‘You can read the language — I can’t. But I
The diminutive Spanish captain, mounted now upon the shoulders of an enormous fisherman waiting to carry him out waist deep to the departing vessel, was almost as tall as the gaunt figure astride Gehenna.
In this curious position the two men clasped hands and the Scarecrow whispered: ‘When you reach the Somme and hand your prisoners over to Duloge, bid him from me to watch for a certain Monsieur Barsard. And now, farewell, my little Pedro.’
Standing at the edge of the sea, horse and man motionless, one dark shadow looking bronze against the merging silver of the sea and sky, Doctor Syn watched the lugger till it was almost out of sight, and wondered if his good friend Duloge would meet with one Barsard.
But in spite of his night’s activities and the fact that he had not slept, he felt alive and exhilarated, deliberately stamping from his mind any dark thoughts that might have lingered there. It was with the suspicion of a sigh, therefore, that he forced himself to return to another urgent matter. Taking from his pocket the wallet which Mr. Bone had given him the night before, he fell to an examination of its contents.
There seemed to be some points in Robespierre’s threatening letter to this Barsard that puzzled him, for he read it carefully two or three times, referring to this line or that, his eyes tightening with concentration, and his intelligent face set into lines of perplexed determination. Then like a barrister preparing his brief he wrote upon a slip of paper the questions he had asked himself during his perusal of the letter, and against each question worked out problematical answers. His writing, scholarly and small as print, easy enough to read in the ordinary course of events, assumed a different form, and his fine pen, which usually travelled rapidly, moved carefully, each letter separate, so that upon finishing a phrase it looked like a row of curious numbers or hieroglyphics. Doctor Syn was in fact writing in ancient Greek.
Having come to a satisfactory conclusion, he replaced the letter in the wallet and, putting it in his pocket, rose and went to a distant bookshelf. Here he selected a calf-bound tome, and, taking it to his desk, opened it at random, made a mental note of the page, placed his Greek notes within, and closed it, carrying the volume to its original place upon the shelf.
He then drew from his pocket a notebook which he used for jotting down parochial items — such as notes on sermons — a text here, a phrase there, so that no one upon opening it would have been surprised to see an extra jotting
—
He was standing by the fire filling his churchwarden pipe with sweet Virginia tobacco when there came a respectful privilege-to-work-there knock upon the door, and upon his pleasant ‘Come in’, Mrs. Honeyballs’s smiling countenance appeared round the door; her rosy face, still shining from the morning soap, peeped out from underneath a large mob cap, while her ample figure, confined within a quantity of starch, bobbed dutifully, as she asked in her usual lilt: ‘How are you this morning, sir? Hope I’m not intrudin’. Mr. Mipps has told me you breakfast at the Court House. Oh dear. Here am I forgettin’. Left him on the doorstep. Such a swagger gentleman. Standing on the doorstep. Shall I ask him in, sir? Didn’t hear his name, sir. Met you in the coach, sir.’
Doctor Syn did not seem to be surprised at this early visitor, though amused at the manner in which Mrs. Honeyballs announced him. With a kindly smile he said: ‘Thank you, Mrs. Honeyballs. Will you ask Captain Foulkes to step in?’