Chapter 11 - Page 2

hiring of transports, and secret
preparations among the dockyards. He did not wish to see Dick till the
picture was finished.

'He's doing first-class work,' he said to the Nilghai, 'and it's quite out of
his regular line. But, for the matter of that, so's his infernal soaking.'

'Never mind. Leave him alone. When he has come to his senses again
we'll carry him off from this place and let him breathe clean air. Poor
Dick! I don't envy you, Torp, when his eyes fail.'

'Yes, it will be a case of "God help the man who's chained to our Davie."
The worst is that we don't know when it will happen, and I believe the
uncertainty and the waiting have sent Dick to the whiskey more than
anything else.'

'How the Arab who cut his head open would grin if he knew!'

'He's at perfect liberty to grin if he can. He's dead. That's poor
consolation now.'

In the afternoon of the third day Torpenhow heard Dick calling for him.

'All finished!' he shouted. 'I've done it! Come in! Isn't she a beauty? Isn't
she a darling? I've been down to hell to get her; but isn't she worth it?'

Torpenhow looked at the head of a woman who laughed,--a full-lipped,
hollow-eyed woman who laughed from out of the canvas as Dick had
intended she would.

'Who taught you how to do it?' said Torpenhow. 'The touch and notion
have nothing to do with your regular work. What a face it is! What eyes,
and what insolence!' Unconsciously he threw back his head and laughed
with her. 'She's seen the game played out,--I don't think she had a good
time of it,--and now she doesn't care. Isn't that the idea?'

'Exactly.'

'Where did you get the mouth and chin from? They don't belong to Bess.'

'They're--some one else's. But isn't it good? Isn't it thundering good?
Wasn't it worth the whiskey? I did it. Alone I did it, and it's the best I
can do.' He drew his breath sharply, and whispered, 'Just God! what
could I not do ten years hence, if I can do this now!--By the way, what do
you think of it, Bess?'

The girl was biting her lips. She loathed Torpenhow because he had
taken no notice of her.

'I think it's just the horridest, beastliest thing I ever saw,' she answered,
and turned away.

'More than you will be of that way of thinking, young woman.--Dick,
there's a sort of murderous, viperine suggestion in the poise of the head
that I don't understand,' said Torpenhow.

That's trick-work,' said Dick, chuckling with delight at being completely
understood. 'I couldn't resist one little bit of sheer swagger. It's a French
trick, and you wouldn't understand; but it's got at by slewing round the
head a trifle, and a tiny, tiny foreshortening of one side of the face from
the angle of