Chapter XLIV: Armstrong’s News

That moment was one destined to be a fadeless memory in the life of Talbot Strangemore. In his after years there was no moment in which he could not by simply shutting his eyes, recall the time and place and scene--the strange, wierd camping ground beneath the tropical palm-trees and luxuriant vegetation, the mystic murmur of old Nile as it flowed between its banks in its grand strength and power, the hot breath of the Khamsin as it swept across the desert and burned their faces, and the glorious moonlight that lighted the whole scene into mystic, solemn splendor with dark shadows here and there cast fantastically by the stately palms. Blending with the tropical scene were the eager excited faces of the men, and high over all rose the voice of John Armstrong as he exclaimed earnestly, and with a note of strong indignation in his clear, high voice:

“My God, then, man, why do you dally in Egypt, when you are so sorely needed at home? Do you not know that there is a price set upon your head?”

A low hum of wonder and execration rose from the group of men. They believed that they had suddenly discovered another criminal.

But the next words of John Armstrong quickly undeceived them.

“Do not be too hasty, comrades,” he said, looking round at them with a smile, “You have not unearthed another murderer to-night. It is true that this man is sadly wanted at home, and that there is a large reward offered for his apprehension. There are two detectives hunting him all over Europe, and the papers of Europe and America all contain personals inquiring for him. But in spite of all this flurry to apprehend him, this man although he has committed a cruel wrong, has done no sin that the law can reach with its august lash of justice!”

Strangemore regarded him in a strange dazed silence, while the others clamorously demanded to know what he had done.

John Armstrong answered with an inflection of scorn in his voice:

“He broke his young wife’s heart by his foolish infatuation for another woman!”

The man before him bowed his handsome head in bitter remorse and shame.

“You are right,” he murmured, lowly and mournfully. “I am a wretch whose guilt, while it is beyond the pale of the law, carries with it its own whip-lash of retribution and remorse. I broke my darling’s heart by my foolish passion for a vain coquette, and although she died by her own hand I am as guilty of her death as if I had poured the poison into her cup and pressed it to her lips with my own hand!”

They saw that he was in terrible earnest, that his heart was crushed within him by remorse and despair, and their first impulse of scorn and contempt softened into the gentler emotion of pity. Armstrong said with decided kindness in his voice:

“I am glad to see that you are genuinely remorseful and repentant over your fault, Strangemore. But cheer up, man. You may yet be able to redeem your self from the blight of your thoughtless folly.”

In the moonlight Strangemore lifted his dark, sad eyes, and looked drearily into Armstrong’s face.

“Redeem myself--and Nina _dead_!” he said, reproachfully.

Armstrong answered, impressively:

“You made a terrible mistake in leaving your home as you did. Your wife is not _dead_.”

“Not dead!” Strangemore shouted, hoarsely, and there was such a passion of joy and amazement in his voice that it touched a responsive chord of gladness in every manly breast.

“Not dead,” John Armstrong answered, gravely, and solemnly. “But she needs your presence, Talbot Strangemore, for she is in the most terrible peril at the hands of the law. She is in prison now and condemned to be hanged on the 25th of July for the murder of her beautiful rival, Mrs. St. Alban!”