My Strangest Case, Guy Boothby [classic literature list TXT] 📗

reply in words, but, taking his friend's hand he made some mysterious movements upon it with his fingers, whereupon the latter raised himself to a sitting position.

"My friend tells me that you are an Englishman," he said in a voice that shook with emotion. "I'm glad we have found you. I heard your rifle shot and hailed you. We are in sore distress, and have been through such adventures and such misery as no man would believe. I have poisoned my foot, and am unable to walk any further. As you can see for yourself I am blind, while my companion is dumb."

This statement accounted for the smaller man's curious behaviour and the other's closed eyes.

"You have suffered indeed," said Grantham pityingly. "But how did it all come about?"

"We were traders, and we fell into the hands of the Chinese," the taller man answered. "With their usual amiability they set to work to torture us. My companion's tongue they cut out at the roots, while, as I have said, they deprived me of my sight. After that they turned us loose to go where we would. We have wandered here, there, and everywhere, living on what we could pick up, and dying a thousand deaths every day. It would have been better if we had died outright--but somehow we've come through. Can you take us to a place where we can procure food? We've been living on jungle fruit for an eternity. My foot wants looking to pretty badly, too."

"We'll do all we can for you," said Grantham. "That's if we can get you down to the Ford, which is about five miles away."

"You'll have to carry me then, for I'm too far gone to walk."

"I think it can be managed," said Grantham. "At any rate we'll try."

Turning to the little Shan he despatched him with a message to Handiman, and when the other had disappeared, knelt down beside the tall man and set to work to examine his injured foot. There could be no doubt that it was in a very serious condition. Tramping through the jungle he had managed to poison it, and had been unable to apply the necessary remedies. Obtaining some water from the stream Grantham bathed it tenderly, and then bound it up as well as he could with his handkerchief.

"That's the best I can do for you for the present," he said. "We must leave it as it is, and, when we get you to the station, we will see what else can be managed."

He looked up and saw the little man's eyes watched him intently. There was a look of almost dog-like affection in them for his companion, that went to the young soldier's heart.

"By Jove," he said, "I'm sorry for you fellows. You must have suffered agonies. The Chinese are devils. But yours is not the first case we have heard of. We only come up here for a month at a time, but the man we relieved told us a strange tale about another poor beggar who came into the station some two months ago. He had been wandering in the jungle, and was nearly at death's-door."

The blind man gave a start, while the little man seized his hand and made a number of rapid movements upon it with his fingers.

"My friend wants to know if you are aware of that man's name?" he said. "We lost a companion, and he thinks that he may be the man. For Heaven's sake tell us what you know. You have no idea what it means to us."

"Since you are so interested in him I am sorry to have to say that I do not know very much. You see he had very little to do with us. As I have said, he turned up while our predecessors were here. From what I heard about him from Gregory, he gathered that he was a tall, thin man, who had come through from Pekin by way of Yunnan."

"Are you sure it was from Yunnan?"

"That's what they told me," said Grantham. "Since then I have heard that he was on his way from Pekin to Burmah, and that his coolies had robbed him of all he possessed."

"You don't happen to remember his name, I suppose!"

The blind man tried to ask the question calmly, but his voice failed him.

"As far as I remember his name was George Bertram," Grantham answered.

There was a pause for a few seconds, after which the blind man began again--

"He didn't tell you, I suppose, whether he had any money about him?"

"He hadn't a red cent," said Grantham. "The Chinese cleared him out. They lent him the money to get to Rangoon. I happen to know that because he cashed my friend's cheque in Bhamo."

There was another and somewhat longer pause.

"You did not hear whether he had any precious stones in his possession?"

"Good gracious, no! From what they told me I gathered that the man hadn't a halfpenny in the world. Why should he have been likely to have had jewels? In point of fact I'm sure he hadn't, for I was given to understand he was about as woe-begone a customer as could be found anywhere."

The blind man uttered a heavy sigh, and sank back to his former position upon the ground.

An hour and a half later, just as the shadows of evening were drawing in, a party of Sikhs put in an appearance, bringing with them a dhooly, in which they placed the injured man. It was almost dark when they reached the station, where Grantham's superior officer was awaiting their coming.

"What on earth's the meaning of this?" he asked, as the _cortege_ drew up before the bungalow. "Who are these men? And where did you find them?"

Grantham made his report, and then the wounded man was lifted out and carried to a hut at the rear of the main block of buildings. The little man watched everything with an eagle eye, as if he were afraid some evil might be practised upon his companion. When the blind man had been placed on a bed, and his foot attended to as well as the rough surgery of the place would admit, Grantham did something he had not already done, and that was to ask them their names.

"My name is Kitwater," said the blind man, "and the name of my friend here is Codd--Septimus Codd. He's one of the best and staunchest little fellows in the world. I don't know whether our names will convey much to you, but such as they are you are welcome to them. As a matter of fact, they are all we have with which to requite your hospitality."

Why it should have been so I cannot say, but it was evident from the first that Captain Handiman did not believe the account the refugees gave of themselves. He was one of that peculiar description of persons who have an idea that it adds to their dignity not to believe anything that is told them, and he certainly acted up to it on every possible occasion.

"There's more in the case than meets the eye," he said suspiciously, "and I fancy, if only we could see the bottom of it, we should discover that your two _proteges_ are as fine a pair of rascals as could be found on the Continent of Asia."

"I don't know anything about that," Grantham replied. "I only know that they were a miserable couple, and that I did the best I could for them. You wouldn't have had me leave them in the jungle, surely?"

"I am not aware I have said so," the other answered stiffly. "The only thing I object to is your treating them as if they were martyrs, when in all probability they deserve all the punishment they have received."

Grantham was too wise to carry the argument any further. He knew that when Handiman was in his present humour the best thing to do was to leave him alone in it. He accordingly returned to the hut where the two men were domiciled, and attended to their comfort as far as lay in his power. His heart had been touched by their misery. He did not give as a reason for the trouble he took, the fact that the face of the elder man reminded him of his own venerable father, the worthy old Somersetshire vicar; it was a fact, nevertheless. For a week the unfortunate couple were domiciled at the Ford, and during that time Grantham attended to their wants with the assiduity of a blood relation. Meanwhile Handiman scoffed and bade him take heed for his valuables, lest his new-found friends should appropriate them. He did not believe in honest gratitude, he declared, particularly where homeless wanderers in the Burmese jungle were concerned. At last, however, they were so far recovered as to be able to proceed on their way once more.

"We have to thank you for your lives, sir," said Kitwater to Grantham when the time came for them to say good-bye to the Ford. "Had it not been for you we would probably be dead men now. I don't know whether we shall ever be able to repay your kindness, that is with Allah, but if the opportunity should ever arise you may be sure we will not neglect it. Whatever we may be now, you may take it that we were gentlemen once. There's just one favour I should like to ask of you, sir, before we part!"

"What is it?" Grantham inquired.

"I want you, sir, to give me a letter of introduction to the gentleman in your regiment, who looked after the stranger you told me of, when he came here from out of China. I've got a sort of notion in my head that even if he is not our friend, that is to say the man we are searching for, he may happen to know something of him."

"I will give you the letter with pleasure," Grantham replied. "I am sure Gregory will be only too pleased to help you as far as lies in his power."

The letter was accordingly written and handed to Kitwater, who stowed it away in his pocket as if it were a priceless possession. Then, when they had bade their protector farewell, they in their turn set off along the track that Hayle had followed two months before, and in due course arrived at Bhamo. Here they presented the letter they had obtained to Captain Charles Pauncefort Gregory, who, as may be supposed, received it with manifest astonishment.

"Well," said he, "of all the stories I have heard since I have been in the East, this is the most extraordinary. I thought that other chap was about as unfortunate a beggar as could well be, but you beat him hollow at every turn. Now, look here, before I go any further, I must have my friend with me. He is the man who discovered the other chap, and I'm sure he would like to hear your story."

Dempsey was accordingly summoned, and his wonderment was as great as his friend's had been.

"Now," said Gregory, when Dempsey had been made familiar with the other's story, "what is it you want to know about the man we picked up? Ask your questions, and we'll do the best we can to answer them."

In reply to Kitwater's questions, Gregory and Dempsey described, as far as they were able, the appearance of the man whom they had helped. The