Then he would grip Torpenhow's hand again--Torpenhow, who
was alive and strong, and lived in the midst of the action that had once made
the reputation of a man called Dick Heldar: not in the least to be confused
with the blind, bewildered vagabond who seemed to answer to the same name. Yes,
he would find Torpenhow, and come as near to the old life as might be.
Afterwards he would forget everything: Bessie, who had wrecked the Melancolia
and so nearly wrecked his life; Beeton, who lived in a strange unreal city full
of tin-tacks and gas-plugs and matters that no men needed; that irrational
being who had offered him love and loyalty for nothing, but had not signed her
name; and most of all Maisie, who, from her own point of view, was undeniably
right in all she did, but oh, at this distance, so tantalisingly fair.
George's hand on his arm pulled him back to the situation.
"And what now?" said George.
"Oh yes of course. What now? Take me to the camel-men. Take me to where the
scouts sit when they come in from the desert. They sit by their camels, and the
camels eat grain out of a black blanket held up at the corners, and the men eat
by their side just like camels. Take me there!"
The camp was rough and rutty, and Dick stumbled many times over the stumps of
scrub.
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