"And when you win your prizes, if you ever win them," the accusing vision appeared to retort, "you will have paid for them by spending all that was honorable in yourself; all that was generous and soldierly. When you were I, you led a charge across rice paddies without cover and under a withering fire. For that you were mentioned in dispatches and you had a paragraph in the Army and Navy Journal. Have you ever won a prize since then, that meant as much to you?"
John Spurrier came to his feet, with a groan in his throat. His temples were moist and marked with a tracery of outstanding veins and his hands were clenched.
"Good God!" he exclaimed aloud. "Give me back the name and the uniform I had then, and see how gladly I'll tell these new masters to go to hell!"
Startled at the sound of his own voice arguing with a fantasy as with a fact, the man sank back again into his chair and covered his face with his spread hands. But shutting out sight did not serve to shut out the images of his fancy.
He saw himself hired out to "practical" overlords and sent to prey on friends, then he rose and stood confronting the empty stool where the dream-accuser in uniform had stood and once more he spoke aloud. As he did so it seemed that the figure returned and stood waiting, stern and noncommittal, while he addressed it.
"Give me the success I need, and the independence it carries, and I'll spend my life exonerating my name. I'll go back to the islands and live among the natives till I find a man who will tell the truth. I'll move heaven and earth--but that takes money. I've always stood, in this business, with wealth just beyond my grasp--always promised, never realized. Let me realize it and be equipped to fight for vindication. These men I serve have the prizes to dispense, but I am bound hand and foot to them. They take their pay in advance. Once victorious I can break with them."
"And these people who have befriended you," questioned the mentor voice, "what of them?"
"I love them. They are her people. I shall seem to plunder them, but if my plans succeed I shall be in a position to make terms--and my terms shall be theirs. Until I succeed I must seem false to them. God knows I'm paying for that too. I love Glory!"