Instead of echoing Dirkovitch’s sigh of regret, it is sad to record that the White Hussars livelily exhibited un-Christian delight and other emotions, hardly restrained by their sense of hospitality. Holmer flung the frayed and yellow regimental rolls on the table, and the men flung themselves at these.
‘Steady! Fifty-six--fifty-five--fifty-four,’ said Holmer. ‘Here we are. “Lieutenant Austin Limmason. MISSING.” That was before Sebastopol. What an infernal shame! Insulted one of their colonels, and was quietly shipped off. Thirty years of his life wiped out.’
‘But he never apologised. Said he’d see him damned first,’ chorused the mess.
‘Poor chap! I suppose he never had the chance afterwards. How did he come here?’ said the colonel.
The dingy heap in the chair could give no answer.
‘Do you know that you are Limmason--Lieutenant Limmason of the White Hussars?’
Swiftly as a shot came the answer, in a slightly surprised tone, ‘Yes, I’m Limmason, of course.’ The light died out in his eyes, and the man collapsed, watching every motion of Dirkovitch with terror. A flight from Siberia may fix a few elementary facts in the mind, but it does not seem to lead to continuity of thought. The man could not explain how, like a homing pigeon, he had found his way to his own old mess again. Of what he had suffered or seen he knew nothing. He cringed before Dirkovitch as instinctively as he had pressed the spring of the candlestick, sought the picture of the drum-horse, and answered to the toast of the Queen. The rest was a blank that the dreaded Russian tongue could only in part remove. His head bowed on his breast, and he giggled and cowered alternately.
The devil that lived in the brandy prompted Dirkovitch at this extremely inopportune moment to make a speech. He rose, swaying slightly, gripped the table-edge, while his eyes glowed like opals, and began:
‘Fellow-soldiers glorious--true friends and hospitables. It was an accident, and deplorable--most deplorable.’ Here he smiled sweetly all round the mess. ‘But you will think of this little, little thing. So little, is it not? The Czar! Posh! I slap my fingers--I snap my fingers at him. Do I believe in him? No! But in us Slav who has done nothing, HIM I believe. Seventy--how much--millions peoples that have done nothing--not one thing. Posh! Napoleon was an episode.’ He banged a hand on the table. ‘Hear you, old peoples, we have done nothing in the world--out here. All our work is to do; and it shall be done, old peoples. Get a-way!’ He waved his hand imperiously, and pointed to the man. ‘You see him. He is not good to see. He was just one little--oh, so little--accident, that no one remembered. Now he is THAT! So will you be, brother-soldiers so brave--so will you be. But you will never come back. You will all go where he is gone, or’--he pointed to the great coffin-shadow on the ceiling, and muttering, ‘Seventy millions--get a-way, you old peoples,’ fell asleep.