But Trejago pays his calls regularly, and is reckoned a very decent sort of
man.
There is nothing peculiar about him, except a slight stiffness, caused by a
riding-strain, in the right leg.
IN ERROR.
They burnt a corpse upon the sand--
The light shone out afar;
It guided home the plunging boats
That beat from Zanzibar.
Spirit of Fire, where'er Thy altars rise.
Thou art Light of Guidance to our eyes!
----Salsette Boat-Song.
There is hope for a man who gets publicly and riotously drunk more often that
he ought to do; but there is no hope for the man who drinks secretly and alone
in his own house--the man who is never seen to drink.
This is a rule; so there must be an exception to prove it.
Moriarty's case was that exception.
He was a Civil Engineer, and the Government, very kindly, put him quite by
himself in an out-district, with nobody but natives to talk to and a great
deal of work to do. He did his work well in the four years he was utterly
alone; but he picked up the vice of secret and solitary drinking, and came up
out of the wilderness more old and worn and haggard than the dead-alive life
had any right to make him.
You know the saying that a man who has been alone in the jungle for more than
a year is never quite sane all his life after.
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