Fiction > Serialisations > London, 1896-1897 - St. Ives > Volume 13

254 THE PALL MALL MAGAZINE.
We dragged him inboard. He was pale, but undefeatedly voluble.
" Must apologise to you fellows, really. Dam silly, clumsy kind of thing to do :
might have been awkward too. Thank you, Byfield my boy, I will : two fingers
only — a harmless steadier."
He took the flask and was lifting it. But his jaw dropped and his hand hung
arrested.
" He's going to faint," I cried. " The strain "
" Strain on your grandmother, Ducie ! What's that ? "
He was staring past my shoulder, and on the instant I was aware of a voice —
not the aeronaut's — speaking behind me and, as it were, out of the clouds, —
" I tak' ye to witness, Mister Byfield "
Consider, if you please. For six days I had been oscillating within a pretty
complete circumference of alarms. It is small blame to me, I hope, that, with my
nerve on so nice a pivot, I quivered and swung to this new apprehension like a
needle in a compass-box.
On the floor of the car, at my feet, lay a heap of plaid rugs and overcoats,
from which, successively and painfully disinvolved, there emerged first a hand
clutching a rusty beaver hat, next a mildly indignant face in spectacles, and finally
the rearward of a very small man in a seedy suit of black. He rose on his knees,
his finger-tips resting on the floor, and contemplated the aeronaut over his glasses
with a world of reproach.
" I tak' ye to witness, Mr. Byfield ! "
Byfield mopped a perspiring brow.
" My dear sir," he stammered, " all a mistake — -no fault of mine — explain
presently " ; then, as one catching at an inspiration, " Allow me to introduce you.
Mr. Dalmahoy, Mr. "
"My name is Sheepshanks," said the little man stiffly. "But you'll excuse
me "
Mr. Dalmahoy interrupted with a playful cat-call.
"Hear, hear! Sileiice I 'His name is Sheepshanks. On the Grampian Hills
His father kept his flocks— a thousand sheep,' and, I make no doubt, shanks in
proportion. Excuse you, Sheepshanks ? My dear sir ! At this altitude one shank
was more than we had a right to expect : the plural multiplies the obligation."
Keeping a tight hold on his hysteria, Dalmahoy steadied himself by a rope
and bowed.
"And I, sir" — as Mr. Sheepshanks' thoroughly bewildered gaze travelled around
and met mine — " I, sir, am the Vicomte Anne de Keroual de St. Yves, at your
service. I haven't a notion how or why you come to be here : but you seem
likely to be an acquisition. On my part," I continued, as there leapt into my
mind the stanza I had vainly tried to recover in Mrs. McRankine's sitting-room,
" I have the honour to refer you to the inimitable Roman, Flaccus—
' Virtus, recludens immeritis mori
Coelum, negata temptat iter via,
Coetusque vulgaris et udam
Spernit humum fugiente penna.'
— you have the Latin, sir ? "
" Not a word." He subsided upon the pile of rugs and spread out his hands
in protest. " I tak' ye to witness, Mr. Byfield ! "
" Then in a minute or so I will do myself the pleasure of construing,"
said I, and turned to scan the earth we were leaving — I had not guessed how
rapidly.