n thin stalks, orchids instead of
roses, the stove instead of the sun. The wilds are everywhere--on the
Thames Embankment, even in this God-forsaken corner of the world. The
wilds are wherever men meet men."

I was silent. Who was I to argue with Ray, whose fame was in every
one's mouth--soldier, traveller, and diplomatist? For many years he had
been living hand and glove with life and death. There were many who
spoke well of him, and many ill--many to whom he was a hero, many to
whom his very name was like poison. But he was emphatically not a man
to contradict. In my little cottage he seemed like a giant,
six-foot-two, broad, and swart with the burning fire of tropical suns.
He seemed to fill the place, to dominate me and my paltry surroundings,
even as in later years I saw him, the master spirit in a great assembly,
eagle-eyed, strenuous, omnipotent. There was something about him which
made other men seem like pygmies. There was force in the stern
self-repression of his speech, in the curve of his lips, the clear
lightning of his eyes.

My silence did not seem altogether to satisfy him. I felt his eyes
challenge mine, and I was forced to meet his darkly questioning gaze.

"Come," he said, "I trust that I have said enough. You have buried the
thought of that hateful word."

"You have stricken it mortally," I answered, "but I can scarcely promise
so speedy a funeral. However, what more I feel," I added, "I will keep
to myself."

"It would be better," he answered curtly.

"You have asked me," I said, "many questions. I am emboldened to ask
you one. You have spoken of my father."

The look he threw upon me was little short of terrible.

"Ay," he answered, "I have spoken of him. Let me tell you this, young
man. If I believed that you were a creature of his breed, if I believed
that a drop of his black blood ran in your veins, I would take you by
the neck now and throw you into the nearest creek where the water was
deep enough to drown."

I rose to my feet, trembling.

"If those are your feelings, sir," I declared, "I have no wish to claim
your kindness."

"Sit down, boy," he answered coldly. "I have no fear of you. Nature
does not pay us so evil a trick as to send us two such as he in
successive generations."

He rose and looked out of the window. The storm had abated but little.
The roar of the sea and wind was still like thunder in the air. Black
clouds were driven furiously across the sky, torrents of r