Page:Christopher Wren--the wages of virtue.djvu/30

xxviii eyes were starting from his head, and it was with shaking hand that he pointed to where, in the doctor's living-room, sat the dumb and weak-witted foundling.

Doctor Williams was astounded and mightily interested.

"What's up, Strong?" he asked.

"B—b—b—but he's dead!" stammered Strong with a gasp.

"Not a bit of it, man," was the reply, "he's as alive as you or I. He's dumb, and he's dotty, but he's alive all right. … What's wrong with you? You've got a touch of the sun …" and then Captain Strong was himself again. If Captain Sir Montague Merline, late of the Queen's African Rifles, were alive, it should not be Jack Strong who would announce the fact….

Monty Merline? … Was that vacant-looking person who was rising from a chair and bowing to him, his old pal Merline? … Most undoubtedly it was. Besides—there on his wrist and forearm was the wonderfully-tattooed snake. …

"How do you do?" he said. The other bowed again, smiled stupidly, and fumbled with the buttons of his coat. … Balmy! …

Strong turned and dragged his host out of the room.

"Where's he come from?" he asked quickly. "Who is he?"

"Where he came from last," replied the doctor, "is a village called, I believe, Bwogo, about a hundred and twenty miles south-east of here. How he got there I can't tell you. The natives said he just walked up unaccompanied, unbounded, unpursued. He's got a bullet or something in the top of his head and I'm