Chapter XI: Eye to Eye

“Bones,” said Captain Hamilton, in despair, “you will never be a Napoleon.”

“Dear old sir and brother-officer,” said Lieutenant Tibbetts, “you are a jolly old pessimist.”

Bones was by way of being examined in subjects C and D, for promotion to captaincy, and Hamilton was the examining officer. By all the rules and laws and strict regulations which govern military examinations, Bones had not only failed, but he had seriously jeopardized his right to his lieutenancy, if every man had his due.

“Now, let me put this,” said Hamilton. “Suppose you were in charge of a company of men, and you were attacked on three sides, and you had a river behind you on the fourth side, and you found things were going very hard against you. What would you do?”

“Dear old sir,” said Bones thoughtfully, and screwing his face into all manner of contortions in his effort to secure the right answer, “I should go and wet my heated brow in the purling brook, then I’d take counsel with myself.”

“You’d lose,” said Hamilton, with a groan. “That’s the last person in the world you should go to for advice, Bones. Suppose,” he said, in a last desperate effort to awaken a gleam of military intelligence in his subordinate’s mind, “suppose you were trekking through the forest with a hundred rifles, and you found your way barred by a thousand armed men. What would you do?”

“Go back,” said Bones, “and jolly quick, dear old fellow.”

“Go back? What would you go back for?” asked the other, in astonishment.

“To make my will,” said Bones firmly, “and to write a few letters to dear old friends in the far homeland. I have friends, Ham,” he said, with dignity, “jolly old people who listen for my footsteps, and to whom my voice is music, dear old fellow.”

“What other illusions do they suffer from?” asked Hamilton offensively, closing his book with a bang. “Well, you will be sorry to learn that I shall not recommend you for promotion.”

“You don’t mean that,” said Bones hoarsely.

“I mean that,” said Hamilton.

“Well, I thought if I had a pal to examine me, I would go through with flying colours.”

“Then I am not a pal. You don’t suggest,” said Hamilton, with ominous dignity, “that I would defraud the public by lying as to the qualities of a deficient character?”

“Yes, I do,” said Bones, nodding vigorously, “for my sake and for the sake of the child.” The child was that small native whom Bones had rescued and adopted.

“Not even for the sake of the child,” said Hamilton, with an air of finality. “Bones, you’re ploughed.”

Bones did not speak, and Hamilton gathered together the papers, forms, and paraphernalia of examination.

He lifted his head suddenly, to discover that Bones was staring at him. It was no ordinary stare, but something that was a little uncanny. “What the dickens are you looking at?”

Bones did not speak. His round eyes were fixed on his superior in an unwinking glare.

“When I said you had failed,” said Hamilton kindly, “I meant, of course----”

“That I’d passed,” muttered Bones excitedly. “Say it, Ham--say it! ‘Bones, congratulations, dear old lad’----”

“I meant,” said Hamilton coldly, “that you have another chance next month.”

The face of Lieutenant Tibbetts twisted into a painful contortion. “It didn’t work!” he said bitterly, and stalked from the room.

“Rum beggar!” thought Hamilton, and smiled to himself.

“Have you noticed anything strange about Bones?” asked Patricia Hamilton the next day.

Her brother looked at her over his newspaper. “The strangest thing about Bones is Bones,” he said, “and that I am compelled to notice every day of my life.”

She looked up at Sanders, who was idly pacing the stoep of the Residency. “Have you, Mr. Sanders?”

Sanders paused. “Beyond the fact that he is rather preoccupied and stares at one----”

“That is it,” said the girl. “I knew I was right--he stares horribly. He has been doing it for a week--just staring. Do you think he is ill?”

“He has been moping in his hut for the past week,” said Hamilton thoughtfully, “but I was hoping that it meant that he was swotting for his exam. But staring--I seem to remember----”

The subject of the discussion made his appearance at the far end of the square at that moment, and they watched him. First he walked slowly towards the Houssa sentry, who shouldered his arms in salute. Bones halted before the soldier and stared at him. Somehow, the watchers on the stoep knew that he was staring--there was something so fixed, so tense in his attitude. Then, without warning, the sentry’s hand passed across his body, and the rifle came down to the “present.”

“What on earth is he doing?” demanded the outraged Hamilton, for sentries do not present arms to subaltern officers.

Bones passed on. He stopped before one of the huts in the married lines, and stared at the wife of Sergeant Abiboo. He stared long and earnestly, and the woman, giggling uncomfortably, stared back. Then she began to dance.

“For Heaven’s sake----” gasped Sanders, as Bones passed on.

“Bones!” roared Hamilton.

Bones turned first his head, then his body towards the Residency, and made his slow way towards the group.

“What is happening?” asked Hamilton.

The face of Bones was flushed; there was triumph in his eye--triumph which his pose of nonchalance could not wholly conceal. “What is happening, dear old officer?” he asked innocently, and stared.

“What the dickens are you goggling at?” demanded Hamilton irritably. “And please explain why you told the sentry to present arms to you.”

“I didn’t tell him, dear old sir and superior captain,” said Bones. His eyes never left Hamilton’s; he stared with a fierceness and with an intensity that was little short of ferocious.

“Confound you, what are you staring at? Aren’t you well?” demanded Hamilton wrathfully.

Bones blinked. “Quite well, sir and comrade,” he said gravely. “Pardon the question--did you feel a curious and unaccountable inclination to raise your right hand and salute me?”

“Did I--what?” demanded his dumbfounded superior.

“A sort of itching of the right arm--an almost overpowerin’ inclination to touch your hat to poor old Bones?”

Hamilton drew a long breath. “I felt an almost overpowering desire to lift my foot,” he said significantly.

“Look at me again,” said Bones calmly. “Fix your eyes on mine an’ think of nothin’. Now shut your eyes. Now you can’t open ‘em.”

“Of course I can open them,” said Hamilton. “Have you been drinking, Bones?”

A burst of delighted laughter from the girl checked Bones’s indignant denial. “I know!” she cried, clapping her hands. “Bones is trying to mesmerize you!”

“What?”

The scarlet face of Bones betrayed him.

“Power of the human eye, dear old sir,” he said hurriedly. “Some people have it--it’s a gift. I discovered it the other day after readin’ an article in The Scientific Healer.”

“Phew!” Hamilton whistled. “So,” he said, with dangerous calm, “all this staring and gaping of yours means that, does it? I remember now. When I was examining you for promotion the other day, you stared. Trying to mesmerize me?”

“Let bygones be bygones, dear old friend,” begged Bones.

“And when I asked you to produce the company pay-sheets, which you forgot to bring up to date, you stared at me!”

“It’s a gift,” said Bones feebly.

“Oh, Bones,” said the girl slowly, “you stared at me, too, after I refused to go picnicking with you on the beach.”

“All’s fair in love an’ war,” said Bones vaguely. “It’s a wonderful gift.”

“Have you ever mesmerized anybody?” asked Hamilton curiously, and Bones brightened up.

“Rather, dear old sir,” he said. “Jolly old Ali, my secretary--goes off in a regular trance on the slightest provocation. Fact, dear old Ham.”

Hamilton clapped his hands, and his orderly, dozing in the shade of the verandah, rose up. “Go, bring Ali Abid,” said Hamilton. And when the man had gone: “Are you under the illusion that you made the sentry present arms to you, and Abiboo’s woman dance for you, by the magic of your eye?”

“You saw,” said the complacent Bones. “It’s a wonderful gift, dear old Ham. As soon as I read the article, I tried it on Ali. Got him, first pop!”

The girl was bubbling with suppressed laughter, and there was a twinkle in Sanders’s eye. “I recall that you saw me in connection with shooting leave in the N’gombi.”

“Yes, sir and Excellency,” said the miserable Bones.

“And I said that I thought it inadvisable, because of the trouble in the bend of the Isisi River.”

“Yes, Excellency and sir,” agreed Bones dolefully.

“And then you stared.”

“Did I, dear old--Did I, sir?”

His embarrassment was relieved by the arrival of Ali. So buoyant a soul had Bones, that from the deeps of despair into which he was beginning to sink he rose to heights of confidence, not to say self-assurance, that were positively staggering.

“Miss Patricia, ladies and gentlemen,” said Bones briskly, “we have here Ali Abid, confidential servant and faithful retainer. I will now endeavour to demonstrate the power of the human eye.”

He met the stolid gaze of Ali and stared. He stared terribly and alarmingly, and Ali, to do him justice, stared back.

“Close your eyes,” commanded Bones. “You can’t open them, can you?”

“Sir,” said Ali, “optics of subject are hermetically sealed.”

“I will now put him in a trance,” said Bones, and waved his hand mysteriously. Ali rocked backward and forward, and would have fallen but for the supporting arm of the demonstrator. “He is now insensible to pain,” said Bones proudly.

“Lend me your hatpin, Pat,” said Hamilton.

“I will now awaken him,” said Bones hastily, and snapped his fingers. Ali rose to his feet with great dignity. “Thank you, Ali; you may go,” said his master, and turned, ready to receive the congratulations of the party.

“Do you seriously believe that you mesmerized that humbug?”

Bones drew himself erect. “Sir and captain,” he said stiffly, “do you suggest I am a jolly old impostor? You saw the sentry, sir, you saw the woman, sir.”

“And I saw Ali,” said Hamilton, nodding, “and I’ll bet he gave the sentry something and the woman something to play the goat for you.”

Bones bowed slightly and distantly. “I cannot discuss my powers, dear old sir; you realize that there are some subjects too delicate to broach except with kindred spirits. I shall continue my studies of psychic mysteries undeterred by the cold breath of scepticism.” He saluted everybody, and departed with chin up and shoulders squared, a picture of offended dignity.

That night Sanders lay in bed, snuggled up on his right side, which meant that he had arrived at the third stage of comfort which precedes that fading away of material life which men call sleep. Half consciously he listened to the drip, drip, drip of rain on the stoep, and promised himself that he would call upon Abiboo in the morning, to explain the matter of a choked gutter, for Abiboo had sworn, by the Prophet and certain minor relatives of the Great One, that he had cleared every bird’s nest from the ducts about the Residency.

Drip, drip, drip, drip, drip!

Sanders sank with luxurious leisure into the nothingness of the night.