Dominey leaned his head upon his hand and studied his host.  The likeness was clear enough, although the advantage was all in favour of the man who stood by the side of the camp bedstead with folded arms.  Everard Dominey, for the first twenty-six years of his life, had lived as an ordinary young Englishman of his position,—­Eton, Oxford, a few years in the Army, a few years about town, during which he had succeeded in making a still more hopeless muddle of his already encumbered estates:  a few months of tragedy, and then a blank.  Afterwards ten years—­at first in the cities, then in the dark places of Africa—­years of which no man knew anything.  The Everard Dominey of ten years ago had been, without a doubt, good-looking.  The finely shaped features remained, but the eyes had lost their lustre, his figure its elasticity, his mouth its firmness.  He had the look of a man run prematurely to seed, wasted by fevers and dissipation.  Not so his present companion.  His features were as finely shaped, cast in an even stronger though similar mould.  His eyes were bright and full of fire, his mouth and chin firm, bespeaking a man of deeds, his tall figure lithe and supple.  He had the air of being in perfect health, in perfect mental and physical condition, a man who lived with dignity and some measure of content, notwithstanding the slight gravity of his expression.

“Yes,” the Englishman muttered, “there’s no doubt about the likeness, though I suppose I should look more like you than I do if I’d taken care of myself.  But I haven’t.  That’s the devil of it.  I’ve gone the other way; tried to chuck my life away and pretty nearly succeeded, too.”

The dried grasses were thrust on one side, and the doctor entered,—­a little round man, also clad in immaculate white, with yellow-gold hair and thick spectacles.  His countryman pointed towards the bed.

“Will you examine our patient, Herr Doctor, and prescribe for him what is necessary?  He has asked for drink.  Let him have wine, or whatever is good for him.  If he is well enough, he will join our evening meal.  I present my excuses.  I have a despatch to write.”

The man on the couch turned his head and watched the departing figure with a shade of envy in his eyes.

“What is my preserver’s name?” he asked the doctor.

The latter looked as though the questions were irreverent.

“It is His Excellency the Major-General Baron Leopold Von Ragastein.”

“All that!” Dominey muttered.  “Is he the Governor, or something of that sort?”

“He is Military Commandant of the Colony,” the doctor replied.  “He has also a special mission here.”

“Damned fine-looking fellow for a German,” Dominey remarked, with unthinking insolence.

The doctor was unmoved.  He was feeling his patient’s pulse.  He concluded his examination a few minutes later.

“You have drunk much whisky lately, so?” he asked.