him for a moment as if he did not recognize him. Then, taking in the situation, he gave an uneasy laugh.
“I have had such an awful nightmare,” he said. “I thought the Chinese were after me again. Lord! how thankful I am it’s not true.”
Next morning George Bertram, as he called himself, left Nampoung for Bhamo, with Gregory’s cheque for five hundred rupees in his pocket.
“You must take it,” said that individual in reply to the other’s half-hearted refusal of the assistance. “Treat it as a loan if you like. You can return it to me when you are in better circumstances. I assure you I don’t want it. We can’t spend money out here.”
Little did he imagine when he made that offer, the immense wealth which the other carried in the belt that encircled his waist. Needless to say Hayle said nothing to him upon the subject. He merely pocketed the cheque with an expression of his gratitude, promising to repay it as soon as he reached London. As a matter of fact he did so, and to this day, I have no doubt, Gregory regards him as a man of the most scrupulous and unusual integrity.
Two days later the wanderer reached Bhamo, that important military post on the sluggish Irrawaddy. His appearance, thanks to Gregory and Dempsey’s kind offices, was now sufficiently conventional to attract little or no attention, so he negotiated the Captain’s cheque, fitted himself out with a few other things that he required, and then set off for Mandalay. From Mandalay he proceeded as fast as steam could take him to Rangoon, where, after the exercise of some diplomacy, he secured a passage aboard a tramp steamer bound for England.
When the Shweydagon was lost in the evening mist, and the steamer had made her way slowly down the sluggish stream with the rice-fields on either side, Hayle went aft and took his last look at the land to which he was saying good-bye.
“A quarter of a million if a halfpenny,” he said, “and as soon as they are sold and the money is in my hands, the leaf shall be turned, and my life for the future shall be all respectability.”