SIR PETER PARCHMIN was a rare visitor. He disliked the company which Dwala kept; he couldn’t get on with Mr. Cato, who was always in and out of the house. He was growing visibly older in the effort of keeping his countenance, while his colleagues gloated over despatches of the Missing Link Expedition, which kept writing hopefully from Borneo that it was on the eve of achieving its object; Mr. Holmes had seen curious scratches on trees, or had heard peculiar noises at night; once they sent home a button which he had discovered in the forest. The hopes of the scientific world ran high.
‘You must get those people to come home, Sir Peter,’ said Dwala to the Biologist, on one of his visits. ‘He’s a terrible fellow is that Mr. Holmes; I shouldn’t feel safe in going back while he’s out there. He’d have me, tail and all, in no time.’
‘But good heavens, dear Prince, you’re not thinking of leaving us?’ said the Biologist. Joyful relief soared upwards from his heart; he had barely time to clap a distressful expression over it to keep it from escaping.
‘Yes,’ said Dwala, ‘I’m going home. I have my own life to live, you know. I’ve been a slave over here, working for the good of Man. My work is done; I have delivered my message; and now I’m going back to my wild life in the forest while I’m still young and strong. I mean to ... to throw all this off’—he flapped his coat like a bird—‘and enjoy myself.’
‘I trust you will be very very happy,’ said the Biologist, shaking him warmly by the hand. ‘How are you going to manage about the money?’ he asked in a lower voice.
‘They’re arranging it in there,’ said Dwala, in the same precautious tones, pointing to a door, behind which voices could be heard.
The door opened at that moment and admitted an elderly obsequious man in black, with a big parchment folded under his arm; and behind him came Baron Blumenstrauss, Lady Wyse, Mr. Cato, and a lean brown man with a tuft on his chin, whom Sir Peter had seen there once before. This man smiled at Sir Peter drily. The obsequious man said good-bye, and shook hands with the Prince.
‘It’s all right, your Royal Highness; signed, sealed, delivered, and stamped.’
‘Quite sound in law, is it?’ said the Prince.
‘Inter fifos,’ nodded the Baron; ‘sount as a pell.’
The obsequious gentleman hurried out.
‘Fonny man!’ said the Baron, patting the Prince on the shoulder, and smiling at Sir Peter; ‘he gif his broperty all away, effery penny.’
‘It’s generous, dear Prince,’ said the Biologist, ‘but is it wise? Even out there, no doubt, one has expenses.’
‘Oh! I sha’n’t want any money,’ said the Prince.
‘They have no pockets, you know,’ said Lady Wyse.
Whereupon the Baron, who was not initiated, adjusted his glasses and looked at her with great attention.
‘Remember King Lear,’ said the Biologist. ‘He divided his property in two’....
‘Seely fellow!’ said the Baron.
‘And his daughters were both ungrateful.’
‘Natürlich!’ said the Baron. ‘He trowed away de chief ting he haf; he gif de broperty widout de power. If I difide my corner in Brazilians into two corners for de boys, do you tink Max and Choel loff me very moch?’
‘You would find some Cordelia, I am sure, dear Baron.’
‘Nod widout monny,’ said the Baron.
‘There’s no Cordelia in this case,’ said Lady Wyse; ‘I’m Goneril and the other lady all in one.’
‘Really?’ The Biologist was all smiles and proffered hands. ‘I congratulate you. The Prince couldn’t have disposed of his fortune better, I’m sure.’
‘Ah! that depends how people treat us.’
‘Dere is gondition,’ said the Baron, looking at his watch.
‘May one inquire, dear Prince, what the condition is?’
‘Oh! it’s a mere nothing.’
‘Lady Wyse publish his “Memoirs,”’ said the Baron.
The Biologist turned pale.
‘That reminds me,’ said the American; ‘I mustn’t leave those papers litterin’ about. I forgot to lock them up.’
‘Goot-bye,’ said the Baron. ‘I haf beesness encagement.’ He followed the American out at the door.
‘Of course!’ said the Biologist, brightening. ‘“Memoirs of a Statesman”—anecdotes of the great people you have met. Who is the American-looking man?’
‘Oh! that’s Mr. Bone, one of my collaborators. Mr. Cato and Lady Wyse are the others; between us, you see, we cover the whole ground. I met Mr. Bone in Borneo. In fact, he was ... he was my proprietor. I’m going to leave the history of my life as a legacy and a lesson to the English Nation.’
‘You’ll have to go over to Borneo with the Prince, Sir Peter,’ said Lady Wyse: ‘you’ll be much more comfortable up one of his trees than you will be in England.’
The question had been debated many and many a time between them. Mr. Cato, as always, was for candour; he felt that Dwala was in a false position; he thought the secret should be published at once, and guaranteed the enthusiastic interest of the nation. Mr. Bone, for other reasons, agreed with him as to immediate publication; he thought there was money in it. Lady Wyse was all for caution; she lacked the business instinct of the American, and the optimism of Mr. Cato; she doubted the enthusiasm of the public; she thought it was running into unnecessary danger to publish the secret before the Prince was out of the country. It had therefore been agreed that she should publish it as soon as he was safe in the great forest again. She was ready to incur any danger herself; she was tired of life; and she did not in the least mind what happened to the Biologist.
The Biologist saw ruin impending. Savage, reckless hatred welled in his breast as he looked at this great creature, fatally sick, but rejoicing in a present intensity of life and vigour. He groped about for something sharp and venomous to pierce him with; to make him fall beside him into the valley of despair. He walked up to Dwala, hissing like a serpent in his face.
‘You have come to Man as an apostle, bringing us a new message of Civilisation.’
Dwala nodded, rather proudly.
‘Do you know what Man has given to you in return? What Man always gives to such animals? What any scientist could have told you you were bound to get in coming?... Consumption.... Phthisis pulmonalis.... Death!... Going back while you’re young and strong to your wild life in the forest! Pish! You won’t live the month out. I knew it that night. You’re a dying beast.’
Alas! why had Lady Wyse never told him? He had never thought of that. Life hummed and bubbled through his veins. He knew nothing of sickness and death. He had always been alive. The world had been faint at times; but that was the world, not he. A stiffening horror ran through him; he felt his skin moving against his clothes. Then his mind ran rapidly through all the series of events—the growth to the full knowledge of Man, the labouring hope of a joke, the change, the revelation, the submission to an overwhelming truth, the rejoicing millions.... Then suddenly this discovery of an unsuspected vengeance-for-benefit which had been stealing slowly and surely from the first in his steps, to spring at last on his back in the moment of fruition.
It was too funny; the surprise of the inevitable overcame him; it was a Joke which suddenly leaped up embracing the whole life of a created being, and the destiny of a nation—of humanity itself.
Dwala laughed. For the last time he laughed. A laugh to which his others were childish crowings; a laugh which flung horror on to the walls and into the darkened air, and spread a sudden dismay of things worse than death throughout the land. Men stopped in their work and in their talk and their lips grew pale without a cause; some goodness had gone out of Providence; some terror had been added to Fate. From the fire of that dismay the Biologist emerged a withered and broken man; Mr. Cato never flinched, his sheer goodness protected him; Lady Wyse broke into tears. She, too, was unscathed. No human canon of ethics has been invented by which she could be called good; she was a breaker of laws, an enemy of her kind. But in the place of ‘goodness’ she had a greatness which set her above the need of it.
When the paroxysm of laughter was ended, Dwala staggered and sank into a chair, and they saw him hanging from it with the blood streaming out of his mouth.
At once they were in the world of definite, manageable facts again. The Biologist became the attentive practitioner, Lady Wyse the understanding woman, Mr. Cato the bewildered layman, busily doing unnecessary things, ringing the bell, calling for brandy, hurrying out into the hall to see why they were so long. Huxtable and the American came running down the stairs, and Dwala was carried to his room and put to bed.