ONE of the few advantages that India has over England is a great
Knowability. After five years’ service a man is directly or indirectly
acquainted with the two or three hundred Civilians in his Province, all
the Messes of ten or twelve Regiments and Batteries, and some fifteen
hundred other people of the non-official caste. In ten years his knowledge
should be doubled, and at the end of twenty he knows, or knows something
about, every Englishman in the Empire, and may travel anywhere and
everywhere without paying hotel-bills.

Globe-trotters who expect entertainment as a right, have, even within my
memory, blunted this open-heartedness, but none the less today, if you
belong to the Inner Circle and are neither a Bear nor a Black Sheep, all
houses are open to you, and our small world is very, very kind and
helpful.

Rickett of Kamartha stayed with Polder of Kumaon some fifteen years ago.
He meant to stay two nights, but was knocked down by rheumatic fever, and
for six weeks disorganized Polder’s establishment, stopped Polder’s work,
and nearly died in Polder’s bedroom. Polder behaves as though he had been
placed under eternal obligation by Rickett, and yearly sends the little
Ricketts a box of presents and toys. It is the same everywhere. The men
who do not take the trouble to conceal from you their opinion that you are
an incompetent ass, and the women who blacken your character and
misunderstand your wife’s amusements, will work themselves to the bone in
your behalf if you fall sick or into serious trouble.

Heatherlegh, the Doctor, kept, in addition to his regular practice, a
hospital on his private account—an arrangement of loose boxes for
Incurables, his friend called it—but it was really a sort of
fitting-up shed for craft that had been damaged by stress of weather. The
weather in India is often sultry, and since the tale of bricks is always a
fixed quantity, and the only liberty allowed is permission to work
overtime and get no thanks, men occasionally break down and become as
mixed as the metaphors in this sentence.

Heatherlegh is the dearest doctor that ever was, and his invariable
prescription to all his patients is, “lie low, go slow, and keep cool.” He
says that more men are killed by overwork than the importance of this
world justifies. He maintains that overwork slew Pansay, who died under
his hands about three years ago. He has, of course, the right to speak
authoritatively, and he laughs at my theory that there was a crack in
Pansay’s head and a little bit of the Dark World came through and pressed
him to death. “Pansay went off the handle,” says Heatherlegh, “after the
stimulus of long leave at Home. He may or he may not have behaved like a
blackguard to Mrs. Keith-Wessington. My notion is that the work of the
Katabundi Settlement ran him off his legs, and that he took to brooding
and making much of an ordinary P. & 0. flirtation. He certainly was
engaged to Miss Mannering, and she certainly broke off the engagement.
Then he took a feverish chill and all that nonsense about ghosts
developed. Overwork started his illness, kept it alight, and killed him
poor devil. Write him off to the System—one man to take the work of
two and a half men.”

I do not believe this. I used to sit up with Pansay sometimes when
Heatherlegh was called out to patients, and I happened to be within claim.
The man would make me most unhappy by describing in a low, even voice, the
procession that was always passing at the bottom of his bed. He had a sick
man’s command of language.

When he recovered I suggested that he should write out the whole affair
from beginning to end, knowing that ink might assist him to ease his mind.
When little boys have learned a new bad word they are never happy till
they have chalked it up on a door. And this also is Literature.

He was in a high fever while he was writing, and the blood-and-thunder
Magazine diction he adopted did not calm him. Two months afterward he was
reported fit for duty, but, in spite of the fact that he was urgently
needed to help an undermanned Commission stagger through a deficit, he
preferred to die; vowing at the last that he was hag-ridden. I got his
manuscript before he died, and this is his version of the affair, dated
1885:

My doctor tells me that I need rest and change of air. It is not
improbable that I shall get both ere long—rest that neither the
red-coated messenger nor the midday gun can break, and change of air far
beyond that which any homeward-bound steamer can give me. In the meantime
I am resolved to stay where I am; and, in flat defiance of my doctor’s
orders, to take all the world into my confidence. You shall learn for
yourselves the precise nature of my malady; and shall, too, judge for
yourselves whether any man born of woman on this weary earth was ever so
tormented as I.

Speaking now as a condemned criminal might speak ere the drop-bolts are
drawn, my story, wild and hideously improbable as it may appear, demands
at least attention. That it will ever receive credence I utterly
disbelieve. Two months ago I should have scouted as mad or drunk the man
who had dared tell me the like. Two months ago I was the happiest man in
India. Today, from Peshawur to the sea, there is no one more wretched. My
doctor and I are the only two who know this. His explanation is, that my
brain, digestion, and eyesight are all slightly affected; giving rise to
my frequent and persistent “delusions.” Delusions, indeed! I call him a
fool; but he attends me still with the same unwearied smile, the same
bland professional manner, the same neatly trimmed red whiskers, till I
begin to suspect that I am an ungrateful, evil-tempered invalid. But you
shall judge for yourselves.

Three years ago it was my fortune—my great misfortune—to sail
from Gravesend to Bombay, on return from long leave, with one Agnes
Keith-Wessington, wife of an officer on the Bombay side. It does not in
the least concern you to know what manner of woman she was. Be content
with the knowledge that, ere the voyage had ended, both she and I were
desperately and unreasoningly in love with one another. Heaven knows that
I can make the admission now without one particle of vanity. In matters of
this sort there is always one who gives and another who accepts. From the
first day of our ill-omened attachment, I was conscious that Agnes’s
passion was a stronger, a more dominant, and—if I may use the
expression—a purer sentiment than mine. Whether she recognized the
fact then, I do not know. Afterward it was bitterly plain to both of us.

Arrived at Bombay in the spring of the year, we went our respective ways,
to meet no more for the next three or four months, when my leave and her
love took us both to Simla. There we spent the season together; and there
my fire of straw burned itself out to a pitiful end with the closing year.
I attempt no excuse. I make no apology. Mrs. Wessington had given up much
for my sake, and was prepared to give up all. From my own lips, in August,
1882, she learned that I was sick of her presence, tired of her company,
and weary of the sound of her voice. Ninety-nine women out of a hundred
would have wearied of me as I wearied of them; seventy-five of that number
would have promptly avenged themselves by active and obtrusive flirtation
with other men. Mrs. Wessington was the hundredth. On her neither my
openly expressed aversion nor the cutting brutalities with which I
garnished our interviews had the least effect. “Jack, darling!” was her
one eternal cuckoo cry: “I’m sure it’s all a mistake—a hideous
mistake; and we’ll be good friends again some day. Please forgive me,
Jack, dear.”

I was the offender, and I knew it. That knowledge transformed my pity into
passive endurance, and, eventually, into blind hate—the same
instinct, I suppose, which prompts a man to savagely stamp on the spider
he has but half killed. And with this hate in my bosom the season of 1882
came to an end.

Next year we met again at Simla—she with her monotonous face and
timid attempts at reconciliation, and I with loathing of her in every
fibre of my frame. Several times I could not avoid meeting her alone; and
on each occasion her words were identically the same. Still the
unreasoning wail that it was all a “mistake”; and still the hope of
eventually “making friends.” I might have seen had I cared to look, that
that hope only was keeping her alive. She grew more wan and thin month by
month. You will agree with me, at least, that such conduct would have
driven any one to despair. It was uncalled for; childish; unwomanly. I
maintain that she was much to blame. And again, sometimes, in the black,
fever-stricken night-watches, I have begun to think that I might have been
a little kinder to her. But that really is a “delusion.” I could not have
continued pretending to love her when I didn’t; could I? It would have
been unfair to us both.

Last year we met again—on the same terms as before. The same weary
appeal, and the same curt answers from my lips. At least I would make her
see how wholly wrong and hopeless were her attempts at resuming the old
relationship. As the season wore on, we fell apart—that is to say,
she found it difficult to meet me, for I had other and more absorbing
interests to attend to. When I think it over quietly in my sick-room, the
season of 1884 seems a confused nightmare wherein light and shade were
fantastically intermingled—my courtship of little Kitty Mannering;
my hopes, doubts, and fears; our long rides together; my trembling avowal
of attachment; her reply; and now and again a vision of a white face
flitting by in the ‘rickshaw with the black and white liveries I once
watched for so earnestly; the wave of Mrs. Wessington’s gloved hand; and,
when she met me alone, which was but seldom, the irksome monotony of her
appeal. I loved Kitty Mannering; honestly, heartily loved her, and with my
love for her grew my hatred for Agnes. In August Kitty and I were engaged.
The next day I met those accursed “magpie” jhampanies at the back of
Jakko, and, moved by some passing sentiment of pity, stopped to tell Mrs.
Wessington everything. She knew it already.

“So I hear you’re engaged, Jack dear.” Then, without a moment’s pause—“I’m
sure it’s all a mistake—a hideous mistake. We shall be as good
friends some day, Jack, as we ever were.”

My answer might have made even a man wince. It cut the dying woman before
me like the blow of a whip. “Please forgive me, Jack; I didn’t mean to
make you angry; but it’s true, it’s true!”

And Mrs. Wessington broke down completely. I turned away and left her to
finish her journey in peace, feeling, but only for a moment or two, that I
had been an unutterably mean hound. I looked back, and saw that she had
turned her ‘rickshaw with the idea, I suppose, of overtaking me.

The scene and its surroundings were photographed on my memory.

The rain-swept sky (we were at the end of the wet weather), the sodden,
dingy pines, the muddy road, and the black powder-riven cliffs formed a
gloomy background against which the black and white liveries of the
jhampanies, the yellow-paneled ‘rickshaw and Mrs. Wessington’s down-bowed
golden head stood out clearly. She was holding her handkerchief in her
left hand and was leaning back exhausted against the ‘rickshaw cushions. I
turned my horse up a bypath near the Sanjowlie Reservoir and literally ran
away. Once I fancied I heard a faint call of “Jack!” This may have been
imagination. I never stopped to verify it. Ten minutes later I came across
Kitty on horseback; and, in the delight of a long ride with her, forgot
all about the interview.

A week later Mrs. Wessington died, and the inexpressible burden of her
existence was removed from my life. I went Plainsward perfectly happy.
Before three months were over I had forgotten all about her, except that
at times the discovery of some of her old letters reminded me unpleasantly
of our bygone relationship. By January I had disinterred what was left of
our correspondence from among my scattered belongings and had burned it.
At the beginning of April of this year, 1885, I was at Simla—semi-deserted
Simla—once more, and was deep in lover’s talks and walks with Kitty.
It was decided that we should be married at the end of June. You will
understand, therefore, that, loving Kitty as I did, I am not saying too
much when I pronounce myself to have been, at that time, the happiest man
in India.

Fourteen delightful days passed almost before I noticed their flight.

Then, aroused to the sense of what was proper among mortals circumstanced
as we were, I pointed out to Kitty that an engagement ring was the outward
and visible sign of her dignity as an engaged girl; and that she must
forthwith come to Hamilton’s to be measured for one. Up to that moment, I
give you my word, we had completely forgotten so trivial a matter. To
Hamilton’s we accordingly went on the 15th of April, 1885. Remember that—whatever
my doctor may say to the contrary—I was then in perfect health,
enjoying a well-balanced mind and an absolute tranquil spirit. Kitty and I
entered Hamilton’s shop together, and there, regardless of the order of
affairs, I measured Kitty for the ring in the presence of the amused
assistant. The ring was a sapphire with two diamonds. We then rode out
down the slope that leads to the Combermere Bridge and Peliti’s shop.

While my Waler was cautiously feeling his way over the loose shale, and
Kitty was laughing and chattering at my side—while all Simla, that
is to say as much of it as had then come from the Plains, was grouped
round the Reading-room and Peliti’s veranda,—I was aware that some
one, apparently at a vast distance, was calling me by my Christian name.
It struck me that I had heard the voice before, but when and where I could
not at once determine. In the short space it took to cover the road
between the path from Hamilton’s shop and the first plank of the
Combermere Bridge I had thought over half a dozen people who might have
committed such a solecism, and had eventually decided that it must have
been singing in my ears. Immediately opposite Peliti’s shop my eye was
arrested by the sight of four jharnpanies in “magpie” livery, pulling a
yellow-paneled, cheap, bazar ‘rickshaw. In a moment my mind flew back to
the previous season and Mrs. Wessington with a sense of irritation and
disgust. Was it not enough that the woman was dead and done with, without
her black and white servitors reappearing to spoil the day’s happiness?
Whoever employed them now I thought I would call upon, and ask as a
personal favor to change her jhampanies’ livery. I would hire the men
myself, and, if necessary, buy their coats from off their backs. It is
impossible to say here what a flood of undesirable memories their presence
evoked.

“Kitty,” I cried, “there are poor Mrs. Wessington’s jhampanies turned up
again! I wonder who has them now?”

Kitty had known Mrs. Wessington slightly last season, and had always been
interested in the sickly woman. “What? Where?” she asked. “I can’t see
them anywhere.”

Even as she spoke her horse, swerving from a laden mule, threw himself
directly in front of the advancing ‘rickshaw. I had scarcely time to utter
a word of warning when, to my unutterable horror, horse and rider passed
through men and carriage as if they had been thin air.

“What’s the matter?” cried Kitty; “what made you call out so foolishly,
Jack? If I am engaged I don’t want all creation to know about it. There
was lots of space between the mule and the veranda; and, if you think I
can’t ride—

“—There!”

Whereupon wilful Kitty set off, her dainty little head in the air, at a
hand-gallop in the direction of the Bandstand; fully expecting, as she
herself afterward told me, that I should follow her. What was the matter?
Nothing indeed. Either that I was mad or drunk, or that Simla was haunted
with devils. I reined in my impatient cob, and turned round. The ‘rickshaw
had turned too, and now stood immediately facing me, near the left railing
of the Combermere Bridge.

“Jack! Jack, darling!” (There was no mistake about the words this time:
they rang through my brain as if they had been shouted in my ear.) “It’s
some hideous mistake, I’m sure. Please forgive me, jack, and let’s be
friends again.”

The ‘rickshaw-hood had fallen back, and inside, as I hope and pray daily
for the death I dread by night, sat Mrs. Keith-Wessington, handkerchief in
hand, and golden head bowed on her breast.

How long I stared motionless I do not know. Finally, I was aroused by my
syce taking the Waler’s bridle and asking whether I was ill. From the
horrible to the commonplace is but a step. I tumbled off my horse and
dashed, half fainting, into Peliti’s for a glass of cherry-brandy. There
two or three couples were gathered round the coffee-tables discussing the
gossip of the day. Their trivialities were more comforting to me just then
than the consolations of religion could have been. I plunged into the
midst of the conversation at once; chatted, laughed, and jested with a
face (when I caught a glimpse of it in a mirror) as white and drawn as
that of a corpse. Three or four men noticed my condition; and, evidently
setting it down to the results of over-many pegs, charitably endeavoured
to draw me apart from the rest of the loungers. But I refused to be led
away. I wanted the company of my kind—as a child rushes into the
midst of the dinner-party after a fright in the dark. I must have talked
for about ten minutes or so, though it seemed an eternity to me, when I
heard Kitty’s clear voice outside inquiring for me. In another minute she
had entered the shop, prepared to roundly upbraid me for failing so
signally in my duties. Something in my face stopped her.

“Why, Jack,” she cried, “what have you been doing? What has happened? Are
you ill?” Thus driven into a direct lie, I said that the sun had been a
little too much for me. It was close upon five o’clock of a cloudy April
afternoon, and the sun had been hidden all day. I saw my mistake as soon
as the words were out of my mouth: attempted to recover it; blundered
hopelessly and followed Kitty in a regal rage, out of doors, amid the
smiles of my acquaintances. I made some excuse (I have forgotten what) on
the score of my feeling faint; and cantered away to my hotel, leaving
Kitty to finish the ride by herself.

In my room I sat down and tried calmly to reason out the matter.

Here was I, Theobald Jack Pansay, a well-educated Bengal Civilian in the
year of grace, 1885, presumably sane, certainly healthy, driven in terror
from my sweetheart’s side by the apparition of a woman who had been dead
and buried eight months ago. These were facts that I could not blink.
Nothing was further from my thought than any memory of Mrs. Wessington
when Kitty and I left Hamilton’s shop. Nothing was more utterly
commonplace than the stretch of wall opposite Peliti’s. It was broad
daylight. The road was full of people; and yet here, look you, in defiance
of every law of probability, in direct outrage of Nature’s ordinance,
there had appeared to me a face from the grave.

Kitty’s Arab had gone through the ‘rickshaw: so that my first hope that
some woman marvelously like Mrs. Wessington had hired the carriage and the
coolies with their old livery was lost. Again and again I went round this
treadmill of thought; and again and again gave up baffled and in despair.
The voice was as inexplicable as the apparition. I had originally some
wild notion of confiding it all to Kitty; of begging her to marry me at
once; and in her arms defying the ghostly occupant of the ‘rickshaw.
“After all,” I argued, “the presence of the ‘rickshaw is in itself enough
to prove the existence of a spectral illusion. One may see ghosts of men
and women, but surely never of coolies and carriages. The whole thing is
absurd. Fancy the ghost of a hill-man!”

Next morning I sent a penitent note to Kitty, imploring her to overlook my
strange conduct of the previous afternoon. My Divinity was still very
wroth, and a personal apology was necessary. I explained, with a fluency
born of night-long pondering over a falsehood, that I had been attacked
with sudden palpitation of the heart—the result of indigestion. This
eminently practical solution had its effect; and Kitty and I rode out that
afternoon with the shadow of my first lie dividing us.

Nothing would please her save a canter round Jakko. With my nerves still
unstrung from the previous night I feebly protested against the notion,
suggesting Observatory Hill, Jutogh, the Boileaugunge road—anything
rather than the Jakko round. Kitty was angry and a little hurt: so I
yielded from fear of provoking further misunderstanding, and we set out
together toward Chota Simla. We walked a greater part of the way, and,
according to our custom, cantered from a mile or so below the Convent to
the stretch of level road by the Sanjowlie Reservoir. The wretched horses
appeared to fly, and my heart beat quicker and quicker as we neared the
crest of the ascent. My mind had been full of Mrs. Wessington all the
afternoon; and every inch of the Jakko road bore witness to our oldtime
walks and talks. The bowlders were full of it; the pines sang it aloud
overhead; the rain-fed torrents giggled and chuckled unseen over the
shameful story; and the wind in my ears chanted the iniquity aloud.

As a fitting climax, in the middle of the level men call the Ladies’ Mile
the Horror was awaiting me. No other ‘rickshaw was in sight—only the
four black and white jhampanies, the yellow-paneled carriage, and the
golden head of the woman within—all apparently just as I had left
them eight months and one fortnight ago! For an instant I fancied that
Kitty must see what I saw—we were so marvelously sympathetic in all
things. Her next words undeceived me—“Not a soul in sight! Come
along, Jack, and I’ll race you to the Reservoir buildings!” Her wiry
little Arab was off like a bird, my Waler following close behind, and in
this order we dashed under the cliffs. Half a minute brought us within
fifty yards of the ‘rickshaw. I pulled my Waler and fell back a little.
The ‘rickshaw was directly in the middle of the road; and once more the
Arab passed through it, my horse following. “Jack! Jack dear! Please
forgive me,” rang with a wail in my ears, and, after an interval:—“It’s
a mistake, a hideous mistake!”

I spurred my horse like a man possessed. When I turned my head at the
Reservoir works, the black and white liveries were still waiting—patiently
waiting—under the grey hillside, and the wind brought me a mocking
echo of the words I had just heard. Kitty bantered me a good deal on my
silence throughout the remainder of the ride. I had been talking up till
then wildly and at random.

To save my life I could not speak afterward naturally, and from Sanjowlie
to the Church wisely held my tongue.

I was to dine with the Mannerings that night, and had barely time to
canter home to dress. On the road to Elysium Hill I overheard two men
talking together in the dusk.—“It’s a curious thing,” said one, “how
completely all trace of it disappeared. You know my wife was insanely fond
of the woman (‘never could see anything in her myself), and wanted me to
pick up her old ‘rickshaw and coolies if they were to be got for love or
money. Morbid sort of fancy I call it; but I’ve got to do what the
Memsahib tells me.

“Would you believe that the man she hired it from tells me that all four
of the men—they were brothers—died of cholera on the way to
Hardwar, poor devils, and the ‘rickshaw has been broken up by the man
himself. ‘Told me he never used a dead Memsahib’s ‘rickshaw. ‘Spoiled his
luck.’ Queer notion, wasn’t it? Fancy poor little Mrs. Wessington spoiling
any one’s luck except her own!” I laughed aloud at this point; and my
laugh jarred on me as I uttered it. So there were ghosts of ‘rickshaws
after all, and ghostly employments in the other world! How much did Mrs.
Wessington give her men? What were their hours? Where did they go?

And for visible answer to my last question I saw the infernal Thing
blocking my path in the twilight. The dead travel fast, and by short cuts
unknown to ordinary coolies. I laughed aloud a second time and checked my
laughter suddenly, for I was afraid I was going mad. Mad to a certain
extent I must have been, for I recollect that I reined in my horse at the
head of the ‘rickshaw, and politely wished Mrs. Wessington “Good evening.”
Her answer was one I knew only too well. I listened to the end; and
replied that I had heard it all before, but should be delighted if she had
anything further to say. Some malignant devil stronger than I must have
entered into me that evening, for I have a dim recollection of talking the
commonplaces of the day for five minutes to the Thing in front of me.

“Mad as a hatter, poor devil—or drunk. Max, try and get him to come
home.”

Surely that was not Mrs. Wessington’s voice! The two men had overheard me
speaking to the empty air, and had returned to look after me. They were
very kind and considerate, and from their words evidently gathered that I
was extremely drunk. I thanked them confusedly and cantered away to my
hotel, there changed, and arrived at the Mannerings’ ten minutes late. I
pleaded the darkness of the night as an excuse; was rebuked by Kitty for
my unlover-like tardiness; and sat down.

The conversation had already become general; and under cover of it, I was
addressing some tender small talk to my sweetheart when I was aware that
at the further end of the table a short red-whiskered man was describing,
with much broidery, his encounter with a mad unknown that evening.

A few sentences convinced me that he was repeating the incident of half an
hour ago. In the middle of the story he looked round for applause, as
professional story-tellers do, caught my eye, and straightway collapsed.
There was a moment’s awkward silence, and the red-whiskered man muttered
something to the effect that he had “forgotten the rest,” thereby
sacrificing a reputation as a good story-teller which he had built up for
six seasons past. I blessed him from the bottom of my heart, and—went
on with my fish.

In the fulness of time that dinner came to an end; and with genuine regret
I tore myself away from Kitty—as certain as I was of my own
existence that It would be waiting for me outside the door. The
red-whiskered man, who had been introduced to me as Doctor Heatherlegh, of
Simla, volunteered to bear me company as far as our roads lay together. I
accepted his offer with gratitude.

My instinct had not deceived me. It lay in readiness in the Mall, and, in
what seemed devilish mockery of our ways, with a lighted head-lamp. The
red-whiskered man went to the point at once, in a manner that showed he
bad been thinking over it all dinner time.

“I say, Pansay, what the deuce was the matter with you this evening on the
Elysium road?” The suddenness of the question wrenched an answer from me
before I was aware.

“That!” said I, pointing to It.

“That may be either D. T. or Eyes for aught I know. Now you don’t liquor.
I saw as much at dinner, so it can’t be D. T. There’s nothing whatever
where you’re pointing, though you’re sweating and trembling with fright
like a scared pony. Therefore, I conclude that it’s Eyes. And I ought to
understand all about them. Come along home with me. I’m on the Blessington
lower road.”

To my intense delight the ‘rickshaw instead of waiting for us kept about
twenty yards ahead—and this, too whether we walked, trotted, or
cantered. In the course of that long night ride I had told my companion
almost as much as I have told you here.

“Well, you’ve spoiled one of the best tales I’ve ever laid tongue to,”
said he, “but I’ll forgive you for the sake of what you’ve gone through.
Now come home and do what I tell you; and when I’ve cured you, young man,
let this be a lesson to you to steer clear of women and indigestible food
till the day of your death.”

The ‘rickshaw kept steady in front; and my red-whiskered friend seemed to
derive great pleasure from my account of its exact whereabouts.

“Eyes, Pansay—all Eyes, Brain, and Stomach. And the greatest of
these three is Stomach. You’ve too much conceited Brain, too little
Stomach, and thoroughly unhealthy Eyes. Get your Stomach straight and the
rest follows. And all that’s French for a liver pill.

“I’ll take sole medical charge of you from this hour! for you’re too
interesting a phenomenon to be passed over.”

By this time we were deep in the shadow of the Blessington lower road and
the ‘rickshaw came to a dead stop under a pine-clad, over-hanging shale
cliff. Instinctively I halted too, giving my reason. Heatherlegh rapped
out an oath.

“Now, if you think I’m going to spend a cold night on the hillside for the
sake of a stomach-cum-Brain-cum-Eye illusion—Lord, ha’ mercy! What’s
that?”

There was a muffled report, a blinding smother of dust just in front of
us, a crack, the noise of rent boughs, and about ten yards of the
cliff-side—pines, undergrowth, and all—slid down into the road
below, completely blocking it up. The uprooted trees swayed and tottered
for a moment like drunken giants in the gloom, and then fell prone among
their fellows with a thunderous crash. Our two horses stood motionless and
sweating with fear. As soon as the rattle of falling earth and stone had
subsided, my companion muttered:—“Man, if we’d gone forward we
should have been ten feet deep in our graves by now. ‘There are more
things in heaven and earth…’ Come home, Pansay, and thank God. I want a
peg badly.”

We retraced our way over the Church Ridge, and I arrived at Dr.
Heatherlegh’s house shortly after midnight.

His attempts toward my cure commenced almost immediately, and for a week I
never left his sight. Many a time in the course of that week did I bless
the good fortune which had thrown me in contact with Simla’s best and
kindest doctor. Day by day my spirits grew lighter and more equable. Day
by day, too, I became more and more inclined to fall in with Heatherlegh’s
“spectral illusion” theory, implicating eyes, brain, and stomach. I wrote
to Kitty, telling her that a slight sprain caused by a fall from my horse
kept me indoors for a few days; and that I should be recovered before she
had time to regret my absence.

Heatherlegh’s treatment was simple to a degree. It consisted of liver
pills, cold-water baths, and strong exercise, taken in the dusk or at
early dawn—for, as he sagely observed:—“A man with a sprained
ankle doesn’t walk a dozen miles a day, and your young woman might be
wondering if she saw you.”

At the end of the week, after much examination of pupil and pulse, and
strict injunction’ as to diet and pedestrianism, Heatherlegh dismissed me
as brusquely as he had taken charge of me. Here is his parting
benediction:—“Man, I can certify to your mental cure, and that’s as
much as to say I’ve cured most of your bodily ailments. Now, get your
traps out of this as soon as you can; and be off to make love to Miss
Kitty.”

I was endeavoring to express my thanks for his kindness. He cut me short.

“Don’t think I did this because I like you. I gather that you’ve behaved
like a blackguard all through. But, all the same, you re a phenomenon, and
as queer a phenomenon as you are a blackguard. No!”—checking me a
second time—“not a rupee please. Go out and see if you can find the
eyes-brain-and-stomach business again. I’ll give you a lakh for each time
you see it.”

Half an hour later I was in the Mannerings’ drawing-room with Kitty—drunk
with the intoxication of present happiness and the fore-knowledge that I
should never more be troubled with Its hideous presence. Strong in the
sense of my new-found security, I proposed a ride at once; and, by
preference, a canter round Jakko.

Never had I felt so well, so overladen with vitality and mere animal
spirits, as I did on the afternoon of the 30th of April. Kitty was
delighted at the change in my appearance, and complimented me on it in her
delightfully frank and outspoken manner. We left the Mannerings’ house
together, laughing and talking, and cantered along the Chota Simla road as
of old.

I was in haste to reach the Sanjowlie Reservoir and there make my
assurance doubly sure. The horses did their best, but seemed all too slow
to my impatient mind. Kitty was astonished at my boisterousness. “Why,
Jack!” she cried at last, “you are behaving like a child. What are you
doing?”

We were just below the Convent, and from sheer wantonness I was making my
Waler plunge and curvet across the road as I tickled it with the loop of
my riding-whip.

“Doing?” I answered; “nothing, dear. That’s just it. If you’d been doing
nothing for a week except lie up, you’d be as riotous as I.”

“’Singing and murmuring in your feastful mirth, Joying to feel yourself
alive; Lord over Nature, Lord of the visible Earth, Lord of the senses
five.’”

My quotation was hardly out of my lips before we had rounded the corner
above the Convent; and a few yards further on could see across to
Sanjowlie. In the centre of the level road stood the black and white
liveries, the yellow-paneled ‘rickshaw, and Mrs. Keith-Wessington. I
pulled up, looked, rubbed my eyes, and, I believe must have said
something. The next thing I knew was that I was lying face downward on the
road with Kitty kneeling above me in tears.

“Has it gone, child?” I gasped. Kitty only wept more bitterly.

“Has what gone, Jack dear? what does it all mean? There must be a mistake
somewhere, Jack. A hideous mistake.” Her last words brought me to my feet—mad—raving
for the time being.

“Yes, there is a mistake somewhere,” I repeated, “a hideous mistake. Come
and look at It.”

I have an indistinct idea that I dragged Kitty by the wrist along the road
up to where It stood, and implored her for pity’s sake to speak to It; to
tell It that we were betrothed; that neither Death nor Hell could break
the tie between us; and Kitty only knows how much more to the same effect.
Now and again I appealed passionately to the Terror in the ‘rickshaw to
bear witness to all I had said, and to release me from a torture that was
killing me. As I talked I suppose I must have told Kitty of my old
relations with Mrs. Wessington, for I saw her listen intently with white
face and blazing eyes.

“Thank you, Mr. Pansay,” she said, “that’s quite enough. Syce ghora lao.”

The syces, impassive as Orientals always are, had come up with the
recaptured horses; and as Kitty sprang into her saddle I caught hold of
the bridle, entreating her to hear me out and forgive. My answer was the
cut of her riding-whip across my face from mouth to eye, and a word or two
of farewell that even now I cannot write down. So I judged, and judged
rightly, that Kitty knew all; and I staggered back to the side of the
‘rickshaw. My face was cut and bleeding, and the blow of the riding-whip
had raised a livid blue wheal on it. I had no self-respect. Just then,
Heatherlegh, who must have been following Kitty and me at a distance,
cantered up.

“Doctor,” I said, pointing to my face, “here’s Miss Mannering’s signature
to my order of dismissal and—I’ll thank you for that lakh as soon as
convenient.”

Heatherlegh’s face, even in my abject misery, moved me to laughter.

“I’ll stake my professional reputation”—he began.

“Don’t be a fool,” I whispered. “I’ve lost my life’s happiness and you’d
better take me home.”

As I spoke the ‘rickshaw was gone. Then I lost all knowledge of what was
passing. The crest of Jakko seemed to heave and roll like the crest of a
cloud and fall in upon me.

Seven days later (on the 7th of May, that is to say) I was aware that I
was lying in Heatherlegh’s room as weak as a little child. Heatherlegh was
watching me intently from behind the papers on his writing-table. His
first words were not encouraging; but I was too far spent to be much moved
by them.

“Here’s Miss Kitty has sent back your letters. You corresponded a good
deal, you young people. Here’s a packet that looks like a ring, and a
cheerful sort of a note from Mannering Papa, which I’ve taken the liberty
of reading and burning. The old gentleman’s not pleased with you.”

“And Kitty?” I asked, dully.

“Rather more drawn than her father from what she says. By the same token
you must have been letting out any number of queer reminiscences just
before I met you. ‘Says that a man who would have behaved to a woman as
you did to Mrs. Wessington ought to kill himself out of sheer pity for his
kind. She’s a hot-headed little virago, your mash. ‘Will have it too that
you were suffering from D. T. when that row on the Jakko road turned up.
‘Says she’ll die before she ever speaks to you again.”

I groaned and turned over to the other side.

“Now you’ve got your choice, my friend. This engagement has to be broken
off; and the Mannerings don’t want to be too hard on you. Was it broken
through D. T. or epileptic fits? Sorry I can’t offer you a better exchange
unless you’d prefer hereditary insanity. Say the word and I’ll tell ’em
it’s fits. All Simla knows about that scene on the Ladies’ Mile. Come!
I’ll give you five minutes to think over it.”

During those five minutes I believe that I explored thoroughly the lowest
circles of the Inferno which it is permitted man to tread on earth. And at
the same time I myself was watching myself faltering through the dark
labyrinths of doubt, misery, and utter despair. I wondered, as Heatherlegh
in his chair might have wondered, which dreadful alternative I should
adopt. Presently I heard myself answering in a voice that I hardly
recognized, “—They’re confoundedly particular about morality in
these parts. Give ’em fits, Heatherlegh, and my love. Now let me sleep a
bit longer.”

Then my two selves joined, and it was only I (half crazed, devil-driven I)
that tossed in my bed, tracing step by step the history of the past month.

“But I am in Simla,” I kept repeating to myself. “I, Jack Pansay, am in
Simla and there are no ghosts here. It’s unreasonable of that woman to
pretend there are. Why couldn’t Agnes have left me alone? I never did her
any harm. It might just as well have been me as Agnes. Only I’d never have
come back on purpose to kill her. Why can’t I be left alone—left
alone and happy?”

It was high noon when I first awoke, and the sun was low in the sky before
I slept—slept as the tortured criminal sleeps on his rack, too worn
to feel further pain.

Next day I could not leave my bed. Heatherlegh told me in the morning that
he had received an answer from Mr. Mannering, and that, thanks to his
(Heatherlegh’s) friendly offices, the story of my affliction had traveled
through the length and breadth of Simla, where I was on all sides much
pitied.

“And that’s rather more than you deserve,” he concluded, pleasantly,
“though the Lord knows you’ve been going through a pretty severe mill.
Never mind; we’ll cure you yet, you perverse phenomenon.”

I declined firmly to be cured. “You’ve been much too good to me already,
old man,” said I; “but I don’t think I need trouble you further.”

In my heart I knew that nothing Heatherlegh could do would lighten the
burden that had been laid upon me.

With that knowledge came also a sense of hopeless, impotent rebellion
against the unreasonableness of it all. There were scores of men no better
than I whose punishments had at least been reserved for another world; and
I felt that it was bitterly, cruelly unfair that I alone should have been
singled out for so hideous a fate. This mood would in time give place to
another where it seemed that the ‘rickshaw and I were the only realities
in a world of shadows; that Kitty was a ghost; that Mannering,
Heatherlegh, and all the other men and women I knew were all ghosts; and
the great, grey hills themselves but vain shadows devised to torture me.
From mood to mood I tossed backward and forward for seven weary days; my
body growing daily stronger and stronger, until the bedroom looking-glass
told me that I had returned to everyday life, and was as other men once
more. Curiously enough my face showed no signs of the struggle I had gone
through. It was pale indeed, but as expressionless and commonplace as
ever. I had expected some permanent alteration—visible evidence of
the disease that was eating me away. I found nothing.

On the 15th of May, I left Heatherlegh’s house at eleven o’clock in the
morning; and the instinct of the bachelor drove me to the Club. There I
found that every man knew my story as told by Heatherlegh, and was, in
clumsy fashion, abnormally kind and attentive. Nevertheless I recognized
that for the rest of my natural life I should be among but not of my
fellows; and I envied very bitterly indeed the laughing coolies on the
Mall below. I lunched at the Club, and at four o’clock wandered aimlessly
down the Mall in the vague hope of meeting Kitty. Close to the Band-stand
the black and white liveries joined me; and I heard Mrs. Wessington’s old
appeal at my side. I had been expecting this ever since I came out; and
was only surprised at her delay. The phantom ‘rickshaw and I went side by
side along the Chota Simla road in silence. Close to the bazar, Kitty and
a man on horseback overtook and passed us. For any sign she gave I might
have been a dog in the road. She did not even pay me the compliment of
quickening her pace; though the rainy afternoon had served for an excuse.

So Kitty and her companion, and I and my ghostly Light-o’-Love, crept
round Jakko in couples. The road was streaming with water; the pines
dripped like roof-pipes on the rocks below, and the air was full of fine,
driving rain. Two or three times I found myself saying to myself almost
aloud: “I’m Jack Pansay on leave at Simla—at Simla! Everyday,
ordinary Simla. I mustn’t forget that—I mustn’t forget that.” Then I
would try to recollect some of the gossip I had heard at the Club: the
prices of So-and-So’s horses—anything, in fact, that related to the
workaday Anglo-Indian world I knew so well. I even repeated the
multiplication-table rapidly to myself, to make quite sure that I was not
taking leave of my senses. It gave me much comfort; and must have
prevented my hearing Mrs. Wessington for a time.

Once more I wearily climbed the Convent slope and entered the level road.
Here Kitty and the man started off at a canter, and I was left alone with
Mrs. Wessington. “Agnes,” said I, “will you put back your hood and tell me
what it all means?” The hood dropped noiselessly, and I was face to face
with my dead and buried mistress. She was wearing the dress in which I had
last seen her alive; carried the same tiny handkerchief in her right hand;
and the same cardcase in her left. (A woman eight months dead with a
cardcase!) I had to pin myself down to the multiplication-table, and to
set both hands on the stone parapet of the road, to assure myself that
that at least was real.

“Agnes,” I repeated, “for pity’s sake tell me what it all means.” Mrs.
Wessington leaned forward, with that odd, quick turn of the head I used to
know so well, and spoke.

If my story had not already so madly overleaped the hounds of all human
belief I should apologize to you now. As I know that no one—no, not
even Kitty, for whom it is written as some sort of justification of my
conduct—will believe me, I will go on. Mrs. Wessington spoke and I
walked with her from the Sanjowlie road to the turning below the
Commander-in-Chief’s house as I might walk by the side of any living
woman’s ‘rickshaw, deep in conversation. The second and most tormenting of
my moods of sickness had suddenly laid hold upon me, and like the Prince
in Tennyson’s poem, “I seemed to move amid a world of ghosts.” There had
been a garden-party at the Commander-in-Chief’s, and we two joined the
crowd of homeward-bound folk. As I saw them then it seemed that they were
the shadows—impalpable, fantastic shadows—that divided for
Mrs. Wessington’s ‘rickshaw to pass through. What we said during the
course of that weird interview I cannot—indeed, I dare not—tell.
Heatherlegh’s comment would have been a short laugh and a remark that I
had been “mashing a brain-eye-and-stomach chimera.” It was a ghastly and
yet in some indefinable way a marvelously dear experience. Could it be
possible, I wondered, that I was in this life to woo a second time the
woman I had killed by my own neglect and cruelty?

I met Kitty on the homeward road—a shadow among shadows.

If I were to describe all the incidents of the next fortnight in their
order, my story would never come to an end; and your patience would Be
exhausted. Morning after morning and evening after evening the ghostly
‘rickshaw and I used to wander through Simla together. Wherever I went
there the four black and white liveries followed me and bore me company to
and from my hotel. At the Theatre I found them amid the crowd of yelling
jhampanies; outside the Club veranda, after a long evening of whist; at
the Birthday Ball, waiting patiently for my reappearance; and in broad
daylight when I went calling. Save that it cast no shadow, the ‘rickshaw
was in every respect as real to look upon as one of wood and iron. More
than once, indeed, I have had to check myself from warning some
hard-riding friend against cantering over it. More than once I have walked
down the Mall deep in conversation with Mrs. Wessington to the unspeakable
amazement of the passers-by.

Before I had been out and about a week I learned that the “fit” theory had
been discarded in favor of insanity. However, I made no change in my mode
of life. I called, rode, and dined out as freely as ever. I had a passion
for the society of my kind which I had never felt before; I hungered to be
among the realities of life; and at the same time I felt vaguely unhappy
when I had been separated too long from my ghostly companion. It would be
almost impossible to describe my varying moods from the 15th of May up to
today.

The presence of the ‘rickshaw filled me by turns with horror, blind fear,
a dim sort of pleasure, and utter despair. I dared not leave Simla; and I
knew that my stay there was killing me. I knew, moreover, that it was my
destiny to die slowly and a little every day. My only anxiety was to get
the penance over as quietly as might be. Alternately I hungered for a
sight of Kitty and watched her outrageous flirtations with my successor—to
speak more accurately, my successors—with amused interest. She was
as much out of my life as I was out of hers. By day I wandered with Mrs.
Wessington almost content. By night I implored Heaven to let me return to
the world as I used to know it. Above all these varying moods lay the
sensation of dull, numbing wonder that the Seen and the Unseen should
mingle so strangely on this earth to hound one poor soul to its grave.

August 27.—Heatherlegh has been indefatigable in his attendance on
me; and only yesterday told me that I ought to send in an application for
sick leave. An application to escape the company of a phantom! A request
that the Government would graciously permit me to get rid of five ghosts
and an airy ‘rickshaw by going to England. Heatherlegh’s proposition moved
me to almost hysterical laughter. I told him that I should await the end
quietly at Simla; and I am sure that the end is not far off. Believe me
that I dread its advent more than any word can say; and I torture myself
nightly with a thousand speculations as to the manner of my death.

Shall I die in my bed decently and as an English gentleman should die; or,
in one last walk on the Mall, will my soul be wrenched from me to take its
place forever and ever by the side of that ghastly phantasm? Shall I
return to my old lost allegiance in the next world, or shall I meet Agnes
loathing her and bound to her side through all eternity? Shall we two
hover over the scene of our lives till the end of Time? As the day of my
death draws nearer, the intense horror that all living flesh feels toward
escaped spirits from beyond the grave grows more and more powerful. It is
an awful thing to go down quick among the dead with scarcely one-half of
your life completed. It is a thousand times more awful to wait as I do in
your midst, for I know not what unimaginable terror. Pity me, at least on
the score of my “delusion,” for I know you will never believe what I have
written here Yet as surely as ever a man was done to death by the Powers
of Darkness I am that man.

In justice, too, pity her. For as surely as ever woman was killed by man,
I killed Mrs. Wessington. And the last portion of my punishment is ever
now upon me.

MY OWN TRUE GHOST STORY

Somewhere in the Other World, where there are books and pictures and plays
and shop windows to look at, and thousands of men who spend their lives in
building up all four, lives a gentleman who writes real stories about the
real insides of people; and his name is Mr. Walter Besant. But he will
insist upon treating his ghosts—he has published half a workshopful
of them—with levity. He makes his ghost-seers talk familiarly, and,
in some cases, flirt outrageously, with the phantoms. You may treat
anything, from a Viceroy to a Vernacular Paper, with levity; but you must
behave reverently toward a ghost, and particularly an Indian one.

There are, in this land, ghosts who take the form of fat, cold, pobby
corpses, and hide in trees near the roadside till a traveler passes. Then
they drop upon his neck and remain. There are also terrible ghosts of
women who have died in child-bed. These wander along the pathways at dusk,
or hide in the crops near a village, and call seductively. But to answer
their call is death in this world and the next. Their feet are turned
backward that all sober men may recognize them. There are ghosts of little
children who have been thrown into wells. These haunt well curbs and the
fringes of jungles, and wail under the stars, or catch women by the wrist
and beg to be taken up and carried. These and the corpse ghosts, however,
are only vernacular articles and do not attack Sahibs. No native ghost has
yet been authentically reported to have frightened an Englishman; but many
English ghosts have scared the life out of both white and black.

Nearly every other Station owns a ghost. There are said to be two at
Simla, not counting the woman who blows the bellows at Syree dak-bungalow
on the Old Road; Mussoorie has a house haunted of a very lively Thing; a
White Lady is supposed to do night-watchman round a house in Lahore;
Dalhousie says that one of her houses “repeats” on autumn evenings all the
incidents of a horrible horse-and-precipice accident; Murree has a merry
ghost, and, now that she has been swept by cholera, will have room for a
sorrowful one; there are Officers’ Quarters in Mian Mir whose doors open
without reason, and whose furniture is guaranteed to creak, not with the
heat of June but with the weight of Invisibles who come to lounge in the
chairs; Peshawur possesses houses that none will willingly rent; and there
is something—not fever—wrong with a big bungalow in Allahabad.
The older Provinces simply bristle with haunted houses, and march phantom
armies along their main thoroughfares.

Some of the dak-bungalows on the Grand Trunk Road have handy little
cemeteries in their compound—witnesses to the “changes and chances
of this mortal life” in the days when men drove from Calcutta to the
Northwest. These bungalows are objectionable places to put up in. They are
generally very old, always dirty, while the khansamah is as ancient as the
bungalow. He either chatters senilely, or falls into the long trances of
age. In both moods he is useless. If you get angry with him, he refers to
some Sahib dead and buried these thirty years, and says that when he was
in that Sahib’s service not a khansamah in the Province could touch him.
Then he jabbers and mows and trembles and fidgets among the dishes, and
you repent of your irritation.

In these dak-bungalows, ghosts are most likely to be found, and when
found, they should be made a note of. Not long ago it was my business to
live in dak-bungalows. I never inhabited the same house for three nights
running, and grew to be learned in the breed. I lived in Government-built
ones with red brick walls and rail ceilings, an inventory of the furniture
posted in every room, and an excited snake at the threshold to give
welcome. I lived in “converted” ones—old houses officiating as
dak-bungalows—where nothing was in its proper place and there wasn’t
even a fowl for dinner. I lived in second-hand palaces where the wind blew
through open-work marble tracery just as uncomfortably as through a broken
pane. I lived in dak-bungalows where the last entry in the visitors’ book
was fifteen months old, and where they slashed off the curry-kid’s head
with a sword. It was my good luck to meet all sorts of men, from sober
traveling missionaries and deserters flying from British Regiments, to
drunken loafers who threw whisky bottles at all who passed; and my still
greater good fortune just to escape a maternity case. Seeing that a fair
proportion of the tragedy of our lives out here acted itself in
dak-bungalows, I wondered that I had met no ghosts. A ghost that would
voluntarily hang about a dak-bungalow would be mad of course; but so many
men have died mad in dak-bungalows that there must be a fair percentage of
lunatic ghosts.

In due time I found my ghost, or ghosts rather, for there were two of
them. Up till that hour I had sympathized with Mr. Besant’s method of
handling them, as shown in “The Strange Case of Mr. Lucraft and Other
Stories.” I am now in the Opposition.

We will call the bungalow Katmal dak-bungalow. But THAT was the smallest
part of the horror. A man with a sensitive hide has no right to sleep in
dak-bungalows. He should marry. Katmal dak-bungalow was old and rotten and
unrepaired. The floor was of worn brick, the walls were filthy, and the
windows were nearly black with grime. It stood on a bypath largely used by
native Sub-Deputy Assistants of all kinds, from Finance to Forests; but
real Sahibs were rare. The khansamah, who was nearly bent double with old
age, said so.

When I arrived, there was a fitful, undecided rain on the face of the
land, accompanied by a restless wind, and every gust made a noise like the
rattling of dry bones in the stiff toddy palms outside. The khansamah
completely lost his head on my arrival. He had served a Sahib once. Did I
know that Sahib? He gave me the name of a well-known man who has been
buried for more than a quarter of a century, and showed me an ancient
daguerreotype of that man in his prehistoric youth. I had seen a steel
engraving of him at the head of a double volume of Memoirs a month before,
and I felt ancient beyond telling.

The day shut in and the khansamah went to get me food. He did not go
through the pretense of calling it “khana”—man’s victuals. He said
“ratub,” and that means, among other things, “grub”—dog’s rations.
There was no insult in his choice of the term. He had forgotten the other
word, I suppose.

While he was cutting up the dead bodies of animals, I settled myself down,
after exploring the dak-bungalow. There were three rooms, beside my own,
which was a corner kennel, each giving into the other through dingy white
doors fastened with long iron bars. The bungalow was a very solid one, but
the partition walls of the rooms were almost jerry-built in their
flimsiness. Every step or bang of a trunk echoed from my room down the
other three, and every footfall came back tremulously from the far walls.
For this reason I shut the door. There were no lamps—only candles in
long glass shades. An oil wick was set in the bathroom.

For bleak, unadulterated misery that dak-bungalow was the worst of the
many that I had ever set foot in. There was no fireplace, and the windows
would not open; so a brazier of charcoal would have been useless. The rain
and the wind splashed and gurgled and moaned round the house, and the
toddy palms rattled and roared.

Half a dozen jackals went through the compound singing, and a hyena stood
afar off and mocked them. A hyena would convince a Sadducee of the
Resurrection of the Dead—the worst sort of Dead. Then came the ratub—a
curious meal, half native and half English in composition—with the
old khansamah babbling behind my chair about dead and gone English people,
and the wind-blown candles playing shadow-bo-peep with the bed and the
mosquito-curtains. It was just the sort of dinner and evening to make a
man think of every single one of his past sins, and of all the others that
he intended to commit if he lived.

Sleep, for several hundred reasons, was not easy. The lamp in the
bath-room threw the most absurd shadows into the room, and the wind was
beginning to talk nonsense.

Just when the reasons were drowsy with blood-sucking I heard the regular—“Let—us—take—and—heave—him—over”
grunt of doolie-bearers in the compound. First one doolie came in, then a
second, and then a third. I heard the doolies dumped on the ground, and
the shutter in front of my door shook. “That’s some one trying to come
in,” I said. But no one spoke, and I persuaded myself that it was the
gusty wind. The shutter of the room next to mine was attacked, flung back,
and the inner door opened. “That’s some Sub-Deputy Assistant,” I said,
“and he has brought his friends with him. Now they’ll talk and spit and
smoke for an hour.”

But there were no voices and no footsteps. No one was putting his luggage
into the next room. The door shut, and I thanked Providence that I was to
be left in peace. But I was curious to know where the doolies had gone. I
got out of bed and looked into the darkness. There was never a sign of a
doolie. Just as I was getting into bed again, I heard, in the next room,
the sound that no man in his senses can possibly mistake—the whir of
a billiard ball down the length of the slates when the striker is
stringing for break. No other sound is like it. A minute afterwards there
was another whir, and I got into bed. I was not frightened—indeed I
was not. I was very curious to know what had become of the doolies. I
jumped into bed for that reason.

Next minute I heard the double click of a cannon and my hair sat up. It is
a mistake to say that hair stands up. The skin of the head tightens and
you can feel a faint, prickly, bristling all over the scalp. That is the
hair sitting up.

There was a whir and a click, and both sounds could only have been made by
one thing—a billiard ball. I argued the matter out at great length
with myself; and the more I argued the less probable it seemed that one
bed, one table, and two chairs—all the furniture of the room next to
mine—could so exactly duplicate the sounds of a game of billiards.
After another cannon, a three—cushion one to judge by the whir, I
argued no more. I had found my ghost and would have given worlds to have
escaped from that dak-bungalow. I listened, and with each listen the game
grew clearer.

There was whir on whir and click on click. Sometimes there was a double
click and a whir and another click. Beyond any sort of doubt, people were
playing billiards in the next room. And the next room was not big enough
to hold a billiard table!

Between the pauses of the wind I heard the game go forward—stroke
after stroke. I tried to believe that I could not hear voices; but that
attempt was a failure.

Do you know what fear is? Not ordinary fear of insult, injury or death,
but abject, quivering dread of something that you cannot see—fear
that dries the inside of the mouth and half of the throat—fear that
makes you sweat on the palms of the hands, and gulp in order to keep the
uvula at work? This is a fine Fear—a great cowardice, and must be
felt to be appreciated. The very improbability of billiards in a
dak-bungalow proved the reality of the thing. No man—drunk or sober—could
imagine a game at billiards, or invent the spitting crack of a
“screw-cannon.”

A severe course of dak-bungalows has this disadvantage—it breeds
infinite credulity. If a man said to a confirmed dak-bungalow-haunter:—“There
is a corpse in the next room, and there’s a mad girl in the next but one,
and the woman and man on that camel have just eloped from a place sixty
miles away,” the hearer would not disbelieve because he would know that
nothing is too wild, grotesque, or horrible to happen in a dak-bungalow.

This credulity, unfortunately, extends to ghosts. A rational person fresh
from his own house would have turned on his side and slept. I did not. So
surely as I was given up as a bad carcass by the scores of things in the
bed because the bulk of my blood was in my heart, so surely did I hear
every stroke of a long game at billiards played in the echoing room behind
the iron-barred door. My dominant fear was that the players might want a
marker. It was an absurd fear; because creatures who could play in the
dark would be above such superfluities. I only know that that was my
terror; and it was real.

After a long, long while the game stopped, and the door banged. I slept
because I was dead tired. Otherwise I should have preferred to have kept
awake. Not for everything in Asia would I have dropped the door-bar and
peered into the dark of the next room.

When the morning came, I considered that I had done well and wisely, and
inquired for the means of departure.

“By the way, khansamah,” I said, “what were those three doolies doing in
my compound in the night?”

“There were no doolies,” said the khansamah.

I went into the next room and the daylight streamed through the open door.
I was immensely brave. I would, at that hour, have played Black Pool with
the owner of the big Black Pool down below.

“Has this place always been a dak-bungalow?” I asked.

“No,” said the khansamah. “Ten or twenty years ago, I have forgotten how
long, it was a billiard room.”

“A how much?”

“A billiard room for the Sahibs who built the Railway. I was khansamah
then in the big house where all the Railway-Sahibs lived, and I used to
come across with brandy-shrab. These three rooms were all one, and they
held a big table on which the Sahibs played every evening. But the Sahibs
are all dead now, and the Railway runs, you say, nearly to Kabul.”

“Do you remember anything about the Sahibs?”

“It is long ago, but I remember that one Sahib, a fat man and always
angry, was playing here one night, and he said to me:—’Mangal Khan,
brandy-pani do,’ and I filled the glass, and he bent over the table to
strike, and his head fell lower and lower till it hit the table, and his
spectacles came off, and when we—the Sahibs and I myself—ran
to lift him he was dead. I helped to carry him out. Aha, he was a strong
Sahib! But he is dead and I, old Mangal Khan, am still living, by your
favor.”

That was more than enough! I had my ghost—a firsthand, authenticated
article. I would write to the Society for Psychical Research—I would
paralyze the Empire with the news! But I would, first of all, put eighty
miles of assessed crop land between myself and that dak-bungalow before
nightfall. The Society might send their regular agent to investigate later
on.

I went into my own room and prepared to pack after noting down the facts
of the case. As I smoked I heard the game begin again,—with a miss
in balk this time, for the whir was a short one.

The door was open and I could see into the room. Click—click! That
was a cannon. I entered the room without fear, for there was sunlight
within and a fresh breeze without. The unseen game was going on at a
tremendous rate. And well it might, when a restless little rat was running
to and fro inside the dingy ceiling-cloth, and a piece of loose
window-sash was making fifty breaks off the window-bolt as it shook in the
breeze!

Impossible to mistake the sound of billiard balls! Impossible to mistake
the whir of a ball over the slate! But I was to be excused. Even when I
shut my enlightened eyes the sound was marvelously like that of a fast
game.

Entered angrily the faithful partner of my sorrows, Kadir Baksh.

“This bungalow is very bad and low-caste! No wonder the Presence was
disturbed and is speckled. Three sets of doolie-bearers came to the
bungalow late last night when I was sleeping outside, and said that it was
their custom to rest in the rooms set apart for the English people! What
honor has the khansamah? They tried to enter, but I told them to go. No
wonder, if these Oorias have been here, that the Presence is sorely
spotted. It is shame, and the work of a dirty man!”

Kadir Baksh did not say that he had taken from each gang two annas for
rent in advance, and then, beyond my earshot, had beaten them with the big
green umbrella whose use I could never before divine. But Kadir Baksh has
no notions of morality.

There was an interview with the khansamah, but as he promptly lost his
head, wrath gave place to pity, and pity led to a long conversation, in
the course of which he put the fat Engineer-Sahib’s tragic death in three
separate stations—two of them fifty miles away. The third shift was
to Calcutta, and there the Sahib died while driving a dogcart.

If I had encouraged him the khansamah would have wandered all through
Bengal with his corpse.

I did not go away as soon as I intended. I stayed for the night, while the
wind and the rat and the sash and the window-bolt played a ding-dong
“hundred and fifty up.” Then the wind ran out and the billiards stopped,
and I felt that I had ruined my one genuine, hall-marked ghost story.

Had I only stopped at the proper time, I could have made anything out of
it.

That was the bitterest thought of all!

THE STRANGE RIDE OF MORROWBIE JUKES

THERE is, as the conjurers say, no deception about this tale. Jukes by
accident stumbled upon a village that is well known to exist, though he is
the only Englishman who has been there. A somewhat similar institution
used to flourish on the outskirts of Calcutta, and there is a story that
if you go into the heart of Bikanir, which is in the heart of the Great
Indian Desert, you shall come across not a village but a town where the
Dead who did not die but may not live have established their headquarters.
And, since it is perfectly true that in the same Desert is a wonderful
city where all the rich money lenders retreat after they have made their
fortunes (fortunes so vast that the owners cannot trust even the strong
hand of the Government to protect them, but take refuge in the waterless
sands), and drive sumptuous C-spring barouches, and buy beautiful girls
and decorate their palaces with gold and ivory and Minton tiles and
mother-of-pearl, I do not see why Jukes’s tale should not be true. He is a
Civil Engineer, with a head for plans and distances and things of that
kind, and he certainly would not take the trouble to invent imaginary
traps. He could earn more by doing his legitimate work. He never varies
the tale in the telling, and grows very hot and indignant when he thinks
of the disrespectful treatment he received. He wrote this quite
straightforwardly at first, but he has since touched it up in places and
introduced Moral Reflections, thus:

In the beginning it all arose from a slight attack of fever. My work
necessitated my being in camp for some months between Pakpattan and
Muharakpur—a desolate sandy stretch of country as every one who has
had the misfortune to go there may know. My coolies were neither more nor
less exasperating than other gangs, and my work demanded sufficient
attention to keep me from moping, had I been inclined to so unmanly a
weakness.

On the 23d December, 1884, I felt a little feverish. There was a full moon
at the time, and, in consequence, every dog near my tent was baying it.
The brutes assembled in twos and threes and drove me frantic. A few days
previously I had shot one loud-mouthed singer and suspended his carcass in
terrorem about fifty yards from my tent-door. But his friends fell upon,
fought for, and ultimately devoured the body; and, as it seemed to me,
sang their hymns of thanksgiving afterward with renewed energy.

The light-heartedness which accompanies fever acts differently on
different men. My irritation gave way, after a short time, to a fixed
determination to slaughter one huge black and white beast who had been
foremost in song and first in flight throughout the evening. Thanks to a
shaking hand and a giddy head I had already missed him twice with both
barrels of my shot-gun, when it struck me that my best plan would be to
ride him down in the open and finish him off with a hog-spear. This, of
course, was merely the semi-delirious notion of a fever patient; but I
remember that it struck me at the time as being eminently practical and
feasible.

I therefore ordered my groom to saddle Pornic and bring him round quietly
to the rear of my tent. When the pony was ready, I stood at his head
prepared to mount and dash out as soon as the dog should again lift up his
voice. Pornic, by the way, had not been out of his pickets for a couple of
days; the night air was crisp and chilly; and I was armed with a specially
long and sharp pair of persuaders with which I had been rousing a sluggish
cob that afternoon. You will easily believe, then, that when he was let go
he went quickly. In one moment, for the brute bolted as straight as a die,
the tent was left far behind, and we were flying over the smooth sandy
soil at racing speed.

In another we had passed the wretched dog, and I had almost forgotten why
it was that I had taken the horse and hogspear.

The delirium of fever and the excitement of rapid motion through the air
must have taken away the remnant of my senses. I have a faint recollection
of standing upright in my stirrups, and of brandishing my hog-spear at the
great white Moon that looked down so calmly on my mad gallop; and of
shouting challenges to the camel-thorn bushes as they whizzed past. Once
or twice I believe, I swayed forward on Pornic’s neck, and literally hung
on by my spurs—as the marks next morning showed.

The wretched beast went forward like a thing possessed, over what seemed
to be a limitless expanse of moonlit sand. Next, I remember, the ground
rose suddenly in front of us, and as we topped the ascent I saw the waters
of the Sutlej shining like a silver bar below. Then Pornic blundered
heavily on his nose, and we rolled together down some unseen slope.

I must have lost consciousness, for when I recovered I was lying on my
stomach in a heap of soft white sand, and the dawn was beginning to break
dimly over the edge of the slope down which I had fallen. As the light
grew stronger I saw that I was at the bottom of a horse-shoe shaped crater
of sand, opening on one side directly on to the shoals of the Sutlej. My
fever had altogether left me, and, with the exception of a slight
dizziness in the head, I felt no had effects from the fall over night.

Pornic, who was standing a few yards away, was naturally a good deal
exhausted, but had not hurt himself in the least. His saddle, a favorite
polo one, was much knocked about, and had been twisted under his belly. It
took me some time to put him to rights, and in the meantime I had ample
opportunities of observing the spot into which I had so foolishly dropped.

At the risk of being considered tedious, I must describe it at length:
inasmuch as an accurate mental picture of its peculiarities will be of
material assistance in enabling the reader to understand what follows.

Imagine then, as I have said before, a horseshoe-shaped crater of sand
with steeply graded sand walls about thirty-five feet high. (The slope, I
fancy, must have been about 65 degrees.) This crater enclosed a level
piece of ground about fifty yards long by thirty at its broadest part,
with a crude well in the centre. Round the bottom of the crater, about
three feet from the level of the ground proper, ran a series of
eighty-three semi-circular ovoid, square, and multilateral holes, all
about three feet at the mouth. Each hole on inspection showed that it was
carefully shored internally with drift-wood and bamboos, and over the
mouth a wooden drip-board projected, like the peak of a jockey’s cap, for
two feet. No sign of life was visible in these tunnels, but a most
sickening stench pervaded the entire amphitheatre—a stench fouler
than any which my wanderings in Indian villages have introduced me to.

Having remounted Pornic, who was as anxious as I to get back to camp, I
rode round the base of the horseshoe to find some place whence an exit
would be practicable. The inhabitants, whoever they might be, had not
thought fit to put in an appearance, so I was left to my own devices. My
first attempt to “rush” Pornic up the steep sand-banks showed me that I
had fallen into a trap exactly on the same model as that which the
ant-lion sets for its prey. At each step the shifting sand poured down
from above in tons, and rattled on the drip-boards of the holes like small
shot. A couple of ineffectual charges sent us both rolling down to the
bottom, half choked with the torrents of sand; and I was constrained to
turn my attention to the river-bank.

Here everything seemed easy enough. The sand hills ran down to the river
edge, it is true, but there were plenty of shoals and shallows across
which I could gallop Pornic, and find my way back to terra firma by
turning sharply to the right or left. As I led Pornic over the sands I was
startled by the faint pop of a rifle across the river; and at the same
moment a bullet dropped with a sharp “whit” close to Pornic’s head.

There was no mistaking the nature of the missile-a regulation
Martini-Henry “picket.” About five hundred yards away a country-boat was
anchored in midstream; and a jet of smoke drifting away from its bows in
the still morning air showed me whence the delicate attention had come.
Was ever a respectable gentleman in such an impasse? The treacherous sand
slope allowed no escape from a spot which I had visited most
involuntarily, and a promenade on the river frontage was the signal for a
bombardment from some insane native in a boat. I’m afraid that I lost my
temper very much indeed.

Another bullet reminded me that I had better save my breath to cool my
porridge; and I retreated hastily up the sands and back to the horseshoe,
where I saw that the noise of the rifle had drawn sixty-five human beings
from the badger-holes which I had up till that point supposed to be
untenanted. I found myself in the midst of a crowd of spectators—about
forty men, twenty women, and one child who could not have been more than
five years old. They were all scantily clothed in that salmon-colored
cloth which one associates with Hindu mendicants, and, at first sight,
gave me the impression of a band of loathsome fakirs. The filth and
repulsiveness of the assembly were beyond all description, and I shuddered
to think what their life in the badger-holes must be.

Even in these days, when local self government has destroyed the greater
part of a native’s respect for a Sahib, I have been accustomed to a
certain amount of civility from my inferiors, and on approaching the crowd
naturally expected that there would be some recognition of my presence. As
a matter of fact there was; but it was by no means what I had looked for.

The ragged crew actually laughed at me—such laughter I hope I may
never hear again. They cackled, yelled, whistled, and howled as I walked
into their midst; some of them literally throwing themselves down on the
ground in convulsions of unholy mirth. In a moment I had let go Pornic’s
head, and irritated beyond expression at the morning’s adventure,
commenced cuffing those nearest to me with all the force I could. The
wretches dropped under my blows like nine-pins, and the laughter gave
place to wails for mercy; while those yet untouched clasped me round the
knees, imploring me in all sorts of uncouth tongues to spare them.

In the tumult, and just when I was feeling very much ashamed of myself for
having thus easily given way to my temper, a thin, high voice murmured in
English from behind my shoulder: “—Sahib! Sahib! Do you not know me?
Sahib, it is Gunga Dass, the telegraph-master.”

I spun round quickly and faced the speaker.

Gunga Dass, (I have, of course, no hesitation in mentioning the man’s real
name) I had known four years before as a Deccanee Brahmin loaned by the
Punjab Government to one of the Khalsia States. He was in charge of a
branch telegraph-office there, and when I had last met him was a jovial,
full-stomached, portly Government servant with a marvelous capacity for
making had puns in English—a peculiarity which made me remember him
long after I had forgotten his services to me in his official capacity. It
is seldom that a Hindu makes English puns.

Now, however, the man was changed beyond all recognition. Caste-mark,
stomach, slate-colored continuations, and unctuous speech were all gone. I
looked at a withered skeleton, turban-less and almost naked, with long
matted hair and deep-set codfish-eyes.

But for a crescent-shaped scar on the left cheek—the result of an
accident for which I was responsible I should never have known him. But it
was indubitably Gunga Dass, and—for this I was thankful—an
English-speaking native who might at least tell me the meaning of all that
I had gone through that day.

The crowd retreated to some distance as I turned toward the miserable
figure, and ordered him to show me some method of escaping from the crate.
He held a freshly plucked crow in his hand, and in reply to my question
climbed slowly on a platform of sand which ran in front of the holes, and
commenced lighting a fire there in silence. Dried bents, sand-poppies, and
driftwood burn quickly; and I derived much consolation from the fact that
he lit them with an ordinary sulphur-match. When they were in a bright
glow, and the crow was neatly spitted in front thereof, Gunga Dass began
without a word of preamble:

“There are only two kinds of men, Sar. The alive and the dead. When you
are dead you are dead, but when you are alive you live.” (Here the crow
demanded his attention for an instant as it twirled before the fire in
danger of being burned to a cinder.) “If you die at home and do not die
when you come to the ghat to be burned you come here.”

The nature of the reeking village was made plain now, and all that I had
known or read of the grotesque and the horrible paled before the fact just
communicated by the ex-Brahmin. Sixteen years ago, when I first landed in
Bombay, I had been told by a wandering Armenian of the existence,
somewhere in India, of a place to which such Hindus as had the misfortune
to recover from trance or catalepsy were conveyed and kept, and I
recollect laughing heartily at what I was then pleased to consider a
traveler’s tale.

Sitting at the bottom of the sand-trap, the memory of Watson’s Hotel, with
its swinging punkahs, white-robed attendants, and the sallow-faced
Armenian, rose up in my mind as vividly as a photograph, and I burst into
a loud fit of laughter. The contrast was too absurd!

Gunga Dass, as he bent over the unclean bird, watched me curiously. Hindus
seldom laugh, and his surroundings were not such as to move Gunga Dass to
any undue excess of hilarity. He removed the crow solemnly from the wooden
spit and as solemnly devoured it. Then he continued his story, which I
give in his own words:

“In epidemics of the cholera you are carried to be burned almost before
you are dead. When you come to the riverside the cold air, perhaps, makes
you alive, and then, if you are only little alive, mud is put on your nose
and mouth and you die conclusively. If you are rather more alive, more mud
is put; but if you are too lively they let you go and take you away. I was
too lively, and made protestation with anger against the indignities that
they endeavored to press upon me. In those days I was Brahmin and proud
man.

“Now I am dead man and eat”—here he eyed the well-gnawed breast bone
with the first sign of emotion that I had seen in him since we met—“crows,
and other things. They took me from my sheets when they saw that I was too
lively and gave me medicines for one week, and I survived successfully.
Then they sent me by rail from my place to Okara Station, with a man to
take care of me; and at Okara Station we met two other men, and they
conducted we three on camels, in the night, from Okara Station to this
place, and they propelled me from the top to the bottom, and the other two
succeeded, and I have been here ever since two and a half years. Once I
was Brahmin and proud man, and now I eat crows.”

“There is no way of getting out?”

“None of what kind at all. When I first came I made experiments frequently
and all the others also, but we have always succumbed to the sand which is
precipitated upon our heads.”

“But surely,” I broke in at this point, “the river-front is open, and it
is worth while dodging the bullets; while at night”—I had already
matured a rough plan of escape which a natural instinct of selfishness
forbade me sharing with Gunga Dass. He, however, divined my unspoken
thought almost as soon as it was formed; and, to my intense astonishment,
gave vent to a long low chuckle of derision—the laughter, be it
understood, of a superior or at least of an equal.

“You will not”—he had dropped the Sir completely after his opening
sentence—“make any escape that way. But you can try. I have tried.
Once only.”

The sensation of nameless terror and abject fear which I had in vain
attempted to strive against overmastered me completely. My long fast—it
was now close upon ten o’clock, and I had eaten nothing since tiffin on
the previous day—combined with the violent and unnatural agitation
of the ride had exhausted me, and I verily believe that, for a few
minutes, I acted as one mad. I hurled myself against the pitiless
sand-slope. I ran round the base of the crater, blaspheming and praying by
turns. I crawled out among the sedges of the river-front, only to be
driven back each time in an agony of nervous dread by the rifle-bullets
which cut up the sand round me—for I dared not face the death of a
mad dog among that hideous crowd—and finally fell, spent and raving,
at the curb of the well. No one had taken the slightest notion of an
exhibition which makes me blush hotly even when I think of it now.

Two or three men trod on my panting body as they drew water, but they were
evidently used to this sort of thing, and had no time to waste upon me.
The situation was humiliating. Gunga Dass, indeed, when he had banked the
embers of his fire with sand, was at some pains to throw half a cupful of
fetid water over my head, an attention for which I could have fallen on my
knees and thanked him, but he was laughing all the while in the same
mirthless, wheezy key that greeted me on my first attempt to force the
shoals. And so, in a semi-comatose condition, I lay till noon.

Then, being only a man after all, I felt hungry, and intimated as much to
Gunga Dass, whom I had begun to regard as my natural protector. Following
the impulse of the outer world when dealing with natives, I put my hand
into my pocket and drew out four annas. The absurdity of the gift struck
me at once, and I was about to replace the money.

Gunga Dass, however, was of a different opinion. “Give me the money,” said
he; “all you have, or I will get help, and we will kill you!” All this as
if it were the most natural thing in the world!

A Briton’s first impulse, I believe, is to guard the contents of his
pockets; but a moment’s reflection convinced me of the futility of
differing with the one man who had it in his power to make me comfortable;
and with whose help it was possible that I might eventually escape from
the crater. I gave him all the money in my possession, Rs. 9-8-5—nine
rupees eight annas and five pie—for I always keep small change as
bakshish when I am in camp. Gunga Dass clutched the coins, and hid them at
once in his ragged loin cloth, his expression changing to something
diabolical as he looked round to assure himself that no one had observed
us.

“Now I will give you something to eat,” said he.

What pleasure the possession of my money could have afforded him I am
unable to say; but inasmuch as it did give him evident delight I was not
sorry that I had parted with it so readily, for I had no doubt that he
would have had me killed if I had refused. One does not protest against
the vagaries of a den of wild beasts; and my companions were lower than
any beasts. While I devoured what Gunga Dass had provided, a coarse
chapatti and a cupful of the foul well-water, the people showed not the
faintest sign of curiosity—that curiosity which is so rampant, as a
rule, in an Indian village.

I could even fancy that they despised me. At all events they treated me
with the most chilling indifference, and Gunga Dass was nearly as bad. I
plied him with questions about the terrible village, and received
extremely unsatisfactory answers. So far as I could gather, it had been in
existence from time immemorial—whence I concluded that it was at
least a century old—and during that time no one had ever been known
to escape from it. [I had to control myself here with both hands, lest the
blind terror should lay hold of me a second time and drive me raving round
the crater.] Gunga Dass took a malicious pleasure in emphasizing this
point and in watching me wince. Nothing that I could do would induce him
to tell me who the mysterious “They” were.

“It is so ordered,” he would reply, “and I do not yet know any one who has
disobeyed the orders.”

“Only wait till my servants find that I am missing,” I retorted, “and I
promise you that this place shall be cleared off the face of the earth,
and I’ll give you a lesson in civility, too, my friend.”

“Your servants would be torn in pieces before they came near this place;
and, besides, you are dead, my dear friend. It is not your fault, of
course, but none the less you are dead and buried.”

At irregular intervals supplies of food, I was told, were dropped down
from the land side into the amphitheatre, and the inhabitants fought for
them like wild beasts. When a man felt his death coming on he retreated to
his lair and died there. The body was sometimes dragged out of the hole
and thrown on to the sand, or allowed to rot where it lay.

The phrase “thrown on to the sand” caught my attention, and I asked Gunga
Dass whether this sort of thing was not likely to breed a pestilence.

“That,” said he, with another of his wheezy chuckles, “you may see for
yourself subsequently. You will have much time to make observations.”

Whereat, to his great delight, I winced once more and hastily continued
the conversation:—“And how do you live here from day to day? What do
you do?” The question elicited exactly the same answer as before coupled
with the information that “this place is like your European heaven; there
is neither marrying nor giving in marriage.”

Gunga Dass had been educated at a Mission School, and, as he himself
admitted, had he only changed his religion “like a wise man,” might have
avoided the living grave which was now his portion. But as long as I was
with him I fancy he was happy.

Here was a Sahib, a representative of the dominant race, helpless as a
child and completely at the mercy of his native neighbors. In a deliberate
lazy way he set himself to torture me as a schoolboy would devote a
rapturous half-hour to watching the agonies of an impaled beetle, or as a
ferret in a blind burrow might glue himself comfortably to the neck of a
rabbit. The burden of his conversation was that there was no escape “of no
kind whatever,” and that I should stay here till I died and was “thrown on
to the sand.” If it were possible to forejudge the conversation of the
Damned on the advent of a new soul in their abode, I should say that they
would speak as Gunga Dass did to me throughout that long afternoon. I was
powerless to protest or answer; all my energies being devoted to a
struggle against the inexplicable terror that threatened to overwhelm me
again and again. I can compare the feeling to nothing except the struggles
of a man against the overpowering nausea of the Channel passage—only
my agony was of the spirit and infinitely more terrible.

As the day wore on, the inhabitants began to appear in full strength to
catch the rays of the afternoon sun, which were now sloping in at the
mouth of the crater. They assembled in little knots, and talked among
themselves without even throwing a glance in my direction. About four
o’clock, as far as I could judge Gunga Dass rose and dived into his lair
for a moment, emerging with a live crow in his hands. The wretched bird
was in a most draggled and deplorable condition, but seemed to be in no
way afraid of its master, Advancing cautiously to the river front, Gunga
Dass stepped from tussock to tussock until he had reached a smooth patch
of sand directly in the line of the boat’s fire. The occupants of the boat
took no notice. Here he stopped, and, with a couple of dexterous turns of
the wrist, pegged the bird on its back with outstretched wings. As was
only natural, the crow began to shriek at once and beat the air with its
claws. In a few seconds the clamor had attracted the attention of a bevy
of wild crows on a shoal a few hundred yards away, where they were
discussing something that looked like a corpse. Half a dozen crows flew
over at once to see what was going on, and also, as it proved, to attack
the pinioned bird. Gunga Dass, who had lain down on a tussock, motioned to
me to be quiet, though I fancy this was a needless precaution. In a
moment, and before I could see how it happened, a wild crow, who had
grappled with the shrieking and helpless bird, was entangled in the
latter’s claws, swiftly disengaged by Gunga Dass, and pegged down beside
its companion in adversity. Curiosity, it seemed, overpowered the rest of
the flock, and almost before Gunga Dass and I had time to withdraw to the
tussock, two more captives were struggling in the upturned claws of the
decoys. So the chase—if I can give it so dignified a name—continued
until Gunga Dass had captured seven crows. Five of them he throttled at
once, reserving two for further operations another day. I was a good deal
impressed by this, to me, novel method of securing food, and complimented
Gunga Dass on his skill.

“It is nothing to do,” said he. “Tomorrow you must do it for me. You are
stronger than I am.”

This calm assumption of superiority Upset me not a little, and I answered
peremptorily;—“Indeed, you old ruffian! What do you think I have
given you money for?”

“Very well,” was the unmoved reply. “Perhaps not tomorrow, nor the day
after, nor subsequently; but in the end, and for many years, you will
catch crows and eat crows, and you will thank your European God that you
have crows to catch and eat.”

I could have cheerfully strangled him for this; but judged it best under
the circumstances to smother my resentment. An hour later I was eating one
of the crows; and, as Gunga Dass had said, thanking my God that I had a
crow to eat. Never as long as I live shall I forget that evening meal. The
whole population were squatting on the hard sand platform opposite their
dens, huddled over tiny fires of refuse and dried rushes. Death, having
once laid his hand upon these men and forborne to strike, seemed to stand
aloof from them now; for most of our company were old men, bent and worn
and twisted with years, and women aged to all appearance as the Fates
themselves. They sat together in knots and talked—God only knows
what they found to discuss—in low equable tones, curiously in
contrast to the strident babble with which natives are accustomed to make
day hideous. Now and then an access of that sudden fury which had
possessed me in the morning would lay hold on a man or woman; and with
yells and imprecations the sufferer would attack the steep slope until,
baffled and bleeding, he fell back on the platform incapable of moving a
limb. The others would never even raise their eyes when this happened, as
men too well aware of the futility of their fellows’ attempts and wearied
with their useless repetition. I saw four such outbursts in the course of
the evening.

Gunga Dass took an eminently business-like view of my situation, and while
we were dining—I can afford to laugh at the recollection now, but it
was painful enough at the time-propounded the terms on which he would
consent to “do” for me. My nine rupees eight annas, he argued, at the rate
of three annas a day, would provide me with food for fifty-one days, or
about seven weeks; that is to say, he would be willing to cater for me for
that length of time. At the end of it I was to look after myself. For a
further consideration—videlicet my boots—he would be willing
to allow me to occupy the den next to his own, and would supply me with as
much dried grass for bedding as he could spare.

“Very well, Gunga Dass,” I replied; “to the first terms I cheerfully
agree, but, as there is nothing on earth to prevent my killing you as you
sit here and taking everything that you have” (I thought of the two
invaluable crows at the time), “I flatly refuse to give you my boots and
shall take whichever den I please.”

The stroke was a bold one, and I was glad when I saw that it had
succeeded. Gunga Dass changed his tone immediately, and disavowed all
intention of asking for my boots. At the time it did not strike me as at
all strange that I, a Civil Engineer, a man of thirteen years’ standing in
the Service, and, I trust, an average Englishman, should thus calmly
threaten murder and violence against the man who had, for a consideration
it is true, taken me under his wing. I had left the world, it seemed, for
centuries. I was as certain then as I am now of my own existence, that in
the accursed settlement there was no law save that of the strongest; that
the living dead men had thrown behind them every canon of the world which
had cast them out; and that I had to depend for my own life on my strength
and vigilance alone. The crew of the ill-fated Mignonette are the only men
who would understand my frame of mind. “At present,” I argued to myself,
“I am strong and a match for six of these wretches. It is imperatively
necessary that I should, for my own sake, keep both health and strength
until the hour of my release comes—if it ever does.”

Fortified with these resolutions, I ate and drank as much as I could, and
made Gunga Dass understand that I intended to be his master, and that the
least sign of insubordination on his part would be visited with the only
punishment I had it in my power to inflict—sudden and violent death.
Shortly after this I went to bed.

That is to say, Gunga Dass gave me a double armful of dried bents which I
thrust down the mouth of the lair to the right of his, and followed
myself, feet foremost; the hole running about nine feet into the sand with
a slight downward inclination, and being neatly shored with timbers. From
my den, which faced the river-front, I was able to watch the waters of the
Sutlej flowing past under the light of a young moon and compose myself to
sleep as best I might.

The horrors of that night I shall never forget. My den was nearly as
narrow as a coffin, and the sides had been worn smooth and greasy by the
contact of innumerable naked bodies, added to which it smelled abominably.
Sleep was altogether out of question to one in my excited frame of mind.
As the night wore on, it seemed that the entire amphitheatre was filled
with legions of unclean devils that, trooping up from the shoals below,
mocked the unfortunates in their lairs.

Personally I am not of an imaginative temperament,—very few
Engineers are,—but on that occasion I was as completely prostrated
with nervous terror as any woman. After half an hour or so, however, I was
able once more to calmly review my chances of escape. Any exit by the
steep sand walls was, of course, impracticable. I had been thoroughly
convinced of this some time before. It was possible, just possible, that I
might, in the uncertain moonlight, safely run the gauntlet of the rifle
shots. The place was so full of terror for me that I was prepared to
undergo any risk in leaving it. Imagine my delight, then, when after
creeping stealthily to the river-front I found that the infernal boat was
not there. My freedom lay before me in the next few steps!

By walking out to the first shallow pool that lay at the foot of the
projecting left horn of the horseshoe, I could wade across, turn the flank
of the crater, and make my way inland. Without a moment’s hesitation I
marched briskly past the tussocks where Gunga Dass had snared the crows,
and out in the direction of the smooth white sand beyond. My first step
from the tufts of dried grass showed me how utterly futile was any hope of
escape; for, as I put my foot down, I felt an indescribable drawing,
sucking motion of the sand below. Another moment and my leg was swallowed
up nearly to the knee. In the moonlight the whole surface of the sand
seemed to be shaken with devilish delight at my disappointment. I
struggled clear, sweating with terror and exertion, back to the tussocks
behind me and fell on my face.

My only means of escape from the semicircle was protected with a
quicksand!

How long I lay I have not the faintest idea; but I was roused at last by
the malevolent chuckle of Gunga Dass at my ear. “I would advise you,
Protector of the Poor” (the ruffian was speaking English) “to return to
your house. It is unhealthy to lie down here. Moreover, when the boat
returns, you will most certainly be rifled at.” He stood over me in the
dim light of the dawn, chuckling and laughing to himself. Suppressing my
first impulse to catch the man by the neck and throw him on to the
quicksand, I rose sullenly and followed him to the platform below the
burrows.

Suddenly, and futilely as I thought while I spoke, I asked—“Gunga
Dass, what is the good of the boat if I can’t get out anyhow?” I recollect
that even in my deepest trouble I had been speculating vaguely on the
waste of ammunition in guarding an already well protected foreshore.

Gunga Dass laughed again and made answer:—“They have the boat only
in daytime. It is for the reason that there is a way. I hope we shall have
the pleasure of your company for much longer time. It is a pleasant spot
when you have been here some years and eaten roast crow long enough.”

I staggered, numbed and helpless, toward the fetid burrow allotted to me,
and fell asleep. An hour or so later I was awakened by a piercing scream—the
shrill, high-pitched scream of a horse in pain. Those who have once heard
that will never forget the sound. I found some little difficulty in
scrambling out of the burrow. When I was in the open, I saw Pornic, my
poor old Pornic, lying dead on the sandy soil. How they had killed him I
cannot guess. Gunga Dass explained that horse was better than crow, and
“greatest good of greatest number is political maxim. We are now Republic,
Mister Jukes, and you are entitled to a fair share of the beast. If you
like, we will pass a vote of thanks. Shall I propose?”

Yes, we were a Republic indeed! A Republic of wild beasts penned at the
bottom of a pit, to eat and fight and sleep till we died. I attempted no
protest of any kind, but sat down and stared at the hideous sight in front
of me. In less time almost than it takes me to write this, Pornic’s body
was divided, in some unclear way or other; the men and women had dragged
the fragments on to the platform and were preparing their normal meal.
Gunga Dass cooked mine. The almost irresistible impulse to fly at the sand
walls until I was wearied laid hold of me afresh, and I had to struggle
against it with all my might. Gunga Dass was offensively jocular till I
told him that if he addressed another remark of any kind whatever to me I
should strangle him where he sat. This silenced him till silence became
insupportable, and I bade him say something.

“You will live here till you die like the other Feringhi,” he said,
coolly, watching me over the fragment of gristle that he was gnawing.

“What other Sahib, you swine? Speak at once, and don’t stop to tell me a
lie.”

“He is over there,” answered Gunga Dass, pointing to a burrow-mouth about
four doors ta the left of my own. “You can see for yourself. He died in
the burrow as you will die, and I will die, and as all these men and women
and the one child will also die.”

“For pity’s sake tell me all you know about him. Who was he? When did he
come, and when did he die?”

This appeal was a weak step on my part. Gunga Dass only leered and
replied:—“I will not—unless you give me something first.”

Then I recollected where I was, and struck the man between the eyes,
partially stunning him. He stepped down from the platform at once, and,
cringing and fawning and weeping and attempting to embrace my feet, led me
round to the burrow which he had indicated.

“I know nothing whatever about the gentleman. Your God be my witness that
I do not. He was as anxious to escape as you were, and he was shot from
the boat, though we all did all things to prevent him from attempting. He
was shot here.” Gunga Dass laid his hand on his lean stomach and bowed to
the earth.

“Well, and what then? Go on!”

“And then—and then, Your Honor, we carried him in to his house and
gave him water, and put wet cloths on the wound, and he laid down in his
house and gave up the ghost.”

“In how long? In how long?”

“About half an hour, after he received his wound. I call Vishnu to
witness,” yelled the wretched man, “that I did everything for him.
Everything which was possible, that I did!”

He threw himself down on the ground and clasped my ankles. But I had my
doubts about Gunga Dass’s benevolence, and kicked him off as he lay
protesting.

“I believe you robbed him of everything he had. But I can find out in a
minute or two. How long was the Sahib here?”

“Nearly a year and a half. I think he must have gone mad. But hear me
swear, Protector of the Poor! Won’t Your Honor hear me swear that I never
touched an article that belonged to him? What is Your Worship going to
do?”

I had taken Gunga Dass by the waist and had hauled him on to the platform
opposite the deserted burrow. As I did so I thought of my wretched
fellow-prisoner’s unspeakable misery among all these horrors for eighteen
months, and the final agony of dying like a rat in a hole, with a
bullet-wound in the stomach. Gunga Dass fancied I was going to kill him
and howled pitifully. The rest of the population, in the plethora that
follows a full flesh meal, watched us without stirring.

“Go inside, Gunga Dass,” said I, “and fetch it out.”

I was feeling sick and faint with horror now. Gunga Dass nearly rolled off
the platform and howled aloud.

“But I am Brahmin, Sahib—a high-caste Brahmin. By your soul, by your
father’s soul, do not make me do this thing!”

“Brahmin or no Brahmin, by my soul and my father’s soul, in you go!” I
said, and, seizing him by the shoulders, I crammed his head into the mouth
of the burrow, kicked the rest of him in, and, sitting down, covered my
face with my hands.

At the end of a few minutes I heard a rustle and a creak; then Gunga Dass
in a sobbing, choking whisper speaking to himself; then a soft thud—and
I uncovered my eyes.

The dry sand had turned the corpse entrusted to its keeping into a
yellow-brown mummy. I told Gunga Dass to stand off while I examined it.

The body—clad in an olive-green hunting-suit much stained and worn,
with leather pads on the shoulders—was that of a man between thirty
and forty, above middle height, with light, sandy hair, long mustache, and
a rough unkempt beard. The left canine of the upper jaw was missing, and a
portion of the lobe of the right ear was gone. On the second finger of the
left hand was a ring—a shield-shaped bloodstone set in gold, with a
monogram that might have been either “B.K.” or “B.L.” On the third finger
of the right hand was a silver ring in the shape of a coiled cobra, much
worn and tarnished. Gunga Dass deposited a handful of trifles he had
picked out of the burrow at my feet, and, covering the face of the body
with my handkerchief, I turned to examine these. I give the full list in
the hope that it may lead to the identification of the unfortunate man:

1. Bowl of a briarwood pipe, serrated at the edge; much worn and
blackened; bound with string at the crew.

2. Two patent-lever keys; wards of both broken.

3. Tortoise-shell-handled penknife, silver or nickel name-plate, marked
with monogram “B.K.”

4. Envelope, postmark Undecipherable, bearing a Victorian stamp, addressed
to “Miss Mon-” (rest illegible) -“ham-‘nt.”

5. Imitation crocodile-skin notebook with pencil. First forty-five pages
blank; four and a half illegible; fifteen others filled with private
memoranda relating chiefly to three persons—a Mrs. L. Singleton,
abbreviated several times to “Lot Single,” “Mrs. S. May,” and “Garmison,”
referred to in places as “Jerry” or “Jack.”

6. Handle of small-sized hunting-knife. Blade snapped short. Buck’s horn,
diamond cut, with swivel and ring on the butt; fragment of cotton cord
attached.

It must not be supposed that I inventoried all these things on the spot as
fully as I have here written them down. The notebook first attracted my
attention, and I put it in my pocket with a view of studying it later on.

The rest of the articles I conveyed to my burrow for safety’s sake, and
there being a methodical man, I inventoried them. I then returned to the
corpse and ordered Gunga Dass to help me to carry it out to the
river-front. While we were engaged in this, the exploded shell of an old
brown cartridge dropped out of one of the pockets and rolled at my feet.
Gunga Dass had not seen it; and I fell to thinking that a man does not
carry exploded cartridge-cases, especially “browns,” which will not bear
loading twice, about with him when shooting. In other words, that
cartridge-case had been fired inside the crater. Consequently there must
be a gun somewhere. I was on the verge of asking Gunga Dass, but checked
myself, knowing that he would lie. We laid the body down on the edge of
the quicksand by the tussocks. It was my intention to push it out and let
it be swallowed up—the only possible mode of burial that I could
think of. I ordered Gunga Dass to go away.

Then I gingerly put the corpse out on the quicksand. In doing so—it
was lying face downward—I tore the frail and rotten khaki
shooting-coat open, disclosing a hideous cavity in the back. I have
already told you that the dry sand had, as it were, mummified the body. A
moment’s glance showed that the gaping hole had been caused by a gun-shot
wound; the gun must have been fired with the muzzle almost touching the
back. The shooting-coat, being intact, had been drawn over the body after
death, which must have been instantaneous. The secret of the poor wretch’s
death was plain to me in a flash. Some one of the crater, presumably Gunga
Dass, must have shot him with his own gun—the gun that fitted the
brown cartridges. He had never attempted to escape in the face of the
rifle-fire from the boat.

I pushed the corpse out hastily, and saw it sink from sight literally in a
few seconds. I shuddered as I watched. In a dazed, half-conscious way I
turned to peruse the notebook. A stained and discolored slip of paper bad
been inserted between the binding and the back, and dropped out as I
opened the pages. This is what it contained:—“Four out from
crow-clump: three left; nine out; two right; three back; two left;
fourteen out; two left; seven out; one left; nine back; two right; six
back; four right; seven back.” The paper had been burned and charred at
the edges. What it meant I could not understand. I sat down on the dried
bents turning it over and over between my fingers, until I was aware of
Gunga Dass standing immediately behind me with glowing eyes and
outstretched hands.

“Have you got it?” he panted. “Will you not let me look at it also? I
swear that I will return it.”

“Got what? Return what?” asked.

“That which you have in your hands. It will help us both.” He stretched
out his long, bird-like talons, trembling with eagerness.

“I could never find it,” he continued. “He had secreted it about his
person. Therefore I shot him, but nevertheless I was unable to obtain it.”

Gunga Dass had quite forgotten his little fiction about the rifle-bullet.
I received the information perfectly calmly. Morality is blunted by
consorting with the Dead who are alive.

“What on earth are you raving about? What is it you want me to give you?”

“The piece of paper in the notebook. It will help us both. Oh, you fool!
You fool! Can you not see what it will do for us? We shall escape!”

His voice rose almost to a scream, and he danced with excitement before
me. I own I was moved at the chance of my getting away.

“Don’t skip! Explain yourself. Do you mean to say that this slip of paper
will help us? What does it mean?”

“Read it aloud! Read it aloud! I beg and I pray you to read it aloud.”

I did so. Gunga Dass listened delightedly, and drew an irregular line in
the sand with his fingers.

“See now! It was the length of his gun-barrels without the stock. I have
those barrels. Four gun-barrels out from the place where I caught crows
straight out; do you follow me? Then three left—Ah! how well I
remember when that man worked it out night after night Then nine out, and
so on. Out is always straight before you across the quicksand. He told me
so before I killed him.”

“But if you knew all this why didn’t you get out before?”

“I did not know it. He told me that he was working it out a year and a
half ago, and how he was working it out night after night when the boat
had gone away, and he could get out near the quicksand safely. Then he
said that we would get away together. But I was afraid that he would leave
me behind one night when he had worked it all out, and so I shot him.
Besides, it is not advisable that the men who once get in here should
escape. Only I, and I am a Brahmin.”

The prospect of escape had brought Gunga Dass’s caste back to him. He
stood up, walked about and gesticulated violently. Eventually I managed to
make him talk soberly, and he told me how this Englishman had spent six
months night after night in exploring, inch by inch, the passage across
the quicksand; how he had declared it to be simplicity itself up to within
about twenty yards of the river bank after turning the flank of the left
horn of the horseshoe. This much he had evidently not completed when Gunga
Dass shot him with his own gun.

In my frenzy of delight at the possibilities of escape I recollect shaking
hands effusively with Gunga Dass, after we had decided that we were to
make an attempt to get away that very night. It was weary work waiting
throughout the afternoon.

About ten o’clock, as far as I could judge, when the Moon had just risen
above the lip of the crater, Gunga Dass made a move for his burrow to
bring out the gun-barrels whereby to measure our path. All the other
wretched inhabitants had retired to their lairs long ago. The guardian
boat drifted downstream some hours before, and we were utterly alone by
the crow-clump. Gunga Dass, while carrying the gun-barrels, let slip the
piece of paper which was to be our guide. I stooped down hastily to
recover it, and, as I did so, I was aware that the diabolical Brahmin was
aiming a violent blow at the back of my head with the gun-barrels. It was
too late to turn round. I must have received the blow somewhere on the
nape of my neck. A hundred thousand fiery stars danced before my eyes, and
I fell forwards senseless at the edge of, the quicksand.

When I recovered consciousness, the Moon was going down, and I was
sensible of intolerable pain in the back of my head. Gunga Dass had
disappeared and my mouth was full of blood. I lay down again and prayed
that I might die without more ado. Then the unreasoning fury which I had
before mentioned, laid hold upon me, and I staggered inland toward the
walls of the crater. It seemed that some one was calling to me in a
whisper—“Sahib! Sahib! Sahib!” exactly as my bearer used to call me
in the morning I fancied that I was delirious until a handful of sand fell
at my feet. Then I looked up and saw a head peering down into the
amphitheatre—the head of Dunnoo, my dog-boy, who attended to my
collies. As soon as he had attracted my attention, he held up his hand and
showed a rope. I motioned, staggering to and fro for the while, that he
should throw it down. It was a couple of leather punkah-ropes knotted
together, with a loop at one end. I slipped the loop over my head and
under my arms; heard Dunnoo urge something forward; was conscious that I
was being dragged, face downward, up the steep sand slope, and the next
instant found myself choked and half fainting on the sand hills
overlooking the crater. Dunnoo, with his face ashy grey in the moonlight,
implored me not to stay but to get back to my tent at once.

It seems that he had tracked Pornic’s footprints fourteen miles across the
sands to the crater; had returned and told my servants, who flatly refused
to meddle with any one, white or black, once fallen into the hideous
Village of the Dead; whereupon Dunnoo had taken one of my ponies and a
couple of punkah-ropes, returned to the crater, and hauled me out as I
have described.

To cut a long story short, Dunnoo is now my personal servant on a gold
mohur a month—a sum which I still think far too little for the
services he has rendered. Nothing on earth will induce me to go near that
devilish spot again, or to reveal its whereabouts more clearly than I have
done. Of Gunga Dass I have never found a trace, nor do I wish to do. My
sole motive in giving this to be published is the hope that some one may
possibly identify, from the details and the inventory which I have given
above, the corpse of the man in the olive-green hunting-suit.

THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING

The Law, as quoted, lays down a fair conduct of life, and one not easy to
follow. I have been fellow to a beggar again and again under circumstances
which prevented either of us finding out whether the other was worthy. I
have still to be brother to a Prince, though I once came near to kinship
with what might have been a veritable King, and was promised the reversion
of a Kingdom—army, law-courts, revenue, and policy all complete.
But, today, I greatly fear that my King is dead, and if I want a crown I
must go hunt it for myself.

The beginning of everything was in a railway-train upon the road to Mhow
from Ajmir. There had been a Deficit in the Budget, which necessitated
travelling, not Second-class, which is only half as dear as First-Class,
but by Intermediate, which is very awful indeed. There are no cushions in
the Intermediate class, and the population are either Intermediate, which
is Eurasian, or native, which for a long night journey is nasty, or
Loafer, which is amusing though intoxicated. Intermediates do not buy from
refreshment-rooms. They carry their food in bundles and pots, and buy
sweets from the native sweetmeat-sellers, and drink the roadside water.
This is why in hot weather Intermediates are taken out of the carriages
dead, and in all weathers are most properly looked down upon.

My particular Intermediate happened to be empty till I reached Nasirabad,
when the big black-browed gentleman in shirt-sleeves entered, and,
following the custom of Intermediates, passed the time of day. He was a
wanderer and a vagabond like myself, but with an educated taste for
whisky. He told tales of things he had seen and done, of out-of-the-way
corners of the Empire into which he had penetrated, and of adventures in
which he risked his life for a few days’ food.

“If India was filled with men like you and me, not knowing more than the
crows where they’d get their next day’s rations, it isn’t seventy millions
of revenue the land would be paying—it’s seven hundred millions,”
said he; and as I looked at his mouth and chin I was disposed to agree
with him.

We talked politics,—the politics of Loaferdom that sees things from
the under side where the lath and plaster is not smoothed off,—and
we talked postal arrangements because my friend wanted to send a telegram
back from the next station to Ajmir, the turning-off place from the Bombay
to the Mhow line as you travel westward. My friend had no money beyond
eight annas which he wanted for dinner, and I had no money at all, owing
to the hitch in the Budget before mentioned. Further, I was going into a
wilderness where, though I should resume touch with the Treasury, there
were no telegraph offices. I was, therefore, unable to help him in any
way.

“We might threaten a Station-master, and make him send a wire on tick,”
said my friend, “but that’d mean inquiries for you and for me, and I’ve
got my hands full these days. Did you say you were travelling back along
this line within any days?”

“Within ten,” I said.

“Can’t you make it eight?” said he. “Mine is rather urgent business.”

“I can send your telegrams within ten days if that will serve you,” I
said.

“I couldn’t trust the wire to fetch him, now I think of it. It’s this way.
He leaves Delhi on the 23rd for Bombay. That means he’ll be running
through Ajmir about the night of the 23rd.”

“But I’m going into the Indian Desert,” I explained.

“Well and good,” said he. “You’ll be changing at Marwar Junction to get
into Jodhpore territory,—you must do that,—and he’ll be coming
through Marwar Junction in the early morning of the 24th by the Bombay
Mail. Can you be at Marwar Junction on that time? ‘T won’t be
inconveniencing you, because I know that there’s precious few pickings to
be got out of these Central India States—even though you pretend to
be correspondent of the ‘Backwoodsman.’”

“Have you ever tried that trick?” I asked.

“Again and again, but the Residents find you out, and then you get
escorted to the Border before you’ve time to get your knife into them. But
about my friend here. I must give him a word o’ mouth to tell him what’s
come to me, or else he won’t know where to go. I would take it more than
kind of you if you was to come out of Central India in time to catch him
at Marwar Junction, and say to him, ‘He has gone South for the week.’
He’ll know what that means. He’s a big man with a red beard, and a great
swell he is.

“You’ll find him sleeping like a gentleman with all his luggage round him
in a Second-class apartment. But don’t you be afraid.

“Slip down the window and say, ‘He has gone South for the week,’ and he’ll
tumble. It’s only cutting your time of stay in those parts by two days. I
ask you as a stranger—going to the West,” he said, with emphasis.

“Where have you come from?” said I.

“From the East,” said he, “and I am hoping that you will give him the
message on the square—for the sake of my Mother as well as your
own.”

Englishmen are not usually softened by appeals to the memory of their
mothers; but for certain reasons, which will be fully apparent, I saw fit
to agree.

“It’s more than a little matter,” said he, “and that’s why I asked you to
do it—and now I know that I can depend on you doing it. A
Second-class carriage at Marwar Junction, and a red-haired man asleep in
it. You’ll be sure to remember. I get out at the next station, and I must
hold on there till he comes or sends me what I want.”

“I’ll give the message if I catch him,” I said, “and for the sake of your
Mother as well as mine I’ll give you a word of advice. Don’t try to run
the Central India States just now as the correspondent of the
‘Backwoodsman.’ There’s a real one knocking about here, and it might lead
to trouble.”

“Thank you,” said he, simply; “and when will the swine be gone? I can’t
starve because he’s ruining my work. I wanted to get hold of the Degumber
Rajah down here about his father’s widow, and give him a jump.”

“What did he do to his father’s widow, then?”

“Filled her up with red pepper and slippered her to death as she hung from
a beam. I found that out myself, and I’m the only man that would dare
going into the State to get hush-money for it. They’ll try to poison me,
same as they did in Chortumna when I went on the loot there. But you’ll
give the man at Marwar Junction my message?”

He got out at a little roadside station, and I reflected. I had heard,
more than once, of men personating correspondents of newspapers and
bleeding small Native States with threats of exposure, but I had never met
any of the caste before. They lead a hard life, and generally die with
great suddenness. The Native States have a wholesome horror of English
newspapers, which may throw light on their peculiar methods of government,
and do their best to choke correspondents with champagne, or drive them
out of their mind with four-in-hand barouches. They do not understand that
nobody cares a straw for the internal administration of Native States so
long as oppression and crime are kept within decent limits, and the ruler
is not drugged, drunk, or diseased from one end of the year to the other.
They are the dark places of the earth, full of unimaginable cruelty,
touching the Railway and the Telegraph on one side, and, on the other, the
days of Harun-al-Raschid. When I left the train I did business with divers
Kings, and in eight days passed through many changes of life. Sometimes I
wore dress-clothes and consorted with Princes and Politicals, drinking
from crystal and eating from silver. Sometimes I lay out upon the ground
and devoured what I could get, from a plate made of leaves, and drank the
running water, and slept under the same rug as my servant. It was all in
the day’s work.

Then I headed for the Great Indian Desert upon the proper date, as I had
promised, and the night Mail set me down at Marwar Junction, where a funny
little, happy-go-lucky, native managed railway runs to Jodhpore. The
Bombay Mail from Delhi makes a short halt at Marwar. She arrived just as I
got in, and I had just time to hurry to her platform and go down the
carriages. There was only one Second-class on the train. I slipped the
window and looked down upon a flaming-red beard, half covered by a
railway-rug. That was my man, fast asleep, and I dug him gently in the
ribs.

He woke with a grunt, and I saw his face in the light of the lamps.

It was a great and shining face.

“Tickets again?” said he.

“No,” said I. “I am to tell you that he is gone South for the week. He has
gone South for the week!”

The train had begun to move out. The red man rubbed his eyes.

“He has gone South for the week,” he repeated. “Now that’s just like his
impidence. Did he say that I was to give you anything? ‘Cause I won’t.”

“He didn’t,” I said, and dropped away, and watched the red lights die out
in the dark. It was horribly cold because the wind was blowing off the
sands. I climbed into my own train—not an Intermediate carriage this
time—and went to sleep.

If the man with the beard had given me a rupee I should have kept it as a
memento of a rather curious affair. But the consciousness of having done
my duty was my only reward.

Later on I reflected that two gentlemen like my friends could not do any
good if they foregathered and personated correspondents of newspapers, and
might, if they blackmailed one of the little rat-trap States of Central
India or Southern Rajputana, get themselves into serious difficulties. I
therefore took some trouble to describe them as accurately as I could
remember to people who would be interested in deporting them; and
succeeded, so I was later informed, in having them headed back from the
Degumber borders.

Then I became respectable, and returned to an office where there were no
Kings and no incidents outside the daily manufacture of a newspaper. A
newspaper office seems to attract every conceivable sort of person, to the
prejudice of discipline. Zenana-mission ladies arrive, and beg that the
Editor will instantly abandon all his duties to describe a Christian
prize-giving in a back slum of a perfectly inaccessible village; Colonels
who have been overpassed for command sit down and sketch the outline of a
series of ten, twelve, or twenty-four leading articles on Seniority versus
Selection; missionaries wish to know why they have not been permitted to
escape from their regular vehicles of abuse, and swear at a brother
missionary under special patronage of the editorial We. Stranded
theatrical companies troop up to explain that they cannot pay for their
advertisements, but on their return from New Zealand or Tahiti will do so
with interest; inventors of patent punka-pulling machines, carriage
couplings, and unbreakable swords and axletrees call with specifications
in their pockets and hours at their disposal; tea companies enter and
elaborate their prospectuses with the office pens; secretaries of ball
committees clamour to have the glories of their last dance more fully
described; strange ladies rustle in and say, “I want a hundred lady’s
cards printed at once, please,” which is manifestly part of an Editor’s
duty; and every dissolute ruffian that ever tramped the Grand Trunk Road
makes it his business to ask for employment as a proof-reader. And, all
the time, the telephone-bell is ringing madly, and Kings are being killed
on the Continent, and Empires are saying, “You’re another,” and Mister
Gladstone is calling down brimstone upon the British Dominions, and the
little black copyboys are whining, “kaa-pi chay-ha-yeh” (“Copy wanted”),
like tired bees, and most of the paper is as blank as Modred’s shield.

But that is the amusing part of the year. There are six other months when
none ever come to call, and the thermometer walks inch by inch up to the
top of the glass, and the office is darkened to just above reading-light,
and the press-machines are red-hot to touch, and nobody writes anything
but accounts of amusements in the Hill-stations or obituary notices. Then
the telephone becomes a tinkling terror, because it tells you of the
sudden deaths of men and women that you knew intimately, and the prickly
heat covers you with a garment, and you sit down and write: “A slight
increase of sickness is reported from the Khuda Janta Khan District. The
outbreak is purely sporadic in its nature, and, thanks to the energetic
efforts of the District authorities, is now almost at an end. It is,
however, with deep regret we record the death,” etc.

Then the sickness really breaks out, and the less recording and reporting
the better for the peace of the subscribers. But the Empires and the Kings
continue to divert themselves as selfishly as before, and the Foreman
thinks that a daily paper really ought to come out once in twenty-four
hours, and all the people at the Hill-stations in the middle of their
amusements say, “Good gracious! why can’t the paper be sparkling? I’m sure
there’s plenty going on up here.”

That is the dark half of the moon, and, as the advertisements say, “must
be experienced to be appreciated.”

It was in that season, and a remarkably evil season, that the paper began
running the last issue of the week on Saturday night, which is to say
Sunday morning, after the custom of a London paper. This was a great
convenience, for immediately after the paper was put to bed the dawn would
lower the thermometer from 96 degrees to almost 84 degrees for half an
hour, and in that chill—you have no idea how cold is 84 degrees on
the grass until you begin to pray for it—a very tired man could get
off to sleep ere the heat roused him.

One Saturday night it was my pleasant duty to put the paper to bed alone.
A King or courtier or a courtesan or a Community was going to die or get a
new Constitution, or do something that was important on the other side of
the world, and the paper was to be held open till the latest possible
minute in order to catch the telegram.

It was a pitchy-black night, as stifling as a June night can be, and the
loo, the red-hot wind from the westward, was booming among the tinder-dry
trees and pretending that the rain was on its heels.

Now and again a spot of almost boiling water would fall on the dust with
the flop of a frog, but all our weary world knew that was only pretence.
It was a shade cooler in the press-room than the office, so I sat there,
while the type ticked and clicked, and the night-jars hooted at the
windows, and the all but naked compositors wiped the sweat from their
foreheads and called for water. The thing that was keeping us back,
whatever it was, would not come off, though the loo dropped and the last
type was set, and the whole round earth stood still in the choking heat,
with its finger on its lip, to wait the event. I drowsed, and wondered
whether the telegraph was a blessing, and whether this dying man, or
struggling people, might be aware of the inconvenience the delay was
causing. There was no special reason beyond the heat and worry to make
tension, but, as the clock-hands crept up to three o’clock and the
machines spun their fly-wheels two and three times to see that all was in
order, before I said the word that would set them off, I could have
shrieked aloud.

Then the roar and rattle of the wheels shivered the quiet into little
bits. I rose to go away, but two men in white clothes stood in front of
me. The first one said, “It’s him!” The second said, “So it is!” And they
both laughed almost as loudly as the machinery roared, and mopped their
foreheads. We seed there was a light burning across the road, and we were
sleeping in that ditch there for coolness, and I said to my friend here,
“The office is open. Let’s come along and speak to him as turned us back
from Degumber State,” said the smaller of the two. He was the man I had
met in the Mhow train, and his fellow was the red-bearded man of Marwar
Junction. There was no mistaking the eyebrows of the one or the beard of
the other.

I was not pleased, because I wished to go to sleep, not to squabble with
loafers. “What do you want?” I asked.

“Half an hour’s talk with you, cool and comfortable, in the office,” said
the red-bearded man. “We’d like some drink,—the Contrack doesn’t
begin yet, Peachey, so you needn’t look,—but what we really want is
advice. We don’t want money. We ask you as a favour, because we found out
you did us a bad turn about Degumber State.”

I led from the press-room to the stifling office with the maps on the
walls, and the red-haired man rubbed his hands. “That’s something like,”
said he. “This was the proper shop to come to.

“Now, Sir, let me introduce you to Brother Peachey Carnehan, that’s him,
and Brother Daniel Dravot, that is me, and the less said about our
professions the better, for we have been most things in our time—soldier,
sailor, compositor, photographer, proof-reader, street-preacher, and
correspondents of the ‘Backwoodsman’ when we thought the paper wanted one.
Carnehan is sober, and so am I. Look at us first, and see that’s sure. It
will save you cutting into my talk. We’ll take one of your cigars apiece,
and you shall see us light up.”

I watched the test. The men were absolutely sober, so I gave them each a
tepid whisky-and-soda.

“Well and good,” said Carnehan of the eyebrows, wiping the froth from his
moustache. “Let me talk now, Dan. We have been all over India, mostly on
foot. We have been boiler-fitters, engine-drivers, petty contractors, and
all that, and we have decided that India isn’t big enough for such as us.”

They certainly were too big for the office. Dravot’s beard seemed to fill
half the room and Carnehan’s shoulders the other half, as they sat on the
big table. Carnehan continued: “The country isn’t half worked out because
they that governs it won’t let you touch it. They spend all their blessed
time in governing it, and you can’t lift a spade, nor chip a rock, nor
look for oil, nor anything like that, without all the Government saying,
‘Leave it alone, and let us govern.’ Therefore, such as it is, we will let
it alone, and go away to some other place where a man isn’t crowded and
can come to his own. We are not little men, and there is nothing that we
are afraid of except Drink, and we have signed a Contrack on that.

“Therefore we are going away to be Kings.”

“Kings in our own right,” muttered Dravot.

“Yes, of course,” I said. “You’ve been tramping in the sun, and it’s a
very warm night, and hadn’t you better sleep over the notion? Come
tomorrow.”

“Neither drunk nor sunstruck,” said Dravot. “We have slept over the notion
half a year, and require to see Books and Atlases, and we have decided
that there is only one place now in the world that two strong men can
Sar-a-whack. They call it Kafiristan. By my reckoning it’s the top
right-hand corner of Afghanistan, not more than three hundred miles from
Peshawar. They have two and thirty heathen idols there, and we’ll be the
thirty-third and fourth. It’s a mountaineous country, the women of those
parts are very beautiful.”

“But that is provided against in the Contrack,” said Carnehan. “Neither
Women nor Liquor, Daniel.”

“And that’s all we know, except that no one has gone there, and they
fight, and in any place where they fight a man who knows how to drill men
can always be a King. We shall go to those parts and say to any King we
find, ‘D’ you want to vanquish your foes?’ and we will show him how to
drill men; for that we know better than anything else. Then we will
subvert that King and seize his Throne and establish a Dy-nasty.”

“You’ll be cut to pieces before you’re fifty miles across the Border,” I
said. “You have to travel through Afghanistan to get to that country. It’s
one mass of mountains and peaks and glaciers, and no Englishman has been
through it. The people are utter brutes, and even if you reached them you
couldn’t do anything.”

“That’s more like,” said Carnehan. “If you could think us a little more
mad we would be more pleased. We have come to you to know about this
country, to read a book about it, and to be shown maps. We want you to
tell us that we are fools and to show us your books.” He turned to the
bookcases.

“Are you at all in earnest?” I said.

“A little,” said Dravot, sweetly. “As big a map as you have got, even if
it’s all blank where Kafiristan is, and any books you’ve got. We can read,
though we aren’t very educated.”

I uncased the big thirty-two-miles-to-the-inch map of India and two
smaller Frontier maps, hauled down volume INF-KAN of the “Encyclopaedia
Britannica,” and the men consulted them.

“See here!” said Dravot, his thumb on the map. “Up to Jagdallak, Peachey
and me know the road. We was there with Robert’s Army. We’ll have to turn
off to the right at Jagdallak through Laghmann territory. Then we get
among the hills—fourteen thousand feet—fifteen thousand—it
will be cold work there, but it don’t look very far on the map.”

I handed him Wood on the “Sources of the Oxus.” Carnehan was deep in the
“Encyclopaedia.”

“They’re a mixed lot,” said Dravot, reflectively; “and it won’t help us to
know the names of their tribes. The more tribes the more they’ll fight,
and the better for us. From Jagdallak to Ashang. H’mm!”

“But all the information about the country is as sketchy and inaccurate as
can be,” I protested. “No one knows anything about it really. Here’s the
file of the ‘United Services’ Institute.’ Read what Bellew says.”

“Blow Bellew!” said Carnehan. “Dan, they’re a stinkin’ lot of heathens,
but this book here says they think they’re related to us English.”

I smoked while the men poured over Raverty, Wood, the maps, and the
“Encyclopaedia.”

“There is no use your waiting,” said Dravot, politely. “It’s about four
o’clock now. We’ll go before six o’clock if you want to sleep, and we
won’t steal any of the papers. Don’t you sit up. We’re two harmless
lunatics, and if you come tomorrow evening down to the Serai we’ll say
goodbye to you.”

“You are two fools,” I answered. “You’ll be turned back at the Frontier or
cut up the minute you set foot in Afghanistan. Do you want any money or a
recommendation down-country? I can help you to the chance of work next
week.”

“Next week we shall be hard at work ourselves, thank you,” said Dravot.
“It isn’t so easy being a King as it looks. When we’ve got our Kingdom in
going order we’ll let you know, and you can come up and help us govern
it.”

“Would two lunatics make a Contrack like that?” said Carnehan, with
subdued pride, showing me a greasy half-sheet of notepaper on which was
written the following. I copied it, then and there, as a curiosity.

This Contrack between me and you persuing witnesseth in the name of God—Amen
and so forth.

(One) That me and you will settle this matter together; i.e., to be Kings
of Kafiristan.

(Two)That you and me will not, while this matter is being settled, look at
any Liquor, nor any Woman, black, white, or brown, so as to get mixed up
with one or the other harmful.

(Three) That we conduct ourselves with Dignity and Discretion, and if one
of us gets into trouble the other will stay by him.

Signed by you and me this day.

Peachey Taliaferro Carnehan.

Daniel Dravot.

Both Gentlemen at Large.

“There was no need for the last article,” said Carnehan, blushing
modestly; “but it looks regular. Now you know the sort of men that loafers
are,—we are loafers, Dan, until we get out of India,—and do
you think that we would sign a Contrack like that unless we was in
earnest? We have kept away from the two things that make life worth
having.”

“You won’t enjoy your lives much longer if you are going to try this
idiotic adventure. Don’t set the office on fire,” I said, “and go away
before nine o’clock.”

I left them still poring over the maps and making notes on the back of the
“Contrack.” “Be sure to come down to the Serai tomorrow,” were their
parting words.

The Kumharsen Serai is the great foursquare sink of humanity where the
strings of camels and horses from the North load and unload. All the
nationalities of Central Asia may be found there, and most of the folk of
India proper. Balkh and Bokhara there meet Bengal and Bombay, and try to
draw eye-teeth. You can buy ponies, turquoises, Persian pussy-cats,
saddle-bags, fat-tailed sheep, and musk in the Kumharsen Serai, and get
many strange things for nothing. In the afternoon I went down to see
whether my friends intended to keep their word or were lying there drunk.

A priest attired in fragments of ribbons and rags stalked up to me,
gravely twisting a child’s paper whirligig. Behind him was his servant
bending under the load of a crate of mud toys. The two were loading up two
camels, and the inhabitants of the Serai watched them with shrieks of
laughter.

“The priest is mad,” said a horse-dealer to me. “He is going up to Kabul
to sell toys to the Amir. He will either be raised to honour or have his
head cut off. He came in here this morning and has been behaving madly
ever since.”

“The witless are under the protection of God,” stammered a flat-cheeked
Usbeg in broken Hindi. “They foretell future events.”

“Would they could have foretold that my caravan would have been cut up by
the Shinwaris almost within shadow of the Pass!” grunted the Eusufzai
agent of a Rajputana trading-house whose goods had been diverted into the
hands of other robbers just across the Border, and whose misfortunes were
the laughing-stock of the bazaar. “Ohe’, priest, whence come you and
whither do you go?”

“From Roum have I come,” shouted the priest, waving his whirligig; “from
Roum, blown by the breath of a hundred devils across the sea! O thieves,
robbers, liars, the blessing of Pir Khan on pigs, dogs, and perjurers! Who
will take the Protected of God to the North to sell charms that are never
still to the Amir? The camels shall not gall, the sons shall not fall
sick, and the wives shall remain faithful while they are away, of the men
who give me place in their caravan. Who will assist me to slipper the King
of the Roos with a golden slipper with a silver heel? The protection of
Pir Khan be upon his labours!” He spread out the skirts of his gabardine
and pirouetted between the lines of tethered horses.

“There starts a caravan from Peshawar to Kabul in twenty days, Huzrut,”
said the Eusufzai trader. “My camels go therewith. Do thou also go and
bring us good luck.”

“I will go even now!” shouted the priest. “I will depart upon my winged
camels, and be at Peshawar in a day! Ho! Hazar Mir Khan,” he yelled to his
servant, “drive out the camels, but let me first mount my own.”

He leaped on the back of his beast as it knelt, and, turning round to me,
cried, “Come thou also, Sahib, a little along the road, and I will sell
thee a charm—an amulet that shall make thee King of Kafiristan.”

Then the light broke upon me, and I followed the two camels out of the
Serai till we reached open road and the priest halted.

“What d’ you think o’ that?” said he in English. “Carnehan can’t talk
their patter, so I’ve made him my servant. He makes a handsome servant. ‘T
isn’t for nothing that I’ve been knocking about the country for fourteen
years. Didn’t I do that talk neat? We’ll hitch on to a caravan at Peshawar
till we get to Jagdallak, and then we’ll see if we can get donkeys for our
camels, and strike into Kafiristan. Whirligigs for the Amir, O Lor’! Put
your hand under the camelbags and tell me what you feel.”

I felt the butt of a Martini, and another and another.

“Twenty of ’em,” said Dravot, placidly. “Twenty of ’em and ammunition to
correspond, under the whirligigs and the mud dolls.”

“Heaven help you if you are caught with those things!” I said. “A Martini
is worth her weight in silver among the Pathans.”

“Fifteen hundred rupees of capital—every rupee we could beg, borrow,
or steal—are invested on these two camels,” said Dravot.

“We won’t get caught. We’re going through the Khaiber with a regular
caravan. Who’d touch a poor mad priest?”

“Have you got everything you want?” I asked, overcome with astonishment.

“Not yet, but we shall soon. Give us a memento of your kindness, Brother.
You did me a service yesterday, and that time in Marwar. Half my Kingdom
shall you have, as the saying is.” I slipped a small charm compass from my
watch-chain and handed it up to the priest.

“Goodbye,” said Dravot, giving me hand cautiously. “It’s the last time
we’ll shake hands with an Englishman these many days. Shake hands with
him, Carnehan,” he cried, as the second camel passed me.

Carnehan leaned down and shook hands. Then the camels passed away along
the dusty road, and I was left alone to wonder. My eye could detect no
failure in the disguises. The scene in the Serai proved that they were
complete to the native mind. There was just the chance, therefore, that
Carnehan and Dravot would be able to wander through Afghanistan without
detection. But, beyond, they would find death—certain and awful
death.

Ten days later a native correspondent, giving me the news of the day from
Peshawar, wound up his letter with: “There has been much laughter here on
account of a certain mad priest who is going in his estimation to sell
petty gauds and insignificant trinkets which he ascribes as great charms
to H. H. the Amir of Bokhara. He passed through Peshawar and associated
himself to the Second Summer caravan that goes to Kabul. The merchants are
pleased because through superstition they imagine that such mad fellows
bring good fortune.”

The two, then, were beyond the Border. I would have prayed for them, but
that night a real King died in Europe, and demanded an obituary notice.

The wheel of the world swings through the same phases again and again.
Summer passed and winter thereafter, and came and passed again. The daily
paper continued and I with it, and upon the third summer there fell a hot
night, a night issue, and a strained waiting for something to be
telegraphed from the other side of the world, exactly as had happened
before. A few great men had died in the past two years, the machines
worked with more clatter, and some of the trees in the office garden were
a few feet taller. But that was all the difference.

I passed over to the press-room, and went through just such a scene as I
have already described. The nervous tension was stronger than it had been
two years before, and I felt the heat more acutely. At three o’clock I
cried, “Print off,” and turned to go, when there crept to my chair what
was left of a man. He was bent into a circle, his head was sunk between
his shoulders, and he moved his feet one over the other like a bear. I
could hardly see whether he walked or crawled—this rag-wrapped,
whining cripple who addressed me by name, crying that he was come back.
“Can you give me a drink?” he whimpered. “For the Lord’s sake, give me a
drink!”

I went back to the office, the man following with groans of pain, and I
turned up the lamp.

“Don’t you know me?” he gasped, dropping into a chair, and he turned his
drawn face, surmounted by a shock of gray hair, to the light.

I looked at him intently. Once before had I seen eyebrows that met over
the nose in an inch-broad black band, but for the life of me I could not
tell where.

“I don’t know you,” I said, handing him the whisky. “What can I do for
you?”

He took a gulp of the spirit raw, and shivered in spite of the suffocating
heat.

“I’ve come back,” he repeated; “and I was the King of Kafiristan—me
and Dravot—crowned Kings we was! In this office we settled it—you
setting there and giving us the books. I am Peachey,—Peachey
Taliaferro Carnehan,—and you’ve been setting here ever since—O
Lord!”

I was more than a little astonished, and expressed my feelings
accordingly.

“It’s true,” said Carnehan, with a dry cackle, nursing his feet, which
were wrapped in rags—“true as gospel. Kings we were, with crowns
upon our heads—me and Dravot—poor Dan—oh, poor, poor
Dan, that would never take advice, not though I begged of him!”

“Take the whisky,” I said, “and take your own time. Tell me all you can
recollect of everything from beginning to end. You got across the Border
on your camels, Dravot dressed as a mad priest and you his servant. Do you
remember that?”

“I ain’t mad—yet, but I shall be that way soon. Of course I
remember. Keep looking at me, or maybe my words will go all to pieces.
Keep looking at me in my eyes and don’t say anything.”

I leaned forward and looked into his face as steadily as I could. He
dropped one hand upon the table and I grasped it by the wrist. It was
twisted like a bird’s claw, and upon the back was a ragged, red,
diamond-shaped scar.

“No, don’t look there. Look at me,” said Carnehan. “That comes afterward,
but for the Lord’s sake don’t distrack me. We left with that caravan, me
and Dravot playing all sorts of antics to amuse the people we were with.
Dravot used to make us laugh in the evenings when all the people was
cooking their dinners—cooking their dinners, and… what did they do
then? They lit little fires with sparks that went into Dravot’s beard, and
we all laughed—fit to die. Little red fires they was, going into
Dravot’s big red beard—so funny.” His eyes left mine and he smiled
foolishly.

“You went as far as Jagdallak with that caravan,” I said, at a venture,
“after you had lit those fires. To Jagdallak, where you turned off to try
to get into Kafiristan.”

“No, we didn’t, neither. What are you talking about? We turned off before
Jagdallak, because we heard the roads was good. But they wasn’t good
enough for our two camels—mine and Dravot’s. When we left the
caravan, Dravot took off all his clothes and mine too, and said we would
be heathen, because the Kafirs didn’t allow Mohammedans to talk to them.
So we dressed betwixt and between, and such a sight as Daniel Dravot I
never saw yet nor expect to see again. He burned half his beard, and slung
a sheepskin over his shoulder, and shaved his head into patterns. He
shaved mine too, and made me wear outrageous things to look like a
heathen. That was in a most mountaineous country, and our camels couldn’t
go along any more because of the mountains. They were tall and black, and
coming home I saw them fight like wild goats—there are lots of goats
in Kafiristan. And these mountains, they never keep still, no more than
the goats. Always fighting they are, and don’t let you sleep at night.”

“Take some more whisky,” I said, very slowly. “What did you and Daniel
Dravot do when the camels could go no farther because of the rough roads
that led into Kafiristan?”

“What did which do? There was a party called Peachey Taliaferro Carnehan
that was with Dravot. Shall I tell you about him? He died out there in the
cold. Slap from the bridge fell old Peachey, turning and twisting in the
air like a penny whirligig that you can sell to the Amir. No; they was two
for three ha’pence, those whirligigs, or I am much mistaken and woful
sore… And then these camels were no use, and Peachey said to Dravot,
‘For the Lord’s sake let’s get out of this before our heads are chopped
off,’ and with that they killed the camels all among the mountains, not
having anything in particular to eat, but first they took off the boxes
with the guns and the ammunition, till two men came along driving four
mules. Dravot up and dances in front of them, singing, ‘Sell me four
mules.’ Says the first man, ‘If you are rich enough to buy, you are rich
enough to rob;’ but before ever he could put his hand to his knife, Dravot
breaks his neck over his knee, and the other party runs away. So Carnehan
loaded the mules with the rifles that was taken off the camels, and
together we starts forward into those bitter-cold mountaineous parts, and
never a road broader than the back of your hand.”

He paused for a moment, while I asked him if he could remember the nature
of the country through which he had journeyed.

“I am telling you as straight as I can, but my head isn’t as good as it
might be. They drove nails through it to make me hear better how Dravot
died. The country was mountaineous and the mules were most contrary, and
the inhabitants was dispersed and solitary. They went up and up, and down
and down, and that other party, Carnehan, was imploring of Dravot not to
sing and whistle so loud, for fear of bringing down the tremenjus
avalanches. But Dravot says that if a King couldn’t sing it wasn’t worth
being King, and whacked the mules over the rump, and never took no heed
for ten cold days. We came to a big level valley all among the mountains,
and the mules were near dead, so we killed them, not having anything in
special for them or us to eat. We sat upon the boxes, and played odd and
even with the cartridges that was jolted out.

“Then ten men with bows and arrows ran down that valley, chasing twenty
men with bows and arrows, and the row was tremenjus.

“They was fair men—fairer than you or me—with yellow hair and
remarkable well built. Says Dravot, unpacking the guns, ‘This is the
beginning of the business. We’ll fight for the ten men,’ and with that he
fires two rifles at the twenty men, and drops one of them at two hundred
yards from the rock where he was sitting. The other men began to run, but
Carnehan and Dravot sits on the boxes picking them off at all ranges, up
and down the valley. Then we goes up to the ten men that had run across
the snow too, and they fires a footy little arrow at us. Dravot he shoots
above their heads, and they all falls down flat. Then he walks over them
and kicks them, and then he lifts them up and shakes hands all round to
make them friendly like. He calls them and gives them the boxes to carry,
and waves his hand for all the world as though he was King already. They
takes the boxes and him across the valley and up the hill into a pine wood
on the top, where there was half a dozen big stone idols. Dravot he goes
to the biggest—a fellow they call Imbra—and lays a rifle and a
cartridge at his feet, rubbing his nose respectfully with his own nose,
patting him on the head, and nods his head, and says, ‘That’s all right.
I’m in the know too, and these old jimjams are my friends.’ Then he opens
his mouth and points down it, and when the first man brings him food, he
says, ‘No;’ and when the second man brings him food, he says ‘no;’ but
when one of the old priests and the boss of the village brings him food,
he says, ‘Yes;’ very haughty, and eats it slow. That was how he came to
our first village without any trouble, just as though we had tumbled from
the skies. But we tumbled from one of those damned rope-bridges, you see,
and—you couldn’t expect a man to laugh much after that?”

“Take some more whisky and go on,” I said. “That was the first village you
came into. How did you get to be King?”

“I wasn’t King,” said Carnehan. “Dravot he was the King, and a handsome
man he looked with the gold crown on his head and all. Him and the other
party stayed in that village, and every morning Dravot sat by the side of
old Imbra, and the people came and worshipped. That was Dravot’s order.
Then a lot of men came into the valley, and Carnehan Dravot picks them off
with the rifles before they knew where they was, and runs down into the
valley and up again the other side, and finds another village, same as the
first one, and the people all falls down flat on their faces, and Dravot
says, ‘Now what is the trouble between you two villages?’ and the people
points to a woman, as fair as you or me, that was carried off, and Dravot
takes her back to the first village and counts up the dead—eight
there was. For each dead man Dravot pours a little milk on the ground and
waves his arms like a whirligig, and ‘That’s all right,’ says he. Then he
and Carnehan takes the big boss of each village by the arm, and walks them
down the valley, and shows them how to scratch a line with a spear right
down the valley, and gives each a sod of turf from both sides of the line.
Then all the people comes down and shouts like the devil and all, and
Dravot says, ‘Go and dig the land, and be fruitful and multiply,’ which
they did, though they didn’t understand. Then we asks the names of things
in their lingo—bread and water and fire and idols and such; and
Dravot leads the priest of each village up to the idol, and says he must
sit there and judge the people, and if anything goes wrong he is to be
shot.

“Next week they was all turning up the land in the valley as quiet as bees
and much prettier, and the priests heard all the complaints and told
Dravot in dumb-show what it was about. ‘That’s just the beginning,’ says
Dravot. ‘They think we’re Gods.’ He and Carnehan picks out twenty good men
and shows them how to click off a rifle and form fours and advance in
line; and they was very pleased to do so, and clever to see the hang of
it. Then he takes out his pipe and his baccy-pouch, and leaves one at one
village and one at the other, and off we two goes to see what was to be
done in the next valley. That was all rock, and there was a little village
there, and Carnehan says, ‘Send ’em to the old valley to plant,’ and takes
’em there and gives ’em some land that wasn’t took before. They were a
poor lot, and we blooded ’em with a kid before letting ’em into the new
Kingdom. That was to impress the people, and then they settled down quiet,
and Carnehan went back to Dravot, who had got into another valley, all
snow and ice and most mountaineous.

“There was no people there, and the Army got afraid; so Dravot shoots one
of them, and goes on till he finds some people in a village, and the Army
explains that unless the people wants to be killed they had better not
shoot their little matchlocks, for they had matchlocks. We makes friends
with the priest, and I stays there alone with two of the Army, teaching
the men how to drill; and a thundering big Chief comes across the snow
with kettledrums and horns twanging, because he heard there was a new God
kicking about. Carnehan sights for the brown of the men half a mile across
the snow and wings one of them. Then he sends a message to the Chief that,
unless he wished to be killed, he must come and shake hands with me and
leave his arms behind. The Chief comes alone first, and Carnehan shakes
hands with him and whirls his arms about, same as Dravot used, and very
much surprised that Chief was, and strokes my eyebrows. Then Carnehan goes
alone to the Chief, and asks him in dumb-show if he had an enemy he hated.
‘I have,’ says the chief. So Carnehan weeds out the pick of his men, and
sets the two of the Army to show them drill, and at the end of two weeks
the men can manoeuvre about as well as Volunteers. So he marches with the
Chief to a great big plain on the top of a mountain, and the Chief’s men
rushes into a village and takes it, we three Martinis firing into the
brown of the enemy. So we took that village too, and I gives the Chief a
rag from my coat, and says, ‘Occupy till I come;’ which was scriptural. By
way of a reminder, when me and the Army was eighteen hundred yards away, I
drops a bullet near him standing on the snow, and all the people falls
flat on their faces. Then I sends a letter to Dravot wherever he be by
land or by sea.”

At the risk of throwing the creature out of train I interrupted: “How
could you write a letter up yonder?”

“The letter?—oh!—the letter! Keep looking at me between the
eyes, please. It was a string-talk letter, that we’d learned the way of it
from a blind beggar in the Punjab.”

I remember that there had once come to the office a blind man with a
knotted twig, and a piece of string which he wound round the twig
according to some cipher of his own. He could, after the lapse of days or
hours, repeat the sentence which he had reeled up.

He had reduced the alphabet to eleven primitive sounds, and tried to teach
me his method, but I could not understand.

“I sent that letter to Dravot,” said Carnehan, “and told him to come back
because this Kingdom was growing too big for me to handle; and then I
struck for the first valley, to see how the priests were working. They
called the village we took along with the Chief, Bashkai, and the first
village we took, Er-Heb. The priests at Er-Heb was doing all right, but
they had a lot of pending cases about land to show me, and some men from
another village had been firing arrows at night. I went out and looked for
that village, and fired four rounds at it from a thousand yards. That used
all the cartridges I cared to spend, and I waited for Dravot, who had been
away two or three months, and I kept my people quiet.

“One morning I heard the devil’s own noise of drums and horns, and Dan
Dravot marches down the hill with his Army and a tail of hundreds of men,
and, which was the most amazing, a great gold crown on his head. ‘My Gord,
Carnehan,’ says Daniel, ‘this is a tremenjus business, and we’ve got the
whole country as far as it’s worth having. I am the son of Alexander by
Queen Semiramis, and you’re my younger brother and a God too! It’s the
biggest thing we’ve ever seen. I’ve been marching and fighting for six
weeks with the Army, and every footy little village for fifty miles has
come in rejoiceful; and more than that, I’ve got the key of the whole
show, as you’ll see, and I’ve got a crown for you! I told ’em to make two
of ’em at a place called Shu, where the gold lies in the rock like suet in
mutton. Gold I’ve seen, and turquoise I’ve kicked out of the cliffs, and
there’s garnets in the sands of the river, and here’s a chunk of amber
that a man brought me. Call up all the priests and, here, take your
crown.’

“One of the men opens a black hair bag, and I slips the crown on. It was
too small and too heavy, but I wore it for the glory. Hammered gold it was—five
pounds weight, like a hoop of a barrel.

“’Peachey,’ says Dravot, ‘we don’t want to fight no more. The Craft’s the
trick, so help me!’ and he brings forward that same Chief that I left at
Bashkai—Billy Fish we called him afterward, because he was so like
Billy Fish that drove the big tank-engine at Mach on the Bolan in the old
days. ‘Shake hands with him,’ says Dravot; and I shook hands and nearly
dropped, for Billy Fish gave me the Grip. I said nothing, but tried him
with the Fellow-craft Grip. He answers all right, and I tried the Master’s
Grip, but that was a slip. ‘A Fellow-craft he is!’ I says to Dan. ‘Does he
know the word?’ ‘He does,’ says Dan, ‘and all the priests know. It’s a
miracle! The Chiefs and the priests can work a Fellow-craft Lodge in a way
that’s very like ours, and they’ve cut the marks on the rocks, but they
don’t know the Third Degree, and they’ve come to find out. It’s Gord’s
Truth. I’ve known these long years that the Afghans knew up to the
Fellow-craft Degree, but this is a miracle. A God and a Grand Master of
the Craft am I, and a Lodge in the Third Degree I will open, and we’ll
raise the head priests and the Chiefs of the villages.’

“’It’s against all the law,’ I says, ‘holding a Lodge without warrant from
any one; and you know we never held office in any Lodge.’

“’It’s a master stroke o’ policy,’ says Dravot. ‘It means running the
country as easy as a four-wheeled bogie on a down grade. We can’t stop to
inquire now, or they’ll turn against us. I’ve forty Chiefs at my heel, and
passed and raised according to their merit they shall be. Billet these men
on the villages, and see that we run up a Lodge of some kind. The temple
of Imbra will do for a Lodge-room. The women must make aprons as you show
them. I’ll hold a levee of Chiefs tonight and Lodge tomorrow.’

“I was fair run off my legs, but I wasn’t such a fool as not to see what a
pull this Craft business gave us. I showed the priests’ families how to
make aprons of the degrees, but for Dravot’s apron the blue border and
marks was made of turquoise lumps on white hide, not cloth. We took a
great square stone in the temple for the Master’s chair, and little stones
for the officer’s chairs, and painted the black pavement with white
squares, and did what we could to make things regular.

“At the levee which was held that night on the hillside with big bonfires,
Dravot gives out that him and me were Gods and sons of Alexander, and
Passed Grand Masters in the Craft, and was come to make Kafiristan a
country where every man should eat in peace and drink in quiet, and
specially obey us. Then the Chiefs come round to shake hands, and they
were so hairy and white and fair it was just shaking hands with old
friends. We gave them names according as they was like men we had known in
India—Billy Fish, Holly Dilworth, Pikky Kergan, that was
Bazaar-master when I was at Mhow, and so on, and so on.

“The most amazing miracles was at Lodge next night. One of the old priests
was watching us continuous, and I felt uneasy, for I knew we’d have to
fudge the Ritual, and I didn’t know what the men knew. The old priest was
a stranger come in from beyond the village of Bashkai. The minute Dravot
puts on the Master’s apron that the girls had made for him, the priest
fetches a whoop and a howl, and tries to overturn the stone that Dravot
was sitting on. ‘It’s all up now,’ I says. ‘That comes of meddling with
the Craft without warrant!’ Dravot never winked an eye, not when ten
priests took and tilted over the Grand Master’s chair—which was to
say, the stone of Imbra. The priest begins rubbing the bottom end of it to
clear away the black dirt, and presently he shows all the other priests
the Master’s Mark, same as was on Dravot’s apron, cut into the stone. Not
even the priests of the temple of Imbra knew it was there. The old chap
falls flat on his face at Dravot’s feet and kisses ’em. ‘Luck again,’ says
Dravot, across the Lodge, to me; ‘they say it’s the missing Mark that no
one could understand the why of.

“’We’re more than safe now.’ Then he bangs the butt of his gun for a gavel
and says, ‘By virtue of the authority vested in me by my own right hand
and the help of Peachey, I declare myself Grand Master of all Freemasonry
in Kafiristan in this the Mother Lodge o’ the country, and King of
Kafiristan equally with Peachey!’ At that he puts on his crown and I puts
on mine,—I was doing Senior Warden,—and we opens the Lodge in
most ample form. It was an amazing miracle! The priests moved in Lodge
through the first two degrees almost without telling, as if the memory was
coming back to them. After that Peachey and Dravot raised such as was
worthy—high priests and Chiefs of far-off villages. Billy Fish was
the first, and I can tell you we scared the soul out of him. It was not in
any way according to Ritual, but it served our turn. We didn’t raise more
than ten of the biggest men, because we didn’t want to make the Degree
common. And they was clamouring to be raised.

“’In another six months,’ says Dravot, ‘we’ll hold another Communication
and see how you are working.’ Then he asks them about their villages, and
learns that they was fighting one against the other, and were sick and
tired of it. And when they wasn’t doing that they was fighting with the
Mohammedans. ‘You can fight those when they come into our country,’ says
Dravot. ‘Tell off every tenth man of your tribes for a Frontier guard, and
send two hundred at a time to this valley to be drilled. Nobody is going
to be shot or speared any more so long as he does well, and I know that
you won’t cheat me, because you’re white people—sons of Alexander—and
not like common black Mohammedans. You are my people, and, by God,’ says
he, running off into English at the end, ‘I’ll make a damned fine Nation
of you, or I’ll die in the making!’

“I can’t tell all we did for the next six months, because Dravot did a lot
I couldn’t see the hang of, and he learned their lingo in a way I never
could. My work was to help the people plough, and now and again go out
with some of the Army and see what the other villages were doing, and make
’em throw rope bridges across the ravines which cut up the country horrid.
Dravot was very kind to me, but when he walked up and down in the pine
wood pulling that bloody red beard of his with both fists I knew he was
thinking plans I could not advise about, and I just waited for orders.

“But Dravot never showed me disrespect before the people. They were afraid
of me and the Army, but they loved Dan. He was the best of friends with
the priests and the Chiefs; but any one could come across the hills with a
complaint, and Dravot would hear him out fair, and call four priests
together and say what was to be done.

“He used to call in Billy Fish from Bashkai, and Pikky Kergan from Shu,
and an old Chief we called Kafuzelum,—it was like enough to his real
name,—and hold councils with ’em when there was any fighting to be
done in small villages. That was his Council of War, and the four priests
of Bashkai, Shu, Khawak, and Madora was his Privy Council. Between the lot
of ’em they sent me, with forty men and twenty rifles, and sixty men
carrying turquoises, into the Ghorband country to buy those hand-made
Martini rifles, that come out of the Amir’s workshops at Kabul, from one
of the Amir’s Herati regiments that would have sold the very teeth out of
their mouths for turquoises.

“I stayed in Ghorband a month, and gave the Governor there the pick of my
baskets for hush-money, and bribed the Colonel of the regiment some more,
and, between the two and the tribes-people, we got more than a hundred
hand-made Martinis, a hundred good Kohat Jezails that’ll throw to six
hundred yards, and forty man—loads of very bad ammunition for the
rifles. I came back with what I had, and distributed ’em among the men
that the Chiefs sent in to me to drill. Dravot was too busy to attend to
those things, but the old Army that we first made helped me, and we turned
out five hundred men that could drill, and two hundred that knew how to
hold arms pretty straight. Even those cork-screwed, hand-made guns was a
miracle to them. Dravot talked big about powder-shops and factories,
walking up and down in the pine wood when the winter was coming on.

“’I won’t make a Nation,’ says he. ‘I’ll make an Empire! These men aren’t
niggers; they’re English! Look at their eyes—look at their mouths.
Look at the way they stand up. They sit on chairs in their own houses.
They’re the Lost Tribes, or something like it, and they’ve grown to be
English. I’ll take a census in the spring if the priests don’t get
frightened. There must be a fair two million of ’em in these hills. The
villages are full o’ little children. Two million people—two hundred
and fifty thousand fighting men—and all English! They only want the
rifles and a little drilling. Two hundred and fifty thousand men, ready to
cut in on Russia’s right flank when she tries for India! Peachey, man,’ he
says, chewing his beard in great hunks, ‘we shall be Emperors—Emperors
of the Earth! Rajah Brooke will be a suckling to us. I’ll treat with the
Viceroy on equal terms. I’ll ask him to send me twelve picked English—twelve
that I know of—to help us govern a bit. There’s Mackray, Serjeant
Pensioner at Segowli—many’s the good dinner he’s given me, and his
wife a pair of trousers. There’s Donkin, the Warder of Tounghoo Jail;
there’s hundreds that I could lay my hand on if I was in India. The
Viceroy shall do it for me; I’ll send a man through in the spring for
those men, and I’ll write for a dispensation from the Grand Lodge for what
I’ve done as Grand Master. That—and all the Sniders that’ll be
thrown out when the native troops in India take up the Martini. They’ll be
worn smooth, but they’ll do for fighting in these hills. Twelve English, a
hundred thousand Sniders run through the Amir’s country in driblets,—I’d
be content with twenty thousand in one year,—and we’d be an Empire.

“When everything was shipshape I’d hand over the crown—this crown
I’m wearing now—to Queen Victoria on my knees, and she’d say, ‘Rise
up, Sir Daniel Dravot.’ Oh, it’s big! It’s big, I tell you! But there’s so
much to be done in every place—Bashkai, Khawak, Shu, and everywhere
else.

“’What is it?’ I says. ‘There are no more men coming in to be drilled this
autumn. Look at those fat black clouds. They’re bringing the snow.’

“’It isn’t that,’ says Daniel, putting his hand very hard on my shoulder;
‘and I don’t wish to say anything that’s against you, for no other living
man would have followed me and made me what I am as you have done. You’re
a first-class Commander-in-Chief, and the people know you; but—it’s
a big country, and somehow you can’t help me, Peachey, in the way I want
to be helped.’

“’Go to your blasted priests, then!’ I said, and I was sorry when I made
that remark, but it did hurt me sore to find Daniel talking so superior,
when I’d drilled all the men and done all he told me.

“’Don’t let’s quarrel, Peachey,’ says Daniel, without cursing. ‘You’re a
King too, and the half of this Kingdom is yours; but can’t you see,
Peachey, we want cleverer men than us now—three or four of ’em, that
we can scatter about for our Deputies. It’s a hugeous great State, and I
can’t always tell the right thing to do, and I haven’t time for all I want
to do, and here’s the winter coming on and all.’

“He put half his beard into his mouth, all red like the gold of his crown.

“’I’m sorry, Daniel,’ says I. ‘I’ve done all I could. I’ve drilled the men
and shown the people how to stack their oats better; and I’ve brought in
those tinware rifles from Ghorband—but I know what you’re driving
at. I take it Kings always feel oppressed that way.’

“’There’s another thing too,’ says Dravot, walking up and down. ‘The
winter’s coming, and these people won’t be giving much trouble, and if
they do we can’t move about. I want a wife.’

“’For Gord’s sake leave the women alone!’ I says. ‘We’ve both got all the
work we can, though I am a fool. Remember the Contrack, and keep clear o’
women.’”

“’The Contrack only lasted till such time as we was Kings; and Kings we
have been these months past,’ says Dravot, weighing his crown in his hand.
‘You go get a wife too, Peachey—a nice, strappin’, plump girl
that’ll keep you warm in the winter. They’re prettier than English girls,
and we can take the pick of ’em. Boil ’em once or twice in hot water, and
they’ll come out like chicken and ham.’

“’Don’t tempt me!’ I says. ‘I will not have any dealings with a woman, not
till we are a dam’ side more settled than we are now. I’ve been doing the
work o’ two men, and you’ve been doing the work of three. Let’s lie off a
bit, and see if we can get some better tobacco from Afghan country and run
in some good liquor; and no women.’”

“’Who’s talking o’ women?’ says Dravot. ‘I said wife—a Queen to
breed a King’s son for the King. A Queen out of the strongest tribe,
that’ll make them your blood-brothers, and that’ll lie by your side and
tell you all the people thinks about you and their own affairs. That’s
what I want.’

“’Do you remember that Bengali woman I kept at Mogul Serai when I was a
plate-layer?’ says I. ‘A fat lot o’ good she was to me. She taught me the
lingo and one or two other things; but what happened? She ran away with
the Station-master’s servant and half my month’s pay. Then she turned up
at Dadur Junction in tow of a half-caste, and had the impidence to say I
was her husband—all among the drivers in the running-shed too!’

“’We’ve done with that,’ says Dravot; ‘these women are whiter than you or
me, and a Queen I will have for the winter months.’

“’For the last time o’ asking, Dan, do not,’ I says. ‘It’ll only bring us
harm. The Bible says that Kings ain’t to waste their strength on women,
‘specially when they’ve got a new raw Kingdom to work over.’

“’For the last time of answering, I will,’ said Dravot, and he went away
through the pine trees looking like a big red devil, the sun being on his
crown and beard and all.

“But getting a wife was not as easy as Dan thought. He put it before the
Council, and there was no answer till Billy Fish said that he’d better ask
the girls. Dravot damned them all round.

“’What’s wrong with me?’ he shouts, standing by the idol Imbra. ‘Am I a
dog, or am I not enough of a man for your wenches? Haven’t I put the
shadow of my hand over this country? Who stopped the last Afghan raid?’ It
was me really, but Dravot was too angry to remember. ‘Who bought your
guns? Who repaired the bridges? Who’s the Grand Master of the sign cut in
the stone?’ says he, and he thumped his hand on the block that he used to
sit on in Lodge, and at Council, which opened like Lodge always. Billy
Fish said nothing, and no more did the others. ‘Keep your hair on, Dan,’
said I, ‘and ask the girls. That’s how it’s done at Home, and these people
are quite English.’

“’The marriage of the King is a matter of State,’ says Dan, in a white-hot
rage, for he could feel, I hope, that he was going against his better
mind. He walked out of the Council-room, and the others sat still, looking
at the ground.

“’Billy Fish,’ says I to the Chief of Bashkai, ‘what’s the difficulty
here? A straight answer to a true friend.’

“’You know,’ says Billy Fish. ‘How should a man tell you who knows
everything? How can daughters of men marry Gods or Devils? It’s not
proper.’

“I remembered something like that in the Bible; but, if after seeing us as
long as they had, they still believed we were Gods, it wasn’t for me to
undeceive them.

“’A God can do anything,’ says I. ‘If the King is fond of a girl he’ll not
let her die.’ ‘She’ll have to,’ said Billy Fish. ‘There are all sorts of
Gods and Devils in these mountains, and now and again a girl marries one
of them and isn’t seen any more. Besides, you two know the Mark cut in the
stone. Only the Gods know that. We thought you were men till you showed
the sign of the Master.’

“I wished then that we had explained about the loss of the genuine secrets
of a Master Mason at the first go-off; but I said nothing. All that night
there was a blowing of horns in a little dark temple half-way down the
hill, and I heard the girl crying fit to die. One of the priests told us
that she was being prepared to marry the King.

“’I’ll have no nonsense of that kind,’ says Dan. ‘I don’t want to
interfere with your customs, but I’ll take my own wife.’ ‘The girl’s a
little bit afraid,’ says the priest. ‘She thinks she’s going to die, and
they are a-heartening of her up down in the temple.’

“’Hearten her very tender, then,’ says Dravot, ‘or I’ll hearten you with
the butt of a gun so you’ll never want to be heartened again.’

“He licked his lips, did Dan, and stayed up walking about more than half
the night, thinking of the wife that he was going to get in the morning. I
wasn’t any means comfortable, for I knew that dealings with a woman in
foreign parts, though you was a crowned King twenty times over, could not
but be risky. I got up very early in the morning while Dravot was asleep,
and I saw the priests talking together in whispers, and the Chiefs talking
together too, and they looked at me out of the corners of their eyes.

“’What is up, Fish?’ I say to the Bashkai man, who was wrapped up in his
furs and looking splendid to behold.

“’I can’t rightly say,’ says he; ‘but if you can make the King drop all
this nonsense about marriage, you’ll be doing him and me and yourself a
great service.’

“’That I do believe,’ says I. ‘But sure, you know, Billy, as well as me,
having fought against and for us, that the King and me are nothing more
than two of the finest men that God Almighty ever made. Nothing more, I do
assure you.’

“’That may be,’ says Billy Fish, ‘and yet I should be sorry if it was.’ He
sinks his head upon his great fur cloak for a minute and thinks. ‘King,’
says he, ‘be you man or God or Devil, I’ll stick by you today. I have
twenty of my men with me, and they will follow me. We’ll go to Bashkai
until the storm blows over.’

“A little snow had fallen in the night, and everything was white except
the greasy fat clouds that blew down and down from the north. Dravot came
out with his crown on his head, swinging his arms and stamping his feet,
and looking more pleased than Punch.

“’For the last time, drop it, Dan,’ says I, in a whisper; ‘Billy Fish here
says that there will be a row.’

“’A row among my people!’ says Dravot. ‘Not much. Peachey, you’re a fool
not to get a wife too. Where’s the girl?’ says he, with a voice as loud as
the braying of a jackass. ‘Call up all the Chiefs and priests, and let the
Emperor see if his wife suits him.’

“There was no need to call any one. They were all there leaning on their
guns and spears round the clearing in the centre of the pine wood. A lot
of priests went down to the little temple to bring up the girl, and the
horns blew fit to wake the dead. Billy Fish saunters round and gets as
close to Daniel as he could, and behind him stood his twenty men with
matchlocks—not a man of them under six feet. I was next to Dravot,
and behind me was twenty men of the regular Army. Up comes the girl, and a
strapping wench she was, covered with silver and turquoises, but white as
death, and looking back every minute at the priests.

“’She’ll do,’ said Dan, looking her over. ‘What’s to be afraid of, lass?
Come and kiss me.’ He puts his arm round her. She shuts her eyes, gives a
bit of a squeak, and down goes her face in the side of Dan’s flaming-red
beard.

“’The slut’s bitten me!’ says he, clapping his hand to his neck, and, sure
enough, his hand was red with blood. Billy Fish and two of his matchlock
men catches hold of Dan by the shoulders and drags him into the Bashkai
lot, while the priests howls in their lingo, ‘Neither God nor Devil, but a
man!’ I was all taken aback, for a priest cut at me in front, and the Army
behind began firing into the Bashkai men.

“’God A’mighty!’ says Dan, ‘what is the meaning o’ this?’

“’Come back! Come away!’ says Billy Fish. ‘Ruin and Mutiny is the matter.
We’ll break for Bashkai if we can.’

“I tried to give some sort of orders to my men,—the men o’ the
regular Army,—but it was no use, so I fired into the brown of ’em
with an English Martini and drilled three beggars in a line. The valley
was full of shouting, howling creatures, and every soul was shrieking,
‘Not a God nor a Devil, but only a man!’ The Bashkai troops stuck to Billy
Fish all they were worth, but their matchlocks wasn’t half as good as the
Kabul breech-loaders, and four of them dropped. Dan was bellowing like a
bull, for he was very wrathy; and Billy Fish had a hard job to prevent him
running out at the crowd.

“’We can’t stand,’ says Billy Fish. ‘Make a run for it down the valley!
The whole place is against us.’ The matchlock-men ran, and we went down
the valley in spite of Dravot. He was swearing horrible and crying out
that he was a King. The priests rolled great stones on us, and the regular
Army fired hard, and there wasn’t more than six men, not counting Dan,
Billy Fish, and Me, that came down to the bottom of the valley alive.

“Then they stopped firing, and the horns in the temple blew again.

“’Come away—for Gord’s sake come away!’ says Billy Fish. ‘They’ll
send runners out to all the villages before ever we get to Bashkai. I can
protect you there, but I can’t do anything now.”

“My own notion is that Dan began to go mad in his head from that hour. He
stared up and down like a stuck pig. Then he was all for walking back
alone and killing the priests with his bare hands; which he could have
done. ‘An Emperor am I,’ says Daniel, ‘and next year I shall be a Knight
of the Queen.’

“’All right, Dan,’ says I; ‘but come along now while there’s time.’

“’It’s your fault,’ says he, ‘for not looking after your Army better.
There was mutiny in the midst, and you didn’t know—you damned
engine-driving, plate-laying, missionary’s-pass-hunting hound!’ He sat
upon a rock and called me every foul name he could lay tongue to. I was
too heart-sick to care, though it was all his foolishness that brought the
smash.

“’I’m sorry, Dan,’ says I, ‘but there’s no accounting for natives. This
business is our Fifty-seven. Maybe we’ll make something out of it yet,
when we’ve got to Bashkai.’

“’Let’s get to Bashkai, then,’ says Dan, ‘and, by God, when I come back
here again I’ll sweep the valley so there isn’t a bug in a blanket left!’

“We walked all that day, and all that night Dan was stumping up and down
on the snow, chewing his beard and muttering to himself.

“’There’s no hope o’ getting clear,’ said Billy Fish. ‘The priests have
sent runners to the villages to say that you are only men. Why didn’t you
stick on as Gods till things was more settled? I’m a dead man,’ says Billy
Fish, and he throws himself down on the snow and begins to pray to his
Gods.

“Next morning we was in a cruel bad country—all up and down, no
level ground at all, and no food, either. The six Bashkai men looked at
Billy Fish hungry-way as if they wanted to ask something, but they never
said a word. At noon we came to the top of a flat mountain all covered
with snow, and when we climbed up into it, behold, there was an Army in
position waiting in the middle!

“’The runners have been very quick,’ says Billy Fish, with a little bit of
a laugh. ‘They are waiting for us.’

“Three or four men began to fire from the enemy’s side, and a chance shot
took Daniel in the calf of the leg. That brought him to his senses. He
looks across the snow at the Army, and sees the rifles that we had brought
into the country.

“’We’re done for,’ says he. ‘They are Englishmen, these people,—and
it’s my blasted nonsense that has brought you to this. Get back, Billy
Fish, and take your men away; you’ve done what you could, and now cut for
it. Carnehan,’ says he, ‘shake hands with me and go along with Billy,
Maybe they won’t kill you. I’ll go and meet ’em alone. It’s me that did
it! Me, the King!’

“’Go!’ says I. ‘Go to Hell, Dan! I’m with you here. Billy Fish, you clear
out, and we two will meet those folk.’

“’I’m a Chief,’ says Billy Fish, quite quiet. ‘I stay with you. My men can
go.’

“The Bashkai fellows didn’t wait for a second word, but ran off, and Dan
and Me and Billy Fish walked across to where the drums were drumming and
the horns were horning. It was cold—awful cold. I’ve got that cold
in the back of my head now. There’s a lump of it there.”

The punka-coolies had gone to sleep. Two kerosene lamps were blazing in
the office, and the perspiration poured down my face and splashed on the
blotter as I leaned forward. Carnehan was shivering, and I feared that his
mind might go. I wiped my face, took a fresh grip of the piteously mangled
hands, and said, “What happened after that?”

The momentary shift of my eyes had broken the clear current.

“What was you pleased to say?” whined Carnehan. “They took them without
any sound. Not a little whisper all along the snow, not though the King
knocked down the first man that set hand on him—not though old
Peachey fired his last cartridge into the brown of ’em. Not a single
solitary sound did those swines make. They just closed up tight, and I
tell you their furs stunk. There was a man called Billy Fish, a good
friend of us all, and they cut his throat, Sir, then and there, like a
pig; and the King kicks up the bloody snow and says, ‘We’ve had a dashed
fine run for our money. What’s coming next?’ But Peachey, Peachey
Taliaferro, I tell you, Sir, in confidence as betwixt two friends, he lost
his head, Sir. No, he didn’t, neither. The King lost his head, so he did,
all along o’ one of those cunning rope bridges. Kindly let me have the
paper-cutter, Sir. It tilted this way. They marched him a mile across that
snow to a rope bridge over a ravine with a river at the bottom. You may
have seen such. They prodded him behind like an ox. ‘Damn your eyes!’ says
the King. ‘D’ you suppose I can’t die like a gentleman?’

“He turns to Peachey—Peachey that was crying like a child. ‘I’ve
brought you to this, Peachey,’ says he. ‘Brought you out of your happy
life to be killed in Kafiristan, where you was late Commander-in-Chief of
the Emperor’s forces. Say you forgive me, Peachey.’ ‘I do,’ says Peachey.
‘Fully and freely do I forgive you, Dan.’ ‘Shake hands, Peachey,’ says he.
‘I’m going now.’ Out he goes, looking neither right nor left, and when he
was plumb in the middle of those dizzy dancing ropes, ‘Cut you beggars,’
he shouts; and they cut, and old Dan fell, turning round and round and
round, twenty thousand miles, for he took half an hour to fall till he
struck the water, and I could see his body caught on a rock with the gold
crown close beside.

“But do you know what they did to Peachey between two pine trees? They
crucified him, Sir, as Peachey’s hand will show. They used wooden pegs for
his hands and feet; but he didn’t die. He hung there and screamed, and
they took him down next day, and said it was a miracle that he wasn’t
dead. They took him down—poor old Peachey that hadn’t done them any
harm—that hadn’t done them any—”

He rocked to and fro and wept bitterly, wiping his eyes with the back of
his scarred hands and moaning like a child for some ten minutes.

“They was cruel enough to feed him up in the temple, because they said he
was more of a God than old Daniel that was a man. Then they turned him out
on the snow, and told him to go home, and Peachey came home in about a
year, begging along the roads quite safe; for Daniel Dravot he walked
before and said, ‘Come along, Peachey. It’s a big thing we’re doing.’ The
mountains they danced at night, and the mountains they tried to fall on
Peachey’s head, but Dan he held up his hand, and Peachey came along bent
double. He never let go of Dan’s hand, and he never let go of Dan’s head.
They gave it to him as a present in the temple, to remind him not to come
again; and though the crown was pure gold and Peachey was starving, never
would Peachey sell the same. You know Dravot, Sir! You knew Right
Worshipful Brother Dravot! Look at him now!”

He fumbled in the mass of rags round his bent waist; brought out a black
horsehair bag embroidered with silver thread; and shook therefrom on to my
table—the dried, withered head of Daniel Dravot! The morning sun,
that had long been paling the lamps, struck the red beard and blind sunken
eyes; struck, too, a heavy circlet of gold studded with raw turquoises,
that Carnehan placed tenderly on the battered temples.

“You be’old now,” said Carnehan, “the Emperor in his ‘abit as he lived—the
King of Kafiristan with his crown upon his head. Poor old Daniel that was
a monarch once!”

I shuddered, for, in spite of defacements manifold, I recognised the head
of the man of Marwar Junction. Carnehan rose to go. I attempted to stop
him. He was not fit to walk abroad. “Let me take away the whisky, and give
me a little money,” he gasped. “I was a King once. I’ll go to the Deputy
Commissioner and ask to set in the Poorhouse till I get my health. No,
thank you, I can’t wait till you get a carriage for me. I’ve urgent
private affairs—in the south—at Marwar.”

He shambled out of the office and departed in the direction of the Deputy
Commissioner’s house. That day at noon I had occasion to go down the
blinding-hot Mall, and I saw a crooked man crawling along the white dust
of the roadside, his hat in his hand, quavering dolorously after the
fashion of street-singers at Home. There was not a soul in sight, and he
was out of all possible earshot of the houses. And he sang through his
nose, turning his head from right to left:

I waited to hear no more, but put the poor wretch into my carriage and
drove him off to the nearest missionary for eventual transfer to the
Asylum. He repeated the hymn twice while he was with me, whom he did not
in the least recognise, and I left him singing it to the missionary.

Two days later I inquired after his welfare of the Superintendent of the
Asylum.

“He was admitted suffering from sunstroke. He died early yesterday
morning,” said the Superintendent. “Is it true that he was half an hour
bareheaded in the sun at midday?”

“Yes,” said I; “but do you happen to know if he had anything upon him by
any chance when he died?”

“Not to my knowledge,” said the Superintendent.

And there the matter rests.

“THE FINEST STORY IN THE WORLD”

His name was Charlie Mears; he was the only son of his mother who was a
widow, and he lived in the north of London, coming into the City every day
to work in a bank. He was twenty years old and suffered from aspirations.
I met him in a public billiard-saloon where the marker called him by his
given name, and he called the marker “Bulls-eyes.” Charley explained, a
little nervously, that he had only come to the place to look on, and since
looking on at games of skill is not a cheap amusement for the young, I
suggested that Charlie should go back to his mother.

That was our first step toward better acquaintance. He would call on me
sometimes in the evenings instead of running about London with his
fellow-clerks; and before long, speaking of himself as a young man must,
he told me of his aspirations, which were all literary. He desired to make
himself an undying name chiefly through verse, though he was not above
sending stories of love and death to the drop-a-penny-in-the-slot
journals. It was my fate to sit still while Charlie read me poems of many
hundred lines, and bulky fragments of plays that would surely shake the
world. My reward was his unreserved confidence, and the self-revelations
and troubles of a young man are almost as holy as those of a maiden.

Charlie had never fallen in love, but was anxious to do so on the first
opportunity; he believed in all things good and all things honorable, but,
at the same time, was curiously careful to let me see that he knew his way
about the world as befitted a bank clerk on twenty-five shillings a week.
He rhymed “dove” with “love” and “moon” with “June,” and devoutly believed
that they had never so been rhymed before. The long lame gaps in his plays
he filled up with hasty words of apology and description and swept on,
seeing all that he intended to do so clearly that he esteemed it already
done, and turned to me for applause.

I fancy that his mother did not encourage his aspirations, and I know that
his writing-table at home was the edge of his washstand. This he told me
almost at the outset of our acquaintance; when he was ravaging my
bookshelves, and a little before I was implored to speak the truth as to
his chances of “writing something really great, you know.” Maybe I
encouraged him too much, for, one night, he called on me, his eyes flaming
with excitement, and said breathlessly:

“Do you mind—can you let me stay here and write all this evening? I
won’t interrupt you, I won’t really. There’s no place for me to write in
at my mother’s.”

“What’s the trouble?” I said, knowing well what that trouble was.

“I’ve a notion in my head that would make the most splendid story that was
ever written. Do let me write it out here. It’s such a notion!”

There was no resisting the appeal. I set him a table; he hardly thanked
me, but plunged into the work at once. For half an hour the pen scratched
without stopping. Then Charlie sighed and tugged his hair. The scratching
grew slower, there were more erasures, and at last ceased. The finest
story in the world would not come forth.

“It looks such awful rot now” he said, mournfully. “And yet it seemed so
good when I was thinking about it. What’s wrong?”

I could not dishearten him by saying the truth. So I answered: “Perhaps
you don’t feel in the mood for writing.”

“Yes I do—except when I look at this stuff. Ugh!”

“Read me what you’ve done,” I said. He read, and it was wondrous bad and
he paused at all the specially turgid sentences, expecting a little
approval; for he was proud of those sentences, as I knew he would be.

“It needs compression,” I suggested, cautiously.

“I hate cutting my things down. I don’t think you could alter a word here
without spoiling the sense. It reads better aloud than when I was writing
it.”

“Charlie, you’re suffering from an alarming disease afflicting a numerous
class. Put the thing by, and tackle it again in a week.”

“I want to do it at once. What do you think of it?”

“How can I judge from a half-written tale? Tell me the story as it lies in
your head.”

Charlie told, and in the telling there was everything that his ignorance
had so carefully prevented from escaping into the written word. I looked
at him, and wondering whether it were possible, that he did not know the
originality, the power of the notion that had come in his way? It was
distinctly a Notion among notions. Men had been puffed up with pride by
notions not a tithe as excellent and practicable. But Charlie babbled on
serenely, interrupting the current of pure fancy with samples of horrible
sentences that he purposed to use. I heard him out to the end. It would be
folly to allow his idea to remain in his own inept hands, when I could do
so much with it. Not all that could be done indeed; but, oh so much!

“What do you think?” he said, at last. “I fancy I shall call it ‘The Story
of a Ship.’”

“I think the idea’s pretty good; but you won’t Be able to handle it for
ever so long. Now I—”

“Would it be of any use to you? Would you care to take it? I should be
proud,” said Charlie, promptly.

There are few things sweeter in this world than the guileless, hot-headed,
intemperate, open admiration of a junior. Even a woman in her blindest
devotion does not fall into the gait of the man she adores, tilt her
bonnet to the angle at which he wears his hat, or interlard her speech
with his pet oaths. And Charlie did all these things. Still it was
necessary to salve my conscience before I possessed myself of Charlie’s
thoughts.

“Let’s make a bargain. I’ll give you a fiver for the notion,” I said.

Charlie became a bank-clerk at once.

“Oh, that’s impossible. Between two pals, you know, if I may call you so,
and speaking as a man of the world, I couldn’t. Take the notion if it’s
any use to you. I’ve heaps more.”

He had—none knew this better than I—but they were the notions
of other men.

“Look at it as a matter of business—between men of the world,” I
returned. “Five pounds will buy you any number of poetry-books. Business
is business, and you may be sure I shouldn’t give that price unless—”

“Oh, if you put it that way,” said Charlie, visibly moved by the thought
of the books. The bargain was clinched with an agreement that he should at
unstated intervals come to me with all the notions that he possessed,
should have a table of his own to write at, and unquestioned right to
inflict upon me all his poems and fragments of poems. Then I said, “Now
tell me how you came by this idea.”

“It came by itself.” Charlie’s eyes opened a little.

“Yes, but you told me a great deal about the hero that you must have read
before somewhere.”

“I haven’t any time for reading, except when you let me sit here, and on
Sundays I’m on my bicycle or down the river all day. There’s nothing wrong
about the hero, is there?”

“Tell me again and I shall understand clearly. You say that your hero went
pirating. How did he live?”

“He was on the lower deck of this ship-thing that I was telling you
about.”

“What sort of ship?”

“It was the kind rowed with oars, and the sea spurts through the oar-holes
and the men row sitting up to their knees in water. Then there’s a bench
running down between the two lines of oars and an overseer with a whip
walks up and down the bench to make the men work.”

“How do you know that?”

“It’s in the table. There’s a rope running overhead, looped to the upper
deck, for the overseer to catch hold of when the ship rolls. When the
overseer misses the rope once and falls among the rowers, remember the
hero laughs at him and gets licked for it. He’s chained to his oar of
course—the hero.”

“How is he chained?”

“With an iron band round his waist fixed to the bench he sits on, and a
sort of handcuff on his left wrist chaining him to the oar. He’s on the
lower deck where the worst men are sent, and the only light comes from the
hatchways and through the oar-holes. Can’t you imagine the sunlight just
squeezing through between the handle and the hole and wobbling about as
the ship moves?”

“I can, but I can’t imagine your imagining it.”

“How could it be any other way? Now you listen to me. The long oars on the
upper deck are managed by four men to each bench, the lower ones by three,
and the lowest of all by two. Remember it’s quite dark on the lowest deck
and all the men there go mad. When a man dies at his oar on that deck he
isn’t thrown overboard, but cut up in his chains and stuffed through the
oar-hole in little pieces.”

“Why?” I demanded, amazed, not so much at the information as the tone of
command in which it was flung out.

“To save trouble and to frighten the others. It needs two overseers to
drag a man’s body up to the top deck; and if the men at the lower deck
oars were left alone, of course they’d stop rowing and try to pull up the
benches by all standing up together in their chains.”

“You’ve a most provident imagination. Where have you been reading about
galleys and galley-slaves?”

“Nowhere that I remember. I row a little when I get the chance. But,
perhaps, if you say so, I may have read something.”

He went away shortly afterward to deal with booksellers, and I wondered
how a bank clerk aged twenty could put into my hands with a profligate
abundance of detail, all given with absolute assurance, the story of
extravagant and bloodthirsty adventure, riot, piracy, and death in unnamed
seas. He had led his hero a desperate dance through revolt against the
overseas, to command of a ship of his own, and ultimate establishment of a
kingdom on an island “somewhere in the sea, you know”; and, delighted with
my paltry five pounds, had gone out to buy the notions of other men, that
these might teach him how to write. I had the consolation of knowing that
this notion was mine by right of purchase, and I thought that I could make
something of it.

When next he came to me he was drunk—royally drunk on many poets for
the first time revealed to him. His pupils were dilated, his words tumbled
over each other, and he wrapped himself in quotations. Most of all was he
drunk with Longfellow.

“Isn’t it splendid? Isn’t it superb?” he cried, after hasty greetings.

“Listen to this—

“’Wouldst thou,’ so the helmsman answered, ‘Know the secret of the sea?
Only those who brave its dangers Comprehend its mystery.’

“By gum!

“’Only those who brave its dangers Comprehend its mystery.’” he repeated
twenty times, walking up and down the room and forgetting me. “But I can
understand it too,” he said to himself. “I don’t know how to thank you for
that fiver. And this; listen—

“’I remember the black wharves and the ships And the sea-tides tossing
free, And the Spanish sailors with bearded lips, And the beauty and
mystery of the ships, And the magic of the sea.’

“I haven’t braved any dangers, but I feel as if I knew all about it.”

“You certainly seem to have a grip of the sea. Have you ever seen it?”

“When I was a little chap I went to Brighton once; we used to live in
Coventry, though, before we came to London. I never saw it.

“’When descends on the Atlantic The gigantic Storm-wind of the Equinox.’”

He shook me by the shoulder to make me understand the passion that was
shaking himself.

“When that storm comes,” he continued, “I think that all the oars in the
ship that I was talking about get broken, and the rowers have their chests
smashed in by the bucking oar-heads. By the way, have you done anything
with that notion of mine yet?”

“No. I was waiting to hear more of it from you. Tell me how in the world
you’re so certain about the fittings of the ship. You know nothing of
ships.”

“I don’t know. It’s as real as anything to me until I try to write it
down. I was thinking about it only last night in bed, after you had loaned
me ‘Treasure Island’; and I made up a whole lot of new things to go into
the story.”

“What sort of things?”

“About the food the men ate; rotten figs and black beans and wine in a
skin bag, passed from bench to bench.”

“Was the ship built so long ago as that?”

“As what? I don’t know whether it was long ago or not. It’s only a notion,
but sometimes it seems just as real as if it was true. Do I bother you
with talking about it?”

“Not in the least. Did you make up anything else?”

“Yes, but it’s nonsense.” Charlie flushed a little.

“Never mind; let’s hear about it.”

“Well, I was thinking over the story, and after awhile I got out of bed
and wrote down on a piece of paper the sort of stuff the men might be
supposed to scratch on their oars with the edges of their handcuffs. It
seemed to make the thing more lifelike. It is so real to me, y’know.”

“Have you the paper on you?”

“Ye-es, but what’s the use of showing it? It’s only a lot of scratches.
All the same, we might have ’em reproduced in the book on the front page.”

“I’ll attend to those details. Show me what your men wrote.”

He pulled out of his pocket a sheet of note-paper, with a single line of
scratches upon it, and I put this carefully away.

“What is it supposed to mean in English?” I said.

“Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps it means ‘I’m beastly tired.’ It’s great
nonsense,” he repeated, “but all those men in the ship seem as real people
to me. Do do something to the notion soon; I should like to see it written
and printed.”

“But all you’ve told me would make a long book.”

“Make it then. You’ve only to sit down and write it out.”

“Give me a little time. Have you any more notions?”

“Not just now. I’m reading all the books I’ve bought. They’re splendid.”

When he had left I looked at the sheet of note-paper with the inscription
upon it. Then I took my head tenderly between both hands, to make certain
that it was not coming off or turning round.

Then—but there seemed to be no interval between quitting my rooms
and finding myself arguing with a policeman outside a door marked Private
in a corridor of the British Museum. All I demanded, as politely as
possible, was “the Greek antiquity man.” The policeman knew nothing except
the rules of the Museum, and it became necessary to forage through all the
houses and offices inside the gates. An elderly gentleman called away from
his lunch put an end to my search by holding the note-paper between finger
and thumb and sniffing at it scornfully.

“What does this mean? H’mm,” said he. “So far as I can ascertain it is an
attempt to write extremely corrupt Greek on the part”—here he glared
at me with intention—“of an extremely illiterate—ah—person.”
He read slowly from the paper, “Pollock, Erckman, Tauchnitz, Henniker”—four
names familiar to me.

“Can you tell me what the corruption is supposed to mean—the gist of
the thing?” I asked.

“’I have been—many times—overcome with weariness in this
particular employment. That is the meaning.’” He returned me the paper,
and I fled without a word of thanks, explanation, or apology.

I might have been excused for forgetting much. To me of all men had been
given the chance to write the most marvelous tale in the world, nothing
less than the story of a Greek galley-slave, as told by himself. Small
wonder that his dreaming had seemed real to Charlie. The Fates that are so
careful to shut the doors of each successive life behind us had, in this
case, been neglectful, and Charlie was looking, though that he did not
know, where never man had been permitted to look with full knowledge since
Time began. Above all he was absolutely ignorant of the knowledge sold to
me for five pounds; and he would retain that ignorance, for bank-clerks do
not understand metempsychosis, and a sound commercial education does not
include Greek. He would supply me—here I capered among the dumb gods
of Egypt and laughed in their battered faces—with material to make
my tale sure—so sure that the world would hail it as an impudent and
vamped fiction. And I—I alone would know that it was absolutely and
literally true. I alone held this jewel to my hand for the cutting and
polishing.

Therefore I danced again among the gods till a policeman saw me and took
steps in my direction.

It remained now only to encourage Charlie to talk, and here there was no
difficulty. But I had forgotten those accursed books of poetry. He came to
me time after time, as useless as a surcharged phonograph—drunk on
Byron, Shelley, or Keats. Knowing now what the boy had been in his past
lives, and desperately anxious not to lose one word of his babble, I could
not hide from him my respect and interest. He misconstrued both into
respect for the present soul of Charlie Mears, to whom life was as new as
it was to Adam, and interest in his readings; and stretched my patience to
breaking point by reciting poetry—not his own now, but that of
others. I wished every English poet blotted out of the memory of mankind.
I blasphemed the mightiest names of song because they had drawn Charlie
from the path of direct narrative, and would, later, spur him to imitate
them; but I choked down my impatience until the first flood of enthusiasm
should have spent itself and the boy returned to his dreams.

“What’s the use of my telling you what I think, when these chaps wrote
things for the angels to read?” he growled, one evening. “Why don’t you
write something like theirs?”

“I don’t think you’re treating me quite fairly,” I said, speaking under
strong restraint.

“I’ve given you the story,” he said, shortly replunging into “Lara.”

“But I want the details.”

“The things I make up about that damned ship that you call a galley?
They’re quite easy. You can just make ’em up yourself. Turn up the gas a
little, I want to go on reading.”

I could have broken the gas globe over his head for his amazing stupidity.
I could indeed make up things for myself did I only know what Charlie did
not know that he knew. But since the doors were shut behind me I could
only wait his youthful pleasure and strive to keep him in good temper. One
minute’s want of guard might spoil a priceless revelation: now and again
he would toss his books aside—he kept them in my rooms, for his
mother would have been shocked at the waste of good money had she seen
them—and launched into his sea dreams. Again I cursed all the poets
of England. The plastic mind of the bank-clerk had been overlaid, colored
and distorted by that which he had read, and the result as delivered was a
confused tangle of other voices most like the muttered song through a City
telephone in the busiest part of the day.

He talked of the galley—his own galley had he but known it—with
illustrations borrowed from the “Bride of Abydos.” He pointed the
experiences of his hero with quotations from “The Corsair,” and threw in
deep and desperate moral reflections from “Cain” and “Manfred,” expecting
me to use them all. Only when the talk turned on Longfellow were the
jarring cross-currents dumb, and I knew that Charlie was speaking the
truth as he remembered it.

“What do you think of this?” I said one evening, as soon as I understood
the medium in which his memory worked best, and, before he could
expostulate read him the whole of “The Saga of King Olaf!”

He listened open-mouthed, flushed his hands drumming on the back of the
sofa where he lay, till I came to the Songs of Emar Tamberskelver and the
verse:

“Emar then, the arrow taking From the loosened string, Answered: ‘That was
Norway breaking ‘Neath thy hand, O King.’”

He gasped with pure delight of sound.

“That’s better than Byron, a little,” I ventured.

“Better? Why it’s true! How could he have known?”

I went back and repeated:

“How could he have known how the ships crash and the oars rip out and go
z-zzp all along the line? Why only the other night—But go back
please and read ‘The Skerry of Shrieks’ again.”

“No, I’m tired. Let’s talk. What happened the other night?”

“I had an awful nightmare about that galley of ours. I dreamed I was
drowned in a fight. You see we ran alongside another ship in harbor. The
water was dead still except where our oars whipped it up. You know where I
always sit in the galley?” He spoke haltingly at first, under a fine
English fear of being laughed at.

“No. That’s news to me,” I answered, meekly, my heart beginning to beat.

“On the fourth oar from the bow on the right side on the upper deck. There
were four of us at the oar, all chained. I remember watching the water and
trying to get my handcuffs off before the row began. Then we closed up on
the other ship, and all their fighting men jumped over our bulwarks, and
my bench broke and I was pinned down with the three other fellows on top
of me, and the big oar jammed across our backs.”

“Well?” Charlie’s eyes were alive and alight. He was looking at the wall
behind my chair.

“I don’t know how we fought. The men were trampling all over my back, and
I lay low. Then our rowers on the left side—tied to their oars, you
know—began to yell and back water. I could hear the water sizzle,
and we spun round like a cockchafer and I knew, lying where I was, that
there was a galley coming up bow-on, to ram us on the left side. I could
just lift up my head and see her sail over the bulwarks. We wanted to meet
her bow to bow, but it was too late. We could only turn a little bit
because the galley on our right had hooked herself on to us and stopped
our moving. Then, by gum! there was a crash! Our left oars began to break
as the other galley, the moving one y’know, stuck her nose into them. Then
the lower-deck oars shot up through the deck-planking, butt first, and one
of them jumped clean up into the air and came down again close to my
head.”

“How was that managed?”

“The moving galley’s bow was plunking them back through their own
oarholes, and I could hear the devil of a shindy in the decks below. Then
her nose caught us nearly in the middle, and we tilted sideways, and the
fellows in the right-hand galley unhitched their hooks and ropes, and
threw things on to our upper deck—arrows, and hot pitch or something
that stung, and we went up and up and up on the left side, and the right
side dipped, and I twisted my head round and saw the water stand still as
it topped the right bulwarks, and then it curled over and crashed down on
the whole lot of us on the right side, and I felt it hit my back, and I
woke.”

“One minute, Charlie. When the sea topped the bulwarks, what did it look
like?” I had my reasons for asking. A man of my acquaintance had once gone
down with a leaking ship in a still sea, and had seen the water-level
pause for an instant ere it fell on the deck.

“It looked just like a banjo-string drawn tight, and it seemed to stay
there for years,” said Charlie.

Exactly! The other man had said: “It looked like a silver wire laid down
along the bulwarks, and I thought it was never going to break.” He had
paid everything except the bare life for this little valueless piece of
knowledge, and I had traveled ten thousand weary miles to meet him and
take his knowledge at second hand. But Charlie, the bank-clerk, on
twenty-five shillings a week, he who had never been out of sight of a
London omnibus, knew it all. It was no consolation to me that once in his
lives he had been forced to die for his gains. I also must have died
scores of times, but behind me, because I could have used my knowledge,
the doors were shut.

“And then?” I said, trying to put away the devil of envy.

“The funny thing was, though, in all the mess I didn’t feel a bit
astonished or frightened. It seemed as if I’d been in a good many fights,
because I told my next man so when the row began. But that cad of an
overseer on my deck wouldn’t unloose our chains and give us a chance. He
always said that we’d all Be set free after a battle, but we never were;
We never were.” Charlie shook his head mournfully.

“What a scoundrel!”

“I should say he was. He never gave us enough to eat, and sometimes we
were so thirsty that we used to drink salt-water. I can taste that
salt-water still.”

“Now tell me something about the harbor where the fight was fought.”

“I didn’t dream about that. I know it was a harbor, though; because we
were tied up to a ring on a white wall and all the face of the stone under
water was covered with wood to prevent our ram getting chipped when the
tide made us rock.”

“That’s curious. Our hero commanded the galley? Didn’t he?”

“Didn’t he just! He stood by the bows and shouted like a good ‘un. He was
the man who killed the overseer.”

“But you were all drowned together, Charlie, weren’t you?”

“I can’t make that fit quite,” he said with a puzzled look. “The galley
must have gone down with all hands and yet I fancy that the hero went on
living afterward. Perhaps he climbed into the attacking ship. I wouldn’t
see that, of course. I was dead, you know.”

He shivered slightly and protested that he could remember no more.

I did not press him further, but to satisfy myself that he lay in
ignorance of the workings of his own mind, deliberately introduced him to
Mortimer Collins’s “Transmigration,” and gave him a sketch of the plot
before he opened the pages.

“What rot it all is!” he said, frankly, at the end of an hour. “I don’t
understand his nonsense about the Red Planet Mars and the King, and the
rest of it. Chuck me the Longfellow again.”

I handed him the book and wrote out as much as I could remember of his
description of the sea-fight, appealing to him from time to time for
confirmation of fact or detail. He would answer without raising his eyes
from the book, as assuredly as though all his knowledge lay before flint
on the printed page. I spoke under the normal key of my voice that the
current might not be broken, and I know that he was not aware of what he
was saying, for his thoughts were out on the sea with Longfellow.

“Charlie,” I asked, “when the rowers on the galleys mutinied how did they
kill their overseers?”

“Tore up the benches and brained ’em. That happened when a heavy sea was
running. An overseer on the lower deck slipped from the centre plank and
fell among the rowers. They choked him to death against the side of the
ship with their chained hands quite quietly, and it was too dark for the
other overseer to see what had happened. When he asked, he was pulled down
too and choked, and the lower deck fought their way up deck by deck, with
the pieces of the broken benches banging behind ’em. How they howled!”

“And what happened after that?”

“I don’t know. The hero went away—red hair and red beard and all.
That was after he had captured our galley, I think.”

The sound of my voice irritated him, and he motioned slightly with his
left hand as a man does when interruption jars.

“You never told me he was redheaded before, or that he captured your
galley,” I said, after a discreet interval.

Charlie did not raise his eyes.

“He was as red as a red bear,” said he, abstractedly. “He came from the
north; they said so in the galley when he looked for rowers—not
slaves, but free men. Afterward—years and years afterward—news
came from another ship, or else he came back”—His lips moved in
silence. He was rapturously retasting some poem before him.

“Where had he been, then?” I was almost whispering that the sentence might
come gentle to whichever section of Charlie’s brain was working on my
behalf.

“To the Beaches—the Long and Wonderful Beaches!” was the reply,
after a minute of silence.

“To Furdurstrandi?” I asked, tingling from head to foot.

“Yes, to Furdurstrandi,” he pronounced the word in a new fashion “And I
too saw”—The voice failed.

“Do you know what you have said?” I shouted, incautiously.

He lifted his eyes, fully roused now. “No!” he snapped. “I wish you’d let
a chap go on reading. Hark to this:

“’But Othere, the old sea captain, He neither paused nor stirred Till the
king listened, and then

“By Jove, what chaps those must have been, to go sailing all over the shop
never knowing where they’d fetch the land! Hah!”

“Charlie,” I pleaded, “if you’ll only be sensible for a minute or two I’ll
make our hero in our tale every inch as good as Othere.”

“Umph! Longfellow wrote that poem. I don’t care about writing things any
more. I want to read.” He was thoroughly out of tune now, and raging over
my own ill-luck, I left him.

Conceive yourself at the door of the world’s treasure-house guarded by a
child—an idle irresponsible child playing knuckle-bones—on
whose favor depends the gift of the key, and you will imagine one-half my
torment. Till that evening Charlie had spoken nothing that might not lie
within the experiences of a Greek galley-slave. But now, or there was no
virtue in books, he had talked of some desperate adventure of the Vikings,
of Thorfin Karlsefne’s sailing to Wineland, which is America, in the ninth
or tenth century. The battle in the harbor he had seen; and his own death
he had described. But this was a much more startling plunge into the past.
Was it possible that he had skipped half a dozen lives and was then dimly
remembering some episode of a thousand years later? It was a maddening
jumble, and the worst of it was that Charlie Mears in his normal condition
was the last person in the world to clear it up. I could only wait and
watch, but I went to bed that night full of the wildest imaginings. There
was nothing that was not possible if Charlie’s detestable memory only held
good.

I might rewrite the Saga of Thorfin Karlsefne as it had never been written
before, might tell the story of the first discovery of America, myself the
discoverer. But I was entirely at Charlie’s mercy, and so long as there
was a three-and-six-penny Bohn volume within his reach Charlie would not
tell. I dared not curse him openly; I hardly dared jog his memory, for I
was dealing with the experiences of a thousand years ago, told through the
mouth of a boy of today; and a boy of today is affected by every change of
tone and gust of opinion, so that he lies even when he desires to speak
the truth.

I saw no more of him for nearly a week. When next I met him it was in
Gracechurch Street with a billbook chained to his waist.

Business took him over London Bridge and I accompanied him. He was very
full of the importance of that book and magnified it.

As we passed over the Thames we paused to look at a steamer unloading
great slabs of white and brown marble. A barge drifted under the steamer’s
stern and a lonely cow in that barge bellowed.

Charlie’s face changed from the face of the bank-clerk to that of an
unknown and—though he would not have believed this—a much
shrewder man. He flung out his arm across the parapet of the bridge, and
laughing very loudly, said: “When they heard our bulls bellow the
Skroelings ran away!”

I waited only for an instant, but the barge and the cow had disappeared
under the bows of the steamer before I answered.

“Charlie, what do you suppose are Skroelings?”

“Never heard of ’em before. They sound like a new kind of seagull. What a
chap you are for asking questions!” he replied. “I have to go to the
cashier of the Omnibus Company yonder. Will you wait for me and we can
lunch somewhere together? I’ve a notion for a poem.”

“No, thanks. I’m off. You’re sure you know nothing about Skroelings?”

“Not unless he’s been entered for the Liverpool Handicap.” He nodded and
disappeared in the crowd.

Now it is written in the Saga of Eric the Red or that of Thorfin
Karlsefne, that nine hundred years ago when Karlsefne’s galleys came to
Leif’s booths, which Leif had erected in the unknown land called Markland,
which may or may not have been Rhode Island, the Skroelings—and the
Lord He knows who these may or may not have been—came to trade with
the Vikings, and ran away because they were frightened at the bellowing of
the cattle which Thorfin had brought with him in the ships. But what in
the world could a Greek slave know of that affair? I wandered up and down
among the streets trying to unravel the mystery, and the more I considered
it, the more baffling it grew. One thing only seemed certain and that
certainty took away my breath for the moment. If I came to full knowledge
of anything at all, it would not be one life of the soul in Charlie
Mears’s body, but half a dozen—half a dozen several and separate
existences spent on blue water in the morning of the world!

Then I walked round the situation.

Obviously if I used my knowledge I should stand alone and unapproachable
until all men were as wise as myself. That would be something, but manlike
I was ungrateful. It seemed bitterly unfair that Charlie’s memory should
fail me when I needed it most.

Great Powers above—I looked up at them through the fog smoke—did
the Lords of Life and Death know what this meant to me? Nothing less than
eternal fame of the best kind; that comes from One, and is shared by one
alone. I would be content—remembering Clive, I stood astounded at my
own moderation,—with the mere right to tell one story, to work out
one little contribution to the light literature of the day. If Charlie
were permitted full recollection for one hour—for sixty short
minutes—of existences that had extended over a thousand years—I
would forego all profit and honor from all that I should make of his
speech. I would take no share in the commotion that would follow
throughout the particular corner of the earth that calls itself “the
world.” The thing should be put forth anonymously. Nay, I would make other
men believe that they had written it. They would hire bull-hided
self-advertising Englishmen to bellow it abroad. Preachers would found a
fresh conduct of life upon it, swearing that it was new and that they had
lifted the fear of death from all mankind. Every Orientalist in Europe
would patronize it discursively with Sanskrit and Pali texts. Terrible
women would invent unclean variants of the men’s belief for the elevation
of their sisters. Churches and religions would war over it. Between the
hailing and re-starting of an omnibus I foresaw the scuffles that would
arise among half a dozen denominations all professing “the doctrine of the
True Metempsychosis as applied to the world and the New Era”; and saw,
too, the respectable English newspapers shying, like frightened kine, over
the beautiful simplicity of the tale. The mind leaped forward a hundred—two
hundred—a thousand years. I saw with sorrow that men would mutilate
and garble the story; that rival creeds would turn it upside down till, at
last, the western world which clings to the dread of death more closely
than the hope of life, would set it aside as an interesting superstition
and stampede after some faith so long forgotten that it seemed altogether
new. Upon this I changed the terms of the bargain that I would make with
the Lords of Life and Death. Only let me know, let me write, the story
with sure knowledge that I wrote the truth, and I would burn the
manuscript as a solemn sacrifice. Five minutes after the last line was
written I would destroy it all. But I must be allowed to write it with
absolute certainty.

There was no answer. The flaming colors of an Aquarium poster caught my
eye and I wondered whether it would be wise or prudent to lure Charlie
into the hands of the professional mesmerist, and whether, if he were
under his power, he would speak of his past lives. If he did, and if
people believed him—but Charlie would be frightened and flustered,
or made conceited by the interviews. In either case he would begin to lie,
through fear or vanity. He was safest in my own hands.

“They are very funny fools, your English,” said a voice at my elbow, and
turning round I recognized a casual acquaintance, a young Bengali law
student, called Grish Chunder, whose father had sent him to England to
become civilized. The old man was a retired native official, and on an
income of five pounds a month contrived to allow his son two hundred
pounds a year, and the run of his teeth in a city where he could pretend
to be the cadet of a royal house, and tell stories of the brutal Indian
bureaucrats who ground the faces of the poor.

Grish Chunder was a young, fat, full-bodied Bengali dressed with
scrupulous care in frock coat, tall hat, light trousers and tan gloves.
But I had known him in the days when the brutal Indian Government paid for
his university education, and he contributed cheap sedition to Sachi
Durpan, and intrigued with the wives of his schoolmates.

“That is very funny and very foolish,” he said, nodding at the poster. “I
am going down to the Northbrook Club. Will you come too?”

I walked with him for some time. “You are not well,” he said. “What is
there in your mind? You do not talk.”

“Grish Chunder, you’ve been too well educated to believe in a God, haven’t
you?”

“Oah, yes, here! But when I go home I must conciliate popular
superstition, and make ceremonies of purification, and my women will
anoint idols.”

“And bang up tulsi and feast the purohit, and take you back into caste
again and make a good khuttri of you again, you advanced social
Free-thinker. And you’ll eat desi food, and like it all, from the smell in
the courtyard to the mustard oil over you.”

“I shall very much like it,” said Grish Chunder, unguardedly. “Once a
Hindu—always a Hindu. But I like to know what the English think they
know.”

“I’ll tell you something that one Englishman knows. It’s an old tale to
you.”

I began to tell the story of Charlie in English, but Grish Chunder put a
question in the vernacular, and the history went forward naturally in the
tongue best suited for its telling. After all it could never have been
told in English. Grish Chunder heard me, nodding from time to time, and
then came up to my rooms where I finished the tale.

“Beshak,” he said, philosophically. “Lekin darwaza band hai. (Without
doubt, but the door is shut.) I have heard of this remembering of previous
existences among my people. It is of course an old tale with us, but, to
happen to an Englishman—a cow-fed Malechk—an outcast. By Jove,
that is most peculiar!”

“Outcast yourself, Grish Chunder! You eat cow-beef every day. Let’s think
the thing over. The boy remembers his incarnations.”

“Does he know that?” said Grish Chunder, quietly, swinging his legs as he
sat on my table. He was speaking in English now.

“He does not know anything. Would I speak to you if he did? Go on!”

“There is no going on at all. If you tell that to your friends they will
say you are mad and put it in the papers. Suppose, now, you prosecute for
libel.”

“Let’s leave that out of the question entirely. Is there any chance of his
being made to speak?”

“There is a chance. Oah, yess! But if he spoke it would mean that all this
world would end now—instanto—fall down on your head. These
things are not allowed, you know. As I said, the door is shut.”

“Not a ghost of a chance?”

“How can there be? You are a Christian, and it is forbidden to eat, in
your books, of the Tree of Life, or else you would never die. How shall
you all fear death if you all know what your friend does not know that he
knows? I am afraid to be kicked, but I am not afraid to die, because I
know what I know. You are not afraid to be kicked, but you are afraid to
die. If you were not, by God! you English would be all over the shop in an
hour, upsetting the balances of power, and making commotions. It would not
be good. But no fear. He will remember a little and a little less, and he
will call it dreams. Then he will forget altogether. When I passed my
First Arts Examination in Calcutta that was all in the cram-book on
Wordsworth. Trailing clouds of glory, you know.”

“This seems to be an exception to the rule.”

“There are no exceptions to rules. Some are not so hard-looking as others,
but they are all the same when you touch. If this friend of yours said
so-and-so and so-and-so, indicating that he remembered all his lost lives,
or one piece of a lost life, he would not be in the bank another hour. He
would be what you called sack because he was mad, and they would send him
to an asylum for lunatics. You can see that, my friend.”

“Of course I can, but I wasn’t thinking of him. His name need never appear
in the story.”

“Ah! I see. That story will never be written. You can try.”

“I am going to.”

“For your own credit and for the sake of money, of course?”

“No. For the sake of writing the story. On my honor that will be all.”

“Even then there is no chance. You cannot play with the Gods. It is a very
pretty story now. As they say, Let it go on that—I mean at that. Be
quick; he will not last long.”

“How do you mean?”

“What I say. He has never, so far, thought about a woman.”

“Hasn’t he though!” I remembered some of Charlie’s confidences.

“I mean no woman has thought about him. When that comes; bushogya—all
up’ I know. There are millions of women here. Housemaids, for instance.”

I winced at the thought of my story being ruined by a housemaid.

And yet nothing was more probable.

Grish Chunder grinned.

“Yes—also pretty girls—cousins of his house, and perhaps not
of his house. One kiss that he gives back again and remembers will cure
all this nonsense or else”—

“Or else what? Remember he does not know that he knows.”

“I know that. Or else, if nothing happens he will become immersed in the
trade and the financial speculations like the rest. It must be so. You can
see that it must be so. But the woman will come first, I think.”

There was a rap at the door, and Charlie charged in impetuously. He had
been released from office, and by the look in his eyes I could see that he
had come over for a long talk; most probably with poems in his pockets.
Charlie’s poems were very wearying, but sometimes they led him to talk
about the galley.

Grish Chunder looked at him keenly for a minute.

“I beg your pardon,” Charlie said, uneasily; “I didn’t know you had any
one with you.”

“I am going,” said Grish Chunder.

He drew me into the lobby as he departed.

“That is your man,” he said, quickly. “I tell you he will never speak all
you wish. That is rot—bosh. But he would be most good to make to see
things. Suppose now we pretend that it was only play”—I had never
seen Grish Chunder so excited—“and pour the ink-pool into his hand.
Eh, what do you think? I tell you that he could see anything that a man
could see. Let me get the ink and the camphor. He is a seer and he will
tell us very many things.”

“He may be all you say, but I’m not going to trust him to your Gods and
devils.”

“It will not hurt him. He will only feel a little stupid and dull when he
wakes up. You have seen boys look into the ink-pool before.”

“That is the reason why I am not going to see it any more. You’d better
go, Grish Chunder.”

He went, declaring far down the staircase that it was throwing away my
only chance of looking into the future.

This left me unmoved, for I was concerned for the past, and no peering of
hypnotized boys into mirrors and ink-pools would help me do that. But I
recognized Grish Chunder’s point of view and sympathized with it.

“What a big black brute that was!” said Charlie, when I returned to him.
“Well, look here, I’ve just done a poem; dil it instead of playing
dominoes after lunch. May I read it?”

“Let me read it to myself.”

“Then you miss the proper expression. Besides, you always make my things
sound as if the rhymes were all wrong.”

“Read it aloud, then. You’re like the rest of ’em.”

Charlie mouthed me his poem, and it was not much worse than the average of
his verses. He had been reading his book faithfully, but he was not
pleased when I told him that I preferred my Longfellow undiluted with
Charlie.

Then we began to go through the MS. line by line; Charlie parrying every
objection and correction with: “Yes, that may be better, but you don’t
catch what I’m driving at.”

Charlie was, in one way at least, very like one kind of poet.

There was a pencil scrawl at the back of the paper and “What’s that?” I
said.

“Oh that’s not poetry ‘t all. It’s some rot I wrote last night before I
went to bed and it was too much bother to hunt for rhymes; so I made it a
sort of a blank verse instead.”

Here is Charlie’s “blank verse”:

“We pulled for you when the wind was against us and the sails were low.

“Will you never let us go?

“We ate bread and onions when you took towns or ran aboard quickly when
you were beaten back by the foe,

“The captains walked up and down the deck in fair weather singing songs,
but we were below,

“We fainted with our chins on the oars and you did not see that we were
idle for we still swung to and fro.

“Will you never let us go?

“The salt made the oar handles like sharkskin; our knees were cut to the
bone with salt cracks; our hair was stuck to our foreheads; and our lips
were cut to our gums and you whipped us because we could not row.

“Will you never let us go?

“But in a little time we shall run out of the portholes as the water runs
along the oarblade, and though you tell the others to row after us you
will never catch us till you catch the oar-thresh and tie up the winds in
the belly of the sail. Aho! “Will you never let us go?”

“H’m. What’s oar-thresh, Charlie?”

“The water washed up by the oars. That’s the sort of song they might sing
in the galley, y’know. Aren’t you ever going to finish that story and give
me some of the profits?”

“It depends on yourself. If you had only told me more about your hero in
the first instance it might have been finished by now. You’re so hazy in
your notions.”

“I only want to give you the general notion of it—the knocking about
from place to place and the fighting and all that. Can’t you fill in the
rest yourself? Make the hero save a girl on a pirate-galley and marry her
or do something.”

“You’re a really helpful collaborator. I suppose the hero went through
some few adventures before he married.”

“Well then, make him a very artful card—a low sort of man—a
sort of political man who went about making treaties and breaking them—a
black-haired chap who hid behind the mast when the fighting began.”

“But you said the other day that he was red-haired.”

“I couldn’t have. Make him black-haired of course. You’ve no imagination.”

Seeing that I had just discovered the entire principles upon which the
half-memory falsely called imagination is based, I felt entitled to laugh,
but forbore, for the sake of the tale.

“You’re right. You’re the man with imagination. A black-haired chap in a
decked ship,” I said.

“No, an open ship—like a big boat.”

This was maddening.

“Your ship has been built and designed, closed and decked in; you said so
yourself,” I protested.

“No, no, not that ship. That was open, or half decked because—By
Jove you’re right. You made me think of the hero as a red-haired chap. Of
course if he were red, the ship would be an open one with painted sails.”

Surely, I thought he would remember now that he had served in two galleys
at least—in a three-decked Greek one under the black-haired
“political man,” and again in a Viking’s open sea-serpent under the man
“red as a red bear” who went to Markland. The devil prompted me to speak.

“Why, ‘of course,’ Charlie?” said I. “I don’t know. Are you making fun of
me?”

The current was broken for the time being. I took up a notebook and
pretended to make many entries in it.

“It’s a pleasure to work with an imaginative chap like yourself,” I said
after a pause. “The way that you’ve brought out the character of the hero
is simply wonderful.”

“Do you think so?” he answered, with a pleased flush. “I often tell myself
that there’s more in me than my—than people think.”

“There’s an enormous amount in you.”

“Then, won’t you let me send an essay on The Ways of Bank Clerks to
Tit-Bits, and get the guinea prize?”

“That wasn’t exactly what I meant, old fellow: perhaps it would be better
to wait a little and go ahead with the galley-story.”

“Ah, but I sha’n’t get the credit of that. Tit-Bits would publish my name
and address if I win. What are you grinning at? They would.”

“I know it. Suppose you go for a walk. I want to look through my notes
about our story.”

Now this reprehensible youth who left me, a little hurt and put back,
might for aught he or I knew have been one of the crew of the Argo—had
been certainly slave or comrade to Thorfin Karlsefne. Therefore he was
deeply interested in guinea competitions. Remembering what Grish Chunder
had said I laughed aloud. The Lords of Life and Death would never allow
Charlie Mears to speak with full knowledge of his pasts, and I must even
piece out what he had told me with my own poor inventions while Charlie
wrote of the ways of bank-clerks.

I got together and placed on one file all my notes; and the net result was
not cheering. I read them a second time. There was nothing that might not
have been compiled at second-hand from other people’s books—except,
perhaps, the story of the fight in the harbor. The adventures of a Viking
bad been written many times before; the history of a Greek galley-slave
was no new thing, and though I wrote both, who could challenge or confirm
the accuracy of my details? I might as well tell a tale of two thousand
years hence. The Lords of Life and Death were as cunning as Grish Chunder
had hinted. They would allow nothing to escape that might trouble or make
easy the minds of men. Though I was convinced of this, yet I could not
leave the tale alone. Exaltation followed reaction, not once, but twenty
times in the next few weeks. My moods varied with the March sunlight and
flying clouds. By night or in the beauty of a spring morning I perceived
that I could write that tale and shift continents thereby. In the wet,
windy afternoons, I saw that the tale might indeed be written, but would
be nothing more than a faked, false-varnished, sham-rusted piece of
Wardour Street work at the end. Then I blessed Charlie in many ways—though
it was no fault of his. He seemed to be busy with prize competitions, and
I saw less and less of him as the weeks went by and the earth cracked and
grew ripe to spring, and the buds swelled in their sheaths. He did not
care to read or talk of what he had read, and there was a new ring of
self-assertion in his voice. I hardly cared to remind him of the galley
when we met; but Charlie alluded to it on every occasion, always as a
story from which money was to be made.

“I think I deserve twenty-five per cent., don’t I, at least,” he said,
with beautiful frankness. “I supplied all the ideas, didn’t I?”

This greediness for silver was a new side in his nature. I assumed that it
had been developed in the City, where Charlie was picking up the curious
nasal drawl of the underbred City man.

“When the thing’s done we’ll talk about it. I can’t make anything of it at
present. Red-haired or black-haired hero are equally difficult.”

He was sitting by the fire staring at the red coals. “I can’t understand
what you find so difficult. It’s all as clean as mud to me,” he replied. A
jet of gas puffed out between the bars, took light and whistled softly.
“Suppose we take the red-haired hero’s adventures first, from the time
that he came south to my galley and captured it and sailed to the
Beaches.”

I knew better now than to interrupt Charlie. I was out of reach of pen and
paper, and dared not move to get them lest I should break the current. The
gas-jet puffed and whinnied, Charlie’s voice dropped almost to a whisper,
and he told a tale of the sailing of an open galley to Furdurstrandi, of
sunsets on the open sea, seen under the curve of the one sail evening
after evening when the galley’s beak was notched into the centre of the
sinking disc, and “we sailed by that for we had no other guide,” quoth
Charlie. He spoke of a landing on an island and explorations in its woods,
where the crew killed three men whom they found asleep under the pines.
Their ghosts, Charlie said, followed the galley, swimming and choking in
the water, and the crew cast lots and threw one of their number overboard
as a sacrifice to the strange gods whom they had offended. Then they ate
sea-weed when their provisions failed, and their legs swelled, and their
leader, the red-haired man, killed two rowers who mutinied, and after a
year spent among the woods they set sail for their own country, and a wind
that never failed carried them back so safely that they all slept at
night. This and much more Charlie told. Sometimes the voice fell so low
that I could not catch the words, though every nerve was on the strain. He
spoke of their leader, the red-haired man, as a pagan speaks of his God;
for it was he who cheered them and slew them impartially as he thought
best for their needs; and it was he who steered them for three days among
floating ice, each floe crowded with strange beasts that “tried to sail
with us,” said Charlie, “and we beat them back with the handles of the
oars.”

The gas-jet went out, a burned coal gave way, and the fire settled down
with a tiny crash to the bottom of the grate. Charlie ceased speaking, and
I said no word.

“By Jove!” he said, at last, shaking his head. “I’ve been staring at the
fire till I’m dizzy. What was I going to say?”

“Something about the galley.”

“I remember now. It’s 25 per cent. of the profits, isn’t it?”

“It’s anything you like when I’ve done the tale.”

“I wanted to be sure of that. I must go now. I’ve, I’ve an appointment.”
And he left me.

Had my eyes not been held I might have known that that broken muttering
over the fire was the swan-song of Charlie Mears. But I thought it the
prelude to fuller revelation. At last and at last I should cheat the Lords
of Life and Death!

When next Charlie came to me I received him with rapture. He was nervous
and embarrassed, but his eyes were very full of light, and his lips a
little parted.

“I’ve done a poem,” he said; and then quickly: “it’s the best I’ve ever
done. Read it.” He thrust it into my hand and retreated to the window.

I groaned inwardly. It would be the work of half an hour to criticise—that
is to say praise—the poem sufficiently to please Charlie. Then I had
good reason to groan, for Charlie, discarding his favorite centipede
metres, had launched into shorter and choppier verse, and verse with a
motive at the back of it. This is what I read:

“Yes, it’s the early harrowing, past a doubt,” I said, with a dread at my
heart. Charlie smiled, but did not answer.

“Well?” said Charlie, looking over my shoulder.

I thought it far from well, and very evil indeed, when he silently laid a
photograph on the paper—the photograph of a girl with a curly head,
and a foolish slack mouth.

“Isn’t it—isn’t it wonderful?” he whispered, pink to the tips of his
ears, wrapped in the rosy mystery of first love. “I didn’t know; I didn’t
think—it came like a thunderclap.”

“Yes. It comes like a thunderclap. Are you very happy, Charlie?”

“My God—she—she loves me!” He sat down repeating the last
words to himself. I looked at the hairless face, the narrow shoulders
already bowed by desk-work, and wondered when, where, and bow he had loved
in his past lives.

“What will your mother say?” I asked, cheerfully.

“I don’t care a damn what she says.”

At twenty the things for which one does not care a damn should, properly,
be many, but one must not include mothers in the list. I told him this
gently; and he described Her, even as Adam must have described to the
newly named beasts the glory and tenderness and beauty of Eve.
Incidentally I learned that She was a tobacconist’s assistant with a
weakness for pretty dress, and had told him four or five times already
that She had never been kissed by a man before.

Charlie spoke on, and on, and on; while I, separated from him by thousands
of years, was considering the beginnings of things. Now I understood why
the Lords of Life and Death shut the doors so carefully behind us. It is
that we may not remember our first wooings. Were it not so, our world
would be without inhabitants in a hundred years.

“Now, about that galley-story,” I said, still more cheerfully, in a pause
in the rush of the speech.

Charlie looked up as though he had been hit. “The galley—what
galley? Good heavens, don’t joke, man! This is serious! You don’t know how
serious it is!”

Grish Chunder was right. Charlie had tasted the love of woman that kills
remembrance, and the “finest story” in the world would never be written.

VOLUME IV UNDER THE DEODARS

THE EDUCATION OF OTIS YEERE

I

This is the history of a failure; but the woman who failed said that it
might be an instructive tale to put into print for the benefit of the
younger generation. The younger generation does not want instruction,
being perfectly willing to instruct if any one will listen to it. None the
less, here begins the story where every right-minded story should begin,
that is to say at Simla, where all things begin and many come to an evil
end.

The mistake was due to a very clever woman making a blunder and not
retrieving it. Men are licensed to stumble, but a clever woman’s mistake
is outside the regular course of Nature and Providence; since all good
people know that a woman is the only infallible thing in this world,
except Government Paper of the ’70 issue, bearing interest at four and a
half per cent. Yet, we have to remember that six consecutive days of
rehearsing the leading part of The Fallen Age, at the New Gaiety Theatre
where the plaster is not yet properly dry, might have brought about an
unhingement of spirits which, again, might have led to eccentricities.

Mrs. Hauksbee came to “The Foundry” to tiffin with Mrs. Mallowe, her one
bosom friend, for she was in no sense “a woman’s woman.” And it was a
woman’s tiffin, the door shut to all the world; and they both talked
chiffons, which is French for Mysteries.

“I’ve enjoyed an interval of sanity,” Mrs. Hauksbee announced, after
tiffin was over and the two were comfortably settled in the little
writing-room that opened out of Mrs. Mallowe’s bedroom.

“My dear girl, what has he done?” said Mrs. Mallowe, sweetly. It is
noticeable that ladies of a certain age call each other “dear girl,” just
as commissioners of twenty-eight years’ standing address their equals in
the Civil List as “my boy.”

“There’s no he in the case. Who am I that an imaginary man should be
always credited to me? Am I an Apache?”

“No, dear, but somebody’s scalp is generally drying at your wigwam-door.
Soaking, rather.”

This was an allusion to the Hawley Boy, who was in the habit of riding all
across Simla in the Rains, to call on Mrs. Hauksbee. That lady laughed.

“For my sins, the Aide at Tyrconnel last night told me off to The Mussuck.
Hsh! Don’t laugh. One of my most devoted admirers. When the duff came—some
one really ought to teach them to make pudding at Tyrconnel—The
Mussuck was at liberty to attend to me.”

“Sweet soul! I know his appetite,” said Mrs. Mallowe. “Did he, oh did he,
begin his wooing?”

“By a special mercy of Providence, no. He explained his importance as a
Pillar of the Empire. I didn’t laugh.”

“Lucy, I don’t believe you.”

“Ask Captain Sangar; he was on the other side. Well, as I was saying, The
Mussuck dilated.”

“I think I can see him doing it,” said Mrs. Mallowe, pensively, scratching
her fox-terrier’s ears.

“I was properly impressed. Most properly. I yawned openly. ‘Strict
supervision, and play them off one against the other,’ said The Mussuck,
shoveling down his ice by tureenfuls, I assure you. ‘That, Mrs. Hauksbee,
is the secret of our Government.’”

Mrs. Mallowe laughed long and merrily. “And what did you say?”

“Did you ever know me at loss for an answer yet? I said: ‘So I have
observed in my dealings with you.’ The Mussuck swelled with pride. He is
coming to call on me tomorrow. The Hawley Boy is coming too.”

“’Strict supervision and play them off one against the other. That, Mrs.
Hauksbee, is the secret of our Government.’ And I dare say if we could get
to The Mussuck’s heart, we should find that he considers himself a man of
the world.”

“As he is of the other two things. I like The Mussuck, and I won’t have
you call him names. He amuses me.”

“He has reformed you, too, by what appears. Explain the interval of
sanity, and hit Tim on the nose with the paper-cutter, please. That dog is
too fond of sugar. Do you take milk in yours?”

“No, thanks. Polly, I’m wearied of this life. It’s hollow.”

“Turn religious, then. I always said that Rome would be your fate.”

“Only exchanging half a dozen attaches in red for one and in black, and if
I fasted, the wrinkles would come, and never, never go. Has it ever struck
you, dear, that I’m getting old?”

“Thanks for your courtesy. I’ll return it. Ye-es we are both not exactly—how
shall I put it?”

“What we have been. ‘I feel it in my bones,’ as Mrs. Crossley says. Polly,
I’ve wasted my life.”

“As how?”

“Never mind how. I feel it. I want to be a Power before I die.”

“Be a Power then. You’ve wits enough for anything—and beauty?”

Mrs. Hauksbee pointed a teaspoon straight at her hostess. “Polly, if you
heap compliments on me like this, I shall cease to believe that you’re a
woman. Tell me how I am to be a Power.”

“Inform The Mussuck that he is the most fascinating and slimmest man in
Asia, and he’ll tell you anything and everything you please.”

“Bother The Mussuck! I mean an intellectual Power—not a gas-power.
Polly, I’m going to start a salon.”

Mrs. Mallowe turned lazily on the sofa and rested her head on her hand.
“Hear the words of the Preacher, the son of Baruch,” she said.

“Will you talk sensibly?”

“I will, dear, for I see that you are going to make a mistake.”

“I never made a mistake in my life at least, never one that I couldn’t
explain away afterward.”

“Going to make a mistake,” went on Mrs. Mallowe, composedly. “It is
impossible to start a salon in Simla. A bar would be much more to the
point.”

“Perhaps, but why? It seems so easy.”

“Just what makes it so difficult. How many clever women are there in
Simla?”

“Myself and yourself,” said Mrs. Hauksbee, without a moment’s hesitation.

“Modest woman! Mrs. Feardon would thank you for that. And how many clever
men?”

“Oh—er—hundreds,” said Mrs. Hauksbee, vaguely.

“What a fatal blunder! Not one. They are all bespoke of the Government.
Take my husband, for instance. Jack was a clever man, though I say so who
shouldn’t. Government has eaten him up. All his ideas and powers of
conversation—he really used to be a good talker, even to his wife,
in the old days—are taken from him by this—this kitchen-sink
of a Government. That’s the case with every man up here who is at work. I
don’t suppose a Russian convict under the knout is able to amuse the rest
of his gang; and all our men-folk here are gilded convicts.”

“But there are scores—”

“I know what you’re going to say. Scores of idle men up on leave. I admit
it, but they are all of two objectionable sets, The Civilian who’d be
delightful if he had the military man’s knowledge of the world and style,
and the military man who’d be adorable if lie had the Civilian’s culture.”

“Detestable word! Have Civilians Culchaw? I never studied the breed
deeply.”

“Don’t make fun of Jack’s service. Yes. They’re like the teapots in the
Lakka Bazar—good material but not polished. They can’t help
themselves, poor dears. A Civilian only begins to be tolerable after he
has knocked about the world for fifteen years.”

“And a military man?”

“When he has had the same amount of service. The young of both species are
horrible. You would have scores of them in your salon.”

“I would not!” said Mrs. Hauksbee, fiercely. “I would tell the bearer to
darwaza band them. I’d put their own colonels and commissioners at the
door to turn them away. I’d give them to the Topsham girl to play with.”

“The Topsham girl would be grateful for the gift. But to go back to the
salon. Allowing that you had gathered all your men and women together,
what would you do with them? Make them talk? They would all with one
accord begin to flirt. Your salon would become a glorified Peliti’s—a
‘Scandal Point’ by lamplight.”

“There’s a certain amount of wisdom in that view.”

“There’s all the wisdom in the world in it. Surely, twelve Simla seasons
ought to have taught you that you can’t focus anything in India; and a
salon, to be any good at all, must be permanent. In two seasons your
roomful would be scattered all over Asia. We are only little bits of dirt
on the hillsides—here one day and blown down the khud the next. We
have lost the art of talking—at least our men have. We have no
cohesion”—

“George Eliot in the flesh,” interpolated Mrs. Hauksbee, wickedly.

“And collectively, my dear scoffer, we, men and women alike, have no
influence.

“Come into the veranda and look at the Mall!”

The two looked down on the now rapidly filling road, for all Simla was
abroad to steal a stroll between a shower and a fog.

“How do you propose to fix that river? Look! There’s The Mussuck—head
of goodness knows what. He is a power in the land, though he does eat like
a costermonger. There’s Colonel Blone, and General Grucher, and Sir Dugald
Delane, and Sir Henry Haughton, and Mr. Jellalatty. All Heads of
Departments, and all powerful.”

“And all my fervent admirers,” said Mrs. Hauksbee, piously. “Sir Henry
Haughton raves about me. But go on.”

“One by one, these men are worth something. Collectively, they’re just a
mob of Anglo-Indians. Who cares for what Anglo-Indians say? Your salon
won’t weld the Departments together and make you mistress of India, dear.
And these creatures won’t talk administrative ‘shop’ in a crowd—your
salon—because they are so afraid of the men in the lower ranks
overhearing it. They have forgotten what of Literature and Art they ever
knew, and the women”—

“Can’t talk about anything except the last Gymkhana, or the sins of their
last nurse. I was calling on Mrs. Derwills this morning.”

“You admit that? They can talk to the subalterns though, and the
subalterns can talk to them. Your salon would suit their views admirably,
if you respected the religious prejudices of the country and provided
plenty of kala juggahs.”

“Plenty of kala juggahs. Oh my poor little idea! Kala juggahs in a salon!
But who made you so awfully clever?”

“Perhaps I’ve tried myself; or perhaps I know a woman who has. I have
preached and expounded the whole matter and the conclusion thereof”—

“You needn’t go on. ‘Is Vanity.’ Polly, I thank you. These vermin—”
Mrs. Hauksbee waved her hand from the veranda to two men in the crowd
below who had raised their hats to her—“these vermin shall not
rejoice in a new Scandal Point or an extra Peliti’s. I will abandon the
notion of a salon. It did seem so tempting, though. But what shall I do? I
must do something.”

“Why? Are not Abana and Pharphar”—

“Jack has made you nearly as bad as himself! I want to, of course. I’m
tired of everything and everybody, from a moonlight picnic at Seepee to
the blandishments of The Mussuck.”

“Yes—that comes, too, sooner or later, Have you nerve enough to make
your bow yet?”

Mrs. Hauksbee’s mouth shut grimly. Then she laughed. “I think I see myself
doing it. Big pink placards on the Mall: ‘Mrs. Hauksbee! Positively her
last appearance on any stage! This is to give notice!’ No more dances; no
more rides; no more luncheons; no more theatricals with supper to follow;
no more sparring with one’s dearest, dearest friend; no more fencing with
an inconvenient man who hasn’t wit enough to clothe what he’s pleased to
call his sentiments in passable speech; no more parading of The Mussuck
while Mrs. Tarkass calls all round Simla, spreading horrible stories about
me? No more of anything that is thoroughly wearying, abominable and
detestable, but, all the same, makes life worth the having. Yes! I see it
all! Don’t interrupt, Polly, I’m inspired. A mauve and white striped
‘cloud’ round my excellent shoulders, a seat in the fifth row of the
Gaiety, and both horses sold. Delightful vision! A comfortable armchair,
situated in three different draughts, at every ballroom; and nice, large,
sensible shoes for all the couples to stumble over as they go into the
veranda! Then at supper. Can’t you imagine the scene? The greedy mob gone
away. Reluctant subaltern, pink all over like a newly-powdered baby—they
really ought to tan subalterns before they are exported—Polly—sent
back by the hostess to do his duty. Slouches up to me across the room,
tugging at a glove two sizes too large for him—I hate a man who
wears gloves like overcoats—and trying to look as if he’d thought of
it from the first. ‘May I ah—have the pleasure ‘f takin’ you ‘nt’
supper?’ Then I get up with a hungry smile. Just like this.”

“Lucy, how can you be so absurd?”

“And sweep out on his arm. So! After supper I shall go away early, you
know, because I shall be afraid of catching cold. No one will look for my
‘rickshaw. Mine, so please you! I shall stand, always with that mauve and
white ‘cloud’ over my head, while the wet soaks into my dear, old,
venerable feet and Tom swears and shouts for the mem-sahib’s gharri. Then
home to bed at half-past eleven! Truly excellent life helped out by the
visits of the Padri, just fresh from burying somebody down below there.”
She pointed through the pines, toward the Cemetery, and continued with
vigorous dramatic gesture—“Listen! I see it all down, down even to
the stays! Such stays! Six-eight a pair, Polly, with red flannel—or
list is it?—that they put into the tops of those fearful things. I
can draw you a picture of them.”

“Lucy, for Heaven’s sake, don’t go waving your arms about in that idiotic
manner! Recollect, every one can see you from the Mall.”

“Let them see! They’ll think I am rehearsing for The Fallen Angel. Look!
There’s The Mussuck. How badly he rides. There!”

She blew a kiss to the venerable Indian administrator with infinite grace.

“Now,” she continued, “he’ll be chaffed about that at the Club in the
delicate manner those brutes of men affect, and the Hawley Boy will tell
me all about it—softening the details for fear of shocking me. That
boy is too good to live, Polly. I’ve serious thoughts of recommending him
to throw up his Commission and go into the Church. In his present frame of
mind he would obey me. Happy, happy child.”

“Never again,” said Mrs. Mallowe, with an affectation of indignation,
“shall you tiffin here! ‘Lucindy, your behavior is scand’lus.’”

“All your fault,” retorted Mrs. Hauksbee, “for suggesting such a thing as
my abdication. No! Jamais—nevaire! I will act, dance, ride, frivol,
talk scandal, dine out, and appropriate the legitimate captives of any
woman I choose until I d-r-r-rop or a better woman than I puts me to shame
before all Simla—and it’s dust and ashes in my mouth while I’m doing
it!”

She swept into the drawing-room, Mrs. Mallowe followed and put an arm
round her waist.

“I’m not!” said Mrs. Hauksbee, defiantly, rummaging for her handkerchief.
“I’ve been dining out the last ten nights, and rehearsing in the
afternoon. You’d be tired yourself. It’s only because I’m tired.”

Mrs. Mallowe did not offer Mrs. Hauksbee any pity or ask her to lie down,
but gave her another cup of tea, and went on with the talk.

“I’ve been through that too, dear,” she said.

“I remember,” said Mrs. Hauksbee, a gleam of fun on her face. “In ’84
wasn’t it? You went out a great deal less next season.”

Mrs. Mallowe smiled in a superior and Sphinxlike fashion.

“I became an Influence,” said she.

“Good gracious, child, you didn’t join the Theosophists and kiss Buddha’s
big toe, did you? I tried to get into their set once, but they cast me out
for a skeptic—without a chance of improving my poor little mind,
too.”

“No, I didn’t Theosophilander. Jack says”—

“Never mind Jack. What a husband says is known before. What did you do?”

“I made a lasting impression.”

“So have I—for four months. But that didn’t console me in the least.
I hated the man. Will you stop smiling in that inscrutable way and tell me
what you mean?”

Mrs. Mallowe told.

* * * * * *

“And—you—mean—to—say that it is absolutely
Platonic on both sides?”

“Absolutely, or I should never have taken it up.”

“And his last promotion was due to you?”

Mrs. Mallowe nodded.

“And you warned him against the Topsham girl?”

Another nod.

“And told him of Sir Dugald Delane’s private memo about him?”

A third nod.

“Why?”

“What a question to ask a woman! Because it amused me at first. I am proud
of my property now. If I live he shall continue to be successful. Yes, I
will put him upon the straight road to Knighthood, and everything else
that a man values. The rest depends upon himself.”

“Polly, you are a most extraordinary woman.”

“Not in the least. I’m concentrated, that’s all. You diffuse yourself,
dear; and though all Simla knows your skill in managing a team”—

“Can’t you choose a prettier word?”

“Team, of half a dozen, from The Mussuck to the Hawley Boy, you gain
nothing by it. Not even amusement.”

“And you?”

“Try my recipe. Take a man, not a boy, mind, but an almost mature,
unattached man, and be this guide, philosopher, and friend. You’ll find it
the most interesting occupation that you ever embarked on. It can be done—you
needn’t look like that—because I’ve done it.”

“There’s an element of risk about it that makes the notion attractive.
I’ll get such a man and say to him, ‘Now, understand that there must be no
flirtation. Do exactly what I tell you, profit by my instruction and
counsels, and all will yet be well,’ as Toole says. Is that the idea?”

“More or less,” said Mrs. Mallowe with an unfathomable smile. “But be sure
he understands that there must be no flirtation.”

II

So Mrs. Hauksbee, in “The Foundry” which overlooks Simla Mall, sat at the
feet of Mrs. Mallowe and gathered wisdom. The end of the Conference was
the Great Idea upon which Mrs. Hauksbee so plumed herself.

“I warn you,” said Mrs. Mallowe, beginning to repent of her suggestion,
“that the matter is not half so easy as it looks. Any woman—even the
Topsham girl—can catch a man, but very, very few know how to manage
him when caught.”

“My child,” was the answer, “I’ve been a female St. Simon Stylites looking
down upon men for these—these years past. Ask The Mussuck whether I
can manage them.”

Mrs. Hauksbee departed humming, “I’ll go to him and say to him in manner
most ironical.” Mrs. Mallowe laughed to herself. Then she grew suddenly
sober. “I wonder whether I’ve done well in advising that amusement? Lucy’s
a clever woman, but a thought too careless.”

A week later, the two met at a Monday Pop. “Well?” said Mrs. Mallowe.

“I’ve caught him!” said Mrs. Hauksbee; her eyes were dancing with
merriment.

“Who is it, mad woman? I’m sorry I ever spoke to you about it.”

“Look between the pillars. In the third row; fourth from the end. You can
see his face now. Look!”

“Otis Yeere! Of all the improbable and impossible people! I don’t believe
you.”

“Hsh! Wait till Mrs. Tarkass begins murdering Milton Wellings; and I’ll
tell you all about it. S-s-ss! That woman’s voice always reminds me of an
Underground train coming into Earl’s Court with the brakes on. Now listen.
It is really Otis Yeere.”

“So I see, but does it follow that he is your property?”

“He is! By right of trove. I found him, lonely and unbefriended, the very
next night after our talk, at the Dugald Delane’s burra-khana. I liked his
eyes, and I talked to him. Next day he called. Next day we went for a ride
together, and today he’s tied to my ‘rickshaw-wheels hand and foot. You’ll
see when the concert’s over. He doesn’t know I’m here yet.”

“Thank goodness you haven’t chosen a boy. What are you going to do with
him, assuming that you’ve got him?”

“Assuming, indeed! Does a woman—do I—ever make a mistake in
that sort of thing? First”—Mrs. Hauksbee ticked off the items
ostentatiously on her little gloved fingers—“First, my dear, I shall
dress him properly. At present his raiment is a disgrace, and he wears a
dress shirt like a crumpled sheet of the ‘Pioneer’. Secondly, after I have
made him presentable, I shall form his manners—his morals are above
reproach.”

“You seem to have discovered a great deal about him considering the
shortness of your acquaintance.”

“Surely you ought to know that the first proof a man gives of his interest
in a woman is by talking to her about his own sweet self. If the woman
listens without yawning, he begins to like her. If she flatters the
animal’s vanity, he ends by adoring her.”

“In some cases.”

“Never mind the exceptions. I know which one you are thinking of. Thirdly,
and lastly, after he is polished and made pretty, I shall, as you said, be
his guide, philosopher and friend, and he shall become a success—as
great a success as your friend. I always wondered how that man got on. Did
The Mussuck come to you with the Civil List and, dropping on one knee—no,
two knees, a’ la Gibbon—hand it to you and say, ‘Adorable angel,
choose your friend’s appointment’?”

“Lucy, your long experiences of the Military Department have demoralized
you. One doesn’t do that sort of thing on the Civil Side.”

“No disrespect meant to Jack’s Service, my dear. I only asked for
information. Give me three months, and see what changes I shall work in my
prey.”

“Go your own way since you must. But I’m sorry that I was weak enough to
suggest the amusement.”

“’I am all discretion, and may be trusted to an in-finite extent,’” quoted
Mrs. Hauksbee from The Fallen Angel; and the conversation ceased with Mrs.
Tarkass’s last, long-drawn war-whoop.

Her bitterest enemies—and she had many—could hardly accuse
Mrs. Hauksbee of wasting her time. Otis Yeere was one of those wandering
“dumb” characters, foredoomed through life to be nobody’s property. Ten
years in Her Majesty’s Bengal Civil Service, spent, for the most part, in
undesirable Districts, had given him little to be proud of, and nothing to
bring confidence. Old enough to have lost the first fine careless rapture
that showers on the immature ‘Stunt imaginary Commissionerships and Stars,
and sends him into the collar with coltish earnestness and abandon; too
young to be yet able to look back upon the progress he had made, and thank
Providence that under the conditions of the day he had come even so far,
he stood upon the “dead-centre” of his career. And when a man stands
still, he feels the slightest impulse from without. Fortune had ruled that
Otis Yeere should be, for the first part of his service, one of the rank
and file who are ground up in the wheels of the Administration; losing
heart and soul, and mind and strength, in the process. Until steam
replaces manual power in the working of the Empire, there must always be
this percentage—must always be the men who are used up, expended, in
the mere mechanical routine. For these promotion is far off and the
mill-grind of every day very near and instant. The Secretariats know them
only by name; they are not the picked men of the Districts with the
Divisions and Collectorates awaiting them. They are simply the rank and
file—the food for fever—sharing with the ryot and the
plough-bullock the honor of being the plinth on which the State rests. The
older ones have lost their aspirations; the younger are putting theirs
aside with a sigh. Both learn to endure patiently until the end of the
day. Twelve years in the rank and file, men say, will sap the hearts of
the bravest and dull the wits of the most keen.

Out of this life Otis Yeere had fled for a few months, drifting, for the
sake of a little masculine society, into Simla. When his leave was over he
would return to his swampy, sour-green, undermanned district, the native
Assistant, the native Doctor, the native Magistrate, the steaming,
sweltering Station, the ill-kempt City, and the undisguised insolence of
the Municipality that babbled away the lives of men. Life was cheap,
however. The soil spawned humanity, as it bred frogs in the Rains, and the
gap of the sickness of one season was filled to overflowing by the
fecundity of the next. Otis was unfeignedly thankful to lay down his work
for a little while and escape from the seething, whining, weakly hive,
impotent to help itself, but strong in its power to cripple, thwart, and
annoy the weary-eyed man who, by official irony, was said to be “in
charge” of it.

“I knew there were women-dowdies in Bengal. They come up here sometimes.
But I didn’t know that there were men-dowdies, too.”

Then, for the first time, it occurred to Otis Yeere that his clothes were
rather ancestral in appearance. It will be seen from the above that his
friendship with Mrs Hauksbee had made great strides.

As that lady truthfully says, a man is never so happy as when he is
talking about himself. From Otis Yeere’s lips Mrs Hauksbee, before long,
learned everything that she wished to know about the subject of her
experiment; learned what manner of life he had led in what she vaguely
called “those awful cholera districts”; learned too, but this knowledge
came later, what manner of life he had purposed to lead and what dreams he
had dreamed in the year of grace ’77, before the reality had knocked the
heart out of him. Very pleasant are the shady bridle-paths round Prospect
Hill for the telling of such confidences.

“Not yet,” said Mrs. Hauksbee to Mrs. Mallowe. “Not yet. I must wait until
the man is properly dressed, at least. Great Heavens, is it possible that
he doesn’t know what an honor it is to be taken up by Me!”

Mrs. Hauksbee did not reckon false modesty as one of her failings.

“Always with Mrs. Hauksbee!” murmured Mrs. Mallowe, with her sweetest
smile, to Otis. “Oh you men, you men! Here are our Punjabis growling
because you’ve monopolized the nicest woman in Simla. They’ll tear you to
pieces on the Mall, some day, Mr. Yeere.”

Mrs. Mallowe rattled down-hill, having satisfied herself, by a glance
through the fringe of her sunshade, of the effect of her words.

The shot went home. Of a surety Otis Yeere was somebody in this
bewildering whirl of Simla—had monopolized the nicest woman in it
and the Punjabis were growling. The notion justified a mild glow of
vanity. He had never looked upon his acquaintance with Mrs. Hauksbee as a
matter for general interest.

The knowledge of envy was a pleasant feeling to the man of no account. It
was intensified later in the day when a luncher at the Club said,
spitefully, “Well, for a debilitated Ditcher, Yeere, you are going it.
Hasn’t any kind friend told you that she’s the most dangerous woman in
Simla?”

Yeere chuckled and passed out. When, oh when, would his new clothes be
ready? He descended into the Mall to inquire; and Mrs. Hauksbee, coming
over the Church Ridge in her ‘rickshaw, looked down upon him approvingly.
“He’s learning to carry himself as if he were a man, instead of a piece of
furniture, and”—she screwed up her eyes to see the better through
the sunlight—“he is a man when he holds himself like that. Oh
blessed Conceit, what should we be without you?”

With the new clothes came a new stock of self-confidence. Otis Yeere
discovered that he could enter a room without breaking into a gentle
perspiration—could cross one, even to talk to Mrs. Hauksbee, as
though rooms were meant to be crossed. He was for the first time in nine
years proud of himself, and contented with his life, satisfied with his
new clothes, and rejoicing in the friendship of Mrs. Hauksbee.

“Conceit is what the poor fellow wants,” she said in confidence to Mrs.
Mallowe. “I believe they must use Civilians to plough the fields with in
Lower Bengal. You see I have to begin from the very beginning—haven’t
I? But you’ll admit, won’t you, dear, that he is immensely improved since
I took him in hand. Only give me a little more time and he won’t know
himself.”

Indeed, Yeere was rapidly beginning to forget what he had been. One of his
own rank and file put the matter brutally when he asked Yeere, in
reference to nothing, “And who has been making you a Member of Council,
lately? You carry the side of half a dozen of ’em.”

“I—I’m awf’ly sorry. I didn’t mean it, you know,” said Yeere,
apologetically.

“There’ll be no holding you,” continued the old stager, grimly. “Climb
down, Otis—climb down, and get all that beastly affectation knocked
out of you with fever! Three thousand a month wouldn’t support it.”

Yeere repeated the incident to Mrs. Hauksbee. He had come to look upon her
as his Mother Confessor.

“And you apologized!” she said. “Oh, shame! I hate a man who apologizes.
Never apologize for what your friend called ‘side.’ Never! It’s a man’s
business to be insolent and overbearing until he meets with a stronger.
Now, you bad boy, listen to me.”

Simply and straightforwardly, as the ‘rickshaw loitered round Jakko, Mrs.
Hauksbee preached to Otis Yeere the Great Gospel of Conceit, illustrating
it with living pictures encountered during their Sunday afternoon stroll.

“Good gracious!” she ended, with the personal argument, “you’ll apologize
next for being my attache?”

“Never!” said Otis Yeere. “That’s another thing altogether. I shall always
be”—

“What’s coming?” thought Mrs. Hauksbee.

“Proud of that,” said Otis.

“Safe for the present,” she said to herself.

“But I’m afraid I have grown conceited. Like Jeshurun, you know. When he
waxed fat, then he kicked. It’s the having no worry on one’s mind and the
Hill air, I suppose.”

“Hill air, indeed!” said Mrs. Hauksbee to herself. “He’d have been hiding
in the Club till the last day of his leave, if I hadn’t discovered him.”
And aloud—“Why shouldn’t you be? You have every right to.”

“I! Why?”

“Oh, hundreds of things. I’m not going to waste this lovely afternoon by
explaining; but I know you have. What was that heap of manuscript you
showed me about the grammar of the aboriginal—what’s their names?”

“Gullals. A piece of nonsense. I’ve far too much work to do to bother over
Gullals now. You should see my District. Come down with your husband some
day and I’ll show you round. Such a lovely place in the Rains! A sheet of
water with the railway-embankment and the snakes sticking out, and, in the
summer, green flies and green squash. The people would die of fear if you
shook a dogwhip at ’em. But they know you’re forbidden to do that, so they
conspire to make your life a burden to you. My District’s worked by some
man at Darjiling, on the strength of u native pleader’s false reports. Oh,
it’s a heavenly place!”

Otis Yeere laughed bitterly.

“There’s not the least necessity that you should stay in it. Why do you?”

“Because I must. How’m I to get out of it?”

“How! In a hundred and fifty ways. If there weren’t so many people on the
road, I’d like to box your ears. Ask, my dear boy, ask! Look, There is
young Hexarly with six years’ service and half your talents. He asked for
what he wanted, and he got it. See, down by the Convent! There’s
McArthurson who has come to his present position by asking—sheer,
downright asking—after he had pushed himself out of the rank and
file. One man is as good as another in your service—believe me. I’ve
seen Simla for more seasons than I care to think about. Do you suppose men
are chosen for appointments because of their special fitness beforehand?
You have all passed a high test—what do you call it?—in the
beginning, and, except for the few who have gone altogether to the bad,
you can all work hard. Asking does the rest. Call it cheek, call it
insolence, call it anything you like, but ask! Men argue—yes, I know
what men say—that a man, by the mere audacity of his request, must
have some good in him. A weak man doesn’t say: ‘Give me this and that.’ He
whines ‘Why haven’t I been given this and that?’ If you were in the Army,
I should say learn to spin plates or play a tambourine with your toes. As
it is—ask! You belong to a Service that ought to be able to command
the Channel Fleet, or set a leg at twenty minutes’ notice, and yet you
hesitate over asking to escape from a squashy green district where you
admit you are not master. Drop the Bengal Government altogether. Even
Darjiling is a little out-of-the-way hole. I was there once, and the rents
were extortionate. Assert yourself. Get the Government of India to take
you over. Try to get on the Frontier, where every man has a grand chance
if he can trust himself. Go somewhere! Do something! You have twice the
wits and three times the presence of the men up here, and, and”—

Mrs. Hauksbee paused for breath; then continued—“and in any way you
look at it, you ought to. You who could go so far!”

“I don’t know,” said Yeere, rather taken aback by the unexpected
eloquence. “1 haven’t such a good opinion of myself.”

It was not strictly Platonic, but it was Policy. Mrs. Hauksbee laid her
hand lightly upon the ungloved paw that rested on the turned-back
‘rickshaw hood, and, looking the man full in the face, said tenderly,
almost too tenderly, “I believe in you if you mistrust yourself. Is that
enough, my friend?”

“It is enough,” answered Otis, very solemnly.

He was silent for a long time, redreaming the dreams that he had dreamed
eight years ago, but through them all ran, as sheet-lightning through
golden cloud, the light of Mrs. Hauksbee’s violet eyes.

Curious and impenetrable are the mazes of Simla life—the only
existence in this desolate land worth the living. Gradually it went abroad
among men and women, in the pauses between dance, play and Gymkhana, that
Otis Yeere, the man with the newly-lit light of self-confidence in his
eyes, had “done something decent” in the wilds whence he came. He had
brought an erring Municipality to reason, appropriated the funds on his
own responsibility, and saved the lives of hundreds, He knew more about
the Gullals than any living man. Had a vast knowledge of the aboriginal
tribes; was, in spite of his juniority, the greatest authority on the
aboriginal Gullals. No one quite knew who or what the Gullals were till
The Mussuck, who had been calling on Mrs. Hauksbee, and prided himself
upon picking people’s brains, explained they were a tribe of ferocious
hillmen, somewhere near Sikkim, whose friendship even the Great Indian
Empire would find it worth her while to secure. Now we know that Otis
Yeere had showed Mrs. Hauksbee his MS notes of six years’ standing on the
same Gullals. He had told her, too, how, sick and shaken with the fever
their negligence had bred, crippled by the loss of his pet clerk, and
savagely angry at the desolation in his charge, he had once damned the
collective eyes of his “intelligent local board” for a set of haramzadas.
Which act of “brutal and tyrannous oppression” won him a Reprimand Royal
from the Bengal Government; but in the anecdote as amended for Northern
consumption we find no record of this. Hence we are forced to conclude
that Mrs. Hauksbee “edited” his reminiscences before sowing them in idle
ears, ready, as she well knew, to exaggerate good or evil. And Otis Yeere
bore himself as befitted the hero of many tales.

“You can talk to me when you don’t fall into a brown study. Talk now, and
talk your brightest and best,” said Mrs. Hauksbee.

Otis needed no spur. Look to a man who has the counsel of a woman of or
above the world to back him. So long as he keeps his head, he can meet
both sexes on equal ground—an advantage never intended by
Providence, who fashioned Man on one day and Woman on another, in sign
that neither should know more than a very little of the other’s life. Such
a man goes far, or, the counsel being withdrawn, collapses suddenly while
his world seeks the reason.

Generalled by Mrs. Hauksbee who, again, had all Mrs. Mallowe’s wisdom at
her disposal, proud of himself and, in the end, believing in himself
because he was believed in, Otis Yeere stood ready for any fortune that
might befall, certain that it would be good. He would fight for his own
hand, and intended that this second struggle should lead to better issue
than the first helpless surrender of the bewildered ‘Stunt.

What might have happened, it is impossible to say. This lamentable thing
befell, bred directly by a statement of Mrs. Hauksbee that she would spend
the next season in Darjiling.

“Are you certain of that?” said Otis Yeere.

“Quite. We’re writing about a house now.”

Otis Yeere “stopped dead,” as Mrs. Hauksbee put it in discussing the
relapse with Mrs. Mallowe.

“He has behaved,” she said, angrily, “just like Captain Kerrington’s pony—only
Otis is a donkey—at the last Gymkhana. Planted his forefeet and
refused to go on another step. Polly, my man’s going to disappoint me.
What shall I do?”

As a rule, Mrs. Mallowe does not approve of staring, but on this occasion
she opened her eyes to the utmost.

“You have managed cleverly so far,” she said. “Speak to him, and ask him
what he means.”

“I will—at tonight’s dance.”

“No-o, not at a dance,” said Mrs. Mallowe, cautiously. “Men are never
themselves quite at dances. Better wait till tomorrow morning.”

“Nonsense. If he’s going to revert in this insane way, there isn’t a day
to lose. Are you going? No? Then sit up for me, there’s a dear. I shan’t
stay longer than supper under any circumstances.”

Mrs. Mallowe waited through the evening, looking long and earnestly into
the fire, and sometimes smiling to herself.

“Oh! oh! oh! The man’s an idiot! A raving, positive idiot! I’m sorry I
ever saw him!”

Mrs. Hauksbee burst into Mrs. Mallowe’s house, at midnight, almost in
tears.

“What in the world has happened?” said Mrs. Mallowe, but her eyes showed
that she had guessed an answer.

“Happened! Everything has happened! He was there. I went to him and said,
‘Now, what does this nonsense mean?’ Don’t laugh, dear, I can’t bear it.
But you know what I mean I said. Then it was a square, and I sat it out
with him and wanted an explanation, and he said—Oh! I haven’t
patience with such idiots! You know what I said about going to Darjiling
next year? It doesn’t matter to me where I go. I’d have changed the
Station and lost the rent to have saved this. He said, in so many words,
that he wasn’t going to try to work up any more, because—because he
would be shifted into a province away from Darjiling, and his own
District, where these creatures are, is within a day’s journey”—

“Ah-hh!” said Mrs. Mallowe, in a tone of one who has successfully tracked
an obscure word through a large dictionary.

“Did you ever hear of anything so mad—so absurd? And he had the ball
at his feet. He had only to kick it! I would have made him anything!
Anything in the wide world. He could have gone to the world’s end. I would
have helped him. I made him, didn’t I, Polly? Didn’t I create that man?
Doesn’t he owe everything to me? And to reward me, just when everything
was nicely arranged, by this lunacy that spoiled everything!”

“Very few men understand your devotion thoroughly.”

“Oh, Polly, don’t laugh at me! I give men up from this hour. I could have
killed him then and there. What right had this man—this Thing I had
picked out of his filthy paddy-fields—to make love to me?”

“He did that, did he?”

“He did. I don’t remember half he said, I was so angry. Oh, but such a
funny thing happened! I can’t help laughing at it now, though I felt
nearly ready to cry with rage. He raved and I stormed—I’m afraid we
must have made an awful noise in our kala juggah. Protect my character,
dear, if it’s all over Simla by tomorrow—and then he bobbed forward
in the middle of this insanity—I firmly believe the man’s demented—and
kissed me!”

“Morals above reproach,” purred Mrs. Mallowe.

“So they were—so they are! It was the most absurd kiss. I don’t
believe he’d ever kissed a woman in his life before. I threw my head back,
and it was a sort of slidy, pecking dab, just on the end of the chin—here.”
Mrs. Hauksbee tapped her masculine little chin with her fan. “Then, of
course, I was furiously angry, and told him that he was no gentleman, and
I was sorry I’d ever met him, and so on. He was crushed so easily that I
couldn’t be very angry. Then I came away straight to you.”

“Was this before or after supper?”

“Oh! before—oceans before. Isn’t it perfectly disgusting?”

“Let me think. I withhold judgment till tomorrow. Morning brings counsel.”

But morning brought only a servant with a dainty bouquet of Annandale
roses for Mrs. Hauksbee to wear at the dance at Viceregal Lodge that
night.

“He doesn’t seem to be very penitent,” said Mrs. Mallowe. “What’s the
billet-doux in the centre?”

Mrs. Hauksbee opened the neatly folded note,—another accomplishment
that she had taught Otis,—read it, and groaned tragically.

“Last wreck of a feeble intellect! Poetry! Is it his own, do you think?
Oh, that I ever built my hopes on such a maudlin idiot!”

“No. It’s a quotation from Mrs. Browning, and, in view of the facts of the
case, as Jack says, uncommonly well chosen. Listen:

“I didn’t—I didn’t—I didn’t!” said Mrs. Hauksbee, angrily, her
eyes filling with tears; “there was no malice at all. Oh, it’s too
vexatious!”

“You’ve misunderstood the compliment,” said Mrs. Mallowe. “He clears you
completely and—ahem—I should think by this, that he has
cleared completely too. My experience of men is that when they begin to
quote poetry, they are going to flit. Like swans singing before they die,
you know.”

“Polly, you take my sorrows in a most unfeeling way.”

“Do I? Is it so terrible? If he’s hurt your vanity, I should say that
you’ve done a certain amount of damage to his heart.”

“Oh, you never can tell about a man!” said Mrs. Hauksbee, with deep scorn.

Reviewing the matter as an impartial outsider, it strikes me that I’m
about the only person who has profited by the education of Otis Yeere. It
comes to twenty-seven pages and bittock.

AT THE PIT’S MOUTH

Once upon a time there was a man and his Wife and a Tertium Quid.

All three were unwise, but the Wife was the unwisest. The Man should have
looked after his Wife, who should have avoided the Tertium Quid, who,
again, should have married a wife of his own, after clean and open
flirtations, to which nobody can possibly object, round Jakko or
Observatory Hill. When you see a young man with his pony in a white
lather, and his hat on the back of his head flying down-hill at fifteen
miles an hour to meet a girl who will be properly surprised to meet him,
you naturally approve of that young man, and wish him Staff Appointments,
and take an interest in his welfare, and, as the proper time comes, give
them sugar-tongs or side-saddles, according to your means and generosity.

The Tertium Quid flew down-hill on horseback, but it was to meet the Man’s
Wife; and when he flew up-hill it was for the same end. The Man was in the
Plains, earning money for his Wife to spend on dresses and
four-hundred-rupee bracelets, and inexpensive luxuries of that kind. He
worked very hard, and sent her a letter or a post-card daily. She also
wrote to him daily, and said that she was longing for him to come up to
Simla. The Tertium Quid used to lean over her shoulder and laugh as she
wrote the notes. Then the two would ride to the Post Office together.

Now, Simla is a strange place and its customs are peculiar; nor is any man
who has not spent at least ten seasons there qualified to pass judgment on
circumstantial evidence, which is the most untrustworthy in the Courts.
For these reasons, and for others which need not appear, I decline to
state positively whether there was anything irretrievably wrong in the
relations between the Man’s Wife and the Tertium Quid. If there was, and
hereon you must form your own opinion, it was the Man’s Wife’s fault. She
was kittenish in her manners, wearing generally an air of soft and fluffy
innocence. But she was deadly learned and evil-instructed; and, now and
again, when the mask dropped, men saw this, shuddered and almost drew
back. Men are occasionally particular, and the least particular men are
always the most exacting.

Simla is eccentric in its fashion of tearing friendships. Certain
attachments which have set and crystallized through half a dozen seasons
acquire almost the sanctity of the marriage bond, and are revered as such.
Again, certain attachments equally old, and, to all appearance, equally
venerable, never seem to win any recognized official status; while a
chance-sprung acquaintance now two months born, steps into the place which
by right belongs to the senior. There is no law reducible to print which
regulates these affairs.

Some people have a gift which secures them infinite toleration, and others
have not. The Man’s Wife had not. If she looked over the garden wall, for
instance, women taxed her with stealing their husbands. She complained
pathetically that she was not allowed to choose her own friends. When she
put up her big white muff to her lips, and gazed over it and under her
eyebrows at you as she said this thing, you felt that she had been
infamously misjudged, and that all the other women’s instincts were all
wrong; which was absurd. She was not allowed to own the Tertium Quid in
peace; and was so strangely constructed that she would not have enjoyed
peace had she been so permitted. She preferred some semblance of intrigue
to cloak even her most commonplace actions.

After two months of riding, first round Jakko, then Elysium, then Summer
Hill, then Observatory Hill, then under Jutogh, and lastly up and down the
Cart Road as far as the Tara Devi gap in the dusk, she said to the Tertium
Quid, “Frank, people say we are too much together, and people are so
horrid.”

The Tertium Quid pulled his moustache, and replied that horrid people were
unworthy of the consideration of nice people.

“But they have done more than talk—they have written—written
to my hubby—I’m sure of it,” said the Man’s Wife, and she pulled a
letter from her husband out of her saddle-pocket and gave it to the
Tertium Quid.

It was an honest letter, written by an honest man, then stewing in the
Plains on two hundred rupees a month (for he allowed his wife eight
hundred and fifty), and in a silk banian and cotton trousers. It is said
that, perhaps, she had no thought of the unwisdom of allowing her name to
be so generally coupled with the Tertium Quid’s; that she was too much of
a child to understand the dangers of that sort of thing; that he, her
husband, was the last man in the world to interfere jealously with her
little amusements and interests, but that it would be better were she to
drop the Tertium Quid quietly and for her husband’s sake. The letter was
sweetened with many pretty little pet names, and it amused the Tertium
Quid considerably. He and She laughed over it, so that you, fifty yards
away, could see their shoulders shaking while the horses slouched along
side by side.

Their conversation was not worth reporting. The upshot of it was that,
next day, no one saw the Man’s Wife and the Tertium Quid together. They
had both gone down to the Cemetery, which, as a rule, is only visited
officially by the inhabitants of Simla.

A Simla funeral with the clergyman riding, the mourners riding, and the
coffin creaking as it swings between the bearers, is one of the most
depressing things on this earth, particularly when the procession passes
under the wet, dank dip beneath the Rockcliffe Hotel, where the sun is
shut out and all the hill streams are wailing and weeping together as they
go down the valleys.

Occasionally folk tend the graves, but we in India shift and are
transferred so often that, at the end of the second year, the Dead have no
friends—only acquaintances who are far too busy amusing themselves
up the hill to attend to old partners. The idea of using a Cemetery as a
rendezvous is distinctly a feminine one. A man would have said simply “Let
people talk. We’ll go down the Mall.” A woman is made differently,
especially if she be such a woman as the Man’s Wife. She and the Tertium
Quid enjoyed each other’s society among the graves of men and women whom
they had known and danced with aforetime.

They used to take a big horse-blanket and sit on the grass a little to the
left of the lower end, where there is a dip in the ground and where the
occupied graves stop short and the ready-made ones are not ready. Each
well-regulated India Cemetery keeps half a dozen graves permanently open
for contingencies and incidental wear and tear. In the Hills these are
more usually baby’s size, because children who come up weakened and sick
from the Plains often succumb to the effects of the Rains in the Hills or
get pneumonia from their ayahs taking them through damp pine-woods after
the sun has set. In Cantonments, of course, the man’s size is more in
request; these arrangements varying with the climate and population.

One day when the Man’s Wife and the Tertium Quid had just arrived in the
Cemetery, they saw some coolies breaking ground. They had marked out a
full-size grave, and the Tertium Quid asked them whether any Sahib was
sick. They said that they did not know; but it was an order that they
should dig a Sahib’s grave.

“Work away,” said the Tertium Quid, “and let’s see how it’s done.”

The coolies worked away, and the Man’s Wife and the Tertium Quid watched
and talked for a couple of hours while the grave was being deepened Then a
coolie, taking the earth in blankets as it was thrown up, jumped over the
grave.

“That’s queer,” said the Tertium Quid. “Where’s my ulster?”

“What’s queer?” said the Man’s Wife.

“I have got a chill down my back just as if a goose had walked over my
grave.”

“Why do you look at the thing, then?” said the Man’s Wife. “Let us go.”

The Tertium Quid stood at the head of the grave, and stared without
answering for a space. Then he said, dropping a pebble down, “It is nasty
and cold; horribly cold. I don’t think I shall come to the Cemetery any
more. I don’t think grave-digging is cheerful.”

The two talked and agreed that the Cemetery was depressing. They also
arranged for a ride next day out from the Cemetery through the Mashobra
Tunnel up to Fagoo and back, because all the world was going to a
garden-party at Viceregal Lodge, and all the people of Mashobra would go
too.

Coming up the Cemetery road, the Tertium Quid’s horse tried to bolt up
hill, being tired with standing so long, and managed to strain a back
sinew.

“I shall have to take the mare tomorrow,” said the Tertium Quid, “and she
will stand nothing heavier than a snaffle.”

They made their arrangements to meet in the Cemetery, after allowing all
the Mashobra people time to pass into Simla. That night it rained heavily,
and next day, when the Tertium Quid came to the trysting-place, he saw
that the new grave had a foot of water in it, the ground being a tough and
sour clay.

“’Jove! That looks beastly,” said the Tertium Quid. “Fancy being boarded
up and dropped into that well!”

They then started off to Fagoo, the mare playing with the snaffle and
picking her way as though she were shod with satin, and the sun shining
divinely. The road below Mashobra to Fagoo is officially styled the
Himalayan-Thibet Road; but in spite of its name it is not much more than
six feet wide in most places, and the drop into the valley below must be
anything between one and two thousand feet.

“Now we’re going to Thibet,” said the Man’s Wife merrily, as the horses
drew near to Fagoo. She was riding on the cliff-side.

“Into Thibet,” said the Tertium Quid, “ever so far from people who say
horrid things, and hubbies who write stupid letters. With you—to the
end of the world!”

A coolie carrying a log of wood came round a corner, and the mare went
wide to avoid him—forefeet in and haunches out, as a sensible mare
should go.

“To the world’s end,” said the Man’s Wife, and looked unspeakable things
over her near shoulder at the Tertium Quid.

He was smiling, but, while she looked, the smile froze stiff as it were on
his face, and changed to a nervous grin—the sort of grin men wear
when they are not quite easy in their saddles. The mare seemed to be
sinking by the stem, and her nostrils cracked while she was trying to
realize what was happening. The rain of the night before had rotted the
drop-side of the Himalayan-Thibet Road, and it was giving way under her.
“What are you doing?” said the Man’s Wife. The Tertium Quid gave no
answer. He grinned nervously and set his spurs into the mare, who rapped
with her forefeet on the road, and the struggle began. The Man’s Wife
screamed, “Oh, Frank, get off!”

But the Tertium Quid was glued to the saddle—his face blue and white—and
he looked into the Man’s Wife’s eyes. Then the Man’s Wife clutched at the
mare’s head and caught her by the nose instead of the bridle. The brute
threw up her head and went down with a scream, the Tertium Quid upon her,
and the nervous grin still set on his face.

The Man’s Wife heard the tinkle-tinkle of little stones and loose earth
falling off the roadway, and the sliding roar of the man and horse going
down. Then everything was quiet, and she called on Frank to leave his mare
and walk up. But Frank did not answer. He was underneath the mare, nine
hundred feet below, spoiling a patch of Indian corn.

As the revellers came back from Viceregal Lodge in the mists of the
evening, they met a temporarily insane woman, on a temporarily mad horse,
swinging round the corners, with her eyes and her mouth open, and her head
like the head of the Medusa. She was stopped by a man at the risk of his
life, and taken out of the saddle, a limp heap, and put on the bank to
explain herself. This wasted twenty minutes, and then she was sent home in
a lady’s ‘rickshaw, still with her mouth open and her hands picking at her
riding-gloves.

She was in bed through the following three days, which were rainy; so she
missed attending the funeral of the Tertium Quid, who was lowered into
eighteen inches of water, instead of the twelve to which he had first
objected.

A WAYSIDE COMEDY

Fate and the Government of India have turned the Station of Kashima into a
prison; and, because there is no help for the poor souls who are now lying
there in torment, I write this story, praying that the Government of India
may be moved to scatter the European population to the four winds.

Kashima is bound on all sides by the rock-tipped circle of the Dosehri
hills. In Spring, it is ablaze with roses; in Summer, the roses die and
the hot winds blow from the hills; in Autumn, the white mists from the
hills cover the place as with water; and in Winter the frosts nip
everything young and tender to earth-level. There is but one view in
Kashima—a stretch of perfectly flat pasture and plough-land, running
up to the grey-blue scrub of the Dosehri hills.

There are no amusements, except snipe and tiger shooting; but the tigers
have been long since hunted from their lairs in the rock-caves, and the
snipe only come once a year. Narkarra—one hundred and forty-three
miles by road—is the nearest station to Kashima. But Kashima never
goes to Narkarra, where there are at least twelve English people. It stays
within the circle of the Dosehri hills.

All Kashima acquits Mrs. Vansuythen of any intention to do harm; but all
Kashima knows that she, and she alone, brought about their pain.

Boulte, the Engineer, Mrs. Boulte, and Captain Kurrell know this. They are
the English population of Kashima, if we except Major Vansuythen, who is
of no importance whatever, and Mrs. Vansuythen, who is the most important
of all.

You must remember, though you will not understand, that all laws weaken in
a small and hidden community where there is no public opinion. When a man
is absolutely alone in a Station he runs a certain risk of falling into
evil ways. The risk is multiplied by every addition to the population up
to twelve—the Jury-number. After that, fear and consequent restraint
begin, and human action becomes less grotesquely jerky.

There was deep peace in Kashima till Mrs. Vansuythen arrived. She was a
charming woman, every one said so everywhere; and she charmed every one.
In spite of this, or, perhaps, because of this, since Fate is so perverse,
she cared only for one man, and he was Major Vansuythen. Had she been
plain or stupid, this matter would have been intelligible to Kashima. But
she was a fair woman, with very still grey eyes, the color of a lake just
before the light of the sun touches it. No man who had seen those eyes,
could, later on, explain what fashion of woman she was to look upon. The
eyes dazzled him. Her own sex said that she was “not bad looking, but
spoiled by pretending to be so grave.” And yet her gravity was natural It
was not her habit to smile. She merely went through life, looking at those
who passed; and the women objected while the men fell down and worshipped.

She knows and is deeply sorry for the evil she has done to Kashima; but
Major Vansuythen cannot understand why Mrs. Boulte does not drop in to
afternoon tea at least three times a week. “When there are only two women
in one Station, they ought to see a great deal of each other,” says Major
Vansuythen.

Long and long before ever Mrs. Vansuythen came out of those far-away
places where there is society and amusement, Kurrell had discovered that
Mrs. Boulte was the one woman in the world for him and—you dare not
blame them. Kashima was as out of the world as Heaven or the Other Place,
and the Dosehri hills kept their secret well. Boulte had no concern in the
matter. He was in camp for a fortnight at a time. He was a hard, heavy
man, and neither Mrs. Boulte nor Kurrell pitied him. They had all Kashima
and each other for their very, very own; and Kashima was the Garden of
Eden in those days. When Boulte returned from his wanderings he would slap
Kurrell between the shoulders and call him “old fellow,” and the three
would dine together. Kashima was happy then when the judgment of God
seemed almost as distant as Narkarra or the railway that ran down to the
sea. But the Government sent Major Vansuythen to Kashima, and with him
came his wife.

The etiquette of Kashima is much the same as that of a desert island. When
a stranger is cast away there, all hands go down to the shore to make him
welcome. Kashima assembled at the masonry platform close to the Narkarra
Road, and spread tea for the Vansuythens. That ceremony was reckoned a
formal call, and made them free of the Station, its rights and privileges.
When the Vansuythens were settled down, they gave a tiny housewarming to
all Kashima; and that made Kashima free of their house, according to the
immemorial usage of the Station.

Then the Rains came, when no one could go into camp, and the Narkarra Road
was washed away by the Kasun River, and in the cup-like pastures of
Kashima the cattle waded knee-deep. The clouds dropped down from the
Dosehri hills and covered everything.

At the end of the Rains, Boulte’s manner toward his wife changed and
became demonstratively affectionate. They had been married twelve years,
and the change startled Mrs. Boulte, who hated her husband with the hate
of a woman who has met with nothing but kindness from her mate, and, in
the teeth of this kindness, had done him a great wrong. Moreover, she had
her own trouble to fight with—her watch to keep over her own
property, Kurrell. For two months the Rains had hidden the Dosehri hills
and many other things besides; but when they lifted, they showed Mrs.
Boulte that her man among men, her Ted—for she called him Ted in the
old days when Boulte was out of earshot—was slipping the links of
the allegiance.

“The Vansuythen Woman has taken him,” Mrs. Boulte said to herself; and
when Boulte was away, wept over her belief, in the face of the
over-vehement blandishments of Ted. Sorrow in Kashima is as fortunate as
Love, because there is nothing to weaken it save the flight of Time. Mrs.
Boulte had never breathed her suspicion to Kurrell because she was not
certain; and her nature led her to be very certain before she took steps
in any direction. That is why she behaved as she did.

Boulte came into the house one evening, and leaned against the door-posts
of the drawing-room, chewing his moustache. Mrs. Boulte was putting some
flowers into a vase. There is a pretence of civilization even in Kashima.

“Little woman,” said Boulte, quietly, “do you care for me?”

“Immensely,” said she, with a laugh. “Can you ask it?”

“But I’m serious,” said Boulte. “Do you care for me?”

Mrs. Boulte dropped the flowers, and turned round quickly. “Do you want an
honest answer?”

“Ye-es, I’ve asked for it.”

Mrs. Boulte spoke in a low, even voice for five minutes, very distinctly,
that there might be no misunderstanding her meaning. When Samson broke the
pillars of Gaza, he did a little thing, and one not to be compared to the
deliberate pulling down of a woman’s homestead about her own ears. There
was no wise female friend to advise Mrs. Boulte, the singularly cautious
wife, to hold her hand. She struck at Boulte’s heart, because her own was
sick with suspicion of Kurrell, and worn out with the long strain of
watching alone through the Rains. There was no plan or purpose in her
speaking. The sentences made themselves; and Boulte listened leaning
against the door-post with his hands in his pockets. When all was over,
and Mrs. Boulte began to breathe through her nose before breaking out into
tears, he laughed and stared straight in front of him at the Dosehri
hills.

“Is that all?” he said. “Thanks, I only wanted to know, you know.”

“What are you going to do?” said the woman, between her sobs.

“Do! Nothing. What should I do? Kill Kurrell or send you Home, or apply
for leave to get a divorce? It’s two days’ dak into Narkarra.” He laughed
again and went on: “I’ll tell you what you can do. You can ask Kurrell to
dinner tomorrow—no, on Thursday, that will allow you time to pack—and
you can bolt with him. I give you my word I won’t follow.”

He took up his helmet and went out of the room, and Mrs. Boulte sat till
the moonlight streaked the floor, thinking and thinking and thinking. She
had done her best upon the spur of the moment to pull the house down; but
it would not fall. Moreover, she could not understand her husband, and she
was afraid. Then the folly of her useless truthfulness struck her, and she
was ashamed to write to Kurrell, saying: “I have gone mad and told
everything. My husband says that I am free to elope with you. Get a dak
for Thursday, and we will fly after dinner.” There was a cold-bloodedness
about that procedure which did not appeal to her. So she sat still in her
own house and thought.

At dinner-time Boulte came back from his walk, white and worn and haggard,
and the woman was touched at his distress. As the evening wore on, she
muttered some expression of sorrow, something approaching to contrition.
Boulte came out of a brown study and said, “Oh, that! I wasn’t thinking
about that. By the way, what does Kurrell say to the elopement?”

“I haven’t seen him,” said Mrs. Boulte. “Good God! is that all?”

But Boulte was not listening, and her sentence ended in a gulp.

The next day brought no comfort to Mrs. Boulte, for Kurrell did not
appear, and the new life that she, in the five minutes’ madness of the
previous evening, had hoped to build out of the ruins of the old, seemed
to be no nearer.

Boulte ate his breakfast, advised her to see her Arab pony fed in the
veranda, and went out. The morning wore through, and at midday the tension
became unendurable. Mrs. Boulte could not cry. She had finished her crying
in the night, and now she did not want to be left alone. Perhaps the
Vansuythen woman would talk to her; and, since talking opens the heart,
perhaps there might be some comfort to be found in her company. She was
the only other woman in the Station.

In Kashima there are no regular calling-hours. Every one can drop in upon
every one else at pleasure. Mrs. Boulte put on a big terai hat, and walked
across to the Vansuythens’s house to borrow last week’s Queen. The two
compounds touched, and instead of going up the drive, she crossed through
the gap in the cactus-hedge, entering the house from the back. As she
passed through the dining-room, she heard, behind the purdah that cloaked
the drawing-room door, her husband’s voice, saying—“But on my Honor!
On my Soul and Honor, I tell you she doesn’t care for me. She told me so
last night. I would have told you then if Vansuythen hadn’t been with you.
If it is for her sake that you’ll have nothing to say to me, you can make
your mind easy. It’s Kurrell.”

“What?” said Mrs. Vansuythen, with an hysterical little laugh. “Kurrell!
Oh, it can’t be. You two must have made some horrible mistake. Perhaps you—you
lost your temper, or misunderstood, or something. Things can’t be as wrong
as you say.”

Mrs. Vansuythen had shifted her defence to avoid the man’s pleading, and
was desperately trying to keep him to a side-issue.

“There must be some mistake,” she insisted, “and it can be all put right
again.”

Boulte laughed grimly.

“It can’t be Captain Kurrell! He told me that he had never taken the least—the
least interest in your wife, Mr. Boulte. Oh, do listen! He said he had
not. He swore he had not,” said Mrs. Vansuythen.

The purdah rustled, and the speech was cut short by the entry of a little,
thin woman with big rings round her eyes. Mrs. Vansuythen stood up with a
gasp.

“What was that you said?” asked Mrs. Boulte. “Never mind that man. What
did Ted say to you? What did he say to you? What did he say to you?”

Mrs. Vansuythen sat down helplessly on the sofa, overborne by the trouble
of her questioner.

“He said—I can’t remember exactly what he said—but I
understood him to say—that is—But, really, Mrs. Boulte, isn’t
it rather a strange question?”

“Will you tell me what he said?” repeated Mrs. Boulte.

Even a tiger will fly before a bear robbed of her whelps, and Mrs.
Vansuythen was only an ordinarily good woman. She began in a sort of
desperation: “Well, he said that he never cared for you at all, and, of
course, there was not the least reason why he should have, and—and—that
was all.”

“You said he swore he had not cared for me. Was that true?”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Vansuythen, very softly.

Mrs. Boulte wavered for an instant where she stood, and then fell forward
fainting.

“What did I tell you?” said Boulte, as though the conversation had been
unbroken. “You can see for yourself she cares for him.” The light began to
break into his dull mind, and he went on—“And he—what was he
saying to you?”

But Mrs. Vansuythen, with no heart for explanations or impassioned
protestations, was kneeling over Mrs. Boulte.

“Oh, you brute!” she cried. “Are all men like this? Help me to get her
into my room—and her face is cut against the table. Oh, will you be
quiet, and help me to carry her? I hate you, and I hate Captain Kurrell.
Lift her up carefully and now—go! Go away!”

Boulte carried his wife into Mrs. Vansuythen’s bedroom and departed before
the storm of that lady’s wrath and disgust, impenitent and burning with
jealousy. Kurrell had been making love to Mrs. Vansuythen—would do
Vansuythen as great a wrong as he had done Boulte, who caught himself
considering whether Mrs. Vansuythen would faint if she discovered that the
man she loved had foresworn her.

In the middle of these meditations, Kurrell came cantering along the road
and pulled up with a cheery, “Good mornin’. ‘Been mashing Mrs. Vansuythen
as usual, eh? Bad thing for a sober, married man, that. What will Mrs
Boulte say?”

Boulte raised his head and said, slowly, “Oh, you liar!”

Kurrell’s face changed. “What’s that?” he asked, quickly.

“Nothing much,” said Boulte. “Has my wife told you that you two are free
to go off whenever you please? She has been good enough to explain the
situation to me. You’ve been a true friend to me, Kurrell—old man—haven’t
you?”

Kurrell groaned, and tried to frame some sort of idiotic sentence about
being willing to give “satisfaction.” But his interest in the woman was
dead, had died out in the Rains, and, mentally, he was abusing her for her
amazing indiscretion. It would have been so easy to have broken off the
thing gently and by degrees, and now he was saddled with—Boulte’s
voice recalled him.

“I don’t think I should get any satisfaction from killing you, and I’m
pretty sure you’d get none from killing me.”

Then in a querulous tone, ludicrously disproportioned to his wrongs,
Boulte added—“’Seems rather a pity that you haven’t the decency to
keep to the woman, now you’ve got her. You’ve been a true friend to her
too, haven’t you?”

Kurrell stared long and gravely. The situation was getting beyond him.

“What do you mean?” he said.

Boulte answered, more to himself than the questioner: “My wife came over
to Mrs. Vansuythen’s just now; and it seems you’d been telling Mrs.
Vansuythen that you’d never cared for Emma. I suppose you lied, as usual.
What had Mrs. Vansuythen to do with you, or you with her? Try to speak the
truth for once in a way.”

Kurrell took the double insult without wincing, and replied by another
question: “Go on. What happened?”

“Emma fainted,” said Boulte, simply. “But, look here, what had you been
saying to Mrs. Vansuythen?”

Kurrell laughed. Mrs. Boulte had, with unbridled tongue, made havoc of his
plans; and he could at least retaliate by hurting the man in whose eyes he
was humiliated and shown dishonorable.

“Said to her? What does a man tell a lie like that for? I suppose I said
pretty much what you’ve said, unless I’m a good deal mistaken.”

“I spoke the truth,” said Boulte, again more to himself than Kurrell.
“Emma told me she hated me. She has no right in me.”

“No! I suppose not. You’re only her husband, y’know. And what did Mrs.
Vansuythen say after you had laid your disengaged heart at her feet?”

Kurrell felt almost virtuous as he put the question.

“I don’t think that matters,” Boulte replied; “and it doesn’t concern
you.”

“But it does! I tell you it does” began Kurrell, shamelessly.

The sentence was cut by a roar of laughter from Boulte’s lips. Kurrell was
silent for an instant, and then he, too, laughed—laughed long and
loudly, rocking in his saddle. It was an unpleasant sound—the
mirthless mirth of these men on the long, white line of the Narkarra Road.
There were no strangers in Kashima, or they might have thought that
captivity within the Dosehri hills had driven half the European population
mad. The laughter ended abruptly, and Kurrell was the first to speak.

“Well, what are you going to do?”

Boulte looked up the road, and at the hills. “Nothing,” said he, quietly;
“what’s the use? It’s too ghastly for anything. We must let the old life
go on. I can only call you a hound and a liar, and I can’t go on calling
you names forever. Besides which, I don’t feel that I’m much better. We
can’t get out of this place. What is there to do?”

Kurrell looked round the rat-pit of Kashima and made no reply. The injured
husband took up the wondrous tale.

“Ride on, and speak to Emma if you want to. God knows I don’t care what
you do.”

He walked forward and left Kurrell gazing blankly after him. Kurrell did
not ride on either to see Mrs. Boulte or Mrs. Vansuythen. He sat in his
saddle and thought, while his pony grazed by the roadside.

The whir of approaching wheels roused him. Mrs. Vansuythen was driving
home Mrs. Boulte, white and wan, with a cut on her forehead.

“Stop, please,” said Mrs. Boulte “I want to speak to Ted.”

Mrs. Vansuythen obeyed, but as Mrs. Boulte leaned forward, putting her
hand upon the splash-board of the dog-cart, Kurrell spoke.

“I’ve seen your husband, Mrs. Boulte.”

There was no necessity for any further explanation. The man’s eyes were
fixed, not upon Mrs. Boulte, but her companion. Mrs. Boulte saw the look.

“Speak to him!” she pleaded, turning to the woman at her side. “Oh, speak
to him! Tell him what you told me just now. Tell him you hate him. Tell
him you hate him!”

She bent forward and wept bitterly, while the sais, impassive, went
forward to hold the horse. Mrs. Vansuythen turned scarlet and dropped the
reins. She wished to be no party to such unholy explanations.

“I’ve nothing to do with it,” she began, coldly; but Mrs. Boulte’s sobs
overcame her, and she addressed herself to the man. “I don’t know what I
am to say, Captain Kurrell. I don’t know what I can call you. I think
you’ve—you’ve behaved abominably, and she has cut her forehead
terribly against the table.”

“It doesn’t hurt. It isn’t anything,” said Mrs. Boulte feebly. “That
doesn’t matter. Tell him what you told me. Say you don’t care for him. Oh,
Ted, won’t you believe her?”

“Mrs. Boulte has made me understand that you were—that you were fond
of her once upon a time,” went on Mrs. Vansuythen.

“Well!” said Kurrell brutally. “It seems to me that Mrs. Boulte had better
be fond of her own husband first.”

“Stop!” said Mrs. Vansuythen. “Hear me first. I don’t care—I don’t
want to know anything about you and Mrs. Boulte; but I want you to know
that I hate you, that I think you are a cur, and that I’ll never, never
speak to you again. Oh, I don’t dare to say what I think of you, you—man!
Sais, gorah ko jane do.”

“I want to speak to Ted,” moaned Mrs. Boulte, but the dog-cart rattled on,
and Kurrell was left on the road, shamed, and boiling with wrath against
Mrs. Boulte.

He waited till Mrs. Vansuythen was driving back to her own house, and, she
being freed from the embarrassment of Mrs. Boulte’s presence, learned for
the second time her opinion of himself and his actions.

In the evenings, it was the wont of all Kashima to meet at the platform on
the Narkarra Road, to drink tea, and discuss the trivialities of the day.
Major Vansuythen and his wife found themselves alone at the
gathering-place for almost the first time in their remembrance; and the
cheery Major, in the teeth of his wife’s remarkably reasonable suggestion
that the rest of the Station might be sick, insisted upon driving round to
the two bungalows and unearthing the population.

“Sitting in the twilight!” said he, with great indignation to the Boultes.
“That’ll never do! Hang it all, we’re one family here! You must come out,
and so must Kurrell. I’ll make him bring his banjo.” So great is the power
of honest simplicity and a good digestion over guilty consciences that all
Kashima did turn out, even down to the banjo; and the Major embraced the
company in one expansive grin. As he grinned, Mrs. Vansuythen raised her
eyes for an instant and looked at all Kashima. Her meaning was clear.
Major Vansuythen would never know anything. He was to be the outsider in
that happy family whose cage was the Dosehri hills.

“You’re singing villainously out of tune, Kurrell,” said the Major,
truthfully. “Pass me that banjo.”

And he sang in excruciating-wise till the stars came out and all Kashima
went to dinner.

That was the beginning of the New Life of Kashima—the life that Mrs.
Boulte made when her tongue was loosened in the twilight.

Mrs. Vansuythen has never told the Major; and since be insists upon
keeping up a burdensome geniality, she has been compelled to break her vow
of not speaking to Kurrell. This speech, which must of necessity preserve
the semblance of politeness and interest, serves admirably to keep alive
the flame of jealousy and dull hatred in Boulte’s bosom, as it awakens the
same passions in his wife’s heart. Mrs. Boulte hates Mrs. Vansuythen
because she has taken Ted from her, and, in some curious fashion, hates
her because Mrs. Vansuythen—and here the wife’s eyes see far more
clearly than the husband’s—detests Ted. And Ted—that gallant
captain and honorable man—knows now that it is possible to hate a
woman once loved, to the verge of wishing to silence her forever with
blows. Above all, is he shocked that Mrs. Boulte cannot see the error of
her ways.

Boulte and he go out tiger-shooting together in all friendship. Boulte has
put their relationship on a most satisfactory footing.

“You’re a blackguard,” he says to Kurrell, “and I’ve lost any self-respect
I may ever have had; but when you’re with me, I can feel certain that you
are not with Mrs. Vansuythen, or making Emma miserable.”

Kurrell endures anything that Boulte may say to him. Sometimes they are
away for three days together, and then the Major insists upon his wife
going over to sit with Mrs. Boulte; although Mrs. Vansuythen has
repeatedly declared that she prefers her husband’s company to any in the
world. From the way in which she clings to him, she would certainly seem
to be speaking the truth.

But of course, as the Major says, “in a little Station we must all be
friendly.”

THE HILL OF ILLUSION

HE. Tell your jhampanis not to hurry so, dear. They forget I’m fresh from
the Plains.

SHE. Sure proof that I have not been going out with any one. Yes, they are
an untrained crew. Where do we go?

HE. As usual—to the world’s end. No, Jakko.

SHE. Have your pony led after you, then. It’s a long round.

HE. And for the last time, thank Heaven!

SHE. Do you mean that still? I didn’t dare to write to you about it… all
these months.

HE. Mean it! I’ve been shaping my affairs to that end since Autumn. What
makes you speak as though it had occurred to you for the first time?

SHE. I! Oh! I don’t know. I’ve had long enough to think, too.

HE. And you’ve changed your mind?

SHE. No. You ought to know that I am a miracle of constancy. What are your—arrangements?

HE. Ours, Sweetheart, please.

SHE. Ours, be it then. My poor boy, how the prickly heat has marked your
forehead! Have you ever tried sulphate of copper in water?

HE. It’ll go away in a day or two up here. The arrangements are simple
enough. Tonga in the early morning—reach Kalka at twelve—Umballa
at seven—down, straight by night train, to Bombay, and then the
steamer of the 21st for Rome. That’s my idea. The Continent and Sweden—a
ten-week honeymoon.

SHE. Ssh! Don’t talk of it in that way. It makes me afraid. Guy, how long
have we two been insane?

HE. Seven months and fourteen days; I forget the odd hours exactly, but
I’ll think.

SHE. I only wanted to see if you remembered. Who are those two on the
Blessington Road?

HE. Eabrey and the Penner woman. What do they matter to us? Tell me
everything that you’ve been doing and saying and thinking.

SHE. Doing little, saying less, and thinking a great deal. I’ve hardly
been out at all.

Ha. That was wrong of you. You haven’t been moping?

SHE. Not very much. Can you wonder that I’m disinclined for amusement?

HE. Frankly, I do. Where was the difficulty?

SHE. In this only. The more people I know and the more I’m known here, the
wider spread will be the news of the crash when it comes. I don’t like
that.

HE. Nonsense. We shall be out of it.

SHE. You think so?

HE. I’m sure of it, if there is any power in steam or horse-flesh to carry
us away. Ha! ha!

SHE. And the fun of the situation comes in—where, my Lancelot?

HE. Nowhere, Guinevere. I was only thinking of something.

SHE. They say men have a keener sense of humor than women. Now I
was thinking of the scandal.

HE. Don’t think of anything so ugly. We shall be beyond it.

SHE. It will be there all the same in the mouths of Simla—telegraphed
over India, and talked of at the dinners—and when He goes out they
will stare at Him to see how He takes it. And we shall be dead, Guy dear—dead
and cast into the outer darkness where there is—

HE. Love at least. Isn’t that enough?

SHE. I have said so.

HE. And you think so still?

SHE. What do you think?

Ha. What have I done? It means equal ruin to me, as the world
reckons it—outcasting, the loss of my appointment, the breaking of
my life’s work. I pay my price.

SHE. And are you so much above the world that you can afford to pay it? Am
I?

Ha. My Divinity—what else?

SHE. A very ordinary woman I’m afraid, but, so far, respectable. How’d you
do, Mrs. Middleditch? Your husband? I think he’s riding down to Annandale
with Colonel Statters. Yes, isn’t it divine after the rain?—Guy, how
long am I to be allowed to bow to Mrs. Middleditch? Till the 17th?

HE. Frowsy Scotchwoman? What is the use of bringing her into the
discussion? You were saying?

SHE. Nothing. Have you ever seen a man hanged?

HE. Yes. Once.

SHE. What was it for?

HE. Murder, of course.

SHE. Murder. Is that so great a sin after all? I wonder how he felt before
the drop fell.

HE. I don’t think he felt much. What a gruesome little woman it is this
evening! You’re shivering. Put on your cape, dear.

SHE. I think I will. Oh! Look at the mist coming over Sanjaoli; and I
thought we should have sunshine on the Ladies’ Mile! Let’s turn back.

HE. What’s the good? There’s a cloud on Elysium Hill, and that means it’s
foggy all down the Mall. We’ll go on. It’ll blow away before we get to the
Convent, perhaps. ‘Jove! It is chilly.

SHE. You feel it, fresh from below. Put on your ulster. What do you think
of my cape?

HE. Never ask a man his opinion of a woman’s dress when he is desperately
and abjectly in love with the wearer. Let me look. Like everything else of
yours it’s perfect. Where did you get it from?

SHE. He gave it me, on Wednesday… our wedding-day, you know.

HE. The deuce He did! He’s growing generous in his old age. D’you like all
that frilly, bunchy stuff at the throat? I don’t.

SHE. Don’t you?

HE. I won’t say: “Keek into the draw-well, Janet, Janet.” Only wait a
little, darling, and you shall be stocked with russet gowns and everything
else.

SHE. And when the frocks wear out, you’ll get me new ones—and
everything else?

HE. Assuredly.

SHE. I wonder!

HE. Look here, Sweetheart, I didn’t spend two days and two nights in the
train to hear you wonder. I thought we’d settled all that at Shaifazehat.

SHE (dreamily). At Shaifazehat? Does the Station go on still? That was
ages and ages ago. It must be crumbling to pieces. All except the
Amirtollah kutcha road. I don’t believe that could crumble till the Day of
Judgment.

Ha. You think so? What is the mood now?

SHE. I can’t tell. How cold it is! Let us get on quickly.

Ha. Better walk a little. Stop your jhampanis and get out. What’s the
matter with you this evening, dear?

SHE. Nothing. You must grow accustomed to my ways. If I’m boring you I can
go home. Here’s Captain Congleton coming; I dare say he’ll be willing to
escort me.

Ha. Goose! Between us, too! Damn Captain Congleton. There!

SHE. Chivalrous Knight! Is it your habit to swear much in talking? It jars
a little, and you might swear at me.

HE. My angel! I didn’t know what I was saying; and you changed so quickly
that I couldn’t follow. I’ll apologize in dust and ashes.

SHE. There’ll be enough of those later on. Good night, Captain Congleton.
Going to the singing-quadrilles already? What dances am I giving you next
week? No! You must have written them down wrong. Five and Seven, I said.
If you’ve made a mistake, I certainly don’t intend to suffer for it. You
must alter your programme.

HE. I thought you told me that you had not been going out much this
season?

SHE. Quite true, but when I do I dance with Captain Congleton. He dances
very nicely.

HE. And sit out with him, I suppose?

SHE. Yes. Have you any objection? Shall I stand under the chandelier in
future?

HE. What does he talk to you about?

SHE. What do men talk about when they sit out?

Ha. Ugh! Don’t! Well now I’m up, you must dispense with the fascinating
Congleton for a while. I don’t like him.

SHE. (after a pause). Do you know what you have said?

HE. ‘Can’t say that I do exactly. I’m not in the best of tempers.

SHE. So I see… and feel. My true and faithful lover, where is your
“eternal constancy,” “unalterable trust,” and “reverent devotion”? I
remember those phrases; you seem to have forgotten them. I mention a man’s
name—

HE. A good deal more than that.

SHE. Well, speak to him about a dance—perhaps the last dance that I
shall ever dance in my life before I… before I go away; and you at once
distrust and insult me.

HE. I never said a word.

SHE. How much did you imply? Guy, is this amount of confidence to be our
stock to start the new life on?

HE. No, of course not. I didn’t mean that. On my word of honor, I didn’t.
Let it pass, dear. Please let it pass.

SHE. This once—yes—and a second time, and again and again, all
through the years when I shall be unable to resent it. You want too much,
my Lancelot, and… you know too much.

HE. How do you mean?

SHE. That is a part of the punishment. There cannot be perfect trust
between us.

HE. In Heaven’s name, why not?

SHE. Hush! The Other Place is quite enough. Ask yourself.

HE. I don’t follow.

SHE. You trust me so implicitly that when I look at another man—Never
mind, Guy. Have you ever made love to a girl—a good girl?

HE. Something of the sort. Centuries ago—in the Dark Ages, before I
ever met you, dear.

SHE. Tell me what you said to her.

HE. What does a man say to a girl? I’ve forgotten.

SHE. I remember. He tells her that he trusts her and worships the ground
she walks on, and that he’ll love and honor and protect her till her dying
day; and so she marries in that belief. At least, I speak of one girl who
was not protected.

HE. Well, and then?

SHE. And then, Guy, and then, that girl needs ten times the love and trust
and honor—yes, honor—that was enough when she was only a mere
wife if—if—the other life she chooses to lead is to be made
even bearable. Do you understand?

HE. Even bearable! It’ll he Paradise.

SHE. Ah! Can you give me all I’ve asked for—not now, nor a few
months later, but when you begin to think of what you might have done if
you had kept your own appointment and your caste here—when you begin
to look upon me as a drag and a burden? I shall want it most, then, Guy,
for there will be no one in the wide world but you.

HE. You’re a little over-tired tonight, Sweetheart, and you’re taking a
stage view of the situation. After the necessary business in the Courts,
the road is clear to—

SHE. “The holy state of matrimony!” Ha! ha! ha!

HE. Ssh! Don’t laugh in that horrible way!

SHE. I-I c-c-c-can’t help it! Isn’t it too absurd! Ah! Ha! ha! ha! Guy,
stop me quick or I shall—l-l-laugh till we get to the Church.

HE. For goodness’ sake, stop! Don’t make an exhibition of yourself. What
is the matter with you?

SHE. N-nothing. I’m better now.

HE. That’s all right. One moment, dear. There’s a little wisp of hair got
loose from behind your right ear and it’s straggling over your cheek. So!

SHE. Thank’oo. I’m ‘fraid my hat’s on one side, too.

HE. What do you wear these huge dagger bonnet-skewers for? They’re big
enough to kill a man with.

SHE. Oh! Don’t kill me, though. You’re sticking it into my head! Let me do
it. You men are so clumsy.

HE. Have you had many opportunities of comparing us—in this sort of
work?

SHE. Guy, what is my name?

HE. Eh! I don’t follow.

SHE. Here’s my cardcase. Can you read?

HE. Yes. Well?

SHE. Well, that answers your question. You know the other man’s name. Am I
sufficiently humbled, or would you like to ask me if there is any one
else?

HE. I see now. My darling, I never meant that for an instant. I was only
joking. There! Lucky there’s no one on the road. They’d be scandalized.

SHE. They’ll be more scandalized before the end.

HE. Do-on’t! I don’t like you to talk in that way.

SHE. Unreasonable man! Who asked me to face the situation and accept it?
Tell me, do I look like Mrs. Penner? Do I look like a naughty woman? Swear
I don’t! Give me your word of honor, my honorable friend, that I’m not
like Mrs. Buzgago. That’s the way she stands, with her hands clasped at
the back of her head. D’you like that?

HE. Don’t be affected.

SHE. I’m not. I’m Mrs. Buzgago. Listen!

That’s the way she rolls her r’s. Am I like her?

HE. No, but I object when you go on like an actress and sing stuff of that
kind. Where in the world did you pick up the Chanson du Colonel? It isn’t
a drawing-room song. It isn’t proper.

SHE. Mrs. Buzgago taught it me. She is both drawing-room and proper, and
in another month she’ll shut her drawing-room to me, and thank God she
isn’t as improper as I am. Oh, Guy, Guy! I wish I was like some women and
had no scruples about—what is it Keene says?—“Wearing a
corpse’s hair and being false to the bread they eat.”

HE. I am only a man of limited intelligence, and just now, very
bewildered. When you have quite finished flashing through all your moods
tell me, and I’ll try to understand the last one.

SHE. Moods, Guy! I haven’t any. I’m sixteen years old and you’re just
twenty, and you’ve been waiting for two hours outside the school in the
cold. And now I’ve met you, and now we’re walking home together. Does that
suit you, My Imperial Majesty?

HE. No. We aren’t children. Why can’t you be rational?

SHE. He asks me that when I’m going to commit suicide for his sake, and,
and—I don’t want to be French and rave about my mother, but have I
ever told you that I have a mother, and a brother who was my pet before I
married? He’s married now. Can’t you imagine the pleasure that the news of
the elopement will give him? Have you any people at Home, Guy, to be
pleased with your performances?

HE. One or two. One can’t make omelets without breaking eggs.

SHE (slowly). I don’t see the necessity—

HE. Hah! What do you mean?

SHE. Shall I speak the truth?

HE. Under the circumstances, perhaps it would be as well.

SHE. Guy, I’m afraid.

HE. I thought we’d settled all that. What of?

SHE. Of you.

HE. Oh, damn it all! The old business! This is too had!

SHE. Of you.

HE. And what now?

SHE. What do you think of me?

HE. Beside the question altogether. What do you intend to do?

SHE. I daren’t risk it. I’m afraid. If I could only cheat—

HE. A la Buzgago? No, thanks. That’s the one point on which I have any
notion of Honor. I won’t eat his salt and steal too. I’ll loot openly or
not at all.

SHE. I never meant anything else.

HE. Then, why in the world do you pretend not to be willing to come?

SHE. It’s not pretence, Guy. I am afraid.

HE. Please explain.

SHE. It can’t last, Guy. It can’t last. You’ll get angry, and then you’ll
swear, and then you’ll get jealous, and then you’ll mistrust me—you
do now—and you yourself will be the best reason for doubting. And I—what
shall I do? I shall be no better than Mrs. Buzgago found out—no
better than any one. And you’ll know that. Oh, Guy, can’t you see?

HE. I see that you are desperately unreasonable, little woman.

SHE. There! The moment I begin to object, you get angry. What will you do
when I am only your property—stolen property? It can’t be, Guy. It
can’t be! I thought it could, but it can’t. You’ll get tired of me.

HE. I tell you I shall not. Won’t anything make you understand that?

SHE. There, can’t you see? If you speak to me like that now, you’ll call
me horrible names later, if I don’t do everything as you like. And if you
were cruel to me, Guy, where should I go—where should I go? I can’t
trust you. Oh! I can’t trust you!

HE. I suppose I ought to say that I can trust you. I’ve ample reason.

SHE. Please don’t, dear. It hurts as much as if you hit me.

HE. It isn’t exactly pleasant for me.

SHE. I can’t help it. I wish I were dead! I can’t trust you, and I don’t
trust myself. Oh, Guy, let it die away and be forgotten!

HE. Too late now. I don’t understand you—I won’t—and I can’t
trust myself to talk this evening. May I call tomorrow?

SHE. Yes. No! Oh, give me time! The day after. I get into my ‘rickshaw
here and meet Him at Peliti’s. You ride.

HE. I’ll go on to Peliti’s too. I think I want a drink. My world’s knocked
about my ears and the stars are falling. Who are those brutes howling in
the Old Library?

SHE. They’re rehearsing the singing-quadrilles for the Fancy Ball. Can’t
you hear Mrs. Buzgago’s voice? She has a solo. It’s quite a new idea.
Listen.

MRS. BUZGAGO (in the Old Library, con. molt. exp.).

See-saw! Margery Daw! Sold her bed to lie upon straw. Wasn’t she a silly
slut To sell her bed and lie upon dirt?

Captain Congleton, I’m going to alter that to “flirt.” It sound better.

HE. No, I’ve changed my mind about the drink. Good night, little lady. I
shall see you tomorrow?

SHE. Yes. Good night, Guy. Don’t be angry with me.

HE. Angry! You know I trust you absolutely. Good night and—God bless
you!

(Three seconds later. Alone.) Hmm! I’d give something to discover whether
there’s another man at the back of all this.

A SECOND-RATE WOMAN

“DRESSED! Don’t tell me that woman ever dressed in her life. She stood in
the middle of her room while her ayah—no, her husband—it must
have been a man—threw her clothes at her. She then did her hair with
her fingers, and rubbed her bonnet in the flue under the bed. I know she
did, as well as if I had assisted at the orgy. Who is she?” said Mrs.
Hauksbee.

“Don’t!” said Mrs. Mallowe, feebly. “You make my head ache. I’m miserable
today. Stay me with fondants, comfort me with chocolates, for I am—Did
you bring anything from Peliti’s?”

“Questions to begin with. You shall have the sweets when you have answered
them. Who and what is the creature? There were at least half a dozen men
round her, and she appeared to be going to sleep in their midst.”

“Delville,” said Mrs. Mallowe, “’Shady’ Delville, to distinguish her from
Mrs. Jim of that ilk. She dances as untidily as she dresses, I believe,
and her husband is somewhere in Madras. Go and call, if you are so
interested.”

“What have I to do with Shigramitish women? She merely caught my attention
for a minute, and I wondered at the attraction that a dowd has for a
certain type of man. I expected to see her walk out of her clothes—until
I looked at her eyes.”

“Hooks and eyes, surely,” drawled Mrs. Mallowe.

“Don’t be clever, Polly. You make my head ache. And round this hayrick
stood a crowd of men—a positive crowd!”

“Perhaps they also expected”—

“Polly, don’t be Rabelaisian!”

Mrs. Mallowe curled herself up comfortably on the sofa, and turned her
attention to the sweets. She and Mrs. Hauksbee shared the same house at
Simla; and these things befell two seasons after the matter of Otis Yeere,
which has been already recorded.

Mrs. Hauksbee stepped into the veranda and looked down upon the Mall, her
forehead puckered with thought.

“Hah!” said Mrs. Hauksbee, shortly. “Indeed!”

“What is it?” said Mrs. Mallowe, sleepily.

“That dowd and The Dancing Master—to whom I object.”

“Why to The Dancing Master? He is a middle-aged gentleman, of reprobate
and romantic tendencies, and tries to be a friend of mine.”

“Then make up your mind to lose him. Dowds cling by nature, and I should
imagine that this animal—how terrible her bonnet looks from above!—is
specially clingsome.”

“She is welcome to The Dancing Master so far as I am concerned. I never
could take an interest in a monotonous liar. The frustrated aim of his
life is to persuade people that he is a bachelor.”

“0—oh! I think I’ve met that sort of man before. And isn’t he?”

“No. He confided that to me a few days ago. Ugh! Some men ought to Be
killed.”

“What happened then?”

“He posed as the horror of horrors—a misunderstood man. Heaven knows
the femme incomprise is sad enough and had enough—but the other
thing!”

“And so fat too! I should have laughed in his face. Men seldom confide in
me. How is it they come to you?”

“For the sake of impressing me with their careers in the past. Protect me
from men with confidences!”

“And yet you encourage them?”

“What can I do? They talk. I listen, and they vow that I am sympathetic. I
know I always profess astonishment even when the plot is—of the most
old possible.”

“Yes. Men are so unblushingly explicit if they are once allowed to talk,
whereas women’s confidences are full of reservations and fibs, except”—

“When they go mad and babble of the Unutterabilities after a week’s
acquaintance. Really, if you come to consider, we know a great deal more
of men than of our own sex.”

“And the extraordinary thing is that men will never believe it. They say
we are trying to hide something.”

“They are generally doing that on their own account. Alas! These
chocolates pall upon me, and I haven’t eaten more than a dozen. I think I
shall go to sleep.”

“Then you’ll get fat dear. If you took more exercise and a more
intelligent interest in your neighbors you would—”

“Be as much loved as Mrs. Hauksbee. You’re a darling in many ways and I
like you—you are not a woman’s woman—but why do you trouble
yourself about mere human beings?”

“Because in the absence of angels, who I am sure would be horribly dull,
men and women are the most fascinating things in the whole wide world,
lazy one. I am interested in The Dowd—I am interested in The Dancing
Master—I am interested in the Hawley Boy—and I am interested
in you.”

“Why couple me with the Hawley Boy? He is your property.”

“Yes, and in his own guileless speech, I’m making a good thing out of him.
When he is slightly more reformed, and has passed his Higher Standard, or
whatever the authorities think fit to exact from him, I shall select a
pretty little girl, the Holt girl, I think, and”—here she waved her
hands airily—“’whom Mrs. Hauksbee hath joined together let no man
put asunder.’ That’s all.”

“And when you have yoked May Holt with the most notorious detrimental in
Simla, and earned the undying hatred of Mamma Holt, what will you do with
me, Dispenser of the Destinies of the Universe?”

Mrs. Hauksbee dropped into a low chair in front of the fire, and, chin in
band, gazed long and steadfastly at Mrs. Mallowe.

“I do not know,” she said, shaking her head, “what I shall do with you,
dear. It’s obviously impossible to marry you to some one else—your
husband would object and the experiment might not be successful after all.
I think I shall begin by preventing you from—what is it?—’sleeping
on ale-house benches and snoring in the sun.’”

“Don’t! I don’t like your quotations. They are so rude. Go to the Library
and bring me new books.”

“While you sleep? No! If you don’t come with me, I shall spread your
newest frock on my ‘rickshaw-bow, and when any one asks me what I am
doing, I shall say that I am going to Phelps’s to get it let out. I shall
take care that Mrs. MacNamara sees me. Put your things on, there’s a good
girl.”

Mrs. Mallowe groaned and obeyed, and the two went off to the Library,
where they found Mrs. Delville and the man who went by the nickname of The
Dancing Master. By that time Mrs Mallowe was awake and eloquent.

“That is the Creature!” said Mrs Hauksbee, with the air of one pointing
out a slug in the road.

“No,” said Mrs. Mallowe. “The man is the Creature. Ugh! Good-evening, Mr.
Bent. I thought you were coming to tea this evening.”

“Surely it was for tomorrow, was it not?” answered The Dancing Master. “I
understood… I fancied… I’m so sorry… How very unfortunate!…”

But Mrs. Mallowe had passed on.

“For the practiced equivocator you said he was,” murmured Mrs. Hauksbee,
“he strikes me as a failure. Now wherefore should he have preferred a walk
with The Dowd to tea with us? Elective affinities, I suppose—both
grubby. Polly, I’d never forgive that woman as long as the world rolls.”

“I forgive every woman everything,” said Mrs. Mallowe. “He will be a
sufficient punishment for her. What a common voice she has!”

Mrs. Delville’s voice was not pretty, her carriage was even less lovely,
and her raiment was strikingly neglected. All these things Mrs. Mallowe
noticed over the top of a magazine.

“Now what is there in her?” said Mrs. Hauksbee. “Do you see what I meant
about the clothes falling off? If I were a man I would perish sooner than
be seen with that rag-bag. And yet, she has good eyes, but—oh!”

“What is it?”

“She doesn’t know how to use them! On my Honor, she does not. Look! Oh
look! Untidiness I can endure, but ignorance never! The woman’s a fool.”

“H’sh! She’ll hear you.”

“All the women in Simla are fools. She’ll think I mean some one else. Now
she’s going out. What a thoroughly objectionable couple she and The
Dancing Master make! Which reminds me. Do you suppose they’ll ever dance
together?”

“Wait and see. I don’t envy her the conversation of The Dancing Master—loathly
man. His wife ought to be up here before long.”

“Do you know anything about him?”

“Only what he told me. It may be all a fiction. He married a girl bred in
the country, I think, and, being an honorable, chivalrous soul, told me
that he repented his bargain and sent her to her mother as often as
possible—a person who has lived in the Doon since the memory of man
and goes to Mussoorie when other people go Home. The wife is with her at
present. So he says.”

‘Babies?’

“One only, but he talks of his wife in a revolting way. I hated him for
it. He thought he was being epigrammatic and brilliant.”

“That is a vice peculiar to men. I dislike him because he is generally in
the wake of some girl, disappointing the Eligibles. He will persecute May
Holt no more, unless I am much mistaken.”

“No. I think Mrs. Delville may occupy his attention for a while.”

“Do you suppose she knows that he is the head of a family?”

“Not from his lips. He swore me to eternal secrecy. Wherefore I tell you.
Don’t you know that type of man?”

“Not intimately, thank goodness! As a general rule, when a man begins to
abuse his wife to me, I find that the Lord gives me wherewith to answer
him according to his folly; and we part with a coolness between us. I
laugh.”

“I’m different. I’ve no sense of humor.”

“Cultivate it, then. It has been my mainstay for more years than I care to
think about. A well-educated sense of Humor will save a woman when
Religion, Training, and Home influences fail; and we may all need
salvation sometimes.”

“Do you suppose that the Delville woman has humor?”

“Her dress betrays her. How can a Thing who wears her supple’ment under
her left arm have any notion of the fitness of things—much less
their folly? If she discards The Dancing Master after having once seen him
dance, I may respect her, Otherwise—

“But are we not both assuming a great deal too much, dear? You saw the
woman at Peliti’s—half an hour later you saw her walking with The
Dancing Master—an hour later you met her here at the Library.”

“Still with The Dancing Master, remember.”

“Still with The Dancing Master, I admit, but why on the strength of that
should you imagine”—

“I imagine nothing. I have no imagination. I am only convinced that The
Dancing Master is attracted to The Dowd because he is objectionable in
every way and she in every other. If I know the man as you have described
him, he holds his wife in slavery at present.”

“She is twenty years younger than he.”

“Poor wretch! And, in the end, after he has posed and swaggered and lied—he
has a mouth under that ragged moustache simply made for lies—he will
be rewarded according to his merits.”

“I wonder what those really are,” said Mrs. Mallowe.

But Mrs. Hauksbee, her face close to the shelf of the new books, was
humming softly: “What shall he have who killed the Deer!” She was a lady
of unfettered speech.

One month later, she announced her intention of calling upon Mrs.
Delville. Both Mrs. Hauksbee and Mrs. Mallowe were in morning wrappers,
and there was a great peace in the land.

“I should go as I was,” said Mrs. Mallowe. “It would be a delicate
compliment to her style.”

Mrs. Hauksbee studied herself in the glass.

“Assuming for a moment that she ever darkened these doors, I should put on
this robe, after all the others, to show her what a morning wrapper ought
to be. It might enliven her. As it is, I shall go in the dove-colored—sweet
emblem of youth and innocence—and shall put on my new gloves.”

“If you really are going, dirty tan would be too good; and you know that
dove—color spots with the rain.”

“I care not. I may make her envious. At least I shall try, though one
cannot expect very much from a woman who puts a lace tucker into her
habit.”

“Just Heavens! When did she do that?”

“Yesterday—riding with The Dancing Master. I met them at the back of
Jakko, and the rain had made the lace lie down. To complete the effect,
she was wearing an unclean terai with the elastic under her chin. I felt
almost too well content to take the trouble to despise her.”

“The Hawley Boy was riding with you. What did he think?”

“Does a boy ever notice these things? Should I like him if he did? He
stared in the rudest way, and just when I thought he had seen the elastic,
he said, ‘There’s something very taking about that face.’ I rebuked him on
the spot. I don’t approve of boys being taken by faces.”

“Other than your own. I shouldn’t be in the least surprised if the Hawley
Boy immediately went to call.”

“I forbade him. Let her be satisfied with The Dancing Master, and his wife
when she comes up. I’m rather curious to see Mrs. Bent and the Delville
woman together.”

Mrs. Hauksbee departed and, at the end of an hour, returned slightly
flushed.

“There is no limit to the treachery of youth! I ordered the Hawley Boy, as
he valued my patronage, not to call. The first person I stumble over—literally
stumble over—in her poky, dark, little drawing-room is, of course,
the Hawley Boy. She kept us waiting ten minutes, and then emerged as
though he had been tipped out of the dirty-clothes basket. You know my
way, dear, when I am all put out. I was Superior, crrrushingly Superior!
‘Lifted my eyes to Heaven, and had heard of nothing—’dropped my eyes
on the carpet and ‘really didn’t know’—’played with my cardcase and
‘supposed so.’ The Hawley Boy giggled like a girl, and I had to freeze him
with scowls between the sentences.”

“And she?”

“She sat in a heap on the edge of a couch, and managed to convey the
impression that she was suffering from stomach-ache, at the very least. It
was all I could do not to ask after her symptoms. When I rose she grunted
just like a buffalo in the water—too lazy to move.”

“Are you certain?”—

“Am I blind, Polly? Laziness, sheer laziness, nothing else—or her
garments were only constructed for sitting down in. I stayed for a quarter
of an hour trying to penetrate the gloom, to guess what her surroundings
were like, while she stuck out her tongue.”

“Lu—cy!”

“Well—I’ll withdraw the tongue, though I’m sure if she didn’t do it
when I was in the room, she did the minute I was outside. At any rate, she
lay in a lump and grunted. Ask the Hawley Boy, dear. I believe the grunts
were meant for sentences, but she spoke so indistinctly that I can’t swear
to it.”

“You are incorrigible, simply.”

“I am not! Treat me civilly, give me peace with honor, don’t put the only
available seat facing the window, and a child may eat jam in my lap before
Church. But I resent being grunted at. Wouldn’t you? Do you suppose that
she communicates her views on life and love to The Dancing Master in a set
of modulated ‘Grmphs’?”

“You attach too much importance to The Dancing Master.”

“He came as we went, and The Dowd grew almost cordial at the sight of him.
He smiled greasily, and moved about that darkened dog-kennel in a
suspiciously familiar way.”

“Don’t be uncharitable. Any sin but that I’ll forgive.”

“Listen to the voice of History. I am only describing what I saw. He
entered, the heap on the sofa revived slightly, and the Hawley Boy and I
came away together. He is disillusioned, but I felt it my duty to lecture
him severely for going there. And that’s all.”

“Now for Pity’s sake leave the wretched creature and The Dancing Master
alone. They never did you any harm.”

“No harm? To dress as an example and a stumbling-block for half Simla, and
then to find this Person who is dressed by the hand of God—not that
I wish to disparage Him for a moment, but you know the tikka-dhurzie way
He attires those lilies of the field—this Person draws the eyes of
men—and some of them nice men? It’s almost enough to make one
discard clothing. I told the Hawley Boy so.”

“And what did that sweet youth do?”

“Turned shell-pink and looked across the far blue hills like a distressed
cherub. Am I talking wildly, Polly? Let me say my say, and I shall be
calm. Otherwise I may go abroad and disturb Simla with a few original
reflections. Excepting always your own sweet self, there isn’t a single
woman in the land who understands me when I am—what’s the word?”

“Tete-Fele’e,” suggested Mrs. Mallowe.

“Exactly! And now let us have tiffin. The demands of Society are
exhausting, and as Mrs. Delville says”—Here Mrs. Hauksbee, to the
horror of the khitmatgars, lapsed into a series of grunts, while Mrs.
Mallowe stared in lazy surprise.

“’God gie us a gude conceit of oorselves,’” said Mrs. Hauksbee, piously,
returning to her natural speech. “Now, in any other woman that would have
been vulgar. I am consumed with curiosity to see Mrs. Bent. I expect
complications.”

“Woman of one idea,” said Mrs. Mallowe, shortly; “all complications are as
old as the hills! I have lived through or near all—all—ALL!”

“And yet do not understand that men and women never behave twice alike. I
am old who was young—if ever I put my head in your lap, you dear,
big sceptic, you will learn that my parting is gauze—but never, no
never have I lost my interest in men and women. Polly, I shall see this
business Out to the bitter end.”

“I am going to sleep,” said Mrs. Mallowe, calmly. “I never interfere with
men or women unless I am compelled,” and she retired with dignity to her
own room.

Mrs. Hauksbee’s curiosity was not long left ungratified, for Mrs. Bent
came up to Simla a few days after the conversation faithfully reported
above, and pervaded the Mall by her husband’s side.

“Behold!” said Mrs. Hauksbee, thoughtfully rubbing her nose. “That is the
last link of the chain, if we omit the husband of the Delville, whoever he
may be. Let me consider. The Bents and the Delvilles inhabit the same
hotel; and the Delville is detested by the Waddy—do you know the
Waddy?—who is almost as big a dowd. The Waddy also abominates the
male Bent, for which, if her other sins do not weigh too heavily, she will
eventually be caught up to Heaven.”

“Don’t be irreverent,” said Mrs. Mallowe. “I like Mrs. Bent’s face.”

“I am discussing the Waddy,” returned Mrs. Hauksbee, loftily. “The Waddy
will take the female Bent apart, after having borrowed—yes!—everything
that she can, from hairpins to babies’ bottles. Such, my dear, is life in
a hotel. The Waddy will tell the female Bent facts and fictions about The
Dancing Master and The Dowd.”

“Lucy, I should like you better if you were not always looking into
people’s back bedrooms.”

“Anybody can look into their front drawing-rooms; and remember whatever I
do, and whatever I look, I never talk—as the Waddy will. Let us hope
that The Dancing Master’s greasy smile and manner of the pedagogue will
soften the heart of that cow, his wife. If mouths speak truth, I should
think that little Mrs. Bent could get very angry on occasion.

“But what reason has she for being angry?”

“What reason! The Dancing Master in himself is a reason. How does it go?
‘If in his life some trivial errors fall, Look in his face and you’ll
believe them all.’ I am prepared to credit any evil of The Dancing Master,
because I hate him so. And The Dowd is so disgustingly badly dressed”—

“That she, too, is capable of every iniquity? I always prefer to believe
the best of everybody. It saves so much trouble.”

“Very good. I prefer to believe the worst. It saves useless expenditure of
sympathy. And you may be quite certain that the Waddy believes with me.”

Mrs. Mallowe sighed and made no answer.

The conversation was holden after dinner while Mrs. Hauksbee was dressing
for a dance.

“I am too tired to go,” pleaded Mrs. Mallowe, and Mrs. Hauksbee left her
in peace till two in the morning, when she was aware of emphatic knocking
at her door.

“Don’t be very angry, dear,” said Mrs. Hauksbee. “My idiot of an ayah has
gone home, and, as I hope to sleep tonight, there isn’t a soul in the
place to unlace me.”

“Oh, this is too bad!” said Mrs. Mallowe sulkily.

“’Can’t help it. I’m a lone, lorn grass-widow, dear, but I will not sleep
in my stays. And such news, too! Oh, do unlace me, there’s a darling! The
Dowd—The Dancing Master—I and the Hawley Boy—You know
the North veranda?”

“How can I do anything if you spin round like this?” protested Mrs.
Mallowe, fumbling with the knot of the laces.

“Oh, I forget. I must tell my tale without the aid of your eyes. Do you
know you’ve lovely eyes, dear? Well to begin with, I took the Hawley Boy
to a kala juggah.”

“Did he want much taking?”

“Lots! There was an arrangement of loose-boxes in kanats, and she was in
the next one talking to him.”

“Which? How? Explain.”

“You know what I mean—The Dowd and The Dancing Master. We could hear
every word and we listened shamelessly—’specially the Hawley Boy.
Polly, I quite love that woman!”

“This is interesting. There! Now turn round. What happened?”

“One moment. Ah-h! Blessed relief. I’ve been looking forward to taking
them off for the last half-hour—which is ominous at my time of life.
But, as I was saying, we listened and heard The Dowd drawl worse than
ever. She drops her final g’s like a barmaid or a blue-blooded
Aide-de-Camp. ‘Look he-ere, you’re gettin’ too fond 0′ me,’ she said, and
The Dancing Master owned it was so in language that nearly made me ill.
The Dowd reflected for a while. Then we heard her say, ‘Look he-ere,
Mister Bent, why are you such an awful liar?’ I nearly exploded while The
Dancing Master denied the charge. It seems that he never told her he was a
married man.”

“I said he wouldn’t.”

“And she had taken this to heart, on personal grounds, I suppose. She
drawled along for five minutes, reproaching him with his perfidy and grew
quite motherly. ‘Now you’ve got a nice little wife of your own—you
have,’ she said. ‘She’s ten times too good for a fat old man like you,
and, look he-ere, you never told me a word about her, and I’ve been
thinkin’ about it a good deal, and I think you’re a liar.’ Wasn’t that
delicious? The Dancing Master maundered and raved till the Hawley Boy
suggested that he should burst in and beat him. His voice runs up into an
impassioned squeak when he is afraid. The Dowd must be an extraordinary
woman. She explained that had he been a bachelor she might not have
objected to his devotion; but since he was a married man and the father of
a very nice baby, she considered him a hypocrite, and this she repeated
twice. She wound up her drawl with: ‘An I’m tellin’ you this because your
wife is angry with me, an’ I hate quarrellin’ with any other woman, an’ I
like your wife. You know how you have behaved for the last six weeks. You
shouldn’t have done it, indeed you shouldn’t. You’re too old an’ fat.’
Can’t you imagine how The Dancing Master would wince at that! ‘Now go
away,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to tell you what I think of you, because I
think you are not nice. I’ll stay he-ere till the next dance begins.’ Did
you think that the creature had so much in her?”

“I never studied her as closely as you did. It sounds unnatural. What
happened?”

“The Dancing Master attempted blandishment, reproof, jocularity, and the
style of the Lord High Warden, and I had almost to pinch the Hawley Boy to
make him keep quiet. She grunted at the end of each sentence and, in the
end he went away swearing to himself, quite like a man in a novel. He
looked more objectionable than ever. I laughed. I love that woman—in
spite of her clothes. And now I’m going to bed. What do you think of it?”

“I sha’n’t begin to think till the morning,” said Mrs. Mallowe, yawning
“Perhaps she spoke the truth. They do fly into it by accident sometimes.”

Mrs. Hauksbee’s account of her eavesdropping was an ornate one but
truthful in the main. For reasons best known to herself, Mrs. “Shady”
Delville had turned upon Mr Bent and rent him limb from limb, casting him
away limp and disconcerted ere she withdrew the light of her eyes from him
permanently. Being a man of resource, and anything but pleased in that he
had been called both old and fat, he gave Mrs. Bent to understand that he
had, during her absence in the Doon, been the victim of unceasing
persecution at the hands of Mrs. Delville, and he told the tale so often
and with such eloquence that he ended in believing it, while his wife
marvelled at the manners and customs of “some women.” When the situation
showed signs of languishing, Mrs. Waddy was always on hand to wake the
smouldering fires of suspicion in Mrs. Bent’s bosom and to contribute
generally to the peace and comfort of the hotel. Mr. Bent’s life was not a
happy one, for if Mrs. Waddy’s story were true, he was, argued his wife,
untrustworthy to the last degree. If his own statement was true, his
charms of manner and conversation were so great that he needed constant
surveillance. And he received it, till he repented genuinely of his
marriage and neglected his personal appearance. Mrs. Delville alone in the
hotel was unchanged. She removed her chair some six paces toward the head
of the table, and occasionally in the twilight ventured on timid overtures
of friendship to Mrs. Bent, which were repulsed.

“She does it for my sake,” hinted the Virtuous Bent.

“A dangerous and designing woman,” purred Mrs. Waddy.

Worst of all, every other hotel in Simla was full!

“Polly, are you afraid of diphtheria?”

“Of nothing in the world except smallpox. Diphtheria kills, but it doesn’t
disfigure. Why do you ask?”

“Because the Bent baby has got it, and the whole hotel is upside down in
consequence. The Waddy has ‘set her five young on the rail’ and fled. The
Dancing Master fears for his precious throat, and that miserable little
woman, his wife, has no notion of what ought to be done. She wanted to put
it into a mustard bath—for croup!”

“Where did you learn all this?”

“Just now, on the Mall. Dr. Howlen told me. The Manager of the hotel is
abusing the Bents, and the Bents are abusing the manager. They are a
feckless couple.”

“Well. What’s on your mind?”

“This; and I know it’s a grave thing to ask. Would you seriously object to
my bringing the child over here, with its mother?”

“On the most strict understanding that we see nothing of The Dancing
Master.”

“He will be only too glad to stay away. Polly, you’re an angel. The woman
really is at her wits’ end.”

“And you know nothing about her, careless, and would hold her up to public
scorn if it gave you a minute’s amusement. Therefore you risk your life
for the sake of her brat. No, Loo, I’m not the angel. I shall keep to my
rooms and avoid her. But do as you please—only tell me why you do
it.”

Mrs. Hauksbee’s eyes softened; she looked out of the window and back into
Mrs. Mallowe’s face.

“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Hauksbee, simply.

“You dear!”

“Polly!—and for aught you knew you might have taken my fringe off.
Never do that again without warning. Now we’ll get the rooms ready. I
don’t suppose I shall be allowed to circulate in society for a month.”

“And I also. Thank goodness I shall at last get all the sleep I want.”

Much to Mrs. Bent’s surprise she and the baby were brought over to the
house almost before she knew where she was. Bent was devoutly and
undisguisedly thankful, for he was afraid of the infection, and also hoped
that a few weeks in the hotel alone with Mrs. Delville might lead to
explanations. Mrs. Bent had thrown her jealousy to the winds in her fear
for her child’s life.

“We can give you good milk,” said Mrs. Hauksbee to her, “and our house is
much nearer to the Doctor’s than the hotel, and you won’t feel as though
you were living in a hostile camp Where is the dear Mrs. Waddy? She seemed
to be a particular friend of yours.”

“They’ve all left me,” said Mrs. Bent, bitterly. “Mrs. Waddy went first.
She said I ought to be ashamed of myself for introducing diseases there,
and I am sure it wasn’t my fault that little Dora”—

“How nice!” cooed Mrs. Hauksbee. “The Waddy is an infectious disease
herself—’more quickly caught than the plague and the taker runs
presently mad.’ I lived next door to her at the Elysium, three years ago.
Now see, you won’t give us the least trouble, and I’ve ornamented all the
house with sheets soaked in carbolic. It smells comforting, doesn’t it?
Remember I’m always in call, and my ayah’s at your service when yours goes
to her meals and—and… if you cry I’ll never forgive you.”

Dora Bent occupied her mother’s unprofitable attention through the day and
the night. The Doctor called thrice in the twenty-four hours, and the
house reeked with the smell of the Condy’s Fluid, chlorine-water, and
carbolic acid washes. Mrs. Mallowe kept to her own rooms—she
considered that she had made sufficient concessions in the cause of
humanity—and Mrs. Hauksbee was more esteemed by the Doctor as a help
in the sick-room than the half-distraught mother.

“I know nothing of illness,” said Mrs. Hauksbee to the Doctor. “Only tell
me what to do, and I’ll do it.”

“Keep that crazy woman from kissing the child, and let her have as little
to do with the nursing as you possibly can,” said the Doctor; “I’d turn
her out of the sick-room, but that I honestly believe she’d die of
anxiety. She is less than no good, and I depend on you and the ayahs,
remember.”

Mrs. Hauksbee accepted the responsibility, though it painted olive hollows
under her eyes and forced her to her oldest dresses. Mrs. Bent clung to
her with more than childlike faith.

“I know you’ll, make Dora well, won’t you?” she said at least twenty times
a day; and twenty times a day Mrs. Hauksbee answered valiantly, “Of course
I will.”

But Dora did not improve, and the Doctor seemed to be always in the house.

“There’s some danger of the thing taking a bad turn,” he said; “I’ll come
over between three and four in the morning tomorrow.”

“Good gracious!” said Mrs. Hauksbee. “He never told me what the turn would
be! My education has been horribly neglected; and I have only this foolish
mother-woman to fall back upon.”

The night wore through slowly, and Mrs. Hauksbee dozed in a chair by the
fire. There was a dance at the Viceregal Lodge, and she dreamed of it till
she was aware of Mrs. Bent’s anxious eyes staring into her own.

“Wake up! Wake up! Do something!” cried Mrs. Bent, piteously. “Dora’s
choking to death! Do you mean to let her die?”

Mrs. Hauksbee jumped to her feet and bent over the bed. The child was
fighting for breath, while the mother wrung her hands despairing.

“Oh, what can I do? What can you do? She won’t stay still! I can’t hold
her. Why didn’t the Doctor say this was coming?” screamed Mrs. Bent.
“Won’t you help me? She’s dying!”

“I-I’ve never seen a child die before!” stammered Mrs. Hauksbee, feebly,
and then—let none blame her weakness after the strain of long
watching—she broke down, and covered her face with her hands. The
ayahs on the threshold snored peacefully.

There was a rattle of ‘rickshaw wheels below, the clash of an opening
door, a heavy step on the stairs, and Mrs. Delville entered to find Mrs.
Bent screaming for the Doctor as she ran round the room. Mrs. Hauksbee,
her hands to her ears, and her face buried in the chintz of a chair, was
quivering with pain at each cry from the bed, and murmuring, “Thank God, I
never bore a child! Oh! thank God, I never bore a child!”

Mrs. Delville looked at the bed for an instant, took Mrs. Bent by the
shoulders, and said, quietly, “Get me some caustic. Be quick.”

The mother obeyed mechanically. Mrs. Delville had thrown herself down by
the side of the child and was opening its mouth.

“Oh, you’re killing her!” cried Mrs. Bent. “Where’s the Doctor! Leave her
alone!”

Mrs. Delville made no reply for a minute, but busied herself with the
child.

“Now the caustic, and hold a lamp behind my shoulder. Will you do as you
are told? The acid-bottle, if you don’t know what I mean,” she said.

A second time Mrs. Delville bent over the child. Mrs. Hauksbee, her face
still hidden, sobbed and shivered. One of the ayahs staggered sleepily
into the room, yawning: “Doctor Sahib come.”

Mrs. Delville turned her head.

“You’re only just in time,” she said. “It was chokin’ her when I came in,
an’ I’ve burned it.”

“There was no sign of the membrane getting to the air-passages after the
last steaming. It was the general weakness, I feared,” said the Doctor
half to himself, and he whispered as he looked. “You’ve done what I should
have been afraid to do without consultation.”

“She was dyin’,” said Mrs. Delville, under her breath. “Can you do
anythin’? What a mercy it was I went to the dance!”

Mrs. Hauksbee raised her head.

“Is it all over?” she gasped. “I’m useless—I’m worse than useless!
What are you doing here?”

She stared at Mrs. Delville, and Mrs. Bent, realizing for the first time
who was the Goddess from the Machine, stared also.

Then Mrs. Delville made explanation, putting on a dirty long glove and
smoothing a crumpled and ill-fitting ball-dress.

“I was at the dance, an’ the Doctor was tellin’ me about your baby bein’
so ill. So I came away early, an’ your door was open, an’ I-I lost my boy
this way six months ago, an’ I’ve been tryin’ to forget it ever since, an’
I-I-I-am very sorry for intrudin’ an’ anythin’ that has happened.”

Mrs. Bent was putting out the Doctor’s eye with a lamp as he stooped over
Dora.

“Take it away,” said the Doctor. “I think the child will do, thanks to
you, Mrs. Delville. I should have come too late, but, I assure you”—he
was addressing himself to Mrs. Delville—“I had not the faintest
reason to expect this. The membrane must have grown like a mushroom. Will
one of you help me, please?”

He had reason for the last sentence. Mrs. Hauksbee had thrown herself into
Mrs. Delville’s arms, where she was weeping bitterly, and Mrs. Bent was
unpicturesquely mixed up with both, while from the tangle came the sound
of many sobs and much promiscuous kissing.

“Good gracious! I’ve spoilt all your beautiful roses!” said Mrs. Hauksbee,
lifting her head from the lump of crushed gum and calico atrocities on
Mrs. Delville’s shoulder and hurrying to the Doctor.

Mrs. Delville picked up her shawl, and slouched out of the room, mopping
her eyes with the glove that she had not put on.

“I always said she was more than a woman,” sobbed Mrs. Hauksbee,
hysterically, “and that proves it!”

Six weeks later, Mrs. Bent and Dora had returned to the hotel. Mrs.
Hauksbee had come out of the Valley of Humiliation, had ceased to reproach
herself for her collapse in an hour of need, and was even beginning to
direct the affairs of the world as before.

“So nobody died, and everything went off as it should, and I kissed The
Dowd, Polly. I feel so old. Does it show in my face?”

“Kisses don’t as a rule, do they? Of course you know what the result of
The Dowd’s providential arrival has been.”

“They ought to build her a statue—only no sculptor dare copy those
skirts.”

“Ah!” said Mrs. Mallowe, quietly. “She has found another reward. The
Dancing Master has been smirking through Simla giving every one to
understand that she came because of her undying love for him—for him—to
save his child, and all Simla naturally believes this.”

“But Mrs. Bent”—

“Mrs. Bent believes it more than any one else. She won’t speak to The Dowd
now. Isn’t The Dancing Master an angel?”

Mrs. Hauksbee lifted up her voice and raged till bedtime. The doors of the
two rooms stood open.

“Polly,” said a voice from the darkness, “what did that
American-heiress-globe-trotter-girl say last season when she was tipped
out of her ‘rickshaw turning a corner? Some absurd adjective that made the
man who picked her up explode.”

“’Paltry,’” said Mrs. Mallowe. “Through her nose—like this—’Ha-ow
pahltry!’”

“Exactly,” said the voice. “Ha-ow pahltry it all is!”

“Which?”

“Everything. Babies, Diphtheria, Mrs. Bent and The Dancing Master, I
whooping in a chair, and The Dowd dropping in from the clouds. I wonder
what the motive was—all the motives.”

“Um!”

“What do you think?”

“Don’t ask me. She was a woman. Go to sleep.”

ONLY A SUBALTERN

THEY made Bobby Wick pass an examination at Sandhurst. He was a gentleman
before he was gazetted, so, when the Empress announced that
“Gentleman-Cadet Robert Hanna Wick” was posted as Second Lieutenant to the
Tyneside Tail Twisters at Kram Bokhar, he became an officer and a
gentleman, which is an enviable thing; and there was joy in the house of
Wick where Mamma Wick and all the little Wicks fell upon their knees and
offered incense to Bobby by virtue of his achievements.

Papa Wick had been a Commissioner in his day, holding authority over three
millions of men in the Chota-Buldana Division, building great works for
the good of the land, and doing his best to make two blades of grass grow
where there was but one before. Of course, nobody knew anything about this
in the little English village where he was just “old Mr. Wick” and had
forgotten that he was a Companion of the Order of the Star of India.

He patted Bobby on the shoulder and said: “Well done, my boy!”

There followed, while the uniform was being prepared, an interval of pure
delight, during which Bobby took brevet-rank as a “man” at the
women-swamped tennis-parties and tea-fights of the village, and, I dare
say, had his joining-time been extended, would have fallen in love with
several girls at once. Little country villages at Home are very full of
nice girls, because all the young men come out to India to make their
fortunes.

“India,” said Papa Wick, “is the place. I’ve had thirty years of it and,
begad, I’d like to go back again. When you join the Tail Twisters you’ll
be among friends, if every one hasn’t forgotten Wick of Chota-Buldana, and
a lot of people will be kind to you for our sakes. The mother will tell
you more about outfit than I can, but remember this. Stick to your
Regiment, Bobby—stick to your Regiment. You’ll see men all round you
going into the Staff Corps, and doing every possible sort of duty but
regimental, and you may be tempted to follow suit. Now so long as you keep
within your allowance, and I haven’t stinted you there, stick to the Line,
the whole Line and nothing but the Line. Be careful how you back another
young fool’s bill, and if you fall in love with a woman twenty years older
than yourself, don’t tell me about it, that’s all.”

With these counsels, and many others equally valuable, did Papa Wick
fortify Bobby ere that last awful night at Portsmouth when the Officers’
Quarters held more inmates than were provided for by the Regulations, and
the liberty-men of the ships fell foul of the drafts for India, and the
battle raged from the Dockyard Gates even to the slums of Longport, while
the drabs of Fratton came down and scratched the faces of the Queen’s
Officers.

Bobby Wick, with an ugly bruise on his freckled nose, a sick and shaky
detachment to manoeuvre inship and the comfort of fifty scornful females
to attend to, had no time to feel homesick till the Malabar reached
mid-Channel, when he doubled his emotions with a little guard-visiting and
a great many other matters.

The Tail Twisters were a most particular Regiment. Those who knew them
least said that they were eaten up with “side.” But their reserve and
their internal arrangements generally were merely protective diplomacy.
Some five years before, the Colonel commanding had looked into the
fourteen fearless eyes of seven plump and juicy subalterns who had all
applied to enter the Staff Corps, and had asked them why the three stars
should he, a colonel of the Line, command a dashed nursery for
double-dashed bottle-suckers who put on condemned tin spurs and rode
qualified mokes at the hiatused heads of forsaken Black Regiments. He was
a rude man and a terrible. Wherefore the remnant took measures [with the
half-butt as an engine of public opinion] till the rumor went abroad that
young men who used the Tail Twisters as a crutch to the Staff Corps, had
many and varied trials to endure. However a regiment had just as much
right to its own secrets as a woman.

When Bobby came up from Deolali and took his place among the Tail
Twisters, it was gently But firmly borne in upon him that the Regiment was
his father and his mother and his indissolubly wedded wife, and that there
was no crime under the canopy of heaven blacker than that of bringing
shame on the Regiment, which was the best-shooting, best-drilled,
best-set-up, bravest, most illustrious, and in all respects most desirable
Regiment within the compass of the Seven Seas. He was taught the legends
of the Mess Plate from the great grinning Golden Gods that had come out of
the Summer Palace in Pekin to the silver-mounted markhor-horn snuff-mull
presented by the last C. 0. [he who spake to the seven subalterns]. And
every one of those legends told him of battles fought at long odds,
without fear as without support; of hospitality catholic as an Arab’s; of
friendships deep as the sea and steady as the fighting-line; of honor won
by hard roads for honor’s sake; and of instant and unquestioning devotion
to the Regiment—the Regiment that claims the lives of all and lives
forever.

More than once, too, he came officially into contact with the Regimental
colors, which looked like the lining of a bricklayer’s hat on the end of a
chewed stick. Bobby did not kneel and worship them, because British
subalterns are not constructed in that manner. Indeed, he condemned them
for their weight at the very moment that they were filling with awe and
other more noble sentiments.

But best of all was the occasion when he moved with the Tail Twisters, in
review order at the breaking of a November day. Allowing for duty-men and
sick, the Regiment was one thousand and eighty strong, and Bobby belonged
to them; for was he not a Subaltern of the Line the whole Line and nothing
but the Line—as the tramp of two thousand one hundred and sixty
sturdy ammunition boots attested. He would not have changed places with
Deighton of the Horse Battery, whirling by in a pillar of cloud to a
chorus of “Strong right! Strong left!” or Hogan-Yale of the White Hussars,
leading his squadron for all it was worth, with the price of horseshoes
thrown in; or “Tick” Boileau, trying to live up to his fierce blue and
gold turban while the wasps of the Bengal Cavalry stretched to a gallop in
the wake of the long, lollopping Walers of the White Hussars.

They fought through the clear cool day, and Bobby felt a little thrill run
down his spine when he heard the tinkle-tinkle-tinkle of the empty
cartridge-cases hopping from the breech-blocks after the roar of the
volleys; for he knew that he should live to hear that sound in action. The
review ended in a glorious chase across the plain—batteries
thundering after cavalry to the huge disgust of the White Hussars, and the
Tyneside Tail Twisters hunting a Sikh Regiment, till the lean lathy Singhs
panted with exhaustion. Bobby was dusty and dripping long before noon, but
his enthusiasm was merely focused—not diminished.

He returned to sit at the feet of Revere, his “skipper,” that is to say,
the Captain of his Company, and to be instructed in the dark art and
mystery of managing men, which is a very large part of the Profession of
Arms.

“If you haven’t a taste that way,” said Revere, between his puffs of his
cheroot, “you’ll never be able to get the hang of it, but remember Bobby,
’tisn’t the best drill, though drill is nearly everything, that hauls a
Regiment through Hell and out on the other side. It’s the man who knows
how to handle men—goat-men, swine-men, dog-men, and so on.”

“Dormer, for instance,” said Bobby. “I think he comes under the head of
fool-men. He mopes like a sick owl.”

“That’s where you make your mistake, my son. Dormer isn’t a fool yet, but
he’s a dashed dirty soldier, and his room corporal makes fun of his socks
before kit-inspection. Dormer, being two-thirds pure brute, goes into a
corner and growls.”

“How do you know?” said Bobby, admiringly.

“Because a Company commander has to know these things—because, if he
does not know, he may have crime—ay, murder—brewing under his
very nose and yet not see that it’s there. Dormer is being badgered out of
his mind—big as he is—and he hasn’t intellect enough to resent
it. He’s taken to quiet boozing and, Bobby, when the butt of a room goes
on the drink, or takes to moping by himself, measures are necessary to
pull him out of himself.”

“What measures? ‘Man can’t run round coddling his men forever.”

“No. The men would precious soon show him that he was not wanted. You’ve
got to”—Here the Color-sergeant entered with some papers; Bobby
reflected for a while as Revere looked through the Company forms.

“Does Dormer do anything, Sergeant?” Bobby asked, with the air of one
continuing an interrupted conversation.

“No, sir. Does ‘is dooty like a hortomato,” said the Sergeant, who
delighted in long words. “A dirty soldier, and ‘e’s under full stoppages
for new kit. It’s covered with scales, sir.”

“Scales? What scales?”

“Fish-scales, sir. ‘E’s always pokin’ in the mud by the river an’
a-cleanin’ them muchly-fish with ‘is thumbs.” Revere was still absorbed in
the Company papers, and the Sergeant, who was sternly fond of Bobby,
continued,—“’E generally goes down there when ‘e’s got ‘is skinful,
beggin’ your pardon, sir, an’ they do say that the more lush in-he-briated
‘e is, the more fish ‘e catches. They call ‘im the Looney Fish-monger in
the Comp’ny, sir.”

Revere signed the last paper and the Sergeant retreated.

“It’s a filthy amusement,” sighed Bobby to himself. Then aloud to Revere:
“Are you really worried about Dormer?”

“A little. You see he’s never mad enough to send to a hospital, or drunk
enough to run in, but at any minute he may flare up, brooding and sulking
as he does. He resents any interest being shown in him, and the only time
I took him out shooting he all but shot me by accident.”

“I fish,” said Bobby, with a wry face. “I hire a country-boat and go down
the river from Thursday to Sunday, and the amiable Dormer goes with me—if
you can spare us both.”

“You blazing young fool!” said Revere, but his heart was full of much more
pleasant words.

Bobby, the Captain of a dhoni, with Private Dormer for mate, dropped down
the river on Thursday morning—the Private at the bow, the Subaltern
at the helm. The Private glared uneasily at the Subaltern, who respected
the reserve of the Private.

After six hours, Dormer paced to the stern, saluted, and said—“Beg
y’pardon, sir, but was you ever on the Durh’m Canal?”

“No,” said Bobby Wick. “Come and have some tiffin.”

They ate in silence. As the evening fell, Private Dormer broke forth,
speaking to himself—“Hi was on the Durh’m Canal, jes’ such a night,
come next week twelve month, a-trailin’ of my toes in the water.” He
smoked and said no more till bedtime.

The witchery of the dawn turned the grey river-reaches to purple, gold,
and opal; and it was as though the lumbering dhoni crept across the
splendors of a new heaven.

Private Dormer popped his head out of his blanket and gazed at the glory
below and around.

“Well—damn-my-eyes!” said Private Dormer, in an awed whisper. “This
‘ere is like a bloomin’ gallantry-show!” For the rest of the day he was
dumb, but achieved an ensanguined filthiness through the cleaning of big
fish.

The boat returned on Saturday evening. Dormer had been struggling with
speech since noon. As the lines and luggage were being disembarked, he
found tongue.

“Beg y’pardon—sir,” he said, “but would you—would you min’
shakin’ ‘ands with me, sir?”

“Of course not,” said Bobby, and he shook accordingly. Dormer returned to
barracks and Bobby to mess.

“He wanted a little quiet and some fishing, I think,” said Bobby. “My
aunt, but he’s a filthy sort of animal! Have you ever seen him clean
‘them, muchly-fish with ‘is thumbs’?”

“Anyhow,” said Revere, three weeks later, “he’s doing his best to keep his
things clean.”

When the spring died, Bobby joined in the general scramble for Hill leave,
and to his surprise and delight secured three months.

“As good a boy as I want,” said Revere, the admiring skipper.

“The best of the batch,” said the Adjutant to the Colonel. “Keep back that
young skrim-shanker Porkiss, sir, and let Revere make him sit up.”

So Bobby departed joyously to Simla Pahar with a tin box of gorgeous
raiment.

“Son of Wick—old Wick of Chota-Buldana? Ask him to dinner, dear,”
said the aged men.

“What a nice boy!” said the matrons and the maids.

“First-class place, Simla. Oh, ri-ipping!” said Bobby Wick, and ordered
new white cord breeches on the strength of it.

“We’re in a bad way,” wrote Revere to Bobby at the end of two months.
“Since you left, the Regiment has taken to fever and is fairly rotten with
it—two hundred in hospital, about a hundred in cells—drinking
to keep off fever—and the Companies on parade fifteen file strong at
the outside. There’s rather more sickness in the out-villages than I care
for, but then I’m so blistered with prickly-heat that I’m ready to hang
myself. What’s the yarn about your mashing a Miss Haverley up there? Not
serious, I hope? You’re over-young to hang millstones round your neck, and
the Colonel will turf you out of that in double-quick time if you attempt
it.”

It was not the Colonel that brought Bobby out of Simla, but a much more to
be respected Commandant. The sick ness in the out-villages spread, the
Bazar was put out of bounds, and then came the news that the Tail Twisters
must go into camp. The message flashed to the Hill stations.—“Cholera—Leave
stopped—Officers recalled.” Alas, for the white gloves in the neatly
soldered boxes, the rides and the dances and picnics that were to he, the
loves half spoken, and the debts unpaid! Without demur and without
question, fast as tongue could fly or pony gallop, back to their Regiments
and their Batteries, as though they were hastening to their weddings, fled
the subalterns.

Bobby received his orders on returning from a dance at Viceregal Lodge
where he had—but only the Haverley girl knows what Bobby had said or
how many waltzes he had claimed for the next ball. Six in the morning saw
Bobby at the Tonga Office in the drenching rain, the whirl of the last
waltz still in his ears, and an intoxication due neither to wine nor
waltzing in his brain.

“Good man!” shouted Deighton of the Horse Battery, through the mists.
“Whar you raise dat tonga? I’m coming with you. Ow! But I’ve had a head
and a half. I didn’t sit out all night. They say the Battery’s awful bad,”
and he hummed dolorously—Leave the what at the what’s-its-name,
Leave the flock without shelter, Leave the corpse uninterred, Leave the
bride at the altar!

“My faith! It’ll be more bally corpse than bride, though, this journey.
Jump in, Bobby. Get on, Coachman!”

On the Umballa platform waited a detachment of officers discussing the
latest news from the stricken cantonment, and it was here that Bobby
learned the real condition of the Tail Twisters.

“They went into camp,” said an elderly Major recalled from the
whist-tables at Mussoorie to a sickly Native Regiment, “they went into
camp with two hundred and ten sick in carts. Two hundred and ten fever
cases only, and the balance looking like so many ghosts with sore eyes. A
Madras Regiment could have walked through ’em.”

“But they were as fit as be-damned when I left them!” said Bobby.

“Then you’d better make them as fit as be-damned when you rejoin,” said
the Major, brutally.

Bobby pressed his forehead against the rain-splashed windowpane as the
train lumbered across the sodden Doab, and prayed for the health of the
Tyneside Tail Twisters. Naini Tal had sent down her contingent with all
speed; the lathering ponies of the Dalhousie Road staggered into
Pathankot, taxed to the full stretch of their strength; while from cloudy
Darjiling the Calcutta Mail whirled up the last straggler of the little
army that was to fight a fight, in which was neither medal nor honor for
the winning, against an enemy none other than “the sickness that
destroyeth in the noonday.”

And as each man reported himself, he said: “This is a bad business,” and
went about his own forthwith, for every Regiment and Battery in the
cantonment was under canvas, the sickness bearing them company.

Bobby fought his way through the rain to the Tail Twisters’ temporary
mess, and Revere could have fallen on the boy’s neck for the joy of seeing
that ugly, wholesome phiz once more.

“Keep ’em amused and interested,” said Revere. “They went on the drink,
poor fools, after the first two cases, and there was no improvement. Oh,
it’s good to have you back, Bobby! Porkiss is a—never mind.”

Deighton came over from the Artillery camp to attend a dreary mess dinner,
and contributed to the general gloom by nearly weeping over the condition
of his beloved Battery. Porkiss so far forgot himself as to insinuate that
the presence of the officers could do no earthly good, and that the best
thing would be to send the entire Regiment into hospital and “let the
doctors look after them.” Porkiss was demoralized with fear, nor was his
peace of mind restored when Revere said coldly: “Oh! The sooner you go out
the better, if that’s your way of thinking. Any public school could send
us fifty good men in your place, but it takes time, time, Porkiss, and
money, and a certain amount of trouble, to make a Regiment. ‘S’pose you’re
the person we go into camp for, eh?”

Whereupon Porkiss was overtaken with a great and chilly fear which a
drenching in the rain did not allay, and, two days later, quitted this
world for another where, men do fondly hope, allowances are made for the
weaknesses of the flesh. The Regimental Sergeant-Major looked wearily
across the Sergeants’ Mess tent when the news was announced.

“There goes the worst of them,” he said. “It’ll take the best, and then,
please God, it’ll stop.” The Sergeants were silent till one said: “It
couldn’t be him!” and all knew of whom Travis was thinking.

Bobby Wick stormed through the tents of his Company, rallying, rebuking
mildly, as is consistent with the Regulations, chaffing the faint-hearted:
haling the sound into the watery sunlight when there was a break in the
weather, and bidding them be of good cheer for their trouble was nearly at
an end; scuttling on his dun pony round the outskirts of the camp and
heading back men who, with the innate perversity of British soldier’s,
were always wandering into infected villages, or drinking deeply from
rain-flooded marshes; comforting the panic-stricken with rude speech, and
more than once tending the dying who had no friends—the men without
“townies”; organizing, with banjos and burned cork, Sing-songs which
should allow the talent of the Regiment full play; and generally, as he
explained, “playing the giddy garden-goat all round.”

“You’re worth half a dozen of us, Bobby,” said Revere in a moment of
enthusiasm. “How the devil do you keep it up?”

Bobby made no answer, but had Revere looked into the breast-pocket of his
coat he might have seen there a sheaf of badly-written letters which
perhaps accounted for the power that possessed the boy. A letter came to
Bobby every other day. The spelling was not above reproach, but the
sentiments must have been most satisfactory, for on receipt Bobby’s eyes
softened marvelously, and he was wont to fall into a tender abstraction
for a while ere, shaking his cropped head, he charged into his work.

By what power he drew after him the hearts of the roughest, and the Tail
Twisters counted in their ranks some rough diamonds indeed, was a mystery
to both skipper and C. O., who learned from the regimental chaplain that
Bobby was considerably more in request in the hospital tents than the
Reverend John Emery.

“The men seem fond of you. Are you in the hospitals much?” said the
Colonel, who did his daily round and ordered the men to get well with a
hardness that did not cover his bitter grief.

“A little, sir,” said Bobby.

“Shouldn’t go there too often if I were you. They say it’s not contagious,
but there’s no use in running unnecessary risks. We can’t afford to have
you down, y’know.”

Six days later, it was with the utmost difficulty that the post-runner
plashed his way out to the camp with mailbags, for the rain was falling in
torrents. Bobby received a letter, bore it off to his tent, and, the
programme for the next week’s Sing-song being satisfactorily disposed of,
sat down to answer it. For an hour the unhandy pen toiled over the paper,
and where sentiment rose to more than normal tide-level Bobby Wick stuck
out his tongue and breathed heavily. He was not used to letter-writing.

“Beg y’pardon, sir,” said a voice at the tent door; “but Dormer’s ‘orrid
bad, sir, an’ they’ve taken him orf, sir.

“Damn Private Dormer and you too!” said Bobby Wick running the blotter
over the half-finished letter. “Tell him I’ll come in the morning.”

“’E’s awful bad, sir,” said the voice, hesitatingly. There was an
undecided squelching of heavy boots.

“Well?” said Bobby, impatiently.

“Excusin’ ‘imself before an’ for takin’ the liberty, ‘e says it would be a
comfort for to assist ‘im, sir, if”—

“Tattoo lao! Get my pony! Here, come in out of the rain till I’m ready.
What blasted nuisances you are! That’s brandy. Drink some; you want it.
Hang on to my stirrup and tell me if I go mo fast.”

Strengthened by a four-finger “nip” which he swallowed without a wink, the
Hospital Orderly kept up with the slipping, mud-stained, and very
disgusted pony as it shambled to the hospital tent.

Private Dormer was certainly “’orrid bad.” He had all but reached the
stage of collapse and was not pleasant to look upon.

“What’s this, Dormer?” said Bobby, bending over the man. “You’re not going
out this time. You’ve got to come fishin’ with me once or twice more yet.”

The blue lips parted and in the ghost of a whisper said,—“Beg
y’pardon, sir, disturbin’ of you now, but would you min’ ‘oldin’ my ‘and,
sir?”

Bobby sat on the side of the bed, and the icy cold hand closed on his own
like a vice, forcing a lady’s ring which was on the little finger deep
into the flesh. Bobby set his lips and waited, the water dripping from the
hem of his trousers. An hour passed and the grasp of the hand did not
relax, nor did the expression on the drawn face change. Bobby with
infinite craft lit himself a cheroot with the left hand—his right
arm was numbed to the elbow—and resigned himself to a night of pain.

Dawn showed a very white-faced Subaltern sitting on the side of a sick
man’s cot, and a Doctor in the doorway using language unfit for
publication.

“Have you been here all night, you young ass?” said the Doctor.

“There or thereabouts,” said Bobby, ruefully. “He’s frozen on to me.”

Dormer’s mouth shut with a click. He turned his head and sighed. The
clinging band opened, and Bobby’s arm fell useless at his side.

“He’ll do,” said the Doctor, quietly. “It must have been a toss-up all
through the night. ‘Think you’re to be congratulated on this case.”

“Oh, bosh!” said Bobby. “I thought the man had gone out long ago—only—only
I didn’t care to take my hand away. Rub my arm down, there’s a good chap.
What a grip the brute has! I’m chilled to the marrow!” He passed out of
the tent shivering.

Private Dormer was allowed to celebrate his repulse of Death by strong
waters. Four days later, he sat on the side of his cot and said to the
patients mildly: “I’d ‘a’ liken to ‘a’ spoken to ‘im—so I should.”

But at that time Bobby was reading yet another letter—he had the
most persistent correspondent of any man in camp—and was even then
about to write that the sickness had abated, and in another week at the
outside would be gone. He did not intend to say that the chill of a sick
man’s hand seemed to have struck into the heart whose capacities for
affection he dwelt on at such length. He did intend to enclose the
illustrated programme of the forthcoming Sing-song whereof he was not a
little proud. He also intended to write on many other matters which do not
concern us, and doubtless would have done so but for the slight feverish
headache which made him dull and unresponsive at mess.

“You are overdoing it, Bobby,” said his skipper. “’Might give the rest of
us credit of doing a little work. You go on as if you were the whole Mess
rolled into one. Take it easy.”

“I will,” said Bobby. “I’m feeling done up, somehow.” Revere looked at him
anxiously and said nothing.

There was a flickering of lanterns about the camp that night, and a rumor
that brought men out of their cots to the tent doors, a paddling of the
naked feet of doolie-bearers and the rush of a galloping horse.

“Wot’s up?” asked twenty tents; and through twenty tents ran the answer—“Wick,
‘e’s down.”

They brought the news to Revere and he groaned. “Any one but Bobby and I
shouldn’t have cared! The Sergeant-Major was right.”

“Not going out this journey,” gasped Bobby, as he was lifted from the
doolie. “Not going out this journey.” Then with an air of supreme
conviction—“I can’t, you see.”

“Not if I can do anything!” said the Surgeon-Major, who had hastened over
from the mess where he had been dining.

He and the Regimental Surgeon fought together with Death for the life of
Bobby Wick. Their work was interrupted by a hairy apparition in a
blue-grey dressing-gown who stared in horror at the bed and cried—“Oh,
my Gawd. It can’t be ‘im!” until an indignant Hospital Orderly whisked him
away.

If care of man and desire to live could have done aught, Bobby would have
been saved. As it was, he made a fight of three days, and the
Surgeon-Major’s brow uncreased. “We’ll save him yet,” he said; and the
Surgeon, who, though he ranked with the Captain, had a very youthful
heart, went out upon the word and pranced joyously in the mud.

“Not going out this journey,” whispered Bobby Wick, gallantly, at the end
of the third day.

“Bravo!” said the Surgeon-Major. “That’s the way to look at it, Bobby.”

As evening fell a grey shade gathered round Bobby’s mouth, and he turned
his face to the tent wall wearily. The Surgeon-Major frowned.

“I’m awfully tired,” said Bobby, very faintly. “What’s the use of
bothering me with medicine? I-don’t-want-it. Let me alone.”

The desire for life had departed, and Bobby was content to drift away on
the easy tide of Death.

“It’s no good,” said the Surgeon-Major. “He doesn’t want to live. He’s
meeting it, poor child.” And he blew his nose.

Half a mile away, the regimental band was playing the overture to the
Sing-song, for the men had been told that Bobby was out of danger. The
clash of the brass and the wail of the horns reached Bobby’s ears.

An expression of hopeless irritation crossed the boy’s face, and he tried
to shake his head.

The Surgeon-Major bent down—“What is it? Bobby?”—

“Not that waltz,” muttered Bobby. “That’s our own—our very ownest
own. Mummy dear.”

With this he sank into the stupor that gave place to death early next
morning.

Revere, his eyes red at the rims and his nose very white, went into
Bobby’s tent to write a letter to Papa Wick which should bow the white
head of the ex-Commissioner of Chota-Buldana in the keenest sorrow of his
life. Bobby’s little store of papers lay in confusion on the table, and
among them a half-finished letter. The last sentence ran: “So you see,
darling, there is really no fear, because as long as I know you care for
me and I care for you, nothing can touch me.”

Revere stayed in the tent for an hour. When he came out, his eyes were
redder than ever.

Private Conklin sat on a turned-down bucket, and listened to a not
unfamiliar tune. Private Conklin was a convalescent and should have been
tenderly treated.

“Ho!” said Private Conklin. “There’s another bloomin’ orf’cer dead.”

The bucket shot from under him, and his eyes filled with a smithyful of
sparks. A tall man in a blue-grey bedgown was regarding him with deep
disfavor.

“You ought to take shame for yourself, Conky! Orf’cer?—bloomin’
orf’cer? I’ll learn you to misname the likes of ‘im. Hangel! Bloomin’
Hangel! That’s wot ‘e is!”

And the Hospital Orderly was so satisfied with the justice of the
punishment that he did not even order Private Dormer back to his cot.

IN THE MATTER OF A PRIVATE

People who have seen, say that one of the quaintest spectacles of human
frailty is an outbreak of hysterics in a girls’ school. It starts without
warning, generally on a hot afternoon among the elder pupils. A girl
giggles till the giggle gets beyond control. Then she throws up her head,
and cries, “Honk, honk, honk,” like a wild goose, and tears mix with the
laughter. If the mistress be wise she will rap out something severe at
this point to check matters. If she be tender-hearted, and send for a
drink of water, the chances are largely in favor of another girl laughing
at the afflicted one and herself collapsing. Thus the trouble spreads, and
may end in half of what answers to the Lower Sixth of a boys’ school
rocking and whooping together. Given a week of warm weather, two stately
promenades per diem, a heavy mutton and rice meal in the middle of the
day, a certain amount of nagging from the teachers, and a few other
things, some amazing effects develop. At least this is what folk say who
have had experience.

Now, the Mother Superior of a Convent and the Colonel of a British
Infantry Regiment would be justly shocked at any comparison being made
between their respective charges. But it is a fact that, under certain
circumstances, Thomas in bulk can be worked up into dithering, rippling
hysteria. He does not weep, but he shows his trouble unmistakably, and the
consequences get into the newspapers, and all the good people who hardly
know a Martini from a Snider say: “Take away the brute’s ammunition!”

Thomas isn’t a brute, and his business, which is to look after the
virtuous people, demands that he shall have his ammunition to his hand. He
doesn’t wear silk stockings, and he really ought to be supplied with a new
Adjective to help him to express his opinions; but, for all that, he is a
great man. If you call him “the heroic defender of the national honor” one
day, and “a brutal and licentious soldiery” the next, you naturally
bewilder him, and he looks upon you with suspicion. There is nobody to
speak for Thomas except people who have theories to work off on him; and
nobody understands Thomas except Thomas, and he does not always know what
is the matter with himself.

That is the prologue. This is the story:

Corporal Slane was engaged to be married to Miss Jhansi M’Kenna, whose
history is well known in the regiment and elsewhere. He had his Colonel’s
permission, and, being popular with the men, every arrangement had been
made to give the wedding what Private Ortheris called “eeklar.” It fell in
the heart of the hot weather, and, after the wedding, Slane was going up
to the Hills with the Bride. None the less, Slane’s grievance was that the
affair would Be only a hired-carriage wedding, and he felt that the
“eeklar” of that was meagre. Miss M’Kenna did not care so much. The
Sergeant’s wife was helping her to make her wedding-dress, and she was
very busy. Slane was, just then, the only moderately contented man in
barracks. All the rest were more or less miserable.

And they had so much to make them happy, too. All their work was over at
eight in the morning, and for the rest of the day they could lie on their
backs and smoke Canteen-plug and swear at the punkah-coolies. They enjoyed
a fine, full flesh meal in the middle of the day, and then threw
themselves down on their cots and sweated and slept till it was cool
enough to go out with their “towny,” whose vocabulary contained less than
six hundred words, and the Adjective, and whose views on every conceivable
question they had heard many times before.

There was the Canteen, of course, and there was the Temperance Room with
the second-hand papers in it; but a man of any profession cannot read for
eight hours a day in a temperature of 96 degrees or 98 degrees in the
shade, running up sometimes to 103 degrees at midnight. Very few men, even
though they get a pannikin of flat, stale, muddy beer and hide it under
their cots, can continue drinking for six hours a day. One man tried, but
he died, and nearly the whole regiment went to his funeral because it gave
them something to do. It was too early for the excitement of fever or
cholera. The men could only wait and wait and wait, and watch the shadow
of the barrack creeping across the blinding white dust. That was a gay
life.

They lounged about cantonments—it was too hot for any sort of game,
and almost too hot for vice—and fuddled themselves in the evening,
and filled themselves to distension with the healthy nitrogenous food
provided for them, and the more they stoked the less exercise they took
and more explosive they grew. Then tempers began to wear away, and men
fell a-brooding over insults real or imaginary, for they had nothing else
to think of. The tone of the repartees changed, and instead of saying
light-heartedly: “I’ll knock your silly face in,” men grew laboriously
polite and hinted that the cantonments were not big enough for themselves
and their enemy, and that there would be more space for one of the two in
another place.

It may have been the Devil who arranged the thing, but the fact of the
case is that Losson had for a long time been worrying Simmons in an
aimless way. It gave him occupation. The two had their cots side by side,
and would sometimes spend a long afternoon swearing at each other; but
Simmons was afraid of Losson and dared not challenge him to a fight. He
thought over the words in the hot still nights, and half the hate he felt
toward Losson be vented on the wretched punkah-coolie.

Losson bought a parrot in the bazar, and put it into a little cage, and
lowered the cage into the cool darkness of a well, and sat on the
well-curb, shouting bad language down to the parrot. He taught it to say:
“Simmons, ye so-oor,” which means swine, and several other things entirely
unfit for publication. He was a big gross man, and he shook like a jelly
when the parrot had the sentence correctly. Simmons, however, shook with
rage, for all the room were laughing at him—the parrot was such a
disreputable puff of green feathers and it looked so human when it
chattered. Losson used to sit, swinging his fat legs, on the side of the
cot, and ask the parrot what it thought of Simmons. The parrot would
answer: “Simmons, ye so-oor.” “Good boy,” Losson used to say, scratching
the parrot’s head; “ye ‘ear that, Sim?”

And Simmons used to turn over on his stomach and make answer: “I ‘ear.
Take ‘eed you don’t ‘ear something one of these days.”

In the restless nights, after he had been asleep all day, fits of blind
rage came upon Simmons and held him till he trembled all over, while he
thought in how many different ways he would slay Losson. Sometimes he
would picture himself trampling the life out of the man, with heavy
ammunition-boots, and at others smashing in his face with the butt, and at
others jumping on his shoulders and dragging the head back till the
neckbone cracked. Then his mouth would feel hot and fevered, and he would
reach out for another sup of the beer in the pannikin.

But the fancy that came to him most frequently and stayed with him longest
was one connected with the great roll of fat under Losson’s right ear. He
noticed it first on a moonlight night, and thereafter it was always before
his eyes. It was a fascinating roll of fat. A man could get his hand upon
it and tear away one side of the neck; or he could place the muzzle of a
rifle on it and blow away all the head in a flash. Losson had no right to
be sleek and contented and well-to-do, when he, Simmons, was the butt of
the room, Some day, perhaps, he would show those who laughed at the
“Simmons, ye so-oor” joke, that he was as good as the rest, and held a
man’s life in the crook of his forefinger. When Losson snored, Simmons
hated him more bitterly than ever. Why should Losson be able to sleep when
Simmons had to stay awake hour after hour, tossing and turning on the
tapes, with the dull liver pain gnawing into his right side and his head
throbbing and aching after Canteen? He thought over this for many nights,
and the world became unprofitable to him. He even blunted his naturally
fine appetite with beer and tobacco; and all the while the parrot talked
at and made a mock of him.

The heat continued and the tempers wore away more quickly than before. A
Sergeant’s wife died of heat-apoplexy in the night, and the rumor ran
abroad that it was cholera. Men rejoiced openly, hoping that it would
spread and send them into camp. But that was a false alarm.

It was late on a Tuesday evening, and the men were waiting in the deep
double verandas for “Last Posts,” when Simmons went to the box at the foot
of his bed, took out his pipe, and slammed the lid down with a bang that
echoed through the deserted barrack like the crack of a rifle. Ordinarily
speaking, the men would have taken no notice; but their nerves were
fretted to fiddle-strings. They jumped up, and three or four clattered
into the barrack-room only to find Simmons kneeling by his box.

“Owl It’s you, is it?” they said and laughed foolishly. “We t h o u g h t
’twas”—Simmons rose slowly. If the accident had so shaken his
fellows, what would not the reality do?

“You thought it was—did you? And what makes you think?” he said,
lashing himself into madness as he went on; “to Hell with your thinking,
ye dirty spies.”

“Simmons, ye so-oor,” chuckled the parrot in the veranda, sleepily,
recognizing a well-known voice. Now that was absolutely all.

The tension snapped. Simmons fell back on the arm-rack deliberately,—the
men were at the far end of the room,—and took out his rifle and
packet of ammunition. “Don’t go playing the goat, Sim!” said Losson. “Put
it down,” but there was a quaver in his voice. Another man stooped,
slipped his boot and hurled it at Simmons’s head. The prompt answer was a
shot which, fired at random, found its billet in Losson’s throat. Losson
fell forward without a word, and the others scattered.

“You thought it was!” yelled Simmons. “You’re drivin’ me to it! I tell you
you’re drivin’ me to it! Get up, Losson, an’ don’t lie shammin’ there—you
an’ your blasted parrit that druv me to it!”

But there was an unaffected reality about Losson’s pose that showed
Simmons what he had done. The men were still clamoring on the veranda.
Simmons appropriated two more packets of ammunition and ran into the
moonlight, muttering: “I’ll make a night of it. Thirty roun’s, an’ the
last for myself. Take you that, you dogs!”

He dropped on one knee and fired into the brown of the men on the veranda,
but the bullet flew high, and landed in the brickwork with a vicious phat
that made some of the younger ones turn pale. It is, as musketry theorists
observe, one thing to fire and another to be fired at.

Then the instinct of the chase flared up. The news spread from barrack to
barrack, and the men doubled out intent on the capture of Simmons, the
wild beast, who was heading for the Cavalry parade-ground, stopping now
and again to send back a shot and a curse in the direction of his
pursuers.

“I’ll learn you to spy on me!” he shouted; “I’ll learn you to give me
dorg’s names! Come on the ‘ole lot o’ you! Colonel John Anthony Deever,
C.B.!”—he turned toward the Infantry Mess and shook his rifle—“you
think yourself the devil of a man—but I tell you that if you put
your ugly old carcass outside o’ that door, I’ll make you the
poorest-lookin’ man in the army. Come out, Colonel John Anthony Deever,
C.B.! Come out and see me practiss on the rainge. I’m the crack shot of
the ‘ole bloomin’ battalion.” In proof of which statement Simmons fired at
the lighted windows of the mess-house.

“Private Simmons, E Comp’ny, on the Cavalry p’rade-ground, Sir, with
thirty rounds,” said a Sergeant breathlessly to the Colonel. “Shootin’
right and lef’, Sir. Shot Private Losson. What’s to be done, Sir?”

Colonel John Anthony Deever, C.B., sallied out, only to be saluted by s
spurt of dust at his feet.

“Pull up!” said the Second in Command; “I don’t want my step in that way,
Colonel. He’s as dangerous as a mad dog.”

“Shoot him like one, then,” said the Colonel, bitterly, “if he won’t take
his chance, My regiment, too! If it had been the Towheads I could have
under stood.”

Private Simmons had occupied a strong position near a well on the edge of
the parade-ground, and was defying the regiment to come on. The regiment
was not anxious to comply, for there is small honor in being shot by a
fellow-private. Only Corporal Slane, rifle in band, threw himself down on
the ground, and wormed his way toward the well.

“Don’t shoot,” said he to the men round him; “like as not you’ll hit me.
I’ll catch the beggar, livin’.”

Simmons ceased shouting for a while, and the noise of trap-wheels could be
heard across the plain. Major Oldyn, commanding the Horse Battery, was
coming back from a dinner in the Civil Lines; was driving after his usual
custom—that is to say, as fast as the horse could go.

“A orf’cer! A blooming spangled orf’cer,” shrieked Simmons; “I’ll make a
scarecrow of that orf’cer!” The trap stopped.

“What’s this?” demanded the Major of Gunners. “You there, drop your
rifle.”

“Why, it’s Jerry Blazes! I ain’t got no quarrel with you, Jerry Blazes.
Pass frien’, an’ all’s well!”

But Jerry Blazes had not the faintest intention of passing a dangerous
murderer. He was, as his adoring Battery swore long and fervently, without
knowledge of fear, and they were surely the best judges, for Jerry Blazes,
it was notorious, had done his possible to kill a man each time the
Battery went out.

He walked toward Simmons, with the intention of rushing him, and knocking
him down.

“Don’t make me do it, Sir,” said Simmons; “I ain’t got nothing agin you.
Ah! you would?”—the Major broke into a run—“Take that then!”

The Major dropped with a bullet through his shoulder, and Simmons stood
over him. He had lost the satisfaction of killing Losson in the desired
way: hut here was a helpless body to his hand. Should be slip in another
cartridge, and blow off the head, or with the butt smash in the white
face? He stopped to consider, and a cry went up from the far side of the
parade-ground: “He’s killed Jerry Blazes!” But in the shelter of the
well-pillars Simmons was safe except when he stepped out to fire. “I’ll
blow yer ‘andsome ‘ead off, Jerry Blazes,” said Simmons, reflectively.
“Six an’ three is nine an one is ten, an’ that leaves me another nineteen,
an’ one for myself.” He tugged at the string of the second packet of
ammunition. Corporal Slane crawled out of the shadow of a bank into the
moonlight.

“I see you!” said Simmons. “Come a bit furder on an’ I’ll do for you.”

“I’m comm’,” said Corporal Slane, briefly; “you’ve done a bad day’s work,
Sim. Come out ‘ere an’ come back with me.”

“Come to,”—laughed Simmons, sending a cartridge home with his thumb.
“Not before I’ve settled you an’ Jerry Blazes.”

The Corporal was lying at full length in the dust of the parade-ground, a
rifle under him. Some of the less-cautious men in the distance shouted:
“Shoot ‘im! Shoot ‘im, Slane!”

“You move ‘and or foot, Slane,” said Simmons, “an’ I’ll kick Jerry Blazes’
‘ead in, and shoot you after.”

“I ain’t movin’,” said the Corporal, raising his head; “you daren’t ‘it a
man on ‘is legs. Let go o’ Jerry Blazes an’ come out o’ that with your
fistes. Come an’ ‘it me. You daren’t, you bloomin’ dog-shooter!”

“I dare.”

“You lie, you man-sticker. You sneakin’, Sheeny butcher, you lie. See
there!” Slane kicked the rifle away, and stood up in the peril of his
life. “Come on, now!”

The temptation was more than Simmons could resist, for the Corporal in his
white clothes offered a perfect mark.

“Don’t misname me,” shouted Simmons, firing as he spoke. The shot missed,
and the shooter, blind with rage, threw his rifle down and rushed at Slane
from the protection of the well. Within striking distance, he kicked
savagely at Slane’s stomach, but the weedy Corporal knew something of
Simmons’s weakness, and knew, too, the deadly guard for that kick. Bowing
forward and drawing up his right leg till the heel of the right foot was
set some three inches above the inside of the left knee-cap, he met the
blow standing on one leg—exactly as Gonds stand when they meditate—and
ready for the fall that would follow. There was an oath, the Corporal fell
over his own left as shinbone met shinbone, and the Private collapsed, his
right leg broken an inch above the ankle.

“’Pity you don’t know that guard, Sim,” said Slane, spitting out the dust
as he rose. Then raising his voice, “Come an’ take him orf. I’ve bruk ‘is
leg.” This was not strictly true, for the Private had accomplished his own
downfall, since it is the special merit of that leg-guard that the harder
the kick the greater the kicker’s discomfiture.

Slane walked to Jerry Blazes and hung over him with ostentatious anxiety,
while Simmons, weeping with pain, was carried away. “’Ope you ain’t ‘urt
badly, Sir,” said Slane. The Major had fainted, and there was an ugly,
ragged hole through the top of his arm. Slane knelt down and murmured.
“S’elp me, I believe ‘e’s dead. Well, if that ain’t my blooming luck all
over!”

But the Major was destined to lead his Battery afield for many a long day
with unshaken nerve. He was removed, and nursed and petted into
convalescence, while the Battery discussed the wisdom of capturing
Simmons, and blowing him from a gun. They idolized their Major, and his
reappearance on parade brought about a scene nowhere provided for in the
Army Regulations.

Great, too, was the glory that fell to Slane’s share. The Gunners would
have made him drunk thrice a day for at least a fortnight. Even the
Colonel of his own regiment complimented him upon his coolness, and the
local paper called him a hero. These things did not puff him up. When the
Major offered him money and thanks, the virtuous Corporal took the one and
put aside the other. But he had a request to make and prefaced it with
many a “Beg y’pardon, Sir.” Could the Major see his way to letting the
Slane-M’Kenna wedding be adorned by the presence of four Battery horses to
pull a hired barouche? The Major could, and so could the Battery.
Excessively so. It was a gorgeous wedding.

“Wot did I do it for?” said Corporal Slane. “For the ‘orses O’ course.
Jhansi ain’t a beauty to look at, but I wasn’t goin’ to ‘ave a hired
turn-out. Jerry Blazes? If I ‘adn’t ‘a’ wanted something, Sim might ha’
blowed Jerry Blazes’ blooming ‘ead into Hirish stew for aught I’d ‘a’
cared.”

And they hanged Private Simmons—hanged him as high as Haman in
hollow square of the regiment; and the Colonel said it was Drink; and the
Chaplain was sure it was the Devil; and Simmons fancied it was both, but
he didn’t know, and only hoped his fate would be a warning to his
companions; and half a dozen “intelligent publicists” wrote six beautiful
leading articles on “’The Prevalence of Crime in the Army.”

But not a soul thought of comparing the “bloody-minded Simmons” to the
squawking, gaping schoolgirl with which this story opens.

THE ENLIGHTENMENTS OF PAGETT, M.P.

They were sitting in the veranda of “the splendid palace of an Indian
Pro-Consul”; surrounded by all the glory and mystery of the immemorial
East. In plain English it was a one-storied, ten-roomed, whitewashed,
mud-roofed bungalow, set in a dry garden of dusty tamarisk trees and
divided from the road by a low mud wall. The green parrots screamed
overhead as they flew in battalions to the river for their morning drink.
Beyond the wall, clouds of fine dust showed where the cattle and goats of
the city were passing afield to graze. The remorseless white light of the
winter sunshine of Northern India lay upon everything and improved
nothing, from the whining Persian-wheel by the lawn-tennis court to the
long perspective of level road and the blue, domed tombs of Mohammedan
saints just visible above the trees.

“A Happy New Year,” said Orde to his guest. “It’s the first you’ve ever
spent out of England, isn’t it?”

“Yes. ‘Happy New Year,” said Pagett, smiling at the sunshine. “What a
divine climate you have here! Just think of the brown cold fog hanging
over London now!” And he rubbed his hands.

It was more than twenty years since he had last seen Orde, his schoolmate,
and their paths in the world had divided early. The one had quitted
college to become a cog-wheel in the machinery of the great Indian
Government; the other more blessed with goods, had been whirled into a
similar position in the English scheme. Three successive elections had not
affected Pagett’s position with a loyal constituency, and he had grown
insensibly to regard himself in some sort as a pillar of the Empire, whose
real worth would be known later on. After a few years of conscientious
attendance at many divisions, after newspaper battles innumerable and the
publication of interminable correspondence, and more hasty oratory than in
his calmer moments he cared to think upon, it occurred to him, as it had
occurred to many of his fellows in Parliament, that a tour to India would
enable him to sweep a larger lyre and address himself to the problems of
Imperial administration with a firmer hand. Accepting, therefore, a
general invitation extended to him by Orde some years before, Pagett bad
taken ship to Karachi, and only overnight had been received with joy by
the Deputy-Commissioner of Amara. They had sat late, discussing the
changes and chances of twenty years, recalling the names of the dead, and
weighing the futures of the living, as is the custom of men meeting after
intervals of action.

Next morning they smoked the after-breakfast pipe in the veranda, still
regarding each other curiously, Pagett, in a light grey frock-coat and
garments much too thin for the time of the year, and a puggried sun-hat
carefully and wonderfully made, Orde in a shooting coat, riding breeches,
brown cowhide boots with spurs, and a battered flax helmet. He had ridden
some miles in the early morning to inspect a doubtful river dam. The men’s
faces differed as much as their attire. Orde’s worn and wrinkled around
the eyes, and grizzled at the temples, was the harder and more square of
the two, and it was with something like envy that the owner looked at the
comfortable outlines of Pagett’s blandly receptive countenance, the clear
skin, the untroubled eye, and the mobile, clean-shaved lips.

“And this is India!” said Pagett for the twentieth time staring long and
intently at the grey feathering of the tamarisks.

“One portion of India only. It’s very much like this for 300 miles in
every direction. By the way, now that you have rested a little—I
wouldn’t ask the old question before—what d’you think of the
country?”

“’Tis the most pervasive country that ever yet was seen. I acquired
several pounds of your country coming up from Karachi. The air is heavy
with it, and for miles and miles along that distressful eternity of rail
there’s no horizon to show where air and earth separate.”

“Yes. It isn’t easy to see truly or far in India. But you had a decent
passage out, hadn’t you?”

“Very good on the whole. Your Anglo-Indian may be unsympathetic about
one’s political views; but he has reduced ship life to a science.”

“The Anglo-Indian is a political orphan, and if he’s wise he won’t be in a
hurry to be adopted by your party grandmothers. But how were your
companions, unsympathetic?”

“Well, there was a man called Dawlishe, a judge somewhere in this country
it seems, and a capital partner at whist by the way, and when I wanted to
talk to him about the progress of India in a political sense (Orde hid a
grin, which might or might not have been sympathetic), the National
Congress movement, and other things in which, as a Member of Parliament,
I’m of course interested, he shifted the subject, and when I once cornered
him, he looked me calmly in the eye, and said: ‘That’s all Tommy rot. Come
and have a game at Bull.’ You may laugh; but that isn’t the way to treat a
great and important question; and, knowing who I was, well, I thought it
rather rude, don’t you know; and yet Dawlishe is a thoroughly good
fellow.”

“Yes; he’s a friend of mine, and one of the straightest men I know. I
suppose, like many Anglo-Indians, he felt it was hopeless to give you any
just idea of any Indian question without the documents before you, and in
this case the documents you want are the country and the people.”

“Precisely. That was why I came straight to you, bringing an open mind to
bear on things. I’m anxious to know what popular feeling in India is
really like y’know, now that it has wakened into political life. The
National Congress, in spite of Dawlishe, must have caused great excitement
among the masses?”

“On the contrary, nothing could be more tranquil than the state of popular
feeling; and as to excitement, the people would as soon be excited over
the ‘Rule of Three’ as over the Congress.”

“Excuse me, Orde, but do you think you are a fair judge? Isn’t the
official Anglo-Indian naturally jealous of any external influences that
might move the masses, and so much opposed to liberal ideas, truly liberal
ideas, that he can scarcely be expected to regard a popular movement with
fairness?”

“What did Dawlishe say about Tommy Rot? Think a moment, old man. You and I
were brought up together; taught by the same tutors, read the same books,
lived the same life, and new languages, and work among new races; while
you, more fortunate, remain at home. Why should I change my mind—our
mind—because I change my sky? Why should I and the few hundred
Englishmen in my service become unreasonable, prejudiced fossils, while
you and your newer friends alone remain bright and open-minded? You surely
don’t fancy civilians are members of a Primrose League?”

“Of course not, but the mere position of an English official gives him a
point of view which cannot but bias his mind on this question.” Pagett
moved his knee up and down a little uneasily as he spoke.

“That sounds plausible enough, but, like more plausible notions on Indian
matters, I believe it’s a mistake. You’ll find when you come to consult
the unofficial Briton that our fault, as a class—I speak of the
civilian now—is rather to magnify the progress that has been made
toward liberal institutions. It is of English origin, such as it is, and
the stress of our work since the Mutiny—only thirty years ago—has
been in that direction. No, I think you will get no fairer or more
dispassionate view of the Congress business than such men as I can give
you. But I may as well say at once that those who know most of India, from
the inside, are inclined to wonder at the noise our scarcely begun
experiment makes in England.”

“But surely the gathering together of Congress delegates is of itself a
new thing.”

“There’s nothing new under the sun When Europe was a jungle half Asia
flocked to the canonical conferences of Buddhism; and for centuries the
people have gathered at Pun, Hurdwar, Trimbak, and Benares in immense
numbers. A great meeting, what you call a mass meeting, is really one of
the oldest and most popular of Indian institutions in this topsy-turvy
land, and though they have been employed in clerical work for generations
they have no practical knowledge of affairs. A ship’s clerk is a useful
person, but he is scarcely the captain; and an orderly room writer,
however smart he may be, is not the colonel. You see, the writer class in
India has never till now aspired to anything like command. It wasn’t
allowed to. The Indian gentleman, for thousands of years past, has
resembled Victor Hugo’s noble:

“’Un vrai sire Chatelain Laisse ecrire Le vilain. Sa main digne Quand il
signe Egratigne Le velin.’

“And the little egratignures he most likes to make have been scored pretty
deeply by the sword.”

“But this is childish and mediaeval nonsense!”

“Precisely; and from your, or rather our, point of view the pen is
mightier than the sword. In this country it’s otherwise. The fault lies in
our Indian balances, not yet adjusted to civilized weights and measures.”

“Well, at all events, this literary class represent the natural
aspirations and wishes of the people at large, though it may not exactly
lead them, and, in spite of all you say, Orde, I defy you to find a really
sound English Radical who would not sympathize with those aspirations.”

Pagett spoke with some warmth, and he had scarcely ceased when a
well-appointed dog-cart turned into the compound gates, and Orde rose
saying: “Here is Edwards, the Master of the Lodge I neglect so diligently,
come to talk about accounts, I suppose.”

As the vehicle drove up under the porch Pagett also rose, saying with the
trained effusion born of much practice: “But this is also my friend, my
old and valued friend Edwards. I’m delighted to see you. I knew you were
in India, but not exactly where.”

“Then it isn’t accounts, Mr. Edwards,” said Orde, cheerily.

“Why, no, sir; I heard Mr. Pagett was coming, and as our works were closed
for the New Year I thought I would drive over and see him.”

“A very happy thought. Mr. Edwards, you may not know, Orde, was a leading
member of our Radical Club at Switchton when I was beginning political
life, and I owe much to his exertions. There’s no pleasure like meeting an
old friend, except, perhaps, making a new one. I suppose, Mr. Edwards, you
stick to the good old cause?”

“Well, you see, sir, things are different out here. There’s precious
little one can find to say against the Government, which was the main of
our talk at home, and them that do say things are not the sort o’ people a
man who respects himself would like to be mixed up with. There are no
politics, in a manner of speaking, in India. It’s all work.”

“Surely you are mistaken, my good friend. Why I have come all the way from
England just to see the working of this great National movement.”

“I don’t know where you’re going to find the nation as moves to begin
with, and then you’ll be hard put to it to find what they are moving
about. It’s like this, sir,” said Edwards, who had not quite relished
being called “my good friend.” “They haven’t got any grievance—nothing
to hit with, don’t you see, sir; and then there’s not much to hit against,
because the Government is more like a kind of general Providence,
directing an old-established state of things, than that at home, where
there’s something new thrown down for us to fight about every three
months.”

“You are probably, in your workshops, full of English mechanics, out of
the way of learning what the masses think.”

“I don’t know so much about that. There are four of us English foremen,
and between seven and eight hundred native fitters, smiths, carpenters,
painters, and such like.”

“And they are full of the Congress, of course?”

“Never hear a word of it from year’s end to year’s end, and I speak the
talk too. But I wanted to ask how things are going on at home—old
Tyler and Brown and the rest?”

“We will speak of them presently, but your account of the indifference of
your men surprises me almost as much as your own. I fear you are a
backslider from the good old doctrine, Edwards.” Pagett spoke as one who
mourned the death of a near relative.

“Not a bit, Sir, but I should be if I took up with a parcel of baboos,
pleaders, and schoolboys, as never did a day’s work in their lives, and
couldn’t if they tried. And if you was to poll us English railway men,
mechanics, tradespeople, and the like of that all up and down the country
from Peshawur to Calcutta, you would find us mostly in a tale together.
And yet you’d know we’re the same English you pay some respect to at home
at ‘lection time, and we have the pull o’ knowing something about it.”

“This is very curious, but you will let me come and see you, and perhaps
you will kindly show me the railway works, and we will talk things over at
leisure. And about all old friends and old times,” added Pagett, detecting
with quick insight a look of disappointment in the mechanic’s face.

Nodding briefly to Orde, Edwards mounted his dog-cart and drove off.

“It’s very disappointing,” said the Member to Orde, who, while his friend
discoursed with Edwards, had been looking over a bundle of sketches drawn
on grey paper in purple ink, brought to him by a Chuprassee.

“Don’t let it trouble you, old chap,” ‘said Orde, sympathetically. “Look
here a moment, here are some sketches by the man who made the carved wood
screen you admired so much in the dining-room, and wanted a copy of, and
the artist himself is here too.”

“A native?” said Pagett.

“Of course,” was the reply, “Bishen Singh is his name, and he has two
brothers to help him. When there is an important job to do, the three go
into partnership, but they spend most of their time and all their money in
litigation over an inheritance, and I’m afraid they are getting involved,
Thoroughbred Sikhs of the old rock, obstinate, touchy, bigoted, and
cunning, but good men for all that. Here is Bishen Singh—shall we
ask him about the Congress?”

But Bishen Singh, who approached with a respectful salaam, had never heard
of it, and he listened with a puzzled face and obviously feigned interest
to Orde’s account of its aims and objects, finally shaking his vast white
turban with great significance when he learned that it was promoted by
certain pleaders named by Orde, and by educated natives. He began with
labored respect to explain how he was a poor man with no concern in such
matters, which were all under the control of God, but presently broke out
of Urdu into familiar Punjabi, the mere sound of which had a rustic smack
of village smoke-reek and plough-tail, as he denounced the wearers of
white coats, the jugglers with words who filched his field from him, the
men whose backs were never bowed in honest work; and poured ironical scorn
on the Bengali. He and one of his brothers had seen Calcutta, and being at
work there had Bengali carpenters given to them as assistants.

“Those carpenters!” said Bishen Singh. “Black apes were more efficient
workmates, and as for the Bengali babu—tchick!” The guttural click
needed no interpretation, but Orde translated the rest, while Pagett gazed
with interest at the wood-carver.

“He seems to have a most illiberal prejudice against the Bengali,” said
the M.P.

“Yes, it’s very sad that for ages outside Bengal there should be so bitter
a prejudice. Pride of race, which also means race-hatred, is the plague
and curse of India and it spreads far,” Orde pointed with his riding-whip
to the large map of India on the veranda wall.

“See! I begin with the North,” said he. “There’s the Afghan, and, as a
highlander, he despises all the dwellers in Hindoostan—with the
exception of the Sikh, whom he hates as cordially as the Sikh hates him.
The Hindu loathes Sikh and Afghan, and the Rajput—that’s a little
lower down across this yellow blot of desert—has a strong objection,
to put it mildly, to the Maratha who, by the way, poisonously hates the
Afghan. Let’s go North a minute. The Sindhi hates everybody I’ve
mentioned. Very good, we’ll take less warlike races. The cultivator of
Northern India domineers over the man in the next province, and the Behari
of the Northwest ridicules the Bengali. They are all at one on that point.
I’m giving you merely the roughest possible outlines of the facts, of
course.”

Bishen Singh, his clean cut nostrils still quivering, watched the large
sweep of the whip as it traveled from the frontier, through Sindh, the
Punjab and Rajputana, till it rested by the valley of the Jumna.

“Hate—eternal and inextinguishable hate,” concluded Orde, flicking
the lash of the whip across the large map from East to West as he sat
down. “Remember Canning’s advice to Lord Granville, ‘Never write or speak
of Indian things without looking at a map.’”

Pagett opened his eyes, Orde resumed. “And the race-hatred is only a part
of it. What’s really the matter with Bishen Singh is class-hatred, which,
unfortunately, is even more intense and more widely spread. That’s one of
the little drawbacks of caste, which some of your recent English writers
find an impeccable system.”

The wood-carver was glad to be recalled to the business of his craft, and
his eyes shone as he received instructions for a carved wooden doorway for
Pagett, which he promised should be splendidly executed and despatched to
England in six months. It is an irrelevant detail, but in spite of Orde’s
reminders, fourteen months elapsed before the work was finished. Business
over, Bishen Singh hung about, reluctant to take his leave, and at last
joining his hands and approaching Orde with bated breath and whispering
humbleness, said he had a petition to make. Orde’s face suddenly lost all
trace of expression. “Speak on, Bishen Singh,” said he, and the carver in
a whining tone explained that his case against his brothers was fixed for
hearing before a native judge and—here he dropped his voice still
lower till he was summarily stopped by Orde, who sternly pointed to the
gate with an emphatic Begone!

Bishen Singh, showing but little sign of discomposure, salaamed
respectfully to the friends and departed.

Pagett looked inquiry; Orde, with complete recovery of his usual urbanity,
replied: “It’s nothing, only the old story, he wants his case to be tried
by an English judge—they all do that—but when he began to hint
that the other side were in improper relations with the native judge I had
to shut him up. Gunga Ram, the man he wanted to make insinuations about,
may not be very bright; but he’s as honest as daylight on the bench. But
that’s just what one can’t get a native to believe.”

“Do you really mean to say these people prefer to have their cases tried
by English judges?”

“Why, certainly.”

Pagett drew a long breath. “I didn’t know that before.” At this point a
phaeton entered the compound, and Orde rose with “Confound it, there’s old
Rasul Ali Khan come to pay one of his tiresome duty calls. I’m afraid we
shall never get through our little Congress discussion.”

Pagett was an almost silent spectator of the grave formalities of a visit
paid by a punctilious old Mahommedan gentleman to an Indian official; and
was much impressed by the distinction of manner and fine appearance of the
Mohammedan landholder. When the exchange of polite banalities came to a
pause, he expressed a wish to learn the courtly visitor’s opinion of the
National Congress.

Orde reluctantly interpreted, and with a smile which even Mohammedan
politeness could not save from bitter scorn, Rasul Ali Khan intimated that
he knew nothing about it and cared still less. It was a kind of talk
encouraged by the Government for some mysterious purpose of its own, and
for his own part he wondered and held his peace.

Pagett was far from satisfied with this, and wished to have the old
gentleman’s opinion on the propriety of managing all Indian affairs on the
basis of an elective system.

Orde did his best to explain, but it was plain the visitor was bored and
bewildered. Frankly, he didn’t think much of committees; they had a
Municipal Committee at Lahore and had elected a menial servant, an
orderly, as a member. He had been informed of this on good authority, and
after that, committees had ceased to interest him. But all was according
to the rule of Government, and, please God, it was all for the best.

“What an old fossil it is!” cried Pagett, as Orde returned from seeing his
guest to the door; “just like some old blue-blooded hidalgo of Spain. What
does he really think of the Congress after all, and of the elective
system?”

“Hates it all like poison. When you are sure of a majority, election is a
fine system; but you can scarcely expect the Mahommedans, the most
masterful and powerful minority in the country, to contemplate their own
extinction with joy. The worst of it is that he and his co-religionists,
who are many, and the landed proprietors, also, of Hindu race, are
frightened and put out by this election business and by the importance we
have bestowed on lawyers, pleaders, writers, and the like, who have, up to
now, been in abject submission to them. They say little, but after all
they are the most important fagots in the great bundle of communities, and
all the glib bunkum in the world would not pay for their estrangement.
They have controlled the land.”

“But I am assured that experience of local self-government in your
municipalities has been most satisfactory, and when once the principle is
accepted in your centres, don’t you know, it is bound to spread, and these
important—ah—people of yours would learn it like the rest. I
see no difficulty at all,” and the smooth lips closed with the complacent
snap habitual to Pagett, M.P., the “man of cheerful yesterdays and
confident tomorrows.”

Orde looked at him with a dreary smile.

“The privilege of election has been most reluctantly withdrawn from scores
of municipalities, others have had to be summarily suppressed, and,
outside the Presidency towns, the actual work done has been badly
performed. This is of less moment, perhaps—it only sends up the
local death-rates—than the fact that the public interest in
municipal elections, never very strong, has waned, and is waning, in spite
of careful nursing on the part of Government servants.”

“Can you explain this lack of interest?” said Pagett, putting aside the
rest of Orde’s remarks.

“You may find a ward of the key in the fact that only one in every
thousand of our population can spell. Then they are infinitely more
interested in religion and caste questions than in any sort of politics.
When the business of mere existence is over, their minds are occupied by a
series of interests, pleasures, rituals, superstitions, and the like,
based on centuries of tradition and usage. You, perhaps, find it hard to
conceive of people absolutely devoid of curiosity, to whom the book, the
daily paper, and the printed speech are unknown, and you would describe
their life as blank. That’s a profound mistake. You are in another land,
another century, down on the bed-rock of society, where the family merely,
and not the community, is all-important. The average Oriental cannot be
brought to look beyond his clan. His life, too, is more complete and
self-sufficing, and less sordid and low-thoughted than you might imagine.
It is bovine and slow in some respects, but it is never empty. You and I
are inclined to put the cart before the horse, and to forget that it is
the man that is elemental, not the book. ‘The corn and the cattle are all
my care, And the rest is the will of God.’ Why should such folk look up
from their immemorially appointed round of duty and interests to meddle
with the unknown and fuss with voting-papers. How would you, atop of all
your interests care to conduct even one-tenth of your life according to
the manners and customs of the Papuans, let’s say? That’s what it comes
to.”

“But if they won’t take the trouble to vote, why do you anticipate that
Mohammedans, proprietors, and the rest would be crushed by majorities of
them?”

Again Pagett disregarded the closing sentence.

“Because, though the landholders would not move a finger on any purely
political question, they could be raised in dangerous excitement by
religious hatreds. Already the first note of this has been sounded by the
people who are trying to get up an agitation on the cow-killing question,
and every year there is trouble over the Mohammedan Muharrum processions.

“But who looks after the popular rights, being thus unrepresented?”

“The Government of Her Majesty the Queen, Empress of India, in which, if
the Congress promoters are to be believed, the people have an implicit
trust; for the Congress circular, specially prepared for rustic
comprehension, says the movement is ‘for the remission of tax, the
advancement of Hindustan, and the strengthening of the British
Government.’ This paper is headed in large letters-‘MAY THE PROSPERITY OF
THE EMPIRE OF INDIA ENDURE.’”

“Really!” said Pagett, “that shows some cleverness. But there are things
better worth imitation in our English methods of—er—political
statement than this sort of amiable fraud.”

“Anyhow,” resumed Orde, “you perceive that not a word is said about
elections and the elective principle, and the reticence of the Congress
promoters here shows they are wise in their generation.”

“But the elective principle must triumph in the end, and the little
difficulties you seem to anticipate would give way on the introduction of
a well-balanced scheme, capable of indefinite extension.”

“But is it possible to devise a scheme which, always assuming that the
people took any interest in it, without enormous expense, ruinous
dislocation of the administration and danger to the public peace, can
satisfy the aspirations of Mr. Hume and his following, and yet safeguard
the interests of the Mahommedans, the landed and wealthy classes, the
Conservative Hindus, the Eurasians, Parsees, Sikhs, Rajputs, native
Christians, domiciled Europeans and others, who are each important and
powerful in their way?”

Pagett’s attention, however, was diverted to the gate, where a group of
cultivators stood in apparent hesitation.

“Here are the twelve Apostles, by Jove—come straight out of
Raffaele’s cartoons,” said the M.P., with the fresh appreciation of a
newcomer.

Orde, loth to be interrupted, turned impatiently toward the villagers, and
their leader, handing his long staff to one of his companions, advanced to
the house.

“It is old Jelbo, the Lumherdar, or head-man of Pind Sharkot, and a very
intelligent man for a villager.”

The Jat farmer had removed his shoes and stood smiling on the edge of the
veranda. His strongly marked features glowed with russet bronze, and his
bright eyes gleamed under deeply set brows, contracted by lifelong
exposure to sunshine. His beard and moustache streaked with grey swept
from bold cliffs of brow and cheek in the large sweeps one sees drawn by
Michael Angelo, and strands of long black hair mingled with the
irregularly piled wreaths and folds of his turban. The drapery of stout
blue cotton cloth thrown over his broad shoulders and girt round his
narrow loins, hung from his tall form in broadly sculptured folds, and he
would have made a superb model for an artist in search of a patriarch.

Orde greeted him cordially, and after a polite pause the countryman
started off with a long story told with impressive earnestness. Orde
listened and smiled, interrupting the speaker at times to argue and reason
with him in a tone which Pagett could hear was kindly, and finally
checking the flux of words was about to dismiss him, when Pagett suggested
that he should be asked about the National Congress.

But Jelbo had never heard of it. He was a poor man and such things, by the
favor of his Honor, did not concern him.

“What’s the matter with your big friend that he was so terribly in
earnest?” asked Pagett, when he had left.

“Nothing much. He wants the blood of the people in the next village, who
have had smallpox and cattle plague pretty badly, and by the help of a
wizard, a currier, and several pigs have passed it on to his own village.
‘Wants to know if they can’t be run in for this awful crime. It seems they
made a dreadful charivari at the village boundary, threw a quantity of
spell-bearing objects over the border, a buffalo’s skull and other things;
then branded a chamur—what you would call a currier—on his
hinder parts and drove him and a number of pigs over into Jelbo’s village.
Jelbo says he can bring evidence to prove that the wizard directing these
proceedings, who is a Sansi, has been guilty of theft, arson,
cattle-killing, perjury and murder, but would prefer to have him punished
for bewitching them and inflicting smallpox.”

“And how on earth did you answer such a lunatic?”

“Lunatic!—the old fellow is as sane as you or I; and he has some
ground of complaint against those Sansis. I asked if he would like a
native superintendent of police with some men to make inquiries, but he
objected on the grounds the police were rather worse than smallpox and
criminal tribes put together.”

“Criminal tribes—er—I don’t quite understand,” said Pagett.

“We have in India many tribes of people who in the slack anti-British days
became robbers, in various kind, and preyed on the people. They are being
restrained and reclaimed little by little, and in time will become useful
citizens, but they still cherish hereditary traditions of crime, and are a
difficult lot to deal with. By the way what about the political rights of
these folk under your schemes? The country people call them vermin, but I
suppose they would be electors with the rest.”

“Nonsense—special provision would be made for them in a
well-considered electoral scheme, and they would doubtless be treated with
fitting severity,” said Pagett, with a magisterial air.

“Severity, yes—but whether it would be fitting is doubtful. Even
those poor devils have rights, and, after all, they only practice what
they have been taught.”

“But criminals, Orde!”

“Yes, criminals with codes and rituals of crime, gods and godlings of
crime, and a hundred songs and sayings in praise of it. Puzzling, isn’t
it?”

“It’s simply dreadful. They ought to be put down at once. Are there many
of them?”

“Not more than about sixty thousand in this province, for many of the
tribes broadly described as criminal are really vagabond and criminal only
on occasion, while others are being settled and reclaimed. They are of
great antiquity, a legacy from the past, the golden, glorious Aryan past
of Max Muller, Birdwood and the rest of your spindrift philosophers.”

An orderly brought a card to Orde, who took it with a movement of
irritation at the interruption, and banded it to Pagett; a large card with
a ruled border in red ink, and in the centre in schoolboy copper plate,
Mr. Dma Nath. “Give salaam,” said the civilian, and there entered in haste
a slender youth, clad in a closely fitting coat of grey homespun, tight
trousers, patent-leather shoes, and a small black velvet cap. His thin
cheek twitched, and his eyes wandered restlessly, for the young man was
evidently nervous and uncomfortable, though striving to assume a free and
easy air.

“Your honor may perhaps remember me,” he said in English, and Orde scanned
him keenly.

“I know your face somehow. You belonged to the Shershah district I think,
when I was in charge there?”

“Yes, Sir, my father is writer at Shershah, and your honor gave me a prize
when I was first in the Middle School examination five years ago. Since
then I have prosecuted my studies, and I am now second year’s student in
the Mission College—”

“Of course: you are Kedar Nath’s son—the boy who said he liked
geography better than play or sugar cakes, and I didn’t believe you. How
is your father getting on?”

“He is well, and he sends his salaam, but his circumstances are depressed,
and he also is down on his luck.”

“You learn English idioms at the Mission College, it seems.”

“Yes, sir, they are the best idioms, and my father ordered me to ask your
honor to say a word for him to the present incumbent of your honor’s
shoes, the latchet of which he is not worthy to open, and who knows not
Joseph; for things are different at Shershah now, and my father wants
promotion.”

“Your father is a good man, and I will do what I can for him.”

At this point a telegram was handed to Orde, who, after glancing at it,
said he must leave his young friend whom he introduced to Pagett, “a
member of the English House of Commons who wishes to learn about India.”

Orde had scarcely retired with his telegram when Pagett began:

“Perhaps you can tell me something of the National Congress movement?”

“Sir, it is the greatest movement of modern times, and one in which all
educated men like us must join. All our students are for the Congress.”

“Excepting, I suppose, Mahommedans, and the Christians?” said Pagett,
quick to use his recent instruction.

“These are some mere exceptions to the universal rule.”

“But the people outside the College, the working classes, the
agriculturists; your father and mother, for instance.”

“My mother,” said the young man, with a visible effort to bring himself to
pronounce the word, “has no ideas, and my father is not agriculturist, nor
working class; he is of the Kayeth caste; but he had not the advantage of
a collegiate education, and he does not know much of the Congress. It is a
movement for the educated young-man”—connecting adjective and noun
in a sort of vocal hyphen.

“Ah, yes,” said Pagett, feeling he was a little off the rails, “and what
are the benefits you expect to gain by it?”

“Oh, sir, everything. England owes its greatness to Parliamentary
institutions, and we should at once gain the same high position in scale
of nations. Sir, we wish to have the sciences, the arts, the manufactures,
the industrial factories, with steam engines, and other motive powers and
public meetings, and debates. Already we have a debating club in
connection with the college, and elect a Mr. Speaker. Sir, the progress
must come. You also are a Member of Parliament and worship the great Lord
Ripon,” said the youth, breathlessly, and his black eyes flashed as he
finished his commaless sentences.

“Well,” said Pagett, drily, “it has not yet occurred to me to worship his
Lordship, although I believe he is a very worthy man, and I am not sure
that England owes quite all the things you name to the House of Commons.
You see, my young friend, the growth of a nation like ours is slow,
subject to many influences, and if you have read your history aright”—

“Sir. I know it all—all! Norman Conquest, Magna Charta, Runnymede,
Reformation, Tudors, Stuarts, Mr. Milton and Mr. Burke, and I have read
something of Mr. Herbert Spencer and Gibbon’s ‘Decline and Fall,’
Reynolds’ ‘Mysteries of the Court,’ and”—

Pagett felt like one who had pulled the string of a shower-bath unawares,
and hastened to stop the torrent with a question as to what particular
grievances of the people of India the attention of an elected assembly
should be first directed. But young Mr. Dma Nath was slow to
particularize. There were many, very many demanding consideration. Mr.
Pagett would like to hear of one or two typical examples. The Repeal of
the Arms Act was at last named, and the student learned for the first time
that a license was necessary before an Englishman could carry a gun in
England. Then natives of India ought to be allowed to become Volunteer
Riflemen if they chose, and the absolute equality of the Oriental with his
European fellow-subject in civil status should be proclaimed on principle,
and the Indian Army should be considerably reduced. The student was not,
however, prepared with answers to Mr. Pagett’s mildest questions on these
points, and he returned to vague generalities, leaving the M.P. so much
impressed with the crudity of his views that he was glad on Orde’s return
to say goodbye to his “very interesting” young friend.

“What do you think of young India?” asked Orde.

“Curious, very curious—and callow.”

“And yet,” the civilian replied, “one can scarcely help sympathizing with
him for his mere youth’s sake. The young orators of the Oxford Union
arrived at the same conclusions and showed doubtless just the same
enthusiasm. If there were any political analogy between India and England,
if the thousand races of this Empire were one, if there were any chance
even of their learning to speak one language, if, in short, India were a
Utopia of the debating-room, and not a real land, this kind of talk might
be worth listening to, but it is all based on false analogy and ignorance
of the facts.”

“But he is a native and knows the facts.”

“He is a sort of English schoolboy, but married three years, and the
father of two weaklings, and knows less than most English schoolboys. You
saw all he is and knows, and such ideas as he has acquired are directly
hostile to the most cherished convictions of the vast majority of the
people.”

“But what does he mean by saying he is a student of a mission college? Is
he a Christian?”

“He meant just what he said, and he is not a Christian, nor ever will he
be. Good people in America, Scotland and England, most of whom would never
dream of collegiate education for their own sons, are pinching themselves
to bestow it in pure waste on Indian youths. Their scheme is an oblique,
subterranean attack on heathenism; the theory being that with the jam of
secular education, leading to a University degree, the pill of moral or
religious instruction may he coaxed down the heathen gullet.”

“But does it succeed; do they make converts?”

“They make no converts, for the subtle Oriental swallows the jam and
rejects the pill; but the mere example of the sober, righteous, and godly
lives of the principals and professors who are most excellent and devoted
men, must have a certain moral value. Yet, as Lord Lansdowne pointed out
the other day, the market is dangerously overstocked with graduates of our
Universities who look for employment in the administration. An immense
number are employed, but year by year the college mills grind out
increasing lists of youths foredoomed to failure and disappointment, and
meanwhile, trades, manufactures, and the industrial arts are neglected,
and in fact regarded with contempt by our new literary mandarins in
posse.”

“But our young friend said he wanted steam-engines and factories,” said
Pagett.

“Yes, he would like to direct such concerns. He wants to begin at the top,
for manual labor is held to be discreditable, and he would never defile
his hands by the apprenticeship which the architects, engineers, and
manufacturers of England cheerfully undergo; and he would be aghast to
learn that the leading names of industrial enterprise in England belonged
a generation or two since, or now belong, to men who wrought with their
own hands. And, though he talks glibly of manufacturers, he refuses to see
that the Indian manufacturer of the future will be the despised workman of
the present. It was proposed, for example, a few weeks ago, that a certain
municipality in this province should establish an elementary technical
school for the sons of workmen. The stress of the opposition to the plan
came from a pleader who owed all he had to a college education bestowed on
him gratis by Government and missions. You would have fancied some fine
old crusted Tory squire of the last generation was speaking. ‘These
people,’ he said, ‘want no education, for they learn their trades from
their fathers, and to teach a workman’s son the elements of mathematics
and physical science would give him ideas above his business. They must be
kept in their place, and it was idle to imagine that there was any science
in wood or iron work.’ And he carried his point. But the Indian workman
will rise in the social scale in spite of the new literary caste.”

“In England we have scarcely begun to realize that there is an industrial
class in this country, yet, I suppose, the example of men, like Edwards
for instance, must tell,” said Pagett, thoughtfully.

“That you shouldn’t know much about it is natural enough, for there are
but few sources of information. India in this, as in other respects, is
like a badly kept ledger—not written up to date. And men like
Edwards are, in reality, missionaries, who by precept and example are
teaching more lessons than they know. Only a few, however, of their crowds
of subordinates seem to care to try to emulate them, and aim at individual
advancement; the rest drop into the ancient Indian caste groove.”

“How do you mean?” asked Pagett.

“Well, it is found that the new railway and factory workmen, the fitter,
the smith, the engine-driver, and the rest are already forming separate
hereditary castes. You may notice this down at Jamalpur in Bengal, one of
the oldest railway centres; and at other places, and in other industries,
they are following the same inexorable Indian law.”

“Which means?” queried Pagett.

“It means that the rooted habit of the people is to gather in small
self-contained, self-sufficing family groups with no thought or care for
any interests but their own—a habit which is scarcely compatible
with the right acceptation of the elective principle.”

“Yet you must admit, Orde, that though our young friend was not able to
expound the faith that is in him, your Indian army is too big.”

“Not nearly big enough for its main purpose. And, as a side issue, there
are certain powerful minorities of fighting folk whose interests an
Asiatic Government is bound to consider. Arms is as much a means of
livelihood as civil employ under Government and law. And it would be a
heavy strain on British bayonets to hold down Sikhs, Jats, Bilochis,
Rohillas, Rajputs, Bhils, Dogras, Pathans, and Gurkhas to abide by the
decisions of a numerical majority opposed to their interests. Leave the
‘numerical majority’ to itself without the British bayonets—a flock
of sheep might as reasonably hope to manage a troop of collies.”

“This complaint about excessive growth of the army is akin to another
contention of the Congress party. They protest against the malversation of
the whole of the moneys raised by additional taxes as a Famine Insurance
Fund to other purposes. You must be aware that this special Famine Fund
has all been spent on frontier roads and defences and strategic railway
schemes as a protection against Russia.”

“But there was never a special famine fund raised by special taxation and
put by as in a box. No sane administrator would dream of such a thing. In
a time of prosperity a finance minister, rejoicing in a margin, proposed
to annually apply a million and a half to the construction of railways and
canals for the protection of districts liable to scarcity, and to the
reduction of the annual loans for public works. But times were not always
prosperous, and the finance minister had to choose whether he would bang
up the insurance scheme for a year or impose fresh taxation. When a farmer
hasn’t got the little surplus he hoped to have for buying a new wagon and
draining a low-lying field corner, you don’t accuse him of malversation,
if he spends what he has on the necessary work of the rest of his farm.”

A clatter of hoofs was heard, and Orde looked up with vexation, but his
brow cleared as a horseman halted under the porch.

“Hello, Orde! just looked in to ask if you are coming to polo on Tuesday:
we want you badly to help to crumple up the Krab Bokhar team.”

Orde explained that he had to go out into the District, and while the
visitor complained that though good men wouldn’t play, duffers were always
keen, and that his side would probably be beaten, Pagett rose to look at
his mount, a red, lathered Biloch mare, with a curious lyrelike incurving
of the ears. “Quite a little thoroughbred in all other respects,” said the
M.P., and Orde presented Mr. Reginald Burke, Manager of the Siad and
Sialkote Bank to his friend.

“Yes, she’s as good as they make ’em, and she’s all the female I possess
and spoiled in consequence, aren’t you, old girl?” said Burke, patting the
mare’s glossy neck as she backed and plunged.

“Mr. Pagett,” said Orde, “has been asking me about the Congress. What is
your opinion?” Burke turned to the M. P. with a frank smile.

“Well, if it’s all the same to you, sir, I should say, Damn the Congress,
but then I’m no politician, but only a business man.”

“You find it a tiresome subject?”

“Yes, it’s all that, and worse than that, for this kind of agitation is
anything but wholesome for the country.”

“How do you mean?”

“It would be a long job to explain, and Sara here won’t stand, but you
know how sensitive capital is, and how timid investors are. All this sort
of rot is likely to frighten them, and we can’t afford to frighten them.
The passengers aboard an Ocean steamer don’t feel reassured when the
ship’s way is stopped, and they hear the workmen’s hammers tinkering at
the engines down below. The old Ark’s going on all right as she is, and
only wants quiet and room to move. Them’s my sentiments, and those of some
other people who have to do with money and business.”

“Then you are a thick-and-thin supporter of the Government as it is.”

“Why, no! The Indian Government is much too timid with its money—like
an old maiden aunt of mine—always in a funk about her investments.
They don’t spend half enough on railways for instance, and they are slow
in a general way, and ought to be made to sit up in all that concerns the
encouragement of private enterprise, and coaxing out into use the millions
of capital that lie dormant in the country.”

The mare was dancing with impatience, and Burke was evidently anxious to
be off, so the men wished him goodbye.

“Who is your genial friend who condemns both Congress and Government in a
breath?” asked Pagett, with an amused smile.

“Just now he is Reggie Burke, keener on polo than on anything else, but if
you go to the Sind and Sialkote Bank tomorrow you would find Mr. Reginald
Burke a very capable man of business, known and liked by an immense
constituency North and South of this.”

“Do you think he is right about the Government’s want of enterprise?”

“I should hesitate to say. Better consult the merchants and chambers of
commerce in Cawnpore, Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta. But though these
bodies would like, as Reggie puts it, to make Government sit up, it is an
elementary consideration in governing a country like India, which must be
administered for the benefit of the people at large, that the counsels of
those who resort to it for the sake of making money should be judiciously
weighed and not allowed to overpower the rest. They are welcome guests
here, as a matter of course, but it has been found best to restrain their
influence. Thus the rights of plantation laborers, factory operatives, and
the like, have been protected, and the capitalist, eager to get on, has
not always regarded Government action with favor. It is quite conceivable
that under an elective system the commercial communities of the great
towns might find means to secure majorities on labor questions and on
financial matters.”

“They would act at least with intelligence and consideration.”

“Intelligence, yes; but as to consideration, who at the present moment
most bitterly resents the tender solicitude of Lancashire for the welfare
and protection of the Indian factory operative? English and native
capitalists running cotton mills and factories.”

“But is the solicitude of Lancashire in this matter entirely
disinterested?”

“It is no business of mine to say. I merely indicate an example of how a
powerful commercial interest might hamper a Government intent in the first
place on the larger interests of humanity.”

Orde broke off to listen a moment. “There’s Dr. Lathrop talking to my wife
in the drawing-room,” said he.

“Surely not; that’s a lady’s voice, and if my ears don’t deceive me, an
American.”

“Exactly, Dr. Eva McCreery Lathrop, chief of the new Women’s Hospital
here, and a very good fellow forbye. Good morning, Doctor,” he said, as a
graceful figure came out on the veranda, “you seem to be in trouble. I
hope Mrs. Orde was able to help you.”

“Your wife is real kind and good, I always come to her when I’m in a fix
but I fear it’s more than comforting I want.”

“You work too hard and wear yourself out,” said Orde, kindly. “Let me
introduce my friend, Mr. Pagett, just fresh from home, and anxious to
learn his India. You could tell him something of that more important half
of which a mere man knows so little.”

“Perhaps I could if I’d any heart to do it, but I’m in trouble, I’ve lost
a case, a case that was doing well, through nothing in the world but
inattention on the part of a nurse I had begun to trust. And when I spoke
only a small piece of my mind she collapsed in a whining heap on the
floor. It is hopeless.”

The men were silent, for the blue eyes of the lady doctor were dim.
Recovering herself she looked up with a smile, half sad, half humorous,
“And I am in a whining heap, too; but what phase of Indian life are you
particularly interested in, sir?”

“Mr. Pagett intends to study the political aspect of things and the
possibility of bestowing electoral institutions on the people.”

“Wouldn’t it be as much to the purpose to bestow point-lace collars on
them? They need many things more urgently than votes. Why it’s like giving
a bread-pill for a broken leg.”

“Er—I don’t quite follow,” said Pagett, uneasily.

“Well, what’s the matter with this country is not in the least political,
but an all round entanglement of physical, social, and moral evils and
corruptions, all more or less due to the unnatural treatment of women. You
can’t gather figs from thistles, and so long as the system of infant
marriage, the prohibition of the remarriage of widows, the lifelong
imprisonment of wives and mothers in a worse than penal confinement, and
the withholding from them of any kind of education or treatment as
rational beings continues, the country can’t advance a step. Half of it is
morally dead, and worse than dead, and that’s just the half from which we
have a right to look for the best impulses. It’s right here where the
trouble is, and not in any political considerations whatsoever.”

“But do they marry so early?” said Pagett, vaguely.

“The average age is seven, but thousands are married still earlier. One
result is that girls of twelve and thirteen have to bear the burden of
wifehood and motherhood, and, as might be expected, the rate of mortality
both for mothers and children is terrible. Pauperism, domestic
unhappiness, and a low state of health are only a few of the consequences
of this. Then, when, as frequently happens, the boy-husband dies
prematurely, his widow is condemned to worse than death. She may not
remarry, must live a secluded and despised life, a life so unnatural that
she sometimes prefers suicide; more often she goes astray. You don’t know
in England what such words as ‘infant-marriage,’ ‘baby-wife,’
‘girl-mother,’ and ‘virgin-widow’ mean; but they mean unspeakable horrors
here.”

“Well, but the advanced political party here will surely make it their
business to advocate social reforms as well as political ones,” said
Pagett.

“Very surely they will do no such thing,” said the lady doctor,
emphatically. “I wish I could make you understand. Why, even of the funds
devoted to the Marchioness of Dufferin’s organization for medical aid to
the women of India, it was said in print and in speech, that they would be
better spent on more college scholarships for men. And in all the advanced
parties’ talk—God forgive them—and in all their programmes,
they carefully avoid all such subjects. They will talk about the
protection of the cow, for that’s an ancient superstition—they can
all understand that; but the protection of the women is a new and
dangerous idea.” She turned to Pagett impulsively:

“You are a member of the English Parliament. Can you do nothing? The
foundations of their life are rotten—utterly and bestially rotten. I
could tell your wife things that I couldn’t tell you. I know the inner
life that belongs to the native, and I know nothing else; and believe me
you might as well try to grow golden-rod in a mushroom-pit as to make
anything of a people that are born and reared as these—these things
‘re. The men talk of their rights and privileges. I have seen the women
that bear these very men, and again—may God forgive the men!”

Pagett’s eyes opened with a large wonder. Dr. Lathrop rose tempestuously.

“I must be off to lecture,” said she, “and I’m sorry that I can’t show you
my hospitals; but you had better believe, sir, that it’s more necessary
for India than all the elections in creation.”

“That’s a woman with a mission, and no mistake,” said Pagett, after a
pause.

“Yes; she believes in her work, and so do I,” said Orde. “I’ve a notion
that in the end it will be found that the most helpful work done for India
in this generation was wrought by Lady Dufferin in drawing attention—what
work that was, by the way, even with her husband’s great name to back it
to the needs of women here. In effect, native habits and beliefs are an
organized conspiracy against the laws of health and happy life—but
there is some dawning of hope now.”

“How d’you account for the general indifference, then?”

“I suppose it’s due in part to their fatalism and their utter indifference
to all human suffering. How much do you imagine the great province of the
Punjab with over twenty million people and half a score rich towns has
contributed to the maintenance of civil dispensaries last year? About
seven thousand rupees.”

“That’s seven hundred pounds,” said Pagett, quickly.

“I wish it was,” replied Orde; “but anyway, it’s an absurdly inadequate
sum, and shows one of the blank sides of Oriental character.”

Pagett was silent for a long time. The question of direct and personal
pain did not lie within his researches. He preferred to discuss the
weightier matters of the law, and contented himself with murmuring:
“They’ll do better later on.” Then, with a rush, returning to his first
thought:

“But, my dear Orde, if it’s merely a class movement of a local and
temporary character, how d’ you account for Bradlaugh, who is at least a
man of sense, taking it up?”

“I know nothing of the champion of the New Brahmins but what I see in the
papers. I suppose there is something tempting in being hailed by a large
assemblage as the representative of the aspirations of two hundred and
fifty millions of people. Such a man looks ‘through all the roaring and
the wreaths,’ and does not reflect that it is a false perspective, which,
as a matter of fact, hides the real complex and manifold India from his
gaze. He can scarcely be expected to distinguish between the ambitions of
a new oligarchy and the real wants of the people of whom he knows nothing.
But it’s strange that a professed Radical should come to be the chosen
advocate of a movement which has for its aim the revival of an ancient
tyranny. Shows how even Radicalism can fall into academic grooves and miss
the essential truths of its own creed. Believe me, Pagett, to deal with
India you want first-hand knowledge and experience. I wish he would come
and live here for a couple of years or so.”

“Is not this rather an ad hominem style of argument?”

“Can’t help it in a case like this. Indeed, I am not sure you ought not to
go further and weigh the whole character and quality and upbringing of the
man. You must admit that the monumental complacency with which he trotted
out his ingenious little Constitution for India showed a strange want of
imagination and the sense of humor.”

“No, I don’t quite admit it,” said Pagett.

“Well, you know him and I don’t, but that’s how it strikes a stranger.” He
turned on his heel and paced the veranda thoughtfully. “And, after all,
the burden of the actual, daily unromantic toil falls on the shoulders of
the men out here, and not on his own. He enjoys all the privileges of
recommendation without responsibility, and we—well, perhaps, when
you’ve seen a little more of India you’ll understand. To begin with, our
death rate’s five times higher than yours—I speak now for the brutal
bureaucrat—and we work on the refuse of worked-out cities and
exhausted civilizations, among the bones of the dead. In the case of the
Congress meetings, the only notable fact is that the priests of the altar
are British, not Buddhist, Jain or Brahminical, and that the whole thing
is a British contrivance kept alive by the efforts of Messrs. Hume,
Eardley, Norton, and Digby.”

“You mean to say, then, it’s not a spontaneous movement?”

“What movement was ever spontaneous in any true sense of the word? This
seems to be more factitious than usual. You seem to know a great deal
about it; try it by the touchstone of subscriptions, a coarse but fairly
trustworthy criterion, and there is scarcely the color of money in it. The
delegates write from England that they are out of pocket for working
expenses, railway fares, and stationery—the mere pasteboard and
scaffolding of their show. It is, in fact, collapsing from mere financial
inanition.”

“But you cannot deny that the people of India, who are, perhaps, too poor
to subscribe, are mentally and morally moved by the agitation,” Pagett
insisted.

“That is precisely what I do deny. The native side of the movement is the
work of a limited class, a microscopic minority, as Lord Dufferin
described it, when compared with the people proper, but still a very
interesting class, seeing that it is of our own creation. It is composed
almost entirely of those of the literary or clerkly castes who have
received an English education.”

“Surely that’s a very important class. Its members must be the ordained
leaders of popular thought.”

“Anywhere else they might be leaders, but they have no social weight
here.”

Pagett laughed. “That’s an epigrammatic way of putting it, Orde.”

“Is it? Let’s see,” said the Deputy Commissioner of Amara, striding into
the sunshine toward a half-naked gardener potting roses. He took the man’s
hoe, and went to a rain-scarped bank at the bottom of the garden.

“Come here, Pagett,” he said, and cut at the sun-baked soil. After three
strokes there rolled from under the blade of the hoe the half of a
clanking skeleton that settled at Pagett’s feet in an unseemly jumble of
bones. The M.P. drew back.

“Our houses are built on cemeteries,” said Orde. “There are scores of
thousands of graves within ten miles.”

Pagett was contemplating the skull with the awed fascination of a man who
has but little to do with the dead. “India’s a very curious place,” said
he, after a pause.

“Ah? You’ll know all about it in three months. Come in to lunch,” said
Orde.

VOLUME V PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS

LISPETH

She was the daughter of Sonoo, a Hill-man, and Jadeh his wife. One year
their maize failed, and two bears spent the night in their only
poppy-field just above the Sutlej Valley on the Kotgarh side; so, next
season, they turned Christian, and brought their baby to the Mission to be
baptized. The Kotgarh Chaplain christened her Elizabeth, and “Lispeth” is
the Hill or pahari pronunciation.

Later, cholera came into the Kotgarh Valley and carried off Sonoo and
Jadeh, and Lispeth became half-servant, half-companion to the wife of the
then Chaplain of Kotgarh. This was after the reign of the Moravian
missionaries, but before Kotgarh had quite forgotten her title of
“Mistress of the Northern Hills.”

Whether Christianity improved Lispeth, or whether the gods of her own
people would have done as much for her under any circumstances, I do not
know; but she grew very lovely. When a Hill girl grows lovely, she is
worth traveling fifty miles over bad ground to look upon. Lispeth had a
Greek face—one of those faces people paint so often, and see so
seldom. She was of a pale, ivory color and, for her race, extremely tall.
Also, she possessed eyes that were wonderful; and, had she not been
dressed in the abominable print-cloths affected by Missions, you would,
meeting her on the hill-side unexpectedly, have thought her the original
Diana of the Romans going out to slay.

Lispeth took to Christianity readily, and did not abandon it when she
reached womanhood, as do some Hill girls. Her own people hated her because
she had, they said, become a memsahib and washed herself daily; and the
Chaplain’s wife did not know what to do with her. Somehow, one cannot ask
a stately goddess, five foot ten in her shoes, to clean plates and dishes.
So she played with the Chaplain’s children and took classes in the Sunday
School, and read all the books in the house, and grew more and more
beautiful, like the Princesses in fairy tales. The Chaplain’s wife said
that the girl ought to take service in Simla as a nurse or something
“genteel.” But Lispeth did not want to take service. She was very happy
where she was.

When travellers—there were not many in those years—came to
Kotgarh, Lispeth used to lock herself into her own room for fear they
might take her away to Simla, or somewhere out into the unknown world.

One day, a few months after she was seventeen years old, Lispeth went out
for a walk. She did not walk in the manner of English ladies—a mile
and a half out, and a ride back again. She covered between twenty and
thirty miles in her little constitutionals, all about and about, between
Kotgarh and Narkunda. This time she came back at full dusk, stepping down
the breakneck descent into Kotgarh with something heavy in her arms. The
Chaplain’s wife was dozing in the drawing-room when Lispeth came in
breathing hard and very exhausted with her burden. Lispeth put it down on
the sofa, and said simply:

“This is my husband. I found him on the Bagi Road. He has hurt himself. We
will nurse him, and when he is well, your husband shall marry him to me.”

This was the first mention Lispeth had ever made of her matrimonial views,
and the Chaplain’s wife shrieked with horror. However, the man on the sofa
needed attention first. He was a young Englishman, and his head had been
cut to the bone by something jagged. Lispeth said she had found him down
the khud, so she had brought him in.

He was breathing queerly and was unconscious.

He was put to bed and tended by the Chaplain, who knew something of
medicine; and Lispeth waited outside the door in case she could be useful.
She explained to the Chaplain that this was the man she meant to marry;
and the Chaplain and his wife lectured her severely on the impropriety of
her conduct. Lispeth listened quietly, and repeated her first proposition.
It takes a great deal of Christianity to wipe out uncivilized Eastern
instincts, such as falling in love at first sight. Lispeth, having found
the man she worshipped, did not see why she should keep silent as to her
choice. She had no intention of being sent away, either. She was going to
nurse that Englishman until he was well enough to marry her. This was her
little programme.

After a fortnight of slight fever and inflammation, the Englishman
recovered coherence and thanked the Chaplain and his wife, and Lispeth—especially
Lispeth—for their kindness. He was a traveller in the East, he said—they
never talked about “globe-trotters” in those days, when the P. & O.
fleet was young and small—and had come from Dehra Dun to hunt for
plants and butterflies among the Simla hills. No one at Simla, therefore,
knew anything about him. He fancied he must have fallen over the cliff
while stalking a fern on a rotten tree-trunk, and that his coolies must
have stolen his baggage and fled. He thought he would go back to Simla
when he was a little stronger. He desired no more mountaineering.

He made small haste to go away, and recovered his strength slowly.

Lispeth objected to being advised either by the Chaplain or his wife; so
the latter spoke to the Englishman, and told him how matters stood in
Lispeth’s heart. He laughed a good deal, and said it was very pretty and
romantic, a perfect idyl of the Himalayas; but, as he was engaged to a
girl at Home, he fancied that nothing would happen. Certainly he would
behave with discretion. He did that. Still he found it very pleasant to
talk to Lispeth, and walk with Lispeth, and say nice things to her, and
call her pet names while he was getting strong enough to go away. It meant
nothing at all to him, and everything in the world to Lispeth. She was
very happy while the fortnight lasted, because she had found a man to
love.

Being a savage by birth, she took no trouble to hide her feelings, and the
Englishman was amused. When he went away, Lispeth walked with him, up the
Hill as far as Narkunda, very troubled and very miserable. The Chaplain’s
wife, being a good Christian and disliking anything in the shape of fuss
or scandal—Lispeth was beyond her management entirely—had told
the Englishman to tell Lispeth that he was coming back to marry her. “She
is but a child, you know, and, I fear, at heart a heathen,” said the
Chaplain’s wife. So all the twelve miles up the hill the Englishman, with
his arm around Lispeth’s waist, was assuring the girl that he would come
back and marry her; and Lispeth made him promise over and over again. She
wept on the Narkunda Ridge till he had passed out of sight along the
Muttiani path.

Then she dried her tears and went in to Kotgarh again, and said to the
Chaplain’s wife: “He will come back and marry me. He has gone to his own
people to tell them so.” And the Chaplain’s wife soothed Lispeth and said:
“He will come back.” At the end of two months, Lispeth grew impatient, and
was told that the Englishman had gone over the seas to England. She knew
where England was, because she had read little geography primers; but, of
course, she had no conception of the nature of the sea, being a Hill girl.

There was an old puzzle-map of the World in the House. Lispeth had played
with it when she was a child. She unearthed it again, and put it together
of evenings, and cried to herself, and tried to imagine where her
Englishman was. As she had no ideas of distance or steamboats, her notions
were somewhat erroneous. It would not have made the least difference had
she been perfectly correct; for the Englishman had no intention of coming
back to marry a Hill girl. He forgot all about her by the time he was
butterfly-hunting in Assam. He wrote a book on the East afterwards.
Lispeth’s name did not appear.

At the end of three months, Lispeth made daily pilgrimage to Narkunda to
see if her Englishman was coming along the road. It gave her comfort, and
the Chaplain’s wife, finding her happier, thought that she was getting
over her “barbarous and most indelicate folly.” A little later the walks
ceased to help Lispeth and her temper grew very bad. The Chaplain’s wife
thought this a profitable time to let her know the real state of affairs—that
the Englishman had only promised his love to keep her quiet—that he
had never meant anything, and that it was “wrong and improper” of Lispeth
to think of marriage with an Englishman, who was of a superior clay,
besides being promised in marriage to a girl of his own people. Lispeth
said that all this was clearly impossible, because he had said he loved
her, and the Chaplain’s wife had, with her own lips, asserted that the
Englishman was coming back.

“How can what he and you said be untrue?” asked Lispeth.

“We said it as an excuse to keep you quiet, child,” said the Chaplain’s
wife.

“Then you have lied to me,” said Lispeth, “you and he?”

The Chaplain’s wife bowed her head, and said nothing. Lispeth was silent,
too for a little time; then she went out down the valley, and returned in
the dress of a Hill girl—infamously dirty, but without the nose and
ear rings. She had her hair braided into the long pig-tail, helped out
with black thread, that Hill women wear.

“I am going back to my own people,” said she. “You have killed Lispeth.
There is only left old Jadeh’s daughter—the daughter of a pahari and
the servant of Tarka Devi. You are all liars, you English.”

By the time that the Chaplain’s wife had recovered from the shock of the
announcement that Lispeth had ‘verted to her mother’s gods, the girl had
gone; and she never came back.

She took to her own unclean people savagely, as if to make up the arrears
of the life she had stepped out of; and, in a little time, she married a
wood-cutter who beat her, after the manner of paharis, and her beauty
faded soon.

“There is no law whereby you can account for the vagaries of the heathen,”
said the Chaplain’s wife, “and I believe that Lispeth was always at heart
an infidel.” Seeing she had been taken into the Church of England at the
mature age of five weeks, this statement does not do credit to the
Chaplain’s wife.

Lispeth was a very old woman when she died. She always had a perfect
command of English, and when she was sufficiently drunk, could sometimes
be induced to tell the story of her first love-affair.

It was hard then to realize that the bleared, wrinkled creature, so like a
wisp of charred rag, could ever have been “Lispeth of the Kotgarh
Mission.”

THREE AND—AN EXTRA.

After marriage arrives a reaction, sometimes a big, sometimes a little
one; but it comes sooner or later, and must be tided over by both parties
if they desire the rest of their lives to go with the current.

In the case of the Cusack-Bremmils this reaction did not set in till the
third year after the wedding. Bremmil was hard to hold at the best of
times; but he was a beautiful husband until the baby died and Mrs. Bremmil
wore black, and grew thin, and mourned as if the bottom of the universe
had fallen out. Perhaps Bremmil ought to have comforted her. He tried to
do so, I think; but the more he comforted the more Mrs. Bremmil grieved,
and, consequently, the more uncomfortable Bremmil grew. The fact was that
they both needed a tonic. And they got it. Mrs. Bremmil can afford to
laugh now, but it was no laughing matter to her at the time.

You see, Mrs. Hauksbee appeared on the horizon; and where she existed was
fair chance of trouble. At Simla her bye-name was the “Stormy Petrel.” She
had won that title five times to my own certain knowledge. She was a
little, brown, thin, almost skinny, woman, with big, rolling, violet-blue
eyes, and the sweetest manners in the world. You had only to mention her
name at afternoon teas for every woman in the room to rise up, and call
her—well—NOT blessed. She was clever, witty, brilliant, and
sparkling beyond most of her kind; but possessed of many devils of malice
and mischievousness. She could be nice, though, even to her own sex. But
that is another story.

Bremmil went off at score after the baby’s death and the general
discomfort that followed, and Mrs. Hauksbee annexed him. She took no
pleasure in hiding her captives. She annexed him publicly, and saw that
the public saw it. He rode with her, and walked with her, and talked with
her, and picnicked with her, and tiffined at Peliti’s with her, till
people put up their eyebrows and said: “Shocking!” Mrs. Bremmil stayed at
home turning over the dead baby’s frocks and crying into the empty cradle.
She did not care to do anything else. But some eight dear, affectionate
lady-friends explained the situation at length to her in case she should
miss the cream of it. Mrs. Bremmil listened quietly, and thanked them for
their good offices. She was not as clever as Mrs. Hauksbee, but she was no
fool. She kept her own counsel, and did not speak to Bremmil of what she
had heard. This is worth remembering. Speaking to, or crying over, a
husband never did any good yet.

When Bremmil was at home, which was not often, he was more affectionate
than usual; and that showed his hand. The affection was forced partly to
soothe his own conscience and partly to soothe Mrs. Bremmil. It failed in
both regards.

Then “the A.-D.-C. in Waiting was commanded by Their Excellencies, Lord
and Lady Lytton, to invite Mr. and Mrs. Cusack-Bremmil to Peterhoff on
July 26th at 9.30 P. M.”—“Dancing” in the bottom-left-hand corner.

“I can’t go,” said Mrs. Bremmil, “it is too soon after poor little Florrie—but
it need not stop you, Tom.”

She meant what she said then, and Bremmil said that he would go just to
put in an appearance. Here he spoke the thing which was not; and Mrs.
Bremmil knew it. She guessed—a woman’s guess is much more accurate
than a man’s certainty—that he had meant to go from the first, and
with Mrs. Hauksbee. She sat down to think, and the outcome of her thoughts
was that the memory of a dead child was worth considerably less than the
affections of a living husband.

She made her plan and staked her all upon it. In that hour she discovered
that she knew Tom Bremmil thoroughly, and this knowledge she acted on.

“Tom,” said she, “I shall be dining out at the Longmores’ on the evening
of the 26th. You’d better dine at the club.”

This saved Bremmil from making an excuse to get away and dine with Mrs.
Hauksbee, so he was grateful, and felt small and mean at the same time—which
was wholesome. Bremmil left the house at five for a ride. About half-past
five in the evening a large leather-covered basket came in from Phelps’
for Mrs. Bremmil. She was a woman who knew how to dress; and she had not
spent a week on designing that dress and having it gored, and hemmed, and
herring-boned, and tucked and rucked (or whatever the terms are) for
nothing. It was a gorgeous dress—slight mourning. I can’t describe
it, but it was what The Queen calls “a creation”—a thing that hit
you straight between the eyes and made you gasp. She had not much heart
for what she was going to do; but as she glanced at the long mirror she
had the satisfaction of knowing that she had never looked so well in her
life. She was a large blonde and, when she chose, carried herself
superbly.

After the dinner at the Longmores, she went on to the dance—a little
late—and encountered Bremmil with Mrs. Hauksbee on his arm.

That made her flush, and as the men crowded round her for dances she
looked magnificent. She filled up all her dances except three, and those
she left blank. Mrs. Hauksbee caught her eye once; and she knew it was war—real
war—between them. She started handicapped in the struggle, for she
had ordered Bremmil about just the least little bit in the world too much;
and he was beginning to resent it. Moreover, he had never seen his wife
look so lovely.

He stared at her from doorways, and glared at her from passages as she
went about with her partners; and the more he stared, the more taken was
he. He could scarcely believe that this was the woman with the red eyes
and the black stuff gown who used to weep over the eggs at breakfast.

Mrs. Hauksbee did her best to hold him in play, but, after two dances, he
crossed over to his wife and asked for a dance.

“I’m afraid you’ve come too late, MISTER Bremmil,” she said, with her eyes
twinkling.

Then he begged her to give him a dance, and, as a great favor, she allowed
him the fifth waltz. Luckily it stood vacant on his programme. They danced
it together, and there was a little flutter round the room. Bremmil had a
sort of notion that his wife could dance, but he never knew she danced so
divinely. At the end of that waltz he asked for another—as a favor,
not as a right; and Mrs. Bremmil said: “Show me your programme, dear!” He
showed it as a naughty little schoolboy hands up contraband sweets to a
master.

There was a fair sprinkling of “H” on it besides “H” at supper.

Mrs. Bremmil said nothing, but she smiled contemptuously, ran her pencil
through 7 and 9—two “H’s”—and returned the card with her own
name written above—a pet name that only she and her husband used.
Then she shook her finger at him, and said, laughing: “Oh, you silly,
SILLY boy!”

Mrs. Hauksbee heard that, and—she owned as much—felt that she
had the worst of it. Bremmil accepted 7 and 9 gratefully. They danced 7,
and sat out 9 in one of the little tents. What Bremmil said and what Mrs.
Bremmil said is no concern of any one’s.

When the band struck up “The Roast Beef of Old England,” the two went out
into the verandah, and Bremmil began looking for his wife’s dandy (this
was before ‘rickshaw days) while she went into the cloak-room. Mrs.
Hauksbee came up and said: “You take me in to supper, I think, Mr.
Bremmil.” Bremmil turned red and looked foolish. “Ah—h’m! I’m going
home with my wife, Mrs. Hauksbee. I think there has been a little
mistake.” Being a man, he spoke as though Mrs. Hauksbee were entirely
responsible.

Mrs. Bremmil came out of the cloak-room in a swansdown cloak with a white
“cloud” round her head. She looked radiant; and she had a right to.

The couple went off in the darkness together, Bremmil riding very close to
the dandy.

Then says Mrs. Hauksbee to me—she looked a trifle faded and jaded in
the lamplight: “Take my word for it, the silliest woman can manage a
clever man; but it needs a very clever woman to manage a fool.”

Then we went in to supper.

THROWN AWAY.

To rear a boy under what parents call the “sheltered life system” is, if
the boy must go into the world and fend for himself, not wise. Unless he
be one in a thousand he has certainly to pass through many unnecessary
troubles; and may, possibly, come to extreme grief simply from ignorance
of the proper proportions of things.

Let a puppy eat the soap in the bath-room or chew a newly-blacked boot. He
chews and chuckles until, by and by, he finds out that blacking and Old
Brown Windsor make him very sick; so he argues that soap and boots are not
wholesome. Any old dog about the house will soon show him the unwisdom of
biting big dogs’ ears. Being young, he remembers and goes abroad, at six
months, a well-mannered little beast with a chastened appetite. If he had
been kept away from boots, and soap, and big dogs till he came to the
trinity full-grown and with developed teeth, just consider how fearfully
sick and thrashed he would be! Apply that motion to the “sheltered life,”
and see how it works. It does not sound pretty, but it is the better of
two evils.

There was a Boy once who had been brought up under the “sheltered life”
theory; and the theory killed him dead. He stayed with his people all his
days, from the hour he was born till the hour he went into Sandhurst
nearly at the top of the list. He was beautifully taught in all that wins
marks by a private tutor, and carried the extra weight of “never having
given his parents an hour’s anxiety in his life.” What he learnt at
Sandhurst beyond the regular routine is of no great consequence. He looked
about him, and he found soap and blacking, so to speak, very good. He ate
a little, and came out of Sandhurst not so high as he went in.

Them there was an interval and a scene with his people, who expected much
from him. Next a year of living “unspotted from the world” in a third-rate
depot battalion where all the juniors were children, and all the seniors
old women; and lastly he came out to India, where he was cut off from the
support of his parents, and had no one to fall back on in time of trouble
except himself.

Now India is a place beyond all others where one must not take things too
seriously—the midday sun always excepted. Too much work and too much
energy kill a man just as effectively as too much assorted vice or too
much drink. Flirtation does not matter because every one is being
transferred and either you or she leave the Station, and never return.
Good work does not matter, because a man is judged by his worst output and
another man takes all the credit of his best as a rule. Bad work does not
matter, because other men do worse, and incompetents hang on longer in
India than anywhere else. Amusements do not matter, because you must
repeat them as soon as you have accomplished them once, and most
amusements only mean trying to win another person’s money.

Sickness does not matter, because it’s all in the day’s work, and if you
die another man takes over your place and your office in the eight hours
between death and burial. Nothing matters except Home furlough and acting
allowances, and these only because they are scarce. This is a slack,
kutcha country where all men work with imperfect instruments; and the
wisest thing is to take no one and nothing in earnest, but to escape as
soon as ever you can to some place where amusement is amusement and a
reputation worth the having.

But this Boy—the tale is as old as the Hills—came out, and
took all things seriously. He was pretty and was petted. He took the
pettings seriously, and fretted over women not worth saddling a pony to
call upon. He found his new free life in India very good.

It DOES look attractive in the beginning, from a Subaltern’s point of view—all
ponies, partners, dancing, and so on. He tasted it as the puppy tastes the
soap. Only he came late to the eating, with a growing set of teeth. He had
no sense of balance—just like the puppy—and could not
understand why he was not treated with the consideration he received under
his father’s roof. This hurt his feelings.

He quarrelled with other boys, and, being sensitive to the marrow,
remembered these quarrels, and they excited him. He found whist, and
gymkhanas, and things of that kind (meant to amuse one after office) good;
but he took them seriously too, just as he took the “head” that followed
after drink. He lost his money over whist and gymkhanas because they were
new to him.

He took his losses seriously, and wasted as much energy and interest over
a two-gold-mohur race for maiden ekka-ponies with their manes hogged, as
if it had been the Derby. One-half of this came from inexperience—much
as the puppy squabbles with the corner of the hearth-rug—and the
other half from the dizziness bred by stumbling out of his quiet life into
the glare and excitement of a livelier one. No one told him about the soap
and the blacking because an average man takes it for granted that an
average man is ordinarily careful in regard to them. It was pitiful to
watch The Boy knocking himself to pieces, as an over-handled colt falls
down and cuts himself when he gets away from the groom.

This unbridled license in amusements not worth the trouble of breaking
line for, much less rioting over, endured for six months—all through
one cold weather—and then we thought that the heat and the knowledge
of having lost his money and health and lamed his horses would sober The
Boy down, and he would stand steady. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred
this would have happened. You can see the principle working in any Indian
Station. But this particular case fell through because The Boy was
sensitive and took things seriously—as I may have said some seven
times before. Of course, we couldn’t tell how his excesses struck him
personally.

They were nothing very heart-breaking or above the average. He might be
crippled for life financially, and want a little nursing.

Still the memory of his performances would wither away in one hot weather,
and the shroff would help him to tide over the money troubles. But he must
have taken another view altogether and have believed himself ruined beyond
redemption. His Colonel talked to him severely when the cold weather
ended. That made him more wretched than ever; and it was only an ordinary
“Colonel’s wigging!”

What follows is a curious instance of the fashion in which we are all
linked together and made responsible for one another. THE thing that
kicked the beam in The Boy’s mind was a remark that a woman made when he
was talking to her. There is no use in repeating it, for it was only a
cruel little sentence, rapped out before thinking, that made him flush to
the roots of his hair. He kept himself to himself for three days, and then
put in for two days’ leave to go shooting near a Canal Engineer’s Rest
House about thirty miles out. He got his leave, and that night at Mess was
noisier and more offensive than ever. He said that he was “going to shoot
big game,” and left at half-past ten o’clock in an ekka.

Partridge—which was the only thing a man could get near the Rest
House—is not big game; so every one laughed.

Next morning one of the Majors came in from short leave, and heard that
The Boy had gone out to shoot “big game.” The Major had taken an interest
in The Boy, and had, more than once, tried to check him in the cold
weather. The Major put up his eyebrows when he heard of the expedition and
went to The Boy’s room, where he rummaged.

Presently he came out and found me leaving cards on the Mess.

There was no one else in the ante-room.

He said: “The Boy has gone out shooting. DOES a man shoot [missing] with a
revolver and a writing-case?”

I said: “Nonsense, Major!” for I saw what was in his mind.

He said: “Nonsense or nonsense, I’m going to the Canal now—at once.
I don’t feel easy.”

Then he thought for a minute, and said: “Can you lie?”

“You know best,” I answered. “It’s my profession.”

“Very well,” said the Major; “you must come out with me now—at once—in
an ekka to the Canal to shoot black-buck. Go and put on shikar-kit—quick—and
drive here with a gun.”

The Major was a masterful man; and I knew that he would not give orders
for nothing. So I obeyed, and on return found the Major packed up in an
ekka—gun-cases and food slung below—all ready for a
shooting-trip.

He dismissed the driver and drove himself. We jogged along quietly while
in the station; but as soon as we got to the dusty road across the plains,
he made that pony fly. A country-bred can do nearly anything at a pinch.
We covered the thirty miles in under three hours, but the poor brute was
nearly dead.

Once I said: “What’s the blazing hurry, Major?”

He said, quietly: “The Boy has been alone, by himself, for—one, two,
five—fourteen hours now! I tell you, I don’t feel easy.”

This uneasiness spread itself to me, and I helped to beat the pony.

When we came to the Canal Engineer’s Rest House the Major called for The
Boy’s servant; but there was no answer. Then we went up to the house,
calling for The Boy by name; but there was no answer.

“Oh, he’s out shooting,” said I.

Just then I saw through one of the windows a little hurricane-lamp
burning. This was at four in the afternoon. We both stopped dead in the
verandah, holding our breath to catch every sound; and we heard, inside
the room, the “brr—brr—brr” of a multitude of flies. The Major
said nothing, but he took off his helmet and we entered very softly.

The Boy was dead on the charpoy in the centre of the bare, lime-washed
room. He had shot his head nearly to pieces with his revolver. The
gun-cases were still strapped, so was the bedding, and on the table lay
The Boy’s writing-case with photographs. He had gone away to die like a
poisoned rat!

The Major said to himself softly: “Poor Boy! Poor, POOR devil!” Then he
turned away from the bed and said: “I want your help in this business.”

Knowing The Boy was dead by his own hand, I saw exactly what that help
would be, so I passed over to the table, took a chair, lit a cheroot, and
began to go through the writing-case; the Major looking over my shoulder
and repeating to himself: “We came too late!—Like a rat in a hole!—Poor,
POOR devil!”

The Boy must have spent half the night in writing to his people, and to
his Colonel, and to a girl at Home; and as soon as he had finished, must
have shot himself, for he had been dead a long time when we came in.

I read all that he had written, and passed over each sheet to the Major as
I finished it.

We saw from his accounts how very seriously he had taken everything. He
wrote about “disgrace which he was unable to bear”—“indelible shame”—“criminal
folly”—“wasted life,” and so on; besides a lot of private things to
his Father and Mother too much too sacred to put into print. The letter to
the girl at Home was the most pitiful of all; and I choked as I read it.
The Major made no attempt to keep dry-eyed. I respected him for that. He
read and rocked himself to and fro, and simply cried like a woman without
caring to hide it. The letters were so dreary and hopeless and touching.
We forgot all about The Boy’s follies, and only thought of the poor Thing
on the charpoy and the scrawled sheets in our hands. It was utterly
impossible to let the letters go Home.

They would have broken his Father’s heart and killed his Mother after
killing her belief in her son.

At last the Major dried his eyes openly, and said: “Nice sort of thing to
spring on an English family! What shall we do?”

I said, knowing what the Major had brought me but for: “The Boy died of
cholera. We were with him at the time. We can’t commit ourselves to
half-measures. Come along.”

Then began one of the most grimy comic scenes I have ever taken part in—the
concoction of a big, written lie, bolstered with evidence, to soothe The
Boy’s people at Home. I began the rough draft of a letter, the Major
throwing in hints here and there while he gathered up all the stuff that
The Boy had written and burnt it in the fireplace. It was a hot, still
evening when we began, and the lamp burned very badly. In due course I got
the draft to my satisfaction, setting forth how The Boy was the pattern of
all virtues, beloved by his regiment, with every promise of a great career
before him, and so on; how we had helped him through the sickness—it
was no time for little lies, you will understand—and how he had died
without pain. I choked while I was putting down these things and thinking
of the poor people who would read them.

Then I laughed at the grotesqueness of the affair, and the laughter mixed
itself up with the choke—and the Major said that we both wanted
drinks.

I am afraid to say how much whiskey we drank before the letter was
finished. It had not the least effect on us. Then we took off The Boy’s
watch, locket, and rings.

Lastly, the Major said: “We must send a lock of hair too. A woman values
that.”

But there were reasons why we could not find a lock fit to send.

The Boy was black-haired, and so was the Major, luckily. I cut off a piece
of the Major’s hair above the temple with a knife, and put it into the
packet we were making. The laughing-fit and the chokes got hold of me
again, and I had to stop. The Major was nearly as bad; and we both knew
that the worst part of the work was to come.

We sealed up the packet, photographs, locket, seals, ring, letter, and
lock of hair with The Boy’s sealing-wax and The Boy’s seal.

Then the Major said: “For God’s sake let’s get outside—away from the
room—and think!”

We went outside, and walked on the banks of the Canal for an hour, eating
and drinking what we had with us, until the moon rose. I know now exactly
how a murderer feels. Finally, we forced ourselves back to the room with
the lamp and the Other Thing in it, and began to take up the next piece of
work. I am not going to write about this. It was too horrible. We burned
the bedstead and dropped the ashes into the Canal; we took up the matting
of the room and treated that in the same way. I went off to a village and
borrowed two big hoes—I did not want the villagers to help—while
the Major arranged—the other matters. It took us four hours’ hard
work to make the grave. As we worked, we argued out whether it was right
to say as much as we remembered of the Burial of the Dead.

We compromised things by saying the Lord’s Prayer with a private
unofficial prayer for the peace of the soul of The Boy. Then we filled in
the grave and went into the verandah—not the house—to lie down
to sleep. We were dead-tired.

When we woke the Major said, wearily: “We can’t go back till tomorrow. We
must give him a decent time to die in. He died early THIS morning,
remember. That seems more natural.” So the Major must have been lying
awake all the time, thinking.

I said: “Then why didn’t we bring the body back to the cantonments?”

The Major thought for a minute:—“Because the people bolted when they
heard of the cholera. And the ekka has gone!”

That was strictly true. We had forgotten all about the ekka-pony, and he
had gone home.

So, we were left there alone, all that stifling day, in the Canal Rest
House, testing and re-testing our story of The Boy’s death to see if it
was weak at any point. A native turned up in the afternoon, but we said
that a Sahib was dead of cholera, and he ran away. As the dusk gathered,
the Major told me all his fears about The Boy, and awful stories of
suicide or nearly-carried-out suicide—tales that made one’s hair
crisp. He said that he himself had once gone into the same Valley of the
Shadow as the Boy, when he was young and new to the country; so he
understood how things fought together in The Boy’s poor jumbled head. He
also said that youngsters, in their repentant moments, consider their sins
much more serious and ineffaceable than they really are. We talked
together all through the evening, and rehearsed the story of the death of
The Boy. As soon as the moon was up, and The Boy, theoretically, just
buried, we struck across country for the Station. We walked from eight
till six o’clock in the morning; but though we were dead-tired, we did not
forget to go to The Boy’s room and put away his revolver with the proper
amount of cartridges in the pouch. Also to set his writing-case on the
table. We found the Colonel and reported the death, feeling more like
murderers than ever. Then we went to bed and slept the clock round; for
there was no more in us.

The tale had credence as long as was necessary, for every one forgot about
The Boy before a fortnight was over. Many people, however, found time to
say that the Major had behaved scandalously in not bringing in the body
for a regimental funeral. The saddest thing of all was a letter from The
Boy’s mother to the Major and me—with big inky blisters all over the
sheet. She wrote the sweetest possible things about our great kindness,
and the obligation she would be under to us as long as she lived.

All things considered, she WAS under an obligation; but not exactly as she
meant.

MISS YOUGHAL’S SAIS.

Some people say that there is no romance in India. Those people are wrong.
Our lives hold quite as much romance as is good for us.

Sometimes more.

Strickland was in the Police, and people did not understand him; so they
said he was a doubtful sort of man and passed by on the other side.
Strickland had himself to thank for this. He held the extraordinary theory
that a Policeman in India should try to know as much about the natives as
the natives themselves. Now, in the whole of Upper India, there is only
ONE man who can pass for Hindu or Mohammedan, chamar or faquir, as he
pleases. He is feared and respected by the natives from the Ghor Kathri to
the Jamma Musjid; and he is supposed to have the gift of invisibility and
executive control over many Devils. But what good has this done him with
the Government? None in the world. He has never got Simla for his charge;
and his name is almost unknown to Englishmen.

Strickland was foolish enough to take that man for his model; and,
following out his absurd theory, dabbled in unsavory places no respectable
man would think of exploring—all among the native riff-raff. He
educated himself in this peculiar way for seven years, and people could
not appreciate it. He was perpetually “going Fantee” among the natives,
which, of course, no man with any sense believes in. He was initiated into
the Sat Bhai at Allahabad once, when he was on leave; he knew the
Lizard-Song of the Sansis, and the Halli-Hukk dance, which is a religious
can-can of a startling kind. When a man knows who dances the Halli-Hukk,
and how, and when, and where, he knows something to be proud of. He has
gone deeper than the skin. But Strickland was not proud, though he had
helped once, at Jagadhri, at the Painting of the Death Bull, which no
Englishman must even look upon; had mastered the thieves’-patter of the
changars; had taken a Eusufzai horse-thief alone near Attock; and had
stood under the mimbar-board of a Border mosque and conducted service in
the manner of a Sunni Mollah.

His crowning achievement was spending eleven days as a faquir in the
gardens of Baba Atal at Amritsar, and there picking up the threads of the
great Nasiban Murder Case. But people said, justly enough: “Why on earth
can’t Strickland sit in his office and write up his diary, and recruit,
and keep quiet, instead of showing up the incapacity of his seniors?” So
the Nasiban Murder Case did him no good departmentally; but, after his
first feeling of wrath, he returned to his outlandish custom of prying
into native life. By the way, when a man once acquires a taste for this
particular amusement, it abides with him all his days. It is the most
fascinating thing in the world; Love not excepted. Where other men took
ten days to the Hills, Strickland took leave for what he called shikar,
put on the disguise that appealed to him at the time, stepped down into
the brown crowd, and was swallowed up for a while. He was a quiet, dark
young fellow—spare, black-eyes—and, when he was not thinking
of something else, a very interesting companion. Strickland on Native
Progress as he had seen it was worth hearing. Natives hated Strickland;
but they were afraid of him. He knew too much.

When the Youghals came into the station, Strickland—very gravely, as
he did everything—fell in love with Miss Youghal; and she, after a
while, fell in love with him because she could not understand him. Then
Strickland told the parents; but Mrs. Youghal said she was not going to
throw her daughter into the worst paid Department in the Empire, and old
Youghal said, in so many words, that he mistrusted Strickland’s ways and
works, and would thank him not to speak or write to his daughter any more.
“Very well,” said Strickland, for he did not wish to make his lady-love’s
life a burden. After one long talk with Miss Youghal he dropped the
business entirely.

The Youghals went up to Simla in April.

In July, Strickland secured three months’ leave on “urgent private
affairs.” He locked up his house—though not a native in the
Providence would wittingly have touched “Estreekin Sahib’s” gear for the
world—and went down to see a friend of his, an old dyer, at Tarn
Taran.

Here all trace of him was lost, until a sais met me on the Simla Mall with
this extraordinary note:

“Dear old man,

“Please give bearer a box of cheroots—Supers, No. I, for preference.
They are freshest at the Club. I’ll repay when I reappear; but at present
I’m out of Society.

“Yours,

“E. STRICKLAND.”

I ordered two boxes, and handed them over to the sais with my love.

That sais was Strickland, and he was in old Youghal’s employ, attached to
Miss Youghal’s Arab. The poor fellow was suffering for an English smoke,
and knew that whatever happened I should hold my tongue till the business
was over.

Later on, Mrs. Youghal, who was wrapped up in her servants, began talking
at houses where she called of her paragon among saises—the man who
was never too busy to get up in the morning and pick flowers for the
breakfast-table, and who blacked—actually BLACKED—the hoofs of
his horse like a London coachman! The turnout of Miss Youghal’s Arab was a
wonder and a delight. Strickland—Dulloo, I mean—found his
reward in the pretty things that Miss Youghal said to him when she went
out riding. Her parents were pleased to find she had forgotten all her
foolishness for young Strickland and said she was a good girl.

Strickland vows that the two months of his service were the most rigid
mental discipline he has ever gone through. Quite apart from the little
fact that the wife of one of his fellow-saises fell in love with him and
then tried to poison him with arsenic because he would have nothing to do
with her, he had to school himself into keeping quiet when Miss Youghal
went out riding with some man who tried to flirt with her, and he was
forced to trot behind carrying the blanket and hearing every word! Also,
he had to keep his temper when he was slanged in “Benmore” porch by a
policeman—especially once when he was abused by a Naik he had
himself recruited from Isser Jang village—or, worse still, when a
young subaltern called him a pig for not making way quickly enough.

But the life had its compensations. He obtained great insight into the
ways and thefts of saises—enough, he says, to have summarily
convicted half the chamar population of the Punjab if he had been on
business. He became one of the leading players at knuckle-bones, which all
jhampanis and many saises play while they are waiting outside the
Government House or the Gaiety Theatre of nights; he learned to smoke
tobacco that was three-fourths cowdung; and he heard the wisdom of the
grizzled Jemadar of the Government House saises, whose words are valuable.
He saw many things which amused him; and he states, on honor, that no man
can appreciate Simla properly, till he has seen it from the sais’s point
of view.

He also says that, if he chose to write all he saw, his head would be
broken in several places.

Strickland’s account of the agony he endured on wet nights, hearing the
music and seeing the lights in “Benmore,” with his toes tingling for a
waltz and his head in a horse-blanket, is rather amusing. One of these
days, Strickland is going to write a little book on his experiences. That
book will be worth buying; and even more, worth suppressing.

Thus, he served faithfully as Jacob served for Rachel; and his leave was
nearly at an end when the explosion came. He had really done his best to
keep his temper in the hearing of the flirtations I have mentioned; but he
broke down at last. An old and very distinguished General took Miss
Youghal for a ride, and began that specially offensive
“you’re-only-a-little-girl” sort of flirtation—most difficult for a
woman to turn aside deftly, and most maddening to listen to. Miss Youghal
was shaking with fear at the things he said in the hearing of her sais.
Dulloo—Strickland—stood it as long as he could. Then he caught
hold of the General’s bridle, and, in most fluent English, invited him to
step off and be heaved over the cliff. Next minute Miss Youghal began
crying; and Strickland saw that he had hopelessly given himself away, and
everything was over.

The General nearly had a fit, while Miss Youghal was sobbing out the story
of the disguise and the engagement that wasn’t recognized by the parents.
Strickland was furiously angry with himself and more angry with the
General for forcing his hand; so he said nothing, but held the horse’s
head and prepared to thrash the General as some sort of satisfaction, but
when the General had thoroughly grasped the story, and knew who Strickland
was, he began to puff and blow in the saddle, and nearly rolled off with
laughing. He said Strickland deserved a V. C., if it were only for putting
on a sais’s blanket. Then he called himself names, and vowed that he
deserved a thrashing, but he was too old to take it from Strickland. Then
he complimented Miss Youghal on her lover.

The scandal of the business never struck him; for he was a nice old man,
with a weakness for flirtations. Then he laughed again, and said that old
Youghal was a fool. Strickland let go of the cob’s head, and suggested
that the General had better help them, if that was his opinion. Strickland
knew Youghal’s weakness for men with titles and letters after their names
and high official position.

“It’s rather like a forty-minute farce,” said the General, “but begad, I
WILL help, if it’s only to escape that tremendous thrashing I deserved. Go
along to your home, my sais-Policeman, and change into decent kit, and
I’ll attack Mr. Youghal. Miss Youghal, may I ask you to canter home and
wait?”………

About seven minutes later, there was a wild hurroosh at the Club.

A sais, with a blanket and head-rope, was asking all the men he knew: “For
Heaven’s sake lend me decent clothes!” As the men did not recognize him,
there were some peculiar scenes before Strickland could get a hot bath,
with soda in it, in one room, a shirt here, a collar there, a pair of
trousers elsewhere, and so on. He galloped off, with half the Club
wardrobe on his back, and an utter stranger’s pony under him, to the house
of old Youghal.

The General, arrayed in purple and fine linen, was before him.

What the General had said Strickland never knew, but Youghal received
Strickland with moderate civility; and Mrs. Youghal, touched by the
devotion of the transformed Dulloo, was almost kind.

The General beamed, and chuckled, and Miss Youghal came in, and almost
before old Youghal knew where he was, the parental consent had been
wrenched out and Strickland had departed with Miss Youghal to the
Telegraph Office to wire for his kit. The final embarrassment was when an
utter stranger attacked him on the Mall and asked for the stolen pony.

So, in the end, Strickland and Miss Youghal were married, on the strict
understanding that Strickland should drop his old ways, and stick to
Departmental routine, which pays best and leads to Simla.

Strickland was far too fond of his wife, just then, to break his word, but
it was a sore trial to him; for the streets and the bazars, and the sounds
in them, were full of meaning to Strickland, and these called to him to
come back and take up his wanderings and his discoveries. Some day, I will
tell you how he broke his promise to help a friend. That was long since,
and he has, by this time, been nearly spoilt for what he would call
shikar. He is forgetting the slang, and the beggar’s cant, and the marks,
and the signs, and the drift of the undercurrents, which, if a man would
master, he must always continue to learn.

But he fills in his Departmental returns beautifully.

YOKED WITH AN UNBELIEVER.

When the Gravesend tender left the P. & 0. steamer for Bombay and went
back to catch the train to Town, there were many people in it crying. But
the one who wept most, and most openly was Miss Agnes Laiter. She had
reason to cry, because the only man she ever loved—or ever could
love, so she said—was going out to India; and India, as every one
knows, is divided equally between jungle, tigers, cobras, cholera, and
sepoys.

Phil Garron, leaning over the side of the steamer in the rain, felt very
unhappy too; but he did not cry. He was sent out to “tea.” What “tea”
meant he had not the vaguest idea, but fancied that he would have to ride
on a prancing horse over hills covered with tea-vines, and draw a
sumptuous salary for doing so; and he was very grateful to his uncle for
getting him the berth. He was really going to reform all his slack,
shiftless ways, save a large proportion of his magnificent salary yearly,
and, in a very short time, return to marry Agnes Laiter. Phil Garron had
been lying loose on his friends’ hands for three years, and, as he had
nothing to do, he naturally fell in love. He was very nice; but he was not
strong in his views and opinions and principles, and though he never came
to actual grief his friends were thankful when he said good-bye, and went
out to this mysterious “tea” business near Darjiling. They said:—“God
bless you, dear boy! Let us never see your face again,”—or at least
that was what Phil was given to understand.

When he sailed, he was very full of a great plan to prove himself several
hundred times better than any one had given him credit for—to work
like a horse, and triumphantly marry Agnes Laiter. He had many good points
besides his good looks; his only fault being that he was weak, the least
little bit in the world weak. He had as much notion of economy as the
Morning Sun; and yet you could not lay your hand on any one item, and say:
“Herein Phil Garron is extravagant or reckless.” Nor could you point out
any particular vice in his character; but he was “unsatisfactory” and as
workable as putty.

Agnes Laiter went about her duties at home—her family objected to
the engagement—with red eyes, while Phil was sailing to Darjiling—“a
port on the Bengal Ocean,” as his mother used to tell her friends. He was
popular enough on board ship, made many acquaintances and a moderately
large liquor bill, and sent off huge letters to Agnes Laiter at each port.
Then he fell to work on this plantation, somewhere between Darjiling and
Kangra, and, though the salary and the horse and the work were not quite
all he had fancied, he succeeded fairly well, and gave himself much
unnecessary credit for his perseverance.

In the course of time, as he settled more into collar, and his work grew
fixed before him, the face of Agnes Laiter went out of his mind and only
came when he was at leisure, which was not often. He would forget all
about her for a fortnight, and remember her with a start, like a
school-boy who has forgotten to learn his lesson.

She did not forget Phil, because she was of the kind that never forgets.
Only, another man—a really desirable young man—presented
himself before Mrs. Laiter; and the chance of a marriage with Phil was as
far off as ever; and his letters were so unsatisfactory; and there was a
certain amount of domestic pressure brought to bear on the girl; and the
young man really was an eligible person as incomes go; and the end of all
things was that Agnes married him, and wrote a tempestuous whirlwind of a
letter to Phil in the wilds of Darjiling, and said she should never know a
happy moment all the rest of her life. Which was a true prophecy.

Phil got that letter, and held himself ill-treated. This was two years
after he had come out; but by dint of thinking fixedly of Agnes Laiter,
and looking at her photograph, and patting himself on the back for being
one of the most constant lovers in history, and warming to the work as he
went on, he really fancied that he had been very hardly used. He sat down
and wrote one final letter—a really pathetic “world without end,
amen,” epistle; explaining how he would be true to Eternity, and that all
women were very much alike, and he would hide his broken heart, etc.,
etc.; but if, at any future time, etc., etc., he could afford to wait,
etc., etc., unchanged affections, etc., etc., return to her old love,
etc., etc., for eight closely-written pages. From an artistic point of
view, it was very neat work, but an ordinary Philistine, who knew the
state of Phil’s real feelings—not the ones he rose to as he went on
writing—would have called it the thoroughly mean and selfish work of
a thoroughly mean and selfish, weak man. But this verdict would have been
incorrect. Phil paid for the postage, and felt every word he had written
for at least two days and a half.

It was the last flicker before the light went out.

That letter made Agnes Laiter very unhappy, and she cried and put it away
in her desk, and became Mrs. Somebody Else for the good of her family.
Which is the first duty of every Christian maid.

Phil went his ways, and thought no more of his letter, except as an artist
thinks of a neatly touched-in sketch. His ways were not bad, but they were
not altogether good until they brought him across Dunmaya, the daughter of
a Rajput ex-Subadar-Major of our Native Army. The girl had a strain of
Hill blood in her, and, like the Hill women, was not a purdah nashin.
Where Phil met her, or how he heard of her, does not matter. She was a
good girl and handsome, and, in her way, very clever and shrewd; though,
of course, a little hard. It is to be remembered that Phil was living very
comfortably, denying himself no small luxury, never putting by an anna,
very satisfied with himself and his good intentions, was dropping all his
English correspondents one by one, and beginning more and more to look
upon this land as his home. Some men fall this way; and they are of no use
afterwards. The climate where he was stationed was good, and it really did
not seem to him that there was anything to go Home for.

He did what many planters have done before him—that is to say, he
made up his mind to marry a Hill girl and settle down. He was seven and
twenty then, with a long life before him, but no spirit to go through with
it. So he married Dunmaya by the forms of the English Church, and some
fellow-planters said he was a fool, and some said he was a wise man.
Dunmaya was a thoroughly honest girl, and, in spite of her reverence for
an Englishman, had a reasonable estimate of her husband’s weaknesses. She
managed him tenderly, and became, in less than a year, a very passable
imitation of an English lady in dress and carriage. [It is curious to
think that a Hill man, after a lifetime’s education, is a Hill man still;
but a Hill woman can in six months master most of the ways of her English
sisters. There was a coolie woman once. But that is another story.]
Dunmaya dressed by preference in black and yellow, and looked well.

Meantime the letter lay in Agnes’s desk, and now and again she would think
of poor resolute hard-working Phil among the cobras and tigers of
Darjiling, toiling in the vain hope that she might come back to him. Her
husband was worth ten Phils, except that he had rheumatism of the heart.
Three years after he was married—and after he had tried Nice and
Algeria for his complaint—he went to Bombay, where he died, and set
Agnes free. Being a devout woman, she looked on his death and the place of
it, as a direct interposition of Providence, and when she had recovered
from the shock, she took out and reread Phil’s letter with the “etc.,
etc.,” and the big dashes, and the little dashes, and kissed it several
times. No one knew her in Bombay; she had her husband’s income, which was
a large one, and Phil was close at hand. It was wrong and improper, of
course, but she decided, as heroines do in novels, to find her old lover,
to offer him her hand and her gold, and with him spend the rest of her
life in some spot far from unsympathetic souls. She sat for two months,
alone in Watson’s Hotel, elaborating this decision, and the picture was a
pretty one. Then she set out in search of Phil Garron, Assistant on a tea
plantation with a more than usually unpronounceable name……….

She found him. She spent a month over it, for his plantation was not in
the Darjiling district at all, but nearer Kangra. Phil was very little
altered, and Dunmaya was very nice to her.

Now the particular sin and shame of the whole business is that Phil, who
really is not worth thinking of twice, was and is loved by Dunmaya, and
more than loved by Agnes, the whole of whose life he seems to have spoilt.

Worst of all, Dunmaya is making a decent man of him; and he will be
ultimately saved from perdition through her training.

Which is manifestly unfair.

FALSE DAWN.

No man will ever know the exact truth of this story; though women may
sometimes whisper it to one another after a dance, when they are putting
up their hair for the night and comparing lists of victims. A man, of
course, cannot assist at these functions. So the tale must be told from
the outside—in the dark—all wrong.

Never praise a sister to a sister, in the hope of your compliments
reaching the proper ears, and so preparing the way for you later on.
Sisters are women first, and sisters afterwards; and you will find that
you do yourself harm.

Saumarez knew this when he made up his mind to propose to the elder Miss
Copleigh. Saumarez was a strange man, with few merits, so far as men could
see, though he was popular with women, and carried enough conceit to stock
a Viceroy’s Council and leave a little over for the Commander-in-Chief’s
Staff. He was a Civilian. Very many women took an interest in Saumarez,
perhaps, because his manner to them was offensive. If you hit a pony over
the nose at the outset of your acquaintance, he may not love you, but he
will take a deep interest in your movements ever afterwards. The elder
Miss Copleigh was nice, plump, winning and pretty. The younger was not so
pretty, and, from men disregarding the hint set forth above, her style was
repellant and unattractive. Both girls had, practically, the same figure,
and there was a strong likeness between them in look and voice; though no
one could doubt for an instant which was the nicer of the two.

Saumarez made up his mind, as soon as they came into the station from
Behar, to marry the elder one. At least, we all made sure that he would,
which comes to the same thing. She was two and twenty, and he was
thirty-three, with pay and allowances of nearly fourteen hundred rupees a
month. So the match, as we arranged it, was in every way a good one.
Saumarez was his name, and summary was his nature, as a man once said.
Having drafted his Resolution, he formed a Select Committee of One to sit
upon it, and resolved to take his time. In our unpleasant slang, the
Copleigh girls “hunted in couples.” That is to say, you could do nothing
with one without the other. They were very loving sisters; but their
mutual affection was sometimes inconvenient. Saumarez held the
balance-hair true between them, and none but himself could have said to
which side his heart inclined; though every one guessed. He rode with them
a good deal and danced with them, but he never succeeded in detaching them
from each other for any length of time.

Women said that the two girls kept together through deep mistrust, each
fearing that the other would steal a march on her. But that has nothing to
do with a man. Saumarez was silent for good or bad, and as business—likely
attentive as he could be, having due regard to his work and his polo.
Beyond doubt both girls were fond of him.

As the hot weather drew nearer, and Saumarez made no sign, women said that
you could see their trouble in the eyes of the girls—that they were
looking strained, anxious, and irritable. Men are quite blind in these
matters unless they have more of the woman than the man in their
composition, in which case it does not matter what they say or think. I
maintain it was the hot April days that took the color out of the Copleigh
girls’ cheeks. They should have been sent to the Hills early. No one—man
or woman—feels an angel when the hot weather is approaching. The
younger sister grew more cynical—not to say acid—in her ways;
and the winningness of the elder wore thin. There was more effort in it.

Now the Station wherein all these things happened was, though not a little
one, off the line of rail, and suffered through want of attention. There
were no gardens or bands or amusements worth speaking of, and it was
nearly a day’s journey to come into Lahore for a dance. People were
grateful for small things to interest them.

About the beginning of May, and just before the final exodus of
Hill-goers, when the weather was very hot and there were not more than
twenty people in the Station, Saumarez gave a moonlight riding-picnic at
an old tomb, six miles away, near the bed of the river. It was a “Noah’s
Ark” picnic; and there was to be the usual arrangement of quarter-mile
intervals between each couple, on account of the dust. Six couples came
altogether, including chaperons. Moonlight picnics are useful just at the
very end of the season, before all the girls go away to the Hills. They
lead to understandings, and should be encouraged by chaperones; especially
those whose girls look sweetish in riding habits. I knew a case once. But
that is another story. That picnic was called the “Great Pop Picnic,”
because every one knew Saumarez would propose then to the eldest Miss
Copleigh; and, beside his affair, there was another which might possibly
come to happiness.

The social atmosphere was heavily charged and wanted clearing.

We met at the parade-ground at ten: the night was fearfully hot.

The horses sweated even at walking-pace, but anything was better than
sitting still in our own dark houses. When we moved off under the full
moon we were four couples, one triplet, and Mr. Saumarez rode with the
Copleigh girls, and I loitered at the tail of the procession, wondering
with whom Saumarez would ride home. Every one was happy and contented; but
we all felt that things were going to happen. We rode slowly: and it was
nearly midnight before we reached the old tomb, facing the ruined tank, in
the decayed gardens where we were going to eat and drink. I was late in
coming up; and before I went into the garden, I saw that the horizon to
the north carried a faint, dun-colored feather. But no one would have
thanked me for spoiling so well-managed an entertainment as this picnic—and
a dust-storm, more or less, does no great harm.

We gathered by the tank. Some one had brought out a banjo—which is a
most sentimental instrument—and three or four of us sang.

You must not laugh at this. Our amusements in out-of-the-way Stations are
very few indeed. Then we talked in groups or together, lying under the
trees, with the sun-baked roses dropping their petals on our feet, until
supper was ready. It was a beautiful supper, as cold and as iced as you
could wish; and we stayed long over it.

I had felt that the air was growing hotter and hotter; but nobody seemed
to notice it until the moon went out and a burning hot wind began lashing
the orange-trees with a sound like the noise of the sea. Before we knew
where we were, the dust-storm was on us, and everything was roaring,
whirling darkness. The supper-table was blown bodily into the tank. We
were afraid of staying anywhere near the old tomb for fear it might be
blown down. So we felt our way to the orange-trees where the horses were
picketed and waited for the storm to blow over. Then the little light that
was left vanished, and you could not see your hand before your face. The
air was heavy with dust and sand from the bed of the river, that filled
boots and pockets and drifted down necks and coated eyebrows and
moustaches. It was one of the worst dust-storms of the year.

We were all huddled together close to the trembling horses, with the
thunder clattering overhead, and the lightning spurting like water from a
sluice, all ways at once. There was no danger, of course, unless the
horses broke loose. I was standing with my head downward and my hands over
my mouth, hearing the trees thrashing each other. I could not see who was
next me till the flashes came.

Then I found that I was packed near Saumarez and the eldest Miss Copleigh,
with my own horse just in front of me. I recognized the eldest Miss
Copleigh, because she had a pagri round her helmet, and the younger had
not. All the electricity in the air had gone into my body and I was
quivering and tingling from head to foot—exactly as a corn shoots
and tingles before rain. It was a grand storm.

The wind seemed to be picking up the earth and pitching it to leeward in
great heaps; and the heat beat up from the ground like the heat of the Day
of Judgment.

The storm lulled slightly after the first half-hour, and I heard a
despairing little voice close to my ear, saying to itself, quietly and
softly, as if some lost soul were flying about with the wind: “O my God!”
Then the younger Miss Copleigh stumbled into my arms, saying: “Where is my
horse? Get my horse. I want to go home. I WANT to go home. Take me home.”

I thought that the lightning and the black darkness had frightened her; so
I said there was no danger, but she must wait till the storm blew over.
She answered: “It is not THAT! It is not THAT! I want to go home! O take
me away from here!”

I said that she could not go till the light came; but I felt her brush
past me and go away. It was too dark to see where. Then the whole sky was
split open with one tremendous flash, as if the end of the world were
coming, and all the women shrieked.

Almost directly after this, I felt a man’s hand on my shoulder and heard
Saumarez bellowing in my ear. Through the rattling of the trees and
howling of the wind, I did not catch his words at once, but at last I
heard him say: “I’ve proposed to the wrong one! What shall I do?” Saumarez
had no occasion to make this confidence to me. I was never a friend of
his, nor am I now; but I fancy neither of us were ourselves just then. He
was shaking as he stood with excitement, and I was feeling queer all over
with the electricity.

I could not think of anything to say except:—“More fool you for
proposing in a dust-storm.” But I did not see how that would improve the
mistake.

Then he shouted: “Where’s Edith—Edith Copleigh?” Edith was the
youngest sister. I answered out of my astonishment:—“What do you
want with HER?” Would you believe it, for the next two minutes, he and I
were shouting at each other like maniacs—he vowing that it was the
youngest sister he had meant to propose to all along, and I telling him
till my throat was hoarse that he must have made a mistake! I can’t
account for this except, again, by the fact that we were neither of us
ourselves. Everything seemed to me like a bad dream—from the
stamping of the horses in the darkness to Saumarez telling me the story of
his loving Edith Copleigh since the first. He was still clawing my
shoulder and begging me to tell him where Edith Copleigh was, when another
lull came and brought light with it, and we saw the dust-cloud forming on
the plain in front of us. So we knew the worst was over. The moon was low
down, and there was just the glimmer of the false dawn that comes about an
hour before the real one. But the light was very faint, and the dun cloud
roared like a bull. I wondered where Edith Copleigh had gone; and as I was
wondering I saw three things together: First Maud Copleigh’s face come
smiling out of the darkness and move towards Saumarez, who was standing by
me. I heard the girl whisper, “George,” and slide her arm through the arm
that was not clawing my shoulder, and I saw that look on her face which
only comes once or twice in a lifetime—when a woman is perfectly
happy and the air is full of trumpets and gorgeous-colored fire and the
Earth turns into cloud because she loves and is loved. At the same time, I
saw Saumarez’s face as he heard Maud Copleigh’s voice, and fifty yards
away from the clump of orange-trees I saw a brown holland habit getting
upon a horse.

It must have been my state of over-excitement that made me so quick to
meddle with what did not concern me. Saumarez was moving off to the habit;
but I pushed him back and said:—“Stop here and explain. I’ll fetch
her back!” and I ran out to get at my own horse. I had a perfectly
unnecessary notion that everything must be done decently and in order, and
that Saumarez’s first care was to wipe the happy look out of Maud
Copleigh’s face. All the time I was linking up the curb-chain I wondered
how he would do it.

I cantered after Edith Copleigh, thinking to bring her back slowly on some
pretence or another. But she galloped away as soon as she saw me, and I
was forced to ride after her in earnest. She called back over her shoulder—“Go
away! I’m going home. Oh, go away!” two or three times; but my business
was to catch her first, and argue later. The ride just fitted in with the
rest of the evil dream. The ground was very bad, and now and again we
rushed through the whirling, choking “dust-devils” in the skirts of the
flying storm. There was a burning hot wind blowing that brought up a
stench of stale brick-kilns with it; and through the half light and
through the dust-devils, across that desolate plain, flickered the brown
holland habit on the gray horse. She headed for the Station at first. Then
she wheeled round and set off for the river through beds of burnt down
jungle-grass, bad even to ride a pig over. In cold blood I should never
have dreamed of going over such a country at night, but it seemed quite
right and natural with the lightning crackling overhead, and a reek like
the smell of the Pit in my nostrils. I rode and shouted, and she bent
forward and lashed her horse, and the aftermath of the dust-storm came up
and caught us both, and drove us downwind like pieces of paper.

I don’t know how far we rode; but the drumming of the horse-hoofs and the
roar of the wind and the race of the faint blood-red moon through the
yellow mist seemed to have gone on for years and years, and I was
literally drenched with sweat from my helmet to my gaiters when the gray
stumbled, recovered himself, and pulled up dead lame. My brute was used up
altogether. Edith Copleigh was in a sad state, plastered with dust, her
helmet off, and crying bitterly. “Why can’t you let me alone?” she said.
“I only wanted to get away and go home. Oh, PLEASE let me go!”

“You have got to come back with me, Miss Copleigh. Saumarez has something
to say to you.”

It was a foolish way of putting it; but I hardly knew Miss Copleigh; and,
though I was playing Providence at the cost of my horse, I could not tell
her in as many words what Saumarez had told me. I thought he could do that
better himself. All her pretence about being tired and wanting to go home
broke down, and she rocked herself to and fro in the saddle as she sobbed,
and the hot wind blew her black hair to leeward. I am not going to repeat
what she said, because she was utterly unstrung.

This, if you please, was the cynical Miss Copleigh. Here was I, almost an
utter stranger to her, trying to tell her that Saumarez loved her and she
was to come back to hear him say so! I believe I made myself understood,
for she gathered the gray together and made him hobble somehow, and we set
off for the tomb, while the storm went thundering down to Umballa and a
few big drops of warm rain fell. I found out that she had been standing
close to Saumarez when he proposed to her sister and had wanted to go home
and cry in peace, as an English girl should. She dabbled her eyes with her
pocket-handkerchief as we went along, and babbled to me out of sheer
lightness of heart and hysteria. That was perfectly unnatural; and yet, it
seemed all right at the time and in the place. All the world was only the
two Copleigh girls, Saumarez and I, ringed in with the lightning and the
dark; and the guidance of this misguided world seemed to lie in my hands.

When we returned to the tomb in the deep, dead stillness that followed the
storm, the dawn was just breaking and nobody had gone away. They were
waiting for our return. Saumarez most of all.

His face was white and drawn. As Miss Copleigh and I limped up, he came
forward to meet us, and, when he helped her down from her saddle, he
kissed her before all the picnic. It was like a scene in a theatre, and
the likeness was heightened by all the dust-white, ghostly-looking men and
women under the orange-trees, clapping their hands, as if they were
watching a play—at Saumarez’s choice. I never knew anything so
un-English in my life.

Lastly, Saumarez said we must all go home or the Station would come out to
look for us, and WOULD I be good enough to ride home with Maud Copleigh?
Nothing would give me greater pleasure, I said.

So, we formed up, six couples in all, and went back two by two; Saumarez
walking at the side of Edith Copleigh, who was riding his horse.

The air was cleared; and little by little, as the sun rose, I felt we were
all dropping back again into ordinary men and women and that the “Great
Pop Picnic” was a thing altogether apart and out of the world—never
to happen again. It had gone with the dust-storm and the tingle in the hot
air.

I felt tired and limp, and a good deal ashamed of myself as I went in for
a bath and some sleep.

There is a woman’s version of this story, but it will never be written.
… unless Maud Copleigh cares to try.

THE RESCUE OF PLUFFLES.

Mrs. Hauksbee was sometimes nice to her own sex. Here is a story to prove
this; and you can believe just as much as ever you please.

Pluffles was a subaltern in the “Unmentionables.” He was callow, even for
a subaltern. He was callow all over—like a canary that had not
finished fledging itself. The worst of it was he had three times as much
money as was good for him; Pluffles’ Papa being a rich man and Pluffles
being the only son. Pluffles’ Mamma adored him. She was only a little less
callow than Pluffles and she believed everything he said.

Pluffles’ weakness was not believing what people said. He preferred what
he called “trusting to his own judgment.” He had as much judgment as he
had seat or hands; and this preference tumbled him into trouble once or
twice. But the biggest trouble Pluffles ever manufactured came about at
Simla—some years ago, when he was four-and-twenty.

He began by trusting to his own judgment, as usual, and the result was
that, after a time, he was bound hand and foot to Mrs. Reiver’s ‘rickshaw
wheels.

There was nothing good about Mrs. Reiver, unless it was her dress.

She was bad from her hair—which started life on a Brittany’s girl’s
head—to her boot-heels, which were two and three-eighth inches high.
She was not honestly mischievous like Mrs. Hauksbee; she was wicked in a
business-like way.

There was never any scandal—she had not generous impulses enough for
that. She was the exception which proved the rule that Anglo-Indian ladies
are in every way as nice as their sisters at Home.

She spent her life in proving that rule.

Mrs. Hauksbee and she hated each other fervently. They heard far too much
to clash; but the things they said of each other were startling—not
to say original. Mrs. Hauksbee was honest—honest as her own front
teeth—and, but for her love of mischief, would have been a woman’s
woman. There was no honesty about Mrs. Reiver; nothing but selfishness.
And at the beginning of the season, poor little Pluffles fell a prey to
her. She laid herself out to that end, and who was Pluffles, to resist? He
went on trusting to his judgment, and he got judged.

I have seen Hayes argue with a tough horse—I have seen a
tonga-driver coerce a stubborn pony—I have seen a riotous setter
broken to gun by a hard keeper—but the breaking-in of Pluffles of
the “Unmentionables” was beyond all these. He learned to fetch and carry
like a dog, and to wait like one, too, for a word from Mrs. Reiver. He
learned to keep appointments which Mrs. Reiver had no intention of
keeping. He learned to take thankfully dances which Mrs. Reiver had no
intention of giving him. He learned to shiver for an hour and a quarter on
the windward side of Elysium while Mrs. Reiver was making up her mind to
come for a ride. He learned to hunt for a ‘rickshaw, in a light dress-suit
under a pelting rain, and to walk by the side of that ‘rickshaw when he
had found it. He learned what it was to be spoken to like a coolie and
ordered about like a cook. He learned all this and many other things
besides. And he paid for his schooling.

Perhaps, in some hazy way, he fancied that it was fine and impressive,
that it gave him a status among men, and was altogether the thing to do.
It was nobody’s business to warn Pluffles that he was unwise. The pace
that season was too good to inquire; and meddling with another man’s folly
is always thankless work.

Pluffles’ Colonel should have ordered him back to his regiment when he
heard how things were going. But Pluffles had got himself engaged to a
girl in England the last time he went home; and if there was one thing
more than another which the Colonel detested, it was a married subaltern.
He chuckled when he heard of the education of Pluffles, and said it was
“good training for the boy.” But it was not good training in the least. It
led him into spending money beyond his means, which were good: above that,
the education spoilt an average boy and made it a tenth-rate man of an
objectionable kind. He wandered into a bad set, and his little bill at
Hamilton’s was a thing to wonder at.

Then Mrs. Hauksbee rose to the occasion. She played her game alone,
knowing what people would say of her; and she played it for the sake of a
girl she had never seen. Pluffles’ fiancee was to come out, under the
chaperonage of an aunt, in October, to be married to Pluffles.

At the beginning of August, Mrs. Hauksbee discovered that it was time to
interfere. A man who rides much knows exactly what a horse is going to do
next before he does it. In the same way, a woman of Mrs. Hauksbee’s
experience knows accurately how a boy will behave under certain
circumstances—notably when he is infatuated with one of Mrs.
Reiver’s stamp. She said that, sooner or later, little Pluffles would
break off that engagement for nothing at all—simply to gratify Mrs.
Reiver, who, in return, would keep him at her feet and in her service just
so long as she found it worth her while.

She said she knew the signs of these things. If she did not, no one else
could.

Then she went forth to capture Pluffles under the guns of the enemy; just
as Mrs. Cusack-Bremmil carried away Bremmil under Mrs. Hauksbee’s eyes.

This particular engagement lasted seven weeks—we called it the Seven
Weeks’ War—and was fought out inch by inch on both sides. A detailed
account would fill a book, and would be incomplete then.

Any one who knows about these things can fit in the details for himself.
It was a superb fight—there will never be another like it as long as
Jakko stands—and Pluffles was the prize of victory.

People said shameful things about Mrs. Hauksbee. They did not know what
she was playing for. Mrs. Reiver fought, partly because Pluffles was
useful to her, but mainly because she hated Mrs. Hauksbee, and the matter
was a trial of strength between them. No one knows what Pluffles thought.
He had not many ideas at the best of times, and the few he possessed made
him conceited. Mrs. Hauksbee said:—“The boy must be caught; and the
only way of catching him is by treating him well.”

So she treated him as a man of the world and of experience so long as the
issue was doubtful. Little by little, Pluffles fell away from his old
allegiance and came over to the enemy, by whom he was made much of. He was
never sent on out-post duty after ‘rickshaws any more, nor was he given
dances which never came off, nor were the drains on his purse continued.
Mrs. Hauksbee held him on the snaffle; and after his treatment at Mrs.
Reiver’s hands, he appreciated the change.

Mrs. Reiver had broken him of talking about himself, and made him talk
about her own merits. Mrs. Hauksbee acted otherwise, and won his
confidence, till he mentioned his engagement to the girl at Home, speaking
of it in a high and mighty way as a “piece of boyish folly.” This was when
he was taking tea with her one afternoon, and discoursing in what he
considered a gay and fascinating style.

Mrs. Hauksbee had seen an earlier generation of his stamp bud and blossom,
and decay into fat Captains and tubby Majors.

At a moderate estimate there were about three and twenty sides to that
lady’s character. Some men say more. She began to talk to Pluffles after
the manner of a mother, and as if there had been three hundred years,
instead of fifteen, between them. She spoke with a sort of throaty quaver
in her voice which had a soothing effect, though what she said was
anything but soothing. She pointed out the exceeding folly, not to say
meanness, of Pluffles’ conduct, and the smallness of his views. Then he
stammered something about “trusting to his own judgment as a man of the
world;” and this paved the way for what she wanted to say next. It would
have withered up Pluffles had it come from any other woman; but in the
soft cooing style in which Mrs. Hauksbee put it, it only made him feel
limp and repentant—as if he had been in some superior kind of
church. Little by little, very softly and pleasantly, she began taking the
conceit out of Pluffles, as you take the ribs out of an umbrella before
re-covering it. She told him what she thought of him and his judgment and
his knowledge of the world; and how his performances had made him
ridiculous to other people; and how it was his intention to make love to
herself if she gave him the chance. Then she said that marriage would be
the making of him; and drew a pretty little picture—all rose and
opal—of the Mrs. Pluffles of the future going through life relying
on the “judgment” and “knowledge of the world” of a husband who had
nothing to reproach himself with. How she reconciled these two statements
she alone knew. But they did not strike Pluffles as conflicting.

Hers was a perfect little homily—much better than any clergyman
could have given—and it ended with touching allusions to Pluffles’
Mamma and Papa, and the wisdom of taking his bride Home.

Then she sent Pluffles out for a walk, to think over what she had said.
Pluffles left, blowing his nose very hard and holding himself very
straight. Mrs. Hauksbee laughed.

What Pluffles had intended to do in the matter of the engagement only Mrs.
Reiver knew, and she kept her own counsel to her death. She would have
liked it spoiled as a compliment, I fancy.

Pluffles enjoyed many talks with Mrs. Hauksbee during the next few days.
They were all to the same end, and they helped Pluffles in the path of
Virtue.

Mrs. Hauksbee wanted to keep him under her wing to the last.

Therefore she discountenanced his going down to Bombay to get married.
“Goodness only knows what might happen by the way!” she said. “Pluffles is
cursed with the curse of Reuben, and India is no fit place for him!”

In the end, the fiancee arrived with her aunt; and Pluffles, having
reduced his affairs to some sort of order—here again Mrs. Hauksbee
helped him—was married.

Mrs. Hauksbee gave a sigh of relief when both the “I wills” had been said,
and went her way.

Pluffles took her advice about going Home. He left the Service, and is now
raising speckled cattle inside green painted fences somewhere at Home. I
believe he does this very judiciously. He would have come to extreme grief
out here.

For these reasons if any one says anything more than usually nasty about
Mrs. Hauksbee, tell him the story of the Rescue of Pluffles.

CUPID’S ARROWS.

Once upon a time there lived at Simla a very pretty girl, the daughter of
a poor but honest District and Sessions Judge. She was a good girl, but
could not help knowing her power and using it.

Her Mamma was very anxious about her daughter’s future, as all good Mammas
should be.

When a man is a Commissioner and a bachelor and has the right of wearing
open-work jam-tart jewels in gold and enamel on his clothes, and of going
through a door before every one except a Member of Council, a
Lieutenant-Governor, or a Viceroy, he is worth marrying. At least, that is
what ladies say. There was a Commissioner in Simla, in those days, who
was, and wore, and did, all I have said. He was a plain man—an ugly
man—the ugliest man in Asia, with two exceptions. His was a face to
dream about and try to carve on a pipe-head afterwards. His name was
Saggott—Barr-Saggott—Anthony Barr-Saggott and six letters to
follow.

Departmentally, he was one of the best men the Government of India owned.
Socially, he was like a blandishing gorilla.

When he turned his attentions to Miss Beighton, I believe that Mrs.

Beighton wept with delight at the reward Providence had sent her in her
old age.

Mr. Beighton held his tongue. He was an easy-going man.

Now a Commissioner is very rich. His pay is beyond the dreams of avarice—is
so enormous that he can afford to save and scrape in a way that would
almost discredit a Member of Council. Most Commissioners are mean; but
Barr-Saggott was an exception. He entertained royally; he horsed himself
well; he gave dances; he was a power in the land; and he behaved as such.

Consider that everything I am writing of took place in an almost
pre-historic era in the history of British India. Some folk may remember
the years before lawn-tennis was born when we all played croquet. There
were seasons before that, if you will believe me, when even croquet had
not been invented, and archery—which was revived in England in 1844—was
as great a pest as lawn-tennis is now. People talked learnedly about
“holding” and “loosing,” “steles,” “reflexed bows,” “56-pound bows,”
“backed” or “self-yew bows,” as we talk about “rallies,” “volleys,”
“smashes,” “returns,” and “16-ounce rackets.”

Miss Beighton shot divinely over ladies’ distance—60 yards, that is—and
was acknowledged the best lady archer in Simla. Men called her “Diana of
Tara-Devi.”

Barr-Saggott paid her great attention; and, as I have said, the heart of
her mother was uplifted in consequence. Kitty Beighton took matters more
calmly. It was pleasant to be singled out by a Commissioner with letters
after his name, and to fill the hearts of other girls with bad feelings.
But there was no denying the fact that Barr-Saggott was phenomenally ugly;
and all his attempts to adorn himself only made him more grotesque. He was
not christened “The Langur”—which means gray ape—for nothing.
It was pleasant, Kitty thought, to have him at her feet, but it was better
to escape from him and ride with the graceless Cubbon—the man in a
Dragoon Regiment at Umballa—the boy with a handsome face, and no
prospects. Kitty liked Cubbon more than a little. He never pretended for a
moment the he was anything less than head over heels in love with her; for
he was an honest boy. So Kitty fled, now and again, from the stately
wooings of Barr-Saggott to the company of young Cubbon, and was scolded by
her Mamma in consequence. “But, Mother,” she said, “Mr. Saggott is such—such
a—is so FEARFULLY ugly, you know!”

“My dear,” said Mrs. Beighton, piously, “we cannot be other than an
all-ruling Providence has made us. Besides, you will take precedence of
your own Mother, you know! Think of that and be reasonable.”

Then Kitty put up her little chin and said irreverent things about
precedence, and Commissioners, and matrimony. Mr. Beighton rubbed the top
of his head; for he was an easy-going man.

Late in the season, when he judged that the time was ripe, Barr-Saggott
developed a plan which did great credit to his administrative powers. He
arranged an archery tournament for ladies, with a most sumptuous
diamond-studded bracelet as prize.

He drew up his terms skilfully, and every one saw that the bracelet was a
gift to Miss Beighton; the acceptance carrying with it the hand and the
heart of Commissioner Barr-Saggott. The terms were a St. Leonard’s Round—thirty-six
shots at sixty yards—under the rules of the Simla Toxophilite
Society.

All Simla was invited. There were beautifully arranged tea-tables under
the deodars at Annandale, where the Grand Stand is now; and, alone in its
glory, winking in the sun, sat the diamond bracelet in a blue velvet case.
Miss Beighton was anxious—almost too anxious to compete. On the
appointed afternoon, all Simla rode down to Annandale to witness the
Judgment of Paris turned upside down.

Kitty rode with young Cubbon, and it was easy to see that the boy was
troubled in his mind. He must be held innocent of everything that
followed. Kitty was pale and nervous, and looked long at the bracelet.
Barr-Saggott was gorgeously dressed, even more nervous than Kitty, and
more hideous than ever.

Mrs. Beighton smiled condescendingly, as befitted the mother of a
potential Commissioneress, and the shooting began; all the world standing
in a semicircle as the ladies came out one after the other.

Nothing is so tedious as an archery competition. They shot, and they shot,
and they kept on shooting, till the sun left the valley, and little
breezes got up in the deodars, and people waited for Miss Beighton to
shoot and win. Cubbon was at one horn of the semicircle round the
shooters, and Barr-Saggott at the other. Miss Beighton was last on the
list. The scoring had been weak, and the bracelet, PLUS Commissioner
Barr-Saggott, was hers to a certainty.

The Commissioner strung her bow with his own sacred hands. She stepped
forward, looked at the bracelet, and her first arrow went true to a hair—full
into the heart of the “gold”—counting nine points.

Young Cubbon on the left turned white, and his Devil prompted Barr-Saggott
to smile. Now horses used to shy when Barr-Saggott smiled.

Kitty saw that smile. She looked to her left-front, gave an almost
imperceptible nod to Cubbon, and went on shooting.

I wish I could describe the scene that followed. It was out of the
ordinary and most improper. Miss Kitty fitted her arrows with immense
deliberation, so that every one might see what she was doing. She was a
perfect shot; and her 46-pound bow suited her to a nicety. She pinned the
wooden legs of the target with great care four successive times. She
pinned the wooden top of the target once, and all the ladies looked at
each other. Then she began some fancy shooting at the white, which, if you
hit it, counts exactly one point. She put five arrows into the white. It
was wonderful archery; but, seeing that her business was to make “golds”
and win the bracelet, Barr-Saggott turned a delicate green like young
water-grass. Next, she shot over the target twice, then wide to the left
twice—always with the same deliberation—while a chilly hush
fell over the company, and Mrs. Beighton took out her handkerchief. Then
Kitty shot at the ground in front of the target, and split several arrows.
Then she made a red—or seven points—just to show what she
could do if she liked, and finished up her amazing performance with some
more fancy shooting at the target-supports. Here is her score as it was
picked off:—

Barr-Saggott looked as if the last few arrowheads had been driven into his
legs instead of the target’s, and the deep stillness was broken by a
little snubby, mottled, half-grown girl saying in a shrill voice of
triumph: “Then I’VE won!”

Mrs. Beighton did her best to bear up; but she wept in the presence of the
people. No training could help her through such a disappointment. Kitty
unstrung her bow with a vicious jerk, and went back to her place, while
Barr-Saggott was trying to pretend that he enjoyed snapping the bracelet
on the snubby girl’s raw, red wrist. It was an awkward scene—most
awkward. Every one tried to depart in a body and leave Kitty to the mercy
of her Mamma.

But Cubbon took her away instead, and—the rest isn’t worth printing.

HIS CHANCE IN LIFE.

If you go straight away from Levees and Government House Lists, past
Trades’ Balls—far beyond everything and everybody you ever knew in
your respectable life—you cross, in time, the Border line where the
last drop of White blood ends and the full tide of Black sets in. It would
be easier to talk to a new-made Duchess on the spur of the moment than to
the Borderline folk without violating some of their conventions or hurting
their feelings. The Black and the White mix very quaintly in their ways.
Sometimes the White shows in spurts of fierce, childish pride—which
is Pride of Race run crooked—and sometimes the Black in still
fiercer abasement and humility, half heathenish customs and strange,
unaccountable impulses to crime. One of these days, this people—understand
they are far lower than the class whence Derozio, the man who imitated
Byron, sprung—will turn out a writer or a poet; and then we shall
know how they live and what they feel. In the meantime, any stories about
them cannot be absolutely correct in fact or inference.

Miss Vezzis came from across the Borderline to look after some children
who belonged to a lady until a regularly ordained nurse could come out.
The lady said Miss Vezzis was a bad, dirty nurse and inattentive. It never
struck her that Miss Vezzis had her own life to lead and her own affairs
to worry over, and that these affairs were the most important things in
the world to Miss Vezzis.

Very few mistresses admit this sort of reasoning. Miss Vezzis was as black
as a boot, and to our standard of taste, hideously ugly.

She wore cotton-print gowns and bulged shoes; and when she lost her temper
with the children, she abused them in the language of the Borderline—which
is part English, part Portuguese, and part Native. She was not attractive;
but she had her pride, and she preferred being called “Miss Vezzis.”

Every Sunday she dressed herself wonderfully and went to see her Mamma,
who lived, for the most part, on an old cane chair in a greasy tussur-silk
dressing-gown and a big rabbit-warren of a house full of Vezzises,
Pereiras, Ribieras, Lisboas and Gansalveses, and a floating population of
loafers; besides fragments of the day’s bazar, garlic, stale incense,
clothes thrown on the floor, petticoats hung on strings for screens, old
bottles, pewter crucifixes, dried immortelles, pariah puppies, plaster
images of the Virgin, and hats without crowns. Miss Vezzis drew twenty
rupees a month for acting as nurse, and she squabbled weekly with her
Mamma as to the percentage to be given towards housekeeping.

When the quarrel was over, Michele D’Cruze used to shamble across the low
mud wall of the compound and make love to Miss Vezzis after the fashion of
the Borderline, which is hedged about with much ceremony. Michele was a
poor, sickly weed and very black; but he had his pride. He would not be
seen smoking a huqa for anything; and he looked down on natives as only a
man with seven-eighths native blood in his veins can. The Vezzis Family
had their pride too. They traced their descent from a mythical plate-layer
who had worked on the Sone Bridge when railways were new in India, and
they valued their English origin. Michele was a Telegraph Signaller on Rs.
35 a month. The fact that he was in Government employ made Mrs. Vezzis
lenient to the shortcomings of his ancestors.

There was a compromising legend—Dom Anna the tailor brought it from
Poonani—that a black Jew of Cochin had once married into the D’Cruze
family; while it was an open secret that an uncle of Mrs. D’Cruze was at
that very time doing menial work, connected with cooking, for a Club in
Southern India! He sent Mrs D’Cruze seven rupees eight annas a month; but
she felt the disgrace to the family very keenly all the same.

However, in the course of a few Sundays, Mrs. Vezzis brought herself to
overlook these blemishes and gave her consent to the marriage of her
daughter with Michele, on condition that Michele should have at least
fifty rupees a month to start married life upon. This wonderful prudence
must have been a lingering touch of the mythical plate-layer’s Yorkshire
blood; for across the Borderline people take a pride in marrying when they
please—not when they can.

Having regard to his departmental prospects, Miss Vezzis might as well
have asked Michele to go away and come back with the Moon in his pocket.
But Michele was deeply in love with Miss Vezzis, and that helped him to
endure. He accompanied Miss Vezzis to Mass one Sunday, and after Mass,
walking home through the hot stale dust with her hand in his, he swore by
several Saints, whose names would not interest you, never to forget Miss
Vezzis; and she swore by her Honor and the Saints—the oath runs
rather curiously; “In nomine Sanctissimae—” (whatever the name of
the she-Saint is) and so forth, ending with a kiss on the forehead, a kiss
on the left cheek, and a kiss on the mouth—never to forget Michele.

Next week Michele was transferred, and Miss Vezzis dropped tears upon the
window-sash of the “Intermediate” compartment as he left the Station.

If you look at the telegraph-map of India you will see a long line
skirting the coast from Backergunge to Madras. Michele was ordered to
Tibasu, a little Sub-office one-third down this line, to send messages on
from Berhampur to Chicacola, and to think of Miss Vezzis and his chances
of getting fifty rupees a month out of office hours. He had the noise of
the Bay of Bengal and a Bengali Babu for company; nothing more. He sent
foolish letters, with crosses tucked inside the flaps of the envelopes, to
Miss Vezzis.

When he had been at Tibasu for nearly three weeks his chance came.

Never forget that unless the outward and visible signs of Our Authority
are always before a native he is as incapable as a child of understanding
what authority means, or where is the danger of disobeying it. Tibasu was
a forgotten little place with a few Orissa Mohamedans in it. These,
hearing nothing of the Collector-Sahib for some time, and heartily
despising the Hindu Sub-Judge, arranged to start a little Mohurrum riot of
their own. But the Hindus turned out and broke their heads; when, finding
lawlessness pleasant, Hindus and Mahomedans together raised an aimless
sort of Donnybrook just to see how far they could go. They looted each
other’s shops, and paid off private grudges in the regular way. It was a
nasty little riot, but not worth putting in the newspapers.

Michele was working in his office when he heard the sound that a man never
forgets all his life—the “ah-yah” of an angry crowd.

[When that sound drops about three tones, and changes to a thick, droning
ut, the man who hears it had better go away if he is alone.] The Native
Police Inspector ran in and told Michele that the town was in an uproar
and coming to wreck the Telegraph Office.

The Babu put on his cap and quietly dropped out of the window; while the
Police Inspector, afraid, but obeying the old race-instinct which
recognizes a drop of White blood as far as it can be diluted, said:—“What
orders does the Sahib give?”

The “Sahib” decided Michele. Though horribly frightened, he felt that, for
the hour, he, the man with the Cochin Jew and the menial uncle in his
pedigree, was the only representative of English authority in the place.
Then he thought of Miss Vezzis and the fifty rupees, and took the
situation on himself. There were seven native policemen in Tibasu, and
four crazy smooth-bore muskets among them. All the men were gray with
fear, but not beyond leading. Michele dropped the key of the telegraph
instrument, and went out, at the head of his army, to meet the mob. As the
shouting crew came round a corner of the road, he dropped and fired; the
men behind him loosing instinctively at the same time.

The whole crowd—curs to the backbone—yelled and ran; leaving
one man dead, and another dying in the road. Michele was sweating with
fear, but he kept his weakness under, and went down into the town, past
the house where the Sub-Judge had barricaded himself. The streets were
empty. Tibasu was more frightened than Michele, for the mob had been taken
at the right time.

Michele returned to the Telegraph-Office, and sent a message to Chicacola
asking for help. Before an answer came, he received a deputation of the
elders of Tibasu, telling him that the Sub-Judge said his actions
generally were “unconstitional,” and trying to bully him. But the heart of
Michele D’Cruze was big and white in his breast, because of his love for
Miss Vezzis, the nurse-girl, and because he had tasted for the first time
Responsibility and Success. Those two make an intoxicating drink, and have
ruined more men than ever has Whiskey. Michele answered that the Sub-Judge
might say what he pleased, but, until the Assistant Collector came, the
Telegraph Signaller was the Government of India in Tibasu, and the elders
of the town would be held accountable for further rioting. Then they bowed
their heads and said: “Show mercy!” or words to that effect, and went back
in great fear; each accusing the other of having begun the rioting.

Early in the dawn, after a night’s patrol with his seven policemen,
Michele went down the road, musket in hand, to meet the Assistant
Collector, who had ridden in to quell Tibasu. But, in the presence of this
young Englishman, Michele felt himself slipping back more and more into
the native, and the tale of the Tibasu Riots ended, with the strain on the
teller, in an hysterical outburst of tears, bred by sorrow that he had
killed a man, shame that he could not feel as uplifted as he had felt
through the night, and childish anger that his tongue could not do justice
to his great deeds. It was the White drop in Michele’s veins dying out,
though he did not know it.

But the Englishman understood; and, after he had schooled those men of
Tibasu, and had conferred with the Sub-Judge till that excellent official
turned green, he found time to draught an official letter describing the
conduct of Michele. Which letter filtered through the Proper Channels, and
ended in the transfer of Michele up-country once more, on the Imperial
salary of sixty-six rupees a month.

So he and Miss Vezzis were married with great state and ancientry; and now
there are several little D’Cruzes sprawling about the verandahs of the
Central Telegraph Office.

But, if the whole revenue of the Department he serves were to be his
reward Michele could never, never repeat what he did at Tibasu for the
sake of Miss Vezzis the nurse-girl.

Which proves that, when a man does good work out of all proportion to his
pay, in seven cases out of nine there is a woman at the back of the
virtue.

The two exceptions must have suffered from sunstroke.

WATCHES OF THE NIGHT.

This began in a practical joke; but it has gone far enough now, and is
getting serious.

Platte, the Subaltern, being poor, had a Waterbury watch and a plain
leather guard.

The Colonel had a Waterbury watch also, and for guard, the lip-strap of a
curb-chain. Lip-straps make the best watch guards.

They are strong and short. Between a lip-strap and an ordinary leather
guard there is no great difference; between one Waterbury watch and
another there is none at all. Every one in the station knew the Colonel’s
lip-strap. He was not a horsey man, but he liked people to believe he had
been one once; and he wove fantastic stories of the hunting-bridle to
which this particular lip-strap had belonged. Otherwise he was painfully
religious.

Platte and the Colonel were dressing at the Club—both late for their
engagements, and both in a hurry. That was Kismet. The two watches were on
a shelf below the looking-glass—guards hanging down. That was
carelessness. Platte changed first, snatched a watch, looked in the glass,
settled his tie, and ran. Forty seconds later, the Colonel did exactly the
same thing; each man taking the other’s watch.

You may have noticed that many religious people are deeply suspicious.
They seem—for purely religious purposes, of course—to know
more about iniquity than the Unregenerate. Perhaps they were specially bad
before they became converted! At any rate, in the imputation of things
evil, and in putting the worst construction on things innocent, a certain
type of good people may be trusted to surpass all others. The Colonel and
his Wife were of that type. But the Colonel’s Wife was the worst. She
manufactured the Station scandal, and—TALKED TO HER AYAH! Nothing
more need be said. The Colonel’s Wife broke up the Laplaces’s home. The
Colonel’s Wife stopped the Ferris-Haughtrey engagement. The Colonel’s Wife
induced young Buxton to keep his wife down in the Plains through the first
year of the marriage. Whereby little Mrs.

Buxton died, and the baby with her. These things will be remembered
against the Colonel’s Wife so long as there is a regiment in the country.

But to come back to the Colonel and Platte. They went their several ways
from the dressing-room. The Colonel dined with two Chaplains, while Platte
went to a bachelor-party, and whist to follow.

Mark how things happen! If Platte’s sais had put the new saddle-pad on the
mare, the butts of the terrets would not have worked through the worn
leather, and the old pad into the mare’s withers, when she was coming home
at two o’clock in the morning. She would not have reared, bolted, fallen
into a ditch, upset the cart, and sent Platte flying over an aloe-hedge on
to Mrs. Larkyn’s well-kept lawn; and this tale would never have been
written. But the mare did all these things, and while Platte was rolling
over and over on the turf, like a shot rabbit, the watch and guard flew
from his waistcoat—as an Infantry Major’s sword hops out of the
scabbard when they are firing a feu de joie—and rolled and rolled in
the moonlight, till it stopped under a window.

Platte stuffed his handkerchief under the pad, put the cart straight, and
went home.

Mark again how Kismet works! This would not happen once in a hundred
years. Towards the end of his dinner with the two Chaplains, the Colonel
let out his waistcoat and leaned over the table to look at some Mission
Reports. The bar of the watch-guard worked through the buttonhole, and the
watch—Platte’s watch—slid quietly on to the carpet. Where the
bearer found it next morning and kept it.

Then the Colonel went home to the wife of his bosom; but the driver of the
carriage was drunk and lost his way. So the Colonel returned at an
unseemly hour and his excuses were not accepted. If the Colonel’s Wife had
been an ordinary “vessel of wrath appointed for destruction,” she would
have known that when a man stays away on purpose, his excuse is always
sound and original. The very baldness of the Colonel’s explanation proved
its truth.

See once more the workings of Kismet! The Colonel’s watch which came with
Platte hurriedly on to Mrs. Larkyn’s lawn, chose to stop just under Mrs.
Larkyn’s window, where she saw it early in the morning, recognized it, and
picked it up. She had heard the crash of Platte’s cart at two o’clock that
morning, and his voice calling the mare names. She knew Platte and liked
him. That day she showed him the watch and heard his story. He put his
head on one side, winked and said:—“How disgusting! Shocking old
man! with his religious training, too! I should send the watch to the
Colonel’s Wife and ask for explanations.”

Mrs. Larkyn thought for a minute of the Laplaces—whom she had known
when Laplace and his wife believed in each other—and answered:—“I
will send it. I think it will do her good. But remember, we must NEVER
tell her the truth.”

Platte guessed that his own watch was in the Colonel’s possession, and
thought that the return of the lip-strapped Waterbury with a soothing note
from Mrs. Larkyn, would merely create a small trouble for a few minutes.
Mrs. Larkyn knew better. She knew that any poison dropped would find good
holding-ground in the heart of the Colonel’s Wife.

The packet, and a note containing a few remarks on the Colonel’s
calling-hours, were sent over to the Colonel’s Wife, who wept in her own
room and took counsel with herself.

If there was one woman under Heaven whom the Colonel’s Wife hated with
holy fervor, it was Mrs. Larkyn. Mrs. Larkyn was a frivolous lady, and
called the Colonel’s Wife “old cat.” The Colonel’s Wife said that somebody
in Revelations was remarkably like Mrs. Larkyn.

She mentioned other Scripture people as well. From the Old Testament. [But
the Colonel’s Wife was the only person who cared or dared to say anything
against Mrs. Larkyn. Every one else accepted her as an amusing, honest
little body.] Wherefore, to believe that her husband had been shedding
watches under that “Thing’s” window at ungodly hours, coupled with the
fact of his late arrival on the previous night, was…..

At this point she rose up and sought her husband. He denied everything
except the ownership of the watch. She besought him, for his Soul’s sake,
to speak the truth. He denied afresh, with two bad words. Then a stony
silence held the Colonel’s Wife, while a man could draw his breath five
times.

The speech that followed is no affair of mine or yours. It was made up of
wifely and womanly jealousy; knowledge of old age and sunken cheeks; deep
mistrust born of the text that says even little babies’ hearts are as bad
as they make them; rancorous hatred of Mrs. Larkyn, and the tenets of the
creed of the Colonel’s Wife’s upbringing.

Over and above all, was the damning lip-strapped Waterbury, ticking away
in the palm of her shaking, withered hand. At that hour, I think, the
Colonel’s Wife realized a little of the restless suspicions she had
injected into old Laplace’s mind, a little of poor Miss Haughtrey’s
misery, and some of the canker that ate into Buxton’s heart as he watched
his wife dying before his eyes. The Colonel stammered and tried to
explain. Then he remembered that his watch had disappeared; and the
mystery grew greater. The Colonel’s Wife talked and prayed by turns till
she was tired, and went away to devise means for “chastening the stubborn
heart of her husband.” Which translated, means, in our slang,
“tail-twisting.”

You see, being deeply impressed with the doctrine of Original Sin, she
could not believe in the face of appearances. She knew too much, and
jumped to the wildest conclusions.

But it was good for her. It spoilt her life, as she had spoilt the life of
the Laplaces. She had lost her faith in the Colonel, and—here the
creed suspicion came in—he might, she argued, have erred many times,
before a merciful Providence, at the hands of so unworthy an instrument as
Mrs. Larkyn, had established his guilt.

He was a bad, wicked, gray-haired profligate. This may sound too sudden a
revulsion for a long-wedded wife; but it is a venerable fact that, if a
man or woman makes a practice of, and takes a delight in, believing and
spreading evil of people indifferent to him or her, he or she will end in
believing evil of folk very near and dear. You may think, also, that the
mere incident of the watch was too small and trivial to raise this
misunderstanding. It is another aged fact that, in life as well as racing,
all the worst accidents happen at little ditches and cut-down fences. In
the same way, you sometimes see a woman who would have made a Joan of Arc
in another century and climate, threshing herself to pieces over all the
mean worry of housekeeping. But that is another story.

Her belief only made the Colonel’s Wife more wretched, because it insisted
so strongly on the villainy of men. Remembering what she had done, it was
pleasant to watch her unhappiness, and the penny-farthing attempts she
made to hide it from the Station. But the Station knew and laughed
heartlessly; for they had heard the story of the watch, with much dramatic
gesture, from Mrs. Larkyn’s lips.

Once or twice Platte said to Mrs. Larkyn, seeing that the Colonel had not
cleared himself:—“This thing has gone far enough. I move we tell the
Colonel’s Wife how it happened.” Mrs. Larkyn shut her lips and shook her
head, and vowed that the Colonel’s Wife must bear her punishment as best
she could. Now Mrs. Larkyn was a frivolous woman, in whom none would have
suspected deep hate. So Platte took no action, and came to believe
gradually, from the Colonel’s silence, that the Colonel must have “run off
the line” somewhere that night, and, therefore, preferred to stand
sentence on the lesser count of rambling into other people’s compounds out
of calling hours. Platte forgot about the watch business after a while,
and moved down-country with his regiment. Mrs. Larkyn went home when her
husband’s tour of Indian service expired. She never forgot.

But Platte was quite right when he said that the joke had gone too far.
The mistrust and the tragedy of it—which we outsiders cannot see and
do not believe in—are killing the Colonel’s Wife, and are making the
Colonel wretched. If either of them read this story, they can depend upon
its being a fairly true account of the case, and can “kiss and make
friends.”

Shakespeare alludes to the pleasure of watching an Engineer being shelled
by his own Battery. Now this shows that poets should not write about what
they do not understand. Any one could have told him that Sappers and
Gunners are perfectly different branches of the Service. But, if you
correct the sentence, and substitute Gunner for Sapper, the moral comes
just the same.

THE OTHER MAN.

Far back in the “seventies,” before they had built any Public Offices at
Simla, and the broad road round Jakko lived in a pigeon-hole in the P. W.
D. hovels, her parents made Miss Gaurey marry Colonel Schreiderling. He
could not have been MUCH more than thirty-five years her senior; and, as
he lived on two hundred rupees a month and had money of his own, he was
well off. He belonged to good people, and suffered in the cold weather
from lung complaints. In the hot weather he dangled on the brink of
heat-apoplexy; but it never quite killed him.

Understand, I do not blame Schreiderling. He was a good husband according
to his lights, and his temper only failed him when he was being nursed.
Which was some seventeen days in each month. He was almost generous to his
wife about money matters, and that, for him, was a concession. Still Mrs.
Schreiderling was not happy. They married her when she was this side of
twenty and had given all her poor little heart to another man. I have
forgotten his name, but we will call him the Other Man. He had no money
and no prospects.

He was not even good-looking; and I think he was in the Commissariat or
Transport. But, in spite of all these things, she loved him very madly;
and there was some sort of an engagement between the two when
Schreiderling appeared and told Mrs. Gaurey that he wished to marry her
daughter. Then the other engagement was broken off—washed away by
Mrs. Gaurey’s tears, for that lady governed her house by weeping over
disobedience to her authority and the lack of reverence she received in
her old age. The daughter did not take after her mother. She never cried.
Not even at the wedding.

The Other Man bore his loss quietly, and was transferred to as bad a
station as he could find. Perhaps the climate consoled him. He suffered
from intermittent fever, and that may have distracted him from his other
trouble. He was weak about the heart also. Both ways. One of the valves
was affected, and the fever made it worse.

This showed itself later on.

Then many months passed, and Mrs. Schreiderling took to being ill.

She did not pine away like people in story books, but she seemed to pick
up every form of illness that went about a station, from simple fever
upwards. She was never more than ordinarily pretty at the best of times;
and the illness made her ugly. Schreiderling said so. He prided himself on
speaking his mind.

When she ceased being pretty, he left her to her own devices, and went
back to the lairs of his bachelordom. She used to trot up and down Simla
Mall in a forlorn sort of way, with a gray Terai hat well on the back of
her head, and a shocking bad saddle under her.

Schreiderling’s generosity stopped at the horse. He said that any saddle
would do for a woman as nervous as Mrs. Schreiderling. She never was asked
to dance, because she did not dance well; and she was so dull and
uninteresting, that her box very seldom had any cards in it. Schreiderling
said that if he had known that she was going to be such a scare-crow after
her marriage, he would never have married her. He always prided himself on
speaking his mind, did Schreiderling!

He left her at Simla one August, and went down to his regiment.

Then she revived a little, but she never recovered her looks. I found out
at the Club that the Other Man is coming up sick—very sick—on
an off chance of recovery. The fever and the heart-valves had nearly
killed him. She knew that, too, and she knew—what I had no interest
in knowing—when he was coming up. I suppose he wrote to tell her.
They had not seen each other since a month before the wedding. And here
comes the unpleasant part of the story.

A late call kept me down at the Dovedell Hotel till dusk one evening. Mrs.
Schreidlerling had been flitting up and down the Mall all the afternoon in
the rain. Coming up along the Cart-road, a tonga passed me, and my pony,
tired with standing so long, set off at a canter. Just by the road down to
the Tonga Office Mrs. Schreiderling, dripping from head to foot, was
waiting for the tonga. I turned up-hill, as the tonga was no affair of
mine; and just then she began to shriek. I went back at once and saw,
under the Tonga Office lamps, Mrs. Schreiderling kneeling in the wet road
by the back seat of the newly-arrived tonga, screaming hideously.

Then she fell face down in the dirt as I came up.

Sitting in the back seat, very square and firm, with one hand on the
awning-stanchion and the wet pouring off his hat and moustache, was the
Other Man—dead. The sixty-mile up-hill jolt had been too much for
his valve, I suppose. The tonga-driver said:—“The Sahib died two
stages out of Solon. Therefore, I tied him with a rope, lest he should
fall out by the way, and so came to Simla. Will the Sahib give me
bukshish? IT,” pointing to the Other Man, “should have given one rupee.”

The Other Man sat with a grin on his face, as if he enjoyed the joke of
his arrival; and Mrs. Schreiderling, in the mud, began to groan. There was
no one except us four in the office and it was raining heavily. The first
thing was to take Mrs. Schreiderling home, and the second was to prevent
her name from being mixed up with the affair. The tonga-driver received
five rupees to find a bazar ‘rickshaw for Mrs. Schreiderling. He was to
tell the tonga Babu afterwards of the Other Man, and the Babu was to make
such arrangements as seemed best.

Mrs. Schreiderling was carried into the shed out of the rain, and for
three-quarters of an hour we two waited for the ‘rickshaw. The Other Man
was left exactly as he had arrived. Mrs. Schreiderling would do everything
but cry, which might have helped her. She tried to scream as soon as her
senses came back, and then she began praying for the Other Man’s soul. Had
she not been as honest as the day, she would have prayed for her own soul
too. I waited to hear her do this, but she did not. Then I tried to get
some of the mud off her habit. Lastly, the ‘rickshaw came, and I got her
away—partly by force. It was a terrible business from beginning to
end; but most of all when the ‘rickshaw had to squeeze between the wall
and the tonga, and she saw by the lamp-light that thin, yellow hand
grasping the awning-stanchion.

She was taken home just as every one was going to a dance at Viceregal
Lodge—“Peterhoff” it was then—and the doctor found that she
had fallen from her horse, that I had picked her up at the back of Jakko,
and really deserved great credit for the prompt manner in which I had
secured medical aid. She did not die—men of Schreiderling’s stamp
marry women who don’t die easily. They live and grow ugly.

She never told of her one meeting, since her marriage, with the Other Man;
and, when the chill and cough following the exposure of that evening,
allowed her abroad, she never by word or sign alluded to having met me by
the Tonga Office. Perhaps she never knew.

She used to trot up and down the Mall, on that shocking bad saddle,
looking as if she expected to meet some one round the corner every minute.
Two years afterward, she went Home, and died—at Bournemouth, I
think.

Schreiderling, when he grew maudlin at Mess, used to talk about “my poor
dear wife.” He always set great store on speaking his mind, did
Schreiderling!

CONSEQUENCES.

There are yearly appointments, and two-yearly appointments, and
five-yearly appointments at Simla, and there are, or used to be, permanent
appointments, whereon you stayed up for the term of your natural life and
secured red cheeks and a nice income. Of course, you could descend in the
cold weather; for Simla is rather dull then.

Tarrion came from goodness knows where—all away and away in some
forsaken part of Central India, where they call Pachmari a “Sanitarium,”
and drive behind trotting bullocks, I believe. He belonged to a regiment;
but what he really wanted to do was to escape from his regiment and live
in Simla forever and ever. He had no preference for anything in
particular, beyond a good horse and a nice partner. He thought he could do
everything well; which is a beautiful belief when you hold it with all
your heart. He was clever in many ways, and good to look at, and always
made people round him comfortable—even in Central India.

So he went up to Simla, and, because he was clever and amusing, he
gravitated naturally to Mrs. Hauksbee, who could forgive everything but
stupidity. Once he did her great service by changing the date on an
invitation-card for a big dance which Mrs. Hauksbee wished to attend, but
couldn’t because she had quarrelled with the A.-D.-C., who took care,
being a mean man, to invite her to a small dance on the 6th instead of the
big Ball of the 26th. It was a very clever piece of forgery; and when Mrs.
Hauksbee showed the A.-D.-C. her invitation-card, and chaffed him mildly
for not better managing his vendettas, he really thought he had made a
mistake; and—which was wise—realized that it was no use to
fight with Mrs. Hauksbee. She was grateful to Tarrion and asked what she
could do for him. He said simply: “I’m a Freelance up here on leave, and
on the lookout for what I can loot. I haven’t a square inch of interest in
all Simla. My name isn’t known to any man with an appointment in his gift,
and I want an appointment—a good, sound, pukka one. I believe you
can do anything you turn yourself to do. Will you help me?” Mrs. Hauksbee
thought for a minute, and passed the last of her riding-whip through her
lips, as was her custom when thinking.

Then her eyes sparkled, and she said:—“I will;” and she shook hands
on it. Tarrion, having perfect confidence in this great woman, took no
further thought of the business at all. Except to wonder what sort of an
appointment he would win.

Mrs. Hauksbee began calculating the prices of all the Heads of Departments
and Members of Council she knew, and the more she thought the more she
laughed, because her heart was in the game and it amused her. Then she
took a Civil List and ran over a few of the appointments. There are some
beautiful appointments in the Civil List. Eventually, she decided that,
though Tarrion was too good for the Political Department, she had better
begin by trying to get him in there. What were her own plans to this end,
does not matter in the least, for Luck or Fate played into her hands, and
she had nothing to do but to watch the course of events and take the
credit of them.

All Viceroys, when they first come out, pass through the “Diplomatic
Secrecy” craze. It wears off in time; but they all catch it in the
beginning, because they are new to the country.

The particular Viceroy who was suffering from the complaint just then—this
was a long time ago, before Lord Dufferin ever came from Canada, or Lord
Ripon from the bosom of the English Church—had it very badly; and
the result was that men who were new to keeping official secrets went
about looking unhappy; and the Viceroy plumed himself on the way in which
he had instilled notions of reticence into his Staff.

Now, the Supreme Government have a careless custom of committing what they
do to printed papers. These papers deal with all sorts of things—from
the payment of Rs. 200 to a “secret service” native, up to rebukes
administered to Vakils and Motamids of Native States, and rather brusque
letters to Native Princes, telling them to put their houses in order, to
refrain from kidnapping women, or filling offenders with pounded red
pepper, and eccentricities of that kind. Of course, these things could
never be made public, because Native Princes never err officially, and
their States are, officially, as well administered as Our territories.
Also, the private allowances to various queer people are not exactly
matters to put into newspapers, though they give quaint reading sometimes.

When the Supreme Government is at Simla, these papers are prepared there,
and go round to the people who ought to see them in office-boxes or by
post. The principle of secrecy was to that Viceroy quite as important as
the practice, and he held that a benevolent despotism like Ours should
never allow even little things, such as appointments of subordinate
clerks, to leak out till the proper time. He was always remarkable for his
principles.

There was a very important batch of papers in preparation at that time. It
had to travel from one end of Simla to the other by hand.

It was not put into an official envelope, but a large, square, pale-pink
one; the matter being in MS. on soft crinkly paper. It was addressed to
“The Head Clerk, etc., etc.” Now, between “The Head Clerk, etc., etc.,”
and “Mrs. Hauksbee” and a flourish, is no very great difference if the
address be written in a very bad hand, as this was. The chaprassi who took
the envelope was not more of an idiot than most chaprassis. He merely
forgot where this most unofficial cover was to be delivered, and so asked
the first Englishman he met, who happened to be a man riding down to
Annandale in a great hurry. The Englishman hardly looked, said: “Hauksbee
Sahib ki Mem,” and went on. So did the chaprassi, because that letter was
the last in stock and he wanted to get his work over. There was no book to
sign; he thrust the letter into Mrs. Hauksbee’s bearer’s hands and went
off to smoke with a friend.

Mrs. Hauksbee was expecting some cut-out pattern things in flimsy paper
from a friend. As soon as she got the big square packet, therefore, she
said, “Oh, the DEAR creature!” and tore it open with a paper-knife, and
all the MS. enclosures tumbled out on the floor.

Mrs. Hauksbee began reading. I have said the batch was rather important.
That is quite enough for you to know. It referred to some correspondence,
two measures, a peremptory order to a native chief and two dozen other
things. Mrs. Hauksbee gasped as she read, for the first glimpse of the
naked machinery of the Great Indian Government, stripped of its casings,
and lacquer, and paint, and guard-rails, impresses even the most stupid
man. And Mrs. Hauksbee was a clever woman. She was a little afraid at
first, and felt as if she had laid hold of a lightning-flash by the tail,
and did not quite know what to do with it. There were remarks and initials
at the side of the papers; and some of the remarks were rather more severe
than the papers. The initials belonged to men who are all dead or gone
now; but they were great in their day.

Mrs. Hauksbee read on and thought calmly as she read. Then the value of
her trove struck her, and she cast about for the best method of using it.
Then Tarrion dropped in, and they read through all the papers together,
and Tarrion, not knowing how she had come by them, vowed that Mrs.
Hauksbee was the greatest woman on earth.

Which I believe was true, or nearly so.

“The honest course is always the best,” said Tarrion after an hour and a
half of study and conversation. “All things considered, the Intelligence
Branch is about my form. Either that or the Foreign Office. I go to lay
siege to the High Gods in their Temples.”

He did not seek a little man, or a little big man, or a weak Head of a
strong Department, but he called on the biggest and strongest man that the
Government owned, and explained that he wanted an appointment at Simla on
a good salary. The compound insolence of this amused the Strong Man, and,
as he had nothing to do for the moment, he listened to the proposals of
the audacious Tarrion.

“You have, I presume, some special qualifications, besides the gift of
self-assertion, for the claims you put forwards?” said the Strong Man.
“That, Sir,” said Tarrion, “is for you to judge.” Then he began, for he
had a good memory, quoting a few of the more important notes in the papers—slowly
and one by one as a man drops chlorodyne into a glass. When he had reached
the peremptory order—and it WAS a peremptory order—the Strong
Man was troubled.

Tarrion wound up:—“And I fancy that special knowledge of this kind
is at least as valuable for, let us say, a berth in the Foreign Office, as
the fact of being the nephew of a distinguished officer’s wife.” That hit
the Strong Man hard, for the last appointment to the Foreign Office had
been by black favor, and he knew it. “I’ll see what I can do for you,”
said the Strong Man. “Many thanks,” said Tarrion. Then he left, and the
Strong Man departed to see how the appointment was to be blocked……….

Followed a pause of eleven days; with thunders and lightnings and much
telegraphing. The appointment was not a very important one, carrying only
between Rs. 500 and Rs. 700 a month; but, as the Viceroy said, it was the
principle of diplomatic secrecy that had to be maintained, and it was more
than likely that a boy so well supplied with special information would be
worth translating. So they translated him. They must have suspected him,
though he protested that his information was due to singular talents of
his own. Now, much of this story, including the after-history of the
missing envelope, you must fill in for yourself, because there are reasons
why it cannot be written. If you do not know about things Up Above, you
won’t understand how to fill it in, and you will say it is impossible.

What the Viceroy said when Tarrion was introduced to him was:—“So,
this is the boy who ‘rusked’ the Government of India, is it? Recollect,
Sir, that is not done TWICE.” So he must have known something.

What Tarrion said when he saw his appointment gazetted was:—“If Mrs.
Hauksbee were twenty years younger, and I her husband, I should be Viceroy
of India in twenty years.”

What Mrs. Hauksbee said, when Tarrion thanked her, almost with tears in
his eyes, was first:—“I told you so!” and next, to herself:—“What
fools men are!”

THE CONVERSION OF AURELIAN McGOGGIN.

This is not a tale exactly. It is a Tract; and I am immensely proud of it.
Making a Tract is a Feat.

Every man is entitled to his own religious opinions; but no man—least
of all a junior—has a right to thrust these down other men’s
throats. The Government sends out weird Civilians now and again; but
McGoggin was the queerest exported for a long time. He was clever—brilliantly
clever—but his cleverness worked the wrong way. Instead of keeping
to the study of the vernaculars, he had read some books written by a man
called Comte, I think, and a man called Spencer, and a Professor Clifford.
[You will find these books in the Library.] They deal with people’s
insides from the point of view of men who have no stomachs. There was no
order against his reading them; but his Mamma should have smacked him.

They fermented in his head, and he came out to India with a rarefied
religion over and above his work. It was not much of a creed. It only
proved that men had no souls, and there was no God and no hereafter, and
that you must worry along somehow for the good of Humanity.

One of its minor tenets seemed to be that the one thing more sinful than
giving an order was obeying it. At least, that was what McGoggin said; but
I suspect he had misread his primers.

I do not say a word against this creed. It was made up in Town, where
there is nothing but machinery and asphalt and building—all shut in
by the fog. Naturally, a man grows to think that there is no one higher
than himself, and that the Metropolitan Board of Works made everything.
But in this country, where you really see humanity—raw, brown, naked
humanity—with nothing between it and the blazing sky, and only the
used-up, over-handled earth underfoot, the notion somehow dies away, and
most folk come back to simpler theories. Life, in India, is not long
enough to waste in proving that there is no one in particular at the head
of affairs.

For this reason. The Deputy is above the Assistant, the Commissioner above
the Deputy, the Lieutenant-Governor above the Commissioner, and the
Viceroy above all four, under the orders of the Secretary of State, who is
responsible to the Empress. If the Empress be not responsible to her Maker—if
there is no Maker for her to be responsible to—the entire system of
Our administration must be wrong. Which is manifestly impossible. At Home
men are to be excused. They are stalled up a good deal and get
intellectually “beany.” When you take a gross, “beany” horse to exercise,
he slavers and slobbers over the bit till you can’t see the horns.

But the bit is there just the same. Men do not get “beany” in India. The
climate and the work are against playing bricks with words.

If McGoggin had kept his creed, with the capital letters and the endings
in “isms,” to himself, no one would have cared; but his grandfathers on
both sides had been Wesleyan preachers, and the preaching strain came out
in his mind. He wanted every one at the Club to see that they had no souls
too, and to help him to eliminate his Creator. As a good many men told
him, HE undoubtedly had no soul, because he was so young, but it did not
follow that his seniors were equally undeveloped; and, whether there was
another world or not, a man still wanted to read his papers in this. “But
that is not the point—that is not the point!” Aurelian used to say.
Then men threw sofa-cushions at him and told him to go to any particular
place he might believe in. They christened him the “Blastoderm”—he
said he came from a family of that name somewhere, in the pre-historic
ages—and, by insult and laughter, strove to choke him dumb, for he
was an unmitigated nuisance at the Club; besides being an offence to the
older men. His Deputy Commissioner, who was working on the Frontier when
Aurelian was rolling on a bed-quilt, told him that, for a clever boy,
Aurelian was a very big idiot. And, you know, if he had gone on with his
work, he would have been caught up to the Secretariat in a few years. He
was just the type that goes there—all head, no physique and a
hundred theories. Not a soul was interested in McGoggin’s soul. He might
have had two, or none, or somebody’s else’s. His business was to obey
orders and keep abreast of his files instead of devastating the Club with
“isms.”

He worked brilliantly; but he could not accept any order without trying to
better it. That was the fault of his creed. It made men too responsible
and left too much to their honor. You can sometimes ride an old horse in a
halter; but never a colt.

McGoggin took more trouble over his cases than any of the men of his year.
He may have fancied that thirty-page judgments on fifty-rupee cases—both
sides perjured to the gullet—advanced the cause of Humanity. At any
rate, he worked too much, and worried and fretted over the rebukes he
received, and lectured away on his ridiculous creed out of office, till
the Doctor had to warn him that he was overdoing it. No man can toil
eighteen annas in the rupee in June without suffering. But McGoggin was
still intellectually “beany” and proud of himself and his powers, and he
would take no hint. He worked nine hours a day steadily.

“Very well,” said the doctor, “you’ll break down because you are
over-engined for your beam.” McGoggin was a little chap.

One day, the collapse came—as dramatically as if it had been meant
to embellish a Tract.

It was just before the Rains. We were sitting in the verandah in the dead,
hot, close air, gasping and praying that the black-blue clouds would let
down and bring the cool. Very, very far away, there was a faint whisper,
which was the roar of the Rains breaking over the river. One of the men
heard it, got out of his chair, listened, and said, naturally enough:—“Thank
God!”

Then the Blastoderm turned in his place and said:—“Why? I assure you
it’s only the result of perfectly natural causes—atmospheric
phenomena of the simplest kind. Why you should, therefore, return thanks
to a Being who never did exist—who is only a figment—”

“Blastoderm,” grunted the man in the next chair, “dry up, and throw me
over the Pioneer. We know all about your figments.” The Blastoderm reached
out to the table, took up one paper, and jumped as if something had stung
him. Then he handed the paper over.

“As I was saying,” he went on slowly and with an effort—“due to
perfectly natural causes—perfectly natural causes. I mean—”

“Hi! Blastoderm, you’ve given me the Calcutta Mercantile Advertiser.”

The dust got up in little whorls, while the treetops rocked and the kites
whistled. But no one was looking at the coming of the Rains.

We were all staring at the Blastoderm, who had risen from his chair and
was fighting with his speech. Then he said, still more slowly:—

“Perfectly conceivable—dictionary—red oak—amenable—cause—retaining—shuttlecock—alone.”

“Blastoderm’s drunk,” said one man. But the Blastoderm was not drunk. He
looked at us in a dazed sort of way, and began motioning with his hands in
the half light as the clouds closed overhead.

Then—with a scream:—

“What is it?—Can’t—reserve—attainable—market—obscure—”

But his speech seemed to freeze in him, and—just as the lightning
shot two tongues that cut the whole sky into three pieces and the rain
fell in quivering sheets—the Blastoderm was struck dumb. He stood
pawing and champing like a hard-held horse, and his eyes were full of
terror.

The Doctor came over in three minutes, and heard the story. “It’s
aphasia,” he said. “Take him to his room. I KNEW the smash would come.” We
carried the Blastoderm across, in the pouring rain, to his quarters, and
the Doctor gave him bromide of potassium to make him sleep.

Then the Doctor came back to us and told us that aphasia was like all the
arrears of “Punjab Head” falling in a lump; and that only once before—in
the case of a sepoy—had he met with so complete a case. I myself
have seen mild aphasia in an overworked man, but this sudden dumbness was
uncanny—though, as the Blastoderm himself might have said, due to
“perfectly natural causes.”

“He’ll have to take leave after this,” said the Doctor. “He won’t be fit
for work for another three months. No; it isn’t insanity or anything like
it. It’s only complete loss of control over the speech and memory. I fancy
it will keep the Blastoderm quiet, though.”

Two days later, the Blastoderm found his tongue again. The first question
he asked was: “What was it?” The Doctor enlightened him.

“But I can’t understand it!” said the Blastoderm; “I’m quite sane; but I
can’t be sure of my mind, it seems—my OWN memory—can I?”

“Go up into the Hills for three months, and don’t think about it,” said
the Doctor.

“But I can’t understand it,” repeated the Blastoderm. “It was my OWN mind
and memory.”

“I can’t help it,” said the Doctor; “there are a good many things you
can’t understand; and, by the time you have put in my length of service,
you’ll know exactly how much a man dare call his own in this world.”

The stroke cowed the Blastoderm. He could not understand it. He went into
the Hills in fear and trembling, wondering whether he would be permitted
to reach the end of any sentence he began.

This gave him a wholesome feeling of mistrust. The legitimate explanation,
that he had been overworking himself, failed to satisfy him. Something had
wiped his lips of speech, as a mother wipes the milky lips of her child,
and he was afraid—horribly afraid.

So the Club had rest when he returned; and if ever you come across
Aurelian McGoggin laying down the law on things Human—he doesn’t
seem to know as much as he used to about things Divine—put your
forefinger on your lip for a moment, and see what happens.

Don’t blame me if he throws a glass at your head!

A GERM DESTROYER.

As a general rule, it is inexpedient to meddle with questions of State in
a land where men are highly paid to work them out for you.

This tale is a justifiable exception.

Once in every five years, as you know, we indent for a new Viceroy; and
each Viceroy imports, with the rest of his baggage, a Private Secretary,
who may or may not be the real Viceroy, just as Fate ordains. Fate looks
after the Indian Empire because it is so big and so helpless.

There was a Viceroy once, who brought out with him a turbulent Private
Secretary—a hard man with a soft manner and a morbid passion for
work. This Secretary was called Wonder—John Fennil Wonder. The
Viceroy possessed no name—nothing but a string of counties and
two-thirds of the alphabet after them. He said, in confidence, that he was
the electro-plated figurehead of a golden administration, and he watched
in a dreamy, amused way Wonder’s attempts to draw matters which were
entirely outside his province into his own hands. “When we are all
cherubims together,” said His Excellency once, “my dear, good friend
Wonder will head the conspiracy for plucking out Gabriel’s tail-feathers
or stealing Peter’s keys. THEN I shall report him.”

But, though the Viceroy did nothing to check Wonder’s officiousness, other
people said unpleasant things. Maybe the Members of Council began it; but,
finally, all Simla agreed that there was “too much Wonder, and too little
Viceroy,” in that regime. Wonder was always quoting “His Excellency.” It
was “His Excellency this,” “His Excellency that,” “In the opinion of His
Excellency,” and so on. The Viceroy smiled; but he did not heed.

He said that, so long as his old men squabbled with his “dear, good
Wonder,” they might be induced to leave the “Immemorial East” in peace.

“No wise man has a policy,” said the Viceroy. “A Policy is the blackmail
levied on the Fool by the Unforeseen. I am not the former, and I do not
believe in the latter.”

I do not quite see what this means, unless it refers to an Insurance
Policy. Perhaps it was the Viceroy’s way of saying:—“Lie low.”

That season, came up to Simla one of these crazy people with only a single
idea. These are the men who make things move; but they are not nice to
talk to. This man’s name was Mellish, and he had lived for fifteen years
on land of his own, in Lower Bengal, studying cholera. He held that
cholera was a germ that propagated itself as it flew through a muggy
atmosphere; and stuck in the branches of trees like a wool-flake. The germ
could be rendered sterile, he said, by “Mellish’s Own Invincible
Fumigatory”—a heavy violet-black powder—“the result of fifteen
years’ scientific investigation, Sir!”

Inventors seem very much alike as a caste. They talk loudly, especially
about “conspiracies of monopolists;” they beat upon the table with their
fists; and they secrete fragments of their inventions about their persons.

Mellish said that there was a Medical “Ring” at Simla, headed by the
Surgeon-General, who was in league, apparently, with all the Hospital
Assistants in the Empire. I forget exactly how he proved it, but it had
something to do with “skulking up to the Hills;” and what Mellish wanted
was the independent evidence of the Viceroy—“Steward of our Most
Gracious Majesty the Queen, Sir.” So Mellish went up to Simla, with
eighty-four pounds of Fumigatory in his trunk, to speak to the Viceroy and
to show him the merits of the invention.

But it is easier to see a Viceroy than to talk to him, unless you chance
to be as important as Mellishe of Madras. He was a six-thousand-rupee man,
so great that his daughters never “married.” They “contracted alliances.”
He himself was not paid. He “received emoluments,” and his journeys about
the country were “tours of observation.” His business was to stir up the
people in Madras with a long pole—as you stir up stench in a pond—and
the people had to come up out of their comfortable old ways and gasp:—“This
is Enlightenment and progress. Isn’t it fine!” Then they gave Mellishe
statues and jasmine garlands, in the hope of getting rid of him.

Mellishe came up to Simla “to confer with the Viceroy.” That was one of
his perquisites. The Viceroy knew nothing of Mellishe except that he was
“one of those middle-class deities who seem necessary to the spiritual
comfort of this Paradise of the Middle-classes,” and that, in all
probability, he had “suggested, designed, founded, and endowed all the
public institutions in Madras.” Which proves that His Excellency, though
dreamy, had experience of the ways of six-thousand-rupee men.

Mellishe’s name was E. Mellishe and Mellish’s was E. S. Mellish, and they
were both staying at the same hotel, and the Fate that looks after the
Indian Empire ordained that Wonder should blunder and drop the final “e;”
that the Chaprassi should help him, and that the note which ran: “Dear Mr.
Mellish.—Can you set aside your other engagements and lunch with us
at two tomorrow? His Excellency has an hour at your disposal then,” should
be given to Mellish with the Fumigatory. He nearly wept with pride and
delight, and at the appointed hour cantered off to Peterhoff, a big
paper-bag full of the Fumigatory in his coat-tail pockets. He had his
chance, and he meant to make the most of it. Mellishe of Madras had been
so portentously solemn about his “conference,” that Wonder had arranged
for a private tiffin—no A.-D.-C.’s, no Wonder, no one but the
Viceroy, who said plaintively that he feared being left alone with
unmuzzled autocrats like the great Mellishe of Madras.

But his guest did not bore the Viceroy. On the contrary, he amused him.
Mellish was nervously anxious to go straight to his Fumigatory, and talked
at random until tiffin was over and His Excellency asked him to smoke. The
Viceroy was pleased with Mellish because he did not talk “shop.”

As soon as the cheroots were lit, Mellish spoke like a man; beginning with
his cholera-theory, reviewing his fifteen years’ “scientific labors,” the
machinations of the “Simla Ring,” and the excellence of his Fumigatory,
while the Viceroy watched him between half-shut eyes and thought:
“Evidently, this is the wrong tiger; but it is an original animal.”
Mellish’s hair was standing on end with excitement, and he stammered. He
began groping in his coat-tails and, before the Viceroy knew what was
about to happen, he had tipped a bagful of his powder into the big silver
ash-tray.

“J-j-judge for yourself, Sir,” said Mellish. “Y’ Excellency shall judge
for yourself! Absolutely infallible, on my honor.”

He plunged the lighted end of his cigar into the powder, which began to
smoke like a volcano, and send up fat, greasy wreaths of copper-colored
smoke. In five seconds the room was filled with a most pungent and
sickening stench—a reek that took fierce hold of the trap of your
windpipe and shut it. The powder then hissed and fizzed, and sent out blue
and green sparks, and the smoke rose till you could neither see, nor
breathe, nor gasp. Mellish, however, was used to it.

“Nitrate of strontia,” he shouted; “baryta, bone-meal, etcetera! Thousand
cubic feet smoke per cubic inch. Not a germ could live—not a germ,
Y’ Excellency!”

But His Excellency had fled, and was coughing at the foot of the stairs,
while all Peterhoff hummed like a hive. Red Lancers came in, and the Head
Chaprassi, who speaks English, came in, and mace-bearers came in, and
ladies ran downstairs screaming “fire;” for the smoke was drifting through
the house and oozing out of the windows, and bellying along the verandahs,
and wreathing and writhing across the gardens. No one could enter the room
where Mellish was lecturing on his Fumigatory, till that unspeakable
powder had burned itself out.

Then an Aide-de-Camp, who desired the V. C., rushed through the rolling
clouds and hauled Mellish into the hall. The Viceroy was prostrate with
laughter, and could only waggle his hands feebly at Mellish, who was
shaking a fresh bagful of powder at him.

“Glorious! Glorious!” sobbed his Excellency. “Not a germ, as you justly
observe, could exist! I can swear it. A magnificent success!”

Then he laughed till the tears came, and Wonder, who had caught the real
Mellishe snorting on the Mall, entered and was deeply shocked at the
scene. But the Viceroy was delighted, because he saw that Wonder would
presently depart. Mellish with the Fumigatory was also pleased, for he
felt that he had smashed the Simla Medical “Ring.”………

Few men could tell a story like His Excellency when he took the trouble,
and the account of “my dear, good Wonder’s friend with the powder” went
the round of Simla, and flippant folk made Wonder unhappy by their
remarks.

But His Excellency told the tale once too often—for Wonder. As he
meant to do. It was at a Seepee Picnic. Wonder was sitting just behind the
Viceroy.

“And I really thought for a moment,” wound up His Excellency, “that my
dear, good Wonder had hired an assassin to clear his way to the throne!”

Every one laughed; but there was a delicate subtinkle in the Viceroy’s
tone which Wonder understood. He found that his health was giving way; and
the Viceroy allowed him to go, and presented him with a flaming
“character” for use at Home among big people.

“My fault entirely,” said His Excellency, in after seasons, with a
twinkling in his eye. “My inconsistency must always have been distasteful
to such a masterly man.”

KIDNAPPED.

We are a high-caste and enlightened race, and infant-marriage is very
shocking and the consequences are sometimes peculiar; but, nevertheless,
the Hindu notion—which is the Continental notion—which is the
aboriginal notion—of arranging marriages irrespective of the
personal inclinations of the married, is sound. Think for a minute, and
you will see that it must be so; unless, of course, you believe in
“affinities.” In which case you had better not read this tale. How can a
man who has never married; who cannot be trusted to pick up at sight a
moderately sound horse; whose head is hot and upset with visions of
domestic felicity, go about the choosing of a wife? He cannot see straight
or think straight if he tries; and the same disadvantages exist in the
case of a girl’s fancies. But when mature, married and discreet people
arrange a match between a boy and a girl, they do it sensibly, with a view
to the future, and the young couple live happily ever afterwards. As
everybody knows.

Properly speaking, Government should establish a Matrimonial Department,
efficiently officered, with a Jury of Matrons, a Judge of the Chief Court,
a Senior Chaplain, and an Awful Warning, in the shape of a love-match that
has gone wrong, chained to the trees in the courtyard. All marriages
should be made through the Department, which might be subordinate to the
Educational Department, under the same penalty as that attaching to the
transfer of land without a stamped document. But Government won’t take
suggestions. It pretends that it is too busy. However, I will put my
notion on record, and explain the example that illustrates the theory.

Once upon a time there was a good young man—a first-class officer in
his own Department—a man with a career before him and, possibly, a
K. C. G. E. at the end of it. All his superiors spoke well of him, because
he knew how to hold his tongue and his pen at the proper times. There are
today only eleven men in India who possess this secret; and they have all,
with one exception, attained great honor and enormous incomes.

This good young man was quiet and self-contained—too old for his
years by far. Which always carries its own punishment. Had a Subaltern, or
a Tea-Planter’s Assistant, or anybody who enjoys life and has no care for
tomorrow, done what he tried to do not a soul would have cared. But when
Peythroppe—the estimable, virtuous, economical, quiet, hard-working,
young Peythroppe—fell, there was a flutter through five Departments.

The manner of his fall was in this way. He met a Miss Castries—d’Castries
it was originally, but the family dropped the d’ for administrative
reasons—and he fell in love with her even more energetically than he
worked. Understand clearly that there was not a breath of a word to be
said against Miss Castries—not a shadow of a breath. She was good
and very lovely—possessed what innocent people at home call a
“Spanish” complexion, with thick blue-black hair growing low down on her
forehead, into a “widow’s peak,” and big violet eyes under eyebrows as
black and as straight as the borders of a Gazette Extraordinary when a big
man dies. But—but—but—. Well, she was a VERY sweet girl
and very pious, but for many reasons she was “impossible.” Quite so. All
good Mammas know what “impossible” means. It was obviously absurd that
Peythroppe should marry her. The little opal-tinted onyx at the base of
her finger-nails said this as plainly as print. Further, marriage with
Miss Castries meant marriage with several other Castries—Honorary
Lieutenant Castries, her Papa, Mrs. Eulalie Castries, her Mamma, and all
the ramifications of the Castries family, on incomes ranging from Rs. 175
to Rs. 470 a month, and THEIR wives and connections again.

It would have been cheaper for Peythroppe to have assaulted a Commissioner
with a dog-whip, or to have burned the records of a Deputy Commissioner’s
Office, than to have contracted an alliance with the Castries. It would
have weighted his after-career less—even under a Government which
never forgets and NEVER forgives.

Everybody saw this but Peythroppe. He was going to marry Miss Castries, he
was—being of age and drawing a good income—and woe betide the
house that would not afterwards receive Mrs. Virginie Saulez Peythroppe
with the deference due to her husband’s rank.

That was Peythroppe’s ultimatum, and any remonstrance drove him frantic.

These sudden madnesses most afflict the sanest men. There was a case once—but
I will tell you of that later on. You cannot account for the mania, except
under a theory directly contradicting the one about the Place wherein
marriages are made. Peythroppe was burningly anxious to put a millstone
round his neck at the outset of his career and argument had not the least
effect on him. He was going to marry Miss Castries, and the business was
his own business.

He would thank you to keep your advice to yourself. With a man in this
condition, mere words only fix him in his purpose. Of course he cannot see
that marriage out here does not concern the individual but the Government
he serves.

Do you remember Mrs. Hauksbee—the most wonderful woman in India? She
saved Pluffles from Mrs. Reiver, won Tarrion his appointment in the
Foreign Office, and was defeated in open field by Mrs. Cusack-Bremmil. She
heard of the lamentable condition of Peythroppe, and her brain struck out
the plan that saved him. She had the wisdom of the Serpent, the logical
coherence of the Man, the fearlessness of the Child, and the triple
intuition of the Woman. Never—no, never—as long as a tonga
buckets down the Solon dip, or the couples go a-riding at the back of
Summer Hill, will there be such a genius as Mrs. Hauksbee. She attended
the consultation of Three Men on Peythroppe’s case; and she stood up with
the lash of her riding-whip between her lips and spake……. …

Three weeks later, Peythroppe dined with the Three Men, and the Gazette of
India came in. Peythroppe found to his surprise that he had been gazetted
a month’s leave. Don’t ask me how this was managed. I believe firmly that
if Mrs. Hauksbee gave the order, the whole Great Indian Administration
would stand on its head.

The Three Men had also a month’s leave each. Peythroppe put the Gazette
down and said bad words. Then there came from the compound the soft
“pad-pad” of camels—“thieves’ camels,” the bikaneer breed that don’t
bubble and howl when they sit down and get up.

After that I don’t know what happened. This much is certain.

Peythroppe disappeared—vanished like smoke—and the long
foot-rest chair in the house of the Three Men was broken to splinters.
Also a bedstead departed from one of the bedrooms.

Mrs. Hauksbee said that Mr. Peythroppe was shooting in Rajputana with the
Three Men; so we were compelled to believe her.

At the end of the month, Peythroppe was gazetted twenty days’ extension of
leave; but there was wrath and lamentation in the house of Castries. The
marriage-day had been fixed, but the bridegroom never came; and the
D’Silvas, Pereiras, and Ducketts lifted their voices and mocked Honorary
Lieutenant Castries as one who had been basely imposed upon. Mrs. Hauksbee
went to the wedding, and was much astonished when Peythroppe did not
appear. After seven weeks, Peythroppe and the Three Men returned from
Rajputana. Peythroppe was in hard, tough condition, rather white, and more
self-contained than ever.

One of the Three Men had a cut on his nose, cause by the kick of a gun.
Twelve-bores kick rather curiously.

Then came Honorary Lieutenant Castries, seeking for the blood of his
perfidious son-in-law to be. He said things—vulgar and “impossible”
things which showed the raw rough “ranker” below the “Honorary,” and I
fancy Peythroppe’s eyes were opened. Anyhow, he held his peace till the
end; when he spoke briefly. Honorary Lieutenant Castries asked for a “peg”
before he went away to die or bring a suit for breach of promise.

Miss Castries was a very good girl. She said that she would have no breach
of promise suits. She said that, if she was not a lady, she was refined
enough to know that ladies kept their broken hearts to themselves; and, as
she ruled her parents, nothing happened. Later on, she married a most
respectable and gentlemanly person. He travelled for an enterprising firm
in Calcutta, and was all that a good husband should be.

So Peythroppe came to his right mind again, and did much good work, and
was honored by all who knew him. One of these days he will marry; but he
will marry a sweet pink-and-white maiden, on the Government House List,
with a little money and some influential connections, as every wise man
should. And he will never, all his life, tell her what happened during the
seven weeks of his shooting-tour in Rajputana.

But just think how much trouble and expense—for camel hire is not
cheap, and those Bikaneer brutes had to be fed like humans—might
have been saved by a properly conducted Matrimonial Department, under the
control of the Director General of Education, but corresponding direct
with the Viceroy.

THE ARREST OF LIEUTENANT GOLIGHTLY.

IF there was one thing on which Golightly prided himself more than
another, it was looking like “an Officer and a gentleman.” He said it was
for the honor of the Service that he attired himself so elaborately; but
those who knew him best said that it was just personal vanity. There was
no harm about Golightly—not an ounce.

He recognized a horse when he saw one, and could do more than fill a
cantle. He played a very fair game at billiards, and was a sound man at
the whist-table. Everyone liked him; and nobody ever dreamed of seeing him
handcuffed on a station platform as a deserter. But this sad thing
happened.

He was going down from Dalhousie, at the end of his leave—riding
down. He had cut his leave as fine as he dared, and wanted to come down in
a hurry.

It was fairly warm at Dalhousie, and knowing what to expect below, he
descended in a new khaki suit—tight fitting—of a delicate
olive-green; a peacock-blue tie, white collar, and a snowy white solah
helmet. He prided himself on looking neat even when he was riding post. He
did look neat, and he was so deeply concerned about his appearance before
he started that he quite forgot to take anything but some small change
with him. He left all his notes at the hotel. His servants had gone down
the road before him, to be ready in waiting at Pathankote with a change of
gear. That was what he called travelling in “light marching-order.” He was
proud of his faculty of organization—what we call bundobust.

Twenty-two miles out of Dalhousie it began to rain—not a mere
hill-shower, but a good, tepid monsoonish downpour. Golightly bustled on,
wishing that he had brought an umbrella. The dust on the roads turned into
mud, and the pony mired a good deal. So did Golightly’s khaki gaiters. But
he kept on steadily and tried to think how pleasant the coolth was.

His next pony was rather a brute at starting, and Golightly’s hands being
slippery with the rain, contrived to get rid of Golightly at a corner. He
chased the animal, caught it, and went ahead briskly.

The spill had not improved his clothes or his temper, and he had lost one
spur. He kept the other one employed. By the time that stage was ended,
the pony had had as much exercise as he wanted, and, in spite of the rain,
Golightly was sweating freely. At the end of another miserable half-hour,
Golightly found the world disappear before his eyes in clammy pulp. The
rain had turned the pith of his huge and snowy solah-topee into an
evil-smelling dough, and it had closed on his head like a half-opened
mushroom. Also the green lining was beginning to run.

Golightly did not say anything worth recording here. He tore off and
squeezed up as much of the brim as was in his eyes and ploughed on. The
back of the helmet was flapping on his neck and the sides stuck to his
ears, but the leather band and green lining kept things roughly together,
so that the hat did not actually melt away where it flapped.

Presently, the pulp and the green stuff made a sort of slimy mildew which
ran over Golightly in several directions—down his back and bosom for
choice. The khaki color ran too—it was really shockingly bad dye—and
sections of Golightly were brown, and patches were violet, and contours
were ochre, and streaks were ruddy red, and blotches were nearly white,
according to the nature and peculiarities of the dye. When he took out his
handkerchief to wipe his face and the green of the hat-lining and the
purple stuff that had soaked through on to his neck from the tie became
thoroughly mixed, the effect was amazing.

Near Dhar the rain stopped and the evening sun came out and dried him up
slightly. It fixed the colors, too. Three miles from Pathankote the last
pony fell dead lame, and Golightly was forced to walk. He pushed on into
Pathankote to find his servants. He did not know then that his khitmatgar
had stopped by the roadside to get drunk, and would come on the next day
saying that he had sprained his ankle. When he got into Pathankote, he
couldn’t find his servants, his boots were stiff and ropy with mud, and
there were large quantities of dirt about his body. The blue tie had run
as much as the khaki. So he took it off with the collar and threw it away.
Then he said something about servants generally and tried to get a peg. He
paid eight annas for the drink, and this revealed to him that he had only
six annas more in his pocket—or in the world as he stood at that
hour.

He went to the Station-Master to negotiate for a first-class ticket to
Khasa, where he was stationed. The booking-clerk said something to the
Station-Master, the Station-Master said something to the Telegraph Clerk,
and the three looked at him with curiosity. They asked him to wait for
half-an-hour, while they telegraphed to Umritsar for authority. So he
waited, and four constables came and grouped themselves picturesquely
round him. Just as he was preparing to ask them to go away, the
Station-Master said that he would give the Sahib a ticket to Umritsar, if
the Sahib would kindly come inside the booking-office. Golightly stepped
inside, and the next thing he knew was that a constable was attached to
each of his legs and arms, while the Station-Master was trying to cram a
mailbag over his head.

There was a very fair scuffle all round the booking-office, and Golightly
received a nasty cut over his eye through falling against a table. But the
constables were too much for him, and they and the Station-Master
handcuffed him securely. As soon as the mail-bag was slipped, he began
expressing his opinions, and the head-constable said:—“Without doubt
this is the soldier-Englishman we required. Listen to the abuse!” Then
Golightly asked the Station-Master what the this and the that the
proceedings meant. The Station-Master told him he was “Private John Binkle
of the——Regiment, 5 ft. 9 in., fair hair, gray eyes, and a
dissipated appearance, no marks on the body,” who had deserted a fortnight
ago. Golightly began explaining at great length; and the more he explained
the less the Station-Master believed him. He said that no Lieutenant could
look such a ruffian as did Golightly, and that his instructions were to
send his capture under proper escort to Umritsar. Golightly was feeling
very damp and uncomfortable, and the language he used was not fit for
publication, even in an expurgated form. The four constables saw him safe
to Umritsar in an “intermediate” compartment, and he spent the four-hour
journey in abusing them as fluently as his knowledge of the vernaculars
allowed.

At Umritsar he was bundled out on the platform into the arms of a Corporal
and two men of the——Regiment. Golightly drew himself up and
tried to carry off matters jauntily. He did not feel too jaunty in
handcuffs, with four constables behind him, and the blood from the cut on
his forehead stiffening on his left cheek. The Corporal was not jocular
either. Golightly got as far as—“This is a very absurd mistake, my
men,” when the Corporal told him to “stow his lip” and come along.
Golightly did not want to come along. He desired to stop and explain. He
explained very well indeed, until the Corporal cut in with:—“YOU a
orficer! It’s the like o’ YOU as brings disgrace on the likes of US.
Bloom-in’ fine orficer you are! I know your regiment. The Rogue’s March is
the quickstep where you come from. You’re a black shame to the Service.”

Golightly kept his temper, and began explaining all over again from the
beginning. Then he was marched out of the rain into the refreshment-room
and told not to make a qualified fool of himself.

The men were going to run him up to Fort Govindghar. And “running up” is a
performance almost as undignified as the Frog March.

Golightly was nearly hysterical with rage and the chill and the mistake
and the handcuffs and the headache that the cut on his forehead had given
him. He really laid himself out to express what was in his mind. When he
had quite finished and his throat was feeling dry, one of the men said:—“I’ve
‘eard a few beggars in the click blind, stiff and crack on a bit; but I’ve
never ‘eard any one to touch this ‘ere ‘orficer.’” They were not angry
with him. They rather admired him. They had some beer at the
refreshment-room, and offered Golightly some too, because he had “swore
won’erful.” They asked him to tell them all about the adventures of
Private John Binkle while he was loose on the countryside; and that made
Golightly wilder than ever. If he had kept his wits about him he would
have kept quiet until an officer came; but he attempted to run.

Now the butt of a Martini in the small of your back hurts a great deal,
and rotten, rain-soaked khaki tears easily when two men are jerking at
your collar.

Golightly rose from the floor feeling very sick and giddy, with his shirt
ripped open all down his breast and nearly all down his back.

He yielded to his luck, and at that point the down-train from Lahore came
in carrying one of Golightly’s Majors.

This is the Major’s evidence in full:—

“There was the sound of a scuffle in the second-class refreshment-room, so
I went in and saw the most villainous loafer that I ever set eyes on. His
boots and breeches were plastered with mud and beer-stains. He wore a
muddy-white dunghill sort of thing on his head, and it hung down in slips
on his shoulders, which were a good deal scratched. He was half in and
half out of a shirt as nearly in two pieces as it could be, and he was
begging the guard to look at the name on the tail of it. As he had rucked
the shirt all over his head, I couldn’t at first see who he was, but I
fancied that he was a man in the first stage of D. T. from the way he
swore while he wrestled with his rags. When he turned round, and I had
made allowance for a lump as big as a pork-pie over one eye, and some
green war-paint on the face, and some violet stripes round the neck, I saw
that it was Golightly. He was very glad to see me,” said the Major, “and
he hoped I would not tell the Mess about it. I didn’t, but you can if you
like, now that Golightly has gone Home.”

Golightly spent the greater part of that summer in trying to get the
Corporal and the two soldiers tried by Court-Martial for arresting an
“officer and a gentleman.” They were, of course, very sorry for their
error. But the tale leaked into the regimental canteen, and thence ran
about the Province.

THE HOUSE OF SUDDHOO

The house of Suddhoo, near the Taksali Gate, is two-storied, with four
carved windows of old brown wood, and a flat roof. You may recognize it by
five red hand-prints arranged like the Five of Diamonds on the whitewash
between the upper windows. Bhagwan Dass, the bunnia, and a man who says he
gets his living by seal-cutting, live in the lower story with a troop of
wives, servants, friends, and retainers. The two upper rooms used to be
occupied by Janoo and Azizun and a little black-and-tan terrier that was
stolen from an Englishman’s house and given to Janoo by a soldier. Today,
only Janoo lives in the upper rooms. Suddhoo sleeps on the roof generally,
except when he sleeps in the street. He used to go to Peshawar in the cold
weather to visit his son, who sells curiosities near the Edwardes’ Gate,
and then he slept under a real mud roof.

Suddhoo is a great friend of mine, because his cousin had a son who
secured, thanks to my recommendation, the post of head-messenger to a big
firm in the Station. Suddhoo says that God will make me a
Lieutenant-Governor one of these days. I daresay his prophecy will come
true. He is very, very old, with white hair and no teeth worth showing,
and he has outlived his wits—outlived nearly everything except his
fondness for his son at Peshawar. Janoo and Azizun are Kashmiris, Ladies
of the City, and theirs was an ancient and more or less honorable
profession; but Azizun has since married a medical student from the
North-West and has settled down to a most respectable life somewhere near
Bareilly. Bhagwan Dass is an extortionate and an adulterator. He is very
rich. The man who is supposed to get his living by seal-cutting pretends
to be very poor.

This lets you know as much as is necessary of the four principal tenants
in the house of Suddhoo. Then there is Me, of course; but I am only the
chorus that comes in at the end to explain things. So I do not count.

Suddhoo was not clever. The man who pretended to cut seals was the
cleverest of them all—Bhagwan Dass only knew how to lie—except
Janoo. She was also beautiful, but that was her own affair.

Suddhoo’s son at Peshawar was attacked by pleurisy, and old Suddhoo was
troubled. The seal-cutter man heard of Suddhoo’s anxiety and made capital
out of it. He was abreast of the times. He got a friend in Peshawar to
telegraph daily accounts of the son’s health.

And here the story begins.

Suddhoo’s cousin’s son told me, one evening, that Suddhoo wanted to see
me; that he was too old and feeble to come personally, and that I should
be conferring an everlasting honor on the House of Suddhoo if I went to
him. I went; but I think, seeing how well-off Suddhoo was then, that he
might have sent something better than an ekka, which jolted fearfully, to
haul out a future Lieutenant-Governor to the City on a muggy April
evening. The ekka did not run quickly.

It was full dark when we pulled up opposite the door of Ranjit Singh’s
Tomb near the main gate of the Fort. Here was Suddhoo and he said that, by
reason of my condescension, it was absolutely certain that I should become
a Lieutenant-Governor while my hair was yet black. Then we talked about
the weather and the state of my health, and the wheat crops, for fifteen
minutes, in the Huzuri Bagh, under the stars.

Suddhoo came to the point at last. He said that Janoo had told him that
there was an order of the Sirkar against magic, because it was feared that
magic might one day kill the Empress of India. I didn’t know anything
about the state of the law; but I fancied that something interesting was
going to happen. I said that so far from magic being discouraged by the
Government it was highly commended.

The greatest officials of the State practiced it themselves. (If the
Financial Statement isn’t magic, I don’t know what is.) Then, to encourage
him further, I said that, if there was any jadoo afoot, I had not the
least objection to giving it my countenance and sanction, and to seeing
that it was clean jadoo—white magic, as distinguished from the
unclean jadoo which kills folk. It took a long time before Suddhoo
admitted that this was just what he had asked me to come for. Then he told
me, in jerks and quavers, that the man who said he cut seals was a
sorcerer of the cleanest kind; that every day he gave Suddhoo news of the
sick son in Peshawar more quickly than the lightning could fly, and that
this news was always corroborated by the letters. Further, that he had
told Suddhoo how a great danger was threatening his son, which could be
removed by clean jadoo; and, of course, heavy payment. I began to see how
the land lay, and told Suddhoo that I also understood a little jadoo in
the Western line, and would go to his house to see that everything was
done decently and in order. We set off together; and on the way Suddhoo
told me he had paid the seal-cutter between one hundred and two hundred
rupees already; and the jadoo of that night would cost two hundred more.
Which was cheap, he said, considering the greatness of his son’s danger;
but I do not think he meant it.

The lights were all cloaked in the front of the house when we arrived. I
could hear awful noises from behind the seal-cutter’s shop-front, as if
some one were groaning his soul out. Suddhoo shook all over, and while we
groped our way upstairs told me that the jadoo had begun. Janoo and Azizun
met us at the stair-head, and told us that the jadoo-work was coming off
in their rooms, because there was more space there. Janoo is a lady of a
freethinking turn of mind. She whispered that the jadoo was an invention
to get money out of Suddhoo, and that the seal-cutter would go to a hot
place when he died. Suddhoo was nearly crying with fear and old age. He
kept walking up and down the room in the half light, repeating his son’s
name over and over again, and asking Azizun if the seal-cutter ought not
to make a reduction in the case of his own landlord.

Janoo pulled me over to the shadow in the recess of the carved
bow-windows. The boards were up, and the rooms were only lit by one tiny
lamp. There was no chance of my being seen if I stayed still.

Presently, the groans below ceased, and we heard steps on the staircase.
That was the seal-cutter. He stopped outside the door as the terrier
barked and Azizun fumbled at the chain, and he told Suddhoo to blow out
the lamp. This left the place in jet darkness, except for the red glow
from the two huqas that belonged to Janoo and Azizun. The seal-cutter came
in, and I heard Suddhoo throw himself down on the floor and groan. Azizun
caught her breath, and Janoo backed to one of the beds with a shudder.
There was a clink of something metallic, and then shot up a pale
blue-green flame near the ground. The light was just enough to show
Azizun, pressed against one corner of the room with the terrier between
her knees; Janoo, with her hands clasped, leaning forward as she sat on
the bed; Suddhoo, face down, quivering, and the seal-cutter.

I hope I may never see another man like that seal-cutter. He was stripped
to the waist, with a wreath of white jasmine as thick as my wrist round
his forehead, a salmon-colored loin-cloth round his middle, and a steel
bangle on each ankle. This was not awe-inspiring. It was the face of the
man that turned me cold. It was blue-gray in the first place. In the
second, the eyes were rolled back till you could only see the whites of
them; and, in the third, the face was the face of a demon—a ghoul—anything
you please except of the sleek, oily old ruffian who sat in the day-time
over his turning-lathe downstairs. He was lying on his stomach, with his
arms turned and crossed behind him, as if he had been thrown down
pinioned. His head and neck were the only parts of him off the floor. They
were nearly at right angles to the body, like the head of a cobra at
spring. It was ghastly. In the centre of the room, on the bare earth
floor, stood a big, deep, brass basin, with a pale blue-green light
floating in the centre like a night-light. Round that basin the man on the
floor wriggled himself three times. How he did it I do not know. I could
see the muscles ripple along his spine and fall smooth again; but I could
not see any other motion.

The head seemed the only thing alive about him, except that slow curl and
uncurl of the laboring back-muscles. Janoo from the bed was breathing
seventy to the minute; Azizun held her hands before her eyes; and old
Suddhoo, fingering at the dirt that had got into his white beard, was
crying to himself. The horror of it was that the creeping, crawly thing
made no sound—only crawled! And, remember, this lasted for ten
minutes, while the terrier whined, and Azizun shuddered, and Janoo gasped,
and Suddhoo cried.

I felt the hair lift at the back of my head, and my heart thump like a
thermantidote paddle. Luckily, the seal-cutter betrayed himself by his
most impressive trick and made me calm again. After he had finished that
unspeakable triple crawl, he stretched his head away from the floor as
high as he could, and sent out a jet of fire from his nostrils. Now, I
knew how fire-spouting is done—I can do it myself—so I felt at
ease. The business was a fraud. If he had only kept to that crawl without
trying to raise the effect, goodness knows what I might not have thought.
Both the girls shrieked at the jet of fire and the head dropped, chin
down, on the floor with a thud; the whole body lying then like a corpse
with its arms trussed.

There was a pause of five full minutes after this, and the blue-green
flame died down. Janoo stooped to settle one of her anklets, while Azizun
turned her face to the wall and took the terrier in her arms. Suddhoo put
out an arm mechanically to Janoo’s huqa, and she slid it across the floor
with her foot. Directly above the body and on the wall, were a couple of
flaming portraits, in stamped paper frames, of the Queen and the Prince of
Wales. They looked down on the performance, and, to my thinking, seemed to
heighten the grotesqueness of it all.

Just when the silence was getting unendurable, the body turned over and
rolled away from the basin to the side of the room, where it lay stomach
up. There was a faint “plop” from the basin—exactly like the noise a
fish makes when it takes a fly—and the green light in the centre
revived.

I looked at the basin, and saw, bobbing in the water, the dried,
shrivelled, black head of a native baby—open eyes, open mouth and
shaved scalp. It was worse, being so very sudden, than the crawling
exhibition. We had no time to say anything before it began to speak.

Read Poe’s account of the voice that came from the mesmerized dying man,
and you will realize less than one-half of the horror of that head’s
voice.

There was an interval of a second or two between each word, and a sort of
“ring, ring, ring,” in the note of the voice, like the timbre of a bell.
It pealed slowly, as if talking to itself, for several minutes before I
got rid of my cold sweat. Then the blessed solution struck me. I looked at
the body lying near the doorway, and saw, just where the hollow of the
throat joins on the shoulders, a muscle that had nothing to do with any
man’s regular breathing, twitching away steadily. The whole thing was a
careful reproduction of the Egyptian teraphin that one read about
sometimes and the voice was as clever and as appalling a piece of
ventriloquism as one could wish to hear. All this time the head was
“lip-lip-lapping” against the side of the basin, and speaking. It told
Suddhoo, on his face again whining, of his son’s illness and of the state
of the illness up to the evening of that very night. I always shall
respect the seal-cutter for keeping so faithfully to the time of the
Peshawar telegrams. It went on to say that skilled doctors were night and
day watching over the man’s life; and that he would eventually recover if
the fee to the potent sorcerer, whose servant was the head in the basin,
were doubled.

Here the mistake from the artistic point of view came in. To ask for twice
your stipulated fee in a voice that Lazarus might have used when he rose
from the dead, is absurd. Janoo, who is really a woman of masculine
intellect, saw this as quickly as I did. I heard her say “Asli nahin!
Fareib!” scornfully under her breath; and just as she said so, the light
in the basin died out, the head stopped talking, and we heard the room
door creak on its hinges. Then Janoo struck a match, lit the lamp, and we
saw that head, basin, and seal-cutter were gone. Suddhoo was wringing his
hands and explaining to any one who cared to listen, that, if his chances
of eternal salvation depended on it, he could not raise another two
hundred rupees. Azizun was nearly in hysterics in the corner; while Janoo
sat down composedly on one of the beds to discuss the probabilities of the
whole thing being a bunao, or “make-up.”

I explained as much as I knew of the seal-cutter’s way of jadoo; but her
argument was much more simple:—“The magic that is always demanding
gifts is no true magic,” said she. “My mother told me that the only potent
love-spells are those which are told you for love. This seal-cutter man is
a liar and a devil. I dare not tell, do anything, or get anything done,
because I am in debt to Bhagwan Dass the bunnia for two gold rings and a
heavy anklet. I must get my food from his shop. The seal-cutter is the
friend of Bhagwan Dass, and he would poison my food. A fool’s jadoo has
been going on for ten days, and has cost Suddhoo many rupees each night.
The seal-cutter used black hens and lemons and mantras before. He never
showed us anything like this till tonight. Azizun is a fool, and will be a
purdah nashin soon. Suddhoo has lost his strength and his wits. See now! I
had hoped to get from Suddhoo many rupees while he lived, and many more
after his death; and behold, he is spending everything on that offspring
of a devil and a she-ass, the seal-cutter!”

Here I said:—“But what induced Suddhoo to drag me into the business?
Of course I can speak to the seal-cutter, and he shall refund. The whole
thing is child’s talk—shame—and senseless.”

“Suddhoo IS an old child,” said Janoo. “He has lived on the roofs these
seventy years and is as senseless as a milch-goat. He brought you here to
assure himself that he was not breaking any law of the Sirkar, whose salt
he ate many years ago. He worships the dust off the feet of the
seal-cutter, and that cow-devourer has forbidden him to go and see his
son. What does Suddhoo know of your laws or the lightning-post? I have to
watch his money going day by day to that lying beast below.”

Janoo stamped her foot on the floor and nearly cried with vexation; while
Suddhoo was whimpering under a blanket in the corner, and Azizun was
trying to guide the pipe-stem to his foolish old mouth……. …

Now the case stands thus. Unthinkingly, I have laid myself open to the
charge of aiding and abetting the seal-cutter in obtaining money under
false pretences, which is forbidden by Section 420 of the Indian Penal
Code. I am helpless in the matter for these reasons, I cannot inform the
Police. What witnesses would support my statements? Janoo refuses flatly,
Azizun is a veiled woman somewhere near Bareilly—lost in this big
India of ours. I cannot again take the law into my own hands, and speak to
the seal-cutter; for certain am I that, not only would Suddhoo disbelieve
me, but this step would end in the poisoning of Janoo, who is bound hand
and foot by her debt to the bunnia. Suddhoo is an old dotard; and whenever
we meet mumbles my idiotic joke that the Sirkar rather patronizes the
Black Art than otherwise. His son is well now; but Suddhoo is completely
under the influence of the seal-cutter, by whose advice he regulates the
affairs of his life. Janoo watches daily the money that she hoped to
wheedle out of Suddhoo taken by the seal-cutter, and becomes daily more
furious and sullen.

She will never tell, because she dare not; but, unless something happens
to prevent her, I am afraid that the seal-cutter will die of cholera—the
white arsenic kind—about the middle of May. And thus I shall have to
be privy to a murder in the House of Suddhoo.

HIS WEDDED WIFE.

Shakespeare says something about worms, or it may be giants or beetles,
turning if you tread on them too severely. The safest plan is never to
tread on a worm—not even on the last new subaltern from Home, with
his buttons hardly out of their tissue paper, and the red of sappy English
beef in his cheeks. This is the story of the worm that turned. For the
sake of brevity, we will call Henry Augustus Ramsay Faizanne, “The Worm,”
although he really was an exceedingly pretty boy, without a hair on his
face, and with a waist like a girl’s when he came out to the Second
“Shikarris” and was made unhappy in several ways. The “Shikarris” are a
high-caste regiment, and you must be able to do things well—play a
banjo or ride more than a little, or sing, or act—to get on with
them.

The Worm did nothing except fall off his pony, and knock chips out of
gate-posts with his trap. Even that became monotonous after a time. He
objected to whist, cut the cloth at billiards, sang out of tune, kept very
much to himself, and wrote to his Mamma and sisters at Home. Four of these
five things were vices which the “Shikarris” objected to and set
themselves to eradicate. Every one knows how subalterns are, by brother
subalterns, softened and not permitted to be ferocious. It is good and
wholesome, and does no one any harm, unless tempers are lost; and then
there is trouble. There was a man once—but that is another story.

The “Shikarris” shikarred The Worm very much, and he bore everything
without winking. He was so good and so anxious to learn, and flushed so
pink, that his education was cut short, and he was left to his own devices
by every one except the Senior Subaltern, who continued to make life a
burden to The Worm. The Senior Subaltern meant no harm; but his chaff was
coarse, and he didn’t quite understand where to stop. He had been waiting
too long for his company; and that always sours a man. Also he was in
love, which made him worse.

One day, after he had borrowed The Worm’s trap for a lady who never
existed, had used it himself all the afternoon, had sent a note to The
Worm purporting to come from the lady, and was telling the Mess all about
it, The Worm rose in his place and said, in his quiet, ladylike voice:
“That was a very pretty sell; but I’ll lay you a month’s pay to a month’s
pay when you get your step, that I work a sell on you that you’ll remember
for the rest of your days, and the Regiment after you when you’re dead or
broke.” The Worm wasn’t angry in the least, and the rest of the Mess
shouted. Then the Senior Subaltern looked at The Worm from the boots
upwards, and down again, and said, “Done, Baby.” The Worm took the rest of
the Mess to witness that the bet had been taken, and retired into a book
with a sweet smile.

Two months passed, and the Senior Subaltern still educated The Worm, who
began to move about a little more as the hot weather came on. I have said
that the Senior Subaltern was in love. The curious thing is that a girl
was in love with the Senior Subaltern. Though the Colonel said awful
things, and the Majors snorted, and married Captains looked unutterable
wisdom, and the juniors scoffed, those two were engaged.

The Senior Subaltern was so pleased with getting his Company and his
acceptance at the same time that he forgot to bother The Worm. The girl
was a pretty girl, and had money of her own. She does not come into this
story at all.

One night, at the beginning of the hot weather, all the Mess, except The
Worm, who had gone to his own room to write Home letters, were sitting on
the platform outside the Mess House. The Band had finished playing, but no
one wanted to go in. And the Captains’ wives were there also. The folly of
a man in love is unlimited.

The Senior Subaltern had been holding forth on the merits of the girl he
was engaged to, and the ladies were purring approval, while the men
yawned, when there was a rustle of skirts in the dark, and a tired, faint
voice lifted itself:

“Where’s my husband?”

I do not wish in the least to reflect on the morality of the “Shikarris;”
but it is on record that four men jumped up as if they had been shot.
Three of them were married men. Perhaps they were afraid that their wives
had come from Home unbeknownst. The fourth said that he had acted on the
impulse of the moment. He explained this afterwards.

Then the voice cried:—“Oh, Lionel!” Lionel was the Senior
Subaltern’s name. A woman came into the little circle of light by the
candles on the peg-tables, stretching out her hands to the dark where the
Senior Subaltern was, and sobbing. We rose to our feet, feeling that
things were going to happen and ready to believe the worst. In this bad,
small world of ours, one knows so little of the life of the next man—which,
after all, is entirely his own concern—that one is not surprised
when a crash comes. Anything might turn up any day for any one. Perhaps
the Senior Subaltern had been trapped in his youth. Men are crippled that
way occasionally. We didn’t know; we wanted to hear; and the Captains’
wives were as anxious as we. If he HAD been trapped, he was to be excused;
for the woman from nowhere, in the dusty shoes, and gray travelling dress,
was very lovely, with black hair and great eyes full of tears. She was
tall, with a fine figure, and her voice had a running sob in it pitiful to
hear. As soon as the Senior Subaltern stood up, she threw her arms round
his neck, and called him “my darling,” and said she could not bear waiting
alone in England, and his letters were so short and cold, and she was his
to the end of the world, and would he forgive her. This did not sound
quite like a lady’s way of speaking. It was too demonstrative.

Things seemed black indeed, and the Captains’ wives peered under their
eyebrows at the Senior Subaltern, and the Colonel’s face set like the Day
of Judgment framed in gray bristles, and no one spoke for a while.

Next the Colonel said, very shortly:—“Well, Sir?” and the woman
sobbed afresh. The Senior Subaltern was half choked with the arms round
his neck, but he gasped out:—“It’s a d——d lie! I never
had a wife in my life!” “Don’t swear,” said the Colonel. “Come into the
Mess. We must sift this clear somehow,” and he sighed to himself, for he
believed in his “Shikarris,” did the Colonel.

We trooped into the ante-room, under the full lights, and there we saw how
beautiful the woman was. She stood up in the middle of us all, sometimes
choking with crying, then hard and proud, and then holding out her arms to
the Senior Subaltern. It was like the fourth act of a tragedy. She told us
how the Senior Subaltern had married her when he was Home on leave
eighteen months before; and she seemed to know all that we knew, and more
too, of his people and his past life. He was white and ashy gray, trying
now and again to break into the torrent of her words; and we, noting how
lovely she was and what a criminal he looked, esteemed him a beast of the
worst kind. We felt sorry for him, though.

I shall never forget the indictment of the Senior Subaltern by his wife.
Nor will he. It was so sudden, rushing out of the dark, unannounced, into
our dull lives. The Captains’ wives stood back; but their eyes were
alight, and you could see that they had already convicted and sentenced
the Senior Subaltern. The Colonel seemed five years older. One Major was
shading his eyes with his hand and watching the woman from underneath it.
Another was chewing his moustache and smiling quietly as if he were
witnessing a play. Full in the open space in the centre, by the
whist-tables, the Senior Subaltern’s terrier was hunting for fleas. I
remember all this as clearly as though a photograph were in my hand. I
remember the look of horror on the Senior Subaltern’s face. It was rather
like seeing a man hanged; but much more interesting. Finally, the woman
wound up by saying that the Senior Subaltern carried a double F. M. in
tattoo on his left shoulder. We all knew that, and to our innocent minds
it seemed to clinch the matter. But one of the Bachelor Majors said very
politely:—“I presume that your marriage certificate would be more to
the purpose?”

That roused the woman. She stood up and sneered at the Senior Subaltern
for a cur, and abused the Major and the Colonel and all the rest. Then she
wept, and then she pulled a paper from her breast, saying imperially:—“Take
that! And let my husband—my lawfully wedded husband—read it
aloud—if he dare!”

There was a hush, and the men looked into each other’s eyes as the Senior
Subaltern came forward in a dazed and dizzy way, and took the paper. We
were wondering as we stared, whether there was anything against any one of
us that might turn up later on. The Senior Subaltern’s throat was dry;
but, as he ran his eye over the paper, he broke out into a hoarse cackle
of relief, and said to the woman:—“You young blackguard!”

But the woman had fled through a door, and on the paper was written:—“This
is to certify that I, The Worm, have paid in full my debts to the Senior
Subaltern, and, further, that the Senior Subaltern is my debtor, by
agreement on the 23d of February, as by the Mess attested, to the extent
of one month’s Captain’s pay, in the lawful currency of the India Empire.”

Then a deputation set off for The Worm’s quarters and found him, betwixt
and between, unlacing his stays, with the hat, wig, serge dress, etc., on
the bed. He came over as he was, and the “Shikarris” shouted till the
Gunners’ Mess sent over to know if they might have a share of the fun. I
think we were all, except the Colonel and the Senior Subaltern, a little
disappointed that the scandal had come to nothing. But that is human
nature. There could be no two words about The Worm’s acting. It leaned as
near to a nasty tragedy as anything this side of a joke can. When most of
the Subalterns sat upon him with sofa-cushions to find out why he had not
said that acting was his strong point, he answered very quietly:—“I
don’t think you ever asked me. I used to act at Home with my sisters.” But
no acting with girls could account for The Worm’s display that night.
Personally, I think it was in bad taste.

Besides being dangerous. There is no sort of use in playing with fire,
even for fun.

The “Shikarris” made him President of the Regimental Dramatic Club; and,
when the Senior Subaltern paid up his debt, which he did at once, The Worm
sank the money in scenery and dresses. He was a good Worm; and the
“Shikarris” are proud of him. The only drawback is that he has been
christened “Mrs. Senior Subaltern;” and as there are now two Mrs. Senior
Subalterns in the Station, this is sometimes confusing to strangers.

Later on, I will tell you of a case something like, this, but with all the
jest left out and nothing in it but real trouble.

THE BROKEN LINK HANDICAPPED.

There are more ways of running a horse to suit your book than pulling his
head off in the straight. Some men forget this.

Understand clearly that all racing is rotten—as everything connected
with losing money must be. Out here, in addition to its inherent
rottenness, it has the merit of being two-thirds sham; looking pretty on
paper only. Every one knows every one else far too well for business
purposes. How on earth can you rack and harry and post a man for his
losings, when you are fond of his wife, and live in the same Station with
him? He says, “on the Monday following,” “I can’t settle just yet.” “You
say, ‘All right, old man,’” and think your self lucky if you pull off nine
hundred out of a two-thousand rupee debt. Any way you look at it, Indian
racing is immoral, and expensively immoral. Which is much worse. If a man
wants your money, he ought to ask for it, or send round a
subscription-list, instead of juggling about the country, with an
Australian larrikin; a “brumby,” with as much breed as the boy; a brace of
chumars in gold-laced caps; three or four ekka-ponies with hogged manes,
and a switch-tailed demirep of a mare called Arab because she has a kink
in her flag. Racing leads to the shroff quicker than anything else. But if
you have no conscience and no sentiments, and good hands, and some
knowledge of pace, and ten years’ experience of horses, and several
thousand rupees a month, I believe that you can occasionally contrive to
pay your shoeing-bills.

Did you ever know Shackles—b. w. g., 15.13.8—coarse, loose,
mule-like ears—barrel as long as a gate-post—tough as a
telegraph-wire—and the queerest brute that ever looked through a
bridle? He was of no brand, being one of an ear-nicked mob taken into the
Bucephalus at 4l.-10s. a head to make up freight, and sold raw and out of
condition at Calcutta for Rs. 275. People who lost money on him called him
a “brumby;” but if ever any horse had Harpoon’s shoulders and The Gin’s
temper, Shackles was that horse. Two miles was his own particular
distance. He trained himself, ran himself, and rode himself; and, if his
jockey insulted him by giving him hints, he shut up at once and bucked the
boy off. He objected to dictation. Two or three of his owners did not
understand this, and lost money in consequence. At last he was bought by a
man who discovered that, if a race was to be won, Shackles, and Shackles
only, would win it in his own way, so long as his jockey sat still.

This man had a riding-boy called Brunt—a lad from Perth, West
Australia—and he taught Brunt, with a trainer’s whip, the hardest
thing a jock can learn—to sit still, to sit still, and to keep on
sitting still. When Brunt fairly grasped this truth, Shackles devastated
the country. No weight could stop him at his own distance; and The fame of
Shackles spread from Ajmir in the South, to Chedputter in the North. There
was no horse like Shackles, so long as he was allowed to do his work in
his own way. But he was beaten in the end; and the story of his fall is
enough to make angels weep.

At the lower end of the Chedputter racecourse, just before the turn into
the straight, the track passes close to a couple of old brick-mounds
enclosing a funnel-shaped hollow. The big end of the funnel is not six
feet from the railings on the off-side. The astounding peculiarity of the
course is that, if you stand at one particular place, about half a mile
away, inside the course, and speak at an ordinary pitch, your voice just
hits the funnel of the brick-mounds and makes a curious whining echo
there. A man discovered this one morning by accident while out training
with a friend. He marked the place to stand and speak from with a couple
of bricks, and he kept his knowledge to himself. EVERY peculiarity of a
course is worth remembering in a country where rats play the mischief with
the elephant-litter, and Stewards build jumps to suit their own stables.

This man ran a very fairish country-bred, a long, racking high mare with
the temper of a fiend, and the paces of an airy wandering seraph—a
drifty, glidy stretch. The mare was, as a delicate tribute to Mrs. Reiver,
called “The Lady Regula Baddun”—or for short, Regula Baddun.

Shackles’ jockey, Brunt, was a quiet, well-behaved boy, but his nerves had
been shaken. He began his career by riding jump-races in Melbourne, where
a few Stewards want lynching, and was one of the jockeys who came through
the awful butchery—perhaps you will recollect it—of the
Maribyrnong Plate. The walls were colonial ramparts—logs of jarrak
spiked into masonry—with wings as strong as Church buttresses. Once
in his stride, a horse had to jump or fall. He couldn’t run out. In the
Maribyrnong Plate, twelve horses were jammed at the second wall. Red Hat,
leading, fell this side, and threw out The Glen, and the ruck came up
behind and the space between wing and wing was one struggling, screaming,
kicking shambles. Four jockeys were taken out dead; three were very badly
hurt, and Brunt was among the three. He told the story of the Maribyrnong
Plate sometimes; and when he described how Whalley on Red Hat, said, as
the mare fell under him:—“God ha’ mercy, I’m done for!” and how,
next instant, Sithee There and White Otter had crushed the life out of
poor Whalley, and the dust hid a small hell of men and horses, no one
marvelled that Brunt had dropped jump-races and Australia together. Regula
Baddun’s owner knew that story by heart. Brunt never varied it in the
telling. He had no education.

Shackles came to the Chedputter Autumn races one year, and his owner
walked about insulting the sportsmen of Chedputter generally, till they
went to the Honorary Secretary in a body and said:—“Appoint
Handicappers, and arrange a race which shall break Shackles and humble the
pride of his owner.” The Districts rose against Shackles and sent up of
their best; Ousel, who was supposed to be able to do his mile in 1-53;
Petard, the stud-bred, trained by a cavalry regiment who knew how to
train; Gringalet, the ewe-lamb of the 75th; Bobolink, the pride of
Peshawar; and many others.

They called that race The Broken-Link Handicap, because it was to smash
Shackles; and the Handicappers piled on the weights, and the Fund gave
eight hundred rupees, and the distance was “round the course for all
horses.” Shackles’ owner said:—“You can arrange the race with regard
to Shackles only. So long as you don’t bury him under weight-cloths, I
don’t mind.” Regula Baddun’s owner said:—“I throw in my mare to fret
Ousel. Six furlongs is Regula’s distance, and she will then lie down and
die. So also will Ousel, for his jockey doesn’t understand a waiting
race.” Now, this was a lie, for Regula had been in work for two months at
Dehra, and her chances were good, always supposing that Shackles broke a
blood-vessel—OR BRUNT MOVED ON HIM.

The plunging in the lotteries was fine. They filled eight thousand rupee
lotteries on the Broken Link Handicap, and the account in the Pioneer said
that “favoritism was divided.” In plain English, the various contingents
were wild on their respective horses; for the Handicappers had done their
work well. The Honorary Secretary shouted himself hoarse through the din;
and the smoke of the cheroots was like the smoke, and the rattling of the
dice-boxes like the rattle of small-arm fire.

Ten horses started—very level—and Regula Baddun’s owner
cantered out on his back to a place inside the circle of the course, where
two bricks had been thrown. He faced towards the brick-mounds at the lower
end of the course and waited.

he story of the running is in the Pioneer. At the end of the first mile,
Shackles crept out of the ruck, well on the outside, ready to get round
the turn, lay hold of the bit and spin up the straight before the others
knew he had got away. Brunt was sitting still, perfectly happy, listening
to the “drum, drum, drum” of the hoofs behind, and knowing that, in about
twenty strides, Shackles would draw one deep breath and go up the last
half-mile like the “Flying Dutchman.” As Shackles went short to take the
turn and came abreast of the brick-mound, Brunt heard, above the noise of
the wind in his ears, a whining, wailing voice on the offside, saying:—“God
ha’ mercy, I’m done for!” In one stride, Brunt saw the whole seething
smash of the Maribyrnong Plate before him, started in his saddle and gave
a yell of terror. The start brought the heels into Shackles’ side, and the
scream hurt Shackles’ feelings. He couldn’t stop dead; but he put out his
feet and slid along for fifty yards, and then, very gravely and
judicially, bucked off Brunt—a shaking, terror-stricken lump, while
Regula Baddun made a neck-and-neck race with Bobolink up the straight, and
won by a short head—Petard a bad third. Shackles’ owner, in the
Stand, tried to think that his field-glasses had gone wrong. Regula
Baddun’s owner, waiting by the two bricks, gave one deep sigh of relief,
and cantered back to the stand. He had won, in lotteries and bets, about
fifteen thousand.

It was a broken-link Handicap with a vengeance. It broke nearly all the
men concerned, and nearly broke the heart of Shackles’ owner.

He went down to interview Brunt. The boy lay, livid and gasping with
fright, where he had tumbled off. The sin of losing the race never seemed
to strike him. All he knew was that Whalley had “called” him, that the
“call” was a warning; and, were he cut in two for it, he would never get
up again. His nerve had gone altogether, and he only asked his master to
give him a good thrashing, and let him go. He was fit for nothing, he
said. He got his dismissal, and crept up to the paddock, white as chalk,
with blue lips, his knees giving way under him. People said nasty things
in the paddock; but Brunt never heeded. He changed into tweeds, took his
stick and went down the road, still shaking with fright, and muttering
over and over again:—“God ha’ mercy, I’m done for!” To the best of
my knowledge and belief he spoke the truth.

So now you know how the Broken-Link Handicap was run and won. Of course
you don’t believe it. You would credit anything about Russia’s designs on
India, or the recommendations of the Currency Commission; but a little bit
of sober fact is more than you can stand!

BEYOND THE PALE.

A man should, whatever happens, keep to his own caste, race and breed. Let
the White go to the White and the Black to the Black.

Then, whatever trouble falls is in the ordinary course of things—neither
sudden, alien, nor unexpected.

This is the story of a man who wilfully stepped beyond the safe limits of
decent every-day society, and paid for it heavily.

He knew too much in the first instance; and he saw too much in the second.
He took too deep an interest in native life; but he will never do so
again.

Deep away in the heart of the City, behind Jitha Megji’s bustee, lies Amir
Nath’s Gully, which ends in a dead-wall pierced by one grated window. At
the head of the Gully is a big cow-byre, and the walls on either side of
the Gully are without windows. Neither Suchet Singh nor Gaur Chand
approved of their women-folk looking into the world. If Durga Charan had
been of their opinion, he would have been a happier man today, and little
Bisesa would have been able to knead her own bread. Her room looked out
through the grated window into the narrow dark Gully where the sun never
came and where the buffaloes wallowed in the blue slime. She was a widow,
about fifteen years old, and she prayed the Gods, day and night, to send
her a lover; for she did not approve of living alone.

One day the man—Trejago his name was—came into Amir Nath’s
Gully on an aimless wandering; and, after he had passed the buffaloes,
stumbled over a big heap of cattle food.

Then he saw that the Gully ended in a trap, and heard a little laugh from
behind the grated window. It was a pretty little laugh, and Trejago,
knowing that, for all practical purposes, the old Arabian Nights are good
guides, went forward to the window, and whispered that verse of “The Love
Song of Har Dyal” which begins:

There came the faint tchinks of a woman’s bracelets from behind the
grating, and a little voice went on with the song at the fifth verse:

The voice stopped suddenly, and Trejago walked out of Amir Nath’s Gully,
wondering who in the world could have capped “The Love Song of Har Dyal”
so neatly.

Next morning, as he was driving to the office, an old woman threw a packet
into his dog-cart. In the packet was the half of a broken glass bangle,
one flower of the blood red dhak, a pinch of bhusa or cattle-food, and
eleven cardamoms. That packet was a letter—not a clumsy compromising
letter, but an innocent, unintelligible lover’s epistle.

Trejago knew far too much about these things, as I have said. No
Englishman should be able to translate object-letters. But Trejago spread
all the trifles on the lid of his office-box and began to puzzle them out.

A broken glass-bangle stands for a Hindu widow all India over; because,
when her husband dies a woman’s bracelets are broken on her wrists.
Trejago saw the meaning of the little bit of the glass.

The flower of the dhak means diversely “desire,” “come,” “write,” or
“danger,” according to the other things with it. One cardamom means
“jealousy;” but when any article is duplicated in an object-letter, it
loses its symbolic meaning and stands merely for one of a number
indicating time, or, if incense, curds, or saffron be sent also, place.
The message ran then:—“A widow dhak flower and bhusa—at eleven
o’clock.” The pinch of bhusa enlightened Trejago. He saw—this kind
of letter leaves much to instinctive knowledge—that the bhusa
referred to the big heap of cattle-food over which he had fallen in Amir
Nath’s Gully, and that the message must come from the person behind the
grating; she being a widow. So the message ran then:—“A widow, in
the Gully in which is the heap of bhusa, desires you to come at eleven
o’clock.”

Trejago threw all the rubbish into the fireplace and laughed. He knew that
men in the East do not make love under windows at eleven in the forenoon,
nor do women fix appointments a week in advance.

So he went, that very night at eleven, into Amir Nath’s Gully, clad in a
boorka, which cloaks a man as well as a woman. Directly the gongs in the
City made the hour, the little voice behind the grating took up “The Love
Song of Har Dyal” at the verse where the Panthan girl calls upon Har Dyal
to return. The song is really pretty in the Vernacular. In English you
miss the wail of it. It runs something like this:—

As the song stopped, Trejago stepped up under the grating and whispered:—“I
am here.”

Bisesa was good to look upon.

That night was the beginning of many strange things, and of a double life
so wild that Trejago today sometimes wonders if it were not all a dream.
Bisesa or her old handmaiden who had thrown the object-letter had detached
the heavy grating from the brick-work of the wall; so that the window slid
inside, leaving only a square of raw masonry, into which an active man
might climb.

In the day-time, Trejago drove through his routine of office-work, or put
on his calling-clothes and called on the ladies of the Station; wondering
how long they would know him if they knew of poor little Bisesa. At night,
when all the City was still, came the walk under the evil-smelling boorka,
the patrol through Jitha Megji’s bustee, the quick turn into Amir Nath’s
Gully between the sleeping cattle and the dead walls, and then, last of
all, Bisesa, and the deep, even breathing of the old woman who slept
outside the door of the bare little room that Durga Charan allotted to his
sister’s daughter. Who or what Durga Charan was, Trejago never inquired;
and why in the world he was not discovered and knifed never occurred to
him till his madness was over, and Bisesa… But this comes later.

Bisesa was an endless delight to Trejago. She was as ignorant as a bird;
and her distorted versions of the rumors from the outside world that had
reached her in her room, amused Trejago almost as much as her lisping
attempts to pronounce his name—“Christopher.” The first syllable was
always more than she could manage, and she made funny little gestures with
her rose-leaf hands, as one throwing the name away, and then, kneeling
before Trejago, asked him, exactly as an Englishwoman would do, if he were
sure he loved her. Trejago swore that he loved her more than any one else
in the world. Which was true.

After a month of this folly, the exigencies of his other life compelled
Trejago to be especially attentive to a lady of his acquaintance. You may
take it for a fact that anything of this kind is not only noticed and
discussed by a man’s own race, but by some hundred and fifty natives as
well. Trejago had to walk with this lady and talk to her at the
Band-stand, and once or twice to drive with her; never for an instant
dreaming that this would affect his dearer out-of-the-way life. But the
news flew, in the usual mysterious fashion, from mouth to mouth, till
Bisesa’s duenna heard of it and told Bisesa. The child was so troubled
that she did the household work evilly, and was beaten by Durga Charan’s
wife in consequence.

A week later, Bisesa taxed Trejago with the flirtation. She understood no
gradations and spoke openly. Trejago laughed and Bisesa stamped her little
feet—little feet, light as marigold flowers, that could lie in the
palm of a man’s one hand.

Much that is written about “Oriental passion and impulsiveness” is
exaggerated and compiled at second-hand, but a little of it is true; and
when an Englishman finds that little, it is quite as startling as any
passion in his own proper life. Bisesa raged and stormed, and finally
threatened to kill herself if Trejago did not at once drop the alien
Memsahib who had come between them. Trejago tried to explain, and to show
her that she did not understand these things from a Western standpoint.
Bisesa drew herself up, and said simply:

“I do not. I know only this—it is not good that I should have made
you dearer than my own heart to me, Sahib. You are an Englishman. I am
only a black girl”—she was fairer than bar-gold in the Mint—and
the widow of a black man.

Then she sobbed and said: “But on my soul and my Mother’s soul, I love
you. There shall no harm come to you, whatever happens to me.”

Trejago argued with the child, and tried to soothe her, but she seemed
quite unreasonably disturbed. Nothing would satisfy her save that all
relations between them should end. He was to go away at once. And he went.
As he dropped out at the window, she kissed his forehead twice, and he
walked away wondering.

A week, and then three weeks, passed without a sign from Bisesa.

Trejago, thinking that the rupture had lasted quite long enough, went down
to Amir Nath’s Gully for the fifth time in the three weeks, hoping that
his rap at the sill of the shifting grating would be answered. He was not
disappointed.

There was a young moon, and one stream of light fell down into Amir Nath’s
Gully, and struck the grating, which was drawn away as he knocked. From
the black dark, Bisesa held out her arms into the moonlight. Both hands
had been cut off at the wrists, and the stumps were nearly healed.

Then, as Bisesa bowed her head between her arms and sobbed, some one in
the room grunted like a wild beast, and something sharp—knife, sword
or spear—thrust at Trejago in his boorka. The stroke missed his
body, but cut into one of the muscles of the groin, and he limped slightly
from the wound for the rest of his days.

The grating went into its place. There was no sign whatever from inside
the house—nothing but the moonlight strip on the high wall, and the
blackness of Amir Nath’s Gully behind.

The next thing Trejago remembers, after raging and shouting like a madman
between those pitiless walls, is that he found himself near the river as
the dawn was breaking, threw away his boorka and went home bareheaded.

What the tragedy was—whether Bisesa had, in a fit of causeless
despair, told everything, or the intrigue had been discovered and she
tortured to tell, whether Durga Charan knew his name, and what became of
Bisesa—Trejago does not know to this day. Something horrible had
happened, and the thought of what it must have been comes upon Trejago in
the night now and again, and keeps him company till the morning. One
special feature of the case is that he does not know where lies the front
of Durga Charan’s house. It may open on to a courtyard common to two or
more houses, or it may lie behind any one of the gates of Jitha Megji’s
bustee. Trejago cannot tell.

He cannot get Bisesa—poor little Bisesa—back again. He has
lost her in the City, where each man’s house is as guarded and as
unknowable as the grave; and the grating that opens into Amir Nath’s Gully
has been walled up.

But Trejago pays his calls regularly, and is reckoned a very decent sort
of man.

There is nothing peculiar about him, except a slight stiffness, caused by
a riding-strain, in the right leg.

IN ERROR.

There is hope for a man who gets publicly and riotously drunk more often
that he ought to do; but there is no hope for the man who drinks secretly
and alone in his own house—the man who is never seen to drink.

This is a rule; so there must be an exception to prove it.

Moriarty’s case was that exception.

He was a Civil Engineer, and the Government, very kindly, put him quite by
himself in an out-district, with nobody but natives to talk to and a great
deal of work to do. He did his work well in the four years he was utterly
alone; but he picked up the vice of secret and solitary drinking, and came
up out of the wilderness more old and worn and haggard than the dead-alive
life had any right to make him.

You know the saying that a man who has been alone in the jungle for more
than a year is never quite sane all his life after. People credited
Moriarty’s queerness of manner and moody ways to the solitude, and said it
showed how Government spoilt the futures of its best men. Moriarty had
built himself the plinth of a very god reputation in the bridge-dam-girder
line. But he knew, every night of the week, that he was taking steps to
undermine that reputation with L. L. L. and “Christopher” and little nips
of liqueurs, and filth of that kind. He had a sound constitution and a
great brain, or else he would have broken down and died like a sick camel
in the district, as better men have done before him.

Government ordered him to Simla after he had come out of the desert; and
he went up meaning to try for a post then vacant. That season, Mrs. Reiver—perhaps
you will remember her—was in the height of her power, and many men
lay under her yoke. Everything bad that could be said has already been
said about Mrs. Reiver, in another tale.

Moriarty was heavily-built and handsome, very quiet and nervously anxious
to please his neighbors when he wasn’t sunk in a brown study. He started a
good deal at sudden noises or if spoken to without warning; and, when you
watched him drinking his glass of water at dinner, you could see the hand
shake a little. But all this was put down to nervousness, and the quiet,
steady, “sip-sip-sip, fill and sip-sip-sip, again,” that went on in his
own room when he was by himself, was never known. Which was miraculous,
seeing how everything in a man’s private life is public property out here.

Moriarty was drawn, not into Mrs. Reiver’s set, because they were not his
sort, but into the power of Mrs. Reiver, and he fell down in front of her
and made a goddess of her. This was due to his coming fresh out of the
jungle to a big town. He could not scale things properly or see who was
what.

Because Mrs. Reiver was cold and hard, he said she was stately and
dignified. Because she had no brains, and could not talk cleverly, he said
she was reserved and shy. Mrs. Reiver shy! Because she was unworthy of
honor or reverence from any one, he reverenced her from a distance and
dowered her with all the virtues in the Bible and most of those in
Shakespeare.

This big, dark, abstracted man who was so nervous when a pony cantered
behind him, used to moon in the train of Mrs. Reiver, blushing with
pleasure when she threw a word or two his way. His admiration was strictly
platonic: even other women saw and admitted this. He did not move out in
Simla, so he heard nothing against his idol: which was satisfactory. Mrs.
Reiver took no special notice of him, beyond seeing that he was added to
her list of admirers, and going for a walk with him now and then, just to
show that he was her property, claimable as such. Moriarty must have done
most of the talking, for Mrs. Reiver couldn’t talk much to a man of his
stamp; and the little she said could not have been profitable. What
Moriarty believed in, as he had good reason to, was Mrs. Reiver’s
influence over him, and, in that belief, set himself seriously to try to
do away with the vice that only he himself knew of.

His experiences while he was fighting with it must have been peculiar, but
he never described them. Sometimes he would hold off from everything
except water for a week. Then, on a rainy night, when no one had asked him
out to dinner, and there was a big fire in his room, and everything
comfortable, he would sit down and make a big night of it by adding little
nip to little nip, planning big schemes of reformation meanwhile, until he
threw himself on his bed hopelessly drunk. He suffered next morning.

One night, the big crash came. He was troubled in his own mind over his
attempts to make himself “worthy of the friendship” of Mrs. Reiver. The
past ten days had been very bad ones, and the end of it all was that he
received the arrears of two and three-quarter years of sipping in one
attack of delirium tremens of the subdued kind; beginning with suicidal
depression, going on to fits and starts and hysteria, and ending with
downright raving. As he sat in a chair in front of the fire, or walked up
and down the room picking a handkerchief to pieces, you heard what poor
Moriarty really thought of Mrs. Reiver, for he raved about her and his own
fall for the most part; though he ravelled some P. W. D. accounts into the
same skein of thought. He talked, and talked, and talked in a low dry
whisper to himself, and there was no stopping him. He seemed to know that
there was something wrong, and twice tried to pull himself together and
confer rationally with the Doctor; but his mind ran out of control at
once, and he fell back to a whisper and the story of his troubles. It is
terrible to hear a big man babbling like a child of all that a man usually
locks up, and puts away in the deep of his heart. Moriarty read out his
very soul for the benefit of any one who was in the room between
ten-thirty that night and two-forty-five next morning.

From what he said, one gathered how immense an influence Mrs. Reiver held
over him, and how thoroughly he felt for his own lapse. His whisperings
cannot, of course, be put down here; but they were very instructive as
showing the errors of his estimates……….

When the trouble was over, and his few acquaintances were pitying him for
the bad attack of jungle-fever that had so pulled him down, Moriarty swore
a big oath to himself and went abroad again with Mrs. Reiver till the end
of the season, adoring her in a quiet and deferential way as an angel from
heaven. Later on he took to riding—not hacking, but honest riding—which
was good proof that he was improving, and you could slam doors behind him
without his jumping to his feet with a gasp. That, again, was hopeful.

How he kept his oath, and what it cost him in the beginning, nobody knows.
He certainly managed to compass the hardest thing that a man who has drank
heavily can do. He took his peg and wine at dinner, but he never drank
alone, and never let what he drank have the least hold on him.

Once he told a bosom-friend the story of his great trouble, and how the
“influence of a pure honest woman, and an angel as well” had saved him.
When the man—startled at anything good being laid to Mrs. Reiver’s
door—laughed, it cost him Moriarty’s friendship.

Moriarty, who is married now to a woman ten thousand times better than
Mrs. Reiver—a woman who believes that there is no man on earth as
good and clever as her husband—will go down to his grave vowing and
protesting that Mrs. Reiver saved him from ruin in both worlds.

That she knew anything of Moriarty’s weakness nobody believed for a
moment. That she would have cut him dead, thrown him over, and acquainted
all her friends with her discovery, if she had known of it, nobody who
knew her doubted for an instant.

oriarty thought her something she never was, and in that belief saved
himself. Which was just as good as though she had been everything that he
had imagined.

But the question is, what claim will Mrs. Reiver have to the credit of
Moriarty’s salvation, when her day of reckoning comes?

A BANK FRAUD.

If Reggie Burke were in India now, he would resent this tale being told;
but as he is in Hong-Kong and won’t see it, the telling is safe. He was
the man who worked the big fraud on the Sind and Sialkote Bank. He was
manager of an up-country Branch, and a sound practical man with a large
experience of native loan and insurance work. He could combine the
frivolities of ordinary life with his work, and yet do well. Reggie Burke
rode anything that would let him get up, danced as neatly as he rode, and
was wanted for every sort of amusement in the Station.

As he said himself, and as many men found out rather to their surprise,
there were two Burkes, both very much at your service.

“Reggie Burke,” between four and ten, ready for anything from a
hot-weather gymkhana to a riding-picnic; and, between ten and four, “Mr.
Reginald Burke, Manager of the Sind and Sialkote Branch Bank.” You might
play polo with him one afternoon and hear him express his opinions when a
man crossed; and you might call on him next morning to raise a
two-thousand rupee loan on a five hundred pound insurance-policy, eighty
pounds paid in premiums. He would recognize you, but you would have some
trouble in recognizing him.

The Directors of the Bank—it had its headquarters in Calcutta and
its General Manager’s word carried weight with the Government—picked
their men well. They had tested Reggie up to a fairly severe
breaking-strain. They trusted him just as much as Directors ever trust
Managers. You must see for yourself whether their trust was misplaced.

Reggie’s Branch was in a big Station, and worked with the usual staff—one
Manager, one Accountant, both English, a Cashier, and a horde of native
clerks; besides the Police patrol at nights outside.

The bulk of its work, for it was in a thriving district, was hoondi and
accommodation of all kinds. A fool has no grip of this sort of business;
and a clever man who does not go about among his clients, and know more
than a little of their affairs, is worse than a fool.

Reggie was young-looking, clean-shaved, with a twinkle in his eye, and a
head that nothing short of a gallon of the Gunners’ Madeira could make any
impression on.

One day, at a big dinner, he announced casually that the Directors had
shifted on to him a Natural Curiosity, from England, in the Accountant
line. He was perfectly correct. Mr. Silas Riley, Accountant, was a MOST
curious animal—a long, gawky, rawboned Yorkshireman, full of the
savage self-conceit that blossoms only in the best county in England.
Arrogance was a mild word for the mental attitude of Mr. S. Riley. He had
worked himself up, after seven years, to a Cashier’s position in a
Huddersfield Bank; and all his experience lay among the factories of the
North. Perhaps he would have done better on the Bombay side, where they
are happy with one-half per cent. profits, and money is cheap. He was
useless for Upper India and a wheat Province, where a man wants a large
head and a touch of imagination if he is to turn out a satisfactory
balance-sheet.

He was wonderfully narrow-minded in business, and, being new to the
country, had no notion that Indian banking is totally distinct from Home
work. Like most clever self-made men, he had much simplicity in his
nature; and, somehow or other, had construed the ordinarily polite terms
of his letter of engagement into a belief that the Directors had chosen
him on account of his special and brilliant talents, and that they set
great store by him. This notion grew and crystallized; thus adding to his
natural North-country conceit.

Further, he was delicate, suffered from some trouble in his chest, and was
short in his temper.

You will admit that Reggie had reason to call his new Accountant a Natural
Curiosity. The two men failed to hit it off at all. Riley considered
Reggie a wild, feather-headed idiot, given to Heaven only knew what
dissipation in low places called “Messes,” and totally unfit for the
serious and solemn vocation of banking. He could never get over Reggie’s
look of youth and “you-be-damned” air; and he couldn’t understand Reggie’s
friends—clean-built, careless men in the Army—who rode over to
big Sunday breakfasts at the Bank, and told sultry stories till Riley got
up and left the room. Riley was always showing Reggie how the business
ought to be conducted, and Reggie had more than once to remind him that
seven years’ limited experience between Huddersfield and Beverly did not
qualify a man to steer a big up-country business. Then Riley sulked and
referred to himself as a pillar of the Bank and a cherished friend of the
Directors, and Reggie tore his hair. If a man’s English subordinates fail
him in this country, he comes to a hard time indeed, for native help has
strict limitations. In the winter Riley went sick for weeks at a time with
his lung complaint, and this threw more work on Reggie. But he preferred
it to the everlasting friction when Riley was well.

One of the Travelling Inspectors of the Bank discovered these collapses
and reported them to the Directors. Now Riley had been foisted on the Bank
by an M. P., who wanted the support of Riley’s father, who, again, was
anxious to get his son out to a warmer climate because of those lungs. The
M. P. had an interest in the Bank; but one of the Directors wanted to
advance a nominee of his own; and, after Riley’s father had died, he made
the rest of the Board see that an Accountant who was sick for half the
year, had better give place to a healthy man. If Riley had known the real
story of his appointment, he might have behaved better; but knowing
nothing, his stretches of sickness alternated with restless, persistent,
meddling irritation of Reggie, and all the hundred ways in which conceit
in a subordinate situation can find play. Reggie used to call him striking
and hair-curling names behind his back as a relief to his own feelings;
but he never abused him to his face, because he said: “Riley is such a
frail beast that half of his loathsome conceit is due to pains in the
chest.”

Late one April, Riley went very sick indeed. The doctor punched him and
thumped him, and told him he would be better before long. Then the doctor
went to Reggie and said:—“Do you know how sick your Accountant is?”
“No!” said Reggie—“The worse the better, confound him! He’s a
clacking nuisance when he’s well. I’ll let you take away the Bank Safe if
you can drug him silent for this hot-weather.”

But the doctor did not laugh—“Man, I’m not joking,” he said. “I’ll
give him another three months in his bed and a week or so more to die in.
On my honor and reputation that’s all the grace he has in this world.
Consumption has hold of him to the marrow.”

Reggie’s face changed at once into the face of “Mr. Reginald Burke,” and
he answered:—“What can I do?”

“Nothing,” said the doctor. “For all practical purposes the man is dead
already. Keep him quiet and cheerful and tell him he’s going to recover.
That’s all. I’ll look after him to the end, of course.”

The doctor went away, and Reggie sat down to open the evening mail.

His first letter was one from the Directors, intimating for his
information that Mr. Riley was to resign, under a month’s notice, by the
terms of his agreement, telling Reggie that their letter to Riley would
follow and advising Reggie of the coming of a new Accountant, a man whom
Reggie knew and liked.

Reggie lit a cheroot, and, before he had finished smoking, he had sketched
the outline of a fraud. He put away—“burked”—the Directors
letter, and went in to talk to Riley, who was as ungracious as usual, and
fretting himself over the way the bank would run during his illness. He
never thought of the extra work on Reggie’s shoulders, but solely of the
damage to his own prospects of advancement. Then Reggie assured him that
everything would be well, and that he, Reggie, would confer with Riley
daily on the management of the Bank. Riley was a little soothed, but he
hinted in as many words that he did not think much of Reggie’s business
capacity.

Reggie was humble. And he had letters in his desk from the Directors that
a Gilbarte or a Hardie might have been proud of!

The days passed in the big darkened house, and the Directors’ letter of
dismissal to Riley came and was put away by Reggie, who, every evening,
brought the books to Riley’s room, and showed him what had been going
forward, while Riley snarled. Reggie did his best to make statements
pleasing to Riley, but the Accountant was sure that the Bank was going to
rack and ruin without him. In June, as the lying in bed told on his
spirit, he asked whether his absence had been noted by the Directors, and
Reggie said that they had written most sympathetic letters, hoping that he
would be able to resume his valuable services before long. He showed Riley
the letters: and Riley said that the Directors ought to have written to
him direct.

A few days later, Reggie opened Riley’s mail in the half-light of the
room, and gave him the sheet—not the envelope—of a letter to
Riley from the Directors. Riley said he would thank Reggie not to
interfere with his private papers, specially as Reggie knew he was too
weak to open his own letters. Reggie apologized.

Then Riley’s mood changed, and he lectured Reggie on his evil ways: his
horses and his bad friends. “Of course, lying here on my back, Mr. Burke,
I can’t keep you straight; but when I’m well, I DO hope you’ll pay some
heed to my words.” Reggie, who had dropped polo, and dinners, and tennis,
and all to attend to Riley, said that he was penitent and settled Riley’s
head on the pillow and heard him fret and contradict in hard, dry, hacking
whispers, without a sign of impatience. This at the end of a heavy day’s
office work, doing double duty, in the latter half of June.

When the new Accountant came, Reggie told him the facts of the case, and
announced to Riley that he had a guest staying with him. Riley said that
he might have had more consideration than to entertain his “doubtful
friends” at such a time. Reggie made Carron, the new Accountant, sleep at
the Club in consequence. Carron’s arrival took some of the heavy work off
his shoulders, and he had time to attend to Riley’s exactions—to
explain, soothe, invent, and settle and resettle the poor wretch in bed,
and to forge complimentary letters from Calcutta. At the end of the first
month, Riley wished to send some money home to his mother. Reggie sent the
draft. At the end of the second month, Riley’s salary came in just the
same. Reggie paid it out of his own pocket; and, with it, wrote Riley a
beautiful letter from the Directors.

Riley was very ill indeed, but the flame of his life burnt unsteadily. Now
and then he would be cheerful and confident about the future, sketching
plans for going Home and seeing his mother.

Reggie listened patiently when the office work was over, and encouraged
him.

At other times Riley insisted on Reggie’s reading the Bible and grim
“Methody” tracts to him. Out of these tracts he pointed morals directed at
his Manager. But he always found time to worry Reggie about the working of
the Bank, and to show him where the weak points lay.

This in-door, sick-room life and constant strains wore Reggie down a good
deal, and shook his nerves, and lowered his billiard-play by forty points.
But the business of the Bank, and the business of the sick-room, had to go
on, though the glass was 116 degrees in the shade.

At the end of the third month, Riley was sinking fast, and had begun to
realize that he was very sick. But the conceit that made him worry Reggie,
kept him from believing the worst. “He wants some sort of mental stimulant
if he is to drag on,” said the doctor.

“Keep him interested in life if you care about his living.” So Riley,
contrary to all the laws of business and the finance, received a
25-per-cent, rise of salary from the Directors. The “mental stimulant”
succeeded beautifully. Riley was happy and cheerful, and, as is often the
case in consumption, healthiest in mind when the body was weakest. He
lingered for a full month, snarling and fretting about the Bank, talking
of the future, hearing the Bible read, lecturing Reggie on sin, and
wondering when he would be able to move abroad.

But at the end of September, one mercilessly hot evening, he rose up in
his bed with a little gasp, and said quickly to Reggie:—“Mr. Burke,
I am going to die. I know it in myself. My chest is all hollow inside, and
there’s nothing to breathe with. To the best of my knowledge I have done
nowt”—he was returning to the talk of his boyhood—“to lie
heavy on my conscience. God be thanked, I have been preserved from the
grosser forms of sin; and I counsel YOU, Mr. Burke….”

Here his voice died down, and Reggie stooped over him.

“Send my salary for September to my mother…. done great things with the
Bank if I had been spared…. mistaken policy…. no fault of mine.”

Then he turned his face to the wall and died.

Reggie drew the sheet over Its face, and went out into the verandah, with
his last “mental stimulant”—a letter of condolence and sympathy from
the Directors—unused in his pocket.

“If I’d been only ten minutes earlier,” thought Reggie, “I might have
heartened him up to pull through another day.”

TODS’ AMENDMENT.

Now Tods’ Mamma was a singularly charming woman, and every one in Simla
knew Tods. Most men had saved him from death on occasions.

He was beyond his ayah’s control altogether, and perilled his life daily
to find out what would happen if you pulled a Mountain Battery mule’s
tail. He was an utterly fearless young Pagan, about six years old, and the
only baby who ever broke the holy calm of the supreme Legislative Council.

It happened this way: Tods’ pet kid got loose, and fled up the hill, off
the Boileaugunge Road, Tods after it, until it burst into the Viceregal
Lodge lawn, then attached to “Peterhoff.” The Council were sitting at the
time, and the windows were open because it was warm. The Red Lancer in the
porch told Tods to go away; but Tods knew the Red Lancer and most of the
Members of Council personally.

Moreover, he had firm hold of the kid’s collar, and was being dragged all
across the flower-beds. “Give my salaam to the long Councillor Sahib, and
ask him to help me take Moti back!” gasped Tods. The Council heard the
noise through the open windows; and, after an interval, was seen the
shocking spectacle of a Legal Member and a Lieutenant-Governor helping,
under the direct patronage of a Commander-in-Chief and a Viceroy, one
small and very dirty boy in a sailor’s suit and a tangle of brown hair, to
coerce a lively and rebellious kid. They headed it off down the path to
the Mall, and Tods went home in triumph and told his Mamma that ALL the
Councillor Sahibs had been helping him to catch Moti. Whereat his Mamma
smacked Tods for interfering with the administration of the Empire; but
Tods met the Legal Member the next day, and told him in confidence that if
the Legal Member ever wanted to catch a goat, he, Tods, would give him all
the help in his power. “Thank you, Tods,” said the Legal Member.

Tods was the idol of some eighty jhampanis, and half as many saises.

He saluted them all as “O Brother.” It never entered his head that any
living human being could disobey his orders; and he was the buffer between
the servants and his Mamma’s wrath. The working of that household turned
on Tods, who was adored by every one from the dhoby to the dog-boy. Even
Futteh Khan, the villainous loafer khit from Mussoorie, shirked risking
Tods’ displeasure for fear his co-mates should look down on him.

So Tods had honor in the land from Boileaugunge to Chota Simla, and ruled
justly according to his lights. Of course, he spoke Urdu, but he had also
mastered many queer side-speeches like the chotee bolee of the women, and
held grave converse with shopkeepers and Hill-coolies alike. He was
precocious for his age, and his mixing with natives had taught him some of
the more bitter truths of life; the meanness and the sordidness of it. He
used, over his bread and milk, to deliver solemn and serious aphorisms,
translated from the vernacular into the English, that made his Mamma jump
and vow that Tods MUST go home next hot weather.

Just when Tods was in the bloom of his power, the Supreme Legislature were
hacking out a Bill, for the Sub-Montane Tracts, a revision of the then
Act, smaller than the Punjab Land Bill, but affecting a few hundred
thousand people none the less. The Legal Member had built, and bolstered,
and embroidered, and amended that Bill, till it looked beautiful on paper.
Then the Council began to settle what they called the “minor details.” As
if any Englishman legislating for natives knows enough to know which are
the minor and which are the major points, from the native point of view,
of any measure! That Bill was a triumph of “safe-guarding the interests of
the tenant.” One clause provided that land should not be leased on longer
terms than five years at a stretch; because, if the landlord had a tenant
bound down for, say, twenty years, he would squeeze the very life out of
him. The notion was to keep up a stream of independent cultivators in the
Sub-Montane Tracts; and ethnologically and politically the notion was
correct. The only drawback was that it was altogether wrong. A native’s
life in India implies the life of his son. Wherefore, you cannot legislate
for one generation at a time. You must consider the next from the native
point of view. Curiously enough, the native now and then, and in Northern
India more particularly, hates being over-protected against himself. There
was a Naga village once, where they lived on dead AND buried Commissariat
mules…. But that is another story.

For many reasons, to be explained later, the people concerned objected to
the Bill. The Native Member in Council knew as much about Punjabis as he
knew about Charing Cross. He had said in Calcutta that “the Bill was
entirely in accord with the desires of that large and important class, the
cultivators;” and so on, and so on. The Legal Member’s knowledge of
natives was limited to English-speaking Durbaris, and his own red
chaprassis, the Sub-Montane Tracts concerned no one in particular, the
Deputy Commissioners were a good deal too driven to make representations,
and the measure was one which dealt with small landholders only.
Nevertheless, the Legal Member prayed that it might be correct, for he was
a nervously conscientious man. He did not know that no man can tell what
natives think unless he mixes with them with the varnish off. And not
always then. But he did the best he knew. And the measure came up to the
Supreme Council for the final touches, while Tods patrolled the Burra
Simla Bazar in his morning rides, and played with the monkey belonging to
Ditta Mull, the bunnia, and listened, as a child listens to all the stray
talk about this new freak of the Lat Sahib’s.

One day there was a dinner-party, at the house of Tods’ Mamma, and the
Legal Member came. Tods was in bed, but he kept awake till he heard the
bursts of laughter from the men over the coffee. Then he paddled out in
his little red flannel dressing-gown and his night-suit, and took refuge
by the side of his father, knowing that he would not be sent back. “See
the miseries of having a family!” said Tods’ father, giving Tods three
prunes, some water in a glass that had been used for claret, and telling
him to sit still. Tods sucked the prunes slowly, knowing that he would
have to go when they were finished, and sipped the pink water like a man
of the world, as he listened to the conversation. Presently, the Legal
Member, talking “shop,” to the Head of a Department, mentioned his Bill by
its full name—“The Sub-Montane Tracts Ryotwari Revised Enactment.”
Tods caught the one native word, and lifting up his small voice said:—“Oh,
I know ALL about that! Has it been murramutted yet, Councillor Sahib?”

“How much?” said the Legal Member.

“Murramutted—mended.—Put theek, you know—made nice to
please Ditta Mull!”

The Legal Member left his place and moved up next to Tods.

“What do you know about Ryotwari, little man?” he said.

“I’m not a little man, I’m Tods, and I know ALL about it. Ditta Mull, and
Choga Lall, and Amir Nath, and—oh, lakhs of my friends tell me about
it in the bazars when I talk to them.”

“Oh, they do—do they? What do they say, Tods?”

Tods tucked his feet under his red flannel dressing-gown and said:—“I
must fink.”

The Legal Member waited patiently. Then Tods, with infinite compassion:

“You don’t speak my talk, do you, Councillor Sahib?”

“No; I am sorry to say I do not,” said the Legal’ Member.

“Very well,” said Tods. “I must fink in English.”

He spent a minute putting his ideas in order, and began very slowly,
translating in his mind from the vernacular to English, as many
Anglo-Indian children do. You must remember that the Legal Member helped
him on by questions when he halted, for Tods was not equal to the
sustained flight of oratory that follows.

“Ditta Mull says:—’This thing is the talk of a child, and was made
up by fools.’ But I don’t think you are a fool, Councillor Sahib,” said
Tods, hastily. “You caught my goat. This is what Ditta Mull says:—’I
am not a fool, and why should the Sirkar say I am a child? I can see if
the land is good and if the landlord is good. If I am a fool, the sin is
upon my own head. For five years I take my ground for which I have saved
money, and a wife I take too, and a little son is born.’ Ditta Mull has
one daughter now, but he SAYS he will have a son, soon. And he says: ‘At
the end of five years, by this new bundobust, I must go. If I do not go, I
must get fresh seals and takkus-stamps on the papers, perhaps in the
middle of the harvest, and to go to the law-courts once is wisdom, but to
go twice is Jehannum.’ That is QUITE true,” explained Tods, gravely. “All
my friends say so. And Ditta Mull says:—’Always fresh takkus and
paying money to vakils and chaprassis and law-courts every five years or
else the landlord makes me go. Why do I want to go? Am I fool? If I am a
fool and do not know, after forty years, good land when I see it, let me
die! But if the new bundobust says for FIFTEEN years, then it is good and
wise. My little son is a man, and I am burnt, and he takes the ground or
another ground, paying only once for the takkus-stamps on the papers, and
his little son is born, and at the end of fifteen years is a man too. But
what profit is there in five years and fresh papers? Nothing but dikh,
trouble, dikh. We are not young men who take these lands, but old ones—not
jais, but tradesmen with a little money—and for fifteen years we
shall have peace. Nor are we children that the Sirkar should treat us so.”

Here Tods stopped short, for the whole table were listening. The Legal
Member said to Tods: “Is that all?”

“All I can remember,” said Tods. “But you should see Ditta Mull’s big
monkey. It’s just like a Councillor Sahib.”

“Tods! Go to bed,” said his father.

Tods gathered up his dressing-gown tail and departed.

The Legal Member brought his hand down on the table with a crash—“By
Jove!” said the Legal Member, “I believe the boy is right. The short
tenure IS the weak point.”

He left early, thinking over what Tods had said. Now, it was obviously
impossible for the Legal Member to play with a bunnia’s monkey, by way of
getting understanding; but he did better. He made inquiries, always
bearing in mind the fact that the real native—not the hybrid,
University-trained mule—is as timid as a colt, and, little by
little, he coaxed some of the men whom the measure concerned most
intimately to give in their views, which squared very closely with Tods’
evidence.

So the Bill was amended in that clause; and the Legal Member was filled
with an uneasy suspicion that Native Members represent very little except
the Orders they carry on their bosoms. But he put the thought from him as
illiberal. He was a most Liberal Man.

After a time the news spread through the bazars that Tods had got the Bill
recast in the tenure clause, and if Tods’ Mamma had not interfered, Tods
would have made himself sick on the baskets of fruit and pistachio nuts
and Cabuli grapes and almonds that crowded the verandah. Till he went
Home, Tods ranked some few degrees before the Viceroy in popular
estimation. But for the little life of him Tods could not understand why.

In the Legal Member’s private-paper-box still lies the rough draft of the
Sub-Montane Tracts Ryotwari Revised Enactment; and, opposite the
twenty-second clause, pencilled in blue chalk, and signed by the Legal
Member, are the words “Tods’ Amendment.”

IN THE PRIDE OF HIS YOUTH.

When I was telling you of the joke that The Worm played off on the Senior
Subaltern, I promised a somewhat similar tale, but with all the jest left
out. This is that tale:

Dicky Hatt was kidnapped in his early, early youth—neither by
landlady’s daughter, housemaid, barmaid, nor cook, but by a girl so nearly
of his own caste that only a woman could have said she was just the least
little bit in the world below it. This happened a month before he came out
to India, and five days after his one-and-twentieth birthday. The girl was
nineteen—six years older than Dicky in the things of this world,
that is to say—and, for the time, twice as foolish as he.

Excepting, always, falling off a horse there is nothing more fatally easy
than marriage before the Registrar. The ceremony costs less than fifty
shillings, and is remarkably like walking into a pawn-shop. After the
declarations of residence have been put in, four minutes will cover the
rest of the proceedings—fees, attestation, and all. Then the
Registrar slides the blotting-pad over the names, and says grimly, with
his pen between his teeth:—“Now you’re man and wife;” and the couple
walk out into the street, feeling as if something were horribly illegal
somewhere.

But that ceremony holds and can drag a man to his undoing just as
thoroughly as the “long as ye both shall live” curse from the altar-rails,
with the bridesmaids giggling behind, and “The Voice that breathed o’er
Eden” lifting the roof off. In this manner was Dicky Hatt kidnapped, and
he considered it vastly fine, for he had received an appointment in India
which carried a magnificent salary from the Home point of view. The
marriage was to be kept secret for a year. Then Mrs. Dicky Hatt was to
come out and the rest of life was to be a glorious golden mist. That was
how they sketched it under the Addison Road Station lamps; and, after one
short month, came Gravesend and Dicky steaming out to his new life, and
the girl crying in a thirty-shillings a week bed-and-living room, in a
back street off Montpelier Square near the Knightsbridge Barracks.

But the country that Dicky came to was a hard land, where “men” of
twenty-one were reckoned very small boys indeed, and life was expensive.
The salary that loomed so large six thousand miles away did not go far.
Particularly when Dicky divided it by two, and remitted more than the fair
half, at 1-6, to Montpelier Square. One hundred and thirty-five rupees out
of three hundred and thirty is not much to live on; but it was absurd to
suppose that Mrs. Hatt could exist forever on the 20 pounds held back by
Dicky, from his outfit allowance. Dicky saw this, and remitted at once;
always remembering that Rs. 700 were to be paid, twelve months later, for
a first-class passage out for a lady. When you add to these trifling
details the natural instincts of a boy beginning a new life in a new
country and longing to go about and enjoy himself, and the necessity for
grappling with strange work—which, properly speaking, should take up
a boy’s undivided attention—you will see that Dicky started
handicapped. He saw it himself for a breath or two; but he did not guess
the full beauty of his future.

As the hot weather began, the shackles settled on him and ate into his
flesh. First would come letters—big, crossed, seven sheet letters—from
his wife, telling him how she longed to see him, and what a Heaven upon
earth would be their property when they met.

Then some boy of the chummery wherein Dicky lodged would pound on the door
of his bare little room, and tell him to come out and look at a pony—the
very thing to suit him. Dicky could not afford ponies. He had to explain
this. Dicky could not afford living in the chummery, modest as it was. He
had to explain this before he moved to a single room next the office where
he worked all day. He kept house on a green oil-cloth table-cover, one
chair, one charpoy, one photograph, one tooth-glass, very strong and
thick, a seven-rupee eight-anna filter, and messing by contract at
thirty-seven rupees a month. Which last item was extortion. He had no
punkah, for a punkah costs fifteen rupees a month; but he slept on the
roof of the office with all his wife’s letters under his pillow. Now and
again he was asked out to dinner where he got both a punkah and an iced
drink. But this was seldom, for people objected to recognizing a boy who
had evidently the instincts of a Scotch tallow-chandler, and who lived in
such a nasty fashion. Dicky could not subscribe to any amusement, so he
found no amusement except the pleasure of turning over his Bank-book and
reading what it said about “loans on approved security.” That cost
nothing. He remitted through a Bombay Bank, by the way, and the Station
knew nothing of his private affairs.

Every month he sent Home all he could possibly spare for his wife—and
for another reason which was expected to explain itself shortly and would
require more money.

About this time, Dicky was overtaken with the nervous, haunting fear that
besets married men when they are out of sorts. He had no pension to look
to. What if he should die suddenly, and leave his wife unprovided for? The
thought used to lay hold of him in the still, hot nights on the roof, till
the shaking of his heart made him think that he was going to die then and
there of heart-disease.

Now this is a frame of mind which no boy has a right to know. It is a
strong man’s trouble; but, coming when it did, it nearly drove poor
punkah-less, perspiring Dicky Hatt mad. He could tell no one about it.

A certain amount of “screw” is as necessary for a man as for a
billiard-ball. It makes them both do wonderful things. Dicky needed money
badly, and he worked for it like a horse. But, naturally, the men who
owned him knew that a boy can live very comfortably on a certain income—pay
in India is a matter of age, not merit, you see, and if their particular
boy wished to work like two boys, Business forbid that they should stop
him! But Business forbid that they should give him an increase of pay at
his present ridiculously immature age! So Dicky won certain rises of
salary—ample for a boy—not enough for a wife and child—certainly
too little for the seven-hundred-rupee passage that he and Mrs. Hatt had
discussed so lightly once upon a time. And with this he was forced to be
content.

Somehow, all his money seemed to fade away in Home drafts and the crushing
Exchange, and the tone of the Home letters changed and grew querulous.
“Why wouldn’t Dicky have his wife and the baby out? Surely he had a salary—a
fine salary—and it was too bad of him to enjoy himself in India. But
would he—could he—make the next draft a little more elastic?”
Here followed a list of baby’s kit, as long as a Parsee’s bill. Then
Dicky, whose heart yearned to his wife and the little son he had never
seen—which, again, is a feeling no boy is entitled to—enlarged
the draft and wrote queer half-boy, half-man letters, saying that life was
not so enjoyable after all and would the little wife wait yet a little
longer? But the little wife, however much she approved of money, objected
to waiting, and there was a strange, hard sort of ring in her letters that
Dicky didn’t understand. How could he, poor boy?

Later on still—just as Dicky had been told—apropos of another
youngster who had “made a fool of himself,” as the saying is—that
matrimony would not only ruin his further chances of advancement, but
would lose him his present appointment—came the news that the baby,
his own little, little son, had died, and, behind this, forty lines of an
angry woman’s scrawl, saying that death might have been averted if certain
things, all costing money, had been done, or if the mother and the baby
had been with Dicky. The letter struck at Dicky’s naked heart; but, not
being officially entitled to a baby, he could show no sign of trouble.

How Dicky won through the next four months, and what hope he kept alight
to force him into his work, no one dare say. He pounded on, the
seven-hundred-rupee passage as far away as ever, and his style of living
unchanged, except when he launched into a new filter.

There was the strain of his office-work, and the strain of his
remittances, and the knowledge of his boy’s death, which touched the boy
more, perhaps, than it would have touched a man; and, beyond all, the
enduring strain of his daily life. Gray-headed seniors, who approved of
his thrift and his fashion of denying himself everything pleasant,
reminded him of the old saw that says:

And Dicky, who fancied he had been through every trouble that a man is
permitted to know, had to laugh and agree; with the last line of his
balanced Bank-book jingling in his head day and night.

But he had one more sorrow to digest before the end. There arrived a
letter from the little wife—the natural sequence of the others if
Dicky had only known it—and the burden of that letter was “gone with
a handsomer man than you.” It was a rather curious production, without
stops, something like this:—“She was not going to wait forever and
the baby was dead and Dicky was only a boy and he would never set eyes on
her again and why hadn’t he waved his handkerchief to her when he left
Gravesend and God was her judge she was a wicked woman but Dicky was worse
enjoying himself in India and this other man loved the ground she trod on
and would Dicky ever forgive her for she would never forgive Dicky; and
there was no address to write to.”

Instead of thanking his lucky stars that he was free, Dicky discovered
exactly how an injured husband feels—again, not at all the knowledge
to which a boy is entitled—for his mind went back to his wife as he
remembered her in the thirty-shilling “suite” in Montpelier Square, when
the dawn of his last morning in England was breaking, and she was crying
in the bed. Whereat he rolled about on his bed and bit his fingers. He
never stopped to think whether, if he had met Mrs. Hatt after those two
years, he would have discovered that he and she had grown quite different
and new persons. This, theoretically, he ought to have done. He spent the
night after the English Mail came in rather severe pain.

Next morning, Dicky Hatt felt disinclined to work. He argued that he had
missed the pleasure of youth. He was tired, and he had tasted all the
sorrow in life before three-and-twenty. His Honor was gone—that was
the man; and now he, too, would go to the Devil—that was the boy in
him. So he put his head down on the green oil-cloth table-cover, and wept
before resigning his post, and all it offered.

But the reward of his services came. He was given three days to reconsider
himself, and the Head of the establishment, after some telegraphings, said
that it was a most unusual step, but, in view of the ability that Mr. Hatt
had displayed at such and such a time, at such and such junctures, he was
in a position to offer him an infinitely superior post—first on
probation, and later, in the natural course of things, on confirmation.
“And how much does the post carry?” said Dicky. “Six hundred and fifty
rupees,” said the Head slowly, expecting to see the young man sink with
gratitude and joy.

And it came then! The seven hundred rupee passage, and enough to have
saved the wife, and the little son, and to have allowed of assured and
open marriage, came then. Dicky burst into a roar of laughter—laughter
he could not check—nasty, jangling merriment that seemed as if it
would go on forever. When he had recovered himself he said, quite
seriously:—“I’m tired of work. I’m an old man now. It’s about time I
retired. And I will.”

“The boy’s mad!” said the Head.

I think he was right; but Dicky Hatt never reappeared to settle the
question.

PIG.

I believe the difference began in the matter of a horse, with a twist in
his temper, whom Pinecoffin sold to Nafferton and by whom Nafferton was
nearly slain. There may have been other causes of offence; the horse was
the official stalking-horse. Nafferton was very angry; but Pinecoffin
laughed and said that he had never guaranteed the beast’s manners.
Nafferton laughed, too, though he vowed that he would write off his fall
against Pinecoffin if he waited five years. Now, a Dalesman from beyond
Skipton will forgive an injury when the Strid lets a man live; but a South
Devon man is as soft as a Dartmoor bog. You can see from their names that
Nafferton had the race-advantage of Pinecoffin. He was a peculiar man, and
his notions of humor were cruel. He taught me a new and fascinating form
of shikar. He hounded Pinecoffin from Mithankot to Jagadri, and from
Gurgaon to Abbottabad up and across the Punjab, a large province and in
places remarkably dry. He said that he had no intention of allowing
Assistant Commissioners to “sell him pups,” in the shape of ramping,
screaming countrybreds, without making their lives a burden to them.

Most Assistant Commissioners develop a bent for some special work after
their first hot weather in the country. The boys with digestions hope to
write their names large on the Frontier and struggle for dreary places
like Bannu and Kohat. The bilious ones climb into the Secretariat. Which
is very bad for the liver.

Others are bitten with a mania for District work, Ghuznivide coins or
Persian poetry; while some, who come of farmers’ stock, find that the
smell of the Earth after the Rains gets into their blood, and calls them
to “develop the resources of the Province.” These men are enthusiasts.
Pinecoffin belonged to their class. He knew a great many facts bearing on
the cost of bullocks and temporary wells, and opium-scrapers, and what
happens if you burn too much rubbish on a field, in the hope of enriching
used-up soil. All the Pinecoffins come of a landholding breed, and so the
land only took back her own again. Unfortunately—most unfortunately
for Pinecoffin—he was a Civilian, as well as a farmer. Nafferton
watched him, and thought about the horse. Nafferton said:—“See me
chase that boy till he drops!” I said:—“You can’t get your knife
into an Assistant Commissioner.” Nafferton told me that I did not
understand the administration of the Province.

Our Government is rather peculiar. It gushes on the agricultural and
general information side, and will supply a moderately respectable man
with all sorts of “economic statistics,” if he speaks to it prettily. For
instance, you are interested in gold-washing in the sands of the Sutlej.
You pull the string, and find that it wakes up half a dozen Departments,
and finally communicates, say, with a friend of yours in the Telegraph,
who once wrote some notes on the customs of the gold-washers when he was
on construction-work in their part of the Empire. He may or may not be
pleased at being ordered to write out everything he knows for your
benefit. This depends on his temperament. The bigger man you are, the more
information and the greater trouble can you raise.

Nafferton was not a big man; but he had the reputation of being very
“earnest.” An “earnest” man can do much with a Government. There was an
earnest man who once nearly wrecked… but all India knows THAT story. I
am not sure what real “earnestness” is. A very fair imitation can be
manufactured by neglecting to dress decently, by mooning about in a
dreamy, misty sort of way, by taking office-work home after staying in
office till seven, and by receiving crowds of native gentlemen on Sundays.
That is one sort of “earnestness.”

Nafferton cast about for a peg whereon to hang his earnestness, and for a
string that would communicate with Pinecoffin. He found both.

They were Pig. Nafferton became an earnest inquirer after Pig. He informed
the Government that he had a scheme whereby a very large percentage of the
British Army in India could be fed, at a very large saving, on Pig. Then
he hinted that Pinecoffin might supply him with the “varied information
necessary to the proper inception of the scheme.” So the Government wrote
on the back of the letter:—“Instruct Mr. Pinecoffin to furnish Mr.
Nafferton with any information in his power.” Government is very prone to
writing things on the backs of letters which, later, lead to trouble and
confusion.

Nafferton had not the faintest interest in Pig, but he knew that
Pinecoffin would flounce into the trap. Pinecoffin was delighted at being
consulted about Pig. The Indian Pig is not exactly an important factor in
agricultural life; but Nafferton explained to Pinecoffin that there was
room for improvement, and corresponded direct with that young man.

You may think that there is not much to be evolved from Pig. It all
depends how you set to work. Pinecoffin being a Civilian and wishing to do
things thoroughly, began with an essay on the Primitive Pig, the Mythology
of the Pig, and the Dravidian Pig.

Nafferton filed that information—twenty-seven foolscap sheets—and
wanted to know about the distribution of the Pig in the Punjab, and how it
stood the Plains in the hot weather. From this point onwards, remember
that I am giving you only the barest outlines of the affair—the
guy-ropes, as it were, of the web that Nafferton spun round Pinecoffin.

Pinecoffin made a colored Pig-population map, and collected observations
on the comparative longevity of the Pig (a) in the sub-montane tracts of
the Himalayas, and (b) in the Rechna Doab.

Nafferton filed that, and asked what sort of people looked after Pig. This
started an ethnological excursus on swineherds, and drew from Pinecoffin
long tables showing the proportion per thousand of the caste in the
Derajat. Nafferton filed that bundle, and explained that the figures which
he wanted referred to the Cis-Sutlej states, where he understood that Pigs
were very fine and large, and where he proposed to start a Piggery. By
this time, Government had quite forgotten their instructions to Mr.
Pinecoffin.

They were like the gentlemen, in Keats’ poem, who turned well-oiled wheels
to skin other people. But Pinecoffin was just entering into the spirit of
the Pig-hunt, as Nafferton well knew he would do. He had a fair amount of
work of his own to clear away; but he sat up of nights reducing Pig to
five places of decimals for the honor of his Service. He was not going to
appear ignorant of so easy a subject as Pig.

Then Government sent him on special duty to Kohat, to “inquire into” the
big-seven-foot, iron-shod spades of that District. People had been killing
each other with those peaceful tools; and Government wished to know
“whether a modified form of agricultural implement could not, tentatively
and as a temporary measure, be introduced among the agricultural
population without needlessly or unduly exasperating the existing
religious sentiments of the peasantry.”

The side-issue was debated, at great length on Pinecoffin’s side, till
Nafferton owned that he had been in the wrong, and moved the previous
question. When Pinecoffin had quite written himself out about
flesh-formers, and fibrins, and glucose and the nitrogenous constituents
of maize and lucerne, Nafferton raised the question of expense. By this
time Pinecoffin, who had been transferred from Kohat, had developed a Pig
theory of his own, which he stated in thirty-three folio pages—all
carefully filed by Nafferton. Who asked for more.

These things took ten months, and Pinecoffin’s interest in the potential
Piggery seemed to die down after he had stated his own views. But
Nafferton bombarded him with letters on “the Imperial aspect of the
scheme, as tending to officialize the sale of pork, and thereby calculated
to give offence to the Mahomedan population of Upper India.” He guessed
that Pinecoffin would want some broad, free-hand work after his niggling,
stippling, decimal details.

Pinecoffin handled the latest development of the case in masterly style,
and proved that no “popular ebullition of excitement was to be
apprehended.” Nafferton said that there was nothing like Civilian insight
in matters of this kind, and lured him up a bye-path—“the possible
profits to accrue to the Government from the sale of hog-bristles.” There
is an extensive literature of hog-bristles, and the shoe, brush, and
colorman’s trades recognize more varieties of bristles than you would
think possible. After Pinecoffin had wondered a little at Nafferton’s rage
for information, he sent back a monograph, fifty-one pages, on “Products
of the Pig.” This led him, under Nafferton’s tender handling, straight to
the Cawnpore factories, the trade in hog-skin for saddles—and thence
to the tanners. Pinecoffin wrote that pomegranate-seed was the best cure
for hog-skin, and suggested—for the past fourteen months had wearied
him—that Nafferton should “raise his pigs before he tanned them.”

Nafferton went back to the second section of his fifth question.

How could the exotic Pig be brought to give as much pork as it did in the
West and yet “assume the essentially hirsute characteristics of its
oriental congener?” Pinecoffin felt dazed, for he had forgotten what he
had written sixteen month’s before, and fancied that he was about to
reopen the entire question. He was too far involved in the hideous tangle
to retreat, and, in a weak moment, he wrote:—“Consult my first
letter.” Which related to the Dravidian Pig. As a matter of fact,
Pinecoffin had still to reach the acclimatization stage; having gone off
on a side-issue on the merging of types.

THEN Nafferton really unmasked his batteries! He complained to the
Government, in stately language, of “the paucity of help accorded to me in
my earnest attempts to start a potentially remunerative industry, and the
flippancy with which my requests for information are treated by a
gentleman whose pseudo-scholarly attainments should at lest have taught
him the primary differences between the Dravidian and the Berkshire
variety of the genus Sus. If I am to understand that the letter to which
he refers me contains his serious views on the acclimatization of a
valuable, though possibly uncleanly, animal, I am reluctantly compelled to
believe,” etc., etc.

There was a new man at the head of the Department of Castigation.

The wretched Pinecoffin was told that the Service was made for the
Country, and not the Country for the Service, and that he had better begin
to supply information about Pigs.

Pinecoffin answered insanely that he had written everything that could be
written about Pig, and that some furlough was due to him.

Nafferton got a copy of that letter, and sent it, with the essay on the
Dravidian Pig, to a down-country paper, which printed both in full. The
essay was rather highflown; but if the Editor had seen the stacks of
paper, in Pinecoffin’s handwriting, on Nafferton’s table, he would not
have been so sarcastic about the “nebulous discursiveness and blatant
self-sufficiency of the modern Competition-wallah, and his utter inability
to grasp the practical issues of a practical question.” Many friends cut
out these remarks and sent them to Pinecoffin.

I have already stated that Pinecoffin came of a soft stock. This last
stroke frightened and shook him. He could not understand it; but he felt
he had been, somehow, shamelessly betrayed by Nafferton.

He realized that he had wrapped himself up in the Pigskin without need,
and that he could not well set himself right with his Government. All his
acquaintances asked after his “nebulous discursiveness” or his “blatant
self-sufficiency,” and this made him miserable.

He took a train and went to Nafferton, whom he had not seen since the Pig
business began. He also took the cutting from the paper, and blustered
feebly and called Nafferton names, and then died down to a watery, weak
protest of the “I-say-it’s-too-bad-you-know” order.

Nafferton was very sympathetic.

“I’m afraid I’ve given you a good deal of trouble, haven’t I?” said he.

“Trouble!” whimpered Pinecoffin; “I don’t mind the trouble so much, though
that was bad enough; but what I resent is this showing up in print. It
will stick to me like a burr all through my service. And I DID do my best
for your interminable swine. It’s too bad of you, on my soul it is!”

“I don’t know,” said Nafferton; “have you ever been stuck with a horse? It
isn’t the money I mind, though that is bad enough; but what I resent is
the chaff that follows, especially from the boy who stuck me. But I think
we’ll cry quite now.”

Pinecoffin found nothing to say save bad words; and Nafferton smiled ever
so sweetly, and asked him to dinner.

THE ROUT OF THE WHITE HUSSARS.

Some people hold that an English Cavalry regiment cannot run. This is a
mistake. I have seen four hundred and thirty-seven sabres flying over the
face of the country in abject terror—have seen the best Regiment
that ever drew bridle, wiped off the Army List for the space of two hours.
If you repeat this tale to the White Hussars they will, in all
probability, treat you severely. They are not proud of the incident.

You may know the White Hussars by their “side,” which is greater than that
of all the Cavalry Regiments on the roster. If this is not a sufficient
mark, you may know them by their old brandy. It has been sixty years in
the Mess and is worth going far to taste.

Ask for the “McGaire” old brandy, and see that you get it. If the Mess
Sergeant thinks that you are uneducated, and that the genuine article will
be lost on you, he will treat you accordingly. He is a good man. But, when
you are at Mess, you must never talk to your hosts about forced marches or
long-distance rides. The Mess are very sensitive; and, if they think that
you are laughing at them, will tell you so.

As the White Hussars say, it was all the Colonel’s fault. He was a new
man, and he ought never to have taken the Command. He said that the
Regiment was not smart enough. This to the White Hussars, who knew they
could walk round any Horse and through any Guns, and over any Foot on the
face of the earth! That insult was the first cause of offence.

Then the Colonel cast the Drum-Horse—the Drum-Horse of the White
Hussars! Perhaps you do not see what an unspeakable crime he had
committed. I will try to make it clear. The soul of the Regiment lives in
the Drum-Horse, who carries the silver kettle-drums. He is nearly always a
big piebald Waler. That is a point of honor; and a Regiment will spend
anything you please on a piebald. He is beyond the ordinary laws of
casting. His work is very light, and he only manoeuvres at a foot-pace.
Wherefore, so long as he can step out and look handsome, his well-being is
assured. He knows more about the Regiment than the Adjutant, and could not
make a mistake if he tried.

The Drum-Horse of the White Hussars was only eighteen years old, and
perfectly equal to his duties. He had at least six years’ more work in
him, and carried himself with all the pomp and dignity of a Drum-Major of
the Guards. The Regiment had paid Rs. 1,200 for him.

But the Colonel said that he must go, and he was cast in due form and
replaced by a washy, bay beast as ugly as a mule, with a ewe-neck,
rat-tail, and cow-hocks. The Drummer detested that animal, and the best of
the Band-horses put back their ears and showed the whites of their eyes at
the very sight of him. They knew him for an upstart and no gentleman. I
fancy that the Colonel’s ideas of smartness extended to the Band, and that
he wanted to make it take part in the regular parade movements. A Cavalry
Band is a sacred thing. It only turns out for Commanding Officers’
parades, and the Band Master is one degree more important than the
Colonel. He is a High Priest and the “Keel Row” is his holy song. The
“Keel Row” is the Cavalry Trot; and the man who has never heard that tune
rising, high and shrill, above the rattle of the Regiment going past the
saluting-base, has something yet to hear and understand.

When the Colonel cast the Drum-horse of the White Hussars, there was
nearly a mutiny.

The officers were angry, the Regiment were furious, and the Bandsman swore—like
troopers. The Drum-Horse was going to be put up to auction—public
auction—to be bought, perhaps, by a Parsee and put into a cart! It
was worse than exposing the inner life of the Regiment to the whole world,
or selling the Mess Plate to a Jew—a black Jew.

The Colonel was a mean man and a bully. He knew what the Regiment thought
about his action; and, when the troopers offered to buy the Drum-Horse, he
said that their offer was mutinous and forbidden by the Regulations.

But one of the Subalterns—Hogan-Yale, an Irishman—bought the
Drum-Horse for Rs. 160 at the sale; and the Colonel was wroth. Yale
professed repentance—he was unnaturally submissive—and said
that, as he had only made the purchase to save the horse from possible
ill-treatment and starvation, he would now shoot him and end the business.
This appeared to soothe the Colonel, for he wanted the Drum-Horse disposed
of. He felt that he had made a mistake, and could not of course
acknowledge it. Meantime, the presence of the Drum-Horse was an annoyance
to him.

Yale took to himself a glass of the old brandy, three cheroots, and his
friend, Martyn; and they all left the Mess together. Yale and Martyn
conferred for two hours in Yale’s quarters; but only the bull-terrier who
keeps watch over Yale’s boot-trees knows what they said. A horse, hooded
and sheeted to his ears, left Yale’s stables and was taken, very
unwillingly, into the Civil Lines. Yale’s groom went with him. Two men
broke into the Regimental Theatre and took several paint-pots and some
large scenery brushes. Then night fell over the Cantonments, and there was
a noise as of a horse kicking his loose-box to pieces in Yale’s stables.
Yale had a big, old, white Waler trap-horse.

The next day was a Thursday, and the men, hearing that Yale was going to
shoot the Drum-Horse in the evening, determined to give the beast a
regular regimental funeral—a finer one than they would have given
the Colonel had he died just then. They got a bullock-cart and some
sacking, and mounds and mounds of roses, and the body, under sacking, was
carried out to the place where the anthrax cases were cremated; two-thirds
of the Regiment followed. There was no Band, but they all sang “The Place
where the old Horse died” as something respectful and appropriate to the
occasion. When the corpse was dumped into the grave and the men began
throwing down armfuls of roses to cover it, the Farrier-Sergeant ripped
out an oath and said aloud:—“Why, it ain’t the Drum-Horse any more
than it’s me!” The Troop-Sergeant-Majors asked him whether he had left his
head in the Canteen. The Farrier-Sergeant said that he knew the
Drum-Horse’s feet as well as he knew his own; but he was silenced when he
saw the regimental number burnt in on the poor stiff, upturned near-fore.

Thus was the Drum-Horse of the White Hussars buried; the Farrier-Sergeant
grumbling. The sacking that covered the corpse was smeared in places with
black paint; and the Farrier-Sergeant drew attention to this fact. But the
Troop-Sergeant-Major of E Troop kicked him severely on the shin, and told
him that he was undoubtedly drunk.

On the Monday following the burial, the Colonel sought revenge on the
White Hussars. Unfortunately, being at that time temporarily in Command of
the Station, he ordered a Brigade field-day. He said that he wished to
make the regiment “sweat for their damned insolence,” and he carried out
his notion thoroughly. That Monday was one of the hardest days in the
memory of the White Hussars.

They were thrown against a skeleton-enemy, and pushed forward, and
withdrawn, and dismounted, and “scientifically handled” in every possible
fashion over dusty country, till they sweated profusely.

Their only amusement came late in the day, when they fell upon the battery
of Horse Artillery and chased it for two mile’s. This was a personal
question, and most of the troopers had money on the event; the Gunners
saying openly that they had the legs of the White Hussars. They were
wrong. A march-past concluded the campaign, and when the Regiment got back
to their Lines, the men were coated with dirt from spur to chin-strap.

The White Hussars have one great and peculiar privilege. They won it at
Fontenoy, I think.

Many Regiments possess special rights, such as wearing collars with
undress uniform, or a bow of ribbon between the shoulders, or red and
white roses in their helmets on certain days of the year. Some rights are
connected with regimental saints, and some with regimental successes. All
are valued highly; but none so highly as the right of the White Hussars to
have the Band playing when their horses are being watered in the Lines.
Only one tune is played, and that tune never varies. I don’t know its real
name, but the White Hussars call it:—“Take me to London again.” It
sounds very pretty. The Regiment would sooner be struck off the roster
than forego their distinction.

After the “dismiss” was sounded, the officers rode off home to prepare for
stables; and the men filed into the lines, riding easy.

That is to say, they opened their tight buttons, shifted their helmets,
and began to joke or to swear as the humor took them; the more careful
slipping off and easing girths and curbs. A good trooper values his mount
exactly as much as he values himself, and believes, or should believe,
that the two together are irresistible where women or men, girls or guns,
are concerned.

Then the Orderly-Officer gave the order:—“Water horses,” and the
Regiment loafed off to the squadron-troughs, which were in rear of the
stables and between these and the barracks. There were four huge troughs,
one for each squadron, arranged en echelon, so that the whole Regiment
could water in ten minutes if it liked. But it lingered for seventeen, as
a rule, while the Band played.

The band struck up as the squadrons filed off the troughs and the men
slipped their feet out of the stirrups and chaffed each other.

The sun was just setting in a big, hot bed of red cloud, and the road to
the Civil Lines seemed to run straight into the sun’s eye.

There was a little dot on the road. It grew and grew till it showed as a
horse, with a sort of gridiron thing on his back. The red cloud glared
through the bars of the gridiron. Some of the troopers shaded their eyes
with their hands and said:—“What the mischief as that there ‘orse
got on ‘im!”

In another minute they heard a neigh that every soul—horse and man—in
the Regiment knew, and saw, heading straight towards the Band, the dead
Drum-Horse of the White Hussars!

On his withers banged and bumped the kettle-drums draped in crape, and on
his back, very stiff and soldierly, sat a bare-headed skeleton.

The band stopped playing, and, for a moment, there was a hush.

Then some one in E troop—men said it was the Troop-Sergeant-Major—swung
his horse round and yelled. No one can account exactly for what happened
afterwards; but it seems that, at least, one man in each troop set an
example of panic, and the rest followed like sheep. The horses that had
barely put their muzzles into the trough’s reared and capered; but, as
soon as the Band broke, which it did when the ghost of the Drum-Horse was
about a furlong distant, all hooves followed suit, and the clatter of the
stampede—quite different from the orderly throb and roar of a
movement on parade, or the rough horse-play of watering in camp—made
them only more terrified. They felt that the men on their backs were
afraid of something. When horses once know THAT, all is over except the
butchery.

Troop after troop turned from the troughs and ran—anywhere, and
everywhere—like spilt quicksilver. It was a most extraordinary
spectacle, for men and horses were in all stages of easiness, and the
carbine-buckets flopping against their sides urged the horses on. Men were
shouting and cursing, and trying to pull clear of the Band which was being
chased by the Drum-Horse whose rider had fallen forward and seemed to be
spurring for a wager.

The Colonel had gone over to the Mess for a drink. Most of the officers
were with him, and the Subaltern of the Day was preparing to go down to
the lines, and receive the watering reports from the Troop-Sergeant
Majors. When “Take me to London again” stopped, after twenty bars, every
one in the Mess said:—“What on earth has happened?” A minute later,
they heard unmilitary noises, and saw, far across the plain, the White
Hussars scattered, and broken, and flying.

The Colonel was speechless with rage, for he thought that the Regiment had
risen against him or was unanimously drunk. The Band, a disorganized mob,
tore past, and at its heels labored the Drum-Horse—the dead and
buried Drum-Horse—with the jolting, clattering skeleton. Hogan-Yale
whispered softly to Martyn:—“No wire will stand that treatment,” and
the Band, which had doubled like a hare, came back again. But the rest of
the Regiment was gone, was rioting all over the Province, for the dusk had
shut in and each man was howling to his neighbor that the Drum-Horse was
on his flank.

Troop-Horses are far too tenderly treated as a rule. They can, on
emergencies, do a great deal, even with seventeen stone on their backs. As
the troopers found out.

How long this panic lasted I cannot say. I believe that when the moon rose
the men saw they had nothing to fear, and, by twos and threes and
half-troops, crept back into Cantonments very much ashamed of themselves.
Meantime, the Drum-Horse, disgusted at his treatment by old friends,
pulled up, wheeled round, and trotted up to the Mess verandah-steps for
bread. No one liked to run; but no one cared to go forward till the
Colonel made a movement and laid hold of the skeleton’s foot. The Band had
halted some distance away, and now came back slowly. The Colonel called
it, individually and collectively, every evil name that occurred to him at
the time; for he had set his hand on the bosom of the Drum-Horse and found
flesh and blood. Then he beat the kettle-drums with his clenched fist, and
discovered that they were but made of silvered paper and bamboo. Next,
still swearing, he tried to drag the skeleton out of the saddle, but found
that it had been wired into the cantle. The sight of the Colonel, with his
arms round the skeleton’s pelvis and his knee in the old Drum-Horse’s
stomach, was striking. Not to say amusing. He worried the thing off in a
minute or two, and threw it down on the ground, saying to the Band:—“Here,
you curs, that’s what you’re afraid of.” The skeleton did not look pretty
in the twilight. The Band-Sergeant seemed to recognize it, for he began to
chuckle and choke. “Shall I take it away, sir?” said the Band-Sergeant.
“Yes,” said the Colonel, “take it to Hell, and ride there yourselves!”

The Band-Sergeant saluted, hoisted the skeleton across his saddle-bow, and
led off to the stables. Then the Colonel began to make inquiries for the
rest of the Regiment, and the language he used was wonderful. He would
disband the Regiment—he would court-martial every soul in it—he
would not command such a set of rabble, and so on, and so on. As the men
dropped in, his language grew wilder, until at last it exceeded the utmost
limits of free speech allowed even to a Colonel of Horse.

Martyn took Hogan-Yale aside and suggested compulsory retirement from the
service as a necessity when all was discovered. Martyn was the weaker man
of the two, Hogan-Yale put up his eyebrows and remarked, firstly, that he
was the son of a Lord, and secondly, that he was as innocent as the babe
unborn of the theatrical resurrection of the Drum-Horse.

“My instructions,” said Yale, with a singularly sweet smile, “were that
the Drum-Horse should be sent back as impressively as possible. I ask you,
AM I responsible if a mule-headed friend sends him back in such a manner
as to disturb the peace of mind of a regiment of Her Majesty’s Cavalry?”

Martyn said:—“you are a great man and will in time become a General;
but I’d give my chance of a troop to be safe out of this affair.”

Providence saved Martyn and Hogan-Yale. The Second-in-Command led the
Colonel away to the little curtained alcove wherein the subalterns of the
white Hussars were accustomed to play poker of nights; and there, after
many oaths on the Colonel’s part, they talked together in low tones. I
fancy that the Second-in-Command must have represented the scare as the
work of some trooper whom it would be hopeless to detect; and I know that
he dwelt upon the sin and the shame of making a public laughingstock of
the scare.

“They will call us,” said the Second-in-Command, who had really a fine
imagination, “they will call us the ‘Fly-by-Nights’; they will call us the
‘Ghost Hunters’; they will nickname us from one end of the Army list to
the other. All the explanations in the world won’t make outsiders
understand that the officers were away when the panic began. For the honor
of the Regiment and for your own sake keep this thing quiet.”

The Colonel was so exhausted with anger that soothing him down was not so
difficult as might be imagined. He was made to see, gently and by degrees,
that it was obviously impossible to court-martial the whole Regiment, and
equally impossible to proceed against any subaltern who, in his belief,
had any concern in the hoax.

“But the beast’s alive! He’s never been shot at all!” shouted the Colonel.
“It’s flat, flagrant disobedience! I’ve known a man broke for less, d——d
sight less. They’re mocking me, I tell you, Mutman! They’re mocking me!”

Once more, the Second-in-Command set himself to sooth the Colonel, and
wrestled with him for half-an-hour. At the end of that time, the
Regimental Sergeant-Major reported himself. The situation was rather novel
tell to him; but he was not a man to be put out by circumstances. He
saluted and said: “Regiment all come back, Sir.” Then, to propitiate the
Colonel:—“An’ none of the horses any the worse, Sir.”

The Colonel only snorted and answered:—“You’d better tuck the men
into their cots, then, and see that they don’t wake up and cry in the
night.” The Sergeant withdrew.

His little stroke of humor pleased the Colonel, and, further, he felt
slightly ashamed of the language he had been using. The Second-in-Command
worried him again, and the two sat talking far into the night.

Next day but one, there was a Commanding Officer’s parade, and the Colonel
harangued the White Hussars vigorously. The pith of his speech was that,
since the Drum-Horse in his old age had proved himself capable of cutting
up the Whole Regiment, he should return to his post of pride at the head
of the band, BUT the Regiment were a set of ruffians with bad consciences.

The White Hussars shouted, and threw everything movable about them into
the air, and when the parade was over, they cheered the Colonel till they
couldn’t speak. No cheers were put up for Lieutenant Hogan-Yale, who
smiled very sweetly in the background.

Said the Second-in-Command to the Colonel, unofficially:—“These
little things ensure popularity, and do not the least affect discipline.”

“But I went back on my word,” said the Colonel.

“Never mind,” said the Second-in-Command. “The White Hussars will follow
you anywhere from today. Regiments are just like women. They will do
anything for trinketry.”

A week later, Hogan-Yale received an extraordinary letter from some one
who signed himself “Secretary Charity and Zeal, 3709, E. C.,” and asked
for “the return of our skeleton which we have reason to believe is in your
possession.”

“Who the deuce is this lunatic who trades in bones?” said Hogan-Yale.

“Beg your pardon, Sir,” said the Band-Sergeant, “but the skeleton is with
me, an’ I’ll return it if you’ll pay the carriage into the Civil Lines.
There’s a coffin with it, Sir.”

Hogan-Yale smiled and handed two rupees to the Band-Sergeant, saying:—“Write
the date on the skull, will you?”

If you doubt this story, and know where to go, you can see the date on the
skeleton. But don’t mention the matter to the White Hussars.

I happen to know something about it, because I prepared the Drum-Horse for
his resurrection. He did not take kindly to the skeleton at all.

THE BRONCKHORST DIVORCE-CASE.

There was a man called Bronckhorst—a three-cornered, middle-aged man
in the Army—gray as a badger, and, some people said, with a touch of
country-blood in him. That, however, cannot be proved.

Mrs. Bronckhorst was not exactly young, though fifteen years younger than
her husband. She was a large, pale, quiet woman, with heavy eyelids, over
weak eyes, and hair that turned red or yellow as the lights fell on it.

Bronckhorst was not nice in any way. He had no respect for the pretty
public and private lies that make life a little less nasty than it is. His
manner towards his wife was coarse. There are many things—including
actual assault with the clenched fist—that a wife will endure; but
seldom a wife can bear—as Mrs. Bronckhorst bore—with a long
course of brutal, hard chaff, making light of her weaknesses, her
headaches, her small fits of gaiety, her dresses, her queer little
attempts to make herself attractive to her husband when she knows that she
is not what she has been, and—worst of all—the love that she
spends on her children. That particular sort of heavy-handed jest was
specially dear to Bronckhorst. I suppose that he had first slipped into
it, meaning no harm, in the honeymoon, when folk find their ordinary stock
of endearments run short, and so go to the other extreme to express their
feelings. A similar impulse makes a man say:—“Hutt, you old beast!”
when a favorite horse nuzzles his coat-front. Unluckily, when the reaction
of marriage sets in, the form of speech remains, and, the tenderness
having died out, hurts the wife more than she cares to say. But Mrs.
Bronckhorst was devoted to her “Teddy,” as she called him.

Perhaps that was why he objected to her. Perhaps—this is only a
theory to account for his infamous behavior later on—he gave way to
the queer savage feeling that sometimes takes by the throat a husband
twenty years’ married, when he sees, across the table, the same face of
his wedded wife, and knows that, as he has sat facing it, so must he
continue to sit until day of its death or his own.

Most men and all women know the spasm. It only lasts for three breaths as
a rule, must be a “throw-back” to times when men and women were rather
worse than they are now, and is too unpleasant to be discussed.

Dinner at the Bronckhorst’s was an infliction few men cared to undergo.
Bronckhorst took a pleasure in saying things that made his wife wince.
When their little boy came in at dessert, Bronckhorst used to give him
half a glass of wine, and naturally enough, the poor little mite got first
riotous, next miserable, and was removed screaming. Bronckhorst asked if
that was the way Teddy usually behaved, and whether Mrs. Bronckhorst could
not spare some of her time to teach the “little beggar decency.” Mrs.
Bronckhorst, who loved the boy more than her own life, tried not to cry—her
spirit seemed to have been broken by her marriage. Lastly, Bronckhorst
used to say:—“There! That’ll do, that’ll do. For God’s sake try to
behave like a rational woman. Go into the drawing-room.” Mrs. Bronckhorst
would go, trying to carry it all off with a smile; and the guest of the
evening would feel angry and uncomfortable.

After three years of this cheerful life—for Mrs. Bronckhorst had no
woman-friends to talk to—the Station was startled by the news that
Bronckhorst had instituted proceedings ON THE CRIMINAL COUNT, against a
man called Biel, who certainly had been rather attentive to Mrs.
Bronckhorst whenever she had appeared in public. The utter want of reserve
with which Bronckhorst treated his own dishonor helped us to know that the
evidence against Biel would be entirely circumstantial and native. There
were no letters; but Bronckhorst said openly that he would rack Heaven and
Earth until he saw Biel superintending the manufacture of carpets in the
Central Jail. Mrs. Bronckhorst kept entirely to her house, and let
charitable folks say what they pleased. Opinions were divided. Some
two-thirds of the Station jumped at once to the conclusion that Biel was
guilty; but a dozen men who knew and liked him held by him. Biel was
furious and surprised. He denied the whole thing, and vowed that he would
thrash Bronckhorst within an inch of his life. No jury, we knew, could
convict a man on the criminal count on native evidence in a land where you
can buy a murder-charge, including the corpse, all complete for fifty-four
rupees; but Biel did not care to scrape through by the benefit of a doubt.
He wanted the whole thing cleared: but as he said one night:—“He can
prove anything with servants’ evidence, and I’ve only my bare word.” This
was about a month before the case came on; and beyond agreeing with Biel,
we could do little. All that we could be sure of was that the native
evidence would be bad enough to blast Biel’s character for the rest of his
service; for when a native begins perjury he perjures himself thoroughly.
He does not boggle over details.

Some genius at the end of the table whereat the affair was being talked
over, said:—“Look here! I don’t believe lawyers are any good. Get a
man to wire to Strickland, and beg him to come down and pull us through.”

Strickland was about a hundred and eighty miles up the line. He had not
long been married to Miss Youghal, but he scented in the telegram a chance
of return to the old detective work that his soul lusted after, and next
night he came in and heard our story. He finished his pipe and said
oracularly:—“We must get at the evidence. Oorya bearer, Mussalman
khit and methraniayah, I suppose, are the pillars of the charge. I am on
in this piece; but I’m afraid I’m getting rusty in my talk.”

He rose and went into Biel’s bedroom where his trunk had been put, and
shut the door. An hour later, we heard him say:—“I hadn’t the heart
to part with my old makeups when I married. Will this do?” There was a
lothely faquir salaaming in the doorway.

“Now lend me fifty rupees,” said Strickland, “and give me your Words of
Honor that you won’t tell my Wife.”

He got all that he asked for, and left the house while the table drank his
health. What he did only he himself knows. A faquir hung about
Bronckhorst’s compound for twelve days. Then a mehter appeared, and when
Biel heard of HIM, he said that Strickland was an angel full-fledged.
Whether the mehter made love to Janki, Mrs. Bronckhorst’s ayah, is a
question which concerns Strickland exclusively.

He came back at the end of three weeks, and said quietly:—“You spoke
the truth, Biel. The whole business is put up from beginning to end. Jove!
It almost astonishes ME! That Bronckhorst-beast isn’t fit to live.”

There was uproar and shouting, and Biel said:—“How are you going to
prove it? You can’t say that you’ve been trespassing on Bronckhorst’s
compound in disguise!”

“No,” said Strickland. “Tell your lawyer-fool, whoever he is, to get up
something strong about ‘inherent improbabilities’ and ‘discrepancies of
evidence.’ He won’t have to speak, but it will make him happy. I’M going
to run this business.”

Biel held his tongue, and the other men waited to see what would happen.
They trusted Strickland as men trust quiet men. When the case came off the
Court was crowded. Strickland hung about in the verandah of the Court,
till he met the Mohammedan khitmatgar. Then he murmured a faquir’s
blessing in his ear, and asked him how his second wife did. The man spun
round, and, as he looked into the eyes of “Estreeken Sahib,” his jaw
dropped. You must remember that before Strickland was married, he was, as
I have told you already, a power among natives. Strickland whispered a
rather coarse vernacular proverb to the effect that he was abreast of all
that was going on, and went into the Court armed with a gut
trainer’s-whip.

The Mohammedan was the first witness and Strickland beamed upon him from
the back of the Court. The man moistened his lips with his tongue and, in
his abject fear of “Estreeken Sahib” the faquir, went back on every detail
of his evidence—said he was a poor man and God was his witness that
he had forgotten every thing that Bronckhorst Sahib had told him to say.
Between his terror of Strickland, the Judge, and Bronckhorst he collapsed,
weeping.

Then began the panic among the witnesses. Janki, the ayah, leering
chastely behind her veil, turned gray, and the bearer left the Court. He
said that his Mamma was dying and that it was not wholesome for any man to
lie unthriftily in the presence of “Estreeken Sahib.”

Biel said politely to Bronckhorst:—“Your witnesses don’t seem to
work. Haven’t you any forged letters to produce?” But Bronckhorst was
swaying to and fro in his chair, and there was a dead pause after Biel had
been called to order.

Bronckhorst’s Counsel saw the look on his client’s face, and without more
ado, pitched his papers on the little green baize table, and mumbled
something about having been misinformed. The whole Court applauded wildly,
like soldiers at a theatre, and the Judge began to say what he
thought……….

Biel came out of the place, and Strickland dropped a gut trainer’s-whip in
the verandah. Ten minutes later, Biel was cutting Bronckhorst into ribbons
behind the old Court cells, quietly and without scandal. What was left of
Bronckhorst was sent home in a carriage; and his wife wept over it and
nursed it into a man again.

Later on, after Biel had managed to hush up the counter-charge against
Bronckhorst of fabricating false evidence, Mrs. Bronckhorst, with her
faint watery smile, said that there had been a mistake, but it wasn’t her
Teddy’s fault altogether. She would wait till her Teddy came back to her.
Perhaps he had grown tired of her, or she had tried his patience, and
perhaps we wouldn’t cut her any more, and perhaps the mothers would let
their children play with “little Teddy” again. He was so lonely. Then the
Station invited Mrs. Bronckhorst everywhere, until Bronckhorst was fit to
appear in public, when he went Home and took his wife with him. According
to the latest advices, her Teddy did “come back to her,” and they are
moderately happy. Though, of course, he can never forgive her the
thrashing that she was the indirect means of getting for him.. ……..

What Biel wants to know is:—“Why didn’t I press home the charge
against the Bronckhorst-brute, and have him run in?”

What Mrs. Strickland wants to know is:—“How DID my husband bring
such a lovely, lovely Waler from your Station? I know ALL his
money-affairs; and I’m CERTAIN he didn’t BUY it.”

“What I want to know is:—How do women like Mrs. Bronckhorst come to
marry men like Bronckhorst?”

And my conundrum is the most unanswerable of the three.

VENUS ANNODOMINI.

She had nothing to do with Number Eighteen in the Braccio Nuovo of the
Vatican, between Visconti’s Ceres and the God of the Nile. She was purely
an Indian deity—an Anglo-Indian deity, that is to say—and we
called her THE Venus Annodomini, to distinguish her from other Annodominis
of the same everlasting order. There was a legend among the Hills that she
had once been young; but no living man was prepared to come forward and
say boldly that the legend was true.

Men rode up to Simla, and stayed, and went away and made their name and
did their life’s work, and returned again to find the Venus Annodomini
exactly as they had left her. She was as immutable as the Hills. But not
quite so green. All that a girl of eighteen could do in the way of riding,
walking, dancing, picnicking and over-exertion generally, the Venus
Annodomini did, and showed no sign of fatigue or trace of weariness.
Besides perpetual youth, she had discovered, men said, the secret of
perpetual health; and her fame spread about the land. From a mere woman,
she grew to be an Institution, insomuch that no young man could be said to
be properly formed, who had not, at some time or another, worshipped at
the shrine of the Venus Annodomini. There was no one like her, though
there were many imitations. Six years in her eyes were no more than six
months to ordinary women; and ten made less visible impression on her than
does a week’s fever on an ordinary woman. Every one adored her, and in
return she was pleasant and courteous to nearly every one. Youth had been
a habit of hers for so long, that she could not part with it—never
realized, in fact, the necessity of parting with it—and took for her
more chosen associates young people.

Among the worshippers of the Venus Annodomini was young Gayerson.

“Very Young” Gayerson, he was called to distinguish him from his father
“Young” Gayerson, a Bengal Civilian, who affected the customs—as he
had the heart—of youth. “Very Young” Gayerson was not content to
worship placidly and for form’s sake, as the other young men did, or to
accept a ride or a dance, or a talk from the Venus Annodomini in a
properly humble and thankful spirit. He was exacting, and, therefore, the
Venus Annodomini repressed him. He worried himself nearly sick in a futile
sort of way over her; and his devotion and earnestness made him appear
either shy or boisterous or rude, as his mood might vary, by the side of
the older men who, with him, bowed before the Venus Annodomini. She was
sorry for him. He reminded her of a lad who, three-and-twenty years ago,
had professed a boundless devotion for her, and for whom in return she had
felt something more than a week’s weakness. But that lad had fallen away
and married another woman less than a year after he had worshipped her;
and the Venus Annodomini had almost—not quite—forgotten his
name. “Very Young” Gayerson had the same big blue eyes and the same way of
pouting his underlip when he was excited or troubled. But the Venus
Annodomini checked him sternly none the less. Too much zeal was a thing
that she did not approve of; preferring instead, a tempered and sober
tenderness.

“Very Young” Gayerson was miserable, and took no trouble to conceal his
wretchedness. He was in the Army—a Line regiment I think, but am not
certain—and, since his face was a looking-glass and his forehead an
open book, by reason of his innocence, his brothers in arms made his life
a burden to him and embittered his naturally sweet disposition. No one
except “Very Young” Gayerson, and he never told his views, knew how old
“Very Young” Gayerson believed the Venus Annodomini to be. Perhaps he
thought her five and twenty, or perhaps she told him that she was this
age. “Very Young” Gayerson would have forded the Gugger in flood to carry
her lightest word, and had implicit faith in her. Every one liked him, and
every one was sorry when they saw him so bound a slave of the Venus
Annodomini. Every one, too, admitted that it was not her fault; for the
Venus Annodomini differed from Mrs. Hauksbee and Mrs. Reiver in this
particular—she never moved a finger to attract any one; but, like
Ninon de l’Enclos, all men were attracted to her. One could admire and
respect Mrs. Hauksbee, despise and avoid Mrs. Reiver, but one was forced
to adore the Venus Annodomini.

“Very Young” Gayerson’s papa held a Division or a Collectorate or
something administrative in a particularly unpleasant part of Bengal—full
of Babus who edited newspapers proving that “Young” Gayerson was a “Nero”
and a “Scylla” and a “Charybdis”; and, in addition to the Babus, there was
a good deal of dysentery and cholera abroad for nine months of the year.
“Young” Gayerson—he was about five and forty—rather liked
Babus, they amused him, but he objects to dysentery, and when he could get
away, went to Darjiling for the most part. This particular season he
fancied that he would come up to Simla, and see his boy. The boy was not
altogether pleased. He told the Venus Annodomini that his father was
coming up, and she flushed a little and said that she should be delighted
to make his acquaintance. Then she looked long and thoughtfully at “Very
Young” Gayerson; because she was very, very sorry for him, and he was a
very, very big idiot.

“My daughter is coming out in a fortnight, Mr. Gayerson,” she said.

“Your WHAT?” said he.

“Daughter,” said the Venus Annodomini. “She’s been out for a year at Home
already, and I want her to see a little of India. She is nineteen and a
very sensible, nice girl I believe.”

“Very Young” Gayerson’s papa came up twelve days later, and had not been
in Simla four and twenty hours, before two men, old acquaintances of his,
had told him how “Very Young” Gayerson had been conducting himself.

“Young” Gayerson laughed a good deal, and inquired who the Venus
Annodomini might be. Which proves that he had been living in Bengal where
nobody knows anything except the rate of Exchange. Then he said “boys will
be boys,” and spoke to his son about the matter.

“Very Young” Gayerson said that he felt wretched and unhappy; and “Young”
Gayerson said that he repented of having helped to bring a fool into the
world. He suggested that his son had better cut his leave short and go
down to his duties. This led to an unfilial answer, and relations were
strained, until “Young” Gayerson demanded that they should call on the
Venus Annodomini. “Very Young” Gayerson went with his papa, feeling,
somehow, uncomfortable and small.

The Venus Annodomini received them graciously and “Young” Gayerson said:—“By
Jove! It’s Kitty!” “Very Young” Gayerson would have listened for an
explanation, if his time had not been taken up with trying to talk to a
large, handsome, quiet, well-dressed girl—introduced to him by the
Venus Annodomini as her daughter. She was far older in manners, style and
repose than “Very Young” Gayerson; and, as he realized this thing, he felt
sick.

Presently, he heard the Venus Annodomini saying:—“Do you know that
your son is one of my most devoted admirers?”

“I don’t wonder,” said “Young” Gayerson. Here he raised his voice:—“He
follows his father’s footsteps. Didn’t I worship the ground you trod on,
ever so long ago, Kitty—and you haven’t changed since then. How
strange it all seems!”

“Very Young” Gayerson said nothing. His conversation with the daughter of
the Venus Annodomini was, through the rest of the call, fragmentary and
disjointed……….

“At five, tomorrow then,” said the Venus Annodomini. “And mind you are
punctual.”

“At five punctual,” said “Young” Gayerson. “You can lend your old father a
horse I dare say, youngster, can’t you? I’m going for a ride tomorrow
afternoon.”

“Certainly,” said “Very Young” Gayerson. “I am going down tomorrow
morning. My ponies are at your service, Sir.”

The Venus Annodomini looked at him across the half-light of the room, and
her big gray eyes filled with moisture. She rose and shook hands with him.

“Goodbye, Tom,” whispered the Venus Annodomini.

THE BISARA OF POOREE.

Some natives say that it came from the other side of Kulu, where the
eleven-inch Temple Sapphire is. Others that it was made at the
Devil-Shrine of Ao-Chung in Thibet, was stolen by a Kafir, from him by a
Gurkha, from him again by a Lahouli, from him by a khitmatgar, and by this
latter sold to an Englishman, so all its virtue was lost: because, to work
properly, the Bisara of Pooree must be stolen—with bloodshed if
possible, but, at any rate, stolen.

These stories of the coming into India are all false. It was made at
Pooree ages since—the manner of its making would fill a small book—was
stolen by one of the Temple dancing-girls there, for her own purposes, and
then passed on from hand to hand, steadily northward, till it reached
Hanla: always bearing the same name—the Bisara of Pooree. In shape
it is a tiny, square box of silver, studded outside with eight small
balas-rubies. Inside the box, which opens with a spring, is a little
eyeless fish, carved from some sort of dark, shiny nut and wrapped in a
shred of faded gold-cloth. That is the Bisara of Pooree, and it were
better for a man to take a king cobra in his hand than to touch the Bisara
of Pooree.

All kinds of magic are out of date and done away with except in India
where nothing changes in spite of the shiny, toy-scum stuff that people
call “civilization.” Any man who knows about the Bisara of Pooree will
tell you what its powers are—always supposing that it has been
honestly stolen. It is the only regularly working, trustworthy love-charm
in the country, with one exception.

[The other charm is in the hands of a trooper of the Nizam’s Horse, at a
place called Tuprani, due north of Hyderabad.] This can be depended upon
for a fact. Some one else may explain it.

If the Bisara be not stolen, but given or bought or found, it turns
against its owner in three years, and leads to ruin or death. This is
another fact which you may explain when you have time.

Meanwhile, you can laugh at it. At present, the Bisara is safe on an
ekka-pony’s neck, inside the blue bead-necklace that keeps off the
Evil-eye. If the ekka-driver ever finds it, and wears it, or gives it to
his wife, I am sorry for him.

A very dirty hill-cooly woman, with goitre, owned it at Theog in 1884. It
came into Simla from the north before Churton’s khitmatgar bought it, and
sold it, for three times its silver-value, to Churton, who collected
curiosities. The servant knew no more what he had bought than the master;
but a man looking over Churton’s collection of curiosities—Churton
was an Assistant Commissioner by the way—saw and held his tongue. He
was an Englishman; but knew how to believe. Which shows that he was
different from most Englishmen. He knew that it was dangerous to have any
share in the little box when working or dormant; for unsought Love is a
terrible gift.

Pack—“Grubby” Pack, as we used to call him—was, in every way,
a nasty little man who must have crawled into the Army by mistake. He was
three inches taller than his sword, but not half so strong. And the sword
was a fifty-shilling, tailor-made one. Nobody liked him, and, I suppose,
it was his wizenedness and worthlessness that made him fall so hopelessly
in love with Miss Hollis, who was good and sweet, and five foot seven in
her tennis shoes. He was not content with falling in love quietly, but
brought all the strength of his miserable little nature into the business.
If he had not been so objectionable, one might have pitied him. He
vapored, and fretted, and fumed, and trotted up and down, and tried to
make himself pleasing in Miss Hollis’s big, quiet, gray eyes, and failed.
It was one of the cases that you sometimes meet, even in this country
where we marry by Code, of a really blind attachment all on one side,
without the faintest possibility of return. Miss Hollis looked on Pack as
some sort of vermin running about the road. He had no prospects beyond
Captain’s pay, and no wits to help that out by one anna. In a large-sized
man, love like his would have been touching.

In a good man it would have been grand. He being what he was, it was only
a nuisance.

You will believe this much. What you will not believe, is what follows:
Churton, and The Man who Knew that the Bisara was, were lunching at the
Simla Club together. Churton was complaining of life in general. His best
mare had rolled out of stable down the hill and had broken her back; his
decisions were being reversed by the upper Courts, more than an Assistant
Commissioner of eight years’ standing has a right to expect; he knew liver
and fever, and, for weeks past, had felt out of sorts. Altogether, he was
disgusted and disheartened.

Simla Club dining-room is built, as all the world knows, in two sections,
with an arch-arrangement dividing them. Come in, turn to your own left,
take the table under the window, and you cannot see any one who has come
in, turning to the right, and taken a table on the right side of the arch.
Curiously enough, every word that you say can be heard, not only by the
other diner, but by the servants beyond the screen through which they
bring dinner. This is worth knowing: an echoing-room is a trap to be
forewarned against.

Half in fun, and half hoping to be believed, The Man who Knew told Churton
the story of the Bisara of Pooree at rather greater length than I have
told it to you in this place; winding up with the suggestion that Churton
might as well throw the little box down the hill and see whether all his
troubles would go with it. In ordinary ears, English ears, the tale was
only an interesting bit of folk-lore. Churton laughed, said that he felt
better for his tiffin, and went out. Pack had been tiffining by himself to
the right of the arch, and had heard everything. He was nearly mad with
his absurd infatuation for Miss Hollis that all Simla had been laughing
about.

It is a curious thing that, when a man hates or loves beyond reason, he is
ready to go beyond reason to gratify his feelings. Which he would not do
for money or power merely. Depend upon it, Solomon would never have built
altars to Ashtaroth and all those ladies with queer names, if there had
not been trouble of some kind in his zenana, and nowhere else. But this is
beside the story. The facts of the case are these: Pack called on Churton
next day when Churton was out, left his card, and STOLE the Bisara of
Pooree from its place under the clock on the mantelpiece! Stole it like
the thief he was by nature. Three days later, all Simla was electrified by
the news that Miss Hollis had accepted Pack—the shrivelled rat,
Pack! Do you desire clearer evidence than this? The Bisara of Pooree had
been stolen, and it worked as it had always done when won by foul means.

There are three or four times in a man’s life when he is justified in
meddling with other people’s affairs to play Providence.

The Man who Knew felt that he WAS justified; but believing and acting on a
belief are quite different things. The insolent satisfaction of Pack as he
ambled by the side of Miss Hollis, and Churton’s striking release from
liver, as soon as the Bisara of Pooree had gone, decided the Man. He
explained to Churton and Churton laughed, because he was not brought up to
believe that men on the Government House List steal—at least little
things. But the miraculous acceptance by Miss Hollis of that tailor, Pack,
decided him to take steps on suspicion. He vowed that he only wanted to
find out where his ruby-studded silver box had vanished to. You cannot
accuse a man on the Government House List of stealing. And if you rifle
his room you are a thief yourself. Churton, prompted by The Man who Knew,
decided on burglary. If he found nothing in Pack’s room…. but it is not
nice to think of what would have happened in that case.

Pack went to a dance at Benmore—Benmore WAS Benmore in those days,
and not an office—and danced fifteen waltzes out of twenty-two with
Miss Hollis. Churton and The Man took all the keys that they could lay
hands on, and went to Pack’s room in the hotel, certain that his servants
would be away. Pack was a cheap soul. He had not purchased a decent
cash-box to keep his papers in, but one of those native imitations that
you buy for ten rupees. It opened to any sort of key, and there at the
bottom, under Pack’s Insurance Policy, lay the Bisara of Pooree!

Churton called Pack names, put the Bisara of Pooree in his pocket, and
went to the dance with The Man. At least, he came in time for supper, and
saw the beginning of the end in Miss Hollis’s eyes. She was hysterical
after supper, and was taken away by her Mamma.

At the dance, with the abominable Bisara in his pocket, Churton twisted
his foot on one of the steps leading down to the old Rink, and had to be
sent home in a rickshaw, grumbling. He did not believe in the Bisara of
Pooree any the more for this manifestation, but he sought out Pack and
called him some ugly names; and “thief” was the mildest of them. Pack took
the names with the nervous smile of a little man who wants both soul and
body to resent an insult, and went his way. There was no public scandal.

A week later, Pack got his definite dismissal from Miss Hollis.

There had been a mistake in the placing of her affections, she said.

So he went away to Madras, where he can do no great harm even if he lives
to be a Colonel.

Churton insisted upon The Man who Knew taking the Bisara of Pooree as a
gift. The Man took it, went down to the Cart Road at once, found an ekka
pony with a blue head-necklace, fastened the Bisara of Pooree inside the
necklace with a piece of shoe-string and thanked Heaven that he was rid of
a danger. Remember, in case you ever find it, that you must not destroy
the Bisara of Pooree. I have not time to explain why just now, but the
power lies in the little wooden fish. Mister Gubernatis or Max Muller
could tell you more about it than I.

You will say that all this story is made up. Very well. If ever you come
across a little silver, ruby-studded box, seven-eighths of an inch long by
three-quarters wide, with a dark-brown wooden fish, wrapped in gold cloth,
inside it, keep it. Keep it for three years, and then you will discover
for yourself whether my story is true or false.

Better still, steal it as Pack did, and you will be sorry that you had not
killed yourself in the beginning.

THE GATE OF A HUNDRED SORROWS.

This is no work of mine. My friend, Gabral Misquitta, the half-caste,
spoke it all, between moonset and morning, six weeks before he died; and I
took it down from his mouth as he answered my questions so:—

It lies between the Copper-smith’s Gully and the pipe-stem sellers’
quarter, within a hundred yards, too, as the crow flies, of the Mosque of
Wazir Khan. I don’t mind telling any one this much, but I defy him to find
the Gate, however well he may think he knows the City. You might even go
through the very gully it stands in a hundred times, and be none the
wiser. We used to call the gully, “the Gully of the Black Smoke,” but its
native name is altogether different of course. A loaded donkey couldn’t
pass between the walls; and, at one point, just before you reach the Gate,
a bulged house-front makes people go along all sideways.

It isn’t really a gate though. It’s a house. Old Fung-Tching had it first
five years ago. He was a boot-maker in Calcutta. They say that he murdered
his wife there when he was drunk. That was why he dropped bazar-rum and
took to the Black Smoke instead. Later on, he came up north and opened the
Gate as a house where you could get your smoke in peace and quiet. Mind
you, it was a pukka, respectable opium-house, and not one of those
stifling, sweltering chandoo-khanas, that you can find all over the City.
No; the old man knew his business thoroughly, and he was most clean for a
Chinaman. He was a one-eyed little chap, not much more than five feet
high, and both his middle fingers were gone. All the same, he was the
handiest man at rolling black pills I have ever seen. Never seemed to be
touched by the Smoke, either; and what he took day and night, night and
day, was a caution. I’ve been at it five years, and I can do my fair share
of the Smoke with any one; but I was a child to Fung-Tching that way. All
the same, the old man was keen on his money, very keen; and that’s what I
can’t understand. I heard he saved a good deal before he died, but his
nephew has got all that now; and the old man’s gone back to China to be
buried.

He kept the big upper room, where his best customers gathered, as neat as
a new pin. In one corner used to stand Fung-Tching’s Joss—almost as
ugly as Fung-Tching—and there were always sticks burning under his
nose; but you never smelt ’em when the pipes were going thick. Opposite
the Joss was Fung-Tching’s coffin. He had spent a good deal of his savings
on that, and whenever a new man came to the Gate he was always introduced
to it. It was lacquered black, with red and gold writings on it, and I’ve
heard that Fung-Tching brought it out all the way from China. I don’t know
whether that’s true or not, but I know that, if I came first in the
evening, I used to spread my mat just at the foot of it. It was a quiet
corner you see, and a sort of breeze from the gully came in at the window
now and then. Besides the mats, there was no other furniture in the room—only
the coffin, and the old Joss all green and blue and purple with age and
polish.

Fung-Tching never told us why he called the place “The Gate of a Hundred
Sorrows.” (He was the only Chinaman I know who used bad-sounding fancy
names. Most of them are flowery. As you’ll see in Calcutta.) We used to
find that out for ourselves. Nothing grows on you so much, if you’re
white, as the Black Smoke. A yellow man is made different. Opium doesn’t
tell on him scarcely at all; but white and black suffer a good deal. Of
course, there are some people that the Smoke doesn’t touch any more than
tobacco would at first. They just doze a bit, as one would fall asleep
naturally, and next morning they are almost fit for work. Now, I was one
of that sort when I began, but I’ve been at it for five years pretty
steadily, and its different now. There was an old aunt of mine, down Agra
way, and she left me a little at her death. About sixty rupees a month
secured. Sixty isn’t much. I can recollect a time, seems hundreds and
hundreds of years ago, that I was getting my three hundred a month, and
pickings, when I was working on a big timber contract in Calcutta.

I didn’t stick to that work for long. The Black Smoke does not allow of
much other business; and even though I am very little affected by it, as
men go, I couldn’t do a day’s work now to save my life. After all, sixty
rupees is what I want. When old Fung-Tching was alive he used to draw the
money for me, give me about half of it to live on (I eat very little), and
the rest he kept himself. I was free of the Gate at any time of the day
and night, and could smoke and sleep there when I liked, so I didn’t care.
I know the old man made a good thing out of it; but that’s no matter.
Nothing matters, much to me; and, besides, the money always came fresh and
fresh each month.

There was ten of us met at the Gate when the place was first opened. Me,
and two Baboos from a Government Office somewhere in Anarkulli, but they
got the sack and couldn’t pay (no man who has to work in the daylight can
do the Black Smoke for any length of time straight on); a Chinaman that
was Fung-Tching’s nephew; a bazar-woman that had got a lot of money
somehow; an English loafer—Mac-Somebody I think, but I have
forgotten—that smoked heaps, but never seemed to pay anything (they
said he had saved Fung-Tching’s life at some trial in Calcutta when he was
a barrister): another Eurasian, like myself, from Madras; a half-caste
woman, and a couple of men who said they had come from the North. I think
they must have been Persians or Afghans or something. There are not more
than five of us living now, but we come regular. I don’t know what
happened to the Baboos; but the bazar-woman she died after six months of
the Gate, and I think Fung-Tching took her bangles and nose-ring for
himself. But I’m not certain. The Englishman, he drank as well as smoked,
and he dropped off. One of the Persians got killed in a row at night by
the big well near the mosque a long time ago, and the Police shut up the
well, because they said it was full of foul air.

They found him dead at the bottom of it. So, you see, there is only me,
the Chinaman, the half-caste woman that we call the Memsahib (she used to
live with Fung-Tching), the other Eurasian, and one of the Persians. The
Memsahib looks very old now. I think she was a young woman when the Gate
was opened; but we are all old for the matter of that. Hundreds and
hundreds of years old. It is very hard to keep count of time in the Gate,
and besides, time doesn’t matter to me. I draw my sixty rupees fresh and
fresh every month.

A very, very long while ago, when I used to be getting three hundred and
fifty rupees a month, and pickings, on a big timber-contract at Calcutta,
I had a wife of sorts. But she’s dead now. People said that I killed her
by taking to the Black Smoke. Perhaps I did, but it’s so long since it
doesn’t matter. Sometimes when I first came to the Gate, I used to feel
sorry for it; but that’s all over and done with long ago, and I draw my
sixty rupees fresh and fresh every month, and am quite happy. Not DRUNK
happy, you know, but always quiet and soothed and contented.

How did I take to it? It began at Calcutta. I used to try it in my own
house, just to see what it was like. I never went very far, but I think my
wife must have died then. Anyhow, I found myself here, and got to know
Fung-Tching. I don’t remember rightly how that came about; but he told me
of the Gate and I used to go there, and, somehow, I have never got away
from it since. Mind you, though, the Gate was a respectable place in
Fung-Tching’s time where you could be comfortable, and not at all like the
chandoo-khanas where the niggers go. No; it was clean and quiet, and not
crowded. Of course, there were others beside us ten and the man; but we
always had a mat apiece with a wadded woollen head-piece, all covered with
black and red dragons and things; just like a coffin in the corner.

At the end of one’s third pipe the dragons used to move about and fight.
I’ve watched ’em, many and many a night through. I used to regulate my
Smoke that way, and now it takes a dozen pipes to make ’em stir. Besides,
they are all torn and dirty, like the mats, and old Fung-Tching is dead.
He died a couple of years ago, and gave me the pipe I always use now—a
silver one, with queer beasts crawling up and down the receiver-bottle
below the cup. Before that, I think, I used a big bamboo stem with a
copper cup, a very small one, and a green jade mouthpiece. It was a little
thicker than a walking-stick stem, and smoked sweet, very sweet. The
bamboo seemed to suck up the smoke. Silver doesn’t, and I’ve got to clean
it out now and then, that’s a great deal of trouble, but I smoke it for
the old man’s sake. He must have made a good thing out of me, but he
always gave me clean mats and pillows, and the best stuff you could get
anywhere.

When he died, his nephew Tsin-ling took up the Gate, and he called it the
“Temple of the Three Possessions;” but we old ones speak of it as the
“Hundred Sorrows,” all the same. The nephew does things very shabbily, and
I think the Memsahib must help him. She lives with him; same as she used
to do with the old man. The two let in all sorts of low people, niggers
and all, and the Black Smoke isn’t as good as it used to be. I’ve found
burnt bran in my pipe over and over again. The old man would have died if
that had happened in his time. Besides, the room is never cleaned, and all
the mats are torn and cut at the edges. The coffin has gone—gone to
China again—with the old man and two ounces of smoke inside it, in
case he should want ’em on the way.

The Joss doesn’t get so many sticks burnt under his nose as he used to;
that’s a sign of ill-luck, as sure as Death. He’s all brown, too, and no
one ever attends to him. That’s the Memsahib’s work, I know; because, when
Tsin-ling tried to burn gilt paper before him, she said it was a waste of
money, and, if he kept a stick burning very slowly, the Joss wouldn’t know
the difference. So now we’ve got the sticks mixed with a lot of glue, and
they take half-an-hour longer to burn, and smell stinky. Let alone the
smell of the room by itself. No business can get on if they try that sort
of thing.

The Joss doesn’t like it. I can see that. Late at night, sometimes, he
turns all sorts of queer colors—blue and green and red—just as
he used to do when old Fung-Tching was alive; and he rolls his eyes and
stamps his feet like a devil.

I don’t know why I don’t leave the place and smoke quietly in a little
room of my own in the bazar. Most like, Tsin-ling would kill me if I went
away—he draws my sixty rupees now—and besides, it’s so much
trouble, and I’ve grown to be very fond of the Gate. It’s not much to look
at. Not what it was in the old man’s time, but I couldn’t leave it. I’ve
seen so many come in and out. And I’ve seen so many die here on the mats
that I should be afraid of dying in the open now. I’ve seen some things
that people would call strange enough; but nothing is strange when you’re
on the Black Smoke, except the Black Smoke. And if it was, it wouldn’t
matter.

Fung-Tching used to be very particular about his people, and never got in
any one who’d give trouble by dying messy and such. But the nephew isn’t
half so careful. He tells everywhere that he keeps a “first-chop” house.
Never tries to get men in quietly, and make them comfortable like
Fung-Tching did. That’s why the Gate is getting a little bit more known
than it used to be. Among the niggers of course. The nephew daren’t get a
white, or, for matter of that, a mixed skin into the place. He has to keep
us three of course—me and the Memsahib and the other Eurasian. We’re
fixtures.

But he wouldn’t give us credit for a pipeful—not for anything.

One of these days, I hope, I shall die in the Gate. The Persian and the
Madras man are terrible shaky now. They’ve got a boy to light their pipes
for them. I always do that myself. Most like, I shall see them carried out
before me. I don’t think I shall ever outlive the Memsahib or Tsin-ling.
Women last longer than men at the Black-Smoke, and Tsin-ling has a deal of
the old man’s blood in him, though he DOES smoke cheap stuff. The
bazar-woman knew when she was going two days before her time; and SHE died
on a clean mat with a nicely wadded pillow, and the old man hung up her
pipe just above the Joss. He was always fond of her, I fancy. But he took
her bangles just the same.

I should like to die like the bazar-woman—on a clean, cool mat with
a pipe of good stuff between my lips. When I feel I’m going, I shall ask
Tsin-ling for them, and he can draw my sixty rupees a month, fresh and
fresh, as long as he pleases, and watch the black and red dragons have
their last big fight together; and then….

Well, it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters much to me—only I wished
Tsin-ling wouldn’t put bran into the Black Smoke.

THE STORY OF MUHAMMAD DIN.

The polo-ball was an old one, scarred, chipped, and dinted. It stood on
the mantelpiece among the pipe-stems which Imam Din, khitmatgar, was
cleaning for me.

“Does the Heaven-born want this ball?” said Imam Din, deferentially.

The Heaven-born set no particular store by it; but of what use was a
polo-ball to a khitmatgar?

“By Your Honor’s favor, I have a little son. He has seen this ball, and
desires it to play with. I do not want it for myself.”

No one would for an instant accuse portly old Imam Din of wanting to play
with polo-balls. He carried out the battered thing into the verandah; and
there followed a hurricane of joyful squeaks, a patter of small feet, and
the thud-thud-thud of the ball rolling along the ground. Evidently the
little son had been waiting outside the door to secure his treasure. But
how had he managed to see that polo-ball?

Next day, coming back from office half an hour earlier than usual, I was
aware of a small figure in the dining-room—a tiny, plump figure in a
ridiculously inadequate shirt which came, perhaps, half-way down the tubby
stomach. It wandered round the room, thumb in mouth, crooning to itself as
it took stock of the pictures. Undoubtedly this was the “little son.”

He had no business in my room, of course; but was so deeply absorbed in
his discoveries that he never noticed me in the doorway. I stepped into
the room and startled him nearly into a fit. He sat down on the ground
with a gasp. His eyes opened, and his mouth followed suit. I knew what was
coming, and fled, followed by a long, dry howl which reached the servants’
quarters far more quickly than any command of mine had ever done. In ten
seconds Imam Din was in the dining-room. Then despairing sobs arose, and I
returned to find Imam Din admonishing the small sinner who was using most
of his shirt as a handkerchief.

“This boy,” said Imam Din, judicially, “is a budmash, a big budmash. He
will, without doubt, go to the jail-khana for his behavior.” Renewed yells
from the penitent, and an elaborate apology to myself from Imam Din.

“Tell the baby,” said I, “that the Sahib is not angry, and take him away.”
Imam Din conveyed my forgiveness to the offender, who had now gathered all
his shirt round his neck, string-wise, and the yell subsided into a sob.
The two set off for the door. “His name,” said Imam Din, as though the
name were part of the crime, “is Muhammad Din, and he is a budmash.” Freed
from present danger, Muhammad Din turned round, in his father’s arms, and
said gravely:—“It is true that my name is Muhammad Din, Tahib, but I
am not a budmash. I am a MAN!”

From that day dated my acquaintance with Muhammad Din. Never again did he
come into my dining-room, but on the neutral ground of the compound, we
greeted each other with much state, though our conversation was confined
to “Talaam, Tahib” from his side and “Salaam Muhammad Din” from mine.
Daily on my return from office, the little white shirt, and the fat little
body used to rise from the shade of the creeper-covered trellis where they
had been hid; and daily I checked my horse here, that my salutation might
not be slurred over or given unseemly.

Muhammad Din never had any companions. He used to trot about the compound,
in and out of the castor-oil bushes, on mysterious errands of his own. One
day I stumbled upon some of his handiwork far down the ground. He had half
buried the polo-ball in dust, and stuck six shrivelled old marigold
flowers in a circle round it. Outside that circle again, was a rude
square, traced out in bits of red brick alternating with fragments of
broken china; the whole bounded by a little bank of dust. The bhistie from
the well-curb put in a plea for the small architect, saying that it was
only the play of a baby and did not much disfigure my garden.

Heaven knows that I had no intention of touching the child’s work then or
later; but, that evening, a stroll through the garden brought me unawares
full on it; so that I trampled, before I knew, marigold-heads, dust-bank,
and fragments of broken soap-dish into confusion past all hope of mending.
Next morning I came upon Muhammad Din crying softly to himself over the
ruin I had wrought.

Some one had cruelly told him that the Sahib was very angry with him for
spoiling the garden, and had scattered his rubbish using bad language the
while. Muhammad Din labored for an hour at effacing every trace of the
dust-bank and pottery fragments, and it was with a tearful apologetic face
that he said, “Talaam Tahib,” when I came home from the office. A hasty
inquiry resulted in Imam Din informing Muhammad Din that by my singular
favor he was permitted to disport himself as he pleased. Whereat the child
took heart and fell to tracing the ground-plan of an edifice which was to
eclipse the marigold-polo-ball creation.

For some months, the chubby little eccentricity revolved in his humble
orbit among the castor-oil bushes and in the dust; always fashioning
magnificent palaces from stale flowers thrown away by the bearer, smooth
water-worn pebbles, bits of broken glass, and feathers pulled, I fancy,
from my fowls—always alone and always crooning to himself.

A gayly-spotted sea-shell was dropped one day close to the last of his
little buildings; and I looked that Muhammad Din should build something
more than ordinarily splendid on the strength of it. Nor was I
disappointed. He meditated for the better part of an hour, and his
crooning rose to a jubilant song. Then he began tracing in dust. It would
certainly be a wondrous palace, this one, for it was two yards long and a
yard broad in ground-plan. But the palace was never completed.

Next day there was no Muhammad Din at the head of the carriage-drive, and
no “Talaam Tahib” to welcome my return. I had grown accustomed to the
greeting, and its omission troubled me. Next day, Imam Din told me that
the child was suffering slightly from fever and needed quinine. He got the
medicine, and an English Doctor.

“They have no stamina, these brats,” said the Doctor, as he left Imam
Din’s quarters.

A week later, though I would have given much to have avoided it, I met on
the road to the Mussulman burying-ground Imam Din, accompanied by one
other friend, carrying in his arms, wrapped in a white cloth, all that was
left of little Muhammad Din.

ON THE STRENGTH OF A LIKENESS.

Next to a requited attachment, one of the most convenient things that a
young man can carry about with him at the beginning of his career, is an
unrequited attachment. It makes him feel important and business-like, and
blase, and cynical; and whenever he has a touch of liver, or suffers from
want of exercise, he can mourn over his lost love, and be very happy in a
tender, twilight fashion.

Hannasyde’s affair of the heart had been a Godsend to him. It was four
years old, and the girl had long since given up thinking of it.

She had married and had many cares of her own. In the beginning, she had
told Hannasyde that, “while she could never be anything more than a sister
to him, she would always take the deepest interest in his welfare.” This
startlingly new and original remark gave Hannasyde something to think over
for two years; and his own vanity filled in the other twenty-four months.
Hannasyde was quite different from Phil Garron, but, none the less, had
several points in common with that far too lucky man.

He kept his unrequited attachment by him as men keep a well-smoked pipe—for
comfort’s sake, and because it had grown dear in the using. It brought him
happily through the Simla season. Hannasyde was not lovely. There was a
crudity in his manners, and a roughness in the way in which he helped a
lady on to her horse, that did not attract the other sex to him. Even if
he had cast about for their favor, which he did not. He kept his wounded
heart all to himself for a while.

Then trouble came to him. All who go to Simla, know the slope from the
Telegraph to the Public Works Office. Hannasyde was loafing up the hill,
one September morning between calling hours, when a ‘rickshaw came down in
a hurry, and in the ‘rickshaw sat the living, breathing image of the girl
who had made him so happily unhappy.

Hannasyde leaned against the railing and gasped. He wanted to run downhill
after the ‘rickshaw, but that was impossible; so he went forward with most
of his blood in his temples. It was impossible, for many reasons, that the
woman in the ‘rickshaw could be the girl he had known. She was, he
discovered later, the wife of a man from Dindigul, or Coimbatore, or some
out-of-the-way place, and she had come up to Simla early in the season for
the good of her health.

She was going back to Dindigul, or wherever it was, at the end of the
season; and in all likelihood would never return to Simla again, her
proper Hill-station being Ootacamund. That night, Hannasyde, raw and
savage from the raking up of all old feelings, took counsel with himself
for one measured hour. What he decided upon was this; and you must decide
for yourself how much genuine affection for the old love, and how much a
very natural inclination to go abroad and enjoy himself, affected the
decision. Mrs. Landys-Haggert would never in all human likelihood cross
his path again. So whatever he did didn’t much matter. She was
marvellously like the girl who “took a deep interest” and the rest of the
formula. All things considered, it would be pleasant to make the
acquaintance of Mrs. Landys-Haggert, and for a little time—only a
very little time—to make believe that he was with Alice Chisane
again. Every one is more or less mad on one point. Hannasyde’s particular
monomania was his old love, Alice Chisane.

He made it his business to get introduced to Mrs. Haggert, and the
introduction prospered. He also made it his business to see as much as he
could of that lady. When a man is in earnest as to interviews, the
facilities which Simla offers are startling. There are garden-parties, and
tennis-parties, and picnics, and luncheons at Annandale, and
rifle-matches, and dinners and balls; besides rides and walks, which are
matters of private arrangement.

Hannasyde had started with the intention of seeing a likeness, and he
ended by doing much more. He wanted to be deceived, he meant to be
deceived, and he deceived himself very thoroughly. Not only were the face
and figure, the face and figure of Alice Chisane, but the voice and lower
tones were exactly the same, and so were the turns of speech; and the
little mannerisms, that every woman has, of gait and gesticulation, were
absolutely and identically the same. The turn of the head was the same;
the tired look in the eyes at the end of a long walk was the same; the
sloop and wrench over the saddle to hold in a pulling horse was the same;
and once, most marvellous of all, Mrs. Landys-Haggert singing to herself
in the next room, while Hannasyde was waiting to take her for a ride,
hummed, note for note, with a throaty quiver of the voice in the second
line:—“Poor Wandering One!” exactly as Alice Chisane had hummed it
for Hannasyde in the dusk of an English drawing-room. In the actual woman
herself—in the soul of her—there was not the least likeness;
she and Alice Chisane being cast in different moulds. But all that
Hannasyde wanted to know and see and think about, was this maddening and
perplexing likeness of face and voice and manner. He was bent on making a
fool of himself that way; and he was in no sort disappointed.

Open and obvious devotion from any sort of man is always pleasant to any
sort of woman; but Mrs. Landys-Haggert, being a woman of the world, could
make nothing of Hannasyde’s admiration.

He would take any amount of trouble—he was a selfish man habitually—to
meet and forestall, if possible, her wishes.

Anything she told him to do was law; and he was, there could be no
doubting it, fond of her company so long as she talked to him, and kept on
talking about trivialities. But when she launched into expression of her
personal views and her wrongs, those small social differences that make
the spice of Simla life, Hannasyde was neither pleased nor interested. He
didn’t want to know anything about Mrs. Landys-Haggert, or her experiences
in the past—she had travelled nearly all over the world, and could
talk cleverly—he wanted the likeness of Alice Chisane before his
eyes and her voice in his ears.

Anything outside that, reminding him of another personality jarred, and he
showed that it did.

Under the new Post Office, one evening, Mrs. Landys-Haggert turned on him,
and spoke her mind shortly and without warning. “Mr. Hannasyde,” said she,
“will you be good enough to explain why you have appointed yourself my
special cavalier servente? I don’t understand it. But I am perfectly
certain, somehow or other, that you don’t care the least little bit in the
world for ME.” This seems to support, by the way, the theory that no man
can act or tell lies to a woman without being found out. Hannasyde was
taken off his guard. His defence never was a strong one, because he was
always thinking of himself, and he blurted out, before he knew what he was
saying, this inexpedient answer:—“No more I do.”

The queerness of the situation and the reply, made Mrs. Haggert laugh.
Then it all came out; and at the end of Hannasyde’s lucid explanation,
Mrs. Haggert said, with the least little touch of scorn in her voice:—“So
I’m to act as the lay-figure for you to hang the rags of your tattered
affections on, am I?”

Hannasyde didn’t see what answer was required, and he devoted himself
generally and vaguely to the praise of Alice Chisane, which was
unsatisfactory. Now it is to be thoroughly made clear that Mrs. Haggert
had not the shadow of a ghost of an interest in Hannasyde.

Only—only no woman likes being made love through instead of to—specially
on behalf of a musty divinity of four years’ standing.

Hannasyde did not see that he had made any very particular exhibition of
himself. He was glad to find a sympathetic soul in the arid wastes of
Simla.

When the season ended, Hannasyde went down to his own place and Mrs.
Haggert to hers. “It was like making love to a ghost,” said Hannasyde to
himself, “and it doesn’t matter; and now I’ll get to my work.” But he
found himself thinking steadily of the Haggert-Chisane ghost; and he could
not be certain whether it was Haggert or Chisane that made up the greater
part of the pretty phantom……….

He got understanding a month later.

A peculiar point of this peculiar country is the way in which a heartless
Government transfers men from one end of the Empire to the other. You can
never be sure of getting rid of a friend or an enemy till he or she dies.
There was a case once—but that’s another story.

Haggert’s Department ordered him up from Dindigul to the Frontier at two
days’ notice, and he went through, losing money at every step, from
Dindigul to his station. He dropped Mrs. Haggert at Lucknow, to stay with
some friends there, to take part in a big ball at the Chutter Munzil, and
to come on when he had made the new home a little comfortable. Lucknow was
Hannasyde’s station, and Mrs. Haggert stayed a week there. Hannasyde went
to meet her. And the train came in, he discovered which he had been
thinking of for the past month. The unwisdom of his conduct also struck
him. The Lucknow week, with two dances, and an unlimited quantity of rides
together, clinched matters; and Hannasyde found himself pacing this circle
of thought:—He adored Alice Chisane—at least he HAD adored
her. AND he admired Mrs. Landys-Haggert because she was like Alice
Chisane. BUT Mrs. Landys-Haggert was not in the least like Alice Chisane,
being a thousand times more adorable. NOW Alice Chisane was “the bride of
another,” and so was Mrs. Landys-Haggert, and a good and honest wife too.
THEREFORE, he, Hannasyde, was…. here he called himself several hard
names, and wished that he had been wise in the beginning.

Whether Mrs. Landys-Haggert saw what was going on in his mind, she alone
knows. He seemed to take an unqualified interest in everything connected
with herself, as distinguished from the Alice-Chisane likeness, and he
said one or two things which, if Alice Chisane had been still betrothed to
him, could scarcely have been excused, even on the grounds of the
likeness. But Mrs. Haggert turned the remarks aside, and spent a long time
in making Hannasyde see what a comfort and a pleasure she had been to him
because of her strange resemblance to his old love. Hannasyde groaned in
his saddle and said, “Yes, indeed,” and busied himself with preparations
for her departure to the Frontier, feeling very small and miserable.

The last day of her stay at Lucknow came, and Hannasyde saw her off at the
Railway Station. She was very grateful for his kindness and the trouble he
had taken, and smiled pleasantly and sympathetically as one who knew the
Alice-Chisane reason of that kindness. And Hannasyde abused the coolies
with the luggage, and hustled the people on the platform, and prayed that
the roof might fall in and slay him.

As the train went out slowly, Mrs. Landys-Haggert leaned out of the window
to say goodbye:—“On second thoughts au revoir, Mr. Hannasyde. I go
Home in the Spring, and perhaps I may meet you in Town.”

Hannasyde shook hands, and said very earnestly and adoringly:—“I
hope to Heaven I shall never see your face again!”

And Mrs. Haggert understood.

WRESSLEY OF THE FOREIGN OFFICE.

One of the many curses of our life out here is the want of atmosphere in
the painter’s sense. There are no half-tints worth noticing. Men stand out
all crude and raw, with nothing to tone them down, and nothing to scale
them against. They do their work, and grow to think that there is nothing
but their work, and nothing like their work, and that they are the real
pivots on which the administration turns. Here is an instance of this
feeling. A half-caste clerk was ruling forms in a Pay Office. He said to
me:—“Do you know what would happen if I added or took away one
single line on this sheet?” Then, with the air of a conspirator:—“It
would disorganize the whole of the Treasury payments throughout the whole
of the Presidency Circle! Think of that?”

If men had not this delusion as to the ultra-importance of their own
particular employments, I suppose that they would sit down and kill
themselves. But their weakness is wearisome, particularly when the
listener knows that he himself commits exactly the same sin.

Even the Secretariat believes that it does good when it asks an
over-driven Executive Officer to take census of wheat-weevils through a
district of five thousand square miles.

There was a man once in the Foreign Office—a man who had grown
middle-aged in the department, and was commonly said, by irreverent
juniors, to be able to repeat Aitchison’s “Treaties and Sunnuds”
backwards, in his sleep. What he did with his stored knowledge only the
Secretary knew; and he, naturally, would not publish the news abroad. This
man’s name was Wressley, and it was the Shibboleth, in those days, to say:—“Wressley
knows more about the Central Indian States than any living man.” If you
did not say this, you were considered one of mean understanding.

Now-a-days, the man who says that he knows the ravel of the inter-tribal
complications across the Border is of more use; but in Wressley’s time,
much attention was paid to the Central Indian States. They were called
“foci” and “factors,” and all manner of imposing names.

And here the curse of Anglo-Indian life fell heavily. When Wressley lifted
up his voice, and spoke about such-and-such a succession to such-and-such
a throne, the Foreign Office were silent, and Heads of Departments
repeated the last two or three words of Wressley’s sentences, and tacked
“yes, yes,” on them, and knew that they were “assisting the Empire to
grapple with seriouspolitical contingencies.” In most big undertakings,
one or two men do the work while the rest sit near and talk till the ripe
decorations begin to fall.

Wressley was the working-member of the Foreign Office firm, and, to keep
him up to his duties when he showed signs of flagging, he was made much of
by his superiors and told what a fine fellow he was.

He did not require coaxing, because he was of tough build, but what he
received confirmed him in the belief that there was no one quite so
absolutely and imperatively necessary to the stability of India as
Wressley of the Foreign Office. There might be other good men, but the
known, honored and trusted man among men was Wressley of the Foreign
Office. We had a Viceroy in those days who knew exactly when to “gentle” a
fractious big man and to hearten up a collar-galled little one, and so
keep all his team level. He conveyed to Wressley the impression which I
have just set down; and even tough men are apt to be disorganized by a
Viceroy’s praise. There was a case once—but that is another story.

All India knew Wressley’s name and office—it was in Thacker and
Spink’s Directory—but who he was personally, or what he did, or what
his special merits were, not fifty men knew or cared. His work filled all
his time, and he found no leisure to cultivate acquaintances beyond those
of dead Rajput chiefs with Ahir blots in their ‘scutcheons. Wressley would
have made a very good Clerk in the Herald’s College had he not been a
Bengal Civilian.

Upon a day, between office and office, great trouble came to Wressley—overwhelmed
him, knocked him down, and left him gasping as though he had been a little
school-boy. Without reason, against prudence, and at a moment’s notice, he
fell in love with a frivolous, golden-haired girl who used to tear about
Simla Mall on a high, rough waler, with a blue velvet jockey-cap crammed
over her eyes. Her name was Venner—Tillie Venner—and she was
delightful.

She took Wressley’s heart at a hand-gallop, and Wressley found that it was
not good for man to live alone; even with half the Foreign Office Records
in his presses.

Then Simla laughed, for Wressley in love was slightly ridiculous.

He did his best to interest the girl in himself—that is to say, his
work—and she, after the manner of women, did her best to appear
interested in what, behind his back, she called “Mr. Wressley’s Wajahs”;
for she lisped very prettily. She did not understand one little thing
about them, but she acted as if she did. Men have married on that sort of
error before now.

Providence, however, had care of Wressley. He was immensely struck with
Miss Venner’s intelligence. He would have been more impressed had he heard
her private and confidential accounts of his calls. He held peculiar
notions as to the wooing of girls. He said that the best work of a man’s
career should be laid reverently at their feet.

Ruskin writes something like this somewhere, I think; but in ordinary life
a few kisses are better and save time.

About a month after he had lost his heart to Miss Venner, and had been
doing his work vilely in consequence, the first idea of his “Native Rule
in Central India” struck Wressley and filled him with joy. It was, as he
sketched it, a great thing—the work of his life—a really
comprehensive survey of a most fascinating subject—to be written
with all the special and laboriously acquired knowledge of Wressley of the
Foreign Office—a gift fit for an Empress.

He told Miss Venner that he was going to take leave, and hoped, on his
return, to bring her a present worthy of her acceptance. Would she wait?
Certainly she would. Wressley drew seventeen hundred rupees a month. She
would wait a year for that. Her mamma would help her to wait.

So Wressley took one year’s leave and all the available documents, about a
truck-load, that he could lay hands on, and went down to Central India
with his notion hot in his head. He began his book in the land he was
writing of. Too much official correspondence had made him a frigid
workman, and he must have guessed that he needed the white light of local
color on his palette. This is a dangerous paint for amateurs to play with.

Heavens, how that man worked! He caught his Rajahs, analyzed his Rajahs,
and traced them up into the mists of Time and beyond, with their queens
and their concubines. He dated and cross-dated, pedigreed and
triple-pedigreed, compared, noted, connoted, wove, strung, sorted,
selected, inferred, calendared and counter-calendared for ten hours a day.
And, because this sudden and new light of Love was upon him, he turned
those dry bones of history and dirty records of misdeeds into things to
weep or to laugh over as he pleased. His heart and soul were at the end of
his pen, and they got into the ink. He was dowered with sympathy, insight,
humor and style for two hundred and thirty days and nights; and his book
was a Book. He had his vast special knowledge with him, so to speak; but
the spirit, the woven-in human Touch, the poetry and the power of the
output, were beyond all special knowledge. But I doubt whether he knew the
gift that was in him then, and thus he may have lost some happiness. He
was toiling for Tillie Venner, not for himself.

Men often do their best work blind, for some one else’s sake.

Also, though this has nothing to do with the story, in India where every
one knows every one else, you can watch men being driven, by the women who
govern them, out of the rank-and-file and sent to take up points alone. A
good man once started, goes forward; but an average man, so soon as the
woman loses interest in his success as a tribute to her power, comes back
to the battalion and is no more heard of.

Wressley bore the first copy of his book to Simla and, blushing and
stammering, presented it to Miss Venner. She read a little of it.

I give her review verbatim:—“Oh, your book? It’s all about those
how-wid Wajahs. I didn’t understand it.”………

Wressley of the Foreign Office was broken, smashed,—I am not
exaggerating—by this one frivolous little girl. All that he could
say feebly was:—“But, but it’s my magnum opus! The work of my life.”
Miss Venner did not know what magnum opus meant; but she knew that Captain
Kerrington had won three races at the last Gymkhana. Wressley didn’t press
her to wait for him any longer. He had sense enough for that.

Then came the reaction after the year’s strain, and Wressley went back to
the Foreign Office and his “Wajahs,” a compiling, gazetteering,
report-writing hack, who would have been dear at three hundred rupees a
month. He abided by Miss Venner’s review. Which proves that the
inspiration in the book was purely temporary and unconnected with himself.
Nevertheless, he had no right to sink, in a hill-tarn, five packing-cases,
brought up at enormous expense from Bombay, of the best book of Indian
history ever written.

When he sold off before retiring, some years later, I was turning over his
shelves, and came across the only existing copy of “Native Rule in Central
India”—the copy that Miss Venner could not understand. I read it,
sitting on his mule-trucks, as long as the light lasted, and offered him
his own price for it. He looked over my shoulder for a few pages and said
to himself drearily:—“Now, how in the world did I come to write such
damned good stuff as that?” Then to me:—“Take it and keep it. Write
one of your penny-farthing yarns about its birth. Perhaps—perhaps—the
whole business may have been ordained to that end.”

Which, knowing what Wressley of the Foreign Office was once, struck me as
about the bitterest thing that I had ever heard a man say of his own work.

BY WORD OF MOUTH.

This tale may be explained by those who know how souls are made, and where
the bounds of the Possible are put down. I have lived long enough in this
country to know that it is best to know nothing, and can only write the
story as it happened.

Dumoise was our Civil Surgeon at Meridki, and we called him “Dormouse,”
because he was a round little, sleepy little man. He was a good Doctor and
never quarrelled with any one, not even with our Deputy Commissioner, who
had the manners of a bargee and the tact of a horse. He married a girl as
round and as sleepy-looking as himself. She was a Miss Hillardyce,
daughter of “Squash” Hillardyce of the Berars, who married his Chief’s
daughter by mistake. But that is another story.

A honeymoon in India is seldom more than a week long; but there is nothing
to hinder a couple from extending it over two or three years. This is a
delightful country for married folk who are wrapped up in one another.
They can live absolutely alone and without interruption—just as the
Dormice did. These two little people retired from the world after their
marriage, and were very happy. They were forced, of course, to give
occasional dinners, but they made no friends hereby, and the Station went
its own way and forgot them; only saying, occasionally, that Dormouse was
the best of good fellows, though dull. A Civil Surgeon who never quarrels
is a rarity, appreciated as such.

Few people can afford to play Robinson Crusoe anywhere—least of all
in India, where we are few in the land, and very much dependent on each
other’s kind offices. Dumoise was wrong in shutting himself from the world
for a year, and he discovered his mistake when an epidemic of typhoid
broke out in the Station in the heart of the cold weather, and his wife
went down. He was a shy little man, and five days were wasted before he
realized that Mrs. Dumoise was burning with something worse than simple
fever, and three days more passed before he ventured to call on Mrs.
Shute, the Engineer’s wife, and timidly speak about his trouble. Nearly
every household in India knows that Doctors are very helpless in typhoid.
The battle must be fought out between Death and the Nurses, minute by
minute and degree by degree. Mrs. Shute almost boxed Dumoise’s ears for
what she called his “criminal delay,” and went off at once to look after
the poor girl. We had seven cases of typhoid in the Station that winter
and, as the average of death is about one in every five cases, we felt
certain that we should have to lose somebody. But all did their best. The
women sat up nursing the women, and the men turned to and tended the
bachelors who were down, and we wrestled with those typhoid cases for
fifty-six days, and brought them through the Valley of the Shadow in
triumph. But, just when we thought all was over, and were going to give a
dance to celebrate the victory, little Mrs. Dumoise got a relapse and died
in a week and the Station went to the funeral. Dumoise broke down utterly
at the brink of the grave, and had to be taken away.

After the death, Dumoise crept into his own house and refused to be
comforted. He did his duties perfectly, but we all felt that he should go
on leave, and the other men of his own Service told him so. Dumoise was
very thankful for the suggestion—he was thankful for anything in
those days—and went to Chini on a walking-tour.

Chini is some twenty marches from Simla, in the heart of the Hills, and
the scenery is good if you are in trouble. You pass through big, still
deodar-forests, and under big, still cliffs, and over big, still
grass-downs swelling like a woman’s breasts; and the wind across the
grass, and the rain among the deodars says:—“Hush—hush—hush.”
So little Dumoise was packed off to Chini, to wear down his grief with a
full-plate camera, and a rifle. He took also a useless bearer, because the
man had been his wife’s favorite servant. He was idle and a thief, but
Dumoise trusted everything to him.

On his way back from Chini, Dumoise turned aside to Bagi, through the
Forest Reserve which is on the spur of Mount Huttoo. Some men who have
travelled more than a little say that the march from Kotegarh to Bagi is
one of the finest in creation. It runs through dark wet forest, and ends
suddenly in bleak, nipped hill-side and black rocks. Bagi dak-bungalow is
open to all the winds and is bitterly cold. Few people go to Bagi. Perhaps
that was the reason why Dumoise went there. He halted at seven in the
evening, and his bearer went down the hill-side to the village to engage
coolies for the next day’s march. The sun had set, and the night-winds
were beginning to croon among the rocks. Dumoise leaned on the railing of
the verandah, waiting for his bearer to return. The man came back almost
immediately after he had disappeared, and at such a rate that Dumoise
fancied he must have crossed a bear. He was running as hard as he could up
the face of the hill.

But there was no bear to account for his terror. He raced to the verandah
and fell down, the blood spurting from his nose and his face iron-gray.
Then he gurgled:—“I have seen the Memsahib! I have seen the
Memsahib!”

“Where?” said Dumoise.

“Down there, walking on the road to the village. She was in a blue dress,
and she lifted the veil of her bonnet and said:—’Ram Dass, give my
salaams to the Sahib, and tell him that I shall meet him next month at
Nuddea.’ Then I ran away, because I was afraid.”

What Dumoise said or did I do not know. Ram Dass declares that he said
nothing, but walked up and down the verandah all the cold night, waiting
for the Memsahib to come up the hill and stretching out his arms into the
dark like a madman. But no Memsahib came, and, next day, he went on to
Simla cross-questioning the bearer every hour.

Ram Dass could only say that he had met Mrs. Dumoise and that she had
lifted up her veil and given him the message which he had faithfully
repeated to Dumoise. To this statement Ram Dass adhered.

He did not know where Nuddea was, had no friends at Nuddea, and would most
certainly never go to Nuddea; even though his pay were doubled.

Nuddea is in Bengal, and has nothing whatever to do with a doctor serving
in the Punjab. It must be more than twelve hundred miles from Meridki.

Dumoise went through Simla without halting, and returned to Meridki there
to take over charge from the man who had been officiating for him during
his tour. There were some Dispensary accounts to be explained, and some
recent orders of the Surgeon-General to be noted, and, altogether, the
taking-over was a full day’s work. In the evening, Dumoise told his locum
tenens, who was an old friend of his bachelor days, what had happened at
Bagi; and the man said that Ram Dass might as well have chosen Tuticorin
while he was about it.

At that moment a telegraph-peon came in with a telegram from Simla,
ordering Dumoise not to take over charge at Meridki, but to go at once to
Nuddea on special duty. There was a nasty outbreak of cholera at Nuddea,
and the Bengal Government, being shorthanded, as usual, had borrowed a
Surgeon from the Punjab.

Dumoise threw the telegram across the table and said:—“Well?”

The other Doctor said nothing. It was all that he could say.

Then he remembered that Dumoise had passed through Simla on his way from
Bagi; and thus might, possibly, have heard the first news of the impending
transfer.

He tried to put the question, and the implied suspicion into words, but
Dumoise stopped him with:—“If I had desired THAT, I should never
have come back from Chini. I was shooting there. I wish to live, for I
have things to do…. but I shall not be sorry.”

The other man bowed his head, and helped, in the twilight, to pack up
Dumoise’s just opened trunks. Ram Dass entered with the lamps.

“Where is the Sahib going?” he asked.

“To Nuddea,” said Dumoise, softly.

Ram Dass clawed Dumoise’s knees and boots and begged him not to go.

Ram Dass wept and howled till he was turned out of the room. Then he
wrapped up all his belongings and came back to ask for a character. He was
not going to Nuddea to see his Sahib die, and, perhaps to die himself.

So Dumoise gave the man his wages and went down to Nuddea alone; the other
Doctor bidding him goodbye as one under sentence of death.

Eleven days later, he had joined his Memsahib; and the Bengal Government
had to borrow a fresh Doctor to cope with that epidemic at Nuddea. The
first importation lay dead in Chooadanga Dak-Bungalow.

TO BE HELD FOR REFERENCE.

Here he fell over a little camel-colt that was sleeping in the Serai where
the horse-traders and the best of the blackguards from Central Asia live;
and, because he was very drunk indeed and the night was dark, he could not
rise again till I helped him. That was the beginning of my acquaintance
with McIntosh Jellaludin. When a loafer, and drunk, sings The Song of the
Bower, he must be worth cultivating. He got off the camel’s back and said,
rather thickly:—“I—I—I’m a bit screwed, but a dip in
Loggerhead will put me right again; and I say, have you spoken to Symonds
about the mare’s knees?”

Now Loggerhead was six thousand weary miles away from us, close to
Mesopotamia, where you mustn’t fish and poaching is impossible, and
Charley Symonds’ stable a half mile further across the paddocks. It was
strange to hear all the old names, on a May night, among the horses and
camels of the Sultan Caravanserai. Then the man seemed to remember himself
and sober down at the same time. He leaned against the camel and pointed
to a corner of the Serai where a lamp was burning:—

“I live there,” said he, “and I should be extremely obliged if you would
be good enough to help my mutinous feet thither; for I am more than
usually drunk—most—most phenomenally tight. But not in respect
to my head. ‘My brain cries out against’—how does it go? But my head
rides on the—rolls on the dung-hill I should have said, and controls
the qualm.”

I helped him through the gangs of tethered horses and he collapsed on the
edge of the verandah in front of the line of native quarters.

“Thanks—a thousand thanks! O Moon and little, little Stars! To think
that a man should so shamelessly…. Infamous liquor, too. Ovid in exile
drank no worse. Better. It was frozen. Alas! I had no ice. Good night. I
would introduce you to my wife were I sober—or she civilized.”

A native woman came out of the darkness of the room, and began calling the
man names; so I went away. He was the most interesting loafer that I had
the pleasure of knowing for a long time; and later on, he became a friend
of mine. He was a tall, well-built, fair man fearfully shaken with drink,
and he looked nearer fifty than the thirty-five which, he said, was his
real age. When a man begins to sink in India, and is not sent Home by his
friends as soon as may be, he falls very low from a respectable point of
view. By the time that he changes his creed, as did McIntosh, he is past
redemption.

In most big cities, natives will tell you of two or three Sahibs,
generally low-caste, who have turned Hindu or Mussulman, and who live more
or less as such. But it is not often that you can get to know them. As
McIntosh himself used to say:—“If I change my religion for my
stomach’s sake, I do not seek to become a martyr to missionaries, nor am I
anxious for notoriety.”

At the outset of acquaintance McIntosh warned me. “Remember this. I am not
an object for charity. I require neither your money, your food, nor your
cast-off raiment. I am that rare animal, a self-supporting drunkard. If
you choose, I will smoke with you, for the tobacco of the bazars does not,
I admit, suit my palate; and I will borrow any books which you may not
specially value. It is more than likely that I shall sell them for bottles
of excessively filthy country-liquors. In return, you shall share such
hospitality as my house affords. Here is a charpoy on which two can sit,
and it is possible that there may, from time to time, be food in that
platter. Drink, unfortunately, you will find on the premises at any hour:
and thus I make you welcome to all my poor establishments.”

I was admitted to the McIntosh household—I and my good tobacco.

But nothing else. Unluckily, one cannot visit a loafer in the Serai by
day. Friends buying horses would not understand it.

Consequently, I was obliged to see McIntosh after dark. He laughed at
this, and said simply:—“You are perfectly right. When I enjoyed a
position in society, rather higher than yours, I should have done exactly
the same thing, Good Heavens! I was once”—he spoke as though he had
fallen from the Command of a Regiment—“an Oxford Man!” This
accounted for the reference to Charley Symonds’ stable.

“You,” said McIntosh, slowly, “have not had that advantage; but, to
outward appearance, you do not seem possessed of a craving for strong
drinks. On the whole, I fancy that you are the luckier of the two. Yet I
am not certain. You are—forgive my saying so even while I am smoking
your excellent tobacco—painfully ignorant of many things.”

We were sitting together on the edge of his bedstead, for he owned no
chairs, watching the horses being watered for the night, while the native
woman was preparing dinner. I did not like being patronized by a loafer,
but I was his guest for the time being, though he owned only one very torn
alpaca-coat and a pair of trousers made out of gunny-bags. He took the
pipe out of his mouth, and went on judicially:—“All things
considered, I doubt whether you are the luckier. I do not refer to your
extremely limited classical attainments, or your excruciating quantities,
but to your gross ignorance of matters more immediately under your notice.
That for instance.”—He pointed to a woman cleaning a samovar near
the well in the centre of the Serai. She was flicking the water out of the
spout in regular cadenced jerks.

“There are ways and ways of cleaning samovars. If you knew why she was
doing her work in that particular fashion, you would know what the Spanish
Monk meant when he said—

and many other things which now are hidden from your eyes. However, Mrs.
McIntosh has prepared dinner. Let us come and eat after the fashion of the
people of the country—of whom, by the way, you know nothing.”

The native woman dipped her hand in the dish with us. This was wrong. The
wife should always wait until the husband has eaten.

McIntosh Jellaludin apologized, saying:—

“It is an English prejudice which I have not been able to overcome; and
she loves me. Why, I have never been able to understand. I fore-gathered
with her at Jullundur, three years ago, and she has remained with me ever
since. I believe her to be moral, and know her to be skilled in cookery.”

He patted the woman’s head as he spoke, and she cooed softly. She was not
pretty to look at.

McIntosh never told me what position he had held before his fall.

He was, when sober, a scholar and a gentleman. When drunk, he was rather
more of the first than the second. He used to get drunk about once a week
for two days. On those occasions the native woman tended him while he
raved in all tongues except his own. One day, indeed, he began reciting
Atalanta in Calydon, and went through it to the end, beating time to the
swing of the verse with a bedstead-leg. But he did most of his ravings in
Greek or German. The man’s mind was a perfect rag-bag of useless things.
Once, when he was beginning to get sober, he told me that I was the only
rational being in the Inferno into which he had descended—a Virgil
in the Shades, he said—and that, in return for my tobacco, he would,
before he died, give me the materials of a new Inferno that should make me
greater than Dante. Then he fell asleep on a horse-blanket and woke up
quite calm.

“Man,” said he, “when you have reached the uttermost depths of
degradation, little incidents which would vex a higher life, are to you of
no consequence. Last night, my soul was among the gods; but I make no
doubt that my bestial body was writhing down here in the garbage.”

“You were abominably drunk if that’s what you mean,” I said.

“I WAS drunk—filthy drunk. I who am the son of a man with whom you
have no concern—I who was once Fellow of a College whose
buttery-hatch you have not seen. I was loathsomely drunk. But consider how
lightly I am touched. It is nothing to me. Less than nothing; for I do not
even feel the headache which should be my portion. Now, in a higher life,
how ghastly would have been my punishment, how bitter my repentance!
Believe me, my friend with the neglected education, the highest is as the
lowest—always supposing each degree extreme.”

He turned round on the blanket, put his head between his fists and
continued:—

“On the Soul which I have lost and on the Conscience which I have killed,
I tell you that I CANNOT feel! I am as the gods, knowing good and evil,
but untouched by either. Is this enviable or is it not?”

When a man has lost the warning of “next morning’s head,” he must be in a
bad state, I answered, looking at McIntosh on the blanket, with his hair
over his eyes and his lips blue-white, that I did not think the
insensibility good enough.

“For pity’s sake, don’t say that! I tell you, it IS good and most
enviable. Think of my consolations!”

“Have you so many, then, McIntosh?”

“Certainly; your attempts at sarcasm which is essentially the weapon of a
cultured man, are crude. First, my attainments, my classical and literary
knowledge, blurred, perhaps, by immoderate drinking—which reminds me
that before my soul went to the Gods last night, I sold the Pickering
Horace you so kindly lent me. Ditta Mull the Clothesman has it. It fetched
ten annas, and may be redeemed for a rupee—but still infinitely
superior to yours. Secondly, the abiding affection of Mrs. McIntosh, best
of wives. Thirdly, a monument, more enduring than brass, which I have
built up in the seven years of my degradation.”

He stopped here, and crawled across the room for a drink of water.

He was very shaky and sick.

He referred several times to his “treasure”—some great possession
that he owned—but I held this to be the raving of drink. He was as
poor and as proud as he could be. His manner was not pleasant, but he knew
enough about the natives, among whom seven years of his life had been
spent, to make his acquaintance worth having. He used actually to laugh at
Strickland as an ignorant man—“ignorant West and East”—he
said. His boast was, first, that he was an Oxford Man of rare and shining
parts, which may or may not have been true—I did not know enough to
check his statements—and, secondly, that he “had his hand on the
pulse of native life”—which was a fact. As an Oxford man, he struck
me as a prig: he was always throwing his education about. As a Mahommedan
faquir—as McIntosh Jellaludin—he was all that I wanted for my
own ends. He smoked several pounds of my tobacco, and taught me several
ounces of things worth knowing; but he would never accept any gifts, not
even when the cold weather came, and gripped the poor thin chest under the
poor thin alpaca-coat. He grew very angry, and said that I had insulted
him, and that he was not going into hospital. He had lived like a beast
and he would die rationally, like a man.

As a matter of fact, he died of pneumonia; and on the night of his death
sent over a grubby note asking me to come and help him to die.

The native woman was weeping by the side of the bed. McIntosh, wrapped in
a cotton cloth, was too weak to resent a fur coat being thrown over him.
He was very active as far as his mind was concerned, and his eyes were
blazing. When he had abused the Doctor who came with me so foully that the
indignant old fellow left, he cursed me for a few minutes and calmed down.

Then he told his wife to fetch out “The Book” from a hole in the wall. She
brought out a big bundle, wrapped in the tail of a petticoat, of old
sheets of miscellaneous note-paper, all numbered and covered with fine
cramped writing. McIntosh ploughed his hand through the rubbish and
stirred it up lovingly.

“This,” he said, “is my work—the Book of McIntosh Jellaludin,
showing what he saw and how he lived, and what befell him and others;
being also an account of the life and sins and death of Mother Maturin.
What Mirza Murad Ali Beg’s book is to all other books on native life, will
my work be to Mirza Murad Ali Beg’s!”

This, as will be conceded by any one who knows Mirza Ali Beg’s book, was a
sweeping statement. The papers did not look specially valuable; but
McIntosh handled them as if they were currency-notes.

Then he said slowly:—“In despite the many weaknesses of your
education, you have been good to me. I will speak of your tobacco when I
reach the Gods. I owe you much thanks for many kindnesses.

“But I abominate indebtedness. For this reason I bequeath to you now the
monument more enduring than brass—my one book—rude and
imperfect in parts, but oh, how rare in others! I wonder if you will
understand it. It is a gift more honorable than… Bah! where is my brain
rambling to? You will mutilate it horribly. You will knock out the gems
you call ‘Latin quotations,’ you Philistine, and you will butcher the
style to carve into your own jerky jargon; but you cannot destroy the
whole of it. I bequeath it to you.

“Ethel… My brain again!.. Mrs. McIntosh, bear witness that I give the
sahib all these papers. They would be of no use to you, Heart of my heart;
and I lay it upon you,” he turned to me here, “that you do not let my book
die in its present form. It is yours unconditionally—the story of
McIntosh Jellaludin, which is NOT the story of McIntosh Jellaludin, but of
a greater man than he, and of a far greater woman. Listen now! I am
neither mad nor drunk! That book will make you famous.”

I said, “thank you,” as the native woman put the bundle into my arms.

“My only baby!” said McIntosh with a smile. He was sinking fast, but he
continued to talk as long as breath remained. I waited for the end:
knowing that, in six cases out of ten the dying man calls for his mother.
He turned on his side and said:—

“Say how it came into your possession. No one will believe you, but my
name, at least, will live. You will treat it brutally, I know you will.
Some of it must go; the public are fools and prudish fools. I was their
servant once. But do your mangling gently—very gently. It is a great
work, and I have paid for it in seven years’ damnation.”

His voice stopped for ten or twelve breaths, and then he began mumbling a
prayer of some kind in Greek. The native woman cried very bitterly.
Lastly, he rose in bed and said, as loudly as slowly:—“Not guilty,
my Lord!”

Then he fell back, and the stupor held him till he died. The native woman
ran into the Serai among the horses and screamed and beat her breasts; for
she had loved him.

Perhaps his last sentence in life told what McIntosh had once gone
through; but, saving the big bundle of old sheets in the cloth, there was
nothing in his room to say who or what he had been.

The papers were in a hopeless muddle.

Strickland helped me to sort them, and he said that the writer was either
an extreme liar or a most wonderful person. He thought the former. One of
these days, you may be able to judge for yourself.

The bundle needed much expurgation and was full of Greek nonsense, at the
head of the chapters, which has all been cut out.

If the things are ever published some one may perhaps remember this story,
now printed as a safeguard to prove that McIntosh Jellaludin and not I
myself wrote the Book of Mother Maturin.

I don’t want the Giant’s Robe to come true in my case.

VOLUME VI THE LIGHT THAT FAILED

THE LIGHT THAT FAILED

CHAPTER I

“WHAT do you think she’d do if she caught us? We oughtn’t to have it, you
know,” said Maisie.

“Beat me, and lock you up in your bedroom,” Dick answered, without
hesitation. “Have you got the cartridges?”

“Yes; they’re in my pocket, but they are joggling horribly. Do pin-fire
cartridges go off of their own accord?”

“Don’t know. Take the revolver, if you are afraid, and let me carry them.”

“I’m not afraid.” Maisie strode forward swiftly, a hand in her pocket and
her chin in the air. Dick followed with a small pin-fire revolver.

The children had discovered that their lives would be unendurable without
pistol-practice. After much forethought and self-denial, Dick had saved
seven shillings and sixpence, the price of a badly constructed Belgian
revolver. Maisie could only contribute half a crown to the syndicate for
the purchase of a hundred cartridges. “You can save better than I can,
Dick,” she explained; “I like nice things to eat, and it doesn’t matter to
you. Besides, boys ought to do these things.”

Dick grumbled a little at the arrangement, but went out and made the
purchase, which the children were then on their way to test. Revolvers did
not lie in the scheme of their daily life as decreed for them by the
guardian who was incorrectly supposed to stand in the place of a mother to
these two orphans. Dick had been under her care for six years, during
which time she had made her profit of the allowances supposed to be
expended on his clothes, and, partly through thoughtlessness, partly
through a natural desire to pain,—she was a widow of some years
anxious to marry again,—had made his days burdensome on his young
shoulders.

Where he had looked for love, she gave him first aversion and then hate.

Where he growing older had sought a little sympathy, she gave him
ridicule. The many hours that she could spare from the ordering of her
small house she devoted to what she called the home-training of Dick
Heldar. Her religion, manufactured in the main by her own intelligence and
a keen study of the Scriptures, was an aid to her in this matter. At such
times as she herself was not personally displeased with Dick, she left him
to understand that he had a heavy account to settle with his Creator;
wherefore Dick learned to loathe his God as intensely as he loathed Mrs.
Jennett; and this is not a wholesome frame of mind for the young. Since
she chose to regard him as a hopeless liar, when dread of pain drove him
to his first untruth he naturally developed into a liar, but an economical
and self-contained one, never throwing away the least unnecessary fib, and
never hesitating at the blackest, were it only plausible, that might make
his life a little easier. The treatment taught him at least the power of
living alone,—a power that was of service to him when he went to a
public school and the boys laughed at his clothes, which were poor in
quality and much mended. In the holidays he returned to the teachings of
Mrs. Jennett, and, that the chain of discipline might not be weakened by
association with the world, was generally beaten, on one account or
another, before he had been twelve hours under her roof.

The autumn of one year brought him a companion in bondage, a long-haired,
gray-eyed little atom, as self-contained as himself, who moved about the
house silently and for the first few weeks spoke only to the goat that was
her chiefest friend on earth and lived in the back-garden. Mrs. Jennett
objected to the goat on the grounds that he was un-Christian,—which
he certainly was. “Then,” said the atom, choosing her words very
deliberately, “I shall write to my lawyer-peoples and tell them that you
are a very bad woman. Amomma is mine, mine, mine!” Mrs. Jennett made a
movement to the hall, where certain umbrellas and canes stood in a rack.
The atom understood as clearly as Dick what this meant. “I have been
beaten before,” she said, still in the same passionless voice; “I have
been beaten worse than you can ever beat me. If you beat me I shall write
to my lawyer-peoples and tell them that you do not give me enough to eat.
I am not afraid of you.” Mrs. Jennett did not go into the hall, and the
atom, after a pause to assure herself that all danger of war was past,
went out, to weep bitterly on Amomma’s neck.

Dick learned to know her as Maisie, and at first mistrusted her
profoundly, for he feared that she might interfere with the small liberty
of action left to him. She did not, however; and she volunteered no
friendliness until Dick had taken the first steps. Long before the
holidays were over, the stress of punishment shared in common drove the
children together, if it were only to play into each other’s hands as they
prepared lies for Mrs. Jennett’s use. When Dick returned to school, Maisie
whispered, “Now I shall be all alone to take care of myself; but,” and she
nodded her head bravely, “I can do it. You promised to send Amomma a grass
collar. Send it soon.” A week later she asked for that collar by return of
post, and was not pleased when she learned that it took time to make. When
at last Dick forwarded the gift, she forgot to thank him for it.

Many holidays had come and gone since that day, and Dick had grown into a
lanky hobbledehoy more than ever conscious of his bad clothes. Not for a
moment had Mrs. Jennett relaxed her tender care of him, but the average
canings of a public school—Dick fell under punishment about three
times a month—filled him with contempt for her powers. “She doesn’t
hurt,” he explained to Maisie, who urged him to rebellion, “and she is
kinder to you after she has whacked me.” Dick shambled through the days
unkempt in body and savage in soul, as the smaller boys of the school
learned to know, for when the spirit moved him he would hit them,
cunningly and with science. The same spirit made him more than once try to
tease Maisie, but the girl refused to be made unhappy. “We are both
miserable as it is,” said she. “What is the use of trying to make things
worse? Let’s find things to do, and forget things.”

The pistol was the outcome of that search. It could only be used on the
muddiest foreshore of the beach, far away from the bathing-machines and
pierheads, below the grassy slopes of Fort Keeling. The tide ran out
nearly two miles on that coast, and the many-coloured mud-banks, touched
by the sun, sent up a lamentable smell of dead weed. It was late in the
afternoon when Dick and Maisie arrived on their ground, Amomma trotting
patiently behind them.

“Mf!” said Maisie, sniffing the air. “I wonder what makes the sea so
smelly? I don’tlike it!”

“You never like anything that isn’t made just for you,” said Dick bluntly.
“Give me the cartridges, and I’ll try first shot. How far does one of
these little revolvers carry?”

“Oh, half a mile,” said Maisie, promptly. “At least it makes an awful
noise. Be careful with the cartridges; I don’t like those jagged stick-up
things on the rim. Dick, do be careful.”

“All right. I know how to load. I’ll fire at the breakwater out there.”

He fired, and Amomma ran away bleating. The bullet threw up a spurt of mud
to the right of the wood-wreathed piles.

“Throws high and to the right. You try, Maisie. Mind, it’s loaded all
round.”

Maisie took the pistol and stepped delicately to the verge of the mud, her
hand firmly closed on the butt, her mouth and left eye screwed up.

Dick sat down on a tuft of bank and laughed. Amomma returned very
cautiously. He was accustomed to strange experiences in his afternoon
walks, and, finding the cartridge-box unguarded, made investigations with
his nose. Maisie fired, but could not see where the bullet went.

“I think it hit the post,” she said, shading her eyes and looking out
across the sailless sea.

“I know it has gone out to the Marazion Bell-buoy,” said Dick, with a
chuckle. “Fire low and to the left; then perhaps you’ll get it. Oh, look
at Amomma!—he’s eating the cartridges!”

Maisie turned, the revolver in her hand, just in time to see Amomma
scampering away from the pebbles Dick threw after him. Nothing is sacred
to a billy-goat. Being well fed and the adored of his mistress, Amomma had
naturally swallowed two loaded pin-fire cartridges. Maisie hurried up to
assure herself that Dick had not miscounted the tale.

“Yes, he’s eaten two.”

“Horrid little beast! Then they’ll joggle about inside him and blow up,
and serve him right…. Oh, Dick! have I killed you?”

Revolvers are tricky things for young hands to deal with. Maisie could not
explain how it had happened, but a veil of reeking smoke separated her
from Dick, and she was quite certain that the pistol had gone off in his
face. Then she heard him sputter, and dropped on her knees beside him,
crying, “Dick, you aren’t hurt, are you? I didn’t mean it.”

“Of course you didn’t,” said Dick, coming out of the smoke and wiping his
cheek. “But you nearly blinded me. That powder stuff stings awfully.” A
neat little splash of gray led on a stone showed where the bullet had
gone. Maisie began to whimper.

“Don’t,” said Dick, jumping to his feet and shaking himself. “I’m not a
bit hurt.”

“No, but I might have killed you,” protested Maisie, the corners of her
mouth drooping. “What should I have done then?”

“Gone home and told Mrs. Jennett.” Dick grinned at the thought; then,
softening, “Please don’t worry about it. Besides, we are wasting time.
We’ve got to get back to tea. I’ll take the revolver for a bit.”

Maisie would have wept on the least encouragement, but Dick’s
indifference, albeit his hand was shaking as he picked up the pistol,
restrained her. She lay panting on the beach while Dick methodically
bombarded the breakwater. “Got it at last!” he exclaimed, as a lock of
weed flew from the wood.

“Let me try,” said Maisie, imperiously. “I’m all right now.”

They fired in turns till the rickety little revolver nearly shook itself
to pieces, and Amomma the outcast—because he might blow up at any
moment—browsed in the background and wondered why stones were thrown
at him. Then they found a balk of timber floating in a pool which was
commanded by the seaward slope of Fort Keeling, and they sat down together
before this new target.

“Next holidays,” said Dick, as the now thoroughly fouled revolver kicked
wildly in his hand, “we’ll get another pistol,—central fire,—that
will carry farther.”

“There won’t be any next holidays for me,” said Maisie. “I’m going away.”

“Where to?”

“I don’t know. My lawyers have written to Mrs. Jennett, and I’ve got to be
educated somewhere,—in France, perhaps,—I don’tknow where; but
I shall be glad to go away.”

“I shan’t like it a bit. I suppose I shall be left. Look here, Maisie, is
it really true you’re going? Then these holidays will be the last I shall
see anything of you; and I go back to school next week. I wish——”

The young blood turned his cheeks scarlet. Maisie was picking grass-tufts
and throwing them down the slope at a yellow sea-poppy nodding all by
itself to the illimitable levels of the mud-flats and the milk-white sea
beyond.

“I wish,” she said, after a pause, “that I could see you again sometime.
You wish that, too?”

“Yes, but it would have been better if—if—you had—shot
straight over there—down by the breakwater.”

Maisie looked with large eyes for a moment. And this was the boy who only
ten days before had decorated Amomma’s horns with cut-paper ham-frills and
turned him out, a bearded derision, among the public ways! Then she
dropped her eyes: this was not the boy.

“Don’t be stupid,” she said reprovingly, and with swift instinct attacked
the side-issue. “How selfish you are! Just think what I should have felt
if that horrid thing had killed you! I’m quite miserable enough already.”

“Why? Because you’re going away from Mrs. Jennett?”

“No.”

“From me, then?”

No answer for a long time. Dick dared not look at her. He felt, though he
did not know, all that the past four years had been to him, and this the
more acutely since he had no knowledge to put his feelings in words.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I suppose it is.”

“Maisie, you must know. I’m not supposing.”

“Let’s go home,” said Maisie, weakly.

But Dick was not minded to retreat.

“I can’t say things,” he pleaded, “and I’m awfully sorry for teasing you
about Amomma the other day. It’s all different now, Maisie, can’t you see?
And you might have told me that you were going, instead of leaving me to
find out.”

“You didn’t. I did tell. Oh, Dick, what’s the use of worrying?”

“There isn’t any; but we’ve been together years and years, and I didn’t
know how much I cared.”

“I don’t believe you ever did care.”

“No, I didn’t; but I do,—I care awfully now, Maisie,” he gulped,—“Maisie,
darling, say you care too, please.”

“I do, indeed I do; but it won’t be any use.”

“Why?”

“Because I am going away.”

“Yes, but if you promise before you go. Only say—will you?” A second
“darling” came to his lips more easily than the first. There were few
endearments in Dick’s home or school life; he had to find them by
instinct. Dick caught the little hand blackened with the escaped gas of
the revolver.

“I promise,” she said solemnly; “but if I care there is no need for
promising.”

“And do you care?” For the first time in the past few minutes their eyes
met and spoke for them who had no skill in speech….

“Oh, Dick, don’t! Please don’t! It was all right when we said
good-morning; but now it’s all different!” Amomma looked on from afar.

He had seen his property quarrel frequently, but he had never seen kisses
exchanged before. The yellow sea-poppy was wiser, and nodded its head
approvingly. Considered as a kiss, that was a failure, but since it was
the first, other than those demanded by duty, in all the world that either
had ever given or taken, it opened to them new worlds, and every one of
them glorious, so that they were lifted above the consideration of any
worlds at all, especially those in which tea is necessary, and sat still,
holding each other’s hands and saying not a word.

“You can’t forget now,” said Dick, at last. There was that on his cheek
that stung more than gunpowder.

“I shouldn’t have forgotten anyhow,” said Maisie, and they looked at each
other and saw that each was changed from the companion of an hour ago to a
wonder and a mystery they could not understand. The sun began to set, and
a night-wind thrashed along the bents of the foreshore.

“We shall be awfully late for tea,” said Maisie. “Let’s go home.”

“Let’s use the rest of the cartridges first,” said Dick; and he helped
Maisie down the slope of the fort to the sea,—a descent that she was
quite capable of covering at full speed. Equally gravely Maisie took the
grimy hand. Dick bent forward clumsily; Maisie drew the hand away, and
Dick blushed.

“It’s very pretty,” he said.

“Pooh!” said Maisie, with a little laugh of gratified vanity. She stood
close to Dick as he loaded the revolver for the last time and fired over
the sea with a vague notion at the back of his head that he was protecting
Maisie from all the evils in the world. A puddle far across the mud caught
the last rays of the sun and turned into a wrathful red disc. The light
held Dick’s attention for a moment, and as he raised his revolver there
fell upon him a renewed sense of the miraculous, in that he was standing
by Maisie who had promised to care for him for an indefinite length of
time till such date as——A gust of the growing wind drove the
girl’s long black hair across his face as she stood with her hand on his
shoulder calling Amomma “a little beast,” and for a moment he was in the
dark,—a darkness that stung. The bullet went singing out to the
empty sea.

“Spoilt my aim,” said he, shaking his head. “There aren’t any more
cartridges; we shall have to run home.” But they did not run. They walked
very slowly, arm in arm. And it was a matter of indifference to them
whether the neglected Amomma with two pin-fire cartridges in his inside
blew up or trotted beside them; for they had come into a golden heritage
and were disposing of it with all the wisdom of all their years.

“And I shall be——” quoth Dick, valiantly. Then he checked
himself: “I don’t know what I shall be. I don’t seem to be able to pass
any exams, but I can make awful caricatures of the masters. Ho! Ho!”

“Be an artist, then,” said Maisie. “You’re always laughing at my trying to
draw; and it will do you good.”

“I’ll never laugh at anything you do,” he answered. “I’ll be an artist,
and I’ll do things.”

“Artists always want money, don’tthey?”

“I’ve got a hundred and twenty pounds a year of my own. My guardians tell
me I’m to have it when I come of age. That will be enough to begin with.”

“Ah, I’m rich,” said Maisie. “I’ve got three hundred a year all my own
when I’m twenty-one. That’s why Mrs. Jennett is kinder to me than she is
to you. I wish, though, that I had somebody that belonged to me,—just
a father or a mother.”

“You belong to me,” said Dick, “for ever and ever.”

“Yes, we belong—for ever. It’s very nice.” She squeezed his arm. The
kindly darkness hid them both, and, emboldened because he could only just
see the profile of Maisie’s cheek with the long lashes veiling the gray
eyes, Dick at the front door delivered himself of the words he had been
boggling over for the last two hours.

“And I—love you, Maisie,” he said, in a whisper that seemed to him
to ring across the world,—the world that he would tomorrow or the
next day set out to conquer.

There was a scene, not, for the sake of discipline, to be reported, when
Mrs. Jennett would have fallen upon him, first for disgraceful
unpunctuality, and secondly for nearly killing himself with a forbidden
weapon.

“I was playing with it, and it went off by itself,” said Dick, when the
powder-pocked cheek could no longer be hidden, “but if you think you’re
going to lick me you’re wrong. You are never going to touch me again. Sit
down and give me my tea. You can’t cheat us out of that, anyhow.”

Mrs. Jennett gasped and became livid. Maisie said nothing, but encouraged
Dick with her eyes, and he behaved abominably all that evening. Mrs.
Jennett prophesied an immediate judgment of Providence and a descent into
Tophet later, but Dick walked in Paradise and would not hear. Only when he
was going to bed Mrs. Jennett recovered and asserted herself. He had
bidden Maisie good night with down-dropped eyes and from a distance.

“If you aren’t a gentleman you might try to behave like one,” said Mrs.
Jennett, spitefully. “You’ve been quarrelling with Maisie again.”

This meant that the usual good-night kiss had been omitted. Maisie, white
to the lips, thrust her cheek forward with a fine air of indifference, and
was duly pecked by Dick, who tramped out of the room red as fire. That
night he dreamed a wild dream. He had won all the world and brought it to
Maisie in a cartridge-box, but she turned it over with her foot, and,
instead of saying “Thank you,” cried—“Where is the grass collar you
promised for Amomma? Oh, how selfish you are!”

CHAPTER II

“I’M NOT angry with the British public, but I wish we had a few thousand
of them scattered among these rooks. They wouldn’t be in such a hurry to
get at their morning papers then. Can’t you imagine the regulation
householder—Lover of Justice, Constant Reader, Paterfamilias, and
all that lot—frizzling on hot gravel?”

“With a blue veil over his head, and his clothes in strips. Has any man
here a needle? I’ve got a piece of sugar-sack.”

“I’ll lend you a packing-needle for six square inches of it then. Both my
knees are worn through.”

“Why not six square acres, while you’re about it? But lend me the needle,
and I’ll see what I can do with the selvage. I don’t think there’s enough
to protect my royal body from the cold blast as it is. What are you doing
with that everlasting sketch-book of yours, Dick?”

“Study of our Special Correspondent repairing his wardrobe,” said Dick,
gravely, as the other man kicked off a pair of sorely worn riding-breeches
and began to fit a square of coarse canvas over the most obvious open
space. He grunted disconsolately as the vastness of the void developed
itself.

“Sugar-bags, indeed! Hi! you pilot man there! lend me all the sails for
that whale-boat.”

A fez-crowned head bobbed up in the stern-sheets, divided itself into
exact halves with one flashing grin, and bobbed down again. The man of the
tattered breeches, clad only in a Norfolk jacket and a gray flannel shirt,
went on with his clumsy sewing, while Dick chuckled over the sketch.

Some twenty whale-boats were nuzzling a sand-bank which was dotted with
English soldiery of half a dozen corps, bathing or washing their clothes.
A heap of boat-rollers, commissariat-boxes, sugar-bags, and flour—and
small-arm-ammunition-cases showed where one of the whale-boats had been
compelled to unload hastily; and a regimental carpenter was swearing aloud
as he tried, on a wholly insufficient allowance of white lead, to plaster
up the sun-parched gaping seams of the boat herself.

“First the bloomin’ rudder snaps,” said he to the world in general; “then
the mast goes; an’ then, s’ help me, when she can’t do nothin’ else, she
opens ‘erself out like a cock-eyed Chinese lotus.”

“Exactly the case with my breeches, whoever you are,” said the tailor,
without looking up. “Dick, I wonder when I shall see a decent shop again.”

There was no answer, save the incessant angry murmur of the Nile as it
raced round a basalt-walled bend and foamed across a rock-ridge half a
mile upstream. It was as though the brown weight of the river would drive
the white men back to their own country. The indescribable scent of Nile
mud in the air told that the stream was falling and the next few miles
would be no light thing for the whale-boats to overpass. The desert ran
down almost to the banks, where, among gray, red, and black hillocks, a
camel-corps was encamped. No man dared even for a day lose touch of the
slow-moving boats; there had been no fighting for weeks past, and
throughout all that time the Nile had never spared them. Rapid had
followed rapid, rock rock, and island-group island-group, till the rank
and file had long since lost all count of direction and very nearly of
time. They were moving somewhere, they did not know why, to do something,
they did not know what. Before them lay the Nile, and at the other end of
it was one Gordon, fighting for the dear life, in a town called Khartoum.
There were columns of British troops in the desert, or in one of the many
deserts; there were yet more columns waiting to embark on the river; there
were fresh drafts waiting at Assioot and Assuan; there were lies and
rumours running over the face of the hopeless land from Suakin to the
Sixth Cataract, and men supposed generally that there must be some one in
authority to direct the general scheme of the many movements. The duty of
that particular river-column was to keep the whale-boats afloat in the
water, to avoid trampling on the villagers’ crops when the gangs “tracked”
the boats with lines thrown from midstream, to get as much sleep and food
as was possible, and, above all, to press on without delay in the teeth of
the churning Nile.

With the soldiers sweated and toiled the correspondents of the newspapers,
and they were almost as ignorant as their companions. But it was above all
things necessary that England at breakfast should be amused and thrilled
and interested, whether Gordon lived or died, or half the British army
went to pieces in the sands. The Soudan campaign was a picturesque one,
and lent itself to vivid word-painting. Now and again a “Special” managed
to get slain,—which was not altogether a disadvantage to the paper
that employed him,—and more often the hand-to-hand nature of the
fighting allowed of miraculous escapes which were worth telegraphing home
at eighteenpence the word. There were many correspondents with many corps
and columns,—from the veterans who had followed on the heels of the
cavalry that occupied Cairo in ’82, what time Arabi Pasha called himself
king, who had seen the first miserable work round Suakin when the sentries
were cut up nightly and the scrub swarmed with spears, to youngsters
jerked into the business at the end of a telegraph-wire to take the places
of their betters killed or invalided.

Among the seniors—those who knew every shift and change in the
perplexing postal arrangements, the value of the seediest, weediest
Egyptian garron offered for sale in Cairo or Alexandria, who could talk a
telegraph-clerk into amiability and soothe the ruffled vanity of a newly
appointed staff-officer when press regulations became burdensome—was
the man in the flannel shirt, the black-browed Torpenhow. He represented
the Central Southern Syndicate in the campaign, as he had represented it
in the Egyptian war, and elsewhere. The syndicate did not concern itself
greatly with criticisms of attack and the like. It supplied the masses,
and all it demanded was picturesqueness and abundance of detail; for there
is more joy in England over a soldier who insubordinately steps out of
square to rescue a comrade than over twenty generals slaving even to
baldness at the gross details of transport and commissariat.

He had met at Suakin a young man, sitting on the edge of a recently
abandoned redoubt about the size of a hat-box, sketching a clump of
shell-torn bodies on the gravel plain.

“What are you for?” said Torpenhow. The greeting of the correspondent is
that of the commercial traveller on the road.

“My own hand,” said the young man, without looking up. “Have you any
tobacco?”

Torpenhow waited till the sketch was finished, and when he had looked at
it said, “What’s your business here?”

“Nothing; there was a row, so I came. I’m supposed to be doing something
down at the painting-slips among the boats, or else I’m in charge of the
condenser on one of the water-ships. I’ve forgotten which.”

“You’ve cheek enough to build a redoubt with,” said Torpenhow, and took
stock of the new acquaintance. “Do you always draw like that?”

The young man produced more sketches. “Row on a Chinese pig-boat,” said
he, sententiously, showing them one after another.—“Chief mate
dirked by a comprador.—Junk ashore off Hakodate.—Somali
muleteer being flogged.—Star-shell bursting over camp at Berbera.—Slave-dhow
being chased round Tajurrah Bah.—Soldier lying dead in the moonlight
outside Suakin.—throat cut by Fuzzies.”

“H’m!” said Torpenhow, “can’tsay I care for Verestchagin-and-water myself,
but there’s no accounting for tastes. Doing anything now, are you?”

“No. I’m amusing myself here.”

Torpenhow looked at the sketches again, and nodded. “Yes, you’re right to
take your first chance when you can get it.”

He rode away swiftly through the Gate of the Two War-Ships, rattled across
the causeway into the town, and wired to his syndicate, “Got man here,
picture-work. Good and cheap. Shall I arrange? Will do letterpress with
sketches.”

The man on the redoubt sat swinging his legs and murmuring, “I knew the
chance would come, sooner or later. By Gad, they’ll have to sweat for it
if I come through this business alive!”

In the evening Torpenhow was able to announce to his friend that the
Central Southern Agency was willing to take him on trial, paying expenses
for three months. “And, by the way, what’s your name?” said Torpenhow.

“Heldar. Do they give me a free hand?”

“They’ve taken you on chance. You must justify the choice. You’d better
stick to me. I’m going up-country with a column, and I’ll do what I can
for you. Give me some of your sketches taken here, and I’ll send ’em
along.” To himself he said, “That’s the best bargain the Central Southern
has ever made; and they got me cheaply enough.”

So it came to pass that, after some purchase of horse-flesh and
arrangements financial and political, Dick was made free of the New and
Honourable Fraternity of war correspondents, who all possess the
inalienable right of doing as much work as they can and getting as much
for it as Providence and their owners shall please. To these things are
added in time, if the brother be worthy, the power of glib speech that
neither man nor woman can resist when a meal or a bed is in question, the
eye of a horse-cope, the skill of a cook, the constitution of a bullock,
the digestion of an ostrich, and an infinite adaptability to all
circumstances. But many die before they attain to this degree, and the
past-masters in the craft appear for the most part in dress-clothes when
they are in England, and thus their glory is hidden from the multitude.

Dick followed Torpenhow wherever the latter’s fancy chose to lead him, and
between the two they managed to accomplish some work that almost satisfied
themselves. It was not an easy life in any way, and under its influence
the two were drawn very closely together, for they ate from the same dish,
they shared the same water-bottle, and, most binding tie of all, their
mails went off together. It was Dick who managed to make gloriously drunk
a telegraph-clerk in a palm hut far beyond the Second Cataract, and, while
the man lay in bliss on the floor, possessed himself of some laboriously
acquired exclusive information, forwarded by a confiding correspondent of
an opposition syndicate, made a careful duplicate of the matter, and
brought the result to Torpenhow, who said that all was fair in love or war
correspondence, and built an excellent descriptive article from his
rival’s riotous waste of words. It was Torpenhow who—but the tale of
their adventures, together and apart, from Philae to the waste wilderness
of Herawi and Muella, would fill many books. They had been penned into a
square side by side, in deadly fear of being shot by over-excited
soldiers; they had fought with baggage-camels in the chill dawn; they had
jogged along in silence under blinding sun on indefatigable little
Egyptian horses; and they had floundered on the shallows of the Nile when
the whale-boat in which they had found a berth chose to hit a hidden rock
and rip out half her bottom-planks.

Now they were sitting on the sand-bank, and the whale-boats were bringing
up the remainder of the column.

“Yes,” said Torpenhow, as he put the last rude stitches into his
over-long-neglected gear, “it has been a beautiful business.”

“The patch or the campaign?” said Dick. “Don’t think much of either,
myself.”

“You want the Euryalus brought up above the Third Cataract, don’t you? and
eighty-one-ton guns at Jakdul? Now, I’m quite satisfied with my breeches.”
He turned round gravely to exhibit himself, after the manner of a clown.

“It’s very pretty. Specially the lettering on the sack. G.B.T. Government
Bullock Train. That’s a sack from India.”

“It’s my initials,—Gilbert Belling Torpenhow. I stole the cloth on
purpose. What the mischief are the camel-corps doing yonder?” Torpenhow
shaded his eyes and looked across the scrub-strewn gravel.

A bugle blew furiously, and the men on the bank hurried to their arms and
accoutrements.

“’Pisan soldiery surprised while bathing,’” remarked Dick, calmly.

“D’you remember the picture? It’s by Michael Angelo; all beginners copy
it. That scrub’s alive with enemy.”

The camel-corps on the bank yelled to the infantry to come to them, and a
hoarse shouting down the river showed that the remainder of the column had
wind of the trouble and was hastening to take share in it. As swiftly as a
reach of still water is crisped by the wind, the rock-strewn ridges and
scrub-topped hills were troubled and alive with armed men.

Mercifully, it occurred to these to stand far off for a time, to shout and
gesticulate joyously. One man even delivered himself of a long story. The
camel-corps did not fire. They were only too glad of a little
breathing-space, until some sort of square could be formed. The men on the
sand-bank ran to their side; and the whale-boats, as they toiled up within
shouting distance, were thrust into the nearest bank and emptied of all
save the sick and a few men to guard them. The Arab orator ceased his
outcries, and his friends howled.

“They look like the Mahdi’s men,” said Torpenhow, elbowing himself into
the crush of the square; “but what thousands of ’em there are! The tribes
hereabout aren’t against us, I know.”

“Then the Mahdi’s taken another town,” said Dick, “and set all these
yelping devils free to show us up. Lend us your glass.”

“Our scouts should have told us of this. We’ve been trapped,” said a
subaltern. “Aren’t the camel guns ever going to begin? Hurry up, you men!”

There was no need of any order. The men flung themselves panting against
the sides of the square, for they had good reason to know that whoso was
left outside when the fighting began would very probably die in an
extremely unpleasant fashion. The little hundred-and-fifty-pound
camel-guns posted at one corner of the square opened the ball as the
square moved forward by its right to get possession of a knoll of rising
ground. All had fought in this manner many times before, and there was no
novelty in the entertainment; always the same hot and stifling formation,
the smell of dust and leather, the same boltlike rush of the enemy, the
same pressure on the weakest side, the few minutes of hand-to-hand
scuffle, and then the silence of the desert, broken only by the yells of
those whom their handful of cavalry attempted to purse. They had become
careless. The camel-guns spoke at intervals, and the square slouched
forward amid the protesting of the camels. Then came the attack of three
thousand men who had not learned from books that it is impossible for
troops in close order to attack against breech-loading fire.

A few dropping shots heralded their approach, and a few horsemen led, but
the bulk of the force was naked humanity, mad with rage, and armed with
the spear and the sword. The instinct of the desert, where there is always
much war, told them that the right flank of the square was the weakest,
for they swung clear of the front. The camel-guns shelled them as they
passed and opened for an instant lanes through their midst, most like
those quick-closing vistas in a Kentish hop-garden seen when the train
races by at full speed; and the infantry fire, held till the opportune
moment, dropped them in close-packing hundreds. No civilised troops in the
world could have endured the hell through which they came, the living
leaping high to avoid the dying who clutched at their heels, the wounded
cursing and staggering forward, till they fell—a torrent black as
the sliding water above a mill-dam—full on the right flank of the
square.

Then the line of the dusty troops and the faint blue desert sky overhead
went out in rolling smoke, and the little stones on the heated ground and
the tinder-dry clumps of scrub became matters of surpassing interest, for
men measured their agonised retreat and recovery by these things, counting
mechanically and hewing their way back to chosen pebble and branch. There
was no semblance of any concerted fighting. For aught the men knew, the
enemy might be attempting all four sides of the square at once. Their
business was to destroy what lay in front of them, to bayonet in the back
those who passed over them, and, dying, to drag down the slayer till he
could be knocked on the head by some avenging gun-butt.

Dick waited with Torpenhow and a young doctor till the stress grew
unendurable. It was hopeless to attend to the wounded till the attack was
repulsed, so the three moved forward gingerly towards the weakest side of
the square. There was a rush from without, the short hough-hough of the
stabbing spears, and a man on a horse, followed by thirty or forty others,
dashed through, yelling and hacking. The right flank of the square sucked
in after them, and the other sides sent help. The wounded, who knew that
they had but a few hours more to live, caught at the enemy’s feet and
brought them down, or, staggering into a discarded rifle, fired blindly
into the scuffle that raged in the centre of the square.

Dick was conscious that somebody had cut him violently across his helmet,
that he had fired his revolver into a black, foam-flecked face which
forthwith ceased to bear any resemblance to a face, and that Torpenhow had
gone down under an Arab whom he had tried to “collar low,” and was turning
over and over with his captive, feeling for the man’s eyes. The doctor
jabbed at a venture with a bayonet, and a helmetless soldier fired over
Dick’s shoulder: the flying grains of powder stung his cheek. It was to
Torpenhow that Dick turned by instinct. The representative of the Central
Southern Syndicate had shaken himself clear of his enemy, and rose, wiping
his thumb on his trousers. The Arab, both hands to his forehead, screamed
aloud, then snatched up his spear and rushed at Torpenhow, who was panting
under shelter of Dick’s revolver. Dick fired twice, and the man dropped
limply. His upturned face lacked one eye. The musketry-fire redoubled, but
cheers mingled with it. The rush had failed and the enemy were flying. If
the heart of the square were shambles, the ground beyond was a butcher’s
shop. Dick thrust his way forward between the maddened men. The remnant of
the enemy were retiring, as the few—the very few—English
cavalry rode down the laggards.

Beyond the lines of the dead, a broad blood-stained Arab spear cast aside
in the retreat lay across a stump of scrub, and beyond this again the
illimitable dark levels of the desert. The sun caught the steel and turned
it into a red disc. Some one behind him was saying, “Ah, get away, you
brute!” Dick raised his revolver and pointed towards the desert. His eye
was held by the red splash in the distance, and the clamour about him
seemed to die down to a very far-away whisper, like the whisper of a level
sea. There was the revolver and the red light. … and the voice of some
one scaring something away, exactly as had fallen somewhere before,—a
darkness that stung. He fired at random, and the bullet went out across
the desert as he muttered, “Spoilt my aim. There aren’t any more
cartridges. We shall have to run home.” He put his hand to his head and
brought it away covered with blood.

“Old man, you’re cut rather badly,” said Torpenhow. “I owe you something
for this business. Thanks. Stand up! I say, you can’t be ill here.”

Throughout the night, when the troops were encamped by the whale-boats, a
black figure danced in the strong moonlight on the sand-bar and shouted
that Khartoum the accursed one was dead,—was dead,—was dead,—that
two steamers were rock-staked on the Nile outside the city, and that of
all their crews there remained not one; and Khartoum was dead,—was
dead,—was dead! But Torpenhow took no heed. He was watching Dick,
who called aloud to the restless Nile for Maisie,—and again Maisie!
“Behold a phenomenon,” said Torpenhow, rearranging the blanket. “Here is a
man, presumably human, who mentions the name of one woman only. And I’ve
seen a good deal of delirium, too.—Dick, here’s some fizzy drink.”

“Thank you, Maisie,” said Dick.

CHAPTER III

THE SOUDAN campaign and Dick’s broken head had been some months ended and
mended, and the Central Southern Syndicate had paid Dick a certain sum on
account for work done, which work they were careful to assure him was not
altogether up to their standard. Dick heaved the letter into the Nile at
Cairo, cashed the draft in the same town, and bade a warm farewell to
Torpenhow at the station.

“I am going to lie up for a while and rest,” said Torpenhow. “I don’t know
where I shall live in London, but if God brings us to meet, we shall meet.
Are you staying here on the off-chance of another row? There will be none
till the Southern Soudan is reoccupied by our troops. Mark that. Goodbye;
bless you; come back when your money’s spent; and give me your address.”

Dick loitered in Cairo, Alexandria, Ismailia, and Port Said,—especially
Port Said. There is iniquity in many parts of the world, and vice in all,
but the concentrated essence of all the iniquities and all the vices in
all the continents finds itself at Port Said. And through the heart of
that sand-bordered hell, where the mirage flickers day long above the
Bitter Lake, move, if you will only wait, most of the men and women you
have known in this life. Dick established himself in quarters more riotous
than respectable. He spent his evenings on the quay, and boarded many
ships, and saw very many friends,—gracious Englishwomen with whom he
had talked not too wisely in the veranda of Shepherd’s Hotel, hurrying war
correspondents, skippers of the contract troop-ships employed in the
campaign, army officers by the score, and others of less reputable trades.

He had choice of all the races of the East and West for studies, and the
advantage of seeing his subjects under the influence of strong excitement,
at the gaming-tables, saloons, dancing-hells, and elsewhere. For
recreation there was the straight vista of the Canal, the blazing sands,
the procession of shipping, and the white hospitals where the English
soldiers lay. He strove to set down in black and white and colour all that
Providence sent him, and when that supply was ended sought about for fresh
material. It was a fascinating employment, but it ran away with his money,
and he had drawn in advance the hundred and twenty pounds to which he was
entitled yearly. “Now I shall have to work and starve!” thought he, and
was addressing himself to this new fate when a mysterious telegram arrived
from Torpenhow in England, which said, “Come back, quick; you have caught
on. Come.”

A large smile overspread his face. “So soon! that’s a good hearing,” said
he to himself. “There will be an orgy tonight. I’ll stand or fall by my
luck. Faith, it’s time it came!” He deposited half of his funds in the
hands of his well-known friends Monsieur and Madame Binat, and ordered
himself a Zanzibar dance of the finest. Monsieur Binat was shaking with
drink, but Madame smiles sympathetically—“Monsieur needs a chair, of
course, and of course Monsieur will sketch; Monsieur amuses himself
strangely.”

Binat raised a blue-white face from a cot in the inner room. “I
understand,” he quavered. “We all know Monsieur. Monsieur is an artist, as
I have been.” Dick nodded. “In the end,” said Binat, with gravity,
“Monsieur will descend alive into hell, as I have descended.” And he
laughed.

“You must come to the dance, too,” said Dick; “I shall want you.”

“For my face? I knew it would be so. For my face? My God! and for my
degradation so tremendous! I will not. Take him away. He is a devil. Or at
least do thou, Celeste, demand of him more.” The excellent Binat began to
kick and scream.

“All things are for sale in Port Said,” said Madame. “If my husband comes
it will be so much more. Eh, how you call ‘alf a sovereign.”

The money was paid, and the mad dance was held at night in a walled
courtyard at the back of Madame Binat’s house. The lady herself, in faded
mauve silk always about to slide from her yellow shoulders, played the
piano, and to the tin-pot music of a Western waltz the naked Zanzibari
girls danced furiously by the light of kerosene lamps. Binat sat upon a
chair and stared with eyes that saw nothing, till the whirl of the dance
and the clang of the rattling piano stole into the drink that took the
place of blood in his veins, and his face glistened. Dick took him by the
chin brutally and turned that face to the light. Madame Binat looked over
her shoulder and smiled with many teeth. Dick leaned against the wall and
sketched for an hour, till the kerosene lamps began to smell, and the
girls threw themselves panting on the hard-beaten ground. Then he shut his
book with a snap and moved away, Binat plucking feebly at his elbow. “Show
me,” he whimpered. “I too was once an artist, even I!” Dick showed him the
rough sketch. “Am I that?” he screamed. “Will you take that away with you
and show all the world that it is I,—Binat?” He moaned and wept.

“Monsieur has paid for all,” said Madame. “To the pleasure of seeing
Monsieur again.”

The courtyard gate shut, and Dick hurried up the sandy street to the
nearest gambling-hell, where he was well known. “If the luck holds, it’s
an omen; if I lose, I must stay here.” He placed his money picturesquely
about the board, hardly daring to look at what he did. The luck held.

Three turns of the wheel left him richer by twenty pounds, and he went
down to the shipping to make friends with the captain of a decayed
cargo-steamer, who landed him in London with fewer pounds in his pocket
than he cared to think about.

A thin gray fog hung over the city, and the streets were very cold; for
summer was in England.

“It’s a cheerful wilderness, and it hasn’t the knack of altering much,”
Dick thought, as he tramped from the Docks westward. “Now, what must I
do?”

The packed houses gave no answer. Dick looked down the long lightless
streets and at the appalling rush of traffic. “Oh, you rabbit-hutches!”
said he, addressing a row of highly respectable semi-detached residences.
“Do you know what you’ve got to do later on? You have to supply me with
men-servants and maid-servants,”—here he smacked his lips,—“and
the peculiar treasure of kings. Meantime I’ll clothes and boots, and
presently I will return and trample on you.” He stepped forward
energetically; he saw that one of his shoes was burst at the side. As he
stooped to make investigations, a man jostled him into the gutter. “All
right,” he said. “That’s another nick in the score. I’ll jostle you later
on.”

Good clothes and boots are not cheap, and Dick left his last shop with the
certainty that he would be respectably arrayed for a time, but with only
fifty shillings in his pocket. He returned to streets by the Docks, and
lodged himself in one room, where the sheets on the bed were almost
audibly marked in case of theft, and where nobody seemed to go to bed at
all. When his clothes arrived he sought the Central Southern Syndicate for
Torpenhow’s address, and got it, with the intimation that there was still
some money waiting for him.

“How much?” said Dick, as one who habitually dealt in millions.

“Between thirty and forty pounds. If it would be any convenience to you,
of course we could let you have it at once; but we usually settle accounts
monthly.”

“If I show that I want anything now, I’m lost,” he said to himself. “All I
need I’ll take later on.” Then, aloud, “It’s hardly worth while; and I’m
going to the country for a month, too. Wait till I come back, and I’ll see
about it.”

The month dragged through at last, and, nearly prancing with impatience,
he went to draw his money. Then he hastened to Torpenhow’s address and
smelt the smell of cooking meats all along the corridors of the chambers.
Torpenhow was on the top floor, and Dick burst into his room, to be
received with a hug which nearly cracked his ribs, as Torpenhow dragged
him to the light and spoke of twenty different things in the same breath.

“But you’re looking tucked up,” he concluded.

“Got anything to eat?” said Dick, his eye roaming round the room.

“I shall be having breakfast in a minute. What do you say to sausages?”

“No, anything but sausages! Torp, I’ve been starving on that accursed
horse-flesh for thirty days and thirty nights.”

“Now, what lunacy has been your latest?”

Dick spoke of the last few weeks with unbridled speech. Then he opened his
coat; there was no waistcoat below. “I ran it fine, awfully fine, but I’ve
just scraped through.”

“You haven’t much sense, but you’ve got a backbone, anyhow. Eat, and talk
afterwards.” Dick fell upon eggs and bacon and gorged till he could gorge
no more. Torpenhow handed him a filled pipe, and he smoked as men smoke
who for three weeks have been deprived of good tobacco.

“Ouf!” said he. “That’s heavenly! Well?”

“Why in the world didn’t you come to me?”

“Couldn’t; I owe you too much already, old man. Besides I had a sort of
superstition that this temporary starvation—that’s what it was, and
it hurt—would bring me luck later. It’s over and done with now, and
none of the syndicate know how hard up I was. Fire away. What’s the exact
state of affairs as regards myself?”

“You had my wire? You’ve caught on here. People like your work immensely.
I don’t know why, but they do. They say you have a fresh touch and a new
way of drawing things. And, because they’re chiefly home-bred English,
they say you have insight. You’re wanted by half a dozen papers; you’re
wanted to illustrate books.”

Dick grunted scornfully.

“You’re wanted to work up your smaller sketches and sell them to the
dealers. They seem to think the money sunk in you is a good investment.
Good Lord! who can account for the fathomless folly of the public?”

“They’re a remarkably sensible people.”

“They are subject to fits, if that’s what you mean; and you happen to be
the object of the latest fit among those who are interested in what they
call Art. Just now you’re a fashion, a phenomenon, or whatever you please.
I appeared to be the only person who knew anything about you here, and I
have been showing the most useful men a few of the sketches you gave me
from time to time. Those coming after your work on the Central Southern
Syndicate appear to have done your business. You’re in luck.”

“Huh! call it luck! Do call it luck, when a man has been kicking about the
world like a dog, waiting for it to come! I’ll luck ’em later on. I want a
place to work first.”

“Come here,” said Torpenhow, crossing the landing. “This place is a big
box room really, but it will do for you. There’s your skylight, or your
north light, or whatever window you call it, and plenty of room to thrash
about in, and a bedroom beyond. What more do you need?”

“Good enough,” said Dick, looking round the large room that took up a
third of a top story in the rickety chambers overlooking the Thames. A
pale yellow sun shone through the skylight and showed the much dirt of the
place. Three steps led from the door to the landing, and three more to
Torpenhow’s room. The well of the staircase disappeared into darkness,
pricked by tiny gas-jets, and there were sounds of men talking and doors
slamming seven flights below, in the warm gloom.

“Do they give you a free hand here?” said Dick, cautiously. He was Ishmael
enough to know the value of liberty.

“Anything you like; latch-keys and license unlimited. We are permanent
tenants for the most part here. ‘Tisn’t a place I would recommend for a
Young Men’s Christian Association, but it will serve. I took these rooms
for you when I wired.”

“You didn’t suppose you were going away from me, did you?” Torpenhow put
his hand on Dick’s shoulder, and the two walked up and down the room,
henceforward to be called the studio, in sweet and silent communion. They
heard rapping at Torpenhow’s door. “That’s some ruffian come up for a
drink,” said Torpenhow; and he raised his voice cheerily. There entered no
one more ruffianly than a portly middle-aged gentleman in a satin-faced
frockcoat. His lips were parted and pale, and there were deep pouches
under the eyes.

“Weak heart,” said Dick to himself, and, as he shook hands, “very weak
heart. His pulse is shaking his fingers.”

The man introduced himself as the head of the Central Southern Syndicate
and “one of the most ardent admirers of your work, Mr. Heldar. I assure
you, in the name of the syndicate, that we are immensely indebted to you;
and I trust, Mr. Heldar, you won’t forget that we were largely
instrumental in bringing you before the public.” He panted because of the
seven flights of stairs.

Dick glanced at Torpenhow, whose left eyelid lay for a moment dead on his
cheek.

“I shan’t forget,” said Dick, every instinct of defence roused in him.

“You’ve paid me so well that I couldn’t, you know. By the way, when I am
settled in this place I should like to send and get my sketches. There
must be nearly a hundred and fifty of them with you.”

“That is er—is what I came to speak about. I fear we can’t allow it
exactly, Mr. Heldar. In the absence of any specified agreement, the
sketches are our property, of course.”

“Do you mean to say that you are going to keep them?”

“Yes; and we hope to have your help, on your own terms, Mr. Heldar, to
assist us in arranging a little exhibition, which, backed by our name and
the influence we naturally command among the press, should be of material
service to you. Sketches such as yours——”

“Belong to me. You engaged me by wire, you paid me the lowest rates you
dared. You can’t mean to keep them! Good God alive, man, they’re all I’ve
got in the world!”

Torpenhow watched Dick’s face and whistled.

Dick walked up and down, thinking. He saw the whole of his little stock in
trade, the first weapon of his equipment, annexed at the outset of his
campaign by an elderly gentleman whose name Dick had not caught aright,
who said that he represented a syndicate, which was a thing for which Dick
had not the least reverence. The injustice of the proceedings did not much
move him; he had seen the strong hand prevail too often in other places to
be squeamish over the moral aspects of right and wrong.

But he ardently desired the blood of the gentleman in the frockcoat, and
when he spoke again, it was with a strained sweetness that Torpenhow knew
well for the beginning of strife.

“Forgive me, sir, but you have no—no younger man who can arrange
this business with me?”

“I speak for the syndicate. I see no reason for a third party to——”

“You will in a minute. Be good enough to give back my sketches.”

The man stared blankly at Dick, and then at Torpenhow, who was leaning
against the wall. He was not used to ex-employees who ordered him to be
good enough to do things.

“Yes, it is rather a cold-blooded steal,” said Torpenhow, critically; “but
I’m afraid, I am very much afraid, you’ve struck the wrong man. Be
careful, Dick; remember, this isn’t the Soudan.”

“Considering what services the syndicate have done you in putting your
name before the world——”

This was not a fortunate remark; it reminded Dick of certain vagrant years
lived out in loneliness and strife and unsatisfied desires. The memory did
not contrast well with the prosperous gentleman who proposed to enjoy the
fruit of those years.

“I don’t know quite what to do with you,” began Dick, meditatively. “Of
course you’re a thief, and you ought to be half killed, but in your case
you’d probably die. I don’t want you dead on this floor, and, besides,
it’s unlucky just as one’s moving in. Don’t hit, sir; you’ll only excite
yourself.”

He put one hand on the man’s forearm and ran the other down the plump body
beneath the coat. “My goodness!” said he to Torpenhow, “and this gray oaf
dares to be a thief! I have seen an Esneh camel-driver have the black hide
taken off his body in strips for stealing half a pound of wet dates, and
he was as tough as whipcord. This thing’s soft all over—like a
woman.”

There are few things more poignantly humiliating than being handled by a
man who does not intend to strike. The head of the syndicate began to
breathe heavily. Dick walked round him, pawing him, as a cat paws a soft
hearth-rug. Then he traced with his forefinger the leaden pouches
underneath the eyes, and shook his head. “You were going to steal my
things,—mine, mine, mine!—you, who don’t know when you may
die. Write a note to your office,—you say you’re the head of it,—and
order them to give Torpenhow my sketches,—every one of them. Wait a
minute: your hand’s shaking. Now!” He thrust a pocket-book before him. The
note was written. Torpenhow took it and departed without a word, while
Dick walked round and round the spellbound captive, giving him such advice
as he conceived best for the welfare of his soul. When Torpenhow returned
with a gigantic portfolio, he heard Dick say, almost soothingly, “Now, I
hope this will be a lesson to you; and if you worry me when I have settled
down to work with any nonsense about actions for assault, believe me, I’ll
catch you and manhandle you, and you’ll die. You haven’t very long to
live, anyhow. Go! Imshi, Vootsak,—get out!” The man departed,
staggering and dazed. Dick drew a long breath: “Phew! what a lawless lot
these people are! The first thing a poor orphan meets is gang robbery,
organised burglary! Think of the hideous blackness of that man’s mind! Are
my sketches all right, Torp?”

“Yes; one hundred and forty-seven of them. Well, I must say, Dick, you’ve
begun well.”

“He was interfering with me. It only meant a few pounds to him, but it was
everything to me. I don’t think he’ll bring an action. I gave him some
medical advice gratis about the state of his body. It was cheap at the
little flurry it cost him. Now, let’s look at my things.”

Two minutes later Dick had thrown himself down on the floor and was deep
in the portfolio, chuckling lovingly as he turned the drawings over and
thought of the price at which they had been bought.

The afternoon was well advanced when Torpenhow came to the door and saw
Dick dancing a wild saraband under the skylight.

“I builded better than I knew, Torp,” he said, without stopping the dance.
“They’re good! They’re damned good! They’ll go like flame! I shall have an
exhibition of them on my own brazen hook. And that man would have cheated
me out of it! Do you know that I’m sorry now that I didn’t actually hit
him?”

“Go out,” said Torpenhow,—“go out and pray to be delivered from the
sin of arrogance, which you never will be. Bring your things up from
whatever place you’re staying in, and we’ll try to make this barn a little
more shipshape.”

“And then—oh, then,” said Dick, still capering, “we will spoil the
Egyptians!”

CHAPTER IV

“WELL, and how does success taste?” said Torpenhow, some three months
later. He had just returned to chambers after a holiday in the country.

“Good,” said Dick, as he sat licking his lips before the easel in the
studio.

“I want more,—heaps more. The lean years have passed, and I approve
of these fat ones.”

“Be careful, old man. That way lies bad work.”

Torpenhow was sprawling in a long chair with a small fox-terrier asleep on
his chest, while Dick was preparing a canvas. A dais, a background, and a
lay-figure were the only fixed objects in the place. They rose from a
wreck of oddments that began with felt-covered water-bottles, belts, and
regimental badges, and ended with a small bale of second-hand uniforms and
a stand of mixed arms. The mark of muddy feet on the dais showed that a
military model had just gone away. The watery autumn sunlight was falling,
and shadows sat in the corners of the studio.

“Yes,” said Dick, deliberately, “I like the power; I like the fun; I like
the fuss; and above all I like the money. I almost like the people who
make the fuss and pay the money. Almost. But they’re a queer gang,—an
amazingly queer gang!”

“They have been good enough to you, at any rate. That tin-pot exhibition
of your sketches must have paid. Did you see that the papers called it the
‘Wild Work Show’?”

“Never mind. I sold every shred of canvas I wanted to; and, on my word, I
believe it was because they believed I was a self-taught flagstone artist.
I should have got better prices if I worked my things on wool or scratched
them on camel-bone instead of using mere black and white and colour.
Verily, they are a queer gang, these people. Limited isn’t the word to
describe ’em. I met a fellow the other day who told me that it was
impossible that shadows on white sand should be blue,—ultramarine,—as
they are. I found out, later, that the man had been as far as Brighton
beach; but he knew all about Art, confound him. He gave me a lecture on
it, and recommended me to go to school to learn technique. I wonder what
old Kami would have said to that.”

“When were you under Kami, man of extraordinary beginnings?”

“I studied with him for two years in Paris. He taught by personal
magnetism. All he ever said was, ‘Continuez, mes enfants,’ and you had to
make the best you could of that. He had a divine touch, and he knew
something about colour. Kami used to dream colour; I swear he could never
have seen the genuine article; but he evolved it; and it was good.”

“Recollect some of those views in the Soudan?” said Torpenhow, with a
provoking drawl.

Dick squirmed in his place. “Don’t! It makes me want to get out there
again. What colour that was! Opal and umber and amber and claret and
brick-red and sulphur—cockatoo-crest-sulphur—against brown,
with a nigger-black rock sticking up in the middle of it all, and a
decorative frieze of camels festooning in front of a pure pale turquoise
sky.” He began to walk up and down. “And yet, you know, if you try to give
these people the thing as God gave it, keyed down to their comprehension
and according to the powers He has given you——”

“Modest man! Go on.”

“Half a dozen epicene young pagans who haven’t even been to Algiers will
tell you, first, that your notion is borrowed, and, secondly, that it
isn’t Art.”

“This comes of my leaving town for a month. Dickie, you’ve been
promenading among the toy-shops and hearing people talk.”

“I couldn’t help it,” said Dick, penitently. “You weren’t here, and it was
lonely these long evenings. A man can’t work for ever.”

“A man might have gone to a pub, and got decently drunk.”

“I wish I had; but I forgathered with some men of sorts. They said they
were artists, and I knew some of them could draw,—but they wouldn’t
draw. They gave me tea,—tea at five in the afternoon!—and
talked about Art and the state of their souls. As if their souls mattered.
I’ve heard more about Art and seen less of her in the last six months than
in the whole of my life. Do you remember Cassavetti, who worked for some
continental syndicate, out with the desert column? He was a regular
Christmas-tree of contraptions when he took the field in full fig, with
his water-bottle, lanyard, revolver, writing-case, housewife, gig-lamps,
and the Lord knows what all. He used to fiddle about with ’em and show us
how they worked; but he never seemed to do much except fudge his reports
from the Nilghai. See?”

“Dear old Nilghai! He’s in town, fatter than ever. He ought to be up here
this evening. I see the comparison perfectly. You should have kept clear
of all that man-millinery. Serves you right; and I hope it will unsettle
your mind.”

“It won’t. It has taught me what Art—holy sacred Art—means.”

“You’ve learnt something while I’ve been away. What is Art?”

“Give ’em what they know, and when you’ve done it once do it again.”

Dick dragged forward a canvas laid face to the wall. “Here’s a sample of
real Art. It’s going to be a facsimile reproduction for a weekly. I called
it ‘His Last Shot.’ It’s worked up from the little water-colour I made
outside El Maghrib. Well, I lured my model, a beautiful rifleman, up here
with drink; I drored him, and I redrored him, and I redrored him, and I
made him a flushed, dishevelled, bedevilled scallawag, with his helmet at
the back of his head, and the living fear of death in his eye, and the
blood oozing out of a cut over his ankle-bone. He wasn’t pretty, but he
was all soldier and very much man.”

“Once more, modest child!”

Dick laughed. “Well, it’s only to you I’m talking. I did him just as well
as I knew how, making allowance for the slickness of oils. Then the
art-manager of that abandoned paper said that his subscribers wouldn’t
like it. It was brutal and coarse and violent,—man being naturally
gentle when he’s fighting for his life. They wanted something more
restful, with a little more colour. I could have said a good deal, but you
might as well talk to a sheep as an art-manager. I took my ‘Last Shot’
back. Behold the result! I put him into a lovely red coat without a speck
on it. That is Art. I polished his boots,—observe the high light on
the toe. That is Art. I cleaned his rifle,—rifles are always clean
on service,—because that is Art. I pipeclayed his helmet,—pipeclay
is always used on active service, and is indispensable to Art. I shaved
his chin, I washed his hands, and gave him an air of fatted peace. Result,
military tailor’s pattern-plate. Price, thank Heaven, twice as much as for
the first sketch, which was moderately decent.”

“And do you suppose you’re going to give that thing out as your work?”

“Why not? I did it. Alone I did it, in the interests of sacred, home-bred
Art and Dickenson’s Weekly.”

Torpenhow smoked in silence for a while. Then came the verdict, delivered
from rolling clouds: “If you were only a mass of blathering vanity, Dick,
I wouldn’t mind,—I’d let you go to the deuce on your own mahl-stick;
but when I consider what you are to me, and when I find that to vanity you
add the twopenny-halfpenny pique of a twelve-year-old girl, then I bestir
myself in your behalf. Thus!”

The canvas ripped as Torpenhow’s booted foot shot through it, and the
terrier jumped down, thinking rats were about.

“If you have any bad language to use, use it. You have not. I continue.
You are an idiot, because no man born of woman is strong enough to take
liberties with his public, even though they be—which they ain’t—all
you say they are.”

“But they don’t know any better. What can you expect from creatures born
and bred in this light?” Dick pointed to the yellow fog. “If they want
furniture-polish, let them have furniture-polish, so long as they pay for
it. They are only men and women. You talk as if they were gods.”

“That sounds very fine, but it has nothing to do with the case. They are
they people you have to do work for, whether you like it or not. They are
your masters. Don’t be deceived, Dickie, you aren’t strong enough to
trifle with them,—or with yourself, which is more important.

“Moreover,—Come back, Binkie: that red daub isn’t going anywhere,—unless
you take precious good care, you will fall under the damnation of the
check-book, and that’s worse than death. You will get drunk—you’re
half drunk already—on easily acquired money. For that money and you
own infernal vanity you are willing to deliberately turn out bad work.
You’ll do quite enough bad work without knowing it. And, Dickie, as I love
you and as I know you love me, I am not going to let you cut off your nose
to spite your face for all the gold in England. That’s settled. Now
swear.”

“Don’t know,” said Dick. “I’ve been trying to make myself angry, but I
can’t, you’re so abominably reasonable. There will be a row on Dickenson’s
Weekly, I fancy.”

“Why the Dickenson do you want to work on a weekly paper? It’s slow
bleeding of power.”

“It brings in the very desirable dollars,” said Dick, his hands in his
pockets.

Torpenhow watched him with large contempt. “Why, I thought it was a man!”
said he. “It’s a child.”

“No, it isn’t,” said Dick, wheeling quickly. “You’ve no notion what the
certainty of cash means to a man who has always wanted it badly. Nothing
will pay me for some of my life’s joys; on that Chinese pig-boat, for
instance, when we ate bread and jam for every meal, because Ho-Wang
wouldn’t allow us anything better, and it all tasted of pig,—Chinese
pig. I’ve worked for this, I’ve sweated and I’ve starved for this, line on
line and month after month. And now I’ve got it I am going to make the
most of it while it lasts. Let them pay—they’ve no knowledge.”

“What does Your Majesty please to want? You can’t smoke more than you do;
you won’t drink; you’re a gross feeder; and you dress in the dark, by the
look of you. You wouldn’t keep a horse the other day when I suggested,
because, you said, it might fall lame, and whenever you cross the street
you take a hansom. Even you are not foolish enough to suppose that
theatres and all the live things you can by thereabouts mean Life. What
earthly need have you for money?”

“It’s there, bless its golden heart,” said Dick. “It’s there all the time.
Providence has sent me nuts while I have teeth to crack ’em with. I
haven’t yet found the nut I wish to crack, but I’m keeping my teeth filed.
Perhaps some day you and I will go for a walk round the wide earth.”

“With no work to do, nobody to worry us, and nobody to compete with? You
would be unfit to speak to in a week. Besides, I shouldn’t go. I don’t
care to profit by the price of a man’s soul,—for that’s what it
would mean. Dick, it’s no use arguing. You’re a fool.”

“Don’t see it. When I was on that Chinese pig-boat, our captain got credit
for saving about twenty-five thousand very seasick little pigs, when our
old tramp of a steamer fell foul of a timber-junk. Now, taking those pigs
as a parallel——”

“Oh, confound your parallels! Whenever I try to improve your soul, you
always drag in some anecdote from your very shady past. Pigs aren’t the
British public; and self-respect is self-respect the world over. Go out
for a walk and try to catch some self-respect. And, I say, if the Nilghai
comes up this evening can I show him your diggings?”

“Surely.” And Dick departed, to take counsel with himself in the rapidly
gathering London fog.

Half an hour after he had left, the Nilghai laboured up the staircase. He
was the chiefest, as he was the youngest, of the war correspondents, and
his experiences dated from the birth of the needle-gun. Saving only his
ally, Keneu the Great War Eagle, there was no man higher in the craft than
he, and he always opened his conversation with the news that there would
be trouble in the Balkans in the spring. Torpenhow laughed as he entered.

“Never mind the trouble in the Balkans. Those little states are always
screeching. You’ve heard about Dick’s luck?”

“Yes; he has been called up to notoriety, hasn’t he? I hope you keep him
properly humble. He wants suppressing from time to time.”

“He does. He’s beginning to take liberties with what he thinks is his
reputation.”

“Already! By Jove, he has cheek! I don’t know about his reputation, but
he’ll come a cropper if he tries that sort of thing.”

“So I told him. I don’t think he believes it.”

“They never do when they first start off. What’s that wreck on the ground
there?”

“Specimen of his latest impertinence.” Torpenhow thrust the torn edges of
the canvas together and showed the well-groomed picture to the Nilghai,
who looked at it for a moment and whistled.

“It’s a chromo,” said he,—“a chromo-litholeomargarine fake! What
possessed him to do it? And yet how thoroughly he has caught the note that
catches a public who think with their boots and read with their elbows!
The cold-blooded insolence of the work almost saves it; but he mustn’t go
on with this. Hasn’t he been praised and cockered up too much? You know
these people here have no sense of proportion. They’ll call him a second
Detaille and a third-hand Meissonier while his fashion lasts. It’s windy
diet for a colt.”

“I don’t think it affects Dick much. You might as well call a young wolf a
lion and expect him to take the compliment in exchange for a shin-bone.
Dick’s soul is in the bank. He’s working for cash.”

“Now he has thrown up war work, I suppose he doesn’t see that the
obligations of the service are just the same, only the proprietors are
changed.”

“How should he know? He thinks he is his own master.”

“Does he? I could undeceive him for his good, if there’s any virtue in
print. He wants the whiplash.”

“Lay it on with science, then. I’d flay him myself, but I like him too
much.”

“I’ve no scruples. He had the audacity to try to cut me out with a woman
at Cairo once. I forgot that, but I remember now.”

“Did he cut you out?”

“You’ll see when I have dealt with him. But, after all, what’s the good?
Leave him alone and he’ll come home, if he has any stuff in him, dragging
or wagging his tail behind him. There’s more in a week of life than in a
lively weekly. None the less I’ll slate him. I’ll slate him ponderously in
the Cataclysm.”

“Good luck to you; but I fancy nothing short of a crowbar would make Dick
wince. His soul seems to have been fired before we came across him. He’s
intensely suspicious and utterly lawless.”

“Matter of temper,” said the Nilghai. “It’s the same with horses. Some you
wallop and they work, some you wallop and they jib, and some you wallop
and they go out for a walk with their hands in their pockets.”

“That’s exactly what Dick has done,” said Torpenhow. “Wait till he comes
back. In the meantime, you can begin your slating here. I’ll show you some
of his last and worst work in his studio.”

Dick had instinctively sought running water for a comfort to his mood of
mind. He was leaning over the Embankment wall, watching the rush of the
Thames through the arches of Westminster Bridge. He began by thinking of
Torpenhow’s advice, but, as of custom, lost himself in the study of the
faces flocking past. Some had death written on their features, and Dick
marvelled that they could laugh. Others, clumsy and coarse-built for the
most part, were alight with love; others were merely drawn and lined with
work; but there was something, Dick knew, to be made out of them all. The
poor at least should suffer that he might learn, and the rich should pay
for the output of his learning. Thus his credit in the world and his cash
balance at the bank would be increased. So much the better for him. He had
suffered. Now he would take toll of the ills of others.

The fog was driven apart for a moment, and the sun shone, a blood-red
wafer, on the water. Dick watched the spot till he heard the voice of the
tide between the piers die down like the wash of the sea at low tide. A
girl hard pressed by her lover shouted shamelessly, “Ah, get away, you
beast!” and a shift of the same wind that had opened the fog drove across
Dick’s face the black smoke of a river-steamer at her berth below the
wall. He was blinded for the moment, then spun round and found himself
face to face with—Maisie.

There was no mistaking. The years had turned the child to a woman, but
they had not altered the dark-gray eyes, the thin scarlet lips, or the
firmly modelled mouth and chin; and, that all should be as it was of old,
she wore a closely fitting gray dress.

Since the human soul is finite and not in the least under its own command,
Dick, advancing, said “Halloo!” after the manner of schoolboys, and Maisie
answered, “Oh, Dick, is that you?” Then, against his will, and before the
brain newly released from considerations of the cash balance had time to
dictate to the nerves, every pulse of Dick’s body throbbed furiously and
his palate dried in his mouth. The fog shut down again, and Maisie’s face
was pearl-white through it. No word was spoken, but Dick fell into step at
her side, and the two paced the Embankment together, keeping the step as
perfectly as in their afternoon excursions to the mud-flats. Then Dick, a
little hoarsely—“What has happened to Amomma?”

“He died, Dick. Not cartridges; over-eating. He was always greedy. Isn’t
it funny?”

“Yes. No. Do you mean Amomma?”

“Ye—es. No. This. Where have you come from?”

“Over there,” He pointed eastward through the fog. “And you?”

“Oh, I’m in the north,—the black north, across all the Park. I am
very busy.”

“What do you do?”

“I paint a great deal. That’s all I have to do.”

“Why, what’s happened? You had three hundred a year.”

“I have that still. I am painting; that’s all.”

“Are you alone, then?”

“There’s a girl living with me. Don’t walk so fast, Dick; you’re out of
step.”

“Then you noticed it too?”

“Of course I did. You’re always out of step.”

“So I am. I’m sorry. You went on with the painting?”

“Of course. I said I should. I was at the Slade, then at Merton’s in St.
John’s Wood, the big studio, then I pepper-potted,—I mean I went to
the National,—and now I’m working under Kami.”

“But Kami is in Paris surely?”

“No; he has his teaching studio in Vitry-sur-Marne. I work with him in the
summer, and I live in London in the winter. I’m a householder.”

“Do you sell much?”

“Now and again, but not often. There is my ‘bus. I must take it or lose
half an hour. Goodbye, Dick.”

“Goodbye, Maisie. Won’t you tell me where you live? I must see you again;
and perhaps I could help you. I—I paint a little myself.”

“I may be in the Park tomorrow, if there is no working light. I walk from
the Marble Arch down and back again; that is my little excursion. But of
course I shall see you again.” She stepped into the omnibus and was
swallowed up by the fog.

“Well—I—am—damned!” exclaimed Dick, and returned to the
chambers.

Torpenhow and the Nilghai found him sitting on the steps to the studio
door, repeating the phrase with an awful gravity.

“You’ll be more damned when I’m done with you,” said the Nilghai,
upheaving his bulk from behind Torpenhow’s shoulder and waving a sheaf of
half-dry manuscript. “Dick, it is of common report that you are suffering
from swelled head.”

“Halloo, Nilghai. Back again? How are the Balkans and all the little
Balkans? One side of your face is out of drawing, as usual.”

“Never mind that. I am commissioned to smite you in print. Torpenhow
refuses from false delicacy. I’ve been overhauling the pot-boilers in your
studio. They are simply disgraceful.”

“Oho! that’s it, is it? If you think you can slate me, you’re wrong. You
can only describe, and you need as much room to turn in, on paper, as a P.
and O. cargo-boat. But continue, and be swift. I’m going to bed.”

“H’m! h’m! h’m! The first part only deals with your pictures. Here’s the
peroration: ‘For work done without conviction, for power wasted on
trivialities, for labour expended with levity for the deliberate purpose
of winning the easy applause of a fashion-driven public——”

“That’s ‘His Last Shot,’ second edition. Go on.”

“——’public, there remains but one end,—the oblivion that
is preceded by toleration and cenotaphed with contempt. From that fate Mr.
Heldar has yet to prove himself out of danger.”

“Wow—wow—wow—wow—wow!” said Dick, profanely. “It’s
a clumsy ending and vile journalese, but it’s quite true. And yet,”—he
sprang to his feet and snatched at the manuscript,—“you scarred,
deboshed, battered old gladiator! you’re sent out when a war begins, to
minister to the blind, brutal, British public’s bestial thirst for blood.
They have no arenas now, but they must have special correspondents. You’re
a fat gladiator who comes up through a trap-door and talks of what he’s
seen. You stand on precisely the same level as an energetic bishop, an
affable actress, a devastating cyclone, or—mine own sweet self. And
you presume to lecture me about my work! Nilghai, if it were worth while
I’d caricature you in four papers!”

The Nilghai winced. He had not thought of this.

“As it is, I shall take this stuff and tear it small—so!” The
manuscript fluttered in slips down the dark well of the staircase. “Go
home, Nilghai,” said Dick; “go home to your lonely little bed, and leave
me in peace. I am about to turn in till to morrow.”

“Why, it isn’t seven yet!” said Torpenhow, with amazement.

“It shall be two in the morning, if I choose,” said Dick, backing to the
studio door. “I go to grapple with a serious crisis, and I shan’t want any
dinner.”

The door shut and was locked.

“What can you do with a man like that?” said the Nilghai.

“Leave him alone. He’s as mad as a hatter.”

At eleven there was a kicking on the studio door. “Is the Nilghai with you
still?” said a voice from within. “Then tell him he might have condensed
the whole of his lumbering nonsense into an epigram: ‘Only the free are
bond, and only the bond are free.’ Tell him he’s an idiot, Torp, and tell
him I’m another.”

“All right. Come out and have supper. You’re smoking on an empty stomach.”

There was no answer.

CHAPTER V

Next morning Torpenhow found Dick sunk in deepest repose of tobacco.

“Well, madman, how d’you feel?”

“I don’t know. I’m trying to find out.”

“You had much better do some work.”

“Maybe; but I’m in no hurry. I’ve made a discovery. Torp, there’s too much
Ego in my Cosmos.”

“Not really! Is this revelation due to my lectures, or the Nilghai’s?”

“It came to me suddenly, all on my own account. Much too much Ego; and now
I’m going to work.”

He turned over a few half-finished sketches, drummed on a new canvas,
cleaned three brushes, set Binkie to bite the toes of the lay figure,
rattled through his collection of arms and accoutrements, and then went
out abruptly, declaring that he had done enough for the day.

“This is positively indecent,” said Torpenhow, “and the first time that
Dick has ever broken up a light morning. Perhaps he has found out that he
has a soul, or an artistic temperament, or something equally valuable.
That comes of leaving him alone for a month. Perhaps he has been going out
of evenings. I must look to this.” He rang for the bald-headed old
housekeeper, whom nothing could astonish or annoy.

“Beeton, did Mr. Heldar dine out at all while I was out of town?”

“Never laid ‘is dress-clothes out once, sir, all the time. Mostly ‘e dined
in; but ‘e brought some most remarkable young gentlemen up ‘ere after
theatres once or twice. Remarkable fancy they was. You gentlemen on the
top floor does very much as you likes, but it do seem to me, sir, droppin’
a walkin’-stick down five flights o’ stairs an’ then goin’ down four
abreast to pick it up again at half-past two in the mornin’, singin’
‘Bring back the whiskey, Willie darlin’,’—not once or twice, but
scores o’ times,—isn’t charity to the other tenants. What I say is,
‘Do as you would be done by.’ That’s my motto.”

“Of course! of course! I’m afraid the top floor isn’t the quietest in the
house.”

“I make no complaints, sir. I have spoke to Mr. Heldar friendly, an’ he
laughed, an’ did me a picture of the missis that is as good as a coloured
print. It ‘asn’t the high shine of a photograph, but what I say is, ‘Never
look a gift-horse in the mouth.’ Mr. Heldar’s dress-clothes ‘aven’t been
on him for weeks.”

“Then it’s all right,” said Torpenhow to himself. “Orgies are healthy, and
Dick has a head of his own, but when it comes to women making eyes I’m not
so certain,—Binkie, never you be a man, little dorglums. They’re
contrary brutes, and they do things without any reason.”

Dick had turned northward across the Park, but he was walking in the
spirit on the mud-flats with Maisie. He laughed aloud as he remembered the
day when he had decked Amomma’s horns with the ham-frills, and Maisie,
white with rage, had cuffed him. How long those four years seemed in
review, and how closely Maisie was connected with every hour of them!
Storm across the sea, and Maisie in a gray dress on the beach, sweeping
her drenched hair out of her eyes and laughing at the homeward race of the
fishing-smacks; hot sunshine on the mud-flats, and Maisie sniffing
scornfully, with her chin in the air; Maisie flying before the wind that
threshed the foreshore and drove the sand like small shot about her ears;
Maisie, very composed and independent, telling lies to Mrs. Jennett while
Dick supported her with coarser perjuries; Maisie picking her way
delicately from stone to stone, a pistol in her hand and her teeth
firm-set; and Maisie in a gray dress sitting on the grass between the
mouth of a cannon and a nodding yellow sea-poppy. The pictures passed
before him one by one, and the last stayed the longest.

Dick was perfectly happy with a quiet peace that was as new to his mind as
it was foreign to his experiences. It never occurred to him that there
might be other calls upon his time than loafing across the Park in the
forenoon.

“There’s a good working light now,” he said, watching his shadow placidly.
“Some poor devil ought to be grateful for this. And there’s Maisie.”

She was walking towards him from the Marble Arch, and he saw that no
mannerism of her gait had been changed. It was good to find her still
Maisie, and, so to speak, his next-door neighbour. No greeting passed
between them, because there had been none in the old days.

“What are you doing out of your studio at this hour?” said Dick, as one
who was entitled to ask.

“Idling. Just idling. I got angry with a chin and scraped it out. Then I
left it in a little heap of paint-chips and came away.”

“I know what palette-knifing means. What was the piccy?”

“A fancy head that wouldn’t come right,—horrid thing!”

“I don’t like working over scraped paint when I’m doing flesh. The grain
comes up woolly as the paint dries.”

“Not if you scrape properly.” Maisie waved her hand to illustrate her
methods. There was a dab of paint on the white cuff. Dick laughed.

“You’re as untidy as ever.”

“That comes well from you. Look at your own cuff.”

“By Jove, yes! It’s worse than yours. I don’t think we’ve much altered in
anything. Let’s see, though.” He looked at Maisie critically. The pale
blue haze of an autumn day crept between the tree-trunks of the Park and
made a background for the gray dress, the black velvet toque above the
black hair, and the resolute profile.

“No, there’s nothing changed. How good it is! D’you remember when I
fastened your hair into the snap of a hand-bag?”

Maisie nodded, with a twinkle in her eyes, and turned her full face to
Dick.

“Wait a minute,” said he. “That mouth is down at the corners a little.
Who’s been worrying you, Maisie?”

“No one but myself. I never seem to get on with my work, and yet I try
hard enough, and Kami says——”

“’Continuez, mesdemoiselles. Continuez toujours, mes enfants.’ Kami is
depressing. I beg your pardon.”

“Yes, that’s what he says. He told me last summer that I was doing better
and he’d let me exhibit this year.”

“Not in this place, surely?”

“Of course not. The Salon.”

“You fly high.”

“I’ve been beating my wings long enough. Where do you exhibit, Dick?”

“I don’t exhibit. I sell.”

“What is your line, then?”

“Haven’t you heard?” Dick’s eyes opened. Was this thing possible? He cast
about for some means of conviction. They were not far from the Marble
Arch. “Come up Oxford Street a little and I’ll show you.”

A small knot of people stood round a print-shop that Dick knew well.

“Some reproduction of my work inside,” he said, with suppressed triumph.
Never before had success tasted so sweet upon the tongue. “You see the
sort of things I paint. D’you like it?”

Maisie looked at the wild whirling rush of a field-battery going into
action under fire. Two artillery-men stood behind her in the crowd.

“They’ve chucked the off lead-‘orse” said one to the other. “’E’s tore up
awful, but they’re makin’ good time with the others. That lead-driver
drives better nor you, Tom. See ‘ow cunnin’ ‘e’s nursin’ ‘is ‘orse.”

“Number Three’ll be off the limber, next jolt,” was the answer.

“No, ‘e won’t. See ‘ow ‘is foot’s braced against the iron? ‘E’s all
right.”

Dick watched Maisie’s face and swelled with joy—fine, rank, vulgar
triumph. She was more interested in the little crowd than in the picture.

That was something that she could understand.

“And I wanted it so! Oh, I did want it so!” she said at last, under her
breath.

“Me,—all me!” said Dick, placidly. “Look at their faces. It hits
’em. They don’t know what makes their eyes and mouths open; but I know.
And I know my work’s right.”

“Yes. I see. Oh, what a thing to have come to one!”

“Come to one, indeed! I had to go out and look for it. What do you think?”

“I call it success. Tell me how you got it.”

They returned to the Park, and Dick delivered himself of the saga of his
own doings, with all the arrogance of a young man speaking to a woman.

From the beginning he told the tale, the I—I—I’s flashing
through the records as telegraph-poles fly past the traveller. Maisie
listened and nodded her head. The histories of strife and privation did
not move her a hair’s-breadth. At the end of each canto he would conclude,
“And that gave me some notion of handling colour,” or light, or whatever
it might be that he had set out to pursue and understand. He led her
breathless across half the world, speaking as he had never spoken in his
life before.

And in the flood-tide of his exaltation there came upon him a great desire
to pick up this maiden who nodded her head and said, “I understand. Go
on,”—to pick her up and carry her away with him, because she was
Maisie, and because she understood, and because she was his right, and a
woman to be desired above all women.

Then he checked himself abruptly. “And so I took all I wanted,” he said,
“and I had to fight for it. Now you tell.”

Maisie’s tale was almost as gray as her dress. It covered years of patient
toil backed by savage pride that would not be broken though dealers
laughed, and fogs delayed work, and Kami was unkind and even sarcastic,
and girls in other studios were painfully polite. It had a few bright
spots, in pictures accepted at provincial exhibitions, but it wound up
with the oft repeated wail, “And so you see, Dick, I had no success,
though I worked so hard.”

Then pity filled Dick. Even thus had Maisie spoken when she could not hit
the breakwater, half an hour before she had kissed him. And that had
happened yesterday.

“Never mind,” he said. “I’ll tell you something, if you’ll believe it.”
The words were shaping themselves of their own accord. “The whole thing,
lock, stock, and barrel, isn’t worth one big yellow sea-poppy below Fort
Keeling.”

Maisie flushed a little. “It’s all very well for you to talk, but you’ve
had the success and I haven’t.”

“Let me talk, then. I know you’ll understand. Maisie, dear, it sounds a
bit absurd, but those ten years never existed, and I’ve come back again.
It really is just the same. Can’t you see? You’re alone now and I’m alone.
What’s the use of worrying? Come to me instead, darling.”

Maisie poked the gravel with her parasol. They were sitting on a bench.

“I understand,” she said slowly. “But I’ve got my work to do, and I must
do it.”

“Do it with me, then, dear. I won’t interrupt.”

“No, I couldn’t. It’s my work,—mine,—mine,—mine! I’ve
been alone all my life in myself, and I’m not going to belong to anybody
except myself. I remember things as well as you do, but that doesn’t
count. We were babies then, and we didn’t know what was before us. Dick,
don’t be selfish. I think I see my way to a little success next year.
Don’t take it away from me.”

“I beg your pardon, darling. It’s my fault for speaking stupidly. I can’t
expect you to throw up all your life just because I’m back. I’ll go to my
own place and wait a little.”

“But, Dick, I don’t want you to—go—out of—my life, now
you’ve just come back.”

“I’m at your orders; forgive me.” Dick devoured the troubled little face
with his eyes. There was triumph in them, because he could not conceive
that Maisie should refuse sooner or later to love him, since he loved her.

“It’s wrong of me,” said Maisie, more slowly than before; “it’s wrong and
selfish; but, oh, I’ve been so lonely! No, you misunderstand. Now I’ve
seen you again,—it’s absurd, but I want to keep you in my life.”

“Naturally. We belong.”

“We don’t; but you always understood me, and there is so much in my work
that you could help me in. You know things and the ways of doing things.
You must.”

“I do, I fancy, or else I don’t know myself. Then you won’t care to lose
sight of me altogether, and—you want me to help you in your work?”

“Yes; but remember, Dick, nothing will ever come of it. That’s why I feel
so selfish. Can’t things stay as they are? I do want your help.”

“You shall have it. But let’s consider. I must see your pics first, and
overhaul your sketches, and find out about your tendencies. You should see
what the papers say about my tendencies! Then I’ll give you good advice,
and you shall paint according. Isn’t that it, Maisie?”

Again there was triumph in Dick’s eye.

“It’s too good of you,—much too good. Because you are consoling
yourself with what will never happen, and I know that, and yet I want to
keep you. Don’t blame me later, please.”

“I’m going into the matter with my eyes open. Moreover the Queen can do no
wrong. It isn’t your selfishness that impresses me. It’s your audacity in
proposing to make use of me.”

“Pooh! You’re only Dick,—and a print-shop.”

“Very good: that’s all I am. But, Maisie, you believe, don’t you, that I
love you? I don’t want you to have any false notions about brothers and
sisters.”

Maisie looked up for a moment and dropped her eyes.

“It’s absurd, but—I believe. I wish I could send you away before you
get angry with me. But—but the girl that lives with me is
red-haired, and an impressionist, and all our notions clash.”

“So do ours, I think. Never mind. Three months from today we shall be
laughing at this together.”

Maisie shook her head mournfully. “I knew you wouldn’t understand, and it
will only hurt you more when you find out. Look at my face, Dick, and tell
me what you see.”

They stood up and faced each other for a moment. The fog was gathering,
and it stifled the roar of the traffic of London beyond the railings. Dick
brought all his painfully acquired knowledge of faces to bear on the eyes,
mouth, and chin underneath the black velvet toque.

“It’s the same Maisie, and it’s the same me,” he said. “We’ve both nice
little wills of our own, and one or other of us has to be broken. Now
about the future. I must come and see your pictures some day,—I
suppose when the red-haired girl is on the premises.”

“Sundays are my best times. You must come on Sundays. There are such heaps
of things I want to talk about and ask your advice about. Now I must get
back to work.”

“Try to find out before next Sunday what I am,” said Dick. “Don’t take my
word for anything I’ve told you. Good-bye, darling, and bless you.”

Maisie stole away like a little gray mouse. Dick watched her till she was
out of sight, but he did not hear her say to herself, very soberly, “I’m a
wretch,—a horrid, selfish wretch. But it’s Dick, and Dick will
understand.”

No one has yet explained what actually happens when an irresistible force
meets the immovable post, though many have thought deeply, even as Dick
thought. He tried to assure himself that Maisie would be led in a few
weeks by his mere presence and discourse to a better way of thinking. Then
he remembered much too distinctly her face and all that was written on it.

“If I know anything of heads,” he said, “there’s everything in that face
but love. I shall have to put that in myself; and that chin and mouth
won’t be won for nothing. But she’s right. She knows what she wants, and
she’s going to get it. What insolence! Me! Of all the people in the wide
world, to use me! But then she’s Maisie. There’s no getting over that
fact; and it’s good to see her again. This business must have been
simmering at the back of my head for years…. She’ll use me as I used
Binat at Port Said. She’s quite right. It will hurt a little. I shall have
to see her every Sunday,—like a young man courting a housemaid.
She’s sure to come around; and yet—that mouth isn’t a yielding
mouth. I shall be wanting to kiss her all the time, and I shall have to
look at her pictures,—I don’t even know what sort of work she does
yet,—and I shall have to talk about Art,—Woman’s Art!
Therefore, particularly and perpetually, damn all varieties of Art. It did
me a good turn once, and now it’s in my way. I’ll go home and do some
Art.”

Half-way to the studio, Dick was smitten with a terrible thought. The
figure of a solitary woman in the fog suggested it.

“She’s all alone in London, with a red-haired impressionist girl, who
probably has the digestion of an ostrich. Most red-haired people have.
Maisie’s a bilious little body. They’ll eat like lone women,—meals
at all hours, and tea with all meals. I remember how the students in Paris
used to pig along. She may fall ill at any minute, and I shan’t be able to
help. Whew! this is ten times worse than owning a wife.”

Torpenhow entered the studio at dusk, and looked at Dick with eyes full of
the austere love that springs up between men who have tugged at the same
oar together and are yoked by custom and use and the intimacies of toil.
This is a good love, and, since it allows, and even encourages, strife,
recrimination, and brutal sincerity, does not die, but grows, and is proof
against any absence and evil conduct.

Dick was silent after he handed Torpenhow the filled pipe of council. He
thought of Maisie and her possible needs. It was a new thing to think of
anybody but Torpenhow, who could think for himself. Here at last was an
outlet for that cash balance. He could adorn Maisie barbarically with
jewelry,—a thick gold necklace round that little neck, bracelets
upon the rounded arms, and rings of price upon her hands,—the cool,
temperate, ringless hands that he had taken between his own. It was an
absurd thought, for Maisie would not even allow him to put one ring on one
finger, and she would laugh at golden trappings. It would be better to sit
with her quietly in the dusk, his arm around her neck and her face on his
shoulder, as befitted husband and wife. Torpenhow’s boots creaked that
night, and his strong voice jarred. Dick’s brows contracted and he
murmured an evil word because he had taken all his success as a right and
part payment for past discomfort, and now he was checked in his stride by
a woman who admitted all the success and did not instantly care for him.

“I say, old man,” said Torpenhow, who had made one or two vain attempts at
conversation, “I haven’t put your back up by anything I’ve said lately,
have I?”

“You! No. How could you?”

“Liver out of order?”

“The truly healthy man doesn’t know he has a liver. I’m only a bit worried
about things in general. I suppose it’s my soul.”

“The truly healthy man doesn’t know he has a soul. What business have you
with luxuries of that kind?”

“It came of itself. Who’s the man that says that we’re all islands
shouting lies to each other across seas of misunderstanding?”

“He’s right, whoever he is,—except about the misunderstanding. I
don’t think we could misunderstand each other.”

The blue smoke curled back from the ceiling in clouds. Then Torpenhow,
insinuatingly—“Dick, is it a woman?”

“Be hanged if it’s anything remotely resembling a woman; and if you begin
to talk like that, I’ll hire a red-brick studio with white paint
trimmings, and begonias and petunias and blue Hungarias to play among
three-and-sixpenny pot-palms, and I’ll mount all my pics in aniline-dye
plush plasters, and I’ll invite every woman who maunders over what her
guide-books tell her is Art, and you shall receive ’em, Torp,—in a
snuff-brown velvet coat with yellow trousers and an orange tie. You’ll
like that?”

“Too thin, Dick. A better man than you once denied with cursing and
swearing. You’ve overdone it, just as he did. It’s no business of mine, of
course, but it’s comforting to think that somewhere under the stars
there’s saving up for you a tremendous thrashing. Whether it’ll come from
heaven or earth, I don’t know, but it’s bound to come and break you up a
little. You want hammering.”

Dick shivered. “All right,” said he. “When this island is disintegrated,
it will call for you.”

“I shall come round the corner and help to disintegrate it some more.
We’re talking nonsense. Come along to a theatre.”

CHAPTER VI

Some weeks later, on a very foggy Sunday, Dick was returning across the
Park to his studio. “This,” he said, “is evidently the thrashing that Torp
meant. It hurts more than I expected; but the Queen can do no wrong; and
she certainly has some notion of drawing.”

He had just finished a Sunday visit to Maisie,—always under the
green eyes of the red-haired impressionist girl, whom he learned to hate
at sight,—and was tingling with a keen sense of shame. Sunday after
Sunday, putting on his best clothes, he had walked over to the untidy
house north of the Park, first to see Maisie’s pictures, and then to
criticise and advise upon them as he realised that they were productions
on which advice would not be wasted. Sunday after Sunday, and his love
grew with each visit, he had been compelled to cram his heart back from
between his lips when it prompted him to kiss Maisie several times and
very much indeed. Sunday after Sunday, the head above the heart had warned
him that Maisie was not yet attainable, and that it would be better to
talk as connectedly as possible upon the mysteries of the craft that was
all in all to her. Therefore it was his fate to endure weekly torture in
the studio built out over the clammy back garden of a frail stuffy little
villa where nothing was ever in its right place and nobody every called,—to
endure and to watch Maisie moving to and fro with the teacups. He abhorred
tea, but, since it gave him a little longer time in her presence, he drank
it devoutly, and the red-haired girl sat in an untidy heap and eyed him
without speaking. She was always watching him.

Once, and only once, when she had left the studio, Maisie showed him an
album that held a few poor cuttings from provincial papers,—the
briefest of hurried notes on some of her pictures sent to outlying
exhibitions. Dick stooped and kissed the paint-smudged thumb on the open
page. “Oh, my love, my love,” he muttered, “do you value these things?
Chuck ’em into the waste-paper basket!”

“Not till I get something better,” said Maisie, shutting the book.

Then Dick, moved by no respect for his public and a very deep regard for
the maiden, did deliberately propose, in order to secure more of these
coveted cuttings, that he should paint a picture which Maisie should sign.

“That’s childish,” said Maisie, “and I didn’t think it of you. It must be
my work. Mine,—mine,—mine!”

“Go and design decorative medallions for rich brewers’ houses. You are
thoroughly good at that.” Dick was sick and savage.

“Better things than medallions, Dick,” was the answer, in tones that
recalled a gray-eyed atom’s fearless speech to Mrs. Jennett. Dick would
have abased himself utterly, but that other girl trailed in.

Next Sunday he laid at Maisie’s feet small gifts of pencils that could
almost draw of themselves and colours in whose permanence he believed, and
he was ostentatiously attentive to the work in hand. It demanded, among
other things, an exposition of the faith that was in him.

Torpenhow’s hair would have stood on end had he heard the fluency with
which Dick preached his own gospel of Art.

A month before, Dick would have been equally astonished; but it was
Maisie’s will and pleasure, and he dragged his words together to make
plain to her comprehension all that had been hidden to himself of the whys
and wherefores of work. There is not the least difficulty in doing a thing
if you only know how to do it; the trouble is to explain your method.

“I could put this right if I had a brush in my hand,” said Dick,
despairingly, over the modelling of a chin that Maisie complained would
not “look flesh,”—it was the same chin that she had scraped out with
the palette knife,—“but I find it almost impossible to teach you.
There’s a queer grim Dutch touch about your painting that I like; but I’ve
a notion that you’re weak in drawing. You foreshorten as though you never
used the model, and you’ve caught Kami’s pasty way of dealing with flesh
in shadow. Then, again, though you don’t know it yourself, you shirk hard
work. Suppose you spend some of your time on line lone. Line doesn’t allow
of shirking. Oils do, and three square inches of flashy, tricky stuff in
the corner of a pic sometimes carry a bad thing off,—as I know.
That’s immoral. Do line-work for a little while, and then I can tell more
about your powers, as old Kami used to say.”

Maisie protested; she did not care for the pure line.

“I know,” said Dick. “You want to do your fancy heads with a bunch of
flowers at the base of the neck to hide bad modelling.” The red-haired
girl laughed a little. “You want to do landscapes with cattle knee-deep in
grass to hide bad drawing. You want to do a great deal more than you can
do. You have sense of colour, but you want form. Colour’s a gift,—put
it aside and think no more about it,—but form you can be drilled
into. Now, all your fancy heads—and some of them are very good—will
keep you exactly where you are. With line you must go forward or backward,
and it will show up all your weaknesses.”

“But other people——” began Maisie.

“You mustn’t mind what other people do. If their souls were your soul, it
would be different. You stand and fall by your own work, remember, and
it’s waste of time to think of any one else in this battle.”

Dick paused, and the longing that had been so resolutely put away came
back into his eyes. He looked at Maisie, and the look asked as plainly as
words, Was it not time to leave all this barren wilderness of canvas and
counsel and join hands with Life and Love? Maisie assented to the new
programme of schooling so adorably that Dick could hardly restrain himself
from picking her up then and there and carrying her off to the nearest
registrar’s office. It was the implicit obedience to the spoken word and
the blank indifference to the unspoken desire that baffled and buffeted
his soul. He held authority in that house,—authority limited,
indeed, to one-half of one afternoon in seven, but very real while it
lasted. Maisie had learned to appeal to him on many subjects, from the
proper packing of pictures to the condition of a smoky chimney. The
red-haired girl never consulted him about anything.

On the other hand, she accepted his appearances without protest, and
watched him always. He discovered that the meals of the establishment were
irregular and fragmentary. They depended chiefly on tea, pickles, and
biscuit, as he had suspected from the beginning. The girls were supposed
to market week and week about, but they lived, with the help of a
charwoman, as casually as the young ravens. Maisie spent most of her
income on models, and the other girl revelled in apparatus as refined as
her work was rough. Armed with knowledge, dear-bought from the Docks, Dick
warned Maisie that the end of semi-starvation meant the crippling of power
to work, which was considerably worse than death.

Maisie took the warning, and gave more thought to what she ate and drank.
When his trouble returned upon him, as it generally did in the long winter
twilights, the remembrance of that little act of domestic authority and
his coercion with a hearth-brush of the smoky drawing-room chimney stung
Dick like a whip-lash.

He conceived that this memory would be the extreme of his sufferings, till
one Sunday, the red-haired girl announced that she would make a study of
Dick’s head, and that he would be good enough to sit still, and—quite
as an afterthought—look at Maisie. He sat, because he could not well
refuse, and for the space of half an hour he reflected on all the people
in the past whom he had laid open for the purposes of his own craft. He
remembered Binat most distinctly,—that Binat who had once been an
artist and talked about degradation.

It was the merest monochrome roughing in of a head, but it presented the
dumb waiting, the longing, and, above all, the hopeless enslavement of the
man, in a spirit of bitter mockery.

“I’ll buy it,” said Dick, promptly, “at your own price.”

“My price is too high, but I dare say you’ll be as grateful if——”
The wet sketch, fluttered from the girl’s hand and fell into the ashes of
the studio stove. When she picked it up it was hopelessly smudged.

“Oh, it’s all spoiled!” said Maisie. “And I never saw it. Was it like?”

“Thank you,” said Dick under his breath to the red-haired girl, and he
removed himself swiftly.

“How that man hates me!” said the girl. “And how he loves you, Maisie!”

“What nonsense? I knew Dick’s very fond of me, but he had his work to do,
and I have mine.”

“Yes, he is fond of you, and I think he knows there is something in
impressionism, after all. Maisie, can’t you see?”

“See? See what?”

“Nothing; only, I know that if I could get any man to look at me as that
man looks at you, I’d—I don’t know what I’d do. But he hates me. Oh,
how he hates me!”

She was not altogether correct. Dick’s hatred was tempered with gratitude
for a few moments, and then he forgot the girl entirely. Only the sense of
shame remained, and he was nursing it across the Park in the fog.
“There’ll be an explosion one of these days,” he said wrathfully. “But it
isn’t Maisie’s fault; she’s right, quite right, as far as she knows, and I
can’t blame her. This business has been going on for three months nearly.
Three months!—and it cost me ten years” knocking about to get at the
notion, the merest raw notion, of my work. That’s true; but then I didn’t
have pins, drawing-pins, and palette-knives, stuck into me every Sunday.

“Oh, my little darling, if ever I break you, somebody will have a very bad
time of it. No, she won’t. I’d be as big a fool about her as I am now.
I’ll poison that red-haired girl on my wedding-day,—she’s
unwholesome,—and now I’ll pass on these present bad times to Torp.”

Torpenhow had been moved to lecture Dick more than once lately on the sin
of levity, and Dick and listened and replied not a word. In the weeks
between the first few Sundays of his discipline he had flung himself
savagely into his work, resolved that Maisie should at least know the full
stretch of his powers. Then he had taught Maisie that she must not pay the
least attention to any work outside her own, and Maisie had obeyed him all
too well. She took his counsels, but was not interested in his pictures.

“Your things smell of tobacco and blood,” she said once. “Can’t you do
anything except soldiers?”

“I could do a head of you that would startle you,” thought Dick,—this
was before the red-haired girl had brought him under the guillotine,—but
he only said, “I am very sorry,” and harrowed Torpenhow’s soul that
evening with blasphemies against Art. Later, insensibly and to a large
extent against his own will, he ceased to interest himself in his own
work.

For Maisie’s sake, and to soothe the self-respect that it seemed to him he
lost each Sunday, he would not consciously turn out bad stuff, but, since
Maisie did not care even for his best, it were better not to do anything
at all save wait and mark time between Sunday and Sunday. Torpenhow was
disgusted as the weeks went by fruitless, and then attacked him one Sunday
evening when Dick felt utterly exhausted after three hours’ biting
self-restraint in Maisie’s presence. There was Language, and Torpenhow
withdrew to consult the Nilghai, who had come it to talk continental
politics.

“Bone-idle, is he? Careless, and touched in the temper?” said the Nilghai.
“It isn’t worth worrying over. Dick is probably playing the fool with a
woman.”

“Isn’t that bad enough?”

“No. She may throw him out of gear and knock his work to pieces for a
while. She may even turn up here some day and make a scene on the
staircase: one never knows. But until Dick speaks of his own accord you
had better not touch him. He is no easy-tempered man to handle.”

“No; I wish he were. He is such an aggressive, cocksure, you-be-damned
fellow.”

“He’ll get that knocked out of him in time. He must learn that he can’t
storm up and down the world with a box of moist tubes and a slick brush.
You’re fond of him?”

“I’d take any punishment that’s in store for him if I could; but the worst
of it is, no man can save his brother.”

“No, and the worser of it is, there is no discharge in this war. Dick must
learn his lesson like the rest of us. Talking of war, there’ll be trouble
in the Balkans in the spring.”

“That trouble is long coming. I wonder if we could drag Dick out there
when it comes off?”

Dick entered the room soon afterwards, and the question was put to him.

“Not good enough,” he said shortly. “I’m too comf’y where I am.”

“Surely you aren’t taking all the stuff in the papers seriously?” said the
Nilghai. “Your vogue will be ended in less than six months,—the
public will know your touch and go on to something new,—and where
will you be then?”

“Here, in England.”

“When you might be doing decent work among us out there? Nonsense! I shall
go, the Keneu will be there, Torp will be there, Cassavetti will be there,
and the whole lot of us will be there, and we shall have as much as ever
we can do, with unlimited fighting and the chance for you of seeing things
that would make the reputation of three Verestchagins.”

“Um!” said Dick, pulling at his pipe.

“You prefer to stay here and imagine that all the world is gaping at your
pictures? Just think how full an average man’s life is of his own pursuits
and pleasures. When twenty thousand of him find time to look up between
mouthfuls and grunt something about something they aren’t the least
interested in, the net result is called fame, reputation, or notoriety,
according to the taste and fancy of the speller my lord.”

“I know that as well as you do. Give me credit for a little gumption.”

“Be hanged if I do!”

“Be hanged, then; you probably will be,—for a spy, by excited Turks.
Heigh-ho! I’m weary, dead weary, and virtue has gone out of me.” Dick
dropped into a chair, and was fast asleep in a minute.

“That’s a bad sign,” said the Nilghai, in an undertone.

Torpenhow picked the pipe from the waistcoat where it was beginning to
burn, and put a pillow behind the head. “We can’t help; we can’t help,” he
said. “It’s a good ugly sort of old cocoanut, and I’m fond of it. There’s
the scar of the wipe he got when he was cut over in the square.”

“Shouldn’t wonder if that has made him a trifle mad.”

“I should. He’s a most businesslike madman.”

Then Dick began to snore furiously.

“Oh, here, no affection can stand this sort of thing. Wake up, Dick, and
go and sleep somewhere else, if you intend to make a noise about it.”

“When a cat has been out on the tiles all night,” said the Nilghai, in his
beard, “I notice that she usually sleeps all day. This is natural
history.”

Dick staggered away rubbing his eyes and yawning. In the night-watches he
was overtaken with an idea, so simple and so luminous that he wondered he
had never conceived it before. It was full of craft. He would seek Maisie
on a week-day,—would suggest an excursion, and would take her by
train to Fort Keeling, over the very ground that they two had trodden
together ten years ago.

“As a general rule,” he explained to his chin-lathered reflection in the
morning, “it isn’t safe to cross an old trail twice. Things remind one of
things, and a cold wind gets up, and you feel sad; but this is an
exception to every rule that ever was. I’ll go to Maisie at once.”

Fortunately, the red-haired girl was out shopping when he arrived, and
Maisie in a paint-spattered blouse was warring with her canvas. She was
not pleased to see him; for week-day visits were a stretch of the bond;
and it needed all his courage to explain his errand.

“I know you’ve been working too hard,” he concluded, with an air of
authority. “If you do that, you’ll break down. You had much better come.”

“Where?” said Maisie, wearily. She had been standing before her easel too
long, and was very tired.

“Anywhere you please. We’ll take a train tomorrow and see where it stops.
We’ll have lunch somewhere, and I’ll bring you back in the evening.”

“If there’s a good working light tomorrow, I lose a day.” Maisie balanced
the heavy white chestnut palette irresolutely.

Dick bit back an oath that was hurrying to his lips. He had not yet
learned patience with the maiden to whom her work was all in all.

“You’ll lose ever so many more, dear, if you use every hour of working
light. Overwork’s only murderous idleness. Don’t be unreasonable. I’ll
call for you tomorrow after breakfast early.”

“But surely you are going to ask——”

“No, I am not. I want you and nobody else. Besides, she hates me as much
as I hate her. She won’t care to come. Tomorrow, then; and pray that we
get sunshine.”

Dick went away delighted, and by consequence did no work whatever.

He strangled a wild desire to order a special train, but bought a great
gray kangaroo cloak lined with glossy black marten, and then retired into
himself to consider things.

“I’m going out for the day tomorrow with Dick,” said Maisie to the
red-haired girl when the latter returned, tired, from marketing in the
Edgware road.

“He deserves it. I shall have the studio floor thoroughly scrubbed while
you’re away. It’s very dirty.”

Maisie had enjoyed no sort of holiday for months and looked forward to the
little excitement, but not without misgivings.

“There’s nobody nicer than Dick when he talks sensibly,” she thought, “but
I’m sure he’ll be silly and worry me, and I’m sure I can’t tell him
anything he’d like to hear. If he’d only be sensible, I should like him so
much better.”

Dick’s eyes were full of joy when he made his appearance next morning and
saw Maisie, gray-ulstered and black-velvet-hatted, standing in the
hallway. Palaces of marble, and not sordid imitation of grained wood, were
surely the fittest background for such a divinity. The red-haired girl
drew her into the studio for a moment and kissed her hurriedly.

Maisie’s eyebrows climbed to the top of her forehead; she was altogether
unused to these demonstrations. “Mind my hat,” she said, hurrying away,
and ran down the steps to Dick waiting by the hansom.

“Are you quite warm enough! Are you sure you wouldn’t like some more
breakfast? Put the cloak over your knees.”

“I’m quite comf’y, thanks. Where are we going, Dick? Oh, do stop singing
like that. People will think we’re mad.”

“Let ’em think,—if the exertion doesn’t kill them. They don’t know
who we are, and I’m sure I don’t care who they are. My faith, Maisie,
you’re looking lovely!”

Maisie stared directly in front of her and did not reply. The wind of a
keen clear winter morning had put colour into her cheeks. Overhead, the
creamy-yellow smoke-clouds were thinning away one by one against a
pale-blue sky, and the improvident sparrows broke off from water-spout
committees and cab-rank cabals to clamour of the coming of spring.

“It will be lovely weather in the country,” said Dick.

“But where are we going?”

“Wait and see.”

The stopped at Victoria, and Dick sought tickets. For less than half the
fraction of an instant it occurred to Maisie, comfortably settled by the
waiting-room fire, that it was much more pleasant to send a man to the
booking-office than to elbow one’s own way through the crowd. Dick put her
into a Pullman,—solely on account of the warmth there; and she
regarded the extravagance with grave scandalised eyes as the train moved
out into the country.

“I wish I knew where we are going,” she repeated for the twentieth time.

The name of a well-remembered station flashed by, towards the end of the
run, and Maisie was delighted.

“Oh, Dick, you villain!”

“Well, I thought you might like to see the place again. You haven’t been
here since the old times, have you?”

“No. I never cared to see Mrs. Jennett again; and she was all that was
ever there.”

“Not quite. Look out a minute. There’s the windmill above the
potato-fields; they haven’t built villas there yet; d’you remember when I
shut you up in it?”

“Yes. How she beat you for it! I never told it was you.”

“She guessed. I jammed a stick under the door and told you that I was
burying Amomma alive in the potatoes, and you believed me. You had a
trusting nature in those days.”

They laughed and leaned to look out, identifying ancient landmarks with
many reminiscences. Dick fixed his weather eye on the curve of Maisie’s
cheek, very near his own, and watched the blood rise under the clear skin.
He congratulated himself upon his cunning, and looked that the evening
would bring him a great reward.

When the train stopped they went out to look at an old town with new eyes.
First, but from a distance, they regarded the house of Mrs. Jennett.

“Suppose she should come out now, what would you do?” said Dick, with mock
terror.

“I should make a face.”

“Show, then,” said Dick, dropping into the speech of childhood.

Maisie made that face in the direction of the mean little villa, and Dick
laughed.

“’This is disgraceful,’” said Maisie, mimicking Mrs. Jennett’s tone.
“’Maisie, you run in at once, and learn the collect, gospel, and epistle
for the next three Sundays. After all I’ve taught you, too, and three
helps every Sunday at dinner! Dick’s always leading you into mischief. If
you aren’t a gentleman, Dick, you might at least…’”

The sentence ended abruptly. Maisie remembered when it had last been used.

“’Try to behave like one,’” said Dick, promptly. “Quite right. Now we’ll
get some lunch and go on to Fort Keeling,—unless you’d rather drive
there?”

“We must walk, out of respect to the place. How little changed it all is!”

They turned in the direction of the sea through unaltered streets, and the
influence of old things lay upon them. Presently they passed a
confectioner’s shop much considered in the days when their joint
pocket-money amounted to a shilling a week.

“Dick, have you any pennies?” said Maisie, half to herself.

“Only three; and if you think you’re going to have two of ’em to buy
peppermints with, you’re wrong. She says peppermints aren’t ladylike.”

Again they laughed, and again the colour came into Maisie’s cheeks as the
blood boiled through Dick’s heart. After a large lunch they went down to
the beach and to Fort Keeling across the waste, wind-bitten land that no
builder had thought it worth his while to defile. The winter breeze came
in from the sea and sang about their ears.

“Maisie,” said Dick, “your nose is getting a crude Prussian blue at the
tip. I’ll race you as far as you please for as much as you please.”

She looked round cautiously, and with a laugh set off, swiftly as the
ulster allowed, till she was out of breath.

“We used to run miles,” she panted. “It’s absurd that we can’t run now.”

“Old age, dear. This it is to get fat and sleek in town. When I wished to
pull your hair you generally ran for three miles, shrieking at the top of
your voice. I ought to know, because those shrieks of yours were meant to
call up Mrs. Jennett with a cane and——”

“Dick, I never got you a beating on purpose in my life.”

“No, of course you never did. Good heavens! look at the sea.”

“Why, it’s the same as ever!” said Maisie.

Torpenhow had gathered from Mr. Beeton that Dick, properly dressed and
shaved, had left the house at half-past eight in the morning with a
travelling-rug over his arm. The Nilghai rolled in at mid-day for chess
and polite conversation.

“It’s worse than anything I imagined,” said Torpenhow.

“Oh, the everlasting Dick, I suppose! You fuss over him like a hen with
one chick. Let him run riot if he thinks it’ll amuse him. You can whip a
young pup off feather, but you can’t whip a young man.”

“It isn’t a woman. It’s one woman; and it’s a girl.”

“Where’s your proof?”

“He got up and went out at eight this morning,—got up in the middle
of the night, by Jove! a thing he never does except when he’s on service.
Even then, remember, we had to kick him out of his blankets before the
fight began at El-Maghrib. It’s disgusting.”

“It looks odd; but maybe he’s decided to buy a horse at last. He might get
up for that, mightn’t he?”

“Buy a blazing wheelbarrow! He’d have told us if there was a horse in the
wind. It’s a girl.”

“Don’t be certain. Perhaps it’s only a married woman.”

“Dick has some sense of humour, if you haven’t. Who gets up in the gray
dawn to call on another man’s wife? It’s a girl.”

“Let it be a girl, then. She may teach him that there’s somebody else in
the world besides himself.”

“She’ll spoil his hand. She’ll waste his time, and she’ll marry him, and
ruin his work for ever. He’ll be a respectable married man before we can
stop him, and—he’ll ever go on the long trail again.”

“All quite possible, but the earth won’t spin the other way when that
happens…. No! ho! I’d give something to see Dick ‘go wooing with the
boys.’ Don’t worry about it. These things be with Allah, and we can only
look on. Get the chessmen.”

The red-haired girl was lying down in her own room, staring at the
ceiling. The footsteps of people on the pavement sounded, as they grew
indistinct in the distance, like a many-times-repeated kiss that was all
one long kiss. Her hands were by her side, and they opened and shut
savagely from time to time.

The charwoman in charge of the scrubbing of the studio knocked at her
door: “Beg y’ pardon, miss, but in cleanin’ of a floor there’s two, not to
say three, kind of soap, which is yaller, an’ mottled, an’ disinfectink.
Now, jist before I took my pail into the passage I though it would be
pre’aps jest as well if I was to come up ‘ere an’ ask you what sort of
soap you was wishful that I should use on them boards. The yaller soap,
miss——”

There was nothing in the speech to have caused the paroxysm of fury that
drove the red-haired girl into the middle of the room, almost shouting—“Do
you suppose I care what you use? Any kind will do!—any kind!”

The woman fled, and the red-haired girl looked at her own reflection in
the glass for an instant and covered her face with her hands. It was as
though she had shouted some shameless secret aloud.

CHAPTER VII

Indeed the sea had not changed. Its waters were low on the mud-banks, and
the Marazion Bell-buoy clanked and swung in the tide-way. On the white
beach-sand dried stumps of sea-poppy shivered and chattered.

“I don’t see the old breakwater,” said Maisie, under her breath.

“Let’s be thankful that we have as much as we have. I don’t believe
they’ve mounted a single new gun on the fort since we were here. Come and
look.”

They came to the glacis of Fort Keeling, and sat down in a nook sheltered
from the wind under the tarred throat of a forty-pounder cannon.

“Now, if Ammoma were only here!” said Maisie.

For a long time both were silent. Then Dick took Maisie’s hand and called
her by her name.

She shook her head and looked out to sea.

“Maisie, darling, doesn’t it make any difference?”

“No!” between clenched teeth. “I’d—I’d tell you if it did; but it
doesn’t. Oh, Dick, please be sensible.”

“Don’t you think that it ever will?”

“No, I’m sure it won’t.”

“Why?”

Maisie rested her chin on her hand, and, still regarding the sea, spoke
hurriedly—“I know what you want perfectly well, but I can’t give it
to you, Dick. It isn’t my fault; indeed, it isn’t. If I felt that I could
care for any one——But I don’t feel that I care. I simply don’t
understand what the feeling means.”

“Is that true, dear?”

“You’ve been very good to me, Dickie; and the only way I can pay you back
is by speaking the truth. I daren’t tell a fib. I despise myself quite
enough as it is.”

“What in the world for?”

“Because—because I take everything that you give me and I give you
nothing in return. It’s mean and selfish of me, and whenever I think of it
it worries me.”

“Understand once for all, then, that I can manage my own affairs, and if I
choose to do anything you aren’t to blame. You haven’t a single thing to
reproach yourself with, darling.”

“Yes, I have, and talking only makes it worse.”

“Then don’t talk about it.”

“How can I help myself? If you find me alone for a minute you are always
talking about it; and when you aren’t you look it. You don’t know how I
despise myself sometimes.”

“Great goodness!” said Dick, nearly jumping to his feet. “Speak the truth
now, Maisie, if you never speak it again! Do I—does this worrying
bore you?”

“No. It does not.”

“You’d tell me if it did?”

“I should let you know, I think.”

“Thank you. The other thing is fatal. But you must learn to forgive a man
when he’s in love. He’s always a nuisance. You must have known that?”

Maisie did not consider the last question worth answering, and Dick was
forced to repeat it.

“There were other men, of course. They always worried just when I was in
the middle of my work, and wanted me to listen to them.”

“Did you listen?”

“At first; and they couldn’t understand why I didn’t care. And they used
to praise my pictures; and I thought they meant it. I used to be proud of
the praise, and tell Kami, and—I shall never forget—once Kami
laughed at me.”

“You don’t like being laughed at, Maisie, do you?”

“I hate it. I never laugh at other people unless—unless they do bad
work. Dick, tell me honestly what you think of my pictures generally,—of
everything of mine that you’ve seen.”

“’Honest, honest, and honest over!’” quoted Dick from a catchword of long
ago. “Tell me what Kami always says.”

Maisie hesitated. “He—he says that there is feeling in them.”

“How dare you tell me a fib like that? Remember, I was under Kami for two
years. I know exactly what he says.”

“It isn’t a fib.”

“It’s worse; it’s a half-truth. Kami says, when he puts his head on one
side,—so, ‘Il y a du sentiment, mais il n’y a pas de parti pris.’”
He rolled the r threateningly, as Kami used to do.

“Yes, that is what he says; and I’m beginning to think that he is right.”

“Certainly he is.” Dick admitted that two people in the world could do and
say no wrong. Kami was the man.

“And now you say the same thing. It’s so disheartening.”

“I’m sorry, but you asked me to speak the truth. Besides, I love you too
much to pretend about your work. It’s strong, it’s patient sometimes,—not
always,—and sometimes there’s power in it, but there’s no special
reason why it should be done at all. At least, that’s how it strikes me.”

“There’s no special reason why anything in the world should ever be done.
You know that as well as I do. I only want success.”

“You’re going the wrong way to get it, then. Hasn’t Kami ever told you
so?”

“Don’t quote Kami to me. I want to know what you think. My work’s bad, to
begin with.”

“I didn’t say that, and I don’t think it.”

“It’s amateurish, then.”

“That it most certainly is not. You’re a work-woman, darling, to your
boot-heels, and I respect you for that.”

“You don’t laugh at me behind my back?”

“No, dear. You see, you are more to me than any one else. Put this cloak
thing round you, or you’ll get chilled.”

Maisie wrapped herself in the soft marten skins, turning the gray kangaroo
fur to the outside. “This is delicious,” she said, rubbing her chin
thoughtfully along the fur.

“Well? Why am I wrong in trying to get a little success?”

“Just because you try. Don’t you understand, darling? Good work has
nothing to do with—doesn’t belong to—the person who does it.
It’s put into him or her from outside.”

“But how does that affect——”

“Wait a minute. All we can do is to learn how to do our work, to be
masters of our materials instead of servants, and never to be afraid of
anything.”

“I understand that.”

“Everything else comes from outside ourselves. Very good. If we sit down
quietly to work out notions that are sent to us, we may or we may not do
something that isn’t bad. A great deal depends on being master of the
bricks and mortar of the trade. But the instant we begin to think about
success and the effect of our work—to play with one eye on the
gallery—we lose power and touch and everything else. At least that’s
how I have found it. Instead of being quiet and giving every power you
possess to your work, you’re fretting over something which you can neither
help no hinder by a minute. See?”

“It’s so easy for you to talk in that way. People like what you do. Don’t
you ever think about the gallery?”

“Much too often; but I’m always punished for it by loss of power. It’s as
simple as the Rule of Three. If we make light of our work by using it for
our own ends, our work will make light of us, and, as we’re the weaker, we
shall suffer.”

“I don’t treat my work lightly. You know that it’s everything to me.”

“Of course; but, whether you realise it or not, you give two strokes for
yourself to one for your work. It isn’t your fault, darling. I do exactly
the same thing, and know that I’m doing it. Most of the French schools,
and all the schools here, drive the students to work for their own credit,
and for the sake of their pride. I was told that all the world was
interested in my work, and everybody at Kami’s talked turpentine, and I
honestly believed that the world needed elevating and influencing, and all
manner of impertinences, by my brushes. By Jove, I actually believed that!
When my little head was bursting with a notion that I couldn’t handle
because I hadn’t sufficient knowledge of my craft, I used to run about
wondering at my own magnificence and getting ready to astonish the world.”

“But surely one can do that sometimes?”

“Very seldom with malice aforethought, darling. And when it’s done it’s
such a tiny thing, and the world’s so big, and all but a millionth part of
it doesn’t care. Maisie, come with me and I’ll show you something of the
size of the world. One can no more avoid working than eating,—that
goes on by itself,—but try to see what you are working for. I know
such little heavens that I could take you to,—islands tucked away
under the Line. You sight them after weeks of crashing through water as
black as black marble because it’s so deep, and you sit in the fore-chains
day after day and see the sun rise almost afraid because the sea’s so
lonely.”

“Who is afraid?—you, or the sun?”

“The sun, of course. And there are noises under the sea, and sounds
overhead in a clear sky. Then you find your island alive with hot moist
orchids that make mouths at you and can do everything except talk. There’s
a waterfall in it three hundred feet high, just like a sliver of green
jade laced with silver; and millions of wild bees live up in the rocks;
and you can hear the fat cocoanuts falling from the palms; and you order
an ivory-white servant to sling you a long yellow hammock with tassels on
it like ripe maize, and you put up your feet and hear the bees hum and the
water fall till you go to sleep.”

“Can one work there?”

“Certainly. One must do something always. You hang your canvas up in a
palm tree and let the parrots criticise. When the scuffle you heave a ripe
custard-apple at them, and it bursts in a lather of cream. There are
hundreds of places. Come and see them.”

“I don’t quite like that place. It sounds lazy. Tell me another.”

“What do you think of a big, red, dead city built of red sandstone, with
raw green aloes growing between the stones, lying out neglected on
honey-coloured sands? There are forty dead kings there, Maisie, each in a
gorgeous tomb finer than all the others. You look at the palaces and
streets and shops and tanks, and think that men must live there, till you
find a wee gray squirrel rubbing its nose all alone in the market-place,
and a jewelled peacock struts out of a carved doorway and spreads its tail
against a marble screen as fine pierced as point-lace. Then a monkey—a
little black monkey—walks through the main square to get a drink
from a tank forty feet deep. He slides down the creepers to the water’s
edge, and a friend holds him by the tail, in case he should fall in.”

“Is that all true?”

“I have been there and seen. Then evening comes, and the lights change
till it’s just as though you stood in the heart of a king-opal. A little
before sundown, as punctually as clockwork, a big bristly wild boar, with
all his family following, trots through the city gate, churning the foam
on his tusks. You climb on the shoulder of a blind black stone god and
watch that pig choose himself a palace for the night and stump in wagging
his tail. Then the night-wind gets up, and the sands move, and you hear
the desert outside the city singing, ‘Now I lay me down to sleep,’ and
everything is dark till the moon rises. Maisie, darling, come with me and
see what the world is really like. It’s very lovely, and it’s very
horrible,—but I won’t let you see anything horrid,—and it
doesn’t care your life or mine for pictures or anything else except doing
its own work and making love. Come, and I’ll show you how to brew
sangaree, and sling a hammock, and—oh, thousands of things, and
you’ll see for yourself what colour means, and we’ll find out together
what love means, and then, maybe, we shall be allowed to do some good
work. Come away!”

“Why?” said Maisie.

“How can you do anything until you have seen everything, or as much as you
can? And besides, darling, I love you. Come along with me. You have no
business here; you don’t belong to this place; you’re half a gipsy,—your
face tells that; and I—even the smell of open water makes me
restless. Come across the sea and be happy!”

He had risen to his feet, and stood in the shadow of the gun, looking down
at the girl. The very short winter afternoon had worn away, and, before
they knew, the winter moon was walking the untroubled sea. Long ruled
lines of silver showed where a ripple of the rising tide was turning over
the mud-banks. The wind had dropped, and in the intense stillness they
could hear a donkey cropping the frosty grass many yards away. A faint
beating, like that of a muffled drum, came out of the moon-haze.

“What’s that?” said Maisie, quickly. “It sounds like a heart beating.
Where is it?”

Dick was so angry at this sudden wrench to his pleadings that he could not
trust himself to speak, and in this silence caught the sound. Maisie from
her seat under the gun watched him with a certain amount of fear.

She wished so much that he would be sensible and cease to worry her with
over-sea emotion that she both could and could not understand. She was not
prepared, however, for the change in his face as he listened.

“It’s a steamer,” he said,—“a twin-screw steamer, by the beat. I
can’t make her out, but she must be standing very close inshore. Ah!” as
the red of a rocket streaked the haze, “she’s standing in to signal before
she clears the Channel.”

“Is it a wreck?” said Maisie, to whom these words were as Greek.

Dick’s eyes were turned to the sea. “Wreck! What nonsense! She’s only
reporting herself. Red rocket forward—there’s a green light aft now,
and two red rockets from the bridge.”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s the signal of the Cross Keys Line running to Australia. I wonder
which steamer it is.” The note of his voice had changed; he seemed to be
talking to himself, and Maisie did not approve of it. The moonlight broke
the haze for a moment, touching the black sides of a long steamer working
down Channel. “Four masts and three funnels—she’s in deep draught,
too. That must be the Barralong, or the Bhutia. No, the Bhutia has a
clipper bow. It’s the Barralong, to Australia. She’ll lift the Southern
Cross in a week,—lucky old tub!—oh, lucky old tub!”

He stared intently, and moved up the slope of the fort to get a better
view, but the mist on the sea thickened again, and the beating of the
screws grew fainter. Maisie called to him a little angrily, and he
returned, still keeping his eyes to seaward. “Have you ever seen the
Southern Cross blazing right over your head?” he asked. “It’s superb!”

“No,” she said shortly, “and I don’t want to. If you think it’s so lovely,
why don’t you go and see it yourself?”

She raised her face from the soft blackness of the marten skins about her
throat, and her eyes shone like diamonds. The moonlight on the gray
kangaroo fur turned it to frosted silver of the coldest.

“By Jove, Maisie, you look like a little heathen idol tucked up there.”
The eyes showed that they did not appreciate the compliment. “I’m sorry,”
he continued. “The Southern Cross isn’t worth looking at unless someone
helps you to see. That steamer’s out of hearing.”

“Dick,” she said quietly, “suppose I were to come to you now,—be
quiet a minute,—just as I am, and caring for you just as much as I
do.”

“Not as a brother, though. You said you didn’t—in the Park.”

“I never had a brother. Suppose I said, ‘Take me to those places, and in
time, perhaps, I might really care for you,’ what would you do?”

“Send you straight back to where you came from, in a cab. No, I wouldn’t;
I’d let you walk. But you couldn’t do it, dear. And I wouldn’t run the
risk. You’re worth waiting for till you can come without reservation.”

“Do you honestly believe that?”

“I have a hazy sort of idea that I do. Has it never struck you in that
light?”

“Ye—es. I feel so wicked about it.”

“Wickeder than usual?”

“You don’t know all I think. It’s almost too awful to tell.”

“Never mind. You promised to tell me the truth—at least.”

“It’s so ungrateful of me, but—but, though I know you care for me,
and I like to have you with me, I’d—I’d even sacrifice you, if that
would bring me what I want.”

“My poor little darling! I know that state of mind. It doesn’t lead to
good work.”

“You aren’t angry? Remember, I do despise myself.”

“I’m not exactly flattered,—I had guessed as much before,—but
I’m not angry. I’m sorry for you. Surely you ought to have left a
littleness like that behind you, years ago.”

“You’ve no right to patronise me! I only want what I have worked for so
long. It came to you without any trouble, and—and I don’t think it’s
fair.”

“What can I do? I’d give ten years of my life to get you what you want.
But I can’t help you; even I can’t help.”

A murmur of dissent from Maisie. He went on—“And I know by what you
have just said that you’re on the wrong road to success. It isn’t got at
by sacrificing other people,—I’ve had that much knocked into me; you
must sacrifice yourself, and live under orders, and never think for
yourself, and never have real satisfaction in your work except just at the
beginning, when you’re reaching out after a notion.”

“How can you believe all that?”

“There’s no question of belief or disbelief. That’s the law, and you take
it or refuse it as you please. I try to obey, but I can’t, and then my
work turns bad on my hands. Under any circumstances, remember, four-fifths
of everybody’s work must be bad. But the remnant is worth the trouble for
its own sake.”

“Isn’t it nice to get credit even for bad work?”

“It’s much too nice. But——May I tell you something? It isn’t a
pretty tale, but you’re so like a man that I forget when I’m talking to
you.”

“Tell me.”

“Once when I was out in the Soudan I went over some ground that we had
been fighting on for three days. There were twelve hundred dead; and we
hadn’t time to bury them.”

“How ghastly!”

“I had been at work on a big double-sheet sketch, and I was wondering what
people would think of it at home. The sight of that field taught me a good
deal. It looked just like a bed of horrible toadstools in all colours, and—I’d
never seen men in bulk go back to their beginnings before. So I began to
understand that men and women were only material to work with, and that
what they said or did was of no consequence. See? Strictly speaking, you
might just as well put your ear down to the palette to catch what your
colours are saying.”

“Dick, that’s disgraceful!”

“Wait a minute. I said, strictly speaking. Unfortunately, everybody must
be either a man or a woman.”

“I’m glad you allow that much.”

“In your case I don’t. You aren’t a woman. But ordinary people, Maisie,
must behave and work as such. That’s what makes me so savage.” He hurled a
pebble towards the sea as he spoke. “I know that it is outside my business
to care what people say; I can see that it spoils my output if I listen to
’em; and yet, confound it all,”—another pebble flew seaward,—“I
can’t help purring when I’m rubbed the right way. Even when I can see on a
man’s forehead that he is lying his way through a clump of pretty
speeches, those lies make me happy and play the mischief with my hand.”

“And when he doesn’t say pretty things?”

“Then, belovedest,”—Dick grinned,—“I forget that I am the
steward of these gifts, and I want to make that man love and appreciate my
work with a thick stick. It’s too humiliating altogether; but I suppose
even if one were an angel and painted humans altogether from outside, one
would lose in touch what one gained in grip.”

Maisie laughed at the idea of Dick as an angel.

“But you seem to think,” she said, “that everything nice spoils your
hand.”

“I don’t think. It’s the law,—just the same as it was at Mrs.
Jennett’s. Everything that is nice does spoil your hand. I’m glad you see
so clearly.”

“I don’t like the view.”

“Nor I. But—have got orders: what can do? Are you strong enough to
face it alone?”

“I suppose I must.”

“Let me help, darling. We can hold each other very tight and try to walk
straight. We shall blunder horribly, but it will be better than stumbling
apart. Maisie, can’t you see reason?”

“I don’t think we should get on together. We should be two of a trade, so
we should never agree.”

“How I should like to meet the man who made that proverb! He lived in a
cave and ate raw bear, I fancy. I’d make him chew his own arrow-heads.
Well?”

“I should be only half married to you. I should worry and fuss about my
work, as I do now. Four days out of the seven I’m not fit to speak to.”

“You talk as if no one else in the world had ever used a brush. D’you
suppose that I don’t know the feeling of worry and bother and
can’t-get-at-ness? You’re lucky if you only have it four days out of the
seven. What difference would that make?”

“A great deal—if you had it too.”

“Yes, but I could respect it. Another man might not. He might laugh at
you. But there’s no use talking about it. If you can think in that way you
can’t care for me—yet.”

The tide had nearly covered the mud-banks and twenty little ripples broke
on the beach before Maisie chose to speak.

“Dick,” she said slowly, “I believe very much that you are better than I
am.”

“This doesn’t seem to bear on the argument—but in what way?”

“I don’t quite know, but in what you said about work and things; and then
you’re so patient. Yes, you’re better than I am.”

Dick considered rapidly the murkiness of an average man’s life. There was
nothing in the review to fill him with a sense of virtue. He lifted the
hem of the cloak to his lips.

“Why,” said Maisie, making as though she had not noticed, “can you see
things that I can’t? I don’t believe what you believe; but you’re right, I
believe.”

“If I’ve seen anything, God knows I couldn’t have seen it but for you, and
I know that I couldn’t have said it except to you. You seemed to make
everything clear for a minute; but I don’t practice what I preach. You
would help me… There are only us two in the world for all purposes, and—and
you like to have me with you?”

“Of course I do. I wonder if you can realise how utterly lonely I am!”

“Darling, I think I can.”

“Two years ago, when I first took the little house, I used to walk up and
down the back-garden trying to cry. I never can cry. Can you?”

“It’s some time since I tried. What was the trouble? Overwork?”

“I don’t know; but I used to dream that I had broken down, and had no
money, and was starving in London. I thought about it all day, and it
frightened me—oh, how it frightened me!”

“I know that fear. It’s the most terrible of all. It wakes me up in the
night sometimes. You oughtn’t to know anything about it.”

“How do you know?”

“Never mind. Is your three hundred a year safe?”

“It’s in Consols.”

“Very well. If any one comes to you and recommends a better investment,—even
if I should come to you,—don’t you listen. Never shift the money for
a minute, and never lend a penny of it,—even to the red-haired
girl.”

“Don’t scold me so! I’m not likely to be foolish.”

“The earth is full of men who’d sell their souls for three hundred a year;
and women come and talk, and borrow a five-pound note here and a ten-pound
note there; and a woman has no conscience in a money debt. Stick to your
money, Maisie, for there’s nothing more ghastly in the world than poverty
in London. It’s scared me. By Jove, it put the fear into me! And one
oughtn’t to be afraid of anything.”

To each man is appointed his particular dread,—the terror that, if
he does not fight against it, must cow him even to the loss of his
manhood. Dick’s experience of the sordid misery of want had entered into
the deeps of him, and, lest he might find virtue too easy, that memory
stood behind him, tempting to shame, when dealers came to buy his wares.
As the Nilghai quaked against his will at the still green water of a lake
or a mill-dam, as Torpenhow flinched before any white arm that could cut
or stab and loathed himself for flinching, Dick feared the poverty he had
once tasted half in jest. His burden was heavier than the burdens of his
companions.

Maisie watched the face working in the moonlight.

“You’ve plenty of pennies now,” she said soothingly.

“I shall never have enough,” he began, with vicious emphasis. Then,
laughing, “I shall always be three-pence short in my accounts.”

“Why threepence?”

“I carried a man’s bag once from Liverpool Street Station to Blackfriar’s
Bridge. It was a sixpenny job,—you needn’t laugh; indeed it was,—and
I wanted the money desperately. He only gave me threepence; and he hadn’t
even the decency to pay in silver. Whatever money I make, I shall never
get that odd threepence out of the world.”

This was not language befitting the man who had preached of the sanctity
of work. It jarred on Maisie, who preferred her payment in applause,
which, since all men desire it, must be of the right. She hunted for her
little purse and gravely took out a threepenny bit.

“There it is,” she said. “I’ll pay you, Dickie; and don’t worry any more;
it isn’t worth while. Are you paid?”

“I am,” said the very human apostle of fair craft, taking the coin. “I’m
paid a thousand times, and we’ll close that account. It shall live on my
watch-chain; and you’re an angel, Maisie.”

“I’m very cramped, and I’m feeling a little cold. Good gracious! the cloak
is all white, and so is your moustache! I never knew it was so chilly.”

A light frost lay white on the shoulder of Dick’s ulster. He, too, had
forgotten the state of the weather. They laughed together, and with that
laugh ended all serious discourse.

They ran inland across the waste to warm themselves, then turned to look
at the glory of the full tide under the moonlight and the intense black
shadows of the furze bushes. It was an additional joy to Dick that Maisie
could see colour even as he saw it,—could see the blue in the white
of the mist, the violet that is in gray palings, and all things else as
they are,—not of one hue, but a thousand. And the moonlight came
into Maisie’s soul, so that she, usually reserved, chattered of herself
and of the things she took interest in,—of Kami, wisest of teachers,
and of the girls in the studio,—of the Poles, who will kill
themselves with overwork if they are not checked; of the French, who talk
at great length of much more than they will ever accomplish; of the
slovenly English, who toil hopelessly and cannot understand that
inclination does not imply power; of the Americans, whose rasping voices
in the hush of a hot afternoon strain tense-drawn nerves to
breaking-point, and whose suppers lead to indigestion; of tempestuous
Russians, neither to hold nor to bind, who tell the girls ghost-stories
till the girls shriek; of stolid Germans, who come to learn one thing,
and, having mastered that much, stolidly go away and copy pictures for
evermore. Dick listened enraptured because it was Maisie who spoke. He
knew the old life.

“It hasn’t changed much,” he said. “Do they still steal colours at
lunch-time?”

“Not steal. Attract is the word. Of course they do. I’m good—I only
attract ultramarine; but there are students who’d attract flake-white.”

“I’ve done it myself. You can’t help it when the palettes are hung up.
Every colour is common property once it runs down,—even though you
do start it with a drop of oil. It teaches people not to waste their
tubes.”

“I should like to attract some of your colours, Dick. Perhaps I might
catch your success with them.”

“I mustn’t say a bad word, but I should like to. What in the world, which
you’ve just missed a lovely chance of seeing, does success or want of
success, or a three-storied success, matter compared with——No,
I won’t open that question again. It’s time to go back to town.”

“I’m sorry, Dick, but——”

“You’re much more interested in that than you are in me.”

“I don’t know, I don’t think I am.”

“What will you give me if I tell you a sure short-cut to everything you
want,—the trouble and the fuss and the tangle and all the rest? Will
you promise to obey me?”

“Of course.”

“In the first place, you must never forget a meal because you happen to be
at work. You forgot your lunch twice last week,” said Dick, at a venture,
for he knew with whom he was dealing.

“No, no,—only once, really.”

“That’s bad enough. And you mustn’t take a cup of tea and a biscuit in
place of a regular dinner, because dinner happens to be a trouble.”

“You’re making fun of me!”

“I never was more in earnest in my life. Oh, my love, my love, hasn’t it
dawned on you yet what you are to me? Here’s the whole earth in a
conspiracy to give you a chill, or run over you, or drench you to the
skin, or cheat you out of your money, or let you die of overwork and
underfeeding, and I haven’t the mere right to look after you. Why, I don’t
even know if you have sense enough to put on warm things when the
weather’s cold.”

“Dick, you’re the most awful boy to talk to—really! How do you
suppose I managed when you were away?”

“I wasn’t here, and I didn’t know. But now I’m back I’d give everything I
have for the right of telling you to come in out of the rain.”

“Your success too?”

This time it cost Dick a severe struggle to refrain from bad words.

“As Mrs. Jennett used to say, you’re a trial, Maisie! You’ve been cooped
up in the schools too long, and you think every one is looking at you.
There aren’t twelve hundred people in the world who understand pictures.
The others pretend and don’t care. Remember, I’ve seen twelve hundred men
dead in toadstool-beds. It’s only the voice of the tiniest little fraction
of people that makes success. The real world doesn’t care a tinker’s—doesn’t
care a bit. For aught you or I know, every man in the world may be arguing
with a Maisie of his own.”

“Poor Maisie!”

“Poor Dick, I think. Do you believe while he’s fighting for what’s dearer
than his life he wants to look at a picture? And even if he did, and if
all the world did, and a thousand million people rose up and shouted hymns
to my honour and glory, would that make up to me for the knowledge that
you were out shopping in the Edgware Road on a rainy day without an
umbrella? Now we’ll go to the station.”

“But you said on the beach——” persisted Maisie, with a certain
fear.

Dick groaned aloud: “Yes, I know what I said. My work is everything I
have, or am, or hope to be, to me, and I believe I’ve learnt the law that
governs it; but I’ve some lingering sense of fun left,—though you’ve
nearly knocked it out of me. I can just see that it isn’t everything to
all the world. Do what I say, and not what I do.”

Maisie was careful not to reopen debatable matters, and they returned to
London joyously. The terminus stopped Dick in the midst of an eloquent
harangue on the beauties of exercise. He would buy Maisie a horse,—such
a horse as never yet bowed head to bit,—would stable it, with a
companion, some twenty miles from London, and Maisie, solely for her
health’s sake should ride with him twice or thrice a week.

“That’s absurd,” said she. “It wouldn’t be proper.”

“Now, who in all London tonight would have sufficient interest or audacity
to call us two to account for anything we chose to do?”

Maisie looked at the lamps, the fog, and the hideous turmoil. Dick was
right; but horseflesh did not make for Art as she understood it.

“You’re very nice sometimes, but you’re very foolish more times. I’m not
going to let you give me horses, or take you out of your way tonight. I’ll
go home by myself. Only I want you to promise me something. You won’t
think any more about that extra threepence, will you? Remember, you’ve
been paid; and I won’t allow you to be spiteful and do bad work for a
little thing like that. You can be so big that you mustn’t be tiny.”

This was turning the tables with a vengeance. There remained only to put
Maisie into her hansom.

“Goodbye,” she said simply. “You’ll come on Sunday. It has been a
beautiful day, Dick. Why can’t it be like this always?”

“Because love’s like line-work: you must go forward or backward; you can’t
stand still. By the way, go on with your line-work. Good night, and, for
my—for my sake, take care of yourself.”

He turned to walk home, meditating. The day had brought him nothing that
he hoped for, but—surely this was worth many days—it had
brought him nearer to Maisie. The end was only a question of time now, and
the prize well worth the waiting. By instinct, once more, he turned to the
river.

“And she understood at once,” he said, looking at the water. “She found
out my pet besetting sin on the spot, and paid it off. My God, how she
understood! And she said I was better than she was! Better than she was!”
He laughed at the absurdity of the notion. “I wonder if girls guess at
one-half a man’s life. They can’t, or—they wouldn’t marry us.” He
took her gift out of his pocket, and considered it in the light of a
miracle and a pledge of the comprehension that, one day, would lead to
perfect happiness. Meantime, Maisie was alone in London, with none to save
her from danger. And the packed wilderness was very full of danger.

Dick made his prayer to Fate disjointedly after the manner of the heathen
as he threw the piece of silver into the river. If any evil were to befal,
let him bear the burden and let Maisie go unscathed, since the threepenny
piece was dearest to him of all his possessions. It was a small coin in
itself, but Maisie had given it, and the Thames held it, and surely the
Fates would be bribed for this once.

The drowning of the coin seemed to cut him free from thought of Maisie for
the moment. He took himself off the bridge and went whistling to his
chambers with a strong yearning for some man-talk and tobacco after his
first experience of an entire day spent in the society of a woman. There
was a stronger desire at his heart when there rose before him an
unsolicited vision of the Barralong dipping deep and sailing free for the
Southern Cross.

CHAPTER VIII

Torpenhow was paging the last sheets of some manuscript, while the
Nilghai, who had come for chess and remained to talk tactics, was reading
through the first part, commenting scornfully the while.

“It’s picturesque enough and it’s sketchy,” said he; “but as a serious
consideration of affairs in Eastern Europe, it’s not worth much.”

“It’s off my hands at any rate…. Thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine
slips altogether, aren’t there? That should make between eleven and twelve
pages of valuable misinformation. Heigh-ho!” Torpenhow shuffled the
writing together and hummed—

Dick entered, self-conscious and a little defiant, but in the best of
tempers with all the world.

“Back at last?” said Torpenhow.

“More or less. What have you been doing?”

“Work. Dickie, you behave as though the Bank of England were behind you.
Here’s Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday gone and you haven’t done a line. It’s
scandalous.”

“The notions come and go, my children—they come and go like our
‘baccy,” he answered, filling his pipe. “Moreover,” he stooped to thrust a
spill into the grate, “Apollo does not always stretch his——Oh,
confound your clumsy jests, Nilghai!”

“This is not the place to preach the theory of direct inspiration,” said
the Nilghai, returning Torpenhow’s large and workmanlike bellows to their
nail on the wall. “We believe in cobblers’ wax. La!—where you sit
down.”

“If you weren’t so big and fat,” said Dick, looking round for a weapon,
“I’d——”

“No skylarking in my rooms. You two smashed half my furniture last time
you threw the cushions about. You might have the decency to say How d’you
do? to Binkie. Look at him.”

Binkie had jumped down from the sofa and was fawning round Dick’s knee,
and scratching at his boots.

“Dear man!” said Dick, snatching him up, and kissing him on the black
patch above his right eye. “Did ums was, Binks? Did that ugly Nilghai turn
you off the sofa? Bite him, Mr. Binkie.” He pitched him on the Nilghai’s
stomach, as the big man lay at ease, and Binkie pretended to destroy the
Nilghai inch by inch, till a sofa cushion extinguished him, and panting he
stuck out his tongue at the company.

“The Binkie-boy went for a walk this morning before you were up, Torp. I
saw him making love to the butcher at the corner when the shutters were
being taken down—just as if he hadn’t enough to eat in his own
proper house,” said Dick.

“Binks, is that a true bill?” said Torpenhow, severely. The little dog
retreated under the sofa cushion, and showed by the fat white back of him
that he really had no further interest in the discussion.

“Strikes me that another disreputable dog went for a walk, too,” said the
Nilghai. “What made you get up so early? Torp said you might be buying a
horse.”

“He knows it would need three of us for a serious business like that. No,
I felt lonesome and unhappy, so I went out to look at the sea, and watch
the pretty ships go by.”

“Where did you go?”

“Somewhere on the Channel. Progly or Snigly, or some watering-place was
its name; I’ve forgotten; but it was only two hours’ run from London and
the ships went by.”

“Did you see anything you knew?”

“Only the Barralong outwards to Australia, and an Odessa grain-boat loaded
down by the head. It was a thick day, but the sea smelt good.”

“Wherefore put on one’s best trousers to see the Barralong?” said
Torpenhow, pointing.

“Because I’ve nothing except these things and my painting duds. Besides, I
wanted to do honour to the sea.”

“Did She make you feel restless?” asked the Nilghai, keenly.

“Crazy. Don’t speak of it. I’m sorry I went.”

Torpenhow and the Nilghai exchanged a look as Dick, stooping, busied
himself among the former’s boots and trees.

“These will do,” he said at last; “I can’t say I think much of your taste
in slippers, but the fit’s the thing.” He slipped his feet into a pair of
sock-like sambhur-skin foot coverings, found a long chair, and lay at
length.

“They’re my own pet pair,” Torpenhow said. “I was just going to put them
on myself.”

“All your reprehensible selfishness. Just because you see me happy for a
minute, you want to worry me and stir me up. Find another pair.”

“Good for you that Dick can’t wear your clothes, Torp. You two live
communistically,” said the Nilghai.

“Dick never has anything that I can wear. He’s only useful to sponge
upon.”

“Confound you, have you been rummaging round among my clothes, then?” said
Dick. “I put a sovereign in the tobacco-jar yesterday. How do you expect a
man to keep his accounts properly if you——”

Here the Nilghai began to laugh, and Torpenhow joined him.

“Hid a sovereign yesterday! You’re no sort of financier. You lent me a
fiver about a month back. Do you remember?” Torpenhow said.

“Yes, of course.”

“Do you remember that I paid it you ten days later, and you put it at the
bottom of the tobacco?”

“By Jove, did I? I thought it was in one of my colour-boxes.”

“You thought! About a week ago I went into your studio to get some ‘baccy
and found it.”

“What did you do with it?”

“Took the Nilghai to a theatre and fed him.”

“You couldn’t feed the Nilghai under twice the money—not though you
gave him Army beef. Well, I suppose I should have found it out sooner or
later. What is there to laugh at?”

“You’re a most amazing cuckoo in many directions,” said the Nilghai, still
chuckling over the thought of the dinner. “Never mind. We had both been
working very hard, and it was your unearned increment we spent, and as
you’re only a loafer it didn’t matter.”

“That’s pleasant—from the man who is bursting with my meat, too.
I’ll get that dinner back one of these days. Suppose we go to a theatre
now.”

“Put our boots on,—and dress,—and wash?” The Nilghai spoke
very lazily.

“I withdraw the motion.”

“Suppose, just for a change—as a startling variety, you know—we,
that is to say we, get our charcoal and our canvas and go on with our
work.”

Torpenhow spoke pointedly, but Dick only wriggled his toes inside the soft
leather moccasins.

“What a one-ideaed clucker that is! If I had any unfinished figures on
hand, I haven’t any model; if I had my model, I haven’t any spray, and I
never leave charcoal unfixed overnight; and if I had my spray and twenty
photographs of backgrounds, I couldn’t do anything tonight. I don’t feel
that way.”

“Binkie-dog, he’s a lazy hog, isn’t he?” said the Nilghai.

“Very good, I will do some work,” said Dick, rising swiftly. “I’ll fetch
the Nungapunga Book, and we’ll add another picture to the Nilghai Saga.”

“Aren’t you worrying him a little too much?” asked the Nilghai, when Dick
had left the room.

“Perhaps, but I know what he can turn out if he likes. It makes me savage
to hear him praised for past work when I know what he ought to do. You and
I are arranged for——”

“By Kismet and our own powers, more’s the pity. I have dreamed of a good
deal.”

“So have I, but we know our limitations now. I’m dashed if I know what
Dick’s may be when he gives himself to his work. That’s what makes me so
keen about him.”

“And when all’s said and done, you will be put aside—quite rightly—for
a female girl.”

“I wonder… Where do you think he has been today?”

“To the sea. Didn’t you see the look in his eyes when he talked about her?
He’s as restless as a swallow in autumn.”

“Yes; but did he go alone?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t care, but he has the beginnings of the go-fever
upon him. He wants to up-stakes and move out. There’s no mistaking the
signs. Whatever he may have said before, he has the call upon him now.”

“It might be his salvation,” Torpenhow said.

“Perhaps—if you care to take the responsibility of being a saviour.”

Dick returned with the big clasped sketch-book that the Nilghai knew well
and did not love too much. In it Dick had drawn all manner of moving
incidents, experienced by himself or related to him by the others, of all
the four corners of the earth. But the wider range of the Nilghai’s body
and life attracted him most. When truth failed he fell back on fiction of
the wildest, and represented incidents in the Nilghai’s career that were
unseemly,—his marriages with many African princesses, his shameless
betrayal, for Arab wives, of an army corps to the Mahdi, his tattooment by
skilled operators in Burmah, his interview (and his fears) with the yellow
headsman in the blood-stained execution-ground of Canton, and finally, the
passings of his spirit into the bodies of whales, elephants, and toucans.
Torpenhow from time to time had added rhymed descriptions, and the whole
was a curious piece of art, because Dick decided, having regard to the
name of the book which being interpreted means “naked,” that it would be
wrong to draw the Nilghai with any clothes on, under any circumstances.
Consequently the last sketch, representing that much-enduring man calling
on the War Office to press his claims to the Egyptian medal, was hardly
delicate. He settled himself comfortably on Torpenhow’s table and turned
over the pages.

“What a fortune you would have been to Blake, Nilghai!” he said. “There’s
a succulent pinkness about some of these sketches that’s more than
life-like. ‘The Nilghai surrounded while bathing by the Mahdieh’—that
was founded on fact, eh?”

“It was very nearly my last bath, you irreverent dauber. Has Binkie come
into the Saga yet?”

“No; the Binkie-boy hasn’t done anything except eat and kill cats. Let’s
see. Here you are as a stained-glass saint in a church. Deuced decorative
lines about your anatomy; you ought to be grateful for being handed down
to posterity in this way. Fifty years hence you’ll exist in rare and
curious facsimiles at ten guineas each. What shall I try this time? The
domestic life of the Nilghai?”

“Hasn’t got any.”

“The undomestic life of the Nilghai, then. Of course. Mass-meeting of his
wives in Trafalgar Square. That’s it. They came from the ends of the earth
to attend Nilghai’s wedding to an English bride. This shall be an epic.
It’s a sweet material to work with.”

“It’s a scandalous waste of time,” said Torpenhow.

“Don’t worry; it keeps one’s hand in—specially when you begin
without the pencil.” He set to work rapidly. “That’s Nelson’s Column.
Presently the Nilghai will appear shinning up it.”

“Give him some clothes this time.”

“Certainly—a veil and an orange-wreath, because he’s been married.”

“Gad, that’s clever enough!” said Torpenhow over his shoulder, as Dick
brought out of the paper with three twirls of the brush a very fat back
and labouring shoulder pressed against stone.

“Just imagine,” Dick continued, “if we could publish a few of these dear
little things every time the Nilghai subsidises a man who can write, to
give the public an honest opinion of my pictures.”

“Well, you’ll admit I always tell you when I have done anything of that
kind. I know I can’t hammer you as you ought to be hammered, so I give the
job to another. Young Maclagan, for instance——”

“No-o—one half-minute, old man; stick your hand out against the dark
of the wall-paper—you only burble and call me names. That left
shoulder’s out of drawing. I must literally throw a veil over that.
Where’s my pen-knife? Well, what about Maclagan?”

“I only gave him his riding-orders to—to lambast you on general
principles for not producing work that will last.”

“Whereupon that young fool,”—Dick threw back his head and shut one
eye as he shifted the page under his hand,—“being left alone with an
ink-pot and what he conceived were his own notions, went and spilt them
both over me in the papers. You might have engaged a grown man for the
business, Nilghai. How do you think the bridal veil looks now, Torp?”

“How the deuce do three dabs and two scratches make the stuff stand away
from the body as it does?” said Torpenhow, to whom Dick’s methods were
always new.

“It just depends on where you put ’em. If Maclagan had know that much
about his business he might have done better.”

“Why don’t you put the damned dabs into something that will stay, then?”
insisted the Nilghai, who had really taken considerable trouble in hiring
for Dick’s benefit the pen of a young gentleman who devoted most of his
waking hours to an anxious consideration of the aims and ends of Art,
which, he wrote, was one and indivisible.

“Wait a minute till I see how I am going to manage my procession of wives.
You seem to have married extensively, and I must rough ’em in with the
pencil—Medes, Parthians, Edomites…. Now, setting aside the
weakness and the wickedness and—and the fat-headedness of
deliberately trying to do work that will live, as they call it, I’m
content with the knowledge that I’ve done my best up to date, and I shan’t
do anything like it again for some hours at least—probably years.
Most probably never.”

“What! any stuff you have in stock your best work?” said Torpenhow.

“Anything you’ve sold?” said the Nilghai.

“Oh no. It isn’t here and it isn’t sold. Better than that, it can’t be
sold, and I don’t think any one knows where it is. I’m sure I don’t….
And yet more and more wives, on the north side of the square. Observe the
virtuous horror of the lions!”

“You may as well explain,” said Torpenhow, and Dick lifted his head from
the paper.

“The sea reminded me of it,” he said slowly. “I wish it hadn’t. It weighs
some few thousand tons—unless you cut it out with a cold chisel.”

“Don’t be an idiot. You can’t pose with us here,” said the Nilghai.

“There’s no pose in the matter at all. It’s a fact. I was loafing from
Lima to Auckland in a big, old, condemned passenger-ship turned into a
cargo-boat and owned by a second-hand Italian firm. She was a crazy
basket. We were cut down to fifteen ton of coal a day, and we thought
ourselves lucky when we kicked seven knots an hour out of her. Then we
used to stop and let the bearings cool down, and wonder whether the crack
in the shaft was spreading.”

“Were you a steward or a stoker in those days?”

“I was flush for the time being, so I was a passenger, or else I should
have been a steward, I think,” said Dick, with perfect gravity, returning
to the procession of angry wives. “I was the only other passenger from
Lima, and the ship was half empty, and full of rats and cockroaches and
scorpions.”

“But what has this to do with the picture?”

“Wait a minute. She had been in the China passenger trade and her lower
decks had bunks for two thousand pigtails. Those were all taken down, and
she was empty up to her nose, and the lights came through the port holes—most
annoying lights to work in till you got used to them. I hadn’t anything to
do for weeks. The ship’s charts were in pieces and our skipper daren’t run
south for fear of catching a storm. So he did his best to knock all the
Society Islands out of the water one by one, and I went into the lower
deck, and did my picture on the port side as far forward in her as I could
go. There was some brown paint and some green paint that they used for the
boats, and some black paint for ironwork, and that was all I had.”

“The passengers must have thought you mad.”

“There was only one, and it was a woman; but it gave me the notion of my
picture.”

“What was she like?” said Torpenhow.

“She was a sort of Negroid-Jewess-Cuban; with morals to match. She
couldn’t read or write, and she didn’t want to, but she used to come down
and watch me paint, and the skipper didn’t like it, because he was paying
her passage and had to be on the bridge occasionally.”

“I see. That must have been cheerful.”

“It was the best time I ever had. To begin with, we didn’t know whether we
should go up or go down any minute when there was a sea on; and when it
was calm it was paradise; and the woman used to mix the paints and talk
broken English, and the skipper used to steal down every few minutes to
the lower deck, because he said he was afraid of fire. So, you see, we
could never tell when we might be caught, and I had a splendid notion to
work out in only three keys of colour.”

“What was the notion?”

“Two lines in Poe—

It came out of the sea—all by itself. I drew that fight, fought out
in green water over the naked, choking soul, and the woman served as the
model for the devils and the angels both—sea-devils and sea-angels,
and the soul half drowned between them. It doesn’t sound much, but when
there was a good light on the lower deck it looked very fine and creepy.
It was seven by fourteen feet, all done in shifting light for shifting
light.”

“Did the woman inspire you much?” said Torpenhow.

“She and the sea between them—immensely. There was a heap of bad
drawing in that picture. I remember I went out of my way to foreshorten
for sheer delight of doing it, and I foreshortened damnably, but for all
that it’s the best thing I’ve ever done; and now I suppose the ship’s
broken up or gone down. Whew! What a time that was!”

“What happened after all?”

“It all ended. They were loading her with wool when I left the ship, but
even the stevedores kept the picture clear to the last. The eyes of the
demons scared them, I honestly believe.”

“And the woman?”

“She was scared too when it was finished. She used to cross herself before
she went down to look at it. Just three colours and no chance of getting
any more, and the sea outside and unlimited love-making inside, and the
fear of death atop of everything else, O Lord!” He had ceased to look at
the sketch, but was staring straight in front of him across the room.

“Why don’t you try something of the same kind now?” said the Nilghai.

“Because those things come not by fasting and prayer. When I find a
cargo-boat and a Jewess-Cuban and another notion and the same old life, I
may.”

“You won’t find them here,” said the Nilghai.

“No, I shall not.” Dick shut the sketch-book with a bang. “This room’s as
hot as an oven. Open the window, some one.”

He leaned into the darkness, watching the greater darkness of London below
him. The chambers stood much higher than the other houses, commanding a
hundred chimneys—crooked cowls that looked like sitting cats as they
swung round, and other uncouth brick and zinc mysteries supported by iron
stanchions and clamped by 8-pieces. Northward the lights of Piccadilly
Circus and Leicester Square threw a copper-coloured glare above the black
roofs, and southward by all the orderly lights of the Thames. A train
rolled out across one of the railway bridges, and its thunder drowned for
a minute the dull roar of the streets. The Nilghai looked at his watch and
said shortly, “That’s the Paris night-mail. You can book from here to St.
Petersburg if you choose.”

Dick crammed head and shoulders out of the window and looked across the
river. Torpenhow came to his side, while the Nilghai passed over quietly
to the piano and opened it. Binkie, making himself as large as possible,
spread out upon the sofa with the air of one who is not to be lightly
disturbed.

“Well,” said the Nilghai to the two pairs of shoulders, “have you never
seen this place before?”

A steam-tug on the river hooted as she towed her barges to wharf. Then the
boom of the traffic came into the room. Torpenhow nudged Dick.

“Good place to bank in—bad place to bunk in, Dickie, isn’t it?”

Dick’s chin was in his hand as he answered, in the words of a general not
without fame, still looking out on the darkness—“’My God, what a
city to loot!’”

Binkie found the night air tickling his whiskers and sneezed plaintively.

“We shall give the Binkie-dog a cold,” said Torpenhow. “Come in,” and they
withdrew their heads. “You’ll be buried in Kensal Green, Dick, one of
these days, if it isn’t closed by the time you want to go there—buried
within two feet of some one else, his wife and his family.”

“Allah forbid! I shall get away before that time comes. Give a man room to
stretch his legs, Mr. Binkie.” Dick flung himself down on the sofa and
tweaked Binkie’s velvet ears, yawning heavily the while.

“You’ll find that wardrobe-case very much out of tune,” Torpenhow said to
the Nilghai. “It’s never touched except by you.”

“A piece of gross extravagance,” Dick grunted. “The Nilghai only comes
when I’m out.”

“That’s because you’re always out. Howl, Nilghai, and let him hear.”

“The life of the Nilghai is fraud and slaughter, His writings are watered
Dickens and water; But the voice of the Nilghai raised on high Makes even
the Mahdieh glad to die!”

Dick quoted from Torpenhow’s letterpress in the Nungapunga Book.

“How do they call moose in Canada, Nilghai?”

The man laughed. Singing was his one polite accomplishment, as many
Press-tents in far-off lands had known.

“What shall I sing?” said he, turning in the chair.

“’Moll Roe in the Morning,’” said Torpenhow, at a venture.

“No,” said Dick, sharply, and the Nilghai opened his eyes. The old chanty
whereof he, among a very few, possessed all the words was not a pretty
one, but Dick had heard it many times before without wincing. Without
prelude he launched into that stately tune that calls together and
troubles the hearts of the gipsies of the sea—

“Farewell and adieu to you, Spanish ladies, Farewell and adieu to you,
ladies of Spain.”

Dick turned uneasily on the sofa, for he could hear the bows of the
Barralong crashing into the green seas on her way to the Southern Cross.

Then came the chorus—

“We’ll rant and we’ll roar like true British sailors, We’ll rant and we’ll
roar across the salt seas, Until we take soundings in the Channel of Old
England From Ushant to Scilly ’tis forty-five leagues.”

“Thirty-five-thirty-five,” said Dick, petulantly. “Don’t tamper with Holy
Writ. Go on, Nilghai.”

“The first land we made it was called the Deadman,” and they sang to the
end very vigourously.

“That would be a better song if her head were turned the other way—to
the Ushant light, for instance,” said the Nilghai.

“Flinging his arms about like a mad windmill,” said Torpenhow. “Give us
something else, Nilghai. You’re in fine fog-horn form tonight.”

“Give us the ‘Ganges Pilot’; you sang that in the square the night before
El-Maghrib. By the way, I wonder how many of the chorus are alive
tonight,” said Dick.

Torpenhow considered for a minute. “By Jove! I believe only you and I.
Raynor, Vicery, and Deenes—all dead; Vincent caught smallpox in
Cairo, carried it here and died of it. Yes, only you and I and the
Nilghai.”

“Umph! And yet the men here who’ve done their work in a well-warmed studio
all their lives, with a policeman at each corner, say that I charge too
much for my pictures.”

“They are buying your work, not your insurance policies, dear child,” said
the Nilghai.

“I gambled with one to get at the other. Don’t preach. Go on with the
‘Pilot.’ Where in the world did you get that song?”

“On a tombstone,” said the Nilghai. “On a tombstone in a distant land. I
made it an accompaniment with heaps of base chords.”

“Oh, Vanity! Begin.” And the Nilghai began—

“I have slipped my cable, messmates, I’m drifting down with the tide, I
have my sailing orders, while yet at anchor ride. And never on fair June
morning have I put out to sea With clearer conscience or better hope, or a
heart more light and free.

“Shoulder to shoulder, Joe, my boy, into the crowd like a wedge. Strike
with the hangers, messmates, but do not cut with the edge.” Cries
Charnock, “Scatter the faggots, double that Brahmin in two, The tall pale
widow for me, Joe, the little brown girl for you!”

“Young Joe (you’re nearing sixty), why is your hide so dark? Katie has
soft fair blue eyes, who blackened yours?—Why, hark!”

They were all singing now, Dick with the roar of the wind of the open sea
about his ears as the deep bass voice let itself go.

“The morning gun—Ho, steady! the arquebuses to me! I ha’ sounded the
Dutch High Admiral’s heart as my lead doth sound the sea.

“Sounding, sounding the Ganges, floating down with the tide, Moore me
close to Charnock, next to my nut-brown bride. My blessing to Kate at
Fairlight—Holwell, my thanks to you; Steady! We steer for heaven,
through sand-drifts cold and blue.”

“Now what is there in that nonsense to make a man restless?” said Dick,
hauling Binkie from his feet to his chest.

“It depends on the man,” said Torpenhow.

“The man who has been down to look at the sea,” said the Nilghai.

“I didn’t know she was going to upset me in this fashion.”

“That’s what men say when they go to say good-bye to a woman. It’s more
easy though to get rid of three women than a piece of one’s life and
surroundings.”

“But a woman can be——” began Dick, unguardedly.

“A piece of one’s life,” continued Torpenhow. “No, she can’t.” His face
darkened for a moment. “She says she wants to sympathise with you and help
you in your work, and everything else that clearly a man must do for
himself. Then she sends round five notes a day to ask why the dickens you
haven’t been wasting your time with her.”

“Don’t generalise,” said the Nilghai. “By the time you arrive at five
notes a day you must have gone through a good deal and behaved
accordingly. Shouldn’t begin these things, my son.”

“I shouldn’t have gone down to the sea,” said Dick, just a little anxious
to change the conversation. “And you shouldn’t have sung.”

“The sea isn’t sending you five notes a day,” said the Nilghai.

“No, but I’m fatally compromised. She’s an enduring old hag, and I’m sorry
I ever met her. Why wasn’t I born and bred and dead in a three-pair back?”

“Hear him blaspheming his first love! Why in the world shouldn’t you
listen to her?” said Torpenhow.

Before Dick could reply the Nilghai lifted up his voice with a shout that
shook the windows, in “The Men of the Sea,” that begins, as all know, “The
sea is a wicked old woman,” and after wading through eight lines whose
imagery is truthful, ends in a refrain, slow as the clacking of a capstan
when the boat comes unwillingly up to the bars where the men sweat and
tramp in the shingle.

“’Ye that bore us, O restore us! She is kinder than ye; For the call is on
our heart-strings!’ Said The Men of the Sea.”

The Nilghai sang that verse twice, with simple cunning, intending that
Dick should hear. But Dick was waiting for the farewell of the men to
their wives.

“’Ye that love us, can ye move us? She is dearer than ye; And your sleep
will be the sweeter,’ Said The Men of the Sea.”

The rough words beat like the blows of the waves on the bows of the
rickety boat from Lima in the days when Dick was mixing paints, making
love, drawing devils and angels in the half dark, and wondering whether
the next minute would put the Italian captain’s knife between his
shoulder-blades. And the go-fever which is more real than many doctors’
diseases, waked and raged, urging him who loved Maisie beyond anything in
the world, to go away and taste the old hot, unregenerate life again,—to
scuffle, swear, gamble, and love light loves with his fellows; to take
ship and know the sea once more, and by her beget pictures; to talk to
Binat among the sands of Port Said while Yellow Tina mixed the drinks; to
hear the crackle of musketry, and see the smoke roll outward, thin and
thicken again till the shining black faces came through, and in that hell
every man was strictly responsible for his own head, and his own alone,
and struck with an unfettered arm. It was impossible, utterly impossible,
but—

“’Oh, our fathers in the churchyard, She is older than ye, And our graves
will be the greener,’ Said The Men of the Sea.”

“What is there to hinder?” said Torpenhow, in the long hush that followed
the song.

“You said a little time since that you wouldn’t come for a walk round the
world, Torp.”

“That was months ago, and I only objected to your making money for
travelling expenses. You’ve shot your bolt here and it has gone home. Go
away and do some work, and see some things.”

“Get some of the fat off you; you’re disgracefully out of condition,” said
the Nilghai, making a plunge from the chair and grasping a handful of Dick
generally over the right ribs. “Soft as putty—pure tallow born of
over-feeding. Train it off, Dickie.”

“We’re all equally gross, Nilghai. Next time you have to take the field
you’ll sit down, wink your eyes, gasp, and die in a fit.”

“Never mind. You go away on a ship. Go to Lima again, or to Brazil.
There’s always trouble in South America.”

“Do you suppose I want to be told where to go? Great Heavens, the only
difficulty is to know where I’m to stop. But I shall stay here, as I told
you before.”

“Then you’ll be buried in Kensal Green and turn into adipocere with the
others,” said Torpenhow. “Are you thinking of commissions in hand? Pay
forfeit and go. You’ve money enough to travel as a king if you please.”

“You’ve the grisliest notions of amusement, Torp. I think I see myself
shipping first class on a six-thousand-ton hotel, and asking the third
engineer what makes the engines go round, and whether it isn’t very warm
in the stokehold. Ho! ho! I should ship as a loafer if ever I shipped at
all, which I’m not going to do. I shall compromise, and go for a small
trip to begin with.”

“That’s something at any rate. Where will you go?” said Torpenhow. “It
would do you all the good in the world, old man.”

The Nilghai saw the twinkle in Dick’s eye, and refrained from speech.

“I shall go in the first place to Rathray’s stable, where I shall hire one
horse, and take him very carefully as far as Richmond Hill. Then I shall
walk him back again, in case he should accidentally burst into a lather
and make Rathray angry. I shall do that tomorrow, for the sake of air and
exercise.”

“Bah!” Dick had barely time to throw up his arm and ward off the cushion
that the disgusted Torpenhow heaved at his head.

“Air and exercise indeed,” said the Nilghai, sitting down heavily on Dick.

“Let’s give him a little of both. Get the bellows, Torp.”

At this point the conference broke up in disorder, because Dick would not
open his mouth till the Nilghai held his nose fast, and there was some
trouble in forcing the nozzle of the bellows between his teeth; and even
when it was there he weakly tried to puff against the force of the blast,
and his cheeks blew up with a great explosion; and the enemy becoming
helpless with laughter he so beat them over the head with a soft sofa
cushion that became unsewn and distributed its feathers, and Binkie,
interfering in Torpenhow’s interests, was bundled into the half-empty bag
and advised to scratch his way out, which he did after a while, travelling
rapidly up and down the floor in the shape of an agitated green haggis,
and when he came out looking for satisfaction, the three pillars of his
world were picking feathers out of their hair.

“A prophet has no honour in his own country,” said Dick, ruefully, dusting
his knees. “This filthy fluff will never brush off my legs.”

“It was all for your own good,” said the Nilghai. “Nothing like air and
exercise.”

“All for your good,” said Torpenhow, not in the least with reference to
past clowning. “It would let you focus things at their proper worth and
prevent your becoming slack in this hothouse of a town. Indeed it would,
old man. I shouldn’t have spoken if I hadn’t thought so. Only, you make a
joke of everything.”

“Before God I do no such thing,” said Dick, quickly and earnestly. “You
don’t know me if you think that.”

“I don’t think it,” said the Nilghai.

“How can fellows like ourselves, who know what life and death really mean,
dare to make a joke of anything? I know we pretend it, to save ourselves
from breaking down or going to the other extreme. Can’t I see, old man,
how you’re always anxious about me, and try to advise me to make my work
better? Do you suppose I don’t think about that myself? But you can’t help
me—you can’t help me—not even you. I must play my own hand
alone in my own way.”

“Hear, hear,” from the Nilghai.

“What’s the one thing in the Nilghai Saga that I’ve never drawn in the
Nungapunga Book?” Dick continued to Torpenhow, who was a little astonished
at the outburst.

Now there was one blank page in the book given over to the sketch that
Dick had not drawn of the crowning exploit in the Nilghai’s life; when
that man, being young and forgetting that his body and bones belonged to
the paper that employed him, had ridden over sunburned slippery grass in
the rear of Bredow’s brigade on the day that the troopers flung themselves
at Caurobert’s artillery, and for aught they knew twenty battalions in
front, to save the battered 24th German Infantry, to give time to decide
the fate of Vionville, and to learn ere their remnant came back to
Flavigay that cavalry can attack and crumple and break unshaken infantry.
Whenever he was inclined to think over a life that might have been better,
an income that might have been larger, and a soul that might have been
considerably cleaner, the Nilghai would comfort himself with the thought,
“I rode with Bredow’s brigade at Vionville,” and take heart for any lesser
battle the next day might bring.

“I know,” he said very gravely. “I was always glad that you left it out.”

“I left it out because Nilghai taught me what the Germany army learned
then, and what Schmidt taught their cavalry. I don’t know German. What is
it? ‘Take care of the time and the dressing will take care of itself.’ I
must ride my own line to my own beat, old man.”

“Tempe ist richtung. You’ve learned your lesson well,” said the Nilghai.

“He must go alone. He speaks truth, Torp.”

“Maybe I’m as wrong as I can be—hideously wrong. I must find that
out for myself, as I have to think things out for myself, but I daren’t
turn my head to dress by the next man. It hurts me a great deal more than
you know not to be able to go, but I cannot, that’s all. I must do my own
work and live my own life in my own way, because I’m responsible for both.
Only don’t think I frivol about it, Torp. I have my own matches and
sulphur, and I’ll make my own hell, thanks.”

There was an uncomfortable pause. Then Torpenhow said blandly, “What did
the Governor of North Carolina say to the Governor of South Carolina?”

“Excellent notion. It is a long time between drinks. There are the makings
of a very fine prig in you, Dick,” said the Nilghai.

“I’ve liberated my mind, estimable Binkie, with the feathers in his
mouth.” Dick picked up the still indignant one and shook him tenderly.
“You’re tied up in a sack and made to run about blind, Binkie-wee, without
any reason, and it has hurt your little feelings. Never mind. Sic volo,
sic jubeo, stet pro ratione voluntas, and don’t sneeze in my eye because I
talk Latin. Good night.”

He went out of the room.

“That’s distinctly one for you,” said the Nilghai. “I told you it was
hopeless to meddle with him. He’s not pleased.”

“He’d swear at me if he weren’t. I can’t make it out. He has the go-fever
upon him and he won’t go. I only hope that he mayn’t have to go some day
when he doesn’t want to,” said Torpenhow.

In his own room Dick was settling a question with himself—and the
question was whether all the world, and all that was therein, and a
burning desire to exploit both, was worth one threepenny piece thrown into
the Thames.

“It came of seeing the sea, and I’m a cur to think about it,” he decided.
“After all, the honeymoon will be that tour—with reservations;
only… only I didn’t realise that the sea was so strong. I didn’t feel it
so much when I was with Maisie. These damnable songs did it. He’s
beginning again.”

But it was only Herrick’s Nightpiece to Julia that the Nilghai sang, and
before it was ended Dick reappeared on the threshold, not altogether
clothed indeed, but in his right mind, thirsty and at peace.

The mood had come and gone with the rising and the falling of the tide by
Fort Keeling.

CHAPTER IX

HE DID no work of any kind for the rest of the week. Then came another
Sunday. He dreaded and longed for the day always, but since the red-haired
girl had sketched him there was rather more dread than desire in his mind.

He found that Maisie had entirely neglected his suggestions about
line-work. She had gone off at score filed with some absurd notion for a
“fancy head.” It cost Dick something to command his temper.

“What’s the good of suggesting anything?” he said pointedly.

“Ah, but this will be a picture,—a real picture; and I know that
Kami will let me send it to the Salon. You don’t mind, do you?”

“I suppose not. But you won’t have time for the Salon.”

Maisie hesitated a little. She even felt uncomfortable.

“We’re going over to France a month sooner because of it. I shall get the
idea sketched out here and work it up at Kami’s.”

Dick’s heart stood still, and he came very near to being disgusted with
his queen who could do no wrong. “Just when I thought I had made some
headway, she goes off chasing butterflies. It’s too maddening!”

There was no possibility of arguing, for the red-haired girl was in the
studio. Dick could only look unutterable reproach.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “and I think you make a mistake. But what’s the idea
of your new picture?”

“I took it from a book.”

“That’s bad, to begin with. Books aren’t the places for pictures. And——”

“It’s this,” said the red-haired girl behind him. “I was reading it to
Maisie the other day from The City of Dreadful Night. D’you know the
book?”

“A little. I am sorry I spoke. There are pictures in it. What has taken
her fancy?”

“The description of the Melancolia—

And here again. (Maisie, get the tea, dear.)

There was no attempt to conceal the scorn of the lazy voice. Dick winced.

“But that has been done already by an obscure artist by the name of
Durer,” said he. “How does the poem run?—

You might as well try to rewrite Hamlet. It will be a waste of time.”

“No, it won’t,” said Maisie, putting down the teacups with a clatter to
reassure herself. “And I mean to do it. Can’t you see what a beautiful
thing it would make?”

“How in perdition can one do work when one hasn’t had the proper training?
Any fool can get a notion. It needs training to drive the thing through,—training
and conviction; not rushing after the first fancy.” Dick spoke between his
teeth.

“You don’t understand,” said Maisie. “I think I can do it.”

Again the voice of the girl behind him—

I fancy Maisie means to embody herself in the picture.”

“Sitting on a throne of rejected pictures? No, I shan’t, dear. The notion
in itself has fascinated me.—Of course you don’t care for fancy
heads, Dick. I don’t think you could do them. You like blood and bones.”

“That’s a direct challenge. If you can do a Melancolia that isn’t merely a
sorrowful female head, I can do a better one; and I will, too. What d’you
know about Melacolias?” Dick firmly believed that he was even then tasting
three-quarters of all the sorrow in the world.

“She was a woman,” said Maisie, “and she suffered a great deal,—till
she could suffer no more. Then she began to laugh at it all, and then I
painted her and sent her to the Salon.”

The red-haired girl rose up and left the room, laughing.

Dick looked at Maisie humbly and hopelessly.

“Never mind about the picture,” he said. “Are you really going back to
Kami’s for a month before your time?”

“I must, if I want to get the picture done.”

“And that’s all you want?”

“Of course. Don’t be stupid, Dick.”

“You haven’t the power. You have only the ideas—the ideas and the
little cheap impulses. How you could have kept at your work for ten years
steadily is a mystery to me. So you are really going,—a month before
you need?”

“I must do my work.”

“Your work—bah!… No, I didn’t mean that. It’s all right, dear. Of
course you must do your work, and—I think I’ll say goodbye for this
week.”

“Won’t you even stay for tea?”

“No, thank you. Have I your leave to go, dear? There’s nothing more you
particularly want me to do, and the line-work doesn’t matter.”

“I wish you could stay, and then we could talk over my picture. If only
one single picture’s a success, it draws attention to all the others. I
know some of my work is good, if only people could see. And you needn’t
have been so rude about it.”

“I’m sorry. We’ll talk the Melancolia over some one of the other Sundays.
There are four more—yes, one, two, three, four—before you go.
Goodbye, Maisie.”

Maisie stood by the studio window, thinking, till the red-haired girl
returned, a little white at the corners of her lips.

“Dick’s gone off,” said Maisie. “Just when I wanted to talk about the
picture. Isn’t it selfish of him?”

Her companion opened her lips as if to speak, shut them again, and went on
reading The City of Dreadful Night.

Dick was in the Park, walking round and round a tree that he had chosen as
his confidante for many Sundays past. He was swearing audibly, and when he
found that the infirmities of the English tongue hemmed in his rage, he
sought consolation in Arabic, which is expressly designed for the use of
the afflicted. He was not pleased with the reward of his patient service;
nor was he pleased with himself; and it was long before he arrived at the
proposition that the queen could do no wrong.

“It’s a losing game,” he said. “I’m worth nothing when a whim of hers is
in question. But in a losing game at Port Said we used to double the
stakes and go on. She do a Melancolia! She hasn’t the power, or the
insight, or the training. Only the desire. She’s cursed with the curse of
Reuben. She won’t do line-work, because it means real work; and yet she’s
stronger than I am. I’ll make her understand that I can beat her on her
own Melancolia. Even then she wouldn’t care. She says I can only do blood
and bones. I don’t believe she has blood in her veins. All the same I
lover her; and I must go on loving her; and if I can humble her inordinate
vanity I will. I’ll do a Melancolia that shall be something like a
Melancolia ‘the Melancolia that transcends all wit.’ I’ll do it at once,
con—bless her.”

He discovered that the notion would not come to order, and that he could
not free his mind for an hour from the thought of Maisie’s departure. He
took very small interest in her rough studies for the Melancolia when she
showed them next week. The Sundays were racing past, and the time was at
hand when all the church bells in London could not ring Maisie back to
him. Once or twice he said something to Binkie about ‘hermaphroditic
futilities,’ but the little dog received so many confidences both from
Torpenhow and Dick that he did not trouble his tulip-ears to listen.

Dick was permitted to see the girls off. They were going by the Dover
night-boat; and they hoped to return in August. It was then February, and
Dick felt that he was being hardly used. Maisie was so busy stripping the
small house across the Park, and packing her canvases, that she had not
time for thought. Dick went down to Dover and wasted a day there fretting
over a wonderful possibility. Would Maisie at the very last allow him one
small kiss? He reflected that he might capture her by the strong arm, as
he had seem women captured in the Southern Soudan, and lead her away; but
Maisie would never be led. She would turn her gray eyes upon him and say,
“Dick, how selfish you are!” Then his courage would fail him. It would be
better, after all, to beg for that kiss.

Maisie looked more than usually kissable as she stepped from the
night-mail on to the windy pier, in a gray waterproof and a little gray
cloth travelling-cap. The red-haired girl was not so lovely. Her green
eyes were hollow and her lips were dry. Dick saw the trunks aboard, and
went to Maisie’s side in the darkness under the bridge. The mail-bags were
thundering into the forehold, and the red-haired girl was watching them.

“You’ll have a rough passage tonight,” said Dick. “It’s blowing outside. I
suppose I may come over and see you if I’m good?”

“You mustn’t. I shall be busy. At least, if I want you I’ll send for you.
But I shall write from Vitry-sur-Marne. I shall have heaps of things to
consult you about. Oh, Dick, you have been so good to me!—so good to
me!”

“Thank you for that, dear. It hasn’t made any difference, has it?”

“I can’t tell a fib. It hasn’t—in that way. But don’t think I’m not
grateful.”

“Damn the gratitude!” said Dick, huskily, to the paddle-box.

“What’s the use of worrying? You know I should ruin your life, and you’d
ruin mine, as things are now. You remember what you said when you were so
angry that day in the Park? One of us has to be broken. Can’t you wait
till that day comes?”

“No, love. I want you unbroken—all to myself.”

Maisie shook her head. “My poor Dick, what can I say!”

“Don’t say anything. Give me a kiss. Only one kiss, Maisie. I’ll swear I
won’t take any more. You might as well, and then I can be sure you’re
grateful.”

Maisie put her cheek forward, and Dick took his reward in the darkness.

It was only one kiss, but, since there was no time-limit specified, it was
a long one. Maisie wrenched herself free angrily, and Dick stood abashed
and tingling from head to toe.

“Goodbye, darling. I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m sorry. Only—keep
well and do good work,—specially the Melancolia. I’m going to do
one, too. Remember me to Kami, and be careful what you drink. Country
drinking-water is bad everywhere, but it’s worse in France. Write to me if
you want anything, and good-bye. Say good-bye to the whatever-you-call-um
girl, and—can’t I have another kiss? No. You’re quite right.
Goodbye.”

A shout told him that it was not seemly to charge of the mail-bag incline.
He reached the pier as the steamer began to move off, and he followed her
with his heart.

“And there’s nothing—nothing in the wide world—to keep us
apart except her obstinacy. These Calais night-boats are much too small.
I’ll get Torp to write to the papers about it. She’s beginning to pitch
already.”

Maisie stood where Dick had left her till she heard a little gasping cough
at her elbow. The red-haired girl’s eyes were alight with cold flame.

“He kissed you!” she said. “How could you let him, when he wasn’t anything
to you? How dared you to take a kiss from him? Oh, Maisie, let’s go to the
ladies’ cabin. I’m sick,—deadly sick.”

“We aren’t into open water yet. Go down, dear, and I’ll stay here. I don’t
like the smell of the engines…. Poor Dick! He deserved one,—only
one. But I didn’t think he’d frighten me so.”

Dick returned to town next day just in time for lunch, for which he had
telegraphed. To his disgust, there were only empty plates in the studio.

He lifted up his voice like the bears in the fairy-tale, and Torpenhow
entered, looking guilty.

“H’sh!” said he. “Don’t make such a noise. I took it. Come into my rooms,
and I’ll show you why.”

Dick paused amazed at the threshold, for on Torpenhow’s sofa lay a girl
asleep and breathing heavily. The little cheap sailor-hat, the
blue-and-white dress, fitter for June than for February, dabbled with mud
at the skirts, the jacket trimmed with imitation Astrakhan and ripped at
the shoulder-seams, the one-and-elevenpenny umbrella, and, above all, the
disgraceful condition of the kid-topped boots, declared all things.

“Oh, I say, old man, this is too bad! You mustn’t bring this sort up here.
They steal things from the rooms.”

“It looks bad, I admit, but I was coming in after lunch, and she staggered
into the hall. I thought she was drunk at first, but it was collapse. I
couldn’t leave her as she was, so I brought her up here and gave her your
lunch. She was fainting from want of food. She went fast asleep the minute
she had finished.”

“I know something of that complaint. She’s been living on sausages, I
suppose. Torp, you should have handed her over to a policeman for
presuming to faint in a respectable house. Poor little wretch! Look at the
face! There isn’t an ounce of immorality in it. Only folly,—slack,
fatuous, feeble, futile folly. It’s a typical head. D’you notice how the
skull begins to show through the flesh padding on the face and
cheek-bone?”

“What a cold-blooded barbarian it is! Don’t hit a woman when she’s down.
Can’t we do anything? She was simply dropping with starvation. She almost
fell into my arms, and when she got to the food she ate like a wild beast.
It was horrible.”

“I can give her money, which she would probably spend in drinks. Is she
going to sleep for ever?”

The girl opened her eyes and glared at the men between terror and
effrontery.

“Feeling better?” said Torpenhow.

“Yes. Thank you. There aren’t many gentlemen that are as kind as you are.
Thank you.”

“When did you leave service?” said Dick, who had been watching the scarred
and chapped hands.

“How did you know I was in service? I was. General servant. I didn’t like
it.”

“And how do you like being your own mistress?”

“Do I look as if I liked it?”

“I suppose not. One moment. Would you be good enough to turn your face to
the window?”

The girl obeyed, and Dick watched her face keenly,—so keenly that
she made as if to hide behind Torpenhow.

“The eyes have it,” said Dick, walking up and down. “They are superb eyes
for my business. And, after all, every head depends on the eyes. This has
been sent from heaven to make up for—what was taken away. Now the
weekly strain’s off my shoulders, I can get to work in earnest. Evidently
sent from heaven. Yes. Raise your chin a little, please.”

“Gently, old man, gently. You’re scaring somebody out of her wits,” said
Torpenhow, who could see the girl trembling.

“Don’t let him hit me! Oh, please don’t let him hit me! I’ve been hit
cruel today because I spoke to a man. Don’t let him look at me like that!
He’s reg’lar wicked, that one. Don’t let him look at me like that,
neither! Oh, I feel as if I hadn’t nothing on when he looks at me like
that!”

The overstrained nerves in the frail body gave way, and the girl wept like
a little child and began to scream. Dick threw open the window, and
Torpenhow flung the door back.

“There you are,” said Dick, soothingly. “My friend here can call for a
policeman, and you can run through that door. Nobody is going to hurt
you.”

The girl sobbed convulsively for a few minutes, and then tried to laugh.

“Nothing in the world to hurt you. Now listen to me for a minute. I’m what
they call an artist by profession. You know what artists do?”

“They draw the things in red and black ink on the pop-shop labels.”

“I dare say. I haven’t risen to pop-shop labels yet. Those are done by the
Academicians. I want to draw your head.”

“What for?”

“Because it’s pretty. That is why you will come to the room across the
landing three times a week at eleven in the morning, and I’ll give you
three quid a week just for sitting still and being drawn. And there’s a
quid on account.”

“For nothing? Oh, my!” The girl turned the sovereign in her hand, and with
more foolish tears, “Ain’t neither ‘o you two gentlemen afraid of my
bilking you?”

“No. Only ugly girls do that. Try and remember this place. And, by the
way, what’s your name?”

“I’m Bessie,—Bessie——It’s no use giving the rest. Bessie
Broke,—Stone-broke, if you like. What’s your names? But there,—no
one ever gives the real ones.”

Dick consulted Torpenhow with his eyes.

“My name’s Heldar, and my friend’s called Torpenhow; and you must be sure
to come here. Where do you live?”

“South-the-water,—one room,—five and sixpence a week. Aren’t
you making fun of me about that three quid?”

“You’ll see later on. And, Bessie, next time you come, remember, you
needn’t wear that paint. It’s bad for the skin, and I have all the colours
you’ll be likely to need.”

Bessie withdrew, scrubbing her cheek with a ragged pocket-handkerchief.
The two men looked at each other.

“You’re a man,” said Torpenhow.

“I’m afraid I’ve been a fool. It isn’t our business to run about the earth
reforming Bessie Brokes. And a woman of any kind has no right on this
landing.”

“Perhaps she won’t come back.”

“She will if she thinks she can get food and warmth here. I know she will,
worse luck. But remember, old man, she isn’t a woman; she’s my model; and
be careful.”

“The idea! She’s a dissolute little scarecrow,—a gutter-snippet and
nothing more.”

“So you think. Wait till she has been fed a little and freed from fear.
That fair type recovers itself very quickly. You won’t know her in a week
or two, when that abject fear has died out of her eyes. She’ll be too
happy and smiling for my purposes.”

“But surely you’re not taking her out of charity?—to please me?”

“I am not in the habit of playing with hot coals to please anybody. She
has been sent from heaven, as I may have remarked before, to help me with
my Melancolia.”

“Never heard a word about the lady before.”

“What’s the use of having a friend, if you must sling your notions at him
in words? You ought to know what I’m thinking about. You’ve heard me grunt
lately?”

“Even so; but grunts mean anything in your language, from bad ‘baccy to
wicked dealers. And I don’t think I’ve been much in your confidence for
some time.”

“It was a high and soulful grunt. You ought to have understood that it
meant the Melancolia.” Dick walked Torpenhow up and down the room, keeping
silence. Then he smote him in the ribs, “Now don’t you see it? Bessie’s
abject futility, and the terror in her eyes, welded on to one or two
details in the way of sorrow that have come under my experience lately.
Likewise some orange and black,—two keys of each. But I can’t
explain on an empty stomach.”

“It sounds mad enough. You’d better stick to your soldiers, Dick, instead
of maundering about heads and eyes and experiences.”

“Think so?” Dick began to dance on his heels, singing—

“They’re as proud as a turkey when they hold the ready cash, You ought to
‘ear the way they laugh an’ joke; They are tricky an’ they’re funny when
they’ve got the ready money,—Ow! but see ’em when they’re all
stone-broke.”

Then he sat down to pour out his heart to Maisie in a four-sheet letter of
counsel and encouragement, and registered an oath that he would get to
work with an undivided heart as soon as Bessie should reappear.

The girl kept her appointment unpainted and unadorned, afraid and overbold
by turns. When she found that she was merely expected to sit still, she
grew calmer, and criticised the appointments of the studio with freedom
and some point. She liked the warmth and the comfort and the release from
fear of physical pain. Dick made two or three studies of her head in
monochrome, but the actual notion of the Melancolia would not arrive.

“What a mess you keep your things in!” said Bessie, some days later, when
she felt herself thoroughly at home. “I s’pose your clothes are just as
bad. Gentlemen never think what buttons and tape are made for.”

“I buy things to wear, and wear ’em till they go to pieces. I don’t know
what Torpenhow does.”

Bessie made diligent inquiry in the latter’s room, and unearthed a bale of
disreputable socks. “Some of these I’ll mend now,” she said, “and some
I’ll take home. D’you know, I sit all day long at home doing nothing, just
like a lady, and no more noticing them other girls in the house than if
they was so many flies. I don’t have any unnecessary words, but I put ’em
down quick, I can tell you, when they talk to me. No; it’s quite nice
these days. I lock my door, and they can only call me names through the
keyhole, and I sit inside, just like a lady, mending socks. Mr. Torpenhow
wears his socks out both ends at once.”

“Three quid a week from me, and the delights of my society. No socks
mended. Nothing from Torp except a nod on the landing now and again, and
all his socks mended. Bessie is very much a woman,” thought Dick; and he
looked at her between half-shut eyes. Food and rest had transformed the
girl, as Dick knew they would.

“What are you looking at me like that for?” she said quickly. “Don’t. You
look reg’lar bad when you look that way. You don’t think much o’ me, do
you?”

“That depends on how you behave.”

Bessie behaved beautifully. Only it was difficult at the end of a sitting
to bid her go out into the gray streets. She very much preferred the
studio and a big chair by the stove, with some socks in her lap as an
excuse for delay. Then Torpenhow would come in, and Bessie would be moved
to tell strange and wonderful stories of her past, and still stranger ones
of her present improved circumstances. She would make them tea as though
she had a right to make it; and once or twice on these occasions Dick
caught Torpenhow’s eyes fixed on the trim little figure, and because
Bessie’s flittings about the room made Dick ardently long for Maisie, he
realised whither Torpenhow’s thoughts were tending. And Bessie was
exceedingly careful of the condition of Torpenhow’s linen. She spoke very
little to him, but sometimes they talked together on the landing.

“I was a great fool,” Dick said to himself. “I know what red firelight
looks like when a man’s tramping through a strange town; and ours is a
lonely, selfish sort of life at the best. I wonder Maisie doesn’t feel
that sometimes. But I can’t order Bessie away. That’s the worst of
beginning things. One never knows where they stop.”

One evening, after a sitting prolonged to the last limit of the light,
Dick was roused from a nap by a broken voice in Torpenhow’s room. He
jumped to his feet. “Now what ought I to do? It looks foolish to go in.—Oh,
bless you, Binkie!” The little terrier thrust Torpenhow’s door open with
his nose and came out to take possession of Dick’s chair. The door swung
wide unheeded, and Dick across the landing could see Bessie in the
half-light making her little supplication to Torpenhow. She was kneeling
by his side, and her hands were clasped across his knee.

“I know,—I know,” she said thickly. “’Tisn’t right ‘o me to do this,
but I can’t help it; and you were so kind,—so kind; and you never
took any notice ‘o me. And I’ve mended all your things so carefully,—I
did. Oh, please, ’tisn’t as if I was asking you to marry me. I wouldn’t
think of it. But you—couldn’t you take and live with me till Miss
Right comes along? I’m only Miss Wrong, I know, but I’d work my hands to
the bare bone for you. And I’m not ugly to look at. Say you will!”

Dick hardly recognised Torpenhow’s voice in reply—“But look here.
It’s no use. I’m liable to be ordered off anywhere at a minute’s notice if
a war breaks out. At a minute’s notice—dear.”

“What does that matter? Until you go, then. Until you go. ‘Tisn’t much I’m
asking, and—you don’t know how good I can cook.” She had put an arm
round his neck and was drawing his head down.

“Until—I—go, then.”

“Torp,” said Dick, across the landing. He could hardly steady his voice.

“Come here a minute, old man. I’m in trouble”—

“Heaven send he’ll listen to me!” There was something very like an oath
from Bessie’s lips. She was afraid of Dick, and disappeared down the
staircase in panic, but it seemed an age before Torpenhow entered the
studio. He went to the mantelpiece, buried his head on his arms, and
groaned like a wounded bull.

“What the devil right have you to interfere?” he said, at last.

“Who’s interfering with which? Your own sense told you long ago you
couldn’t be such a fool. It was a tough rack, St. Anthony, but you’re all
right now.”

“I oughtn’t to have seen her moving about these rooms as if they belonged
to her. That’s what upset me. It gives a lonely man a sort of hankering,
doesn’t it?” said Torpenhow, piteously.

“Now you talk sense. It does. But, since you aren’t in a condition to
discuss the disadvantages of double housekeeping, do you know what you’re
going to do?”

“I don’t. I wish I did.”

“You’re going away for a season on a brilliant tour to regain tone. You’re
going to Brighton, or Scarborough, or Prawle Point, to see the ships go
by. And you’re going at once. Isn’t it odd? I’ll take care of Binkie, but
out you go immediately. Never resist the devil. He holds the bank. Fly
from him. Pack your things and go.”

“I believe you’re right. Where shall I go?”

“And you call yourself a special correspondent! Pack first and inquire
afterwards.”

An hour later Torpenhow was despatched into the night for a hansom.

“You’ll probably think of some place to go to while you’re moving,” said
Dick. “On to Euston, to begin with, and—oh yes—get drunk
tonight.”

He returned to the studio, and lighted more candles, for he found the room
very dark.

“Oh, you Jezebel! you futile little Jezebel! Won’t you hate me tomorrow!—Binkie,
come here.”

Binkie turned over on his back on the hearth-rug, and Dick stirred him
with a meditative foot.

“I said she was not immoral. I was wrong. She said she could cook. That
showed premeditated sin. Oh, Binkie, if you are a man you will go to
perdition; but if you are a woman, and say that you can cook, you will go
to a much worse place.”

CHAPTER X

“This is a cheerful life,” said Dick, some days later. “Torp’s away;
Bessie hates me; I can’t get at the notion of the Melancolia; Maisie’s
letters are scrappy; and I believe I have indigestion. What give a man
pains across the head and spots before his eyes, Binkie? Shall us take
some liver pills?”

Dick had just gone through a lively scene with Bessie. She had for the
fiftieth time reproached him for sending Torpenhow away. She explained her
enduring hatred for Dick, and made it clear to him that she only sat for
the sake of his money. “And Mr. Torpenhow’s ten times a better man than
you,” she concluded.

“He is. That’s why he went away. I should have stayed and made love to
you.”

The girl sat with her chin on her hand, scowling. “To me! I’d like to
catch you! If I wasn’t afraid ‘o being hung I’d kill you. That’s what I’d
do. D’you believe me?”

Dick smiled wearily. It is not pleasant to live in the company of a notion
that will not work out, a fox-terrier that cannot talk, and a woman who
talks too much. He would have answered, but at that moment there unrolled
itself from one corner of the studio a veil, as it were, of the flimsiest
gauze. He rubbed his eyes, but the gray haze would not go.

“This is disgraceful indigestion. Binkie, we will go to a medicine-man. We
can’t have our eyes interfered with, for by these we get our bread; also
mutton-chop bones for little dogs.”

The doctor was an affable local practitioner with white hair, and he said
nothing till Dick began to describe the gray film in the studio.

“We all want a little patching and repairing from time to time,” he
chirped. “Like a ship, my dear sir,—exactly like a ship. Sometimes
the hull is out of order, and we consult the surgeon; sometimes the
rigging, and then I advise; sometimes the engines, and we go to the
brain-specialist; sometimes the look-out on the bridge is tired, and then
we see an oculist. I should recommend you to see an oculist. A little
patching and repairing from time to time is all we want. An oculist, by
all means.”

Dick sought an oculist,—the best in London. He was certain that the
local practitioner did not know anything about his trade, and more certain
that Maisie would laugh at him if he were forced to wear spectacles.

“I’ve neglected the warnings of my lord the stomach too long. Hence these
spots before the eyes, Binkie. I can see as well as I ever could.”

As he entered the dark hall that led to the consulting-room a man cannoned
against him. Dick saw the face as it hurried out into the street.

“That’s the writer-type. He has the same modelling of the forehead as
Torp. He looks very sick. Probably heard something he didn’t like.”

Even as he thought, a great fear came upon Dick, a fear that made him hold
his breath as he walked into the oculist’s waiting room, with the heavy
carved furniture, the dark-green paper, and the sober-hued prints on the
wall. He recognised a reproduction of one of his own sketches.

Many people were waiting their turn before him. His eye was caught by a
flaming red-and-gold Christmas-carol book. Little children came to that
eye-doctor, and they needed large-type amusement.

“That’s idolatrous bad Art,” he said, drawing the book towards himself.

“From the anatomy of the angels, it has been made in Germany.” He opened
in mechanically, and there leaped to his eyes a verse printed in red ink—

Dick read and re-read the verse till his turn came, and the doctor was
bending above him seated in an arm-chair. The blaze of the gas-microscope
in his eyes made him wince. The doctor’s hand touched the scar of the
sword-cut on Dick’s head, and Dick explained briefly how he had come by
it. When the flame was removed, Dick saw the doctor’s face, and the fear
came upon him again. The doctor wrapped himself in a mist of words. Dick
caught allusions to “scar,” “frontal bone,” “optic nerve,” “extreme
caution,” and the “avoidance of mental anxiety.”

“Verdict?” he said faintly. “My business is painting, and I daren’t waste
time. What do you make of it?”

Again the whirl of words, but this time they conveyed a meaning.

“Can you give me anything to drink?”

Many sentences were pronounced in that darkened room, and the prisoners
often needed cheering. Dick found a glass of liqueur brandy in his hand.

“As far as I can gather,” he said, coughing above the spirit, “you call it
decay of the optic nerve, or something, and therefore hopeless. What is my
time-limit, avoiding all strain and worry?”

“Perhaps one year.”

“My God! And if I don’t take care of myself?”

“I really could not say. One cannot ascertain the exact amount of injury
inflicted by the sword-cut. The scar is an old one, and—exposure to
the strong light of the desert, did you say?—with excessive
application to fine work? I really could not say?”

“I beg your pardon, but it has come without any warning. If you will let
me, I’ll sit here for a minute, and then I’ll go. You have been very good
in telling me the truth. Without any warning; without any warning.
Thanks.”

Dick went into the street, and was rapturously received by Binkie.

“We’ve got it very badly, little dog! Just as badly as we can get it.
We’ll go to the Park to think it out.”

They headed for a certain tree that Dick knew well, and they sat down to
think, because his legs were trembling under him and there was cold fear
at the pit of his stomach.

“How could it have come without any warning? It’s as sudden as being shot.
It’s the living death, Binkie. We’re to be shut up in the dark in one year
if we’re careful, and we shan’t see anybody, and we shall never have
anything we want, not though we live to be a hundred!” Binkie wagged his
tail joyously. “Binkie, we must think. Let’s see how it feels to be
blind.” Dick shut his eyes, and flaming commas and Catherine-wheels
floated inside the lids. Yet when he looked across the Park the scope of
his vision was not contracted. He could see perfectly, until a procession
of slow-wheeling fireworks defiled across his eyeballs.

“Little dorglums, we aren’t at all well. Let’s go home. If only Torp were
back, now!”

But Torpenhow was in the south of England, inspecting dockyards in the
company of the Nilghai. His letters were brief and full of mystery.

Dick had never asked anybody to help him in his joys or his sorrows. He
argued, in the loneliness of his studio, henceforward to be decorated with
a film of gray gauze in one corner, that, if his fate were blindness, all
the Torpenhows in the world could not save him. “I can’t call him off his
trip to sit down and sympathise with me. I must pull through this business
alone,” he said. He was lying on the sofa, eating his moustache and
wondering what the darkness of the night would be like. Then came to his
mind the memory of a quaint scene in the Soudan. A soldier had been nearly
hacked in two by a broad-bladed Arab spear. For one instant the man felt
no pain. Looking down, he saw that his life-blood was going from him. The
stupid bewilderment on his face was so intensely comic that both Dick and
Torpenhow, still panting and unstrung from a fight for life, had roared
with laughter, in which the man seemed as if he would join, but, as his
lips parted in a sheepish grin, the agony of death came upon him, and he
pitched grunting at their feet. Dick laughed again, remembering the
horror. It seemed so exactly like his own case.

“But I have a little more time allowed me,” he said. He paced up and down
the room, quietly at first, but afterwards with the hurried feet of fear.
It was as though a black shadow stood at his elbow and urged him to go
forward; and there were only weaving circles and floating pin-dots before
his eyes.

“We need to be calm, Binkie; we must be calm.” He talked aloud for the
sake of distraction. “This isn’t nice at all. What shall we do? We must do
something. Our time is short. I shouldn’t have believed that this morning;
but now things are different. Binkie, where was Moses when the light went
out?”

Binkie smiled from ear to ear, as a well-bred terrier should, but made no
suggestion.

“’Were there but world enough and time, This coyness, Binkie, were not
crime…. But at my back I always hear——’” He wiped his
forehead, which was unpleasantly damp. “What can I do? What can I do? I
haven’t any notions left, and I can’t think connectedly, but I must do
something, or I shall go off my head.”

The hurried walk recommenced, Dick stopping every now and again to drag
forth long-neglected canvases and old note-books; for he turned to his
work by instinct, as a thing that could not fail. “You won’t do, and you
won’t do,” he said, at each inspection. “No more soldiers. I couldn’t
paint ’em. Sudden death comes home too nearly, and this is battle and
murder for me.”

The day was failing, and Dick thought for a moment that the twilight of
the blind had come upon him unaware. “Allah Almighty!” he cried
despairingly, “help me through the time of waiting, and I won’t whine when
my punishment comes. What can I do now, before the light goes?”

There was no answer. Dick waited till he could regain some sort of control
over himself. His hands were shaking, and he prided himself on their
steadiness; he could feel that his lips were quivering, and the sweat was
running down his face. He was lashed by fear, driven forward by the desire
to get to work at once and accomplish something, and maddened by the
refusal of his brain to do more than repeat the news that he was about to
go blind. “It’s a humiliating exhibition,” he thought, “and I’m glad Torp
isn’t here to see. The doctor said I was to avoid mental worry. Come here
and let me pet you, Binkie.”

The little dog yelped because Dick nearly squeezed the bark out of him.

Then he heard the man speaking in the twilight, and, doglike, understood
that his trouble stood off from him—“Allah is good, Binkie. Not
quite so gentle as we could wish, but we’ll discuss that later. I think I
see my way to it now. All those studies of Bessie’s head were nonsense,
and they nearly brought your master into a scrape. I hold the notion now
as clear as crystal, ‘the Melancolia that transcends all wit.’ There shall
be Maisie in that head, because I shall never get Maisie; and Bess, of
course, because she knows all about Melancolia, though she doesn’t know
she knows; and there shall be some drawing in it, and it shall all end up
with a laugh. That’s for myself. Shall she giggle or grin? No, she shall
laugh right out of the canvas, and every man and woman that ever had a
sorrow of their own shall—what is it the poem says?—
‘Understand the speech and feel a stir Of fellowship in all disastrous
fight.’

“’In all disastrous fight’? That’s better than painting the thing merely
to pique Maisie. I can do it now because I have it inside me. Binkie, I’m
going to hold you up by your tail. You’re an omen. Come here.”

Binkie swung head downward for a moment without speaking.

“Rather like holding a guinea-pig; but you’re a brave little dog, and you
don’t yelp when you’re hung up. It is an omen.”

Binkie went to his own chair, and as often as he looked saw Dick walking
up and down, rubbing his hands and chuckling. That night Dick wrote a
letter to Maisie full of the tenderest regard for her health, but saying
very little about his own, and dreamed of the Melancolia to be born. Not
till morning did he remember that something might happen to him in the
future.

He fell to work, whistling softly, and was swallowed up in the clean,
clear joy of creation, which does not come to man too often, lest he
should consider himself the equal of his God, and so refuse to die at the
appointed time. He forgot Maisie, Torpenhow, and Binkie at his feet, but
remembered to stir Bessie, who needed very little stirring, into a
tremendous rage, that he might watch the smouldering lights in her eyes.

He threw himself without reservation into his work, and did not think of
the doom that was to overtake him, for he was possessed with his notion,
and the things of this world had no power upon him.

“You’re pleased today,” said Bessie.

Dick waved his mahl-stick in mystic circles and went to the sideboard for
a drink. In the evening, when the exaltation of the day had died down, he
went to the sideboard again, and after some visits became convinced that
the eye-doctor was a liar, since he could still see everything very
clearly.

He was of opinion that he would even make a home for Maisie, and that
whether she liked it or not she should be his wife. The mood passed next
morning, but the sideboard and all upon it remained for his comfort.

Again he set to work, and his eyes troubled him with spots and dashes and
blurs till he had taken counsel with the sideboard, and the Melancolia
both on the canvas and in his own mind appeared lovelier than ever. There
was a delightful sense of irresponsibility upon him, such as they feel who
walking among their fellow-men know that the death-sentence of disease is
upon them, and, seeing that fear is but waste of the little time left, are
riotously happy. The days passed without event.

Bessie arrived punctually always, and, though her voice seemed to Dick to
come from a distance, her face was always very near. The Melancolia began
to flame on the canvas, in the likeness of a woman who had known all the
sorrow in the world and was laughing at it. It was true that the corners
of the studio draped themselves in gray film and retired into the
darkness, that the spots in his eyes and the pains across his head were
very troublesome, and that Maisie’s letters were hard to read and harder
still to answer. He could not tell her of his trouble, and he could not
laugh at her accounts of her own Melancolia which was always going to be
finished. But the furious days of toil and the nights of wild dreams made
amends for all, and the sideboard was his best friend on earth.

Bessie was singularly dull. She used to shriek with rage when Dick stared
at her between half-closed eyes. Now she sulked, or watched him with
disgust, saying very little.

Torpenhow had been absent for six weeks. An incoherent note heralded his
return. “News! great news!” he wrote. “The Nilghai knows, and so does the
Keneu. We’re all back on Thursday. Get lunch and clean your
accoutrements.”

Dick showed Bessie the letter, and she abused him for that he had ever
sent Torpenhow away and ruined her life.

“Well,” said Dick, brutally, “you’re better as you are, instead of making
love to some drunken beast in the street.” He felt that he had rescued
Torpenhow from great temptation.

“I don’t know if that’s any worse than sitting to a drunken beast in a
studio. You haven’t been sober for three weeks. You’ve been soaking the
whole time; and yet you pretend you’re better than me!”

“What d’you mean?” said Dick.

“Mean! You’ll see when Mr. Torpenhow comes back.”

It was not long to wait. Torpenhow met Bessie on the staircase without a
sign of feeling. He had news that was more to him than many Bessies, and
the Keneu and the Nilghai were trampling behind him, calling for Dick.

“Drinking like a fish,” Bessie whispered. “He’s been at it for nearly a
month.” She followed the men stealthily to hear judgment done.

They came into the studio, rejoicing, to be welcomed over effusively by a
drawn, lined, shrunken, haggard wreck,—unshaven, blue-white about
the nostrils, stooping in the shoulders, and peering under his eyebrows
nervously. The drink had been at work as steadily as Dick.

“Is this you?” said Torpenhow.

“All that’s left of me. Sit down. Binkie’s quite well, and I’ve been doing
some good work.” He reeled where he stood.

“You’ve done some of the worst work you’ve ever done in your life. Man
alive, you’re——”

Torpenhow turned to his companions appealingly, and they left the room to
find lunch elsewhere. Then he spoke; but, since the reproof of a friend is
much too sacred and intimate a thing to be printed, and since Torpenhow
used figures and metaphors which were unseemly, and contempt
untranslatable, it will never be known what was actually said to Dick, who
blinked and winked and picked at his hands. After a time the culprit began
to feel the need of a little self-respect. He was quite sure that he had
not in any way departed from virtue, and there were reasons, too, of which
Torpenhow knew nothing. He would explain.

He rose, tried to straighten his shoulders, and spoke to the face he could
hardly see.

“You are right,” he said. “But I am right, too. After you went away I had
some trouble with my eyes. So I went to an oculist, and he turned a
gasogene—I mean a gas-engine—into my eye. That was very long
ago. He said, ‘Scar on the head,—sword-cut and optic nerve.’ Make a
note of that. So I am going blind. I have some work to do before I go
blind, and I suppose that I must do it. I cannot see much now, but I can
see best when I am drunk. I did not know I was drunk till I was told, but
I must go on with my work. If you want to see it, there it is.” He pointed
to the all but finished Melancolia and looked for applause.

Torpenhow said nothing, and Dick began to whimper feebly, for joy at
seeing Torpenhow again, for grief at misdeeds—if indeed they were
misdeeds—that made Torpenhow remote and unsympathetic, and for
childish vanity hurt, since Torpenhow had not given a word of praise to
his wonderful picture.

Bessie looked through the keyhole after a long pause, and saw the two
walking up and down as usual, Torpenhow’s hand on Dick’s shoulder.

Hereat she said something so improper that it shocked even Binkie, who was
dribbling patiently on the landing with the hope of seeing his master
again.

CHAPTER XI

IT WAS the third day after Torpenhow’s return, and his heart was heavy.

“Do you mean to tell me that you can’t see to work without whiskey? It’s
generally the other way about.”

“Can a drunkard swear on his honour?” said Dick.

“Yes, if he has been as good a man as you.”

“Then I give you my word of honour,” said Dick, speaking hurriedly through
parched lips. “Old man, I can hardly see your face now. You’ve kept me
sober for two days,—if I ever was drunk,—and I’ve done no
work. Don’t keep me back any more. I don’t know when my eyes may give out.
The spots and dots and the pains and things are crowding worse than ever.
I swear I can see all right when I’m—when I’m moderately screwed, as
you say. Give me three more sittings from Bessie and all—the stuff I
want, and the picture will be done. I can’t kill myself in three days. It
only means a touch of D. T. at the worst.”

“If I give you three days more will you promise me to stop work and—the
other thing, whether the picture’s finished or not?”

“I can’t. You don’t know what that picture means to me. But surely you
could get the Nilghai to help you, and knock me down and tie me up. I
shouldn’t fight for the whiskey, but I should for the work.”

“Go on, then. I give you three days; but you’re nearly breaking my heart.”

Dick returned to his work, toiling as one possessed; and the yellow devil
of whiskey stood by him and chased away the spots in his eyes. The
Melancolia was nearly finished, and was all or nearly all that he had
hoped she would be. Dick jested with Bessie, who reminded him that he was
“a drunken beast”; but the reproof did not move him.

“You can’t understand, Bess. We are in sight of land now, and soon we
shall lie back and think about what we’ve done. I’ll give you three
months’ pay when the picture’s finished, and next time I have any more
work in hand—but that doesn’t matter. Won’t three months’ pay make
you hate me less?”

“No, it won’t! I hate you, and I’ll go on hating you. Mr. Torpenhow won’t
speak to me any more. He’s always looking at maps.”

Bessie did not say that she had again laid siege to Torpenhow, or that at
the end of our passionate pleading he had picked her up, given her a kiss,
and put her outside the door with the recommendation not to be a little
fool. He spent most of his time in the company of the Nilghai, and their
talk was of war in the near future, the hiring of transports, and secret
preparations among the dockyards. He did not wish to see Dick till the
picture was finished.

“He’s doing first-class work,” he said to the Nilghai, “and it’s quite out
of his regular line. But, for the matter of that, so’s his infernal
soaking.”

“Never mind. Leave him alone. When he has come to his senses again we’ll
carry him off from this place and let him breathe clean air. Poor Dick! I
don’t envy you, Torp, when his eyes fail.”

“Yes, it will be a case of ‘God help the man who’s chained to our Davie.’
The worst is that we don’t know when it will happen, and I believe the
uncertainty and the waiting have sent Dick to the whiskey more than
anything else.”

“How the Arab who cut his head open would grin if he knew!”

“He’s at perfect liberty to grin if he can. He’s dead. That’s poor
consolation now.”

In the afternoon of the third day Torpenhow heard Dick calling for him.

“All finished!” he shouted. “I’ve done it! Come in! Isn’t she a beauty?
Isn’t she a darling? I’ve been down to hell to get her; but isn’t she
worth it?”

Torpenhow looked at the head of a woman who laughed,—a full-lipped,
hollow-eyed woman who laughed from out of the canvas as Dick had intended
she would.

“Who taught you how to do it?” said Torpenhow. “The touch and notion have
nothing to do with your regular work. What a face it is! What eyes, and
what insolence!” Unconsciously he threw back his head and laughed with
her. “She’s seen the game played out,—I don’t think she had a good
time of it,—and now she doesn’t care. Isn’t that the idea?”

“Exactly.”

“Where did you get the mouth and chin from? They don’t belong to Bess.”

“They’re—some one else’s. But isn’t it good? Isn’t it thundering
good? Wasn’t it worth the whiskey? I did it. Alone I did it, and it’s the
best I can do.” He drew his breath sharply, and whispered, “Just God! what
could I not do ten years hence, if I can do this now!—By the way,
what do you think of it, Bess?”

The girl was biting her lips. She loathed Torpenhow because he had taken
no notice of her.

“I think it’s just the horridest, beastliest thing I ever saw,” she
answered, and turned away.

“More than you will be of that way of thinking, young woman.—Dick,
there’s a sort of murderous, viperine suggestion in the poise of the head
that I don’t understand,” said Torpenhow.

“That’s trick-work,” said Dick, chuckling with delight at being completely
understood. “I couldn’t resist one little bit of sheer swagger. It’s a
French trick, and you wouldn’t understand; but it’s got at by slewing
round the head a trifle, and a tiny, tiny foreshortening of one side of
the face from the angle of the chin to the top of the left ear. That, and
deepening the shadow under the lobe of the ear. It was flagrant
trick-work; but, having the notion fixed, I felt entitled to play with it,—Oh,
you beauty!”

“Amen! She is a beauty. I can feel it.”

“So will every man who has any sorrow of his own,” said Dick, slapping his
thigh. “He shall see his trouble there, and, by the Lord Harry, just when
he’s feeling properly sorry for himself he shall throw back his head and
laugh,—as she is laughing. I’ve put the life of my heart and the
light of my eyes into her, and I don’t care what comes…. I’m tired,—awfully
tired. I think I’ll get to sleep. Take away the whiskey, it has served its
turn, and give Bessie thirty-six quid, and three over for luck. Cover the
picture.”

He dropped asleep in the long chair, hid face white and haggard, almost
before he had finished the sentence. Bessie tried to take Torpenhow’s
hand. “Aren’t you never going to speak to me any more?” she said; but
Torpenhow was looking at Dick.

“What a stock of vanity the man has! I’ll take him in hand tomorrow and
make much of him. He deserves it.—Eh! what was that, Bess?”

“Nothing. I’ll put things tidy here a little, and then I’ll go. You
couldn’t give Me that three months’ pay now, could you? He said you were
to.”

Torpenhow gave her a check and went to his own rooms. Bessie faithfully
tidied up the studio, set the door ajar for flight, emptied half a bottle
of turpentine on a duster, and began to scrub the face of the Melancolia
viciously. The paint did not smudge quickly enough. She took a
palette-knife and scraped, following each stroke with the wet duster. In
five minutes the picture was a formless, scarred muddle of colours. She
threw the paint-stained duster into the studio stove, stuck out her tongue
at the sleeper, and whispered, “Bilked!” as she turned to run down the
staircase. She would never see Torpenhow any more, but she had at least
done harm to the man who had come between her and her desire and who used
to make fun of her. Cashing the check was the very cream of the jest to
Bessie. Then the little privateer sailed across the Thames, to be
swallowed up in the gray wilderness of South-the-Water.

Dick slept till late in the evening, when Torpenhow dragged him off to
bed. His eyes were as bright as his voice was hoarse. “Let’s have another
look at the picture,” he said, insistently as a child.

“You—go—to—bed,” said Torpenhow. “You aren’t at all
well, though you mayn’t know it. You’re as jumpy as a cat.”

“I reform tomorrow. Good night.”

As he repassed through the studio, Torpenhow lifted the cloth above the
picture, and almost betrayed himself by outcries: “Wiped out!—scraped
out and turped out! He’s on the verge of jumps as it is. That’s Bess,—the
little fiend! Only a woman could have done that!—with the ink not
dry on the check, too! Dick will be raving mad tomorrow. It was all my
fault for trying to help gutter-devils. Oh, my poor Dick, the Lord is
hitting you very hard!”

Dick could not sleep that night, partly for pure joy, and partly because
the well-known Catherine-wheels inside his eyes had given place to
crackling volcanoes of many-coloured fire. “Spout away,” he said aloud.

“I’ve done my work, and now you can do what you please.” He lay still,
staring at the ceiling, the long-pent-up delirium of drink in his veins,
his brain on fire with racing thoughts that would not stay to be
considered, and his hands crisped and dry. He had just discovered that he
was painting the face of the Melancolia on a revolving dome ribbed with
millions of lights, and that all his wondrous thoughts stood embodied
hundreds of feet below his tiny swinging plank, shouting together in his
honour, when something cracked inside his temples like an overstrained
bowstring, the glittering dome broke inward, and he was alone in the thick
night.

“I’ll go to sleep. The room’s very dark. Let’s light a lamp and see how
the Melancolia looks. There ought to have been a moon.”

It was then that Torpenhow heard his name called by a voice that he did
not know,—in the rattling accents of deadly fear.

“He’s looked at the picture,” was his first thought, as he hurried into
the bedroom and found Dick sitting up and beating the air with his hands.

“Torp! Torp! where are you? For pity’s sake, come to me!”

“What’s the matter?”

Dick clutched at his shoulder. “Matter! I’ve been lying here for hours in
the dark, and you never heard me. Torp, old man, don’t go away. I’m all in
the dark. In the dark, I tell you!”

Torpenhow held the candle within a foot of Dick’s eyes, but there was no
light in those eyes. He lit the gas, and Dick heard the flame catch. The
grip of his fingers on Torpenhow’s shoulder made Torpenhow wince.

“Don’t leave me. You wouldn’t leave me alone now, would you? I can’t see.
D’you understand? It’s black,—quite black,—and I feel as if I
was falling through it all.”

“Steady does it.” Torpenhow put his arm round Dick and began to rock him
gently to and fro.

“That’s good. Now don’t talk. If I keep very quiet for a while, this
darkness will lift. It seems just on the point of breaking. H’sh!” Dick
knit his brows and stared desperately in front of him. The night air was
chilling Torpenhow’s toes.

“Can you stay like that a minute?” he said. “I’ll get my dressing-gown and
some slippers.”

Dick clutched the bed-head with both hands and waited for the darkness to
clear away. “What a time you’ve been!” he cried, when Torpenhow returned.
“It’s as black as ever. What are you banging about in the door-way?”

“Long chair,—horse-blanket,—pillow. Going to sleep by you. Lie
down now; you’ll be better in the morning.”

“I shan’t!” The voice rose to a wail. “My God! I’m blind! I’m blind, and
the darkness will never go away.” He made as if to leap from the bed, but
Torpenhow’s arms were round him, and Torpenhow’s chin was on his shoulder,
and his breath was squeezed out of him. He could only gasp, “Blind!” and
wriggle feebly.

“Steady, Dickie, steady!” said the deep voice in his ear, and the grip
tightened. “Bite on the bullet, old man, and don’t let them think you’re
afraid.” The grip could draw no closer. Both men were breathing heavily.

Dick threw his head from side to side and groaned.

“Let me go,” he panted. “You’re cracking my ribs. We—we mustn’t let
them think we’re afraid, must we,—all the powers of darkness and
that lot?”

“Lie down. It’s all over now.”

“Yes,” said Dick, obediently. “But would you mind letting me hold your
hand? I feel as if I wanted something to hold on to. One drops through the
dark so.”

Torpenhow thrust out a large and hairy paw from the long chair. Dick
clutched it tightly, and in half an hour had fallen asleep. Torpenhow
withdrew his hand, and, stooping over Dick, kissed him lightly on the
forehead, as men do sometimes kiss a wounded comrade in the hour of death,
to ease his departure.

In the gray dawn Torpenhow heard Dick talking to himself. He was adrift on
the shoreless tides of delirium, speaking very quickly—“It’s a pity,—a
great pity; but it’s helped, and it must be eaten, Master George.
Sufficient unto the day is the blindness thereof, and, further, putting
aside all Melancolias and false humours, it is of obvious notoriety—such
as mine was—that the queen can do no wrong. Torp doesn’t know that.
I’ll tell him when we’re a little farther into the desert.

“What a bungle those boatmen are making of the steamer-ropes! They’ll have
that four-inch hawser chafed through in a minute. I told you so—there
she goes! White foam on green water, and the steamer slewing round. How
good that looks! I’ll sketch it. No, I can’t. I’m afflicted with
ophthalmia. That was one of the ten plagues of Egypt, and it extends up
the Nile in the shape of cataract. Ha! that’s a joke, Torp. Laugh, you
graven image, and stand clear of the hawser…. It’ll knock you into the
water and make your dress all dirty, Maisie dear.”

“Oh!” said Torpenhow. “This happened before. That night on the river.”

“She’ll be sure to say it’s my fault if you get muddy, and you’re quite
near enough to the breakwater. Maisie, that’s not fair. Ah! I knew you’d
miss. Low and to the left, dear. But you’ve no conviction. Don’t be angry,
darling. I’d cut my hand off if it would give you anything more than
obstinacy. My right hand, if it would serve.”

“Now we mustn’t listen. Here’s an island shouting across seas of
misunderstanding with a vengeance. But it’s shouting truth, I fancy,” said
Torpenhow.

The babble continued. It all bore upon Maisie. Sometimes Dick lectured at
length on his craft, then he cursed himself for his folly in being
enslaved. He pleaded to Maisie for a kiss—only one kiss—before
she went away, and called to her to come back from Vitry-sur-Marne, if she
would; but through all his ravings he bade heaven and earth witness that
the queen could do no wrong.

Torpenhow listened attentively, and learned every detail of Dick’s life
that had been hidden from him. For three days Dick raved through the past,
and then a natural sleep. “What a strain he has been running under, poor
chap!” said Torpenhow. “Dick, of all men, handing himself over like a dog!
And I was lecturing him on arrogance! I ought to have known that it was no
use to judge a man. But I did it. What a demon that girl must be! Dick’s
given her his life,—confound him!—and she’s given him one kiss
apparently.”

“Torp,” said Dick, from the bed, “go out for a walk. You’ve been here too
long. I’ll get up. Hi! This is annoying. I can’t dress myself. Oh, it’s
too absurd!”

Torpenhow helped him into his clothes and led him to the big chair in the
studio. He sat quietly waiting under strained nerves for the darkness to
lift. It did not lift that day, nor the next. Dick adventured on a voyage
round the walls. He hit his shins against the stove, and this suggested to
him that it would be better to crawl on all fours, one hand in front of
him. Torpenhow found him on the floor.

“I’m trying to get the geography of my new possessions,” said he. “D’you
remember that nigger you gouged in the square? Pity you didn’t keep the
odd eye. It would have been useful. Any letters for me? Give me all the
ones in fat gray envelopes with a sort of crown thing outside. They’re of
no importance.”

Torpenhow gave him a letter with a black M. on the envelope flap. Dick put
it into his pocket. There was nothing in it that Torpenhow might not have
read, but it belonged to himself and to Maisie, who would never belong to
him.

“When she finds that I don’t write, she’ll stop writing. It’s better so. I
couldn’t be any use to her now,” Dick argued, and the tempter suggested
that he should make known his condition. Every nerve in him revolted. “I
have fallen low enough already. I’m not going to beg for pity. Besides, it
would be cruel to her.” He strove to put Maisie out of his thoughts; but
the blind have many opportunities for thinking, and as the tides of his
strength came back to him in the long employless days of dead darkness,
Dick’s soul was troubled to the core. Another letter, and another, came
from Maisie. Then there was silence, and Dick sat by the window, the pulse
of summer in the air, and pictured her being won by another man, stronger
than himself. His imagination, the keener for the dark background it
worked against, spared him no single detail that might send him raging up
and down the studio, to stumble over the stove that seemed to be in four
places at once. Worst of all, tobacco would not taste in the darkness. The
arrogance of the man had disappeared, and in its place were settled
despair that Torpenhow knew, and blind passion that Dick confided to his
pillow at night. The intervals between the paroxysms were filled with
intolerable waiting and the weight of intolerable darkness.

“Come out into the Park,” said Torpenhow. “You haven’t stirred out since
the beginning of things.”

“What’s the use? There’s no movement in the dark; and, besides,”—he
paused irresolutely at the head of the stairs,—“something will run
over me.”

“Not if I’m with you. Proceed gingerly.”

The roar of the streets filled Dick with nervous terror, and he clung to
Torpenhow’s arm. “Fancy having to feel for a gutter with your foot!” he
said petulantly, as he turned into the Park. “Let’s curse God and die.”

“Sentries are forbidden to pay unauthorised compliments. By Jove, there
are the Guards!”

Dick’s figure straightened. “Let’s get near ’em. Let’s go in and look.
Let’s get on the grass and run. I can smell the trees.”

“Mind the low railing. That’s all right!” Torpenhow kicked out a tuft of
grass with his heel. “Smell that,” he said. “Isn’t it good?” Dick sniffed
luxuriously. “Now pick up your feet and run.” They approached as near to
the regiment as was possible. The clank of bayonets being unfixed made
Dick’s nostrils quiver.

“Let’s get nearer. They’re in column, aren’t they?”

“Yes. How did you know?”

“Felt it. Oh, my men!—my beautiful men!” He edged forward as though
he could see. “I could draw those chaps once. Who’ll draw ’em now?”

“They’ll move off in a minute. Don’t jump when the band begins.”

“Huh! I’m not a new charger. It’s the silences that hurt. Nearer, Torp!—nearer!
Oh, my God, what wouldn’t I give to see ’em for a minute!—one
half-minute!”

He could hear the armed life almost within reach of him, could hear the
slings tighten across the bandsman’s chest as he heaved the big drum from
the ground.

“Sticks crossed above his head,” whispered Torpenhow.

“I know. I know! Who should know if I don’t? H’sh!”

The drum-sticks fell with a boom, and the men swung forward to the crash
of the band. Dick felt the wind of the massed movement in his face, heard
the maddening tramp of feet and the friction of the pouches on the belts.
The big drum pounded out the tune. It was a music-hall refrain that made a
perfect quickstep—

“What’s the matter?” said Torpenhow, as he saw Dick’s head fall when the
last of the regiment had departed.

“Nothing. I feel a little bit out of the running,—that’s all. Torp,
take me back. Why did you bring me out?”

CHAPTER XII

The Nilghai was angry with Torpenhow. Dick had been sent to bed,—blind
men are ever under the orders of those who can see,—and since he had
returned from the Park had fluently sworn at Torpenhow because he was
alive, and all the world because it was alive and could see, while he,
Dick, was dead in the death of the blind, who, at the best, are only
burdens upon their associates. Torpenhow had said something about a Mrs.
Gummidge, and Dick had retired in a black fury to handle and re-handle
three unopened letters from Maisie.

The Nilghai, fat, burly, and aggressive, was in Torpenhow’s rooms.

Behind him sat the Keneu, the Great War Eagle, and between them lay a
large map embellished with black-and-white-headed pins.

“I was wrong about the Balkans,” said the Nilghai. “But I’m not wrong
about this business. The whole of our work in the Southern Soudan must be
done over again. The public doesn’t care, of course, but the government
does, and they are making their arrangements quietly. You know that as
well as I do.”

“I remember how the people cursed us when our troops withdrew from
Omdurman. It was bound to crop up sooner or later. But I can’t go,” said
Torpenhow. He pointed through the open door; it was a hot night. “Can you
blame me?”

The Keneu purred above his pipe like a large and very happy cat—“Don’t
blame you in the least. It’s uncommonly good of you, and all the rest of
it, but every man—even you, Torp—must consider his work. I
know it sounds brutal, but Dick’s out of the race,—down,—gastados
expended, finished, done for. He has a little money of his own. He won’t
starve, and you can’t pull out of your slide for his sake. Think of your
own reputation.”

“Dick’s was five times bigger than mine and yours put together.”

“That was because he signed his name to everything he did. It’s all ended
now. You must hold yourself in readiness to move out. You can command your
own prices, and you do better work than any three of us.”

“Don’t tell me how tempting it is. I’ll stay here to look after Dick for a
while. He’s as cheerful as a bear with a sore head, but I think he likes
to have me near him.”

The Nilghai said something uncomplimentary about soft-headed fools who
throw away their careers for other fools. Torpenhow flushed angrily. The
constant strain of attendance on Dick had worn his nerves thin.

“There remains a third fate,” said the Keneu, thoughtfully. “Consider
this, and be not larger fools than necessary. Dick is—or rather was—an
able-bodied man of moderate attractions and a certain amount of audacity.”

“Oho!” said the Nilghai, who remembered an affair at Cairo. “I begin to
see,—Torp, I’m sorry.”

Torpenhow nodded forgiveness: “You were more sorry when he cut you out,
though.—Go on, Keneu.”

“I’ve often thought, when I’ve seen men die out in the desert, that if the
news could be sent through the world, and the means of transport were
quick enough, there would be one woman at least at each man’s bedside.”

“There would be some mighty quaint revelations. Let us be grateful things
are as they are,” said the Nilghai.

“Let us rather reverently consider whether Torp’s three-cornered
ministrations are exactly what Dick needs just now.—What do you
think yourself, Torp?”

“I know they aren’t. But what can I do?”

“Lay the matter before the board. We are all Dick’s friends here. You’ve
been most in his life.”

“But I picked it up when he was off his head.”

“The greater chance of its being true. I thought we should arrive. Who is
she?”

Then Torpenhow told a tale in plain words, as a special correspondent who
knows how to make a verbal precis should tell it. The men listened without
interruption.

“Is it possible that a man can come back across the years to his
calf-love?”

said the Keneu. “Is it possible?”

“I give the facts. He says nothing about it now, but he sits fumbling
three letters from her when he thinks I’m not looking. What am I to do?”

“Speak to him,” said the Nilghai.

“Oh yes! Write to her,—I don’t know her full name, remember,—and
ask her to accept him out of pity. I believe you once told Dick you were
sorry for him, Nilghai. You remember what happened, eh? Go into the
bedroom and suggest full confession and an appeal to this Maisie girl,
whoever she is. I honestly believe he’d try to kill you; and the blindness
has made him rather muscular.”

“Torpenhow’s course is perfectly clear,” said the Keneu. “He will go to
Vitry-sur-Marne, which is on the Bezieres-Landes Railway,—single
track from Tourgas. The Prussians shelled it out in ’70 because there was
a poplar on the top of a hill eighteen hundred yards from the church
spire. There’s a squadron of cavalry quartered there,—or ought to
be. Where this studio Torp spoke about may be I cannot tell. That is
Torp’s business. I have given him his route. He will dispassionately
explain the situation to the girl, and she will come back to Dick,—the
more especially because, to use Dick’s words, ‘there is nothing but her
damned obstinacy to keep them apart.’”

“And they have four hundred and twenty pounds a year between ’em.”

Dick never lost his head for figures, even in his delirium. “You haven’t
the shadow of an excuse for not going,” said the Nilghai.

Torpenhow looked very uncomfortable. “But it’s absurd and impossible. I
can’t drag her back by the hair.”

“Our business—the business for which we draw our money—is to
do absurd and impossible things,—generally with no reason whatever
except to amuse the public. Here we have a reason. The rest doesn’t
matter. I shall share these rooms with the Nilghai till Torpenhow returns.
There will be a batch of unbridled ‘specials’ coming to town in a little
while, and these will serve as their headquarters. Another reason for
sending Torpenhow away. Thus Providence helps those who help others, and”—here
the Keneu dropped his measured speech—“we can’t have you tied by the
leg to Dick when the trouble begins. It’s your only chance of getting
away; and Dick will be grateful.”

“He will,—worse luck! I can but go and try. I can’t conceive a woman
in her senses refusing Dick.”

“Talk that out with the girl. I have seen you wheedle an angry Mahdieh
woman into giving you dates. This won’t be a tithe as difficult. You had
better not be here tomorrow afternoon, because the Nilghai and I will be
in possession. It is an order. Obey.”

“Dick,” said Torpenhow, next morning, “can I do anything for you?”

“No! Leave me alone. How often must I remind you that I’m blind?”

“Nothing I could go for to fetch for to carry for to bring?”

“No. Take those infernal creaking boots of yours away.”

“Poor chap!” said Torpenhow to himself. “I must have been sitting on his
nerves lately. He wants a lighter step.” Then, aloud, “Very well. Since
you’re so independent, I’m going off for four or five days. Say goodbye at
least. The housekeeper will look after you, and Keneu has my rooms.”

Dick’s face fell. “You won’t be longer than a week at the outside? I know
I’m touched in the temper, but I can’t get on without you.”

“Can’t you? You’ll have to do without me in a little time, and you’ll be
glad I’m gone.”

Dick felt his way back to the big chair, and wondered what these things
might mean. He did not wish to be tended by the housekeeper, and yet
Torpenhow’s constant tenderness jarred on him. He did not exactly know
what he wanted. The darkness would not lift, and Maisie’s unopened letters
felt worn and old from much handling. He could never read them for himself
as long as life endured; but Maisie might have sent him some fresh ones to
play with. The Nilghai entered with a gift,—a piece of red
modelling-wax. He fancied that Dick might find interest in using his
hands. Dick poked and patted the stuff for a few minutes, and, “Is it like
anything in the world?” he said drearily. “Take it away. I may get the
touch of the blind in fifty years. Do you know where Torpenhow has gone?”

The Nilghai knew nothing. “We’re staying in his rooms till he comes back.
Can we do anything for you?”

“I’d like to be left alone, please. Don’t think I’m ungrateful; but I’m
best alone.”

The Nilghai chuckled, and Dick resumed his drowsy brooding and sullen
rebellion against fate. He had long since ceased to think about the work
he had done in the old days, and the desire to do more work had departed
from him. He was exceedingly sorry for himself, and the completeness of
his tender grief soothed him. But his soul and his body cried for Maisie—Maisie
who would understand. His mind pointed out that Maisie, having her own
work to do, would not care. His experience had taught him that when money
was exhausted women went away, and that when a man was knocked out of the
race the others trampled on him. “Then at the least,” said Dick, in reply,
“she could use me as I used Binat,—for some sort of a study. I
wouldn’t ask more than to be near her again, even though I knew that
another man was making love to her. Ugh! what a dog I am!”

A voice on the staircase began to sing joyfully—

“When we go—go—go away from here, Our creditors will weep and
they will wail, Our absence much regretting when they find that we’ve been
getting Out of England by next Tuesday’s Indian mail.”

Following the trampling of feet, slamming of Torpenhow’s door, and the
sound of voices in strenuous debate, some one squeaked, “And see, you good
fellows, I have found a new water-bottle—firs’-class patent—eh,
how you say? Open himself inside out.”

Dick sprang to his feet. He knew the voice well. “That’s Cassavetti, come
back from the Continent. Now I know why Torp went away. There’s a row
somewhere, and—I’m out of it!”

The Nilghai commanded silence in vain. “That’s for my sake,” Dick said
bitterly. “The birds are getting ready to fly, and they wouldn’t tell me.
I can hear Morten-Sutherland and Mackaye. Half the War Correspondents in
London are there;—and I’m out of it.”

He stumbled across the landing and plunged into Torpenhow’s room. He could
feel that it was full of men. “Where’s the trouble?” said he. “In the
Balkans at last? Why didn’t some one tell me?”

“We thought you wouldn’t be interested,” said the Nilghai, shamefacedly.

“It’s in the Soudan, as usual.”

“You lucky dogs! Let me sit here while you talk. I shan’t be a skeleton at
the feast.—Cassavetti, where are you? Your English is as bad as
ever.”

Dick was led into a chair. He heard the rustle of the maps, and the talk
swept forward, carrying him with it. Everybody spoke at once, discussing
press censorships, railway-routes, transport, water-supply, the capacities
of generals,—these in language that would have horrified a trusting
public,—ranting, asserting, denouncing, and laughing at the top of
their voices. There was the glorious certainty of war in the Soudan at any
moment. The Nilghai said so, and it was well to be in readiness. The Keneu
had telegraphed to Cairo for horses; Cassavetti had stolen a perfectly
inaccurate list of troops that would be ordered forward, and was reading
it out amid profane interruptions, and the Keneu introduced to Dick some
man unknown who would be employed as war artist by the Central Southern
Syndicate. “It’s his first outing,” said the Keneu. “Give him some tips—about
riding camels.”

“Oh, those camels!” groaned Cassavetti. “I shall learn to ride him again,
and now I am so much all soft! Listen, you good fellows. I know your
military arrangement very well. There will go the Royal Argalshire
Sutherlanders. So it was read to me upon best authority.”

A roar of laughter interrupted him.

“Sit down,” said the Nilghai. “The lists aren’t even made out in the War
Office.”

“Will there be any force at Suakin?” said a voice.

Then the outcries redoubled, and grew mixed, thus: “How many Egyptian
troops will they use?—God help the Fellaheen!—There’s a
railway in Plumstead marshes doing duty as a fives-court.—We shall
have the Suakin-Berber line built at last.—Canadian voyageurs are
too careful. Give me a half-drunk Krooman in a whale-boat.—Who
commands the Desert column?—No, they never blew up the big rock in
the Ghineh bend. We shall have to be hauled up, as usual.—Somebody
tell me if there’s an Indian contingent, or I’ll break everybody’s head.—Don’t
tear the map in two.—It’s a war of occupation, I tell you, to
connect with the African companies in the South.—There’s Guinea-worm
in most of the wells on that route.” Then the Nilghai, despairing of
peace, bellowed like a fog-horn and beat upon the table with both hands.

“But what becomes of Torpenhow?” said Dick, in the silence that followed.

“Torp’s in abeyance just now. He’s off love-making somewhere, I suppose,”
said the Nilghai.

“He said he was going to stay at home,” said the Keneu.

“Is he?” said Dick, with an oath. “He won’t. I’m not much good now, but if
you and the Nilghai hold him down I’ll engage to trample on him till he
sees reason. He’ll stay behind, indeed! He’s the best of you all. There’ll
be some tough work by Omdurman. We shall come there to stay, this time.

“But I forgot. I wish I were going with you.”

“So do we all, Dickie,” said the Keneu.

“And I most of all,” said the new artist of the Central Southern
Syndicate.

“Could you tell me——”

“I’ll give you one piece of advice,” Dick answered, moving towards the
door. “If you happen to be cut over the head in a scrimmage, don’t guard.
Tell the man to go on cutting. You’ll find it cheapest in the end. Thanks
for letting me look in.”

“There’s grit in Dick,” said the Nilghai, an hour later, when the room was
emptied of all save the Keneu.

“It was the sacred call of the war-trumpet. Did you notice how he answered
to it? Poor fellow! Let’s look at him,” said the Keneu.

The excitement of the talk had died away. Dick was sitting by the studio
table, with his head on his arms, when the men came in. He did not change
his position.

“It hurts,” he moaned. “God forgive me, but it hurts cruelly; and yet,
y’know, the world has a knack of spinning round all by itself. Shall I see
Torp before he goes?”

“Oh, yes. You’ll see him,” said the Nilghai.

CHAPTER XIII

“Maisie, come to bed.”

“It’s so hot I can’t sleep. Don’t worry.”

Maisie put her elbows on the window-sill and looked at the moonlight on
the straight, poplar-flanked road. Summer had come upon Vitry-sur-Marne
and parched it to the bone. The grass was dry-burnt in the meadows, the
clay by the bank of the river was caked to brick, the roadside flowers
were long since dead, and the roses in the garden hung withered on their
stalks. The heat in the little low bedroom under the eaves was almost
intolerable. The very moonlight on the wall of Kami’s studio across the
road seemed to make the night hotter, and the shadow of the big
bell-handle by the closed gate cast a bar of inky black that caught
Maisie’s eye and annoyed her.

“Horrid thing! It should be all white,” she murmured. “And the gate isn’t
in the middle of the wall, either. I never noticed that before.”

Maisie was hard to please at that hour. First, the heat of the past few
weeks had worn her down; secondly, her work, and particularly the study of
a female head intended to represent the Melancolia and not finished in
time for the Salon, was unsatisfactory; thirdly, Kami had said as much two
days before; fourthly,—but so completely fourthly that it was hardly
worth thinking about,—Dick, her property, had not written to her for
more than six weeks. She was angry with the heat, with Kami, and with her
work, but she was exceedingly angry with Dick.

She had written to him three times,—each time proposing a fresh
treatment of her Melancolia. Dick had taken no notice of these
communications. She had resolved to write no more. When she returned to
England in the autumn—for her pride’s sake she could not return
earlier—she would speak to him. She missed the Sunday afternoon
conferences more than she cared to admit. All that Kami said was,
“Continuez, mademoiselle, continuez toujours,” and he had been repeating
the wearisome counsel through the hot summer, exactly like a cicada,—an
old gray cicada in a black alpaca coat, white trousers, and a huge felt
hat.

But Dick had tramped masterfully up and down her little studio north of
the cool green London park, and had said things ten times worse than
continuez, before he snatched the brush out of her hand and showed her
where the error lay. His last letter, Maisie remembered, contained some
trivial advice about not sketching in the sun or drinking water at wayside
farmhouses; and he had said that not once, but three times,—as if he
did not know that Maisie could take care of herself.

But what was he doing, that he could not trouble to write? A murmur of
voices in the road made her lean from the window. A cavalryman of the
little garrison in the town was talking to Kami’s cook. The moonlight
glittered on the scabbard of his sabre, which he was holding in his hand
lest it should clank inopportunely. The cook’s cap cast deep shadows on
her face, which was close to the conscript’s. He slid his arm round her
waist, and there followed the sound of a kiss.

“Faugh!” said Maisie, stepping back.

“What’s that?” said the red-haired girl, who was tossing uneasily outside
her bed.

“Only a conscript kissing the cook,” said Maisie.

“They’ve gone away now.” She leaned out of the window again, and put a
shawl over her nightgown to guard against chills. There was a very small
night-breeze abroad, and a sun-baked rose below nodded its head as one who
knew unutterable secrets. Was it possible that Dick should turn his
thoughts from her work and his own and descend to the degradation of
Suzanne and the conscript? He could not! The rose nodded its head and one
leaf therewith. It looked like a naughty little devil scratching its ear.

Dick could not, “because,” thought Maisie, “he is mine,—mine,—mine.
He said he was. I’m sure I don’t care what he does. It will only spoil his
work if he does; and it will spoil mine too.”

The rose continued to nod in the futile way peculiar to flowers. There was
no earthly reason why Dick should not disport himself as he chose, except
that he was called by Providence, which was Maisie, to assist Maisie in
her work. And her work was the preparation of pictures that went sometimes
to English provincial exhibitions, as the notices in the scrap-book
proved, and that were invariably rejected by the Salon when Kami was
plagued into allowing her to send them up. Her work in the future, it
seemed, would be the preparation of pictures on exactly similar lines
which would be rejected in exactly the same way——The
red-haired girl threshed distressfully across the sheets. “It’s too hot to
sleep,” she moaned; and the interruption jarred.

Exactly the same way. Then she would divide her years between the little
studio in England and Kami’s big studio at Vitry-sur-Marne. No, she would
go to another master, who should force her into the success that was her
right, if patient toil and desperate endeavour gave one a right to
anything. Dick had told her that he had worked ten years to understand his
craft. She had worked ten years, and ten years were nothing. Dick had said
that ten years were nothing,—but that was in regard to herself only.
He had said—this very man who could not find time to write—that
he would wait ten years for her, and that she was bound to come back to
him sooner or later. He had said this in the absurd letter about sunstroke
and diphtheria; and then he had stopped writing. He was wandering up and
down moonlit streets, kissing cooks. She would like to lecture him now,—not
in her nightgown, of course, but properly dressed, severely and from a
height. Yet if he was kissing other girls he certainly would not care
whether she lecture him or not. He would laugh at her. Very good.

She would go back to her studio and prepare pictures that went, etc., etc.

The mill-wheel of thought swung round slowly, that no section of it might
be slurred over, and the red-haired girl tossed and turned behind her.

Maisie put her chin in her hands and decided that there could be no doubt
whatever of the villainy of Dick. To justify herself, she began,
unwomanly, to weigh the evidence. There was a boy, and he had said he
loved her. And he kissed her,—kissed her on the cheek,—by a
yellow sea-poppy that nodded its head exactly like the maddening dry rose
in the garden. Then there was an interval, and men had told her that they
loved her—just when she was busiest with her work. Then the boy came
back, and at their very second meeting had told her that he loved her.
Then he had——But there was no end to the things he had done.
He had given her his time and his powers. He had spoken to her of Art,
housekeeping, technique, teacups, the abuse of pickles as a stimulant,—that
was rude,—sable hair-brushes,—he had given her the best in her
stock,—she used them daily; he had given her advice that she
profited by, and now and again—a look. Such a look! The look of a
beaten hound waiting for the word to crawl to his mistress’s feet. In
return she had given him nothing whatever, except—here she brushed
her mouth against the open-work sleeve of her nightgown—the
privilege of kissing her once. And on the mouth, too. Disgraceful! Was
that not enough, and more than enough? and if it was not, had he not
cancelled the debt by not writing and—probably kissing other girls?
“Maisie, you’ll catch a chill. Do go and lie down,” said the wearied voice
of her companion. “I can’t sleep a wink with you at the window.”

Maisie shrugged her shoulders and did not answer. She was reflecting on
the meannesses of Dick, and on other meannesses with which he had nothing
to do. The moonlight would not let her sleep. It lay on the skylight of
the studio across the road in cold silver; she stared at it intently and
her thoughts began to slide one into the other. The shadow of the big
bell-handle in the wall grew short, lengthened again, and faded out as the
moon went down behind the pasture and a hare came limping home across the
road. Then the dawn-wind washed through the upland grasses, and brought
coolness with it, and the cattle lowed by the drought-shrunk river.
Maisie’s head fell forward on the window-sill, and the tangle of black
hair covered her arms.

“Maisie, wake up. You’ll catch a chill.”

“Yes, dear; yes, dear.” She staggered to her bed like a wearied child, and
as she buried her face in the pillows she muttered, “I think—I think—But
he ought to have written.”

Day brought the routine of the studio, the smell of paint and turpentine,
and the monotone wisdom of Kami, who was a leaden artist, but a golden
teacher if the pupil were only in sympathy with him. Maisie was not in
sympathy that day, and she waited impatiently for the end of the work.

She knew when it was coming; for Kami would gather his black alpaca coat
into a bunch behind him, and, with faded flue eyes that saw neither pupils
nor canvas, look back into the past to recall the history of one Binat.
“You have all done not so badly,” he would say. “But you shall remember
that it is not enough to have the method, and the art, and the power, nor
even that which is touch, but you shall have also the conviction that
nails the work to the wall. Of the so many I taught,”—here the
students would begin to unfix drawing-pins or get their tubes together,—“the
very so many that I have taught, the best was Binat. All that comes of the
study and the work and the knowledge was to him even when he came. After
he left me he should have done all that could be done with the colour, the
form, and the knowledge. Only, he had not the conviction. So today I hear
no more of Binat,—the best of my pupils,—and that is long ago.
So today, too, you will be glad to hear no more of me. Continuez,
mesdemoiselles, and, above all, with conviction.”

He went into the garden to smoke and mourn over the lost Binat as the
pupils dispersed to their several cottages or loitered in the studio to
make plans for the cool of the afternoon.

Maisie looked at her very unhappy Melancolia, restrained a desire to
grimace before it, and was hurrying across the road to write a letter to
Dick, when she was aware of a large man on a white troop-horse. How
Torpenhow had managed in the course of twenty hours to find his way to the
hearts of the cavalry officers in quarters at Vitry-sur-Marne, to discuss
with them the certainty of a glorious revenge for France, to reduce the
colonel to tears of pure affability, and to borrow the best horse in the
squadron for the journey to Kami’s studio, is a mystery that only special
correspondents can unravel.

“I beg your pardon,” said he. “It seems an absurd question to ask, but the
fact is that I don’t know her by any other name: Is there any young lady
here that is called Maisie?”

“I am Maisie,” was the answer from the depths of a great sun-hat.

“I ought to introduce myself,” he said, as the horse capered in the
blinding white dust. “My name is Torpenhow. Dick Heldar is my best friend,
and—and—the fact is that he has gone blind.”

“Blind!” said Maisie, stupidly. “He can’t be blind.”

“He has been stone-blind for nearly two months.”

Maisie lifted up her face, and it was pearly white. “No! No! Not blind! I
won’t have him blind!”

“Would you care to see for yourself?” said Torpenhow.

“Now,—at once?”

“Oh, no! The Paris train doesn’t go through this place till tonight. There
will be ample time.”

“Did Mr. Heldar send you to me?”

“Certainly not. Dick wouldn’t do that sort of thing. He’s sitting in his
studio, turning over some letters that he can’t read because he’s blind.”

There was a sound of choking from the sun-hat. Maisie bowed her head and
went into the cottage, where the red-haired girl was on a sofa,
complaining of a headache.

“Dick’s blind!” said Maisie, taking her breath quickly as she steadied
herself against a chair-back. “My Dick’s blind!”

“What?” The girl was on the sofa no longer.

“A man has come from England to tell me. He hasn’t written to me for six
weeks.”

“Are you going to him?”

“I must think.”

“Think! I should go back to London and see him and I should kiss his eyes
and kiss them and kiss them until they got well again! If you don’t go I
shall. Oh, what am I talking about? You wicked little idiot! Go to him at
once. Go!”

Torpenhow’s neck was blistering, but he preserved a smile of infinite
patience as Maisie’s appeared bareheaded in the sunshine.

“I am coming,” said she, her eyes on the ground.

“You will be at Vitry Station, then, at seven this evening.” This was an
order delivered by one who was used to being obeyed. Maisie said nothing,
but she felt grateful that there was no chance of disputing with this big
man who took everything for granted and managed a squealing horse with one
hand. She returned to the red-haired girl, who was weeping bitterly, and
between tears, kisses,—very few of those,—menthol, packing,
and an interview with Kami, the sultry afternoon wore away.

Thought might come afterwards. Her present duty was to go to Dick,—Dick
who owned the wondrous friend and sat in the dark playing with her
unopened letters.

“But what will you do,” she said to her companion.

“I? Oh, I shall stay here and—finish your Melancolia,” she said,
smiling pitifully. “Write to me afterwards.”

That night there ran a legend through Vitry-sur-Marne of a mad Englishman,
doubtless suffering from sunstroke, who had drunk all the officers of the
garrison under the table, had borrowed a horse from the lines, and had
then and there eloped, after the English custom, with one of those more
mad English girls who drew pictures down there under the care of that good
Monsieur Kami.

“They are very droll,” said Suzanne to the conscript in the moonlight by
the studio wall. “She walked always with those big eyes that saw nothing,
and yet she kisses me on both cheeks as though she were my sister, and
gives me—see—ten francs!”

The conscript levied a contribution on both gifts; for he prided himself
on being a good soldier.

Torpenhow spoke very little to Maisie during the journey to Calais; but he
was careful to attend to all her wants, to get her a compartment entirely
to herself, and to leave her alone. He was amazed of the ease with which
the matter had been accomplished.

“The safest thing would be to let her think things out. By Dick’s showing,—when
he was off his head,—she must have ordered him about very
thoroughly. Wonder how she likes being under orders.”

Maisie never told. She sat in the empty compartment often with her eyes
shut, that she might realise the sensation of blindness. It was an order
that she should return to London swiftly, and she found herself at last
almost beginning to enjoy the situation. This was better than looking
after luggage and a red-haired friend who never took any interest in her
surroundings. But there appeared to be a feeling in the air that she,
Maisie,—of all people,—was in disgrace. Therefore she
justified her conduct to herself with great success, till Torpenhow came
up to her on the steamer and without preface began to tell the story of
Dick’s blindness, suppressing a few details, but dwelling at length on the
miseries of delirium. He stopped before he reached the end, as though he
had lost interest in the subject, and went forward to smoke. Maisie was
furious with him and with herself.

She was hurried on from Dover to London almost before she could ask for
breakfast, and—she was past any feeling of indignation now—was
bidden curtly to wait in a hall at the foot of some lead-covered stairs
while Torpenhow went up to make inquiries. Again the knowledge that she
was being treated like a naughty little girl made her pale cheeks flame.
It was all Dick’s fault for being so stupid as to go blind.

Torpenhow led her up to a shut door, which he opened very softly. Dick was
sitting by the window, with his chin on his chest. There were three
envelopes in his hand, and he turned them over and over. The big man who
gave orders was no longer by her side, and the studio door snapped behind
her.

Dick thrust the letters into his pocket as he heard the sound. “Hullo,
Torp! Is that you? I’ve been so lonely.”

His voice had taken the peculiar flatness of the blind. Maisie pressed
herself up into a corner of the room. Her heart was beating furiously, and
she put one hand on her breast to keep it quiet. Dick was staring directly
at her, and she realised for the first time that he was blind.

Shutting her eyes in a rail-way carriage to open them when she pleased was
child’s play. This man was blind though his eyes were wide open.

“Torp, is that you? They said you were coming.” Dick looked puzzled and a
little irritated at the silence.

“No; it’s only me,” was the answer, in a strained little whisper. Maisie
could hardly move her lips.

“H’m!” said Dick, composedly, without moving. “This is a new phenomenon.
Darkness I’m getting used to; but I object to hearing voices.”

Was he mad, then, as well as blind, that he talked to himself? Maisie’s
heart beat more wildly, and she breathed in gasps. Dick rose and began to
feel his way across the room, touching each table and chair as he passed.
Once he caught his foot on a rug, and swore, dropping on his knees to feel
what the obstruction might be. Maisie remembered him walking in the Park
as though all the earth belonged to him, tramping up and down her studio
two months ago, and flying up the gangway of the Channel steamer. The
beating of her heart was making her sick, and Dick was coming nearer,
guided by the sound of her breathing. She put out a hand mechanically to
ward him off or to draw him to herself, she did not know which. It touched
his chest, and he stepped back as though he had been shot.

“It’s Maisie!” said he, with a dry sob. “What are you doing here?”

“I came—I came—to see you, please.”

Dick’s lips closed firmly.

“Won’t you sit down, then? You see, I’ve had some bother with my eyes, and——”

“I know. I know. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I couldn’t write.”

“You might have told Mr. Torpenhow.”

“What has he to do with my affairs?”

“He—he brought me from Vitry-sur-Marne. He thought I ought to see
you.”

“Why, what has happened? Can I do anything for you? No, I can’t. I
forgot.”

“Oh, Dick, I’m so sorry! I’ve come to tell you, and——Let me
take you back to your chair.”

“Don’t! I’m not a child. You only do that out of pity. I never meant to
tell you anything about it. I’m no good now. I’m down and done for. Let me
alone!”

He groped back to his chair, his chest labouring as he sat down.

Maisie watched him, and the fear went out of her heart, to be followed by
a very bitter shame. He had spoken a truth that had been hidden from the
girl through every step of the impetuous flight to London; for he was,
indeed, down and done for—masterful no longer but rather a little
abject; neither an artist stronger than she, nor a man to be looked up to—only
some blind one that sat in a chair and seemed on the point of crying. She
was immensely and unfeignedly sorry for him—more sorry than she had
ever been for any one in her life, but not sorry enough to deny his words.

So she stood still and felt ashamed and a little hurt, because she had
honestly intended that her journey should end triumphantly; and now she
was only filled with pity most startlingly distinct from love.

“Well?” said Dick, his face steadily turned away. “I never meant to worry
you any more. What’s the matter?”

He was conscious that Maisie was catching her breath, but was as
unprepared as herself for the torrent of emotion that followed. She had
dropped into a chair and was sobbing with her face hidden in her hands.

“I can’t—I can’t!” she cried desperately. “Indeed, I can’t. It isn’t
my fault. I’m so sorry. Oh, Dickie, I’m so sorry.”

Dick’s shoulders straightened again, for the words lashed like a whip.

Still the sobbing continued. It is not good to realise that you have
failed in the hour of trial or flinched before the mere possibility of
making sacrifices.

“I do despise myself—indeed I do. But I can’t. Oh, Dickie, you
wouldn’t ask me—would you?” wailed Maisie.

She looked up for a minute, and by chance it happened that Dick’s eyes
fell on hers. The unshaven face was very white and set, and the lips were
trying to force themselves into a smile. But it was the worn-out eyes that
Maisie feared. Her Dick had gone blind and left in his place some one that
she could hardly recognise till he spoke.

“Who is asking you to do anything, Maisie? I told you how it would be.
What’s the use of worrying? For pity’s sake don’t cry like that; it isn’t
worth it.”

“You don’t know how I hate myself. Oh, Dick, help me—help me!” The
passion of tears had grown beyond her control and was beginning to alarm
the man. He stumbled forward and put his arm round her, and her head fell
on his shoulder.

“Hush, dear, hush! Don’t cry. You’re quite right, and you’ve nothing to
reproach yourself with—you never had. You’re only a little upset by
the journey, and I don’t suppose you’ve had any breakfast. What a brute
Torp was to bring you over.”

“I wanted to come. I did indeed,” she protested.

“Very well. And now you’ve come and seen, and I’m—immensely
grateful. When you’re better you shall go away and get something to eat.
What sort of a passage did you have coming over?”

Maisie was crying more subduedly, for the first time in her life glad that
she had something to lean against. Dick patted her on the shoulder
tenderly but clumsily, for he was not quite sure where her shoulder might
be.

She drew herself out of his arms at last and waited, trembling and most
unhappy. He had felt his way to the window to put the width of the room
between them, and to quiet a little the tumult in his heart.

“Are you better now?” he said.

“Yes, but—don’t you hate me?”

“I hate you? My God! I?”

“Isn’t—isn’t there anything I could do for you, then? I’ll stay here
in England to do it, if you like. Perhaps I could come and see you
sometimes.”

“I think not, dear. It would be kindest not to see me any more, please. I
don’t want to seem rude, but—don’t you think—perhaps you had
almost better go now.”

He was conscious that he could not bear himself as a man if the strain
continued much longer.

“I don’t deserve anything else. I’ll go, Dick. Oh, I’m so miserable.”

“Nonsense. You’ve nothing to worry about; I’d tell you if you had. Wait a
moment, dear. I’ve got something to give you first. I meant it for you
ever since this little trouble began. It’s my Melancolia; she was a beauty
when I last saw her. You can keep her for me, and if ever you’re poor you
can sell her. She’s worth a few hundreds at any state of the market.” He
groped among his canvases. “She’s framed in black. Is this a black frame
that I have my hand on? There she is. What do you think of her?”

He turned a scarred formless muddle of paint towards Maisie, and the eyes
strained as though they would catch her wonder and surprise. One thing and
one thing only could she do for him.

“Well?”

The voice was fuller and more rounded, because the man knew he was
speaking of his best work. Maisie looked at the blur, and a lunatic desire
to laugh caught her by the throat. But for Dick’s sake—whatever this
mad blankness might mean—she must make no sign. Her voice choked
with hard-held tears as she answered, still gazing at the wreck—“Oh,
Dick, it is good!”

He heard the little hysterical gulp and took it for tribute. “Won’t you
have it, then? I’ll send it over to your house if you will.”

“I? Oh yes—thank you. Ha! ha!” If she did not fly at once the
laughter that was worse than tears would kill her. She turned and ran,
choking and blinded, down the staircases that were empty of life to take
refuge in a cab and go to her house across the Parks. There she sat down
in the dismantled drawing-room and thought of Dick in his blindness,
useless till the end of life, and of herself in her own eyes. Behind the
sorrow, the shame, and the humiliation, lay fear of the cold wrath of the
red-haired girl when Maisie should return. Maisie had never feared her
companion before. Not until she found herself saying, “Well, he never
asked me,” did she realise her scorn of herself. And that is the end of
Maisie.

For Dick was reserved more searching torment. He could not realise at
first that Maisie, whom he had ordered to go had left him without a word
of farewell. He was savagely angry against Torpenhow, who had brought upon
him this humiliation and troubled his miserable peace. Then his dark hour
came and he was alone with himself and his desires to get what help he
could from the darkness. The queen could do no wrong, but in following the
right, so far as it served her work, she had wounded her one subject more
than his own brain would let him know.

“It’s all I had and I’ve lost it,” he said, as soon as the misery
permitted clear thinking. “And Torp will think that he has been so
infernally clever that I shan’t have the heart to tell him. I must think
this out quietly.”

“Hullo!” said Torpenhow, entering the studio after Dick had enjoyed two
hours of thought. “I’m back. Are you feeling any better?”

“Torp, I don’t know what to say. Come here.” Dick coughed huskily,
wondering, indeed, what he should say, and how to say it temperately.

“What’s the need for saying anything? Get up and tramp.” Torpenhow was
perfectly satisfied.

They walked up and down as of custom, Torpenhow’s hand on Dick’s shoulder,
and Dick buried in his own thoughts.

“How in the world did you find it all out?” said Dick, at last.

“You shouldn’t go off your head if you want to keep secrets, Dickie. It
was absolutely impertinent on my part; but if you’d seen me rocketing
about on a half-trained French troop-horse under a blazing sun you’d have
laughed. There will be a charivari in my rooms tonight. Seven other devils——”

“I know—the row in the Southern Soudan. I surprised their councils
the other day, and it made me unhappy. Have you fixed your flint to go?
Who d’you work for?”

“Haven’t signed any contracts yet. I wanted to see how your business would
turn out.”

“Would you have stayed with me, then, if—things had gone wrong?” He
put his question cautiously.

“Don’t ask me too much. I’m only a man.”

“You’ve tried to be an angel very successfully.”

“Oh ye—es!… Well, do you attend the function tonight? We shall be
half screwed before the morning. All the men believe the war’s a
certainty.”

“I don’t think I will, old man, if it’s all the same to you. I’ll stay
quiet here.”

“And meditate? I don’t blame you. You observe a good time if ever a man
did.”

That night there was a tumult on the stairs. The correspondents poured in
from theatre, dinner, and music-hall to Torpenhow’s room that they might
discuss their plan of campaign in the event of military operations
becoming a certainty. Torpenhow, the Keneu, and the Nilghai had bidden all
the men they had worked with to the orgy; and Mr. Beeton, the housekeeper,
declared that never before in his checkered experience had he seen quite
such a fancy lot of gentlemen. They waked the chambers with shoutings and
song; and the elder men were quite as bad as the younger. For the chances
of war were in front of them, and all knew what those meant.

Sitting in his own room a little perplexed by the noise across the
landing, Dick suddenly began to laugh to himself.

“When one comes to think of it the situation is intensely comic. Maisie’s
quite right—poor little thing. I didn’t know she could cry like that
before; but now I know what Torp thinks, I’m sure he’d be quite fool
enough to stay at home and try to console me—if he knew. Besides, it
isn’t nice to own that you’ve been thrown over like a broken chair. I must
carry this business through alone—as usual. If there isn’t a war,
and Torp finds out, I shall look foolish, that’s all. If there is a way I
mustn’t interfere with another man’s chances. Business is business, and I
want to be alone—I want to be alone. What a row they’re making!”

Somebody hammered at the studio door.

“Come out and frolic, Dickie,” said the Nilghai.

“I should like to, but I can’t. I’m not feeling frolicsome.”

“Then, I’ll tell the boys and they’ll drag you like a badger.”

“Please not, old man. On my word, I’d sooner be left alone just now.”

“Very good. Can we send anything in to you? Fizz, for instance. Cassavetti
is beginning to sing songs of the Sunny South already.”

For one minute Dick considered the proposition seriously.

“No, thanks, I’ve a headache already.”

“Virtuous child. That’s the effect of emotion on the young. All my
congratulations, Dick. I also was concerned in the conspiracy for your
welfare.”

“Go to the devil—oh, send Binkie in here.”

The little dog entered on elastic feet, riotous from having been made much
of all the evening. He had helped to sing the choruses; but scarcely
inside the studio he realised that this was no place for tail-wagging, and
settled himself on Dick’s lap till it was bedtime. Then he went to bed
with Dick, who counted every hour as it struck, and rose in the morning
with a painfully clear head to receive Torpenhow’s more formal
congratulations and a particular account of the last night’s revels.

“You aren’t looking very happy for a newly accepted man,” said Torpenhow.

“Never mind that—it’s my own affair, and I’m all right. Do you
really go?”

“Yes. With the old Central Southern as usual. They wired, and I accepted
on better terms than before.”

“When do you start?”

“The day after tomorrow—for Brindisi.”

“Thank God.” Dick spoke from the bottom of his heart.

“Well, that’s not a pretty way of saying you’re glad to get rid of me. But
men in your condition are allowed to be selfish.”

“I didn’t mean that. Will you get a hundred pounds cashed for me before
you leave?”

“That’s a slender amount for housekeeping, isn’t it?”

“Oh, it’s only for—marriage expenses.”

Torpenhow brought him the money, counted it out in fives and tens, and
carefully put it away in the writing table.

“Now I suppose I shall have to listen to his ravings about his girl until
I go. Heaven send us patience with a man in love!” he said to himself.

But never a word did Dick say of Maisie or marriage. He hung in the
doorway of Torpenhow’s room when the latter was packing and asked
innumerable questions about the coming campaign, till Torpenhow began to
feel annoyed.

“You’re a secretive animal, Dickie, and you consume your own smoke, don’t
you?” he said on the last evening.

“I—I suppose so. By the way, how long do you think this war will
last?”

“Days, weeks, or months. One can never tell. It may go on for years.”

“I wish I were going.”

“Good Heavens! You’re the most unaccountable creature! Hasn’t it occurred
to you that you’re going to be married—thanks to me?”

“Of course, yes. I’m going to be married—so I am. Going to be
married. I’m awfully grateful to you. Haven’t I told you that?”

“You might be going to be hanged by the look of you,” said Torpenhow.

And the next day Torpenhow bade him good-bye and left him to the
loneliness he had so much desired.

CHAPTER XIV

“Beg your pardon, Mr. Heldar, but—but isn’t nothin’ going to
happen?” said Mr. Beeton.

“No!” Dick had just waked to another morning of blank despair and his
temper was of the shortest.

“’Tain’t my regular business, ‘o course, sir; and what I say is, ‘Mind
your own business and let other people mind theirs;’ but just before Mr.
Torpenhow went away he give me to understand, like, that you might be
moving into a house of your own, so to speak—a sort of house with
rooms upstairs and downstairs where you’d be better attended to, though I
try to act just by all our tenants. Don’t I?”

“Ah! That must have been a mad-house. I shan’t trouble you to take me
there yet. Get me my breakfast, please, and leave me alone.”

“I hope I haven’t done anything wrong, sir, but you know I hope that as
far as a man can I tries to do the proper thing by all the gentlemen in
chambers—and more particular those whose lot is hard—such as
you, for instance, Mr. Heldar. You likes soft-roe bloater, don’t you?
Soft-roe bloaters is scarcer than hard-roe, but what I says is, ‘Never
mind a little extra trouble so long as you give satisfaction to the
tenants.’”

Mr. Beeton withdrew and left Dick to himself. Torpenhow had been long
away; there was no more rioting in the chambers, and Dick had settled down
to his new life, which he was weak enough to consider nothing better than
death.

It is hard to live alone in the dark, confusing the day and night;
dropping to sleep through sheer weariness at mid-day, and rising restless
in the chill of the dawn. At first Dick, on his awakenings, would grope
along the corridors of the chambers till he heard some one snore. Then he
would know that the day had not yet come, and return wearily to his
bedroom.

Later he learned not to stir till there was a noise and movement in the
house and Mr. Beeton advised him to get up. Once dressed—and
dressing, now that Torpenhow was away, was a lengthy business, because
collars, ties, and the like hid themselves in far corners of the room, and
search meant head-beating against chairs and trunks—once dressed,
there was nothing whatever to do except to sit still and brood till the
three daily meals came. Centuries separated breakfast from lunch and lunch
from dinner, and though a man prayed for hundreds of years that his mind
might be taken from him, God would never hear. Rather the mind was
quickened and the revolving thoughts ground against each other as
millstones grind when there is no corn between; and yet the brain would
not wear out and give him rest. It continued to think, at length, with
imagery and all manner of reminiscences. It recalled Maisie and past
success, reckless travels by land and sea, the glory of doing work and
feeling that it was good, and suggested all that might have happened had
the eyes only been faithful to their duty. When thinking ceased through
sheer weariness, there poured into Dick’s soul tide on tide of
overwhelming, purposeless fear—dread of starvation always, terror
lest the unseen ceiling should crush down upon him, fear of fire in the
chambers and a louse’s death in red flame, and agonies of fiercer horror
that had nothing to do with any fear of death. Then Dick bowed his head,
and clutching the arms of his chair fought with his sweating self till the
tinkle of plates told him that something to eat was being set before him.

Mr. Beeton would bring the meal when he had time to spare, and Dick
learned to hang upon his speech, which dealt with badly fitted gas-plugs,
waste-pipes out of repair, little tricks for driving picture-nails into
walls, and the sins of the charwoman or the housemaids. In the lack of
better things the small gossip of a servants’ hall becomes immensely
interesting, and the screwing of a washer on a tap an event to be talked
over for days.

Once or twice a week, too, Mr. Beeton would take Dick out with him when he
went marketing in the morning to haggle with tradesmen over fish,
lamp-wicks, mustard, tapioca, and so forth, while Dick rested his weight
first on one foot and then on the other and played aimlessly with the tins
and string-ball on the counter. Then they would perhaps meet one of Mr.
Beeton’s friends, and Dick, standing aside a little, would hold his peace
till Mr. Beeton was willing to go on again.

The life did not increase his self-respect. He abandoned shaving as a
dangerous exercise, and being shaved in a barber’s shop meant exposure of
his infirmity. He could not see that his clothes were properly brushed,
and since he had never taken any care of his personal appearance he became
every known variety of sloven. A blind man cannot deal with cleanliness
till he has been some months used to the darkness. If he demand attendance
and grow angry at the want of it, he must assert himself and stand
upright. Then the meanest menial can see that he is blind and, therefore,
of no consequence. A wise man will keep his eyes on the floor and sit
still. For amusement he may pick coal lump by lump out of the scuttle with
the tongs and pile it in a little heap in the fender, keeping count of the
lumps, which must all be put back again, one by one and very carefully. He
may set himself sums if he cares to work them out; he may talk to himself
or to the cat if she chooses to visit him; and if his trade has been that
of an artist, he may sketch in the air with his forefinger; but that is
too much like drawing a pig with the eyes shut. He may go to his
bookshelves and count his books, ranging them in order of their size; or
to his wardrobe and count his shirts, laying them in piles of two or three
on the bed, as they suffer from frayed cuffs or lost buttons.

Even this entertainment wearies after a time; and all the times are very,
very long.

Dick was allowed to sort a tool-chest where Mr. Beeton kept hammers, taps
and nuts, lengths of gas-pipes, oil-bottles, and string.

“If I don’t have everything just where I know where to look for it, why,
then, I can’t find anything when I do want it. You’ve no idea, sir, the
amount of little things that these chambers uses up,” said Mr. Beeton.

Fumbling at the handle of the door as he went out: “It’s hard on you, sir,
I do think it’s hard on you. Ain’t you going to do anything, sir?”

“I’ll pay my rent and messing. Isn’t that enough?”

“I wasn’t doubting for a moment that you couldn’t pay your way, sir; but I
‘ave often said to my wife, ‘It’s ‘ard on ‘im because it isn’t as if he
was an old man, nor yet a middle-aged one, but quite a young gentleman.
That’s where it comes so ‘ard.’”

“I suppose so,” said Dick, absently. This particular nerve through long
battering had ceased to feel—much.

“I was thinking,” continued Mr. Beeton, still making as if to go, “that
you might like to hear my boy Alf read you the papers sometimes of an
evening. He do read beautiful, seeing he’s only nine.”

“I should be very grateful,” said Dick. “Only let me make it worth his
while.”

“We wasn’t thinking of that, sir, but of course it’s in your own ‘ands;
but only to ‘ear Alf sing ‘A Boy’s best Friend is ‘is Mother!’ Ah!”

“I’ll hear him sing that too. Let him come this evening with the
newspapers.”

Alf was not a nice child, being puffed up with many school-board
certificates for good conduct, and inordinately proud of his singing. Mr.
Beeton remained, beaming, while the child wailed his way through a song of
some eight eight-line verses in the usual whine of a young Cockney, and,
after compliments, left him to read Dick the foreign telegrams. Ten
minutes later Alf returned to his parents rather pale and scared.

“’E said ‘e couldn’t stand it no more,” he explained.

“He never said you read badly, Alf?” Mrs. Beeton spoke.

“No. ‘E said I read beautiful. Said ‘e never ‘eard any one read like that,
but ‘e said ‘e couldn’t abide the stuff in the papers.”

“P’raps he’s lost some money in the Stocks. Were you readin’ him about
Stocks, Alf?”

“No; it was all about fightin’ out there where the soldiers is gone—a
great long piece with all the lines close together and very hard words in
it. ‘E give me ‘arf a crown because I read so well. And ‘e says the next
time there’s anything ‘e wants read ‘e’ll send for me.”

“That’s good hearing, but I do think for all the half-crown—put it
into the kicking-donkey money-box, Alf, and let me see you do it—he
might have kept you longer. Why, he couldn’t have begun to understand how
beautiful you read.”

“He’s best left to hisself—gentlemen always are when they’re
downhearted,” said Mr. Beeton.

Alf’s rigorously limited powers of comprehending Torpenhow’s special
correspondence had waked the devil of unrest in Dick. He could hear,
through the boy’s nasal chant, the camels grunting in the squares behind
the soldiers outside Suakin; could hear the men swearing and chaffing
across the cooking pots, and could smell the acrid wood-smoke as it
drifted over camp before the wind of the desert.

That night he prayed to God that his mind might be taken from him,
offering for proof that he was worthy of this favour the fact that he had
not shot himself long ago. That prayer was not answered, and indeed Dick
knew in his heart of hearts that only a lingering sense of humour and no
special virtue had kept him alive. Suicide, he had persuaded himself,
would be a ludicrous insult to the gravity of the situation as well as a
weak-kneed confession of fear.

“Just for the fun of the thing,” he said to the cat, who had taken
Binkie’s place in his establishment, “I should like to know how long this
is going to last. I can live for a year on the hundred pounds Torp cashed
for me. I must have two or three thousand at least in the Bank—twenty
or thirty years more provided for, that is to say. Then I fall back on my
hundred and twenty a year, which will be more by that time. Let’s
consider.

“Twenty-five—thirty-five—a man’s in his prime then, they say—forty-five—a
middle-aged man just entering politics—fifty-five ‘died at the
comparatively early age of fifty-five,’ according to the newspapers. Bah!
How these Christians funk death! Sixty-five—we’re only getting on in
years. Seventy-five is just possible, though. Great hell, cat O! fifty
years more of solitary confinement in the dark! You’ll die, and Beeton
will die, and Torp will die, and Mai—everybody else will die, but I
shall be alive and kicking with nothing to do. I’m very sorry for myself.
I should like some one else to be sorry for me. Evidently I’m not going
mad before I die, but the pain’s just as bad as ever. Some day when you’re
vivisected, cat O! they’ll tie you down on a little table and cut you open—but
don’t be afraid; they’ll take precious good care that you don’t die.
You’ll live, and you’ll be very sorry then that you weren’t sorry for me.
Perhaps Torp will come back or… I wish I could go to Torp and the
Nilghai, even though I were in their way.”

Pussy left the room before the speech was ended, and Alf, as he entered,
found Dick addressing the empty hearth-rug.

“There’s a letter for you, sir,” he said. “Perhaps you’d like me to read
it.”

“Lend it to me for a minute and I’ll tell you.”

The outstretched hand shook just a little and the voice was not
over-steady. It was within the limits of human possibility that—that
was no letter from Maisie. He knew the heft of three closed envelopes only
too well. It was a foolish hope that the girl should write to him, for he
did not realise that there is a wrong which admits of no reparation though
the evildoer may with tears and the heart’s best love strive to mend all.
It is best to forget that wrong whether it be caused or endured, since it
is as remediless as bad work once put forward.

“Read it, then,” said Dick, and Alf began intoning according to the rules
of the Board School—“’I could have given you love, I could have
given you loyalty, such as you never dreamed of. Do you suppose I cared
what you were? But you chose to whistle everything down the wind for
nothing. My only excuse for you is that you are so young.’ That’s all,” he
said, returning the paper to be dropped into the fire.

“What was in the letter?” asked Mrs. Beeton, when Alf returned.

“I don’t know. I think it was a circular or a tract about not whistlin’ at
everything when you’re young.”

“I must have stepped on something when I was alive and walking about and
it has bounced up and hit me. God help it, whatever it is—unless it
was all a joke. But I don’t know any one who’d take the trouble to play a
joke on me—Love and loyalty for nothing. It sounds tempting enough.
I wonder whether I have lost anything really?”

Dick considered for a long time but could not remember when or how he had
put himself in the way of winning these trifles at a woman’s hands.

Still, the letter as touching on matters that he preferred not to think
about stung him into a fit of frenzy that lasted for a day and night. When
his heart was so full of despair that it would hold no more, body and soul
together seemed to be dropping without check through the darkness.

Then came fear of darkness and desperate attempts to reach the light
again. But there was no light to be reached. When that agony had left him
sweating and breathless, the downward flight would recommence till the
gathering torture of it spurred him into another fight as hopeless as the
first. Followed some few minutes of sleep in which he dreamed that he saw.
Then the procession of events would repeat itself till he was utterly worn
out and the brain took up its everlasting consideration of Maisie and
might-have-beens.

At the end of everything Mr. Beeton came to his room and volunteered to
take him out. “Not marketing this time, but we’ll go into the Parks if you
like.”

“Be damned if I do,” quoth Dick. “Keep to the streets and walk up and
down. I like to hear the people round me.”

This was not altogether true. The blind in the first stages of their
infirmity dislike those who can move with a free stride and unlifted arms—but
Dick had no earthly desire to go to the Parks. Once and only once since
Maisie had shut her door he had gone there under Alf’s charge. Alf forgot
him and fished for minnows in the Serpentine with some companions. After
half an hour’s waiting Dick, almost weeping with rage and wrath, caught a
passer-by, who introduced him to a friendly policeman, who led him to a
four-wheeler opposite the Albert Hall. He never told Mr. Beeton of Alf’s
forgetfulness, but… this was not the manner in which he was used to walk
the Parks aforetime.

“What streets would you like to walk down, then?” said Mr. Beeton,
sympathetically. His own ideas of a riotous holiday meant picnicking on
the grass of Green Park with his family, and half a dozen paper bags full
of food.

“Keep to the river,” said Dick, and they kept to the river, and the rush
of it was in his ears till they came to Blackfriars Bridge and struck
thence on to the Waterloo Road, Mr. Beeton explaining the beauties of the
scenery as he went on.

“And walking on the other side of the pavement,” said he, “unless I’m much
mistaken, is the young woman that used to come to your rooms to be drawed.
I never forgets a face and I never remembers a name, except paying
tenants, ‘o course!”

“Stop her,” said Dick. “It’s Bessie Broke. Tell her I’d like to speak to
her again. Quick, man!”

Mr. Beeton crossed the road under the noses of the omnibuses and arrested
Bessie then on her way northward. She recognised him as the man in
authority who used to glare at her when she passed up Dick’s staircase,
and her first impulse was to run.

“Wasn’t you Mr. Heldar’s model?” said Mr. Beeton, planting himself in
front of her. “You was. He’s on the other side of the road and he’d like
to see you.”

“Why?” said Bessie, faintly. She remembered—indeed had never for
long forgotten—an affair connected with a newly finished picture.

“Because he has asked me to do so, and because he’s most particular
blind.”

“Drunk?”

“No. ‘Orspital blind. He can’t see. That’s him over there.”

Dick was leaning against the parapet of the bridge as Mr. Beeton pointed
him out—a stub-bearded, bowed creature wearing a dirty
magenta-coloured neckcloth outside an unbrushed coat. There was nothing to
fear from such an one. Even if he chased her, Bessie thought, he could not
follow far. She crossed over, and Dick’s face lighted up. It was long
since a woman of any kind had taken the trouble to speak to him.

“I hope you’re well, Mr. Heldar?” said Bessie, a little puzzled. Mr.
Beeton stood by with the air of an ambassador and breathed responsibly.

“I’m very well indeed, and, by Jove! I’m glad to see—hear you, I
mean, Bess. You never thought it worth while to turn up and see us again
after you got your money. I don’t know why you should. Are you going
anywhere in particular just now?”

“I was going for a walk,” said Bessie.

“Not the old business?” Dick spoke under his breath.

“Lor, no! I paid my premium”—Bessie was very proud of that word—“for
a barmaid, sleeping in, and I’m at the bar now quite respectable. Indeed I
am.”

Mr. Beeton had no special reason to believe in the loftiness of human
nature. Therefore he dissolved himself like a mist and returned to his
gas-plugs without a word of apology. Bessie watched the flight with a
certain uneasiness; but so long as Dick appeared to be ignorant of the
harm that had been done to him…

“It’s hard work pulling the beer-handles,” she went on, “and they’ve got
one of them penny-in-the-slot cash-machines, so if you get wrong by a
penny at the end of the day—but then I don’t believe the machinery
is right. Do you?”

“I’ve only seen it work. Mr. Beeton.”

“He’s gone.

“I’m afraid I must ask you to help me home, then. I’ll make it worth your
while. You see.” The sightless eyes turned towards her and Bessie saw.

“It isn’t taking you out of your way?” he said hesitatingly. “I can ask a
policeman if it is.”

“Not at all. I come on at seven and I’m off at four. That’s easy hours.”

“Good God!—but I’m on all the time. I wish I had some work to do
too. Let’s go home, Bess.”

He turned and cannoned into a man on the sidewalk, recoiling with an oath.
Bessie took his arm and said nothing—as she had said nothing when he
had ordered her to turn her face a little more to the light. They walked
for some time in silence, the girl steering him deftly through the crowd.

“And where’s—where’s Mr. Torpenhow?” she inquired at last.

“He has gone away to the desert.”

“Where’s that?”

Dick pointed to the right. “East—out of the mouth of the river,”
said he.

“Then west, then south, and then east again, all along the under-side of
Europe. Then south again, God knows how far.” The explanation did not
enlighten Bessie in the least, but she held her tongue and looked to
Dick’s patch till they came to the chambers.

“We’ll have tea and muffins,” he said joyously. “I can’t tell you, Bessie,
how glad I am to find you again. What made you go away so suddenly?”

“I didn’t think you’d want me any more,” she said, emboldened by his
ignorance.

“I didn’t, as a matter of fact—but afterwards—At any rate I’m
glad you’ve come. You know the stairs.”

So Bessie led him home to his own place—there was no one to hinder—and
shut the door of the studio.

“What a mess!” was her first word. “All these things haven’t been looked
after for months and months.”

“No, only weeks, Bess. You can’t expect them to care.”

“I don’t know what you expect them to do. They ought to know what you’ve
paid them for. The dust’s just awful. It’s all over the easel.”

“I don’t use it much now.”

“All over the pictures and the floor, and all over your coat. I’d like to
speak to them housemaids.”

“Ring for tea, then.” Dick felt his way to the one chair he used by
custom.

Bessie saw the action and, as far as in her lay, was touched. But there
remained always a keen sense of new-found superiority, and it was in her
voice when she spoke.

“How long have you been like this?” she said wrathfully, as though the
blindness were some fault of the housemaids.

“How?”

“As you are.”

“The day after you went away with the check, almost as soon as my picture
was finished; I hardly saw her alive.”

“Then they’ve been cheating you ever since, that’s all. I know their nice
little ways.”

A woman may love one man and despise another, but on general feminine
principles she will do her best to save the man she despises from being
defrauded. Her loved one can look to himself, but the other man, being
obviously an idiot, needs protection.

“I don’t think Mr. Beeton cheats much,” said Dick. Bessie was flouncing up
and down the room, and he was conscious of a keen sense of enjoyment as he
heard the swish of her skirts and the light step between.

“Tea and muffins,” she said shortly, when the ring at the bell was
answered; “two teaspoonfuls and one over for the pot. I don’t want the old
teapot that was here when I used to come. It don’t draw. Get another.”

The housemaid went away scandalised, and Dick chuckled. Then he began to
cough as Bessie banged up and down the studio disturbing the dust.

“What are you trying to do?”

“Put things straight. This is like unfurnished lodgings. How could you let
it go so?”

“How could I help it? Dust away.”

She dusted furiously, and in the midst of all the pother entered Mrs.
Beeton. Her husband on his return had explained the situation, winding up
with the peculiarly felicitous proverb, “Do unto others as you would be
done by.” She had descended to put into her place the person who demanded
muffins and an uncracked teapot as though she had a right to both.

“Muffins ready yet?” said Bess, still dusting. She was no longer a drab of
the streets but a young lady who, thanks to Dick’s check, had paid her
premium and was entitled to pull beer-handles with the best. Being neatly
dressed in black she did not hesitate to face Mrs. Beeton, and there
passed between the two women certain regards that Dick would have
appreciated. The situation adjusted itself by eye. Bessie had won, and
Mrs. Beeton returned to cook muffins and make scathing remarks about
models, hussies, trollops, and the like, to her husband.

“There’s nothing to be got of interfering with him, Liza,” he said. “Alf,
you go along into the street to play. When he isn’t crossed he’s as kindly
as kind, but when he’s crossed he’s the devil and all. We took too many
little things out of his rooms since he was blind to be that particular
about what he does. They ain’t no objects to a blind man, of course, but
if it was to come into court we’d get the sack. Yes, I did introduce him
to that girl because I’m a feelin’ man myself.”

“Much too feelin’!” Mrs. Beeton slapped the muffins into the dish, and
thought of comely housemaids long since dismissed on suspicion.

“I ain’t ashamed of it, and it isn’t for us to judge him hard so long as
he pays quiet and regular as he do. I know how to manage young gentlemen,
you know how to cook for them, and what I says is, let each stick to his
own business and then there won’t be any trouble. Take them muffins down,
Liza, and be sure you have no words with that young woman. His lot is
cruel hard, and if he’s crossed he do swear worse than any one I’ve ever
served.”

“That’s a little better,” said Bessie, sitting down to the tea. “You
needn’t wait, thank you, Mrs. Beeton.”

“I had no intention of doing such, I do assure you.”

Bessie made no answer whatever. This, she knew, was the way in which real
ladies routed their foes, and when one is a barmaid at a first-class
public-house one may become a real lady at ten minutes’ notice.

Her eyes fell on Dick opposite her and she was both shocked and
displeased. There were droppings of food all down the front of his coat;
the mouth under the ragged ill-grown beard drooped sullenly; the forehead
was lined and contracted; and on the lean temples the hair was a dusty
indeterminate colour that might or might not have been called gray. The
utter misery and self-abandonment of the man appealed to her, and at the
bottom of her heart lay the wicked feeling that he was humbled and brought
low who had once humbled her.

“Oh! it is good to hear you moving about,” said Dick, rubbing his hands.
“Tell us all about your bar successes, Bessie, and the way you live now.”

“Never mind that. I’m quite respectable, as you’d see by looking at me.
You don’t seem to live too well. What made you go blind that sudden? Why
isn’t there any one to look after you?”

Dick was too thankful for the sound of her voice to resent the tone of it.

“I was cut across the head a long time ago, and that ruined my eyes. I
don’t suppose anybody thinks it worth while to look after me any more. Why
should they?—and Mr. Beeton really does everything I want.”

“Don’t you know any gentlemen and ladies, then, while you was—well?”

“A few, but I don’t care to have them looking at me.”

“I suppose that’s why you’ve growed a beard. Take it off, it don’t become
you.”

“Good gracious, child, do you imagine that I think of what becomes of me
these days?”

“You ought. Get that taken off before I come here again. I suppose I can
come, can’t I?”

“I’d be only too grateful if you did. I don’t think I treated you very
well in the old days. I used to make you angry.”

“Very angry, you did.”

“I’m sorry for it, then. Come and see me when you can and as often as you
can. God knows, there isn’t a soul in the world to take that trouble
except you and Mr. Beeton.”

“A lot of trouble he’s taking and she too.” This with a toss of the head.

“They’ve let you do anyhow and they haven’t done anything for you. I’ve
only to look and see that much. I’ll come, and I’ll be glad to come, but
you must go and be shaved, and you must get some other clothes—those
ones aren’t fit to be seen.”

“I have heaps somewhere,” he said helplessly.

“I know you have. Tell Mr. Beeton to give you a new suit and I’ll brush it
and keep it clean. You may be as blind as a barn-door, Mr. Heldar, but it
doesn’t excuse you looking like a sweep.”

“Do I look like a sweep, then?”

“Oh, I’m sorry for you. I’m that sorry for you!” she cried impulsively,
and took Dick’s hands. Mechanically, he lowered his head as if to kiss—she
was the only woman who had taken pity on him, and he was not too proud for
a little pity now. She stood up to go.

“Nothing ‘o that kind till you look more like a gentleman. It’s quite easy
when you get shaved, and some clothes.”

He could hear her drawing on her gloves and rose to say good-bye. She
passed behind him, kissed him audaciously on the back of the neck, and ran
away as swiftly as on the day when she had destroyed the Melancolia.

“To think of me kissing Mr. Heldar,” she said to herself, “after all he’s
done to me and all! Well, I’m sorry for him, and if he was shaved he
wouldn’t be so bad to look at, but… Oh them Beetons, how shameful
they’ve treated him! I know Beeton’s wearing his shirt on his back today
just as well as if I’d aired it. Tomorrow, I’ll see… I wonder if he has
much of his own. It might be worth more than the bar—I wouldn’t have
to do any work—and just as respectable as if no one knew.”

Dick was not grateful to Bessie for her parting gift. He was acutely
conscious of it in the nape of his neck throughout the night, but it
seemed, among very many other things, to enforce the wisdom of getting
shaved.

He was shaved accordingly in the morning, and felt the better for it. A
fresh suit of clothes, white linen, and the knowledge that some one in the
world said that she took an interest in his personal appearance made him
carry himself almost upright; for the brain was relieved for a while from
thinking of Maisie, who, under other circumstances, might have given that
kiss and a million others.

“Let us consider,” said he, after lunch. “The girl can’t care, and it’s a
toss-up whether she comes again or not, but if money can buy her to look
after me she shall be bought. Nobody else in the world would take the
trouble, and I can make it worth her while. She’s a child of the gutter
holding brevet rank as a barmaid; so she shall have everything she wants
if she’ll only come and talk and look after me.” He rubbed his newly shorn
chin and began to perplex himself with the thought of her not coming. “I
suppose I did look rather a sweep,” he went on. “I had no reason to look
otherwise. I knew things dropped on my clothes, but it didn’t matter. It
would be cruel if she didn’t come. She must. Maisie came once, and that
was enough for her. She was quite right. She had something to work for.
This creature has only beer-handles to pull, unless she has deluded some
young man into keeping company with her. Fancy being cheated for the sake
of a counter-jumper! We’re falling pretty low.”

Something cried aloud within him:—This will hurt more than anything
that has gone before. It will recall and remind and suggest and tantalise,
and in the end drive you mad.

“I know it, I know it!” Dick cried, clenching his hands despairingly;
“but, good heavens! is a poor blind beggar never to get anything out of
his life except three meals a day and a greasy waistcoat? I wish she’d
come.”

Early in the afternoon time she came, because there was no young man in
her life just then, and she thought of material advantages which would
allow her to be idle for the rest of her days.

“I shouldn’t have known you,” she said approvingly. “You look as you used
to look—a gentleman that was proud of himself.”

“Don’t you think I deserve another kiss, then?” said Dick, flushing a
little.

“Maybe—but you won’t get it yet. Sit down and let’s see what I can
do for you. I’m certain sure Mr. Beeton cheats you, now that you can’t go
through the housekeeping books every month. Isn’t that true?”

“You’d better come and housekeep for me then, Bessie.”

“Couldn’t do it in these chambers—you know that as well as I do.”

“I know, but we might go somewhere else, if you thought it worth your
while.”

“I’d try to look after you, anyhow; but I shouldn’t care to have to work
for both of us.” This was tentative.

Dick laughed.

“Do you remember where I used to keep my bank-book?” said he. “Torp took
it to be balanced just before he went away. Look and see.”

“It was generally under the tobacco-jar. Ah!”

“Well?”

“Oh! Four thousand two hundred and ten pounds nine shillings and a penny!
Oh my!”

“You can have the penny. That’s not bad for one year’s work. Is that and a
hundred and twenty pounds a year good enough?”

The idleness and the pretty clothes were almost within her reach now, but
she must, by being housewifely, show that she deserved them.

“Yes; but you’d have to move, and if we took an inventory, I think we’d
find that Mr. Beeton has been prigging little things out of the rooms here
and there. They don’t look as full as they used.”

“Never mind, we’ll let him have them. The only thing I’m particularly
anxious to take away is that picture I used you for—when you used to
swear at me. We’ll pull out of this place, Bess, and get away as far as
ever we can.”

“Oh yes,” she said uneasily.

“I don’t know where I can go to get away from myself, but I’ll try, and
you shall have all the pretty frocks that you care for. You’ll like that.
Give me that kiss now, Bess. Ye gods! it’s good to put one’s arm round a
woman’s waist again.”

Then came the fulfilment of the prophecy within the brain. If his arm were
thus round Maisie’s waist and a kiss had just been given and taken between
them,—why then… He pressed the girl more closely to himself
because the pain whipped him. She was wondering how to explain a little
accident to the Melancolia. At any rate, if this man really desired the
solace of her company—and certainly he would relapse into his
original slough if she withdrew it—he would not be more than just a
little vexed.

It would be delightful at least to see what would happen, and by her
teachings it was good for a man to stand in certain awe of his companion.

She laughed nervously, and slipped out of his reach.

“I shouldn’t worrit about that picture if I was you,” she began, in the
hope of turning his attention.

“It’s at the back of all my canvases somewhere. Find it, Bess; you know it
as well as I do.”

“I know—but—”

“But what? You’ve wit enough to manage the sale of it to a dealer. Women
haggle much better than men. It might be a matter of eight or nine hundred
pounds to—to us. I simply didn’t like to think about it for a long
time. It was mixed up with my life so.—But we’ll cover up our tracks
and get rid of everything, eh? Make a fresh start from the beginning,
Bess.”

Then she began to repent very much indeed, because she knew the value of
money. Still, it was probable that the blind man was overestimating the
value of his work. Gentlemen, she knew, were absurdly particular about
their things. She giggled as a nervous housemaid giggles when she tries to
explain the breakage of a pipe.

“I’m very sorry, but you remember I was—I was angry with you before
Mr. Torpenhow went away?”

“You were very angry, child; and on my word I think you had some right to
be.”

“Then I—but aren’t you sure Mr. Torpenhow didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what? Good gracious, what are you making such a fuss about when
you might just as well be giving me another kiss?”

He was beginning to learn, not for the first time in his experience, that
kissing is a cumulative poison. The more you get of it, the more you want.

Bessie gave the kiss promptly, whispering, as she did so, “I was so angry
I rubbed out that picture with the turpentine. You aren’t angry, are you?”

“What? Say that again.” The man’s hand had closed on her wrist.

“I rubbed it out with turps and the knife,” faltered Bessie. “I thought
you’d only have to do it over again. You did do it over again, didn’t you?
Oh, let go of my wrist; you’re hurting me.”

“Isn’t there anything left of the thing?”

“N’nothing that looks like anything. I’m sorry—I didn’t know you’d
take on about it; I only meant to do it in fun. You aren’t going to hit
me?”

“Hit you! No! Let’s think.”

He did not relax his hold upon her wrist but stood staring at the carpet.

Then he shook his head as a young steer shakes it when the lash of the
stock-whip cross his nose warns him back to the path on to the shambles
that he would escape. For weeks he had forced himself not to think of the
Melancolia, because she was a part of his dead life. With Bessie’s return
and certain new prospects that had developed themselves, the Melancolia—lovelier
in his imagination than she had ever been on canvas—reappeared. By
her aid he might have procured more money wherewith to amuse Bess and to
forget Maisie, as well as another taste of an almost forgotten success.
Now, thanks to a vicious little housemaid’s folly, there was nothing to
look for—not even the hope that he might some day take an abiding
interest in the housemaid. Worst of all, he had been made to appear
ridiculous in Maisie’s eyes. A woman will forgive the man who has ruined
her life’s work so long as he gives her love; a man may forgive those who
ruin the love of his life, but he will never forgive the destruction of
his work.

“Tck—tck—tck,” said Dick between his teeth, and then laughed
softly. “It’s an omen, Bessie, and—a good many things considered, it
serves me right for doing what I have done. By Jove! that accounts for
Maisie’s running away. She must have thought me perfectly mad—small
blame to her! The whole picture ruined, isn’t it so? What made you do it?”

“Because I was that angry. I’m not angry now—I’m awful sorry.”

“I wonder.—It doesn’t matter, anyhow. I’m to blame for making the
mistake.”

“What mistake?”

“Something you wouldn’t understand, dear. Great heavens! to think that a
little piece of dirt like you could throw me out of stride!” Dick was
talking to himself as Bessie tried to shake off his grip on her wrist.

“I ain’t a piece of dirt, and you shouldn’t call me so! I did it ’cause I
hated you, and I’m only sorry now ’cause you’re ’cause you’re——”

“Exactly—because I’m blind. There’s noting like tact in little
things.”

Bessie began to sob. She did not like being shackled against her will; she
was afraid of the blind face and the look upon it, and was sorry too that
her great revenge had only made Dick laugh.

“Don’t cry,” he said, and took her into his arms. “You only did what you
thought right.”

“I—I ain’t a little piece of dirt, and if you say that I’ll never
come to you again.”

“You don’t know what you’ve done to me. I’m not angry—indeed, I’m
not. Be quiet for a minute.”

Bessie remained in his arms shrinking. Dick’s first thought was connected
with Maisie, and it hurt him as white-hot iron hurts an open sore.

Not for nothing is a man permitted to ally himself to the wrong woman.

The first pang—the first sense of things lost is but the prelude to
the play, for the very just Providence who delights in causing pain has
decreed that the agony shall return, and that in the midst of keenest
pleasure.

They know this pain equally who have forsaken or been forsaken by the love
of their life, and in their new wives’ arms are compelled to realise it.

It is better to remain alone and suffer only the misery of being alone, so
long as it is possible to find distraction in daily work. When that
resource goes the man is to be pitied and left alone.

These things and some others Dick considered while he was holding Bessie
to his heart.

“Though you mayn’t know it,” he said, raising his head, “the Lord is a
just and a terrible God, Bess; with a very strong sense of humour. It
serves me right—how it serves me right! Torp could understand it if
he were here; he must have suffered something at your hands, child, but
only for a minute or so. I saved him. Set that to my credit, some one.”

“Let me go,” said Bess, her face darkening. “Let me go.”

“All in good time. Did you ever attend Sunday school?”

“Never. Let me go, I tell you; you’re making fun of me.”

“Indeed, I’m not. I’m making fun of myself…. Thus. ‘He saved others,
himself he cannot save.’ It isn’t exactly a school-board text.” He
released her wrist, but since he was between her and the door, she could
not escape. “What an enormous amount of mischief one little woman can do!”

“I’m sorry; I’m awful sorry about the picture.”

“I’m not. I’m grateful to you for spoiling it…. What were we talking
about before you mentioned the thing?”

“About getting away—and money. Me and you going away.”

“Of course. We will get away—that is to say, I will.”

“And me?”

“You shall have fifty whole pounds for spoiling a picture.”

“Then you won’t——?”

“I’m afraid not, dear. Think of fifty pounds for pretty things all to
yourself.”

“You said you couldn’t do anything without me.”

“That was true a little while ago. I’m better now, thank you. Get me my
hat.”

“S’pose I don’t?”

“Beeton will, and you’ll lose fifty pounds. That’s all. Get it.”

Bessie cursed under her breath. She had pitied the man sincerely, had
kissed him with almost equal sincerity, for he was not unhandsome; it
pleased her to be in a way and for a time his protector, and above all
there were four thousand pounds to be handled by some one. Now through a
slip of the tongue and a little feminine desire to give a little, not too
much, pain she had lost the money, the blessed idleness and the pretty
things, the companionship, and the chance of looking outwardly as
respectable as a real lady.

“Now fill me a pipe. Tobacco doesn’t taste, but it doesn’t matter, and
I’ll think things out. What’s the day of the week, Bess?”

“Tuesday.”

“Then Thursday’s mail-day. What a fool—what a blind fool I have
been! Twenty-two pounds covers my passage home again. Allow ten for
additional expenses. We must put up at Madam Binat’s for old time’s sake.
Thirty-two pounds altogether. Add a hundred for the cost of the last trip—Gad,
won’t Torp stare to see me!—a hundred and thirty-two leaves
seventy-eight for baksheesh—I shall need it—and to play with.
What are you crying for, Bess? It wasn’t your fault, child; it was mine
altogether. Oh, you funny little opossum, mop your eyes and take me out! I
want the pass-book and the check-book. Stop a minute. Four thousand pounds
at four per cent—that’s safe interest—means a hundred and
sixty pounds a year; one hundred and twenty pounds a year—also safe—is
two eighty, and two hundred and eighty pounds added to three hundred a
year means gilded luxury for a single woman. Bess, we’ll go to the bank.”

Richer by two hundred and ten pounds stored in his money-belt, Dick caused
Bessie, now thoroughly bewildered, to hurry from the bank to the P. and O.
offices, where he explained things tersely.

“Port Said, single first; cabin as close to the baggage-hatch as possible.
What ship’s going?”

“The Colgong,” said the clerk.

“She’s a wet little hooker. Is it Tilbury and a tender, or Galleons and
the docks?”

“Galleons. Twelve-forty, Thursday.”

“Thanks. Change, please. I can’t see very well—will you count it
into my hand?”

“If they all took their passages like that instead of talking about their
trunks, life would be worth something,” said the clerk to his neighbour,
who was trying to explain to a harassed mother of many that condensed milk
is just as good for babes at sea as daily dairy. Being nineteen and
unmarried, he spoke with conviction.

“We are now,” quoth Dick, as they returned to the studio, patting the
place where his money-belt covered ticket and money, “beyond the reach of
man, or devil, or woman—which is much more important. I’ve had three
little affairs to carry through before Thursday, but I needn’t ask you to
help, Bess. Come here on Thursday morning at nine. We’ll breakfast, and
you shall take me down to Galleons Station.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Going away, of course. What should I stay for?”

“But you can’t look after yourself?”

“I can do anything. I didn’t realise it before, but I can. I’ve done a
great deal already. Resolution shall be treated to one kiss if Bessie
doesn’t object.” Strangely enough, Bessie objected and Dick laughed. “I
suppose you’re right. Well, come at nine the day after tomorrow and you’ll
get your money.”

“Shall I sure?”

“I don’t bilk, and you won’t know whether I do or not unless you come. Oh,
but it’s long and long to wait! Good-bye, Bessie,—send Beeton here
as you go out.”

The housekeeper came.

“What are all the fittings of my rooms worth?” said Dick, imperiously.

“’Tisn’t for me to say, sir. Some things is very pretty and some is wore
out dreadful.”

“I’m insured for two hundred and seventy.”

“Insurance policies is no criterion, though I don’t say——”

“Oh, damn your longwindedness! You’ve made your pickings out of me and the
other tenants. Why, you talked of retiring and buying a public-house the
other day. Give a straight answer to a straight question.”

“Fifty,” said Mr. Beeton, without a moment’s hesitation.

“Double it; or I’ll break up half my sticks and burn the rest.”

He felt his way to a bookstand that supported a pile of sketch-books, and
wrenched out one of the mahogany pillars.

“That’s sinful, sir,” said the housekeeper, alarmed.

“It’s my own. One hundred or——”

“One hundred it is. It’ll cost me three and six to get that there pilaster
mended.”

“I thought so. What an out and out swindler you must have been to spring
that price at once!”

“I hope I’ve done nothing to dissatisfy any of the tenants, least of all
you, sir.”

“Never mind that. Get me the money tomorrow, and see that all my clothes
are packed in the little brown bullock-trunk. I’m going.”

“But the quarter’s notice?”

“I’ll pay forfeit. Look after the packing and leave me alone.”

Mr. Beeton discussed this new departure with his wife, who decided that
Bessie was at the bottom of it all. Her husband took a more charitable
view.

“It’s very sudden—but then he was always sudden in his ways. Listen
to him now!”

There was a sound of chanting from Dick’s room.

“We’ll never come back any more, boys, We’ll never come back no more;
We’ll go to the deuce on any excuse, And never come back no more! Oh say
we’re afloat or ashore, boys, Oh say we’re afloat or ashore; But we’ll
never come back any more, boys, We’ll never come back no more!”

“Mr. Beeton! Mr. Beeton! Where the deuce is my pistol?”

“Quick, he’s going to shoot himself ‘avin’ gone mad!” said Mrs. Beeton.

Mr. Beeton addressed Dick soothingly, but it was some time before the
latter, threshing up and down his bedroom, could realise the intention of
the promises to ‘find everything tomorrow, sir.’

“Oh, you copper-nosed old fool—you impotent Academician!” he shouted
at last. “Do you suppose I want to shoot myself? Take the pistol in your
silly shaking hand then. If you touch it, it will go off, because it’s
loaded. It’s among my campaign-kit somewhere—in the parcel at the
bottom of the trunk.”

Long ago Dick had carefully possessed himself of a forty-pound weight
field-equipment constructed by the knowledge of his own experience. It was
this put-away treasure that he was trying to find and rehandle. Mr. Beeton
whipped the revolver out of its place on the top of the package, and Dick
drove his hand among the khaki coat and breeches, the blue cloth
leg-bands, and the heavy flannel shirts doubled over a pair of swan-neck
spurs. Under these and the water-bottle lay a sketch-book and a pigskin
case of stationery.

“These we don’t want; you can have them, Mr. Beeton. Everything else I’ll
keep. Pack ’em on the top right-hand side of my trunk. When you’ve done
that come into the studio with your wife. I want you both. Wait a minute;
get me a pen and a sheet of notepaper.”

It is not an easy thing to write when you cannot see, and Dick had
particular reasons for wishing that his work should be clear. So he began,
following his right hand with his left: “The badness of this writing is
because I am blind and cannot see my pen.” H’mph!—even a lawyer
can’t mistake that. It must be signed, I suppose, but it needn’t be
witnessed. Now an inch lower—why did I never learn to use a
type-writer?—“This is the last will and testament of me, Richard
Heldar. I am in sound bodily and mental health, and there is no previous
will to revoke.”—That’s all right. Damn the pen! Whereabouts on the
paper was I?—” “I leave everything that I possess in the world,
including four thousand pounds, and two thousand seven hundred and twenty
eight pounds held for me—oh, I can’t get this straight.” He tore off
half the sheet and began again with the caution about the handwriting.
Then: “I leave all the money I possess in the world to”—here
followed Maisie’s name, and the names of the two banks that held the
money.

“It mayn’t be quite regular, but no one has a shadow of a right to dispute
it, and I’ve given Maisie’s address. Come in, Mr. Beeton. This is my
signature; I want you and your wife to witness it. Thanks. Tomorrow you
must take me to the landlord and I’ll pay forfeit for leaving without
notice, and I’ll lodge this paper with him in case anything happens while
I’m away. Now we’re going to light up the studio stove. Stay with me, and
give me my papers as I want ’em.”

No one knows until he has tried how fine a blaze a year’s accumulation of
bills, letters, and dockets can make. Dick stuffed into the stove every
document in the studio—saving only three unopened letters; destroyed
sketch-books, rough note-books, new and half-finished canvases alike.

“What a lot of rubbish a tenant gets about him if he stays long enough in
one place, to be sure,” said Mr. Beeton, at last.

“He does. Is there anything more left?” Dick felt round the walls.

“Not a thing, and the stove’s nigh red-hot.”

“Excellent, and you’ve lost about a thousand pounds’ worth of sketches.
Ho! ho! Quite a thousand pounds’ worth, if I can remember what I used to
be.”

“Yes, sir,” politely. Mr. Beeton was quite sure that Dick had gone mad,
otherwise he would have never parted with his excellent furniture for a
song. The canvas things took up storage room and were much better out of
the way.

There remained only to leave the little will in safe hands: that could not
be accomplished til tomorrow. Dick groped about the floor picking up the
last pieces of paper, assured himself again and again that there remained
no written word or sign of his past life in drawer or desk, and sat down
before the stove till the fire died out and the contracting iron cracked
in the silence of the night.

CHAPTER XV

“Goodbye, Bess; I promised you fifty. Here’s a hundred—all that I
got for my furniture from Beeton. That will keep you in pretty frocks for
some time. You’ve been a good little girl, all things considered, but
you’ve given me and Torpenhow a fair amount of trouble.”

“Give Mr. Torpenhow my love if you see him, won’t you?”

“Of course I will, dear. Now take me up the gang-plank and into the cabin.
Once aboard the lugger and the maid is—and I am free, I mean.”

“Who’ll look after you on this ship?”

“The head-steward, if there’s any use in money. The doctor when we come to
Port Said, if I know anything of P. and O. doctors. After that, the Lord
will provide, as He used to do.”

Bess found Dick his cabin in the wild turmoil of a ship full of
leavetakers and weeping relatives. Then he kissed her, and laid himself
down in his bunk until the decks should be clear. He who had taken so long
to move about his own darkened rooms well understood the geography of a
ship, and the necessity of seeing to his own comforts was as wine to him.

Before the screw began to thrash the ship along the Docks he had been
introduced to the head-steward, had royally tipped him, secured a good
place at table, opened out his baggage, and settled himself down with joy
in the cabin. It was scarcely necessary to feel his way as he moved about,
for he knew everything so well. Then God was very kind: a deep sleep of
weariness came upon him just as he would have thought of Maisie, and he
slept till the steamer had cleared the mouth of the Thames and was lifting
to the pulse of the Channel.

The rattle of the engines, the reek of oil and paint, and a very familiar
sound in the next cabin roused him to his new inheritance.

“Oh, it’s good to be alive again!” He yawned, stretched himself
vigorously, and went on deck to be told that they were almost abreast of
the lights of Brighton. This is no more open water than Trafalgar Square
is a common; the free levels begin at Ushant; but none the less Dick could
feel the healing of the sea at work upon him already. A boisterous little
cross-swell swung the steamer disrespectfully by the nose; and one wave
breaking far aft spattered the quarterdeck and the pile of new
deck-chairs. He heard the foam fall with the clash of broken glass, was
stung in the face by a cupful, and sniffing luxuriously, felt his way to
the smoking-room by the wheel. There a strong breeze found him, blew his
cap off and left him bareheaded in the doorway, and the smoking-room
steward, understanding that he was a voyager of experience, said that the
weather would be stiff in the chops off the Channel and more than half a
gale in the Bay. These things fell as they were foretold, and Dick enjoyed
himself to the utmost. It is allowable and even necessary at sea to lay
firm hold upon tables, stanchions, and ropes in moving from place to
place. On land the man who feels with his hands is patently blind. At sea
even a blind man who is not sea-sick can jest with the doctor over the
weakness of his fellows. Dick told the doctor many tales—and these
are coin of more value than silver if properly handled—smoked with
him till unholy hours of the night, and so won his short-lived regard that
he promised Dick a few hours of his time when they came to Port Said.

And the sea roared or was still as the winds blew, and the engines sang
their song day and night, and the sun grew stronger day by day, and Tom
the Lascar barber shaved Dick of a morning under the opened hatch-grating
where the cool winds blew, and the awnings were spread and the passengers
made merry, and at last they came to Port Said.

“Take me,” said Dick, to the doctor, “to Madame Binat’s—if you know
where that is.”

“Whew!” said the doctor, “I do. There’s not much to choose between ’em;
but I suppose you’re aware that that’s one of the worst houses in the
place. They’ll rob you to begin with, and knife you later.”

“Not they. Take me there, and I can look after myself.”

So he was brought to Madame Binat’s and filled his nostrils with the
well-remembered smell of the East, that runs without a change from the
Canal head to Hong-Kong, and his mouth with the villainous Lingua Franca
of the Levant. The heat smote him between the shoulder-blades with the
buffet of an old friend, his feet slipped on the sand, and his coat-sleeve
was warm as new-baked bread when he lifted it to his nose.

Madame Binat smiled with the smile that knows no astonishment when Dick
entered the drinking-shop which was one source of her gains. But for a
little accident of complete darkness he could hardly realise that he had
ever quitted the old life that hummed in his ears. Somebody opened a
bottle of peculiarly strong Schiedam. The smell reminded Dick of Monsieur
Binat, who, by the way, had spoken of art and degradation.

Binat was dead; Madame said as much when the doctor departed, scandalised,
so far as a ship’s doctor can be, at the warmth of Dick’s reception. Dick
was delighted at it. “They remember me here after a year. They have
forgotten me across the water by this time. Madame, I want a long talk
with you when you’re at liberty. It is good to be back again.”

In the evening she set an iron-topped cafe-table out on the sands, and
Dick and she sat by it, while the house behind them filled with riot,
merriment, oaths, and threats. The stars came out and the lights of the
shipping in the harbour twinkled by the head of the Canal.

“Yes. The war is good for trade, my friend; but what dost thou do here? We
have not forgotten thee.”

“I was over there in England and I went blind.”

“But there was the glory first. We heard of it here, even here—I and
Binat; and thou hast used the head of Yellow ‘Tina—she is still
alive—so often and so well that ‘Tina laughed when the papers
arrived by the mail-boats. It was always something that we here could
recognise in the paintings. And then there was always the glory and the
money for thee.”

“I am not poor—I shall pay you well.”

“Not to me. Thou hast paid for everything.” Under her breath, “Mon Dieu,
to be blind and so young! What horror!”

Dick could not see her face with the pity on it, or his own with the
discoloured hair at the temples. He did not feel the need of pity; he was
too anxious to get to the front once more, and explained his desire.

“And where? The Canal is full of the English ships. Sometimes they fire as
they used to do when the war was here—ten years ago. Beyond Cairo
there is fighting, but how canst thou go there without a correspondent’s
passport? And in the desert there is always fighting, but that is
impossible also,” said she.

“I must go to Suakin.” He knew, thanks to Alf’s readings, that Torpenhow
was at work with the column that was protecting the construction of the
Suakin-Berber line. P. and O. steamers do not touch at that port, and,
besides, Madame Binat knew everybody whose help or advice was worth
anything. They were not respectable folk, but they could cause things to
be accomplished, which is much more important when there is work toward.

“But at Suakin they are always fighting. That desert breeds men always—and
always more men. And they are so bold! Why to Suakin?”

“My friend is there.

“Thy friend! Chtt! Thy friend is death, then.”

Madame Binat dropped a fat arm on the table-top, filled Dick’s glass anew,
and looked at him closely under the stars. There was no need that he
should bow his head in assent and say—“No. He is a man, but—if
it should arrive… blamest thou?”

“I blame?” she laughed shrilly. “Who am I that I should blame any one—except
those who try to cheat me over their consommations. But it is very
terrible.”

“I must go to Suakin. Think for me. A great deal has changed within the
year, and the men I knew are not here. The Egyptian lighthouse steamer
goes down the Canal to Suakin—and the post-boats—But even then——”

“Do not think any longer. I know, and it is for me to think. Thou shalt go—thou
shalt go and see thy friend. Be wise. Sit here until the house is a little
quiet—I must attend to my guests—and afterwards go to bed.
Thou shalt go, in truth, thou shalt go.”

“Tomorrow?”

“As soon as may be.” She was talking as though he were a child.

He sat at the table listening to the voices in the harbour and the
streets, and wondering how soon the end would come, till Madame Binat
carried him off to bed and ordered him to sleep. The house shouted and
sang and danced and revelled, Madame Binat moving through it with one eye
on the liquor payments and the girls and the other on Dick’s interests. To
this latter end she smiled upon scowling and furtive Turkish officers of
fellaheen regiments, and was more than kind to camel agents of no
nationality whatever.

In the early morning, being then appropriately dressed in a flaming red
silk ball-dress, with a front of tarnished gold embroidery and a necklace
of plate-glass diamonds, she made chocolate and carried it in to Dick.

“It is only I, and I am of discreet age, eh? Drink and eat the roll too.
Thus in France mothers bring their sons, when those behave wisely, the
morning chocolate.” She sat down on the side of the bed whispering:—“It
is all arranged. Thou wilt go by the lighthouse boat. That is a bribe of
ten pounds English. The captain is never paid by the Government. The boat
comes to Suakin in four days. There will go with thee George, a Greek
muleteer. Another bribe of ten pounds. I will pay; they must not know of
thy money. George will go with thee as far as he goes with his mules. Then
he comes back to me, for his well-beloved is here, and if I do not receive
a telegram from Suakin saying that thou art well, the girl answers for
George.”

“Thank you.” He reached out sleepily for the cup. “You are much too kind,
Madame.”

“If there were anything that I might do I would say, stay here and be
wise; but I do not think that would be best for thee.” She looked at her
liquor-stained dress with a sad smile. “Nay, thou shalt go, in truth, thou
shalt go. It is best so. My boy, it is best so.”

She stooped and kissed Dick between the eyes. “That is for good-morning,”
she said, going away. “When thou art dressed we will speak to George and
make everything ready. But first we must open the little trunk. Give me
the keys.”

“The amount of kissing lately has been simply scandalous. I shall expect
Torp to kiss me next. He is more likely to swear at me for getting in his
way, though. Well, it won’t last long.—Ohe, Madame, help me to my
toilette of the guillotine! There will be no chance of dressing properly
out yonder.”

He was rummaging among his new campaign-kit, and rowelling his hands with
the spurs. There are two ways of wearing well-oiled ankle-jacks, spotless
blue bands, khaki coat and breeches, and a perfectly pipeclayed helmet.
The right way is the way of the untired man, master of himself, setting
out upon an expedition, well pleased.

“Everything must be very correct,” Dick explained. “It will become dirty
afterwards, but now it is good to feel well dressed. Is everything as it
should be?”

He patted the revolver neatly hidden under the fulness of the blouse on
the right hip and fingered his collar.

“I can do no more,” Madame said, between laughing and crying. “Look at
thyself—but I forgot.”

“I am very content.” He stroked the creaseless spirals of his leggings.

“Now let us go and see the captain and George and the lighthouse boat. Be
quick, Madame.”

“But thou canst not be seen by the harbour walking with me in the
daylight. Figure to yourself if some English ladies——”

“There are no English ladies; and if there are, I have forgotten them.
Take me there.”

In spite of this burning impatience it was nearly evening ere the
lighthouse boat began to move. Madame had said a great deal both to George
and the captain touching the arrangements that were to be made for Dick’s
benefit. Very few men who had the honour of her acquaintance cared to
disregard Madame’s advice. That sort of contempt might end in being knifed
by a stranger in a gambling hell upon surprisingly short provocation.

For six days—two of them were wasted in the crowded Canal—the
little steamer worked her way to Suakin, where she was to pick up the
superintendent of the lighthouse; and Dick made it his business to
propitiate George, who was distracted with fears for the safety of his
light-of-love and half inclined to make Dick responsible for his own
discomfort. When they arrived George took him under his wing, and together
they entered the red-hot seaport, encumbered with the material and wastage
of the Suakin-Berger line, from locomotives in disconsolate fragments to
mounds of chairs and pot-sleepers.

“If you keep with me,” said George, “nobody will ask for passports or what
you do. They are all very busy.”

“Yes; but I should like to hear some of the Englishmen talk. They might
remember me. I was known here a long time ago—when I was some one
indeed.”

“A long time ago is a very long time ago here. The graveyards are full.
Now listen. This new railway runs out so far as Tanai-el-Hassan—that
is seven miles. Then there is a camp. They say that beyond Tanai-el-Hassan
the English troops go forward, and everything that they require will be
brought to them by this line.”

“Ah! Base camp. I see. That’s a better business than fighting Fuzzies in
the open.”

“For this reason even the mules go up in the iron-train.”

“Iron what?”

“It is all covered with iron, because it is still being shot at.”

“An armoured train. Better and better! Go on, faithful George.”

“And I go up with my mules tonight. Only those who particularly require to
go to the camp go out with the train. They begin to shoot not far from the
city.”

“The dears—they always used to!” Dick snuffed the smell of parched
dust, heated iron, and flaking paint with delight. Certainly the old life
was welcoming him back most generously.

“When I have got my mules together I go up tonight, but you must first
send a telegram of Port Said, declaring that I have done you no harm.”

“Madame has you well in hand. Would you stick a knife into me if you had
the chance?”

“I have no chance,” said the Greek. “She is there with that woman.”

“I see. It’s a bad thing to be divided between love of woman and the
chance of loot. I sympathise with you, George.”

They went to the telegraph-office unquestioned, for all the world was
desperately busy and had scarcely time to turn its head, and Suakin was
the last place under sky that would be chosen for holiday-ground. On their
return the voice of an English subaltern asked Dick what he was doing. The
blue goggles were over his eyes and he walked with his hand on George’s
elbow as he replied—“Egyptian Government—mules. My orders are
to give them over to the A. C. G. at Tanai-el-Hassan. Any occasion to show
my papers?”

“Oh, certainly not. I beg your pardon. I’d no right to ask, but not seeing
your face before I——”

“I go out in the train tonight, I suppose,” said Dick, boldly. “There will
be no difficulty in loading up the mules, will there?”

“You can see the horse-platforms from here. You must have them loaded up
early.” The young man went away wondering what sort of broken-down waif
this might be who talked like a gentleman and consorted with Greek
muleteers. Dick felt unhappy. To outface an English officer is no small
thing, but the bluff loses relish when one plays it from the utter dark,
and stumbles up and down rough ways, thinking and eternally thinking of
what might have been if things had fallen out otherwise, and all had been
as it was not.

George shared his meal with Dick and went off to the mule-lines. His
charge sat alone in a shed with his face in his hands. Before his
tight-shut eyes danced the face of Maisie, laughing, with parted lips.
There was a great bustle and clamour about him. He grew afraid and almost
called for George.

“I say, have you got your mules ready?” It was the voice of the subaltern
over his shoulder.

“My man’s looking after them. The—the fact is I’ve a touch of
ophthalmia and can’t see very well.

“By Jove! that’s bad. You ought to lie up in hospital for a while. I’ve
had a turn of it myself. It’s as bad as being blind.”

“So I find it. When does this armoured train go?”

“At six o’clock. It takes an hour to cover the seven miles.”

“Are the Fuzzies on the rampage—eh?”

“About three nights a week. Fact is I’m in acting command of the
night-train. It generally runs back empty to Tanai for the night.”

“Big camp at Tanai, I suppose?”

“Pretty big. It has to feed our desert-column somehow.”

“Is that far off?”

“Between thirty and forty miles—in an infernal thirsty country.”

“Is the country quiet between Tanai and our men?”

“More or less. I shouldn’t care to cross it alone, or with a subaltern’s
command for the matter of that, but the scouts get through it in some
extraordinary fashion.”

“They always did.”

“Have you been here before, then?”

“I was through most of the trouble when it first broke out.”

“In the service and cashiered,” was the subaltern’s first thought, so he
refrained from putting any questions.

“There’s your man coming up with the mules. It seems rather queer——”

“That I should be mule-leading?” said Dick.

“I didn’t mean to say so, but it is. Forgive me—it’s beastly
impertinence I know, but you speak like a man who has been at a public
school. There’s no mistaking the tone.”

“I am a public school man.”

“I thought so. I say, I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but you’re a
little down on your luck, aren’t you? I saw you sitting with your head in
your hands, and that’s why I spoke.”

“Thanks. I am about as thoroughly and completely broke as a man need be.”

“Suppose—I mean I’m a public school man myself. Couldn’t I perhaps—take
it as a loan y’know and——”

“You’re much too good, but on my honour I’ve as much money as I want. …
I tell you what you could do for me, though, and put me under an
everlasting obligation. Let me come into the bogie truck of the train.
There is a fore-truck, isn’t there?”

“Yes. How d’you know?”

“I’ve been in an armoured train before. Only let me see—hear some of
the fun I mean, and I’ll be grateful. I go at my own risk as a
non-combatant.”

The young man thought for a minute. “All right,” he said. “We’re supposed
to be an empty train, and there’s no one to blow me up at the other end.”

George and a horde of yelling amateur assistants had loaded up the mules,
and the narrow-gauge armoured train, plated with three-eighths inch
boiler-plate till it looked like one long coffin, stood ready to start.

Two bogie trucks running before the locomotive were completely covered in
with plating, except that the leading one was pierced in front for the
muzzle of a machine-gun, and the second at either side for lateral fire.

The trucks together made one long iron-vaulted chamber in which a score of
artillerymen were rioting.

“Whitechapel—last train! Ah, I see yer kissin’ in the first class
there!” somebody shouted, just as Dick was clamouring into the forward
truck.

“Lordy! ‘Ere’s a real live passenger for the Kew, Tanai, Acton, and Ealin’
train. Echo, sir. Speshul edition! Star, sir.”—“Shall I get you a
foot-warmer?” said another.

“Thanks. I’ll pay my footing,” said Dick, and relations of the most
amiable were established ere silence came with the arrival of the
subaltern, and the train jolted out over the rough track.

“This is an immense improvement on shooting the unimpressionable Fuzzy in
the open,” said Dick, from his place in the corner.

“Oh, but he’s still unimpressed. There he goes!” said the subaltern, as a
bullet struck the outside of the truck. “We always have at least one
demonstration against the night-train. Generally they attack the
rear-truck, where my junior commands. He gets all the fun of the fair.”

“Not tonight though! Listen!” said Dick. A flight of heavy-handed bullets
was succeeded by yelling and shouts. The children of the desert valued
their nightly amusement, and the train was an excellent mark.

“Is it worth giving them half a hopper full?” the subaltern asked of the
engine, which was driven by a Lieutenant of Sappers.

“I should think so! This is my section of the line. They’ll be playing old
Harry with my permanent way if we don’t stop ’em.”

“Right O!”

“Hrrmph!” said the machine gun through all its five noses as the subaltern
drew the lever home. The empty cartridges clashed on the floor and the
smoke blew back through the truck. There was indiscriminate firing at the
rear of the train, and return fire from the darkness without and unlimited
howling. Dick stretched himself on the floor, wild with delight at the
sounds and the smells.

“God is very good—I never thought I’d hear this again. Give ’em
hell, men. Oh, give ’em hell!” he cried.

The train stopped for some obstruction on the line ahead and a party went
out to reconnoitre, but came back, cursing, for spades. The children of
the desert had piled sand and gravel on the rails, and twenty minutes were
lost in clearing it away. Then the slow progress recommenced, to be varied
with more shots, more shoutings, the steady clack and kick of the machine
guns, and a final difficulty with a half-lifted rail ere the train came
under the protection of the roaring camp at Tanai-el-Hassan.

“Now, you see why it takes an hour and a half to fetch her through,” said
the subaltern, unshipping the cartridge-hopper above his pet gun.

“It was a lark, though. I only wish it had lasted twice as long. How
superb it must have looked from outside!” said Dick, sighing regretfully.

“It palls after the first few nights. By the way, when you’ve settled
about your mules, come and see what we can find to eat in my tent. I’m
Bennil of the Gunners—in the artillery lines—and mind you
don’t fall over my tent-ropes in the dark.”

But it was all dark to Dick. He could only smell the camels, the
hay-bales, the cooking, the smoky fires, and the tanned canvas of the
tents as he stood, where he had dropped from the train, shouting for
George. There was a sound of light-hearted kicking on the iron skin of the
rear trucks, with squealing and grunting. George was unloading the mules.

The engine was blowing off steam nearly in Dick’s ear; a cold wind of the
desert danced between his legs; he was hungry, and felt tired and dirty—so
dirty that he tried to brush his coat with his hands. That was a hopeless
job; he thrust his hands into his pockets and began to count over the many
times that he had waited in strange or remote places for trains or camels,
mules or horses, to carry him to his business. In those days he could see—few
men more clearly—and the spectacle of an armed camp at dinner under
the stare was an ever fresh pleasure to the eye. There was colour, light,
and motion, without which no man has much pleasure in living. This night
there remained for him only one more journey through the darkness that
never lifts to tell a man how far he has travelled. Then he would grip
Torpenhow’s hand again—Torpenhow, who was alive and strong, and
lived in the midst of the action that had once made the reputation of a
man called Dick Heldar: not in the least to be confused with the blind,
bewildered vagabond who seemed to answer to the same name. Yes, he would
find Torpenhow, and come as near to the old life as might be. Afterwards
he would forget everything: Bessie, who had wrecked the Melancolia and so
nearly wrecked his life; Beeton, who lived in a strange unreal city full
of tin-tacks and gas-plugs and matters that no men needed; that irrational
being who had offered him love and loyalty for nothing, but had not signed
her name; and most of all Maisie, who, from her own point of view, was
undeniably right in all she did, but oh, at this distance, so
tantalisingly fair.

George’s hand on his arm pulled him back to the situation.

“And what now?” said George.

“Oh yes of course. What now? Take me to the camel-men. Take me to where
the scouts sit when they come in from the desert. They sit by their
camels, and the camels eat grain out of a black blanket held up at the
corners, and the men eat by their side just like camels. Take me there!”

The camp was rough and rutty, and Dick stumbled many times over the stumps
of scrub. The scouts were sitting by their beasts, as Dick knew they
would. The light of the dung-fires flickered on their bearded faces, and
the camels bubbled and mumbled beside them at rest. It was no part of
Dick’s policy to go into the desert with a convoy of supplies. That would
lead to impertinent questions, and since a blind non-combatant is not
needed at the front, he would probably be forced to return to Suakin.

He must go up alone, and go immediately.

“Now for one last bluff—the biggest of all,” he said. “Peace be with
you, brethren!” The watchful George steered him to the circle of the
nearest fire. The heads of the camel-sheiks bowed gravely, and the camels,
scenting a European, looked sideways curiously like brooding hens, half
ready to get to their feet.

“A beast and a driver to go to the fighting line tonight,” said Dick.

“A Mulaid?” said a voice, scornfully naming the best baggage-breed that he
knew.

“A Bisharin,” returned Dick, with perfect gravity. “A Bisharin without
saddle-galls. Therefore no charge of thine, shock-head.”

Two or three minutes passed. Then—“We be knee-haltered for the
night. There is no going out from the camp.”

“Not for money?”

“H’m! Ah! English money?”

Another depressing interval of silence.

“How much?”

“Twenty-five pounds English paid into the hand of the driver at my
journey’s end, and as much more into the hand of the camel-sheik here, to
be paid when the driver returns.”

This was royal payment, and the sheik, who knew that he would get his
commission on this deposit, stirred in Dick’s behalf.

“For scarcely one night’s journey—fifty pounds. Land and wells and
good trees and wives to make a man content for the rest of his days. Who
speaks?” said Dick.

“I,” said a voice. “I will go—but there is no going from the camp.”

“Fool! I know that a camel can break his knee-halter, and the sentries do
not fire if one goes in chase. Twenty-five pounds and another twenty-five
pounds. But the beast must be a good Bisharin; I will take no
baggage-camel.”

Then the bargaining began, and at the end of half an hour the first
deposit was paid over to the sheik, who talked in low tones to the driver.

Dick heard the latter say: “A little way out only. Any baggage-beast will
serve. Am I a fool to waste my cattle for a blind man?”

“And though I cannot see”—Dick lifted his voice a little—“yet
I carry that which has six eyes, and the driver will sit before me. If we
do not reach the English troops in the dawn he will be dead.”

“But where, in God’s name, are the troops?”

“Unless thou knowest let another man ride. Dost thou know? Remember it
will be life or death to thee.”

“I know,” said the driver, sullenly. “Stand back from my beast. I am going
to slip him.”

“Not so swiftly. George, hold the camel’s head a moment. I want to feel
his cheek.” The hands wandered over the hide till they found the branded
half-circle that is the mark of the Biharin, the light-built riding-camel.

“That is well. Cut this one loose. Remember no blessing of God comes on
those who try to cheat the blind.”

The men chuckled by the fires at the camel-driver’s discomfiture. He had
intended to substitute a slow, saddle-galled baggage-colt.

“Stand back!” one shouted, lashing the Biharin under the belly with a
quirt. Dick obeyed as soon as he felt the nose-string tighten in his hand,—and
a cry went up, “Illaha! Aho! He is loose.”

With a roar and a grunt the Biharin rose to his feet and plunged forward
toward the desert, his driver following with shouts and lamentation.

George caught Dick’s arm and hurried him stumbling and tripping past a
disgusted sentry who was used to stampeding camels.

“What’s the row now?” he cried.

“Every stitch of my kit on that blasted dromedary,” Dick answered, after
the manner of a common soldier.

“Go on, and take care your throat’s not cut outside—you and your
dromedary’s.”

The outcries ceased when the camel had disappeared behind a hillock, and
his driver had called him back and made him kneel down.

“Mount first,” said Dick. Then climbing into the second seat and gently
screwing the pistol muzzle into the small of his companion’s back, “Go on
in God’s name, and swiftly. Goodbye, George. Remember me to Madame, and
have a good time with your girl. Get forward, child of the Pit!”

A few minutes later he was shut up in a great silence, hardly broken by
the creaking of the saddle and the soft pad of the tireless feet. Dick
adjusted himself comfortably to the rock and pitch of the pace, girthed
his belt tighter, and felt the darkness slide past. For an hour he was
conscious only of the sense of rapid progress.

“A good camel,” he said at last.

“He was never underfed. He is my own and clean bred,” the driver replied.

“Go on.”

His head dropped on his chest and he tried to think, but the tenor of his
thoughts was broken because he was very sleepy. In the half doze in seemed
that he was learning a punishment hymn at Mrs. Jennett’s. He had committed
some crime as bad as Sabbath-breaking, and she had locked him up in his
bedroom. But he could never repeat more than the first two lines of the
hymn—

When Israel of the Lord believed Out of the land of bondage came.

He said them over and over thousands of times. The driver turned in the
saddle to see if there were any chance of capturing the revolver and
ending the ride. Dick roused, struck him over the head with the butt, and
stormed himself wide awake. Somebody hidden in a clump of camel-thorn
shouted as the camel toiled up rising ground. A shot was fired, and the
silence shut down again, bringing the desire to sleep. Dick could think no
longer. He was too tired and stiff and cramped to do more than nod
uneasily from time to time, waking with a start and punching the driver
with the pistol.

“Is there a moon?” he asked drowsily.

“She is near her setting.”

“I wish that I could see her. Halt the camel. At least let me hear the
desert talk.”

The man obeyed. Out of the utter stillness came one breath of wind. It
rattled the dead leaves of a shrub some distance away and ceased. A
handful of dry earth detached itself from the edge of a rail trench and
crumbled softly to the bottom.

“Go on. The night is very cold.”

Those who have watched till the morning know how the last hour before the
light lengthens itself into many eternities. It seemed to Dick that he had
never since the beginning of original darkness done anything at all save
jolt through the air. Once in a thousand years he would finger the
nailheads on the saddle-front and count them all carefully. Centuries
later he would shift his revolver from his right hand to his left and
allow the eased arm to drop down at his side. From the safe distance of
London he was watching himself thus employed,—watching critically.
Yet whenever he put out his hand to the canvas that he might paint the
tawny yellow desert under the glare of the sinking moon, the black shadow
of a camel and the two bowed figures atop, that hand held a revolver and
the arm was numbed from wrist to collar-bone. Moreover, he was in the
dark, and could see no canvas of any kind whatever.

The driver grunted, and Dick was conscious of a change in the air.

“I smell the dawn,” he whispered.

“It is here, and yonder are the troops. Have I done well?”

The camel stretched out its neck and roared as there came down wind the
pungent reek of camels in the square.

“Go on. We must get there swiftly. Go on.”

“They are moving in their camp. There is so much dust that I cannot see
what they do.”

“Am I in better case? Go forward.”

They could hear the hum of voices ahead, the howling and the bubbling of
the beasts and the hoarse cries of the soldiers girthing up for the day.

Two or three shots were fired.

“Is that at us? Surely they can see that I am English,” Dick spoke
angrily.

“Nay, it is from the desert,” the driver answered, cowering in his saddle.

“Go forward, my child! Well it is that the dawn did not uncover us an hour
ago.”

The camel headed straight for the column and the shots behind multiplied.
The children of the desert had arranged that most uncomfortable of
surprises, a dawn attack for the English troops, and were getting their
distance by snap-shots at the only moving object without the square.

“What luck! What stupendous and imperial luck!” said Dick. “It’s ‘just
before the battle, mother.’ Oh, God has been most good to me! Only”—the
agony of the thought made him screw up his eyes for an instant—“Maisie…”

“Allahu! We are in,” said the man, as he drove into the rearguard and the
camel knelt.

“Who the deuce are you? Despatches or what? What’s the strength of the
enemy behind that ridge? How did you get through?” asked a dozen voices.
For all answer Dick took a long breath, unbuckled his belt, and shouted
from the saddle at the top of a wearied and dusty voice, “Torpenhow! Ohe,
Torp! Coo-ee, Tor-pen-how.”

A bearded man raking in the ashes of a fire for a light to his pipe moved
very swiftly towards that cry, as the rearguard, facing about, began to
fire at the puffs of smoke from the hillocks around. Gradually the
scattered white cloudlets drew out into the long lines of banked white
that hung heavily in the stillness of the dawn before they turned over
wave-like and glided into the valleys. The soldiers in the square were
coughing and swearing as their own smoke obstructed their view, and they
edged forward to get beyond it. A wounded camel leaped to its feet and
roared aloud, the cry ending in a bubbling grunt. Some one had cut its
throat to prevent confusion. Then came the thick sob of a man receiving
his death-wound from a bullet; then a yell of agony and redoubled firing.

There was no time to ask any questions.

“Get down, man! Get down behind the camel!”

“No. Put me, I pray, in the forefront of the battle.” Dick turned his face
to Torpenhow and raised his hand to set his helmet straight, but,
miscalculating the distance, knocked it off. Torpenhow saw that his hair
was gray on the temples, and that his face was the face of an old man.

“Come down, you damned fool! Dickie, come off!”

And Dick came obediently, but as a tree falls, pitching sideways from the
Bisharin’s saddle at Torpenhow’s feet. His luck had held to the last, even
to the crowning mercy of a kindly bullet through his head.

Torpenhow knelt under the lee of the camel, with Dick’s body in his arms.

VOLUME VII THE STORY OF THE GADSBYS

Preface

To THE ADDRESS OF

CAPTAIN J. MAFFLIN,

Duke of Derry’s (Pink) Hussars.

DEAR MAFFLIN,—You will remember that I wrote this story as an Awful
Warning. None the less you have seen fit to disregard it and have followed
Gadsby’s example—as I betted you would. I acknowledge that you paid
the money at once, but you have prejudiced the mind of Mrs. Mafflin
against myself, for though I am almost the only respectable friend of your
bachelor days, she has been darwaza band to me throughout the season.
Further, she caused you to invite me to dinner at the Club, where you
called me “a wild ass of the desert,” and went home at half-past ten,
after discoursing for twenty minutes on the responsibilities of
housekeeping. You now drive a mail-phaeton and sit under a Church of
England clergyman. I am not angry, Jack. It is your kismet, as it was
Gaddy’s, and his kismet who can avoid? Do not think that I am moved by a
spirit of revenge as I write, thus publicly, that you and you alone are
responsible for this book. In other and more expansive days, when you
could look at a magnum without flushing and at a cheroot without turning
white, you supplied me with most of the material. Take it back again—would
that I could have preserved your fetterless speech in the telling—take
it back, and by your slippered hearth read it to the late Miss Deercourt.
She will not be any the more willing to receive my cards, but she will
admire you immensely, and you, I feel sure, will love me. You may even
invite me to another very bad dinner—at the Club, which, as you and
your wife know, is a safe neutral ground for the entertainment of wild
asses. Then, my very dear hypocrite, we shall be quits.

Yours always,

RUDYARD KIPLING.

P. S.—On second thoughts I should recommend you to keep the book
away from Mrs. Mafflin.

POOR DEAR MAMMA

SCENE. Interior of Miss MINNIE THREEGAN’S Bedroom at Simla. Miss THREEGAN,
in window-seat, turning over a drawerful of things. Miss EMMA DEERCOURT,
bosom—friend, who has come to spend the day, sitting on the bed,
manipulating the bodice of a ballroom frock, and a bunch of artificial
lilies of the valley. Time, 5:30 P. M. on a hot May afternoon.

Miss DEERCOURT. And he said: “I shall never forget this dance,” and, of
course, I said: “Oh, how can you be so silly!” Do you think he meant
anything, dear?

Miss THREEGAN. (Extracting long lavender silk stocking from the rubbish.)
You know him better than I do.

Miss D. Oh, do be sympathetic, Minnie! I’m sure he does. At least I would
be sure if he wasn’t always riding with that odious Mrs. Hagan.

Miss T. I suppose so. How does one manage to dance through one’s heels
first? Look at this—isn’t it shameful? (Spreads stocking-heel on
open hand for inspection.)

Miss D. Never mind that! You can’t mend it. Help me with this hateful
bodice. I’ve run the string so, and I’ve run the string so, and I can’t
make the fulness come right. Where would you put this? (Waves lilies of
the valley.)

Miss T. As high up on the shoulder as possible.

Miss D. Am I quite tall enough? I know it makes May Older look lopsided.

Miss T. Yes, but May hasn’t your shoulders. Hers are like a hock-bottle.

BEARER. (Rapping at door.) Captain Sahib aya.

Miss D. (Jumping up wildly, and hunting for bodice, which she has
discarded owing to the heat of the day.) Captain Sahib! What Captain
Sahib? Oh, good gracious, and I’m only half dressed! Well, I sha’n’t
bother.

Miss T. (Calmly.) You needn’t. It isn’t for us. That’s Captain Gadsby. He
is going for a ride with Mamma. He generally comes five days out of the
seven.

AGONIZED VOICE. (Prom an inner apartment.) Minnie, run out and give
Captain Gadsby some tea, and tell him I shall be ready in ten minutes;
and, O Minnie, come to me an instant, there’s a dear girl!

Miss T. Oh, bother! (Aloud.) Very well, Mamma.

Exit, and reappears, after five minutes, flushed, and rubbing her fingers.

Miss D. You look pink. What has happened?

Miss T. (In a stage whisper.) A twenty-four-inch waist, and she won’t let
it out. Where are my bangles? (Rummages on the toilet-table, and dabs at
her hair with a brush in the interval.)

Miss D. Who is this Captain Gadsby? I don’t think I’ve met him.

Miss T. You must have. He belongs to the Harrar set. I’ve danced with him,
but I’ve never talked to him. He’s a big yellow man, just like a
newly-hatched chicken, with an enormous moustache. He walks like this
(imitates Cavalry swagger), and he goes “Ha-Hmmm!” deep down in his throat
when he can’t think of anything to say. Mamma likes him. I don’t.

Miss D. (Abstractedly.) Does he wax that moustache?

Miss T. (Busy with Powder-puff.) Yes, I think so. Why?

Miss D. (Bending over the bodice and sewing furiously.) Oh, nothing—only—

Miss T. (Sternly.) Only what? Out with it, Emma.

Miss D. Well, May Olger—she’s engaged to Mr. Charteris, you know—said—Promise
you won’t repeat this?

Miss T. Yes, I promise. What did she say?

Miss D. That—that being kissed (with a rush) with a man who didn’t
wax his moustache was—like eating an egg without salt.

Miss T. (At her full height, with crushing scorn.) May Olger is a horrid,
nasty Thing, and you can tell her I said so. I’m glad she doesn’t belong
to my set—I must go and feed this man! Do I look presentable?

Miss D. Yes, perfectly. Be quick and hand him over to your Mother, and
then we can talk. I shall listen at the door to hear what you say to him.

Miss T. ‘Sure I don’t care. I’m not afraid of Captain Gadsby.

In proof of this swings into the drawing-room with a mannish stride
followed by two short steps, which produces the effect of a restive horse
entering. Misses CAPTAIN GADSBY, who is sitting in the shadow of the
window-curtain, and gazes round helplessly.

CAPTAIN GADSBY. (Aside.) The filly, by Jove! ‘Must ha’ picked up that
action from the sire. (Aloud, rising.) Good evening, Miss Threegan.

Miss T. (Conscious that she is flushing.) Good evening, Captain Gadsby.
Mamma told me to say that she will be ready in a few minutes. Won’t you
have some tea? (Aside.) I hope Mamma will be quick. What am I to say to
the creature? (Aloud and abruptly.) Milk and sugar?

Capt. G. No sugar, tha-anks, and very little milk. Ha-Hmmm.

Miss T. (Aside.) If he’s going to do that, I’m lost. I shall laugh. I know
I shall!

Capt. G. (Pulling at his moustache and watching it sideways down his
nose.) Ha-Hmmm. (Aside.) ‘Wonder what the little beast can talk about.
‘Must make a shot at it.

Miss T. (Aside.) Oh, this is agonizing. I must say something.

Both Together. Have you Been—

Capt. G. I beg your pardon. You were going to say—

Miss T. (Who has been watching the moustache with awed fascination.) Won’t
you have some eggs?

Capt. G. (Looking bewilderedly at the tea-table.) Eggs! (Aside.) O Hades!
She must have a nursery-tea at this hour. S’pose they’ve wiped her mouth
and sent her to me while the Mother is getting on her duds. (Aloud.) No,
thanks.

Miss T. (Crimson with confusion.) Oh! I didn’t mean that. I wasn’t
thinking of mou—eggs for an instant. I mean salt. Won’t you have
some sa—sweets? (Aside.) He’ll think me a raving lunatic. I wish
Mamma would come.

Capt. G. (Aside.) It was a nursery-tea and she’s ashamed of it. By Jove!
She doesn’t look half bad when she colors up like that. (Aloud, helping
himself from the dish.) Have you seen those new chocolates at Peliti’s?

Miss T. No, I made these myself. What are they like?

Capt. G. These! De-licious. (Aside.) And that’s a fact.

Miss T. (Aside.) Oh, bother! he’ll think I’m fishing for compliments.
(Aloud.) No, Peliti’s of course.

Capt. G. (Enthusiastically.) Not to compare with these. How d’you make
them? I can’t get my khansamah to understand the simplest thing beyond
mutton and fowl.

Miss T. Yes? I’m not a khansamah, you know. Perhaps you frighten him. You
should never frighten a servant. He loses his head. It’s very bad policy.

Capt. G. He’s so awf’ly stupid.

Miss T. (Folding her hands in her lap.) You should call him quietly and
say: ‘O khansamah jee!’

Capt. G. (Getting interested.) Yes? (Aside.) Fancy that little
featherweight saying, ‘O khansamah jee’ to my bloodthirsty Mir Khan!

Miss T Then you should explain the dinner, dish by dish.

Capt. G. But I can’t speak the vernacular.

Miss T. (Patronizingly.) You should pass the Higher Standard and try.

Capt. G. I have, but I don’t seem to be any the wiser. Are you?

Miss T. I never passed the Higher Standard. But the khansamah is very
patient with me. He doesn’t get angry when I talk about sheep’s topees, or
order maunds of grain when I mean seers.

Capt. G. (Aside with intense indignation.) I’d like to see Mir Khan being
rude to that girl! Hullo! Steady the Buffs! (Aloud.) And do you understand
about horses, too?

Miss T. A little—not very much. I can’t doctor them, but I know what
they ought to eat, and I am in charge of our stable.

Capt. G. Indeed! You might help me then. What ought a man to give his sais
in the Hills? My ruffian says eight rupees, because everything is so dear.

Miss T. Six rupees a month, and one rupee Simla allowance—neither
more nor less. And a grass-cut gets six rupees. That’s better than buying
grass in the bazar.

Capt. G. (Admiringly.) How do you know?

Miss T. I have tried both ways.

Capt. G. Do you ride much, then? I’ve never seen you on the Mall.

Miss T. (Aside.) I haven’t passed him more than fifty times. (Aloud.)
Nearly every day.

Capt. G. By Jove! I didn’t know that. Ha-Hmmm (Pulls at his moustache and
is silent for forty seconds.)

Miss T. (Desperately, and wondering what will happen next.) It looks
beautiful. I shouldn’t touch it if I were you. (Aside.) It’s all Mamma’s
fault for not coming before. I will be rude!

Capt. G. (Bronzing under the tan and bringing down his hand very quickly.)
Eh! Wha-at! Oh, yes! Ha! Ha! (Laughs uneasily.) (Aside.) Well, of all the
dashed cheek! I never had a woman say that to me yet. She must be a cool
hand or else—Ah! that nursery-tea!

VOICE PROM THE UNKNOWN. Tchk! Tchk! Tchk!

Capt. G. Good gracious! What’s that?

Miss T. The dog, I think. (Aside.) Emma has been listening, and I’ll never
forgive her!

Capt. G. (Aside.) They don’t keep dogs here. (Aloud.) Didn’t sound like a
dog, did it?

Miss T. Then it must have been the cat. Let’s go into the veranda. What a
lovely evening it is!

Steps into veranda and looks out across the hills into sunset. The CAPTAIN
follows.

Capt. G. (Aside.) Superb eyes! I wonder that I never noticed them before!
(Aloud.) There’s going to be a dance at Viceregal Lodge on Wednesday. Can
you spare me one?

Miss T. (Shortly.) No! I don’t want any of your charity-dances. You only
ask me because Mamma told you to. I hop and I bump. You know I do!

Capt. G. (Aside.) That’s true, but little girls shouldn’t understand these
things. (Aloud.) No, on my word, I don’t. You dance beautifully.

Miss T. Then why do you always stand out after half a dozen turns? I
thought officers in the Army didn’t tell fibs.

Capt. G. It wasn’t a fib, believe me. I really do want the pleasure of a
dance with you.

Miss T. (Wickedly.) Why? Won’t Mamma dance with you any more?

Capt. G. (More earnestly than the necessity demands.) I wasn’t thinking of
your Mother. (Aside.) You little vixen!

Miss T. (Still looking out of the window.) Eh? Oh, I beg your pardon. I
was thinking of something else.

Capt. G. (Aside.) Well! I wonder what she’ll say next. I’ve never known a
woman treat me like this before. I might b—Dash it, I might be an
Infantry subaltern! (Aloud.) Oh, please don’t trouble. I’m not worth
thinking about. Isn’t your Mother ready yet?

Miss T. I should think so; but promise me, Captain Gamsby, you won’t take
poor dear Mamma twice round Jakko any more. It tires her so.

Capt. G. She says that no exercise tires her.

Miss T. Yes, but she suffers afterward. You don’t know what rheumatism is,
and you oughtn’t to keep her out so late, when it gets chill in the
evenings.

Capt. G. (Aside.) Rheumatism. I thought she came off her horse rather in a
bunch. Whew! One lives and learns. (Aloud.) I’m sorry to hear that. She
hasn’t mentioned it to me.

Miss T. (Flurried.) Of course not! Poor dear Mamma never would. And you
mustn’t say that I told you either. Promise me that you won’t. Oh, Captain
Gamsby, promise me you won’t!

Capt. G. I am dumb, or—I shall be as soon as you’ve given me that
dance, and another—if you can trouble yourself to think about me for
a minute.

Miss T. But you won’t like it one little bit. You’ll be awfully sorry
afterward.

Capt. G. I shall like it above all things, and I shall only be sorry that
I didn’t get more. (Aside.) Now what in the world am I saying?

Miss T. Very well. You will have only yourself to thank if your toes are
trodden on. Shall we say Seven?

Capt. G. And Eleven. (Aside.) She can’t be more than eight stone, but,
even then, it’s an absurdly small foot. (Looks at his own riding boots.)

Miss T. They’re beautifully shiny. I can almost see my face in them.

Capt. G. I was thinking whether I should have to go on crutches for the
rest of my life if you trod on my toes.

Miss T. Very likely. Why not change Eleven for a square?

Capt. G. No, please! I want them both waltzes. Won’t you write them down?

Miss T. I don’t get so many dances that I shall confuse them. You will be
the offender.

Capt. G. Wait and see! (Aside.) She doesn’t dance perfectly, perhaps, but—

Miss T. Your tea must have got cold by this time. Won’t you have another
cup?

Capt. G. No, thanks. Don’t you think it’s pleasanter out in the veranda?
(Aside.) I never saw hair take that color in the sunshine before. (Aloud.)
It’s like one of Dicksee’s pictures.

Miss T. Yes I It’s a wonderful sunset, isn’t it? (Bluntly.) But what do
you know about Dicksee’s pictures?

Capt. G. I go Home occasionally. And I used to know the Galleries.
(Nervously.) You mustn’t think me only a Philistine with a moustache.

Miss T. Don’t! Please don’t. I’m so sorry for what I said then. I was
horribly rude. It slipped out before j thought. Don’t you know the
temptation to say frightful and shocking things just for the mere sake of
saying them? I’m afraid I gave way to it.

Capt. G. (Watching the girl as she flushes.) I think I know the feeling.
It would be terrible if we all yielded to it, wouldn’t it? For instance, I
might say—

POOR DEAR MAMMA. (Entering, habited, hatted, and booted.) Ah, Captain
Gamsby? ‘Sorry to keep you waiting. ‘Hope you haven’t been bored. ‘My
little girl been talking to you?

Miss T. (Aside.) I’m not sorry I spoke about the rheumatism. I’m not! I’m
NOT! I only wished I’d mentioned the corns too.

Capt. G. (Aside.) What a shame! I wonder how old she is. It never occurred
to me before. (Aloud.) We’ve been discussing ‘Shakespeare and the musical
glasses’ in the veranda.

Miss T. (Aside.) Nice man! He knows that quotation. He isn’t a Philistine
with a moustache. (Aloud.) Goodbye, Captain Gadsby. (Aside.) What a huge
hand and what a squeeze! I don’t suppose he meant it, but he has driven
the rings into my fingers.

Poor Dear Mamma. Has Vermillion come round yet? Oh, yes! Captain Gadsby,
don’t you think that the saddle is too far forward? (They pass into the
front veranda.)

Capt. G. (Aside.) How the dickens should I know what she prefers? She told
me that she doted on horses. (Aloud.) I think it is.

Miss T. (Coming out into front veranda.) Oh! Bad Buldoo! I must speak to
him for this. He has taken up the curb two links, and Vermillion bates
that. (Passes out and to horse’s head.)

Capt. G. Let me do it!

Miss. T. No, Vermillion understands me. Don’t you, old man? (Loosens
curb-chain skilfully, and pats horse on nose and throttle.) Poor
Vermillion! Did they want to cut his chin off? There!

Captain Gadsby watches the interlude with undisguised admiration.

Poor Dear Mamma. (Tartly to Miss T.) You’ve forgotten your guest, I think,
dear.

Miss T. Good gracious! So I have! Goodbye. (Retreats indoors hastily.)

Poor Dear Mamma. (Bunching reins in fingers hampered by too tight
gauntlets.) CAPTAIN Gadsby!

CAPTAIN GADSBY stoops and makes the foot-rest. Poor Dear Mamma blunders,
halts too long, and breaks through it.

Capt. G. (Aside.) Can’t hold up seven stone forever. It’s all your
rheumatism. (Aloud.) Can’t imagine why I was so clumsy. (Aside.) Now
Little Featherweight would have gone up like a bird.

They ride out of the garden. The Captain falls back.

Capt. G. (Aside.) How that habit catches her under the arms! Ugh!

Poor Dear Mamma. (With the worn smile of sixteen seasons, the worse for
exchange.) You’re dull this afternoon, Captain Gadsby.

Capt. G. (Spurring up wearily.) Why did you keep me waiting so long?

Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

(AN INTERVAL OF THREE WEEKS.)

GILDED YOUTH. (Sitting on railings opposite Town Hall.) Hullo, Gadsby!
‘Been trotting out the Gorgonzola! We all thought it was the Gorgon you’re
mashing.

Capt. G. (With withering emphasis.) You young cub! What the—does it
matter to you?

Proceeds to read GILDED YOUTH a lecture on discretion and deportment,
which crumbles latter like a Chinese Lantern. Departs fuming.

(FURTHER INTERVAL OF FIVE WEEKS.) SCENE. Exterior of New Simla Library on
a foggy evening. Miss THREEGAN and Miss DEERCOURT meet among the
‘rickshaws. Miss T. is carrying a bundle of books under her left arm.

Miss D. (Level intonation.) Well?

Miss T. (Ascending intonation.) Well?

Miss D. (Capturing her friend’s left arm, taking away all the books,
placing books in ‘rickshaw, returning to arm, securing hand by third
finger and investigating.) Well! You bad girl! And you never told me.

Miss T. (Demurely.) He—he—he only spoke yesterday afternoon.

Miss D. Bless you, dear! And I’m to be bridesmaid, aren’t I? You know you
promised ever so long ago.

Miss T. Of course. I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow. (Gets into
‘rickshaw.) O Emma!

Miss D. (With intense interest.) Yes, dear?

Miss T. (Piano.) It’s quite true—about-the-egg.

Miss D. What egg?

Miss T. (Pianissimo prestissimo.) The egg without the salt. (Forte.) Chalo
ghar ko jaldi, jhampani! (Go home, jhampani.)

THE WORLD WITHOUT

Certain people of importance.

SCENE. Smoking-room of the Degchi Club. Time, 10.30 P. M. of a stuffy
night in the Rains. Four men dispersed in picturesque attitudes and
easy-chairs. To these enter BLAYNE of the Irregular Moguls, in evening
dress.

BLAYNE. Phew! The Judge ought to be hanged in his own store-godown. Hi,
khitmatgar! Pour a whiskey-peg, to take the taste out of my mouth.

CURTISS. (Royal Artillery.) That’s it, is it? What the deuce made you dine
at the Judge’s? You know his bandobust.

Blayne. ‘Thought it couldn’t be worse than the Club, but I’ll swear he
buys ullaged liquor and doctors it with gin and ink (looking round the
room.) Is this all of you tonight?

DOONE. (P.W.D.) Anthony was called out at dinner. Mingle had a pain in his
tummy.

Curtiss. Miggy dies of cholera once a week in the Rains, and gets drunk on
chlorodyne in between. Good little chap, though. Any one at the Judge’s,
Blayne?

Blayne. Cockley and his memsahib looking awfully white and fagged. Female
girl—couldn’tcatch the name—on her way to the Hills, under the
Cockleys’ charge—the Judge, and Markyn fresh from Simla—disgustingly
fit.

Curtiss. Good Lord, how truly magnificent! Was there enough ice? When I
mangled garbage there I got one whole lump—nearly as big as a
walnut. What had Markyn to say for himself?

Blayne. Seems that every one is having a fairly good time up there in
spite of the rain. By Jove, that reminds me! I know I hadn’tcome across
just for the pleasure of your society. News! Great news! Markyn told me.

DOONE. Who’s dead now?

Blayne. No one that I know of; but Gadsby’s hooked at last!

DROPPING CHORUS. How much? The Devil! Markyn was pulling your leg. Not
GADSBY!

Blayne. (Humming.) “Yea, verily, verily, verily! Verily, verily, I say
unto thee.” Theodore, the gift ‘o God! Our Phillup! It’s been given out up
above.

MACKESY. (Barrister-at-Law.) Huh! Women will give out anything. What does
accused say?

Blayne. Markyn told me that he congratulated him warily—one hand
held out, t’other ready to guard. Gadsby turned pink and said it was so.

Curtiss. Poor old Caddy! They all do it. Who’s she? Let’s hear the
details.

Blayne. She’s a girl—daughter of a Colonel Somebody.

Doone. Simla’s stiff with Colonels’ daughters. Be more explicit.

Blayne. Wait a shake. What was her name? Thresomething. Three—

Curtiss. Stars, perhaps. Caddy knows that brand.

Blayne. Threegan—Minnie Threegan.

Mackesy. Threegan Isn’t she a little bit of a girl with red hair?

Blayne. ‘Bout that—from what from what Markyn said.

Mackesy. Then I’ve met her. She was at Lucknow last season. ‘Owned a
permanently juvenile Mamma, and danced damnably. I say, Jervoise, you knew
the Threegans, didn’t you?

JERVOISE. (Civilian of twenty-five years’ service, waking up from his
doze.) Eh? What’s that? Knew who? How? I thought I was at Home, confound
you!

Mackesy. The Threegan girl’s engaged, so Blayne says.

Jervoise. (Slowly.) Engaged—en-gaged! Bless my soul! I’m getting an
old man! Little Minnie Threegan engaged. It was only the other day I went
home with them in the Surat—no, the Massilia—and she was
crawling about on her hands and knees among the ayahs. ‘Used to call me
the “Tick Tack Sahib” because I showed her my watch. And that was in
Sixty-Seven—no, Seventy. Good God, how time flies! I’m an old man. I
remember when Threegan married Miss Derwent—daughter of old Hooky
Derwent—but that was before your time. And so the little baby’s
engaged to have a little baby of her own! Who’s the other fool?

Mackesy. Gadsby of the Pink Hussars.

Jervoise. ‘Never met him. Threegan lived in debt, married in debt, and’ll
die in debt. ‘Must be glad to get the girl off his hands.

Blayne. Caddy has money—lucky devil. Place at Home, too.

Doone. He comes of first-class stock. ‘Can’t quite understand his being
caught by a Colonel’s daughter, and (looking cautiously round room.) Black
Infantry at that! No offence to you, Blayne.

Blayne. (Stiffly.) Not much, thaanks.

Curtiss. (Quoting motto of Irregular Moguls.) “We are what we are,” eh,
old man? But Gadsby was such a superior animal as a rule. Why didn’t he go
Home and pick his wife there?

Mackesy. They are all alike when they come to the turn into the straight.
About thirty a man begins to get sick of living alone.

Curtiss. And of the eternal mutton—chop in the morning.

Doone. It’s a dead goat as a rule, but go on, Mackesy.

Mackesy. If a man’s once taken that way nothing will hold him, Do you
remember Benoit of your service, Doone? They transferred him to Tharanda
when his time came, and he married a platelayer’s daughter, or something
of that kind. She was the only female about the place.

Doone. Yes, poor brute. That smashed Benoit’s chances of promotion
altogether. Mrs. Benoit used to ask “Was you goin’ to the dance this
evenin’?”

Curtiss. Hang it all! Gadsby hasn’t married beneath him. There’s no
tar-brush in the family, I suppose.

Jervoise. Tar-brush! Not an anna. You young fellows talk as though the man
was doing the girl an honor in marrying her. You’re all too conceited—nothing’s
good enough for you.

Blayne. Not even an empty Club, a dam’ bad dinner at the Judge’s, and a
Station as sickly as a hospital. You’re quite right. We’re a set of
Sybarites.

Doone. Luxurious dogs, wallowing in—

Curtiss. Prickly heat between the shoulders. I’m covered with it. Let’s
hope Beora will be cooler.

Blayne. Whew! Are you ordered into camp, too? I thought the Gunners had a
clean sheet.

Curtiss. No, worse luck. Two cases yesterday—one died—and if
we have a third, out we go. Is there any shooting at Beora, Doone?

Doone. The country’s under water, except the patch by the Grand Trunk
Road. I was there yesterday, looking at a bund, and came across four poor
devils in their last stage. It’s rather bad from here to Kuchara.

Curtiss. Then we’re pretty certain to have a heavy go of it. Heigho! I
shouldn’t mind changing places with Gaddy for a while. ‘Sport with
Amaryllis in the shade of the Town Hall, and all that. Oh, why doesn’t
somebody come and marry me, instead of letting me go into cholera-camp?

Mackesy. Ask the Committee.

Curtiss. You ruffian! You’ll stand me another peg for that. Blayne, what
will you take? Mackesy is fine on moral grounds. Done, have you any
preference?

Doone. Small glass Kummel, please. Excellent carminative, these days.
Anthony told me so.

Mackesy. (Signing voucher for four drinks.) Most unfair punishment. I only
thought of Curtiss as Actaeon being chivied round the billiard tables by
the nymphs of Diana.

Blayne. Curtiss would have to import his nymphs by train. Mrs. Cockley’s
the only woman in the Station. She won’t leave Cockley, and he’s doing his
best to get her to go.

Curtiss. Good, indeed! Here’s Mrs. Cockley’s health. To the only wife in
the Station and a damned brave woman!

OMNES. (Drinking.) A damned brave woman

Blayne. I suppose Gadsby will bring his wife here at the end of the cold
weather. They are going to be married almost immediately, I believe.

Curtiss. Gadsby may thank his luck that the Pink Hussars are all
detachment and no headquarters this hot weather, or he’d be torn from the
arms of his love as sure as death. Have you ever noticed the
thorough-minded way British Cavalry take to cholera? It’s because they are
so expensive. If the Pinks had stood fast here, they would have been out
in camp a month ago. Yes, I should decidedly like to be Gadsby.

Mackesy. He’ll go Home after he’s married, and send in his papers—see
if he doesn’t.

Blayne. Why shouldn’t he? Hasn’t he money? Would any one of us be here if
we weren’t paupers?

Doone. Poor old pauper! What has become of the six hundred you rooked from
our table last month?

Blayne. It took unto itself wings. I think an enterprising tradesman got
some of it, and a shroff gobbled the rest—or else I spent it.

Curtiss. Gadsby never had dealings with a shroff in his life.

Doone. Virtuous Gadsby! If I had three thousand a month, paid from
England, I don’t think I’d deal with a shroff either.

Mackesy. (Yawning.) Oh, it’s a sweet life! I wonder whether matrimony
would make it sweeter.

Curtiss. Ask Cockley—with his wife dying by inches!

Blayne. Go home and get a fool of a girl to come out to—what is it
Thackeray says?—“the splendid palace of an Indian pro-consul.”

Doone. Which reminds me. My quarters leak like a sieve. I had fever last
night from sleeping in a swamp. And the worst of it is, one can’t do
anything to a roof till the Rains are over.

Curtiss. What’s wrong with you? You haven’t eighty rotting Tommies to take
into a running stream.

Doone. No: but I’m mixed boils and bad language. I’m a regular Job all
over my body. It’s sheer poverty of blood, and I don’t see any chance of
getting richer—either way.

Blayne. Can’t you take leave?

Doone. That’s the pull you Army men have over us. Ten days are nothing in
your sight. I’m so important that Government can’t find a substitute if I
go away. Ye-es, I’d like to be Gadsby, whoever his wife may be.

Curtiss. You’ve passed the turn of life that Mackesy was speaking of.

Doone. Indeed I have, but I never yet had the brutality to ask a woman to
share my life out here.

Blayne. On my soul I believe you’re right. I’m thinking of Mrs. Cockley.
The woman’s an absolute wreck.

Doone. Exactly. Because she stays down here. The only way to keep her fit
would be to send her to the Hills for eight months—and the same with
any woman. I fancy I see myself taking a wife on those terms.

Mackesy. With the rupee at one and sixpence. The little Doones would be
little Debra Doones, with a fine Mussoorie @chi-chi anent to bring home
for the holidays.

Curtiss. And a pair of be-ewtiful sambhur—horns for Doone to wear,
free of expense, presented by—Doone. Yes, it’s an enchanting
prospect. By the way, the rupee hasn’t done falling yet. The time will
come when we shall think ourselves lucky if we only lose half our pay.

Curtiss. Surely a third’s loss enough. Who gains by the arrangement?
That’s what I want to know.

Blayne. The Silver Question! I’m going to bed if you begin squabbling
Thank Goodness, here’s Anthony—looking like a ghost.

Enter ANTHONY, Indian Medical Staff, very white and tired.

Anthony. ‘Evening, Blayne. It’s raining in sheets. Whiskey peg lao,
khitmatgar. The roads are something ghastly.

Curtiss. How’s Mingle?

Anthony. Very bad, and more frightened. I handed him over to Fewton.
Mingle might just as well have called him in the first place, instead of
bothering me.

Blayne. He’s a nervous little chap. What has he got, this time?

Anthony. ‘Can’t quite say. A very bad tummy and a blue funk so far. He
asked me at once if it was cholera, and I told him not to be a fool. That
soothed him.

Curtiss. Poor devil! The funk does half the business in a man of that
build.

Anthony. (Lighting a cheroot.) I firmly believe the funk will kill him if
he stays down. You know the amount of trouble he’s been giving Fewton for
the last three weeks. He’s doing his very best to frighten himself into
the grave.

GENERAL CHORUS. Poor little devil! Why doesn’t he get away?

Anthony. ‘Can’t. He has his leave all right, but he’s so dipped he can’t
take it, and I don’t think his name on paper would raise four annas.
That’s in confidence, though.

Mackesy. All the Station knows it.

Anthony. “I suppose I shall have to die here,” he said, squirming all
across the bed. He’s quite made up his mind to Kingdom Come. And I know he
has nothing more than a wet-weather tummy if he could only keep a hand on
himself.

Blayne. That’s bad. That’s very bad. Poor little Miggy. Good little chap,
too. I say—

Anthony. What do you say?

Blayne. Well, look here—anyhow. If it’s like that—as you say—I
say fifty.

Curtiss. I say fifty.

Mackesy. I go twenty better.

Doone. Bloated Croesus of the Bar! I say fifty. Jervoise, what do you say?
Hi! Wake up!

Jervoise. Eh? What’s that? What’s that?

Curtiss. We want a hundred rupees from you. You’re a bachelor drawing a
gigantic income, and there’s a man in a hole.

Jervoise. What man? Any one dead?

Blayne. No, but he’ll die if you don’t—give the hundred. Here!
Here’s a peg-voucher. You can see what we’ve signed for, and Anthony’s man
will come round tomorrow to collect it. So there will be no trouble.

Jervoise. (Signing.) One hundred, E. M. J. There you are (feebly). It
isn’t one of your jokes, is it?

Blayne. No, it really is wanted. Anthony, you were the biggest
poker-winner last week, and you’ve defrauded the tax-collector too long.
Sign!

Anthony. Let’s see. Three fifties and a seventy-two twenty-three twenty—say
four hundred and twenty. That’ll give him a month clear at the Hills. Many
thanks, you men. I’ll send round the chaprassi tomorrow.

Curtiss. You must engineer his taking the stuff, and of course you mustn’t—

Anthony. Of course. It would never do. He’d weep with gratitude over his
evening drink.

Blayne. That’s just what he would do, damn him. Oh! I say, Anthony, you
pretend to know everything. Have you heard about Gadsby?

Anthony. No. Divorce Court at last?

Blayne. Worse. He’s engaged!

Anthony. How much? He can’t be!

Blayne. He is. He’s going to be married in a few weeks. Markyn told me at
the Judge’s this evening. It’s pukka.

Anthony. You don’t say so? Holy Moses! There’ll be a shine in the tents of
Kedar.

Curtiss. ‘Regiment cut up rough, think you?

Anthony. ‘Don’t know anything about the Regiment.

Mackesy. It is bigamy, then?

Anthony. Maybe. Do you mean to say that you men have forgotten, or is
there more charity in the world than I thought?

Doone. You don’t look pretty when you are trying to keep a secret. You
bloat. Explain.

Anthony. Mrs. Herriott!

Blayne. (After a long pause, to the room generally.) It’s my notion that
we are a set of fools.

Mackesy. Nonsense. That business was knocked on the head last season. Why,
young Mallard—

Anthony. Mallard was a candlestick, paraded as such. Think awhile.
Recollect last season and the talk then. Mallard or no Mallard, did Gadsby
ever talk to any other woman?

Curtiss. There’s something in that. It was slightly noticeable now you
come to mention it. But she’s at Naini Tal and he’s at Simla.

Anthony. He had to go to Simla to look after a globe-trotter relative of
his—a person with a title. Uncle or aunt.

Blayne And there he got engaged. No law prevents a man growing tired of a
woman.

Anthony. Except that he mustn’t do it till the woman is tired of him. And
the Herriott woman was not that.

Curtiss. She may be now. Two months of Naini Tal works wonders.

Doone. Curious thing how some women carry a Fate with them. There was a
Mrs. Deegie in the Central Provinces whose men invariably fell away and
got married. It became a regular proverb with us when I was down there. I
remember three men desperately devoted to her, and they all, one after
another, took wives.

Curtiss. That’s odd. Now I should have thought that Mrs. Deegie’s
influence would have led them to take other men’s wives. It ought to have
made them afraid of the judgment of Providence.

Anthony. Mrs. Herriott will make Gadsby afraid of something more than the
judgment of Providence, I fancy.

Blayne. Supposing things are as you say, he’ll be a fool to face her.
He’ll sit tight at Simla.

Anthony. Shouldn’t be a bit surprised if he went off to Naini to explain.
He’s an unaccountable sort of man, and she’s likely to be a more than
unaccountable woman.

Doone. What makes you take her character away so confidently?

Anthony. Primum tempus. Caddy was her first and a woman doesn’t allow her
first man to drop away without expostulation. She justifies the first
transfer of affection to herself by swearing that it is forever and ever.
Consequently—

Blayne. Consequently, we are sitting here till past one o’clock, talking
scandal like a set of Station cats. Anthony, it’s all your fault. We were
perfectly respectable till you came in. Go to bed. I’m off, Good night
all.

Curtiss. Past one! It’s past two by Jove, and here’s the khit coming for
the late charge. Just Heavens! One, two, three, four, five rupees to pay
for the pleasure of saying that a poor little beast of a woman is no
better than she should be. I’m ashamed of myself. Go to bed, you
slanderous villains, and if I’m sent to Beora tomorrow, be prepared to
hear I’m dead before paying my card account!

THE TENTS OF KEDAR

SCENE. A Naini Tal dinner for thirty-four. Plate, wines, crockery, and
khitmatgars carefully calculated to scale of Rs. 6000 per mensem, less
Exchange. Table split lengthways by bank of flowers.

MRS. HERRIOTT. (After conversation has risen to proper pitch.) Ah! ‘Didn’t
see you in the crush in the drawing-room. (Sotto voce.) Where have you
been all this while, Pip?

CAPTAIN GADSBY. (Turning from regularly ordained dinner partner and
settling hock glasses.) Good evening. (Sotto voce.) Not quite so loud
another time. You’ve no notion how your voice carries. (Aside.) So much
for shirking the written explanation. It’ll have to be a verbal one now.
Sweet prospect! How on earth am I to tell her that I am a respectable,
engaged member of society and it’s all over between us?

MRS. H. I’ve a heavy score against you. Where were you at the Monday Pop?
Where were you on Tuesday? Where were you at the Lamonts’ tennis? I was
looking everywhere.

Capt. G. For me! Oh, I was alive somewhere, I suppose. (Aside.) It’s for
Minnie’s sake, but it’s going to be dashed unpleasant.

Mrs. H. Have I done anything to offend you? I never meant it if I have. I
couldn’t help going for a ride with the Vaynor man. It was promised a week
before you came up.

Capt. G. I didn’t know—

Mrs. H. It really was.

Capt. G. Anything about it, I mean.

Mrs. H. What has upset you today? All these days? You haven’t been near me
for four whole days—nearly one hundred hours. Was it kind of you,
Pip? And I’ve been looking forward so much to your coming.

Capt. G. Have you?

Mrs. H. You know I have! I’ve been as foolish as a schoolgirl about it. I
made a little calendar and put it in my card-case, and every time the
twelve o’clock gun went off I scratched out a square and said: “That
brings me nearer to Pip. My Pip!”

Capt. G. (With an uneasy laugh). What will Mackler think if you neglect
him so?

Mrs. H. And it hasn’t brought you nearer. You seem farther away than ever.
Are you sulking about something? I know your temper.

Capt. G. No.

Mrs. H. Have I grown old in the last few months, then? (Reaches forward to
bank of flowers for menu-card.)

PARTNER ON LEFT. Allow me. (Hands menu-card. Mrs. H. keeps her arm at full
stretch for three seconds.)

Mrs. H. (To partner.) Oh, thanks. I didn’t see. (Turns right again.) Is
anything in me changed at all?

Capt. G. For Goodness’s sake go on with your dinner! You must eat
something. Try one of those cutlet arrangements. (Aside.) And I fancied
she had good shoulders, once upon a time! What an ass a man can make of
himself!

Mrs. H. (Helping herself to a paper frill, seven peas, some stamped
carrots and a spoonful of gravy.) That isn’t an answer. Tell me whether I
have done anything.

Capt. G. (Aside.) If it isn’t ended here there will be a ghastly scene
some-where else. If only I’d written to her and stood the racket at long
range! (To Khitmatgar.) Han! Simpkin do. (Aloud.) I’ll tell you later on.

Mrs. H. Tell me now. It must be some foolish misunderstanding, and you
know that there was to be nothing of that sort between us. We, of all
people in the world, can’t afford it. Is it the Vaynor man, and don’t you
like to say so? On my honor—

Capt. G. I haven’t given the Vaynor man a thought.

Mrs. H. But how d’you know that I haven’t?

Capt. G. (Aside.) Here’s my chance and may the Devil help me through with
it. (Aloud and measuredly.) Believe me, I do not care how often or how
tenderly you think of the Vaynor man.

Mrs. H. I wonder if you mean that! Oh, what is the good of squabbling and
pretending to misunderstand when you are only up for so short a time? Pip,
don’t be a stupid!

Follows a pause, during which he crosses his left leg over his right and
continues his dinner.

Capt. G. (In answer to the thunderstorm in her eyes.) Corns—my
worst.

Mrs. H. Upon my word, you are the very rudest man in the world! I’ll never
do it again.

Capt. G. (Aside.) No, I don’t think you will; but I wonder what you will
do before it’s all over. (To Khitmatgar.) Thorah ur Simpkin do.

Mrs. H. Well! Haven’t you the grace to apologize, bad man?

Capt. G. (Aside.) I mustn’t let it drift back now. Trust a woman for being
as blind as a bat when she won’t see.

Mrs. H. I’m waiting; or would you like me to dictate a form of apology?

Capt. G. (Desperately.) By all means dictate.

Mrs. H. (Lightly.) Very well. Rehearse your several Christian names after
me and go on: “Profess my sincere repentance.”

Capt. G. “Sincere repentance.”

Mrs. H. “For having behaved”—

Capt. G. (Aside.) At last! I wish to Goodness she’d look away. “For having
behaved”—as I have behaved, and declare that I am thoroughly and
heartily sick of the whole business, and take this opportunity of making
clear my intention of ending it, now, henceforward, and forever. (Aside.)
If any one had told me I should be such a blackguard!—

Mrs. H. (Shaking a spoonful of potato chips into her plate.) That’s not a
pretty joke.

Capt. G. No. It’s a reality. (Aside.) I wonder if smashes of this kind are
always so raw.

Mrs. H. Really, Pip, you’re getting more absurd every day.

Capt. G. I don’t think you quite understand me. Shall I repeat it?

Mrs. H. No! For pity’s sake don’t do that. It’s too terrible, even in fur.

Capt. G. I’ll let her think it over for a while. But I ought to be
horsewhipped.

Mrs. H. I want to know what you meant by what you said just now.

Capt. G. Exactly what I said. No less.

Mrs. H. But what have I done to deserve it? What have I done?

Capt. G. (Aside.) If she only wouldn’t look at me. (Aloud and very slowly,
his eyes on his plate.) D’you remember that evening in July, before the
Rains broke, when you said that the end would have to come sooner or later—and
you wondered for which of US it would come first?

Mrs. H. Yes! I was only joking. And you swore that, as long as there was
breath in your body, it should never come. And I believed you.

Capt. G. (Fingering menu-card.) Well, it has. That’s all.

A long pause, during which Mrs. H. bows her head and rolls the bread-twist
into little pellets; G. stares at the oleanders.

Mrs. H. (Throwing back her head and laughing naturally.) They train us
women well, don’t they, Pip?

Capt. G. (Brutally, touching shirt-stud.) So far as the expression goes.
(Aside.) It isn’t in her nature to take things quietly. There’ll be an
explosion yet.

Mrs. H. (With a shudder.) Thank you. B-but even Red Indians allow people
to wriggle when they’re being tortured, I believe. (Slips fan from girdle
and fans slowly: rim of fan level with chin.)

PARTNER ON LEFT. Very close tonight, isn’t it? ‘You find it too much for
you?

Mrs. H. Oh, no, not in the least. But they really ought to have punkahs,
even in your cool Naini Tal, oughtn’t they? (Turns, dropping fan and
raising eyebrows.)

Capt. G. It’s all right. (Aside.) Here comes the storm!

Mrs. H. (Her eyes on the tablecloth: fan ready in right hand.) It was very
cleverly managed, Pip, and I congratulate you. You swore—you never
contented yourself with merely Saying a thing—you swore that, as far
as lay in your power, you’d make my wretched life pleasant for me. And
you’ve denied me the consolation of breaking down. I should have done it—indeed
I should. A woman would hardly have thought of this refinement, my kind,
considerate friend. (Fan-guard as before.) You have explained things so
tenderly and truthfully, too! You haven’t spoken or written a word of
warning, and you have let me believe in you till the last minute. You
haven’t condescended to give me your reason yet. No! A woman could not
have managed it half so well. Are there many men like you in the world?

Capt. G. I’m sure I don’t know. (To Khitmatgar.) Ohe! Simpkin do.

Mrs. H. You call yourself a man of the world, don’t you? Do men of the
world behave like Devils when they do a woman the honor to get tired of
her?

Capt. G. I’m sure I don’t know. Don’t speak so loud!

Mrs. H. Keep us respectable, O Lord, whatever happens. Don’t be afraid of
my compromising you. You’ve chosen your ground far too well, and I’ve been
properly brought up. (Lowering fan.) Haven’t you any pity, Pip, except for
yourself?

Capt. G. Wouldn’t it be rather impertinent of me to say that I’m sorry for
you?

Mrs. H. I think you have said it once or twice before. You’re growing very
careful of my feelings. My God, Pip, I was a good woman once! You said I
was. You’ve made me what I am. What are you going to do with me? What are
you going to do with me? Won’t you say that you are sorry? (Helps herself
to iced asparagus.)

Capt. G. I am sorry for you, if you WANT the pity of such a brute as I am.
I’m awf’ly sorry for you.

Mrs. H. Rather tame for a man of the world. Do you think that that
admission clears you?

Capt. G. What can I do? I can only tell you what I think of myself. You
can’t think worse than that?

Mrs. H. Oh, yes, I can! And now, will you tell me the reason of all this?
Remorse? Has Bayard been suddenly conscience-stricken?

Capt. G. (Angrily, his eyes still lowered.) No! The thing has come to an
end on my side. That’s all. Mafisch!

Mrs. H. “That’s all. Mafisch!” As though I were a Cairene Dragoman. You
used to make prettier speeches. D’you remember when you said?—

Capt. G. For Heaven’s sake don’t bring that back! Call me anything you
like and I’ll admit it—

Mrs. H. But you don’t care to be reminded of old lies? If I could hope to
hurt you one-tenth as much as you have hurt me tonight—No, I
wouldn’t—I couldn’t do it—liar though you are.

Capt. G. I’ve spoken the truth.

Mrs. H. My dear Sir, you flatter yourself. You have lied over the reason.
Pip, remember that I know you as you don’t know yourself. You have been
everything to me, though you are—(Fan-guard.) Oh, what a
contemptible Thing it is! And so you are merely tired of me?

Capt. G. Since you insist upon my repeating it—Yes.

Mrs. H. Lie the first. I wish I knew a coarser word. Lie seems so
ineffectual in your case. The fire has just died out and there is no fresh
one? Think for a minute, Pip, if you care whether I despise you more than
I do. Simply Mafisch, is it?

Capt. G. Yes. (Aside.) I think I deserve this.

Mrs. H. Lie number two. Before the next glass chokes you, tell me her
name.

Capt. G. (Aside.) I’ll make her pay for dragging Minnie into the business!
(Aloud.) Is it likely?

Mrs. H. Very likely if you thought that it would flatter your vanity.
You’d cry my name on the house-tops to make people turn round.

Capt. G. I wish I had. There would have been an end to this business.

Mrs. H. Oh, no, there would not—And so you were going to be virtuous
and blase’, were you? To come to me and say: “I’ve done with you. The
incident is clo-osed.” I ought to be proud of having kept such a man so
long.

Capt. G. (Aside.) It only remains to pray for the end of the dinner.
(Aloud.) You know what I think of myself.

Mrs. H. As it’s the only person in he world you ever do think of, and as I
know your mind thoroughly, I do. You want to get it all over and—Oh,
I can’t keep you back! And you’re going—think of it, Pip—to
throw me over for another woman. And you swore that all other women were—Pip,
my Pip! She can’t care for you as I do. Believe me, she can’t. Is it any
one that I know?

Capt. G. Thank Goodness it isn’t. (Aside.) I expected a cyclone, but not
an earthquake.

Mrs. H. She can’t! Is there anything that I wouldn’t do for you—or
haven’t done? And to think that I should take this trouble over you,
knowing what you are! Do you despise me for it?

Capt. G. (Wiping his mouth to hide a smile.) Again? It’s entirely a work
of charity on your part.

Mrs. H. Ahhh! But I have no right to resent it.—Is she
better-looking than I? Who was it said?—

Capt. G. No—not that!

Mrs. H. I’ll be more merciful than you were. Don’t you know that all women
are alike?

Capt. G. (Aside.) Then this is the exception that proves the rule.

Mrs. H. All of them! I’ll tell you anything you like. I will, upon my
word! They only want the admiration—from anybody—no matter who—anybody!
But there is always one man that they care for more than any one else in
the world, and would sacrifice all the others to. Oh, do listen! I’ve kept
the Vaynor man trotting after me like a poodle, and he believes that he is
the only man I am interested in. I’ll tell you what he said to me.

Capt. G. Spare him. (Aside.) I wonder what his version is.

Mrs. H. He’s been waiting for me to look at him all through dinner. Shall
I do it, and you can see what an idiot he looks?

Capt. G. “But what imports the nomination of this gentleman?”

Mrs. H. Watch! (Sends a glance to the Vaynor man, who tries vainly to
combine a mouthful of ice pudding, a smirk of self-satisfaction, a glare
of intense devotion, and the stolidity of a British dining countenance.)

Capt. G. (Critically.) He doesn’t look pretty. Why didn’t you wait till
the spoon was out of his mouth?

Mrs. H. To amuse you. She’ll make an exhibition of you as I’ve made of
him; and people will laugh at you. Oh, Pip, can’t you see that? It’s as
plain as the noonday Sun. You’ll be trotted about and told lies, and made
a fool of like the others. I never made a fool of you, did I?

Capt. G. (Aside.) What a clever little woman it is!

Mrs. H. Well, what have you to say?

Capt. G. I feel better.

Mrs. H. Yes, I suppose so, after I have come down to your level. I
couldn’t have done it if I hadn’t cared for you so much. I have spoken the
truth.

Capt. G. It doesn’t alter the situation.

Mrs. H. (Passionately.) Then she has said that she cares for you! Don’t
believe her, Pip. It’s a lie—as bad as yours to me!

Capt. G. Ssssteady! I’ve a notion that a friend of yours is looking at
you.

Mrs. H. He! I hate him. He introduced you to me.

Capt. G. (Aside.) And some people would like women to assist in making the
laws. Introduction to imply condonement. (Aloud.) Well, you see, if you
can remember so far back as that, I couldn’t, in common politeness, refuse
the offer.

Mrs. H. In common politeness I—We have got beyond that!

Capt. G. (Aside.) Old ground means fresh trouble. (Aloud.) On my honor—

Mrs. H. Your what? Ha, ha!

Capt. G. Dishonor, then. She’s not what you imagine. I meant to—

Mrs. H. Don’t tell me anything about her! She won’t care for you, and when
you come back, after having made an exhibition of yourself, you’ll find me
occupied with—

Capt. G. (Insolently.) You couldn’t while I am alive. (Aside.) If that
doesn’t bring her pride to her rescue, nothing will.

Mrs. H. (Drawing herself up.) Couldn’t do it? I—(Softening.) You’re
right. I don’t believe I could—though you are what you are—a
coward and a liar in grain.

Capt. G. It doesn’t hurt so much after your little lecture—with
demonstrations.

Mrs. H. One mass of vanity! Will nothing ever touch you in this life?
There must be a Hereafter if it’s only for the benefit of—But you
will have it all to yourself.

Capt. G. (Under his eyebrows.) Are you certain of that?

Mrs. H. I shall have had mine in this life; and it will serve me right,

Capt. G. But the admiration that you insisted on so strongly a moment ago?
(Aside.) Oh, I am a brute!

Mrs. H. (Fiercely.) Will that console me for knowing that you will go to
her with the same words, the same arguments, and the—the same pet
names you used to me? And if she cares for you, you two will laugh over my
story. Won’t that be punishment heavy enough even for me—even for
me?—And it’s all useless. That’s another punishment.

Capt. G. (Feebly.) Oh, come! I’m not so low as you think.

Mrs. H. Not now, perhaps, but you will be. Oh, Pip, if a woman flatters
your vanity, there’s nothing on earth that you would not tell her; and no
meanness that you would not do. Have I known you so long without knowing
that?

Capt. G. If you can trust me in nothing else—and I don’t see why I
should be trusted—you can count upon my holding my tongue.

Mrs. H. If you denied everything you’ve said this evening and declared it
was all in fun (a long pause), I’d trust you. Not otherwise. All I ask is,
don’t tell her my name. Please don’t. A man might forget: a woman never
would. (Looks up table and sees hostess beginning to collect eyes.) So
it’s all ended, through no fault of mine—Haven’t I behaved
beautifully? I’ve accepted your dismissal, and you managed it as cruelly
as you could, and I have made you respect my sex, haven’t I? (Arranging
gloves and fan.) I only pray that she’ll know you some day as I know you
now. I wouldn’t be you then, for I think even your conceit will be hurt. I
hope she’ll pay you back the humiliation you’ve brought on me. I hope—No.
I don’t! I can’t give you up! I must have something to look forward to or
I shall go crazy. When it’s all over, come back to me, come back to me,
and you’ll find that you’re my Pip still!

Capt. G. (Very clearly.) False move, and you pay for it. It’s a girl!

Mrs. H. (Rising.) Then it was true! They said—but I wouldn’t insult
you by asking. A girl! I was a girl not very long ago. Be good to her,
Pip. I daresay she believes in you.

Goes out with an uncertain smile. He watches her through the door, and
settles into a chair as the men redistribute themselves.

Capt. G. Now, if there is any Power who looks after this world, will He
kindly tell me what I have done? (Reaching out for the claret, and half
aloud.) What have I done?

WITH ANY AMAZEMENT

SCENE. bachelor’s bedroom-toilet-table arranged with unnatural neatness.

CAPTAIN GADSBY asleep and snoring heavily. Time, 10:30 A. M.—a
glorious autumn day at Simla. Enter delicately Captain MAFFLIN of GADSBY’s
regiment. Looks at sleeper, and shakes his head murmuring “Poor Gaddy.”
Performs violent fantasia with hair-brushes on chairback.

Capt. M. Wake up, my sleeping beauty! (Roars.)

Gaddy, the little dicky-birds have been billing and cooing for ever so
long; and I’m here!

Capt. G. (Sitting up and yawning.) Mornin’. This is awf’ly good of you,
old fellow. Most awf’ly good of you. Don’t know what I should do without
you. ‘Pon my soul, I don’t. ‘Haven’t slept a wink all night.

Capt. M. I didn’t get in till half-past eleven. ‘Had a look at you then,
and you seemed to be sleeping as soundly as a condemned criminal.

Capt. G. Jack, if you want to make those disgustingly worn-out jokes,
you’d better go away. (With portentous gravity.) It’s the happiest day in
my life.

Capt. M. (Chuckling grimly.) Not by a very long chalk, my son. You’re
going through some of the most refined torture you’ve ever known. But be
calm. I am with you. ‘Shun! Dress!

Capt. G. Eh! Wha-at?

Capt. M. Do you suppose that you are your own master for the next twelve
hours? If you do, of course—(Makes for the door.)

Capt. G. No! For Goodness’ sake, old man, don’t do that! You’ll see me
through, won’t you? I’ve been mugging up that beastly drill, and can’t
remember a line of it.

Capt. M. (Overturning G.’s uniform.) Go and tub. Don’t bother me. I’ll
give you ten minutes to dress in.

INTERVAL, filled by the noise as of one splashing in the bath-room..

Capt. G. (Emerging from dressing-room.) What time is it?

Capt. M. Nearly eleven.

Capt. G. Five hours more. O Lord!

Capt. M. (Aside.) ‘First sign of funk, that. ‘Wonder if it’s going to
spread. (Aloud.) Come along to breakfast.

Capt. G. I can’t eat anything. I don’t want any breakfast.

Capt. M. (Aside.) So early! (Aloud) CAPTAIN Gadsby, I order you to eat
breakfast, and a dashed good breakfast, too. None of your bridal airs and
graces with me!

Leads G. downstairs and stands over him while he eats two chops.

Capt. G. (Who has looked at his watch thrice in the last five minutes.)
What time is it?

Capt. M. Time to come for a walk. Light up.

Capt. G. I haven’t smoked for ten days, and I won’t now. (Takes cheroot
which M. has cut for him, and blows smoke through his nose luxuriously.)
We aren’t going down the Mall, are we?

Capt. M. (Aside.) They’re all alike in these stages. (Aloud.) No, my
Vestal. We’re going along the quietest road we can find.

Capt. G. Any chance of seeing Her?

Capt. M. Innocent! No! Come along, and, if you want me for the final
obsequies, don’t cut my eye out with your stick.

Capt. G. (Spinning round.) I say, isn’t She the dearest creature that ever
walked? What’s the time? What comes after “wilt thou take this woman”?

Capt. M. You go for the ring. R’c’lect it’ll be on the top of my
right-hand little finger, and just be careful how you draw it off, because
I shall have the Verger’s fees somewhere in my glove.

Capt. G. (Walking forward hastily.) D—the Verger! Come along! It’s
past twelve and I haven’t seen Her since yesterday evening. (Spinning
round again.) She’s an absolute angel, Jack, and She’s a dashed deal too
good for me. Look here, does She come up the aisle on my arm, or how?

Capt. M. If I thought that there was the least chance of your remembering
anything for two consecutive minutes, I’d tell you. Stop passaging about
like that!

Capt. G. (Halting in the middle of the road.) I say, Jack.

Capt. M. Keep quiet for another ten minutes if you can, you lunatic; and
walk!

The two tramp at five miles an hour for fifteen minutes.

Capt. G. What’s the time? How about the cursed wedding-cake and the
slippers? They don’t throw ’em about in church, do they?

Capt. M. Invariably. The Padre leads off with his boots.

Capt. G. Confound your silly soul! Don’t make fun of me. I can’t stand it,
and I won’t!

Capt. M. (Untroubled.) So-ooo, old horse You’ll have to sleep for a couple
of hours this afternoon.

Capt. G. (Spinning round.) I’m not going to be treated like a dashed
child, understand that.

Capt. M. (Aside.) Nerves gone to fiddle-strings. What a day we’re having!
(Tenderly putting his hand on G.’s shoulder.) My David, how long have you
known this Jonathan? Would I come up here to make a fool of you—after
all these years?

Capt. G. (Penitently.) I know, I know, Jack—but I’m as upset as I
can be. Don’t mind what I say. Just hear me run through the drill and see
if I’ve got it all right:—“To have and to hold for better or worse,
as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end,
so help me God. Amen.”

Capt. M. (Suffocating with suppressed laughter.) Yes. That’s about the
gist of it. I’ll prompt if you get into a hat.

Capt. G. (Earnestly.) Yes, you’ll stick by me, Jack, won’t you? I’m
awfully happy, but I don’t mind telling you that I’m in a blue funk!

Capt. M. (Gravely.) Are you? I should never have noticed it. You don’t
look like it.

Capt. G. Don’t I? That’s all right. (Spinning round.) On my soul and
honor, Jack, She’s the sweetest little angel that ever came down from the
sky. There isn’t a woman on earth fit to speak to Her.

Capt. M. (Aside.) And this is old Gadsby! (Aloud.) Go on if it relieves
you.

Capt. G. You can laugh! That’s all you wild asses of bachelors are fit
for.

Capt. M. (Drawling.) You never would wait for the troop to come up. You
aren’t quite married yet, y’know.

Capt. G. Ugh! That reminds me. I don’t believe I shall be able to get into
any boots Let’s go home and try ’em on (Hurries forward.)

Capt. M. ‘Wouldn’t be in your shoes for anything that Asia has to offer.

Capt. G. (Spinning round.) That just shows your hideous blackness of soul—your
dense stupidity—your brutal narrow-mindedness. There’s only one
fault about you. You’re the best of good fellows, and I don’t know what I
should have done without you, but—you aren’t married. (Wags his head
gravely.) Take a wife, Jack.

Capt. M. (With a face like a wall.) Ya-as. Whose for choice?

Capt. G. If you’re going to be a blackguard, I’m going on—What’s the
time?

Capt. M. (Hums.) An’ since ’twas very clear we drank only ginger-beer,
Faith, there must ha’ been some stingo in the ginger. Come back, you
maniac. I’m going to take you home, and you’re going to lie down.

Capt. G. What on earth do I want to lie down for?

Capt. M. Give me a light from your cheroot and see.

Capt. G. (Watching cheroot-butt quiver like a tuning-fork.) Sweet state
I’m in!

Capt. M. You are. I’ll get you a peg and you’ll go to sleep.

They return and M. compounds a four-finger peg.

Capt. G. O bus! bus! It’ll make me as drunk as an owl.

Capt. M. ‘Curious thing, ‘twon’t have the slightest effect on you. Drink
it off, chuck yourself down there, and go to bye-bye.

Capt. G. It’s absurd. I sha’n’t sleep, I know I sha’n’t!

Falls into heavy doze at end of seven minutes. Capt. M. watches him
tenderly.

Capt. M. Poor old Gadsby! I’ve seen a few turned off before, but never one
who went to the gallows in this condition. ‘Can’t tell how it affects ’em,
though. It’s the thoroughbreds that sweat when they’re backed into
double-harness.—And that’s the man who went through the guns at
Amdheran like a devil possessed of devils. (Leans over G.) But this is
worse than the guns, old pal—worse than the guns, isn’t it? (G.
turns in his sleep, and M. touches him clumsily on the forehead.) Poor,
dear old Gaddy! Going like the rest of ’em—going like the rest of
’em—Friend that sticketh closer than a brother—eight years.
Dashed bit of a slip of a girl—eight weeks! And—where’s your
friend? (Smokes disconsolately till church clock strikes three.)

Capt. M. Up with you! Get into your kit.

Capt. C. Already? Isn’t it too soon? Hadn’t I better have a shave?

Capt. M. No! You’re all right. (Aside.) He’d chip his chin to pieces.

Capt. C. What’s the hurry?

Capt. M. You’ve got to be there first.

Capt. C. To be stared at?

Capt. M. Exactly. You’re part of the show. Where’s the burnisher? Your
spurs are in a shameful state.

Capt. G. (Gruffly.) Jack, I be damned if you shall do that for me.

Capt. M. (More gruffly.) Dry up and get dressed! If I choose to clean your
spurs, you’re under my orders.

Capt. G. dresses. M. follows suit.

Capt. M. (Critically, walking round.) M’—yes, you’ll do. Only don’t
look so like a criminal. Ring, gloves, fees—that’s all right for me.
Let your moustache alone. Now, if the ponies are ready, we’ll go.

Capt. G. (Nervously.) It’s much too soon. Let’s light up! Let’s have a
peg! Let’s—

Capt. M. Let’s make bally asses of ourselves!

BELLS. (Without.)—“Good-peo-ple-all To prayers-we call.”

Capt. M. There go the bells! Come on—unless you’d rather not. (They
ride off.)

BELLS.—“We honor the King And Brides joy do bring—Good tidings
we tell, And ring the Dead’s knell.”

Capt. G. (Dismounting at the door of the Church.) I say, aren’t we much
too soon? There are no end of people inside. I say, aren’t we much too
late? Stick by me, Jack! What the devil do I do?

Capt. M. Strike an attitude at the head of the aisle and wait for Her. (G.
groans as M. wheels him into position before three hundred eyes.)

Capt. M. (Imploringly.) Gaddy, if you love me, for pity’s sake, for the
Honor of the Regiment, stand up! Chuck yourself into your uniform! Look
like a man! I’ve got to speak to the Padre a minute. (G. breaks into a
gentle Perspiration.) If you wipe your face I’ll never be your best man
again. Stand up! (G. trembles visibly.)

Capt. M. (Returning.) She’s coming now. Look out when the music starts.
There’s the organ beginning to clack.

Bride steps out of ‘rickshaw at Church door. G. catches a glimpse of her
and takes heart.

ORGAN.—“The Voice that breathed o’er Eden, That earliest marriage
day, The primal marriage-blessing, It hath not passed away.”

Capt. M. (Watching G.) By Jove! He is looking well. ‘Didn’t think he had
it in him.

Capt. G. How long does this hymn go on for?

Capt. M. It will be over directly. (Anxiously.) (Beginning to bleach and
gulp.) Hold on, Gabby, and think ‘o the Regiment.

Capt. G. (Measuredly.) I say, there’s a big brown lizard crawling up that
wall.

Capt. M. My Sainted Mother! The last stage of collapse!

Bride comes up to left of altar, lifts her eyes once to G., who is
suddenly smitten mad.

Capt. G. (To himself again and again.) Little Featherweight’s a woman—a
woman! And I thought she was a little girl.

Capt. M. (In a whisper.) Form the halt—inward wheel.

Capt. G. obeys mechanically and the ceremony proceeds.

PADRE…. only unto her as ye both shall live?

Capt. G. (His throat useless.) Ha-hmmm!

Capt. M. Say you will or you won’t. There’s no second deal here.

Bride gives response with perfect coolness, and is given away by the
father.

Capt. G. (Thinking to show his learning.) Jack give me away now, quick!

Capt. M. You’ve given yourself away quite enough. Her right hand, man!
Repeat! Repeat! “Theodore Philip.” Have you forgotten your own name?

Capt. G. stumbles through Affirmation, which Bride repeats without a
tremor.

Capt. M. Now the ring! Follow the Padre! Don’t pull off my glove! Here it
is! Great Cupid, he’s found his voice.

Capt. G. repeats Troth in a voice to be heard to the end of the Church and
turns on his heel.

Capt. M. (Desperately.) Rein back! Back to your troop! ‘Tisn’t half legal
yet.

PADRE…. joined together let no man put asunder.

Capt. G. paralyzed with fear jibs after Blessing.

Capt. M. (Quickly.) On your own front—one length. Take her with you.
I don’t come. You’ve nothing to say. (Capt. G. jingles up to altar.)

Capt. M. (In a piercing rattle meant to be a whisper.) Kneel, you
stiff-necked ruffian! Kneel!

PADRE… whose daughters are ye so long as ye do well and are not afraid
with any amazement.

Capt. M. Dismiss! Break off! Left wheel!

All troop to vestry. They sign.

Capt. M. Kiss Her, Gaddy.

Capt. G. (Rubbing the ink into his glove.) Eh! Wha-at?

Capt. M. (Taking one pace to Bride.) If you don’t, I shall.

Capt. G. (Interposing an arm.) Not this journey!

General kissing, in which Capt. G. is pursued by unknown female.

Capt. G. (Faintly to M.) This is Hades! Can I wipe my face now?

Capt. M. My responsibility has ended. Better ask Misses GADSBY.

Capt. G. winces as though shot and procession is Mendelssohned out of
Church to house, where usual tortures take place over the wedding-cake.

Capt. M. (At table.) Up with you, Gaddy. They expect a speech.

Capt. G. (After three minutes’ agony.) Ha-hmmm. (Thunders Of applause.)

Capt. M. Doocid good, for a first attempt. Now go and change your kit
while Mamma is weeping over “the Missus.” (Capt. G. disappears. Capt. M.
starts up tearing his hair.) It’s not half legal. Where are the shoes? Get
an ayah.

AYAH. Missie Captain Sahib done gone band karo all the jutis.

Capt. M. (Brandishing scab larded sword.) Woman, produce those shoes! Some
one lend me a bread-knife. We mustn’t crack Gaddy’s head more than it is.
(Slices heel off white satin slipper and puts slipper up his sleeve.)

Where is the Bride? (To the company at large.) Be tender with that rice.
It’s a heathen custom. Give me the big bag.

Bride slips out quietly into ‘rickshaw and departs toward the sunset.

Capt. M. (In the open.) Stole away, by Jove! So much the worse for Gaddy!
Here he is. Now Gaddy, this’ll be livelier than Amdberan! Where’s your
horse?

Capt. G. (Furiously, seeing that the women are out of an earshot.) Where
the d——’s my Wife?

Capt. M. Half-way to Mahasu by this time. You’ll have to ride like Young
Lochinvar.

Horse comes round on his hind legs; refuses to let G. handle him.

Capt. G. Oh you will, will you? Get ’round, you brute—you hog—you
beast! Get round!

Wrenches horse’s head over, nearly breaking lower jaw: swings himself into
saddle, and sends home both spurs in the midst of a spattering gale of
Best Patna.

Capt. M. For your life and your love—ride, Gaddy—And God bless
you!

Throws half a pound of rice at G. who disappears, bowed forward on the
saddle, in a cloud of sunlit dust.

Capt. M. I’ve lost old Gaddy. (Lights cigarette and strolls off, singing
absently):—“You may carve it on his tombstone, you may cut it on his
card, That a young man married is a young man marred!”

Miss DEERCOURT. (From her horse.) Really, Captain Mafflin! You are more
plain spoken than polite!

Capt. M. (Aside.) They say marriage is like cholera. ‘Wonder who’ll be the
next victim.

White satin slipper slides from his sleeve and falls at his feet. Left
wondering.

THE GARDEN OF EDEN

SCENE. Thymy grass-plot at back of the Mahasu dak-bungalow, overlooking
little wooded valley. On the left, glimpse of the Dead Forest of Fagoo; on
the right, Simla Hills. In background, line of the Snows. CAPTAIN GADSBY,
now three weeks a husband, is smoking the pipe of peace on a rug in the
sunshine. Banjo and tobacco-pouch on rug. Overhead the Fagoo eagles. Mrs.
G. comes out of bungalow.

Mrs. G. My husband!

Capt. G. (Lazily, with intense enjoyment.) Eh, wha-at? Say that again.

Mrs. G. I’ve written to Mamma and told her that we shall be back on the
17th.

Capt. G. Did you give her my love?

Mrs. G. No, I kept all that for myself. (Sitting down by his side.) I
thought you wouldn’t mind.

Capt. G. (With mock sternness.) I object awf’ly. How did you know that it
was yours to keep?

Mrs. G. I guessed, Phil.

Capt. G. (Rapturously.) Lit-tle Featherweight!

Mrs. G. I won’ t be called those sporting pet names, bad boy.

Capt. G. You’ll be called anything I choose. Has it ever occurred to you,
Madam, that you are my Wife?

Mrs. G. It has. I haven’t ceased wondering at it yet.

Capt. G. Nor I. It seems so strange; and yet, somehow, it doesn’t.
(Confidently.) You see, it could have been no one else.

Mrs. G. (Softly.) No. No one else—for me or for you. It must have
been all arranged from the beginning. Phil, tell me again what made you
care for me.

Capt. G. How could I help it? You were you, you know.

Mrs. G. Did you ever want to help it? Speak the truth!

Capt. G. (A twinkle in his eye.) I did, darling, just at the first. Rut
only at the very first. (Chuckles.) I called you—stoop low and I’ll
whisper—“a little beast.” Ho! Ho! Ho!

Mrs. G. (Taking him by the moustache and making him sit up.)
“A-little-beast!” Stop laughing over your crime! And yet you had the—the—awful
cheek to propose to me!

Capt. C. I’d changed my mind then. And you weren’t a little beast any
more.

Mrs. G. Thank you, sir! And when was I ever?

Capt. G. Never! But that first day, when you gave me tea in that
peach-colored muslin gown thing, you looked—you did indeed, dear—such
an absurd little mite. And I didn’t know what to say to you.

Mrs. G. (Twisting moustache.) So you said “little beast.” Upon my word,
Sir! I called you a “Crrrreature,” but I wish now I had called you
something worse.

Capt. G. (Very meekly.) I apologize, but you’re hurting me awf’ly.
(Interlude.) You’re welcome to torture me again on those terms.

Mrs. G. Oh, why did you let me do it?

Capt. G. (Looking across valley.) No reason in particular, but—if it
amused you or did you any good—you might—wipe those dear
little boots of yours on me.

Mrs. G. (Stretching out her hands.) Don’t! Oh, don’t! Philip, my King,
please don’t talk like that. It’s how I feel. You’re so much too good for
me. So much too good!

Capt. G. Me! I’m not fit to put my arm around you. (Puts it round.)

Mrs. C. Yes, you are. But I—what have I ever done?

Capt. G. Given me a wee bit of your heart, haven’t you, my Queen!

Mrs. G. That’s nothing. Any one would do that. They cou—couldn’thelp
it.

Capt. G. Pussy, you’ll make me horribly conceited. Just when I was
beginning to feel so humble, too.

Mrs. G. Humble! I don’t believe it’s in your character.

Capt. G. What do you know of my character, Impertinence?

Mrs. G. Ah, but I shall, shan’t I, Phil? I shall have time in all the
years and years to come, to know everything about you; and there will be
no secrets between us.

Capt. G. Little witch! I believe you know me thoroughly already.

Mrs. G. I think I can guess. You’re selfish?

Capt. G. Yes.

Mrs. G. Foolish?

Capt. G. Very.

Mrs. G. And a dear?

Capt. G. That is as my lady pleases.

Mrs. G. Then your lady is pleased. (A pause.) D’you know that we’re two
solemn, serious, grown-up people—

Capt. G. (Tilting her straw hat over her eyes.) You grown-up! Pooh! You’re
a baby.

Mrs. G. And we’re talking nonsense.

Capt. G. Then let’s go on talking nonsense. I rather like it. Pussy, I’ll
tell you a secret. Promise not to repeat?

Mrs. G. Ye-es. Only to you.

Capt. G. I love you.

Mrs. G. Re-ally! For how long?

Capt. G. Forever and ever.

Mrs. G. That’s a long time.

Capt. G. ‘Think so? It’s the shortest I can do with.

Mrs. G. You’re getting quite clever.

Capt. G. I’m talking to you.

Mrs. G. Prettily turned. Hold up your stupid old head and I’ll pay you for
it.

Capt. G. (Affecting supreme contempt.) Take it yourself if you want it.

Mrs. G. I’ve a great mind to—and I will! (Takes it and is repaid
with interest.)

Capt. G, Little Featherweight, it’s my opinion that we are a couple of
idiots.

Mrs. G. We’re the only two sensible people in the world. Ask the eagle.
He’s coming by.

Capt. G. Ah! I dare say he’s seen a good many sensible people at Mahasu.
They say that those birds live for ever so long.

Mrs. G. How long?

Capt. G. A hundred and twenty years.

Mrs. G. A hundred and twenty years! O-oh! And in a hundred and twenty
years where will these two sensible people be?

Capt. G. What does it matter so long as we are together now?

Mrs. G. (Looking round the horizon.) Yes. Only you and I—I and you—in
the whole wide, wide world until the end. (Sees the line of the Snows.)
How big and quiet the hills look! D’you think they care for us?

Capt. G. ‘Can’t say I’ve consulted ’em particularly. I care, and that’s
enough for me.

Mrs. G. (Drawing nearer to him.) Yes, now—but afterward. What’s that
little black blur on the Snows?

Capt. G. A snowstorm, forty miles away. You’ll see it move, as the wind
carries it across the face of that spur and then it will be all gone.

Mrs. G. And then it will be all gone. (Shivers.)

Capt. G. (Anxiously.) ‘Not chilled, pet, are you? ‘Better let me get your
cloak.

Mrs. G. No. Don’t leave me, Phil. Stay here. I believe I am afraid. Oh,
why are the hills so horrid! Phil, promise me that you’ll always love me.

Capt. G. What’s the trouble, darling? I can’t promise any more than I
have; but I’ll promise that again and again if you like.

Mrs. G. (Her head on his shoulder.) Say it, then—say it! N-no—don’t!
The—the—eagles would laugh. (Recovering.) My husband, you’ve
married a little goose.

Capt. G. (Very tenderly.) Have I? I am content whatever she is, so long as
she is mine.

Mrs. G. (Quickly.) Because she is yours or because she is me mineself?

Capt. G. Because she is both. (Piteously.) I’m not clever, dear, and I
don’t think I can make myself understood properly.

Mrs. G. I understand. Pip, will you tell me something?

Capt. G. Anything you like. (Aside.) I wonder what’s coming now.

Mrs. G. (Haltingly, her eyes lowered.) You told me once in the old days—centuries
and centuries ago—that you had been engaged before. I didn’t say
anything—then.

Capt. G. (Innocently.) Why not?

Mrs. G. (Raising her eyes to his.) Because—because I was afraid of
losing you, my heart. But now—tell about it—please.

Capt. G. There’s nothing to tell. I was awf’ly old then—nearly two
and twenty—and she was quite that.

Mrs. G. That means she was older than you. I shouldn’t like her to have
been younger. Well?

Capt. G. Well, I fancied myself in love and raved about a bit, and—oh,
yes, by Jove! I made up poetry. Ha! Ha!

Mrs. G. You never wrote any for me! What happened?

Capt. G. I came out here, and the whole thing went phut. She wrote to say
that there had been a mistake, and then she married.

Mrs. G. Did she care for you much?

Capt. G. No. At least she didn’t show it as far as I remember.

Mrs. G. As far as you remember! Do you remember her name? (Hears it and
bows her head.) Thank you, my husband.

Capt. G. Who but you had the right? Now, Little Featherweight, have you
ever been mixed up in any dark and dismal tragedy?

Mrs. G. If you call me Mrs. Gadsby, p’raps I’ll tell.

Capt. G. (Throwing Parade rasp into his voice.) Mrs. Gadsby, confess!

Mrs. G. Good Heavens, Phil! I never knew that you could speak in that
terrible voice.

Capt. G. You don’t know half my accomplishments yet. Wait till we are
settled in the Plains, and I’ll show you how I bark at my troop. You were
going to say, darling?

Mrs. G. I—I don’t like to, after that voice. (Tremulously.) Phil,
never you dare to speak to me in that tone, whatever I may do!

Capt. G. My poor little love! Why, you’re shaking all over. I am so sorry.
Of course I never meant to upset you Don’t tell me anything, I’m a brute.

Mrs. G. No, you aren’t, and I will tell—There was a man.

Capt. G. (Lightly.) Was there? Lucky man!

Mrs. G. (In a whisper.) And I thought I cared for him.

Capt. G. Still luckier man! Well?

Mrs. G. And I thought I cared for him—and I didn’t—and then
you came—and I cared for you very, very much indeed. That’s all.
(Face hidden.) You aren’t angry, are you?

Capt. G. Angry? Not in the least. (Aside.) Good Lord, what have I done to
deserve this angel?

Mrs. G. (Aside.) And he never asked for the name! How funny men are! But
perhaps it’s as well.

Capt. G. That man will go to heaven because you once thought you cared for
him. ‘Wonder if you’ll ever drag me up there?

Mrs. G. (Firmly.) ‘Sha’n’t go if you don’t.

Capt. G. Thanks. I say, Pussy, I don’t know much about your religious
beliefs. You were brought up to believe in a heaven and all that, weren’t
you?

Mrs. G. Yes. But it was a pincushion heaven, with hymn-books in all the
pews.

Capt. G. (Wagging his head with intense conviction.) Never mind. There is
a pukka heaven.

Mrs. G. Where do you bring that message from, my prophet?

Capt. G. Here! Because we care for each other. So it’s all right.

Mrs. G. (As a troop of langurs crash through the branches.) So it’s all
right. But Darwin says that we came from those!

Capt. G. (Placidly.) Ah! Darwin was never in love with an angel. That
settles it. Sstt, you brutes! Monkeys, indeed! You shouldn’t read those
books.

Mrs. G. (Folding her hands.) If it pleases my Lord the King to issue
proclamation.

Capt. G. Don’t, dear one. There are no orders between us. Only I’d rather
you didn’t. They lead to nothing, and bother people’s heads.

Mrs. G. Like your first engagement.

Capt. G. (With an immense calm.) That was a necessary evil and led to you.
Are you nothing?

Mrs. G. Not so very much, am I?

Capt. G. All this world and the next to me.

Mrs. G. (Very softly.) My boy of boys! Shall I tell you something?

Capt. G. Yes, if it’s not dreadful—about other men.

Mrs. G. It’s about my own bad little self.

Capt. G. Then it must be good. Go on, dear.

Mrs. G. (Slowly.) I don’t know why I’m telling you, Pip; but if ever you
marry again—(Interlude.) Take your hand from my mouth or I’ll bite!
In the future, then remember—I don’t know quite how to put it!

Capt. G. (Snorting indignantly.) Don’t try. “Marry again,” indeed!

Mrs. G. I must. Listen, my husband. Never, never, never tell your wife
anything that you do not wish her to remember and think over all her life.
Because a woman—yes, I am a woman—can’t forget.

Capt. G. By Jove, how do you know that?

Mrs. G. (Confusedly.) I don’t. I’m only guessing. I am—I was—a
silly little girl; but I feel that I know so much, oh, so very much more
than you, dearest. To begin with, I’m your wife.

Capt. G. So I have been led to believe.

Mrs. G. And I shall want to know every one of your secrets—to share
everything you know with you. (Stares round desperately.)

Capt. G. So you shall, dear, so you shall—but don’t look like that.

Mrs. G. For your own sake don’t stop me, Phil. I shall never talk to you
in this way again. You must not tell me! At least, not now. Later on, when
I’m an old matron it won’t matter, but if you love me, be very good to me
now; for this part of my life I shall never forget! Have I made you
understand?

Capt. G. I think so, child. Have I said anything yet that you disapprove
of?

Mrs. G. Will you be very angry? That—that voice, and what you said
about the engagement—

Capt. G. But you asked to be told that, darling.

Mrs. G. And that’s why you shouldn’t have told me! You must be the Judge,
and, oh, Pip, dearly as I love you, I shan’t be able to help you! I shall
hinder you, and you must judge in spite of me!

Capt. G. (Meditatively.) We have a great many things to find out together,
God help us both—say so, Pussy—but we shall understand each
other better every day; and I think I’m beginning to see now. How in the
world did you come to know just the importance of giving me just that
lead?

Mrs. G. I’ve told you that I don’t know. Only somehow it seemed that, in
all this new life, I was being guided for your sake as well as my own.

Capt. G. (Aside.) Then Mafflin was right! They know, and we—we’re
blind all of us. (Lightly.) ‘Getting a little beyond our depth, dear,
aren’t we? I’ll remember, and, if I fail, let me be punished as I deserve.

Mrs. G. There shall be no punishment. We’ll start into life together from
here—you and I—and no one else.

Capt. G. And no one else. (A pause.) Your eyelashes are all wet, Sweet?
Was there ever such a quaint little Absurdity?

Mrs. G. Was there ever such nonsense talked before?

Capt. G. (Knocking the ashes out of his pipe.) ‘Tisn’t what we say, it’s
what we don’t say, that helps. And it’s all the profoundest philosophy.
But no one would understand—even if it were put into a book.

Mrs. G. The idea! No—only we ourselves, or people like ourselves—if
there are any people like us.

Capt. G. (Magisterially.) All people, not like ourselves, are blind
idiots.

Mrs. G. (Wiping her eyes.) Do you think, then, that there are any people
as happy as we are?

Capt. G. ‘Must be—unless we’ve appropriated all the happiness in the
world.

Mrs. G. (Looking toward Simla.) Poor dears! Just fancy if we have!

Capt. G. Then we’ll hang on to the whole show, for it’s a great deal too
jolly to lose—eh, wife ‘o mine?

Mrs. G. O Pip! Pip! How much of you is a solemn, married man and how much
a horrid slangy schoolboy?

Capt. G. When you tell me how much of you was eighteen last birthday and
how much is as old as the Sphinx and twice as mysterious, perhaps I’ll
attend to you. Lend me that banjo. The spirit moveth me to yowl at the
sunset.

Mrs. G. Mind! It’s not tuned. Ah! How that jars!

Capt. G. (Turning pegs.) It’s amazingly different to keep a banjo to
proper pitch.

Mrs. G. It’s the same with all musical instruments, What shall it be?

Capt. G. “Vanity,” and let the hills hear. (Sings through the first and
half of the second verse. Turning to Mrs. G.) Now, chorus! Sing, Pussy!

BOTH TOGETHER. (Con brio, to the horror of the monkeys who are settling
for the night.)—

“Vanity, all is Vanity,” said Wisdom, scorning me—I clasped my true
Love’s tender hand and answered frank and free-ee “If this be Vanity who’d
be wise? If this be Vanity who’d be wise? If this be Vanity who’d be
wi-ise (Crescendo.) Vanity let it be!”

Mrs. G. (Defiantly to the grey of the evening sky.) “Vanity let it be!”

ECHO. (Prom the Fagoo spur.) Let it be!

FATIMA

And you may go in every room of the house and see everything that is
there, but into the Blue Room you must not go. —The Story of Blue
Beard.

SCENE. The GADSBYS’ bungalow in the Plains. Time, 11 A. M. on a Sunday
morning. Captain GADSBY, in his shirt-sleeves, is bending over a complete
set of Hussar’s equipment, from saddle to picketing-rope, which is neatly
spread over the floor of his study. He is smoking an unclean briar, and
his forehead is puckered with thought.

Capt. G. (To himself, fingering a headstall.) Jack’s an ass. There’s
enough brass on this to load a mule—and, if the Americans know
anything about anything, it can be cut down to a bit only. ‘Don’t want the
watering-bridle, either. Humbug!—Half a dozen sets of chains and
pulleys for one horse! Rot! (Scratching his head.) Now, let’s consider it
all over from the beginning. By Jove, I’ve forgotten the scale of weights!
Never mind. ‘Keep the bit only, and eliminate every boss from the crupper
to breastplate. No breastplate at all. Simple leather strap across the
breast—like the Russians. Hi! Jack never thought of that!

Mrs. G. (Entering hastily, her hand bound in a cloth.) Oh, Pip, I’ve
scalded my hand over that horrid, horrid Tiparee jam!

Capt. G. (Absently.) Eh! Wha-at?

Mrs. G. (With round-eyed reproach.) I’ve scalded it aw-fully! Aren’t you
sorry? And I did so want that jam to jam properly.

Capt. G. Poor little woman! Let me kiss the place and make it well.
(Unrolling bandage.) You small sinner! Where’s that scald? I can’t see it.

Mrs. G. On the top of the little finger. There!—It’s a most ‘normous
big burn!

Capt. G. (Kissing little finger.) Baby! Let Hyder look after the jam. You
know I don’t care for sweets.

Mrs. G. Indeed?—Pip!

Capt. G. Not of that kind, anyhow. And now run along, Minnie, and leave me
to my own base devices. I’m busy.

Mrs. G. (Calmly settling herself in long chair.) So I see. What a mess
you’re making! Why have you brought all that smelly leather stuff into the
house?

Capt. G. To play with. Do you mind, dear?

Mrs. G. Let me play too. I’d like it.

Capt. G. I’m afraid you wouldn’t. Pussy—Don’t you think that jam
will burn, or whatever it is that jam does when it’s not looked after by a
clever little housekeeper?

Mrs. G. I thought you said Hyder could attend to it. I left him in the
veranda, stirring—when I hurt myself so.

Capt. G. (His eye returning to the equipment.) Po-oor little woman!—Three
pounds four and seven is three eleven, and that can be cut down to two
eight, with just a lee-tle care, without weakening anything. Farriery is
all rot in incompetent hands. What’s the use of a shoe-case when a man’s
scouting? He can’t stick it on with a lick—like a stamp—the
shoe! Skittles—

Mrs. G. What’s skittles? Pah! What is this leather cleaned with?

Capt. G. Cream and champagne and—Look here, dear, do you really want
to talk to me about anything important?

Mrs. G. No. I’ve done my accounts, and I thought I’d like to see what
you’re doing.

Capt. G. Well, love, now you’ve seen and—Would you mind?—That
is to say—Minnie, I really am busy.

Mrs. G. You want me to go?

Capt. G, Yes, dear, for a little while. This tobacco will hang in your
dress, and saddlery doesn’t interest you.

Mrs. G. Everything you do interests me, Pip.

Capt. G. Yes, I know, I know, dear. I’ll tell you all about it some day
when I’ve put a head on this thing. In the meantime—

Mrs. G. I’m to be turned out of the room like a troublesome child?

Capt. G. No-o. I don’t mean that exactly. But, you see, I shall be
tramping up and down, shifting these things to and fro, and I shall be in
your way. Don’t you think so?

Mrs. G. Can’t I lift them about? Let me try. (Reaches forward to trooper’s
saddle.)

Capt. G. Good gracious, child, don’t touch it. You’ll hurt yourself.
(Picking up saddle.) Little girls aren’t expected to handle numdahs. Now,
where would you like it put? (Holds saddle above his head.)

Mrs. G. (A break in her voice.) Nowhere. Pip, how good you are—and
how strong! Oh, what’s that ugly red streak inside your arm?

Capt. G. (Lowering saddle quickly.) Nothing. It’s a mark of sorts.
(Aside.) And Jack’s coming to tiffin with his notions all cut and dried!

Mrs. G. I know it’s a mark, but I’ve never seen it before. It runs all up
the arm. What is it?

Capt. G. A cut—if you want to know.

Mrs. G. Want to know! Of course I do! I can’t have my husband cut to
pieces in this way. How did it come? Was it an accident? Tell me, Pip.

Capt. G. (Grimly.) No. ‘Twasn’t an accident. I got it—from a man—in
Afghanistan.

Mrs. G. In action? Oh, Pip, and you never told me!

Capt. G. I’d forgotten all about it.

Mrs. G. Hold up your arm! What a horrid, ugly scar! Are you sure it
doesn’t hurt now! How did the man give it you?

Capt. G. (Desperately looking at his watch.) With a knife. I came down—old
Van Loo did, that’s to say—and fell on my leg, so I couldn’t run.
And then this man came up and began chopping at me as I sprawled.

Mrs. G. Oh, don’t, don’t! That’s enough!—Well, what happened?

Capt. G. I couldn’t get to my holster, and Mafflin came round the corner
and stopped the performance.

Mrs. G. How? He’s such a lazy man, I don’t believe he did.

Capt. G. Don’t you? I don’t think the man had much doubt about it. Jack
cut his head off.

Mrs. G. Cut-his-head-off! “With one blow,” as they say in the books?

Capt. G. I’m not sure. I was too interested in myself to know much about
it. Anyhow, the head was off, and Jack was punching old Van Loo in the
ribs to make him get up. Now you know all about it, dear, and now—

Mrs. G. You want me to go, of course. You never told me about this, though
I’ve been married to you for ever so long; and you never would have told
me if I hadn’t found out; and you never do tell me anything about
yourself, or what you do, or what you take an interest in.

Capt. G. Darling, I’m always with you, aren’t I?

Mrs. G. Always in my pocket, you were going to say. I know you are; but
you are always thinking away from me.

Capt. G. (Trying to hide a smile.) Am I? I wasn’t aware of it. I’m awf’ly
sorry.

Mrs. G. (Piteously.) Oh, don’t make fun of me! Pip, you know what I mean.
When you are reading one of those things about Cavalry, by that idiotic
Prince—why doesn’t he be a Prince instead of a stable-boy?

Capt. G. Prince Kraft a stable-boy—Oh, my Aunt! Never mind, dear.
You were going to say?

Mrs. G. It doesn’t matter; you don’t care for what I say. Only—only
you get up and walk about the room, staring in front of you, and then
Mafflin comes in to dinner, and after I’m in the drawing-room I can hear
you and him talking, and talking, and talking, about things I can’t
understand, and—oh, I get so tired and feel so lonely!—I don’t
want to complain and be a trouble, Pip; but I do indeed I do!

Capt. G. My poor darling! I never thought of that. Why don’t you ask some
nice people in to dinner?

Mrs. G. Nice people! Where am I to find them? Horrid frumps! And if I did,
I shouldn’t be amused. You know I only want you.

Capt. G. And you have me surely, Sweetheart?

Mrs. G. I have not! Pip why don’t you take me into your life?

Capt. G. More than I do? That would be difficult, dear.

Mrs. G. Yes, I suppose it would—to you. I’m no help to you—no
companion to you; and you like to have it so.

Capt. G. Aren’t you a little unreasonable, Pussy?

Mrs. G. (Stamping her foot.) I’m the most reasonable woman in the world—when
I’m treated properly.

Capt. G. And since when have I been treating you improperly?

Mrs. G. Always—and since the beginning. You know you have.

Capt. G. I don’t; but I’m willing to be convinced.

Mrs. G. (Pointing to saddlery.) There!

Capt. G. How do you mean?

Mrs. G. What does all that mean? Why am I not to be told? Is it so
precious?

Capt. G. I forget its exact Government value just at present. It means
that it is a great deal too heavy.

Mrs. G. Then why do you touch it?

Capt. G. To make it lighter. See here, little love, I’ve one notion and
Jack has another, but we are both agreed that all this equipment is about
thirty pounds too heavy. The thing is how to cut it down without weakening
any part of it, and, at the same time, allowing the trooper to carry
everything he wants for his own comfort—socks and shirts and things
of that kind.

Mrs. G. Why doesn’t he pack them in a little trunk?

Capt. G. (Kissing her.) Oh, you darling! Pack them in a little trunk,
indeed! Hussars don’t carry trunks, and it’s a most important thing to
make the horse do all the carrying.

Mrs. G. But why need you bother about it? You’re not a trooper.

Capt. G. No; but I command a few score of him; and equipment is nearly
everything in these days.

Mrs. G. More than me?

Capt. G. Stupid! Of course not; but it’s a matter that I’m tremendously
interested in, because if I or Jack, or I and Jack, work out some sort of
lighter saddlery and all that, it’s possible that we may get it adopted.

Mrs. G. How?

Capt. G. Sanctioned at Home, where they will make a sealed pattern—a
pattern that all the saddlers must copy—and so it will be used by
all the regiments.

Mrs. G. And that interests you?

Capt. G. It’s part of my profession, y’know, and my profession is a good
deal to me. Everything in a soldier’s equipment is important, and if we
can improve that equipment, so much the better for the soldiers and for
us.

Mrs. G. Who’s “us”?

Capt. G. Jack and I; only Jack’s notions are too radical. What’s that big
sigh for, Minnie?

Mrs. G. Oh, nothing—and you’ve kept all this a secret from me! Why?

Capt. G. Not a secret, exactly, dear. I didn’t say anything about it to
you because I didn’t think it would amuse you.

Mrs. G. And am I only made to be amused?

Capt. G. No, of course. I merely mean that it couldn’t interest you.

Mrs. G. It’s your work and—and if you’d let me, I’d count all these
things up. If they are too heavy, you know by how much they are too heavy,
and you must have a list of things made out to your scale of lightness,
and—

Capt. G. I have got both scales somewhere in my head; but it’s hard to
tell how light you can make a head-stall, for instance, until you’ve
actually had a model made.

Mrs. G. But if you read out the list, I could copy it down, and pin it up
there just above your table. Wouldn’t that do?

Capt. G. It would be awf’ly nice, dear, but it would be giving you trouble
for nothing. I can’t work that way. I go by rule of thumb. I know the
present scale of weights, and the other one—the one that I’m trying
to work to—will shift and vary so much that I couldn’t be certain,
even if I wrote it down.

Mrs. G. I’m so sorry. I thought I might help. Is there anything else that
I could be of use in?

Capt. G. (Looking round the room.) I can’t think of anything. You’re
always helping me you know.

Mrs. G. Am I? How?

Capt. G. You are of course, and as long as you’re near me—I can’t
explain exactly, but it’s in the air.

Mrs. G. And that’s why you wanted to send me away?

Capt. G. That’s only when I’m trying to do work—grubby work like
this.

Mrs. G. Mafflin’s better, then, isn’t he?

Capt. G. (Rashly.) Of course he is. Jack and I have been thinking along
the same groove for two or three years about this equipment. It’s our hobby,
and it may really be useful some day.

Mrs. G. (After a pause.) And that’s all that you have away from me?

Capt. G. It isn’t very far away from you now. Take care the oil on that
bit doesn’t come off on your dress.

Mrs. G. I wish—I wish so much that I could really help you. I
believe I could—if I left the room. But that’s not what I mean.

Capt. G. (Aside.) Give me patience! I wish she would go. (Aloud.) I assure
you you can’t do anything for me, Minnie, and I must really settle down to
this. Where’s my pouch?

Mrs. G. (Crossing to writing-table.) Here you are, Bear. What a mess you
keep your table in!

Capt. G. Don’ ttouch it. There’s a method in my madness, though you
mightn’t think of it.

Mrs. G. (At table.) I want to look—Do you keep accounts, Pip?

Capt. G. (Bending over saddlery.) Of a sort. Are you rummaging among the
Troop papers? Be careful.

Mrs. G. Why? I sha’n’t disturb anything. Good gracious! I had no idea that
you had anything to do with so many sick horses.

Capt. G. ‘Wish I hadn’t, but they insist on falling sick. Minnie, if 1
were you I really should not investigate those papers. You may come across
something that you won’t like.

Mrs. G. Why will you always treat me like a child? I know I’m not
displacing the horrid things.

Capt. G. (Resignedly.) Very well, then. Don’t blame me if anything
happens. Play with the table and let me go on with the saddlery. (Slipping
hand into trousers-pocket.) Oh, the deuce!

Mrs. G. (Her back to G.) What’s that for?

Capt. G. Nothing. (Aside.) There’s not much in it, but I wish I’d torn it
up.

Mrs. G. (Turning over contents of table.) I know you’ll hate me for this;
but I do want to see what your work is like. (A pause.) Pip, what are
“farcybuds”?

Capt. G. Hah! Would you really like to know? They aren’t pretty things.

Mrs. G. This Journal of Veterinary Science says they are of “absorbing
interest.” Tell me.

Capt. G. (Aside.) It may turn her attention.

Gives a long and designedly loathsome account of glanders and farcy.

Mrs. G. Oh, that’s enough. Don’t go on!

Capt. G. But you wanted to know—Then these things suppurate and
matterate and spread—

Mrs. G. Pin, you’re making me sick! You’re a horrid, disgusting schoolboy.

Capt. G. (On his knees among the bridles.) You asked to be told. It’s not
my fault if you worry me into talking about horrors.

Mrs. G. Why didn’t you say No?

Capt. G. Good Heavens, child! Have you come in here simply to bully me?

Mrs. G. I bully you? How could I! You’re so strong. (Hysterically.) Strong
enough to pick me up and put me outside the door and leave me there to
cry. Aren’t you?

Capt. G. It seems to me that you’re an irrational little baby. Are you
quite well?

Mrs. G. Do I look ill? (Returning to table). Who is your lady friend with
the big grey envelope and the fat monogram outside?

Capt. G. (Aside.) Then it wasn’t locked up, confound it. (Aloud.) “God
made her, therefore let her pass for a woman.” You remember what farcybuds
are like?

Mrs. G. (Showing envelope.) This has nothing to do with them. I’m going to
open it. May I?

Capt. G. Certainly, if you want to. I’d sooner you didn’t though. I don’t
ask to look at your letters to the Deercourt girl.

Mrs. G. You’d better not, Sir! (Takes letter from envelope.) Now, may I
look? If you say no, I shall cry.

Capt. G. You’ve never cried in my knowledge of you, and I don’t believe
you could.

Mrs. G. I feel very like it today, Pip. Don’t be hard on me. (Reads
letter.) It begins in the middle, without any “Dear Captain Gadsby,” or
anything. How funny!

Capt. G. (Aside.) No, it’s not Dear Captain Gadsby, or anything, now. How
funny!

Mrs. G. What a strange letter! (Reads.) “And so the moth has come too near
the candle at last, and has been singed into—shall I say
Respectability? I congratulate him, and hope he will be as happy as he
deserves to be.” What does that mean? Is she congratulating you about our
marriage?

Capt. G. Yes, I suppose so.

Mrs. G. (Still reading letter.) She seems to be a particular friend of
yours.

Capt. G. Yes. She was an excellent matron of sorts—a Mrs. Herriott—wife
of a Colonel Herriott. I used to know some of her people at Home long ago—before
I came out.

Mrs. G. Some Colonel’s wives are young—as young as me. I knew one
who was younger.

Capt. G. Then it couldn’t have been Mrs. Herriott. She was old enough to
have been your mother, dear.

Mrs. G. I remember now. Mrs. Scargill was talking about her at the
Dutfins’ tennis, before you came for me, on Tuesday. Captain Mafflin said
she was a “dear old woman.” Do you know, I think Mafflin is a very clumsy
man with his feet.

Capt. G. (Aside.) Good old Jack! (Aloud.) Why, dear?

Mrs. G. He had put his cup down on the ground then, and he literally
stepped into it. Some of the tea spirted over my dress—the grey one.
I meant to tell you about it before.

Capt. G. (Aside.) There are the makings of a strategist about Jack though
his methods are coarse. (Aloud.) You’d better get a new dress, then.
(Aside.) Let us pray that that will turn her.

Mrs. G. Oh, it isn’t stained in the least. I only thought that I’d tell
you. (Returning to letter.) What an extraordinary person! (Reads.) “But
need I remind you that you have taken upon yourself a charge of wardship”—what
in the world is a charge of wardship?—“which as you yourself know,
may end in Consequences”—

Capt. G. (Aside.) It’s safest to let em see everything as they come across
it; but ‘seems to me that there are exceptions to the rule. (Aloud.) I
told you that there was nothing to be gained from rearranging my table.

Mrs. G. (Absently.) What does the woman mean? She goes on talking about
Consequences—“almost inevitable Consequences” with a capital C—for
half a page. (Flushing scarlet.) Oh, good gracious! How abominable!

Capt. G. (Promptly.) Do you think so? Doesn’t it show a sort of motherly
interest in us? (Aside.) Thank Heaven. Harry always wrapped her meaning up
safely! (Aloud.) Is it absolutely necessary to go on with the letter,
darling?

Mrs. G. It’s impertinent—it’s simply horrid. What right has this
woman to write in this way to you? She oughtn’t to.

Capt. G. When you write to the Deercourt girl, I notice that you generally
fill three or four sheets. Can’t you let an old woman babble on paper once
in a way? She means well.

Mrs. G. I don’t care. She shouldn’t write, and if she did, you ought to
have shown me her letter.

Capt. G. Can’t you understand why I kept it to myself, or must I explain
at length—as I explained the farcybuds?

Mrs. G. (Furiously.) Pip I hate you! This is as bad as those idiotic
saddle-bags on the floor. Never mind whether it would please me or not,
you ought to have given it to me to read.

Capt. G. It comes to the same thing. You took it yourself.

Mrs. G. Yes, but if I hadn’t taken it, you wouldn’t have said a word. I
think this Harriet Herriott—it’s like a name in a book—is an
interfering old Thing.

Capt. G. (Aside.) So long as you thoroughly understand that she is old, I
don’t much care what you think. (Aloud.) Very good, dear. Would you like
to write and tell her so? She’s seven thousand miles away.

Mrs. G. I don’t want to have anything to do with her, but you ought to
have told me. (Turning to last page of letter.) And she patronizes me,
too. I’ve never seen her! (Reads.) “I do not know how the world stands
with you; in all human probability I shall never know; but whatever I may
have said before, I pray for her sake more than for yours that all may be
well. I have learned what misery means, and I dare not wish that any one
dear to you should share my knowledge.”

Capt. G. Good God! Can’t you leave that letter alone, or, at least, can’t
you refrain from reading it aloud? I’ve been through it once. Put it back
on the desk. Do you hear me?

Mrs. G. (Irresolutely.) I sh-sha’n’t! (Looks at G.’s eyes.) Oh, Pip,
please! I didn’t mean to make you angry—’Deed, I didn’t. Pip, I’m so
sorry. I know I’ve wasted your time—

Capt. G. (Grimly.) You have. Now, will you be good enough to go—if
there is nothing more in my room that you are anxious to pry into?

Mrs. G. (Putting out her hands.) Oh, Pip, don’t look at me like that! I’ve
never seen you look like that before and it hu-urts me! I’m sorry. I
oughtn’t to have been here at all, and—and—and—(sobbing.)
Oh, be good to me! Be good to me! There’s only you—anywhere! Breaks
down in long chair, hiding face in cushions.

Capt. G. (Aside.) She doesn’t know how she flicked me on the raw. (Aloud,
bending over chair.) I didn’t mean to be harsh, dear—I didn’t
really. You can stay here as long as you please, and do what you please.
Don’t cry like that. You’ll make yourself sick. (Aside.) What on earth has
come over her? (Aloud.) Darling, what’s the matter with you?

Mrs. G. (Her face still hidden.) Let me go—let me go to my own room.
Only—only say you aren’t angry with me.

Capt. G. Angry with you, love! Of course not. I was angry with myself. I’d
lost my temper over the saddlery—Don’t hide your face, Pussy. I want
to kiss it.

Bends lower, Mrs. G. slides right arm round his neck. Several interludes
and much sobbing.

Mrs. G. (In a whisper.) I didn’t mean about the jam when I came in to tell
you— CAPT. G. Bother the jam and the equipment! (Interlude.)

Mrs. G. (Still more faintly.) My finger wasn’t scalded at all. I—wanted
to speak to you about—about—something else, and—I didn’t
know how.

Capt. G. Speak away, then. (Looking into her eyes.) Eh! Wha-at? Minnie!
Here, don’t go away! You don’t mean?

Mrs. G. (Hysterically, backing to portiere and hiding her face in its
folds.) The—the Almost Inevitable Consequences! (Flits through
portiere as G. attempts to catch her, and bolts her self in her own room.)

Capt. G. (His arms full of portiere.) Oh! (Sitting down heavily in chair.)
I’m a brute, a pig—a bully, and a blackguard. My poor, poor little
darling! “Made to be amused only?”—

THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW, KNOWING GOOD AND EVIL.

SCENE. The GADSBYS’ bungalow in the Plains, in June. Punkah-coolies asleep
in veranda where Captain GADSBY is walking up and down. DOCTOR’S trap in
porch. JUNIOR CHAPLAIN drifting generally and uneasily through the house.
Time, 3:40 A. M. Heat 94 degrees in veranda.

DOCTOR. (Coming into veranda and touching G. on the shoulder.) You had
better go in and see her now.

Capt. G. (The color of good cigar-ash.) Eh, wha-at? Oh, yes, of course.
What did you say?

DOCTOR. (Syllable by syllable.) Go-in-to-the-room-and-see-her. She wants
to speak to you. (Aside, testily.) I shall have him on my hands next.

JUNIOR CHAPLAIN. (In half-lighted dining room.) Isn’t there any?—

DOCTOR. (Savagely.) Ha, you little fool!

JUNIOR CHAPLAIN. Let me do my work. Gadsby, stop a minute—I (Edges
after G.)

DOCTOR. Wait till she sends for you at least—at least. Man alive,
he’ll kill you if you go in there! What are you bothering him for?

JUNIOR CHAPLAIN. (Coming into veranda.) I’ve given him a stiff brandy-peg.
He wants it. You’ve forgotten him for the last ten hours and—forgotten
yourself too.

G. enters bedroom, which is lit by one night-lamp. Ayah on the floor
pretending to be asleep.

VOICE. (From the bed.) All down the street—such bonfires! Ayah, go
and put them out! (Appealingly.) How can I sleep with an installation of
the C.I.E. in my room? No—not C.I.E. Something else. What was it?

Capt. G. (Trying to control his voice.) Minnie, I’m here. (Bending over
bed.) Don’t you know me, Minnie? It’s me—it’s Phil—it’s your
husband.

VOICE. (Mechanically.) It’s me—it’s Phil—it’s your husband.

Capt. G. She doesn’t know me!—It’s your own husband, darling.

VOICE. Your own husband, darling.

Ayah. (With an inspiration.) Memsahib understanding all I saying.

Capt. G. Make her understand me then—quick!

Ayah. (Hand on Mrs. G.’s fore-head.) Memsahib! Captain Sahib here.

VOICE. Salaem do. (Fretfully.) I know I’m not fit to be seen.

Ayah. (Aside to G.) Say “marneen” same as breakfash.

Capt. G. Good morning, little woman. How are we today?

VOICE. That’s Phil. Poor old Phil. (Viciously.) Phil, you fool, I can’t
see you. Come nearer.

Capt. G. Minnie! Minnie! It’s me—you know me?

VOICE. (Mockingly.) Of course I do. Who does not know the man who was so
cruel to his wife—almost the only one he ever had?

Capt. G. Yes, dear. Yes—of course, of course. But won’t you speak to
him? He wants to speak to you so much.

VOICE. They’d never let him in. The Doctor would give darwaza band even if
he were in the house. He’ll never come. (Despairingly.) O Judas! Judas!
Judas!

Capt. G. (Putting out his arms.) They have let him in, and he always was
in the house Oh, my love—don’t you know me?

VOICE. (In a half chant.) “And it came to pass at the eleventh hour that
this poor soul repented.” It knocked at the gates, but they were shut—tight
as a plaster—a great, burning plaster. They had pasted our marriage
certificate all across the door, and it was made of red-hot iron—people
really ought to be more careful, you know.

Capt. G. What am I to do? (Taking her in his arms.) Minnie! speak to me—to
Phil.

VOICE. What shall I say? Oh, tell me what to say before it’s too late!
They are all going away and I can’t say anything.

Capt. G. Say you know me! Only say you know me!

DOCTOR. (Who has entered quietly.) For pity’s sake don’t take it too much
to heart, Gadsby. It’s this way sometimes. They won’t recognize. They say
all sorts of queer things—don’t you see?

Capt. G. All right! All right! Go away now; she’ll recognize me; you’re
bothering her. She must—mustn’t she?

DOCTOR. She will before—Have I your leave to try?—

Capt. G. Anything you please, so long as she’ll know me. It’s only a
question of hours, isn’t it?

DOCTOR. (Professionally.) While there’s life there’s hope y’know. But
don’t build on it.

Capt. G. I don’t. Pull her together if it’s possible. (Aside.) What have I
done to deserve this?

DOCTOR. (Bending over bed.) Now, Mrs. Gadsby! We shall be all right
tomorrow. You must take it, or I sha’n’t let Phil see you. It isn’t nasty,
is it?

Voice. Medicines! Always more medicines! Can’t you leave me alone?

Capt. G. Oh, leave her in peace, Doc!

DOCTOR. (Stepping back,—aside.) May I be forgiven if I’ve done
wrong. (Aloud.) In a few minutes she ought to be sensible; but I daren’t
tell you to look for anything. It’s only—

Capt. G. What? Go on, man.

DOCTOR. (In a whisper.) Forcing the last rally.

Capt. G. Then leave us alone.

DOCTOR. Don’t mind what she says at first, if you can. They—they—they
turn against those they love most sometimes in this.—It’s hard, but—

Capt. G. Am I her husband or are you? Leave us alone for what time we have
together.

VOICE. (Confidentially.) And we were engaged quite suddenly, Emma. I
assure you that I never thought of it for a moment; but, oh, my little Me!—I
don’t know what I should have done if he hadn’t proposed.

Capt. G. She thinks of that Deercourt girl before she thinks of me.
(Aloud.) Minnie!

VOICE. Not from the shops, Mummy dear. You can get the real leaves from
Kaintu, and (laughing weakly) never mind about the blossoms—Dead
white silk is only fit for widows, and I won’t wear it. It’s as bad as a
winding sheet. (A long pause.)

Capt. G. I never asked a favor yet. If there is anybody to listen to me,
let her know me—even if I die too!

VOICE. (Very faintly.) Pip, Pip dear.

Capt. G. I’m here, darling.

VOICE. What has happened? They’ve been bothering me so with medicines and
things, and they wouldn’t let you come and see me. I was never ill before.
Am I ill now?

Capt. G. You—you aren’t quite well.

VOICE. How funny! Have I been ill long?

Capt. G. Some days; but you’ll be all right in a little time.

VOICE. Do you think so, Pip? I don’t feel well and—Oh! what have
they done to my hair?

Capt. G. I d-d-on’t know.

VOICE. They’ve cut it off. What a shame!

Capt. G. It must have been to make your head cooler.

VOICE. Just like a boy’s wig. Don’t I look horrid?

Capt. G. Never looked prettier in your life, dear. (Aside.) How am I to
ask her to say goodbye?

VOICE. I don’t feel pretty. I feel very ill. My heart won’t work. It’s
nearly dead inside me, and there’s a funny feeling in my eyes. Everything
seems the same distance—you and the almirah and the table inside my
eyes or miles away. What does it mean, Pip?

Capt. G. You’re a little feverish, Sweetheart—very feverish.
(Breaking down.) My love! my love! How can I let you go?

VOICE. I thought so. Why didn’t you tell me that at first?

Capt. G. What?

VOICE. That I am going to—die.

Capt. G. But you aren’t! You sha’n’t.

Ayah to punkah-coolie. (Stepping into veranda after a glance at the bed.
). Punkah chor do! (Stop pulling the punkah.)

VOICE. It’s hard, Pip. So very, very hard after one year—just one
year. (Wailing.) And I’m only twenty. Most girls aren’t even married at
twenty. Can’t they do anything to help me? I don’t want to die.

Capt. G. Hush, dear. You won’t.

VOICE. What’s the use of talking? Help me! You’ve never failed me yet. Oh,
Phil, help me to keep alive. (Feverishly.) I don’t believe you wish me to
live. You weren’t a bit sorry when that horrid Baby thing died. I wish I’d
killed it!

Capt. G. (Drawing his hand across his forehead.) It’s more than a man’s
meant to bear—it’s not right. (Aloud.) Minnie, love, I’d die for you
if it would help.

VOICE. No more death. There’s enough already. Pip, don’t you die too.

Capt. G. I wish I dared.

VOICE. It says: “Till Death do us part.” Nothing after that—and so
it would be no use. It stops at the dying. Why does it stop there? Only
such a very short life, too. Pip, I’m sorry we married.

Capt. G. No! Anything but that, Min!

VOICE. Because you’ll forget and I’ll forget. Oh, Pip, don’t forget! I
always loved you, though I was cross sometimes. If I ever did anything
that you didn’t like, say you forgive me now.

Capt. G. You never did, darling. On my soul and honor you never did. I
haven’t a thing to forgive you.

VOICE. I sulked for a whole week about those petunias. (With a laugh.)
What a little wretch I was, and how grieved you were! Forgive me that, Pp.

Capt. G. There’s nothing to forgive. It was my fault. They were too near
the drive. For God’s sake don’t talk so, Minnie! There’s such a lot to say
and so little time to say it in.

VOICE. Say that you’ll always love me—until the end.

Capt. G. Until the end. (Carried away.) It’s a lie. It must be, because
we’ve loved each other. This isn’t the end.

VOICE. (Relapsing into semi-delirium.) My Church-service has an ivory
cross on the back, and it says so, so it must be true. “Till Death do us
part.”—but that’s a lie. (With a parody of G.’s manner.) A damned
lie! (Recklessly.) Yes, I can swear as well as a Trooper, Pip. I can’t
make my head think, though. That’s because they cut off my hair. How can
one think with one’s head all fuzzy? (Pleadingly.) Hold me, Pip! Keep me
with you always and always. (Relapsing.) But if you marry the Thorniss
girl when I’m dead, I’ll come back and howl under our bedroom window all
night. Oh, bother! You’ll think I’m a jackal. Pip, what time is it?

Capt. G. A little before the dawn, dear.

VOICE. I wonder where I shall be this time tomorrow?

Capt. G. Would you like to see the Padre?

VOICE. Why should I? He’d tell me that I am going to heaven; and that
wouldn’t be true, because you are here. Do you recollect when he upset the
cream-ice all over his trousers at the Gassers’ tennis?

Capt. G. Yes, dear.

VOICE. I often wondered whether he got another pair of trousers; but then
his are so shiny all over that you really couldn’t tell unless you were
told. Let’s call him in and ask.

Capt. G. (Gravely.) No. I don’t think he’d like that. Your head comfy,
Sweetheart?

VOICE. (Faintly with a sigh of contentment.) Yeth! Gracious, Pip, when did
you shave last? Your chin’s worse than the barrel of a musical box.—No,
don’t lift it up. I like it. (A pause.) You said you’ve never cried at
all. You’re crying all over my cheek.

Capt. G. I-I-I can’t help it, dear.

VOICE. How funny! I couldn’t cry now to save my life. (G. shivers.) I want
to sing.

Capt. G. Won’t it tire you? ‘Better not, perhaps.

VOICE. Why? I won’t be bothered about. (Begins in a hoarse quaver)

(Pettishly.) I knew I couldn’t take the last note. How do the bass chords
run? (Puts out her hands and begins playing piano on the sheet.)

Capt. G. (Catching up hands.) Ahh! Don’t do that, Pussy, if you love me.

VOICE. Love you? Of course I do. Who else should it be? (A pause.)

VOICE. (Very clearly.) Pip, I’m going now. Something’s choking me cruelly.
(Indistinctly.) Into the dark—without you, my heart—But it’s a
lie, dear—we mustn’t believe it.—Forever and ever, living or
dead. Don’t let me go, my husband—hold me tight.—They can’t—whatever
happens. (A cough.) Pip—my Pip! Not for always—and—so—soon!
(Voice ceases.)

Pause of ten minutes. G. buries his face in the side of the bed while AYAH
bends over bed from opposite side and feels Mrs. G.’s breast and forehead.

Capt. G. (Rising.) Doctor Sahib ko salaam do.

Ayah. (Still by bedside, with a shriek.) Ail Ail Tuta-phuta! My Memsahib!
Not getting—not have got!—Pusseena agyal (The sweat has come.)
(Fiercely to G.) TUM jao Doctor Sahib ko jaldi! (You go to the doctor.)
Oh, my Memsahib!

DOCTOR. (Entering hastily.) Come away, Gadsby. (Bends over bed.) Eh! The
Dev—What inspired you to stop the punkah? Get out, man—go away—wait
outside! Go! Here, Ayah! (Over his shoulder to G.) Mind I promise nothing.

The dawn breaks as G. stumbles into the garden.

Capt. M. (Rehung up at the gate on his way to parade and very soberly.)
Old man, how goes?

Capt. G. (Dazed.) I don’t quite know. Stay a bit. Have a drink or
something. Don’t run away. You’re just getting amusing. Ha! ha!

Capt. M. (Aside.) What am I let in for? Gaddy has aged ten years in the
night.

Capt. G. (Slowly, fingering charger’s headstall.) Your curb’s too loose.

Capt. M. So it is. Put it straight, will you? (Aside.) I shall be late for
parade. Poor Gaddy.

Capt. G. links and unlinks curb-chain aimlessly, and finally stands
staring toward the veranda. The day brightens.

DOCTOR. (Knocked out of professional gravity, tramping across flower-beds
and shaking G’s hands.) It’-it’s-it’s!—Gadsby, there’s a fair chance—a
dashed fair chance. The flicker, y’know. The sweat, y’know I saw how it
would be. The punkah, y’know. Deuced clever woman that Ayah of yours.
Stopped the punkah just at the right time. A dashed good chance! No—you
don’t go in. We’ll pull her through yet I promise on my reputation—under
Providence. Send a man with this note to Bingle. Two heads better than
one. ‘Specially the Ayah! We’ll pull her round. (Retreats hastily to
house.)

Capt. G. (His head on neck of M.’s charger.) Jack! I bub-bu-believe, I’m
going to make a bu-bub-bloody exhibitiod of byself.

Capt. M. (Sniffing openly and feeling in his left cuff.) I b-b-believe,
I’b doing it already. Old bad, what cad I say? I’b as pleased as—Cod
dab you, Gaddy! You’re one big idiot and I’b adother. (Pulling himself
together.) Sit tight! Here comes the Devil-dodger.

JUNIOR CHAPLAIN. (Who is not in the Doctor’s confidence.) We—we are
only men in these things, Gadsby. I know that I can say nothing now to
help.

Capt. M. (jealously.) Then don’t say it Leave him alone. It’s not bad
enough to croak over. Here, Gaddy, take the chit to Bingle and ride
hell-for-leather. It’ll do you good. I can’t go.

JUNIOR CHAPLAIN. Do him good! (Smiling.) Give me the chit and I’ll drive.
Let him lie down. Your horse is blocking my cart—please!

Capt. M. (Slowly without reining back.) I beg your pardon—I’ll
apologize. On paper if you like.

JUNIOR CHAPLAIN. (Flicking M.’s charger.) That’ll do, thanks. Turn in,
Gadsby, and I’ll bring Bingle back—ahem—“hell-for-leather.”

Capt. M. (Solus.) It would have served me right if he’d cut me across the
face. He can drive too. I shouldn’t care to go that pace in a bamboo cart.
What a faith he must have in his Maker—of harness! Come hup, you
brute! (Gallops off to parade, blowing his nose, as the sun rises.)

(INTERVAL OF FIVE WEEKS.)

Mrs. G. (Very white and pinched, in morning wrapper at breakfast table.)
How big and strange the room looks, and how glad I am to see it again!
What dust, though! I must talk to the servants. Sugar, Pip? I’ve almost
forgotten. (Seriously.) Wasn’t I very ill?

Capt. G. Iller than I liked. (Tenderly.) Oh, you bad little Pussy, what a
start you gave me!

Mrs. G. I’ll never do it again.

Capt. G. You’d better not. And now get those poor pale cheeks pink again,
or I shall be angry. Don’t try to lift the urn. You’ll upset it. Wait.
(Comes round to head of table and lifts urn.)

Mrs. G. (Quickly.) Khitmatgar, howarchikhana see kettly lao. Butler, get a
kettle from the cook-house. (Drawing down G.’s face to her own.) Pip dear,
I remember.

Capt. G. What?

Mrs. G. That last terrible night.

CAPT. G. Then just you forget all about it.

Mrs. G. (Softly, her eyes filling.) Never. It has brought us very close
together, my husband. There! (Interlude.) I’m going to give Junda a saree.

Capt. G. I gave her fifty dibs.

Mrs. G. So she told me. It was a ‘normous reward. Was I worth it? (Several
interludes.) Don’t! Here’s the khitmatgar.—Two lumps or one Sir?

THE SWELLING OF JORDAN

If thou hast run with the footmen and they have wearied thee, then how
canst thou contend with horses? And if in the land of peace wherein thou
trustedst they wearied thee, then how wilt thou do in the swelling of
Jordan?

SCENE. The GADSBYS’ bungalow in the Plains, on a January morning. Mrs. G.
arguing with bearer in back veranda.

Capt. M. rides up.

Capt. M. ‘Mornin’, Mrs. Gadsby. How’s the Infant Phenomenon and the Proud
Proprietor?

Mrs. G. You’ll find them in the front veranda; go through the house. I’m
Martha just now.

Capt. M, ‘Cumbered about with cares of Khitmatgars? I fly.

Passes into front veranda, where GADSBV is watching GADSBY JUNIOR, aged
ten months, crawling about the matting.

Capt. M. What’s the trouble, Gaddy-spoiling an honest man’s Europe morning
this way? (Seeing G. JUNIOR.) By Jove, that yearling’s comin’ on
amazingly! Any amount of bone below the knee there.

Capt. G. Yes, he’s a healthy little scoundrel. Don’t you think his hair’s
growing?

Capt. M. Let’s have a look. Hi! Hst Come here, General Luck, and we’ll
report on you.

Mrs. G. (Within.) What absurd name will you give him next? Why do you call
him that?

Capt. M. Isn’t he our Inspector-General of Cavalry? Doesn’t he come down
in his seventeen-two perambulator every morning the Pink Hussars parade?
Don’t wriggle, Brigadier. Give us your private opinion on the way the
third squadron went past. ‘Trifle ragged, weren’t they?

Capt. G. A bigger set of tailors than the new draft I don’t wish to see.
They’ve given me more than my fair share—knocking the squadron out
of shape. It’s sickening!

Capt. M. When you’re in command, you’ll do better, young ‘un. Can’tyou
walk yet? Grip my finger and try. (To G.) ‘Twon’t hurt his hocks, will it?

Capt. G. Oh, no. Don’t let him flop, though, or he’ll lick all the
blacking off your boots.

Mrs. G. (Within.) Who’s destroying my son’s character?

Capt. M. And my Godson’s. I’m ashamed of you, Gaddy. Punch your father in
the eye, Jack! Don’t you stand it! Hit him again!

Capt. G. (Sotto voce.) Put The Butcha down and come to the end of the
veranda. I’d rather the Wife didn’t hear—just now.

Capt. M. You look awf’ly serious. Anything wrong?

Capt. G. ‘Depends on your view entirely. I say, Jack, you won’t think more
hardly of me than you can help, will you? Come further this way.—The
fact of the matter is, that I’ve made up my mind—at least I’m
thinking seriously of—cutting the Service.

Capt. M. Hwhatt?

Capt. G. Don’t shout. I’m going to send in my papers.

Capt. M. You! Are you mad?

Capt. G. No—only married.

Capt. M. Look here! What’s the meaning of it all? You never intend to
leave us. You can’t. Isn’t the best squadron of the best regiment of the
best cavalry in all the world good enough for you?

Capt. G. (Jerking his head over his shoulder.) She doesn’t seem to thrive
in this God-forsaken country, and there’s The Butcha to be considered and
all that, you know.

Capt. M. Does she say that she doesn’t like India?

Capt. G. That’s the worst of it. She won’t for fear of leaving me.

Capt. M. What are the Hills made for?

Capt. G. Not for my wife, at any rate.

Capt. M. You know too much, Gaddy, and—I don’t like you any the
better for it!

Capt. G. Never mind that. She wants England, and The Butcha would be all
the better for it. I’m going to chuck. You don’t understand.

Capt. M. (Hotly.) I understand this!—One hundred and thirty-seven
new horse to be licked into shape somehow before Luck comes round again; a
hairy-heeled draft who’ll give more trouble than the horses; a camp next
cold weather for a certainty; ourselves the first on the roster; the
Russian shindy ready to come to a head at five minutes’ notice, and you,
the best of us all, backing out of it all! Think a little, Gaddy. You
won’t do it.

Capt. G. Hang it, a man has some duties toward his family, I suppose.

Capt. M. I remember a man, though, who told me, the night after Amdheran,
when we were picketed under Jagai, and he’d left his sword—by the
way, did you ever pay Ranken for that sword?—in an Utmanzai’s head—that
man told me that he’d stick by me and the Pinks as long as he lived. I
don’t blame him for not sticking by me—I’m not much of a man—but
I do blame him for not sticking by the Pink Hussars.

Capt. G. (Uneasily.) We were little more than boys then. Can’t you see,
Jack, how things stand? ‘Tisn’t as if we were serving for our bread. We’ve
all of us, more or less, got the filthy lucre. I’m luckier than some,
perhaps. There’s no call for me to serve on.

Capt. M. None in the world for you or for us, except the Regimental. If
you don’t choose to answer to that, of course—

Capt. G. Don’t be too hard on a man. You know that a lot of us only take
up the thing for a few years and then go back to Town and catch on with
the rest.

Capt. M. Not lots, and they aren’t some of Us.

Capt. G. And then there are one’s affairs at Home to be considered—my
place and the rents, and all that. I don’t suppose my father can last much
longer, and that means the title, and so on.

Capt. M. ‘Fraid you won’t be entered in the Stud Book correctly unless you
go Home? Take six months, then, and come out in October. If I could slay
off a brother or two, I s’pose I should be a Marquis of sorts. Any fool
can be that; but it needs men, Gaddy—men like you—to lead
flanking squadrons properly. Don’t you delude yourself into the belief
that you’re going Home to take your place and prance about among
pink-nosed Kabuli dowagers. You aren’t built that way. I know better.

Capt. G. A man has a right to live his life as happily as he can. You
aren’t married.

Capt. M. No—praise be to Providence and the one or two women who
have had the good sense to jawab me.

Capt. G. Then you don’t know what it is to go into your own room and see
your wife’s head on the pillow, and when everything else is safe and the
house shut up for the night, to wonder whether the roof-beams won’t give
and kill her.

Capt. M. (Aside.) Revelations first and second! (Aloud.) So-o! I knew a
man who got squiffy at our Mess once and confided to me that he never
helped his wife on to her horse without praying that she’d break her neck
before she came back. All husbands aren’t alike, you see.

Capt. G. What on earth has that to do with my case? The man must ha’ been
mad, or his wife as bad as they make ’em.

Capt. M. (Aside.) ‘No fault of yours if either weren’t all you say. You’ve
forgotten the time when you were insane about the Herriott woman. You
always were a good hand at forgetting. (Aloud.) Not more mad than men who
go to the other extreme. Be reasonable, Gaddy. Your roof-beams are sound
enough.

Capt. G. That was only a way of speaking. I’ve been uneasy and worried
about the Wife ever since that awful business three years ago—when—I
nearly lost her. Can you wonder?

Capt. M. Oh, a shell never falls twice in the same place. You’ve paid your
toll to misfortune—why should your Wife be picked out more than
anybody else’s?

Capt. G. I can talk just as reasonably as you can, but you don’t
understand—you don’t understand. And then there’s The Butcha. Deuce
knows where the Ayah takes him to sit in the evening! He has a bit of a
cough. Haven’t you noticed it?

Capt. M. Bosh! The Brigadier’s jumping out of his skin with pure
condition. He’s got a muzzle like a rose-leaf and the chest of a
two-year-old. What’s demoralized you?

Capt. G. Funk. That’s the long and the short of it. Funk!

Capt. M. But what is there to funk?

Capt. G. Everything. It’s ghastly.

Capt. G. I suppose that’s it. But it’s not for myself. It’s because of
them. At least I think it is.

Capt. M. Are you sure? Looking at the matter in a cold-blooded light, the
Wife is provided for even if you were wiped out tonight. She has an
ancestral home to go to, money and the Brigadier to carry on the
illustrious name.

Capt. G. Then it is for myself or because they are part of me. You don’t
see it. My life’s so good, so pleasant, as it is, that I want to make it
quite safe. Can’t you understand?

Capt. M. Perfectly. “Shelter-pit for the Off’cer’s charger,” as they say
in the Line.

Capt. G. And I have everything to my hand to make it so. I’m sick of the
strain and the worry for their sakes out here; and there isn’t a single
real difficulty to prevent my dropping it altogether. It’ll only cost me—Jack,
I hope you’ll never know the shame that I’ve been going through for the
past six months.

Capt. M. Hold on there! I don’t wish to be told. Every man has his moods
and tenses sometimes.

Capt. G. (Laughing bitterly.) Has he? What do you call craning over to see
where your near-fore lands?

Capt. M. In my case it means that I have been on the Considerable Bend,
and have come to parade with a Head and a Hand. It passes in three
strides.

Capt. G. (Lowering voice.) It never passes with me, Jack. I’m always
thinking about it. Phil Gadsby funking a fall on parade! Sweet picture,
isn’t it! Draw it for me.

Capt. M. (Gravely.) Heaven forbid! A man like you can’t be as bad as that.
A fall is no nice thing, but one never gives it a thought.

Capt. G. Doesn’t one? Wait till you’ve got a wife and a youngster of your
own, and then you’ll know how the roar of the squadron behind you turns
you cold all up the back.

Capt. M. (Aside.) And this man led at Amdheran after Bagal Deasin went
under, and we were all mixed up together, and he came out of the snow
dripping like a butcher. (Aloud.) Skittles! The men can always open out,
and you can always pick your way more or less. We haven’t the dust to
bother us, as the men have, and whoever heard of a horse stepping on a
man?

Capt. G. Never—as long as he can see. But did they open out for poor
Errington?

Capt. M. Oh, this is childish!

Capt. G. I know it is, worse than that. I don’t care. You’ve ridden Van
Loo. Is he the sort of brute to pick his way—’specially when we’re
coming up in column of troop with any pace on?

Capt. M. Once in a Blue Moon do we gallop in column of troop, and then
only to save time. Aren’t three lengths enough for you?

Capt. G. Yes—quite enough. They just allow for the full development
of the smash. I’m talking like a cur, I know: but I tell you that, for the
past three months, I’ve felt every hoof of the squadron in the small of my
back every time that I’ve led.

Capt. M. But, Gaddy, this is awful!

Capt. G. Isn’t it lovely? Isn’t it royal? A Captain of the Pink Hussars
watering up his charger before parade like the blasted boozing Colonel of
a Black Regiment!

Capt. M. You never did!

Capt. G. Once only. He squelched like a mussuck, and the
Troop-Sergeant-Major cocked his eye at me. You know old Haffy’s eye. I was
afraid to do it again.

Capt. M. I should think so. That was the best way to rupture old Van Loo’s
tummy, and make him crumple you up. You knew that.

Capt. G. I didn’t care. It took the edge off him.

Capt. M. “Took the edge off him”? Gaddy, you—you—you mustn’t,
you know! Think of the men.

Capt. G. That’s another thing I am afraid of. D’you s’pose they know?

Capt. M. Let’s hope not; but they’re deadly quick to spot skirm—little
things of that kind. See here, old man, send the Wife Home for the hot
weather and come to Kashmir with me. We’ll start a boat on the Dal or
cross the Rhotang—shoot ibex or loaf—which you please. Only
come! You’re a bit off your oats and you’re talking nonsense. Look at the
Colonel—swag-bellied rascal that he is. He has a wife and no end of
a bow-window of his own. Can any one of us ride round him—chalkstones
and all? I can’t, and I think I can shove a crock along a bit.

Capt. G. Some men are different. I haven’t any nerve. Lord help me, I
haven’t the nerve! I’ve taken up a hole and a half to get my knees well
under the wallets. I can’t help it. I’m so afraid of anything happening to
me. On my soul, I ought to be broke in front of the squadron, for
cowardice.

Capt. M. Ugly word, that. I should never have the courage to own up.

Capt. G. I meant to lie about my reasons when I began, but—I’ve got
out of the habit of lying to you, old man. Jack, you won’t?—But I
know you won’t.

Capt. M. Of course not. (Half aloud.) The Pinks are paying dearly for
their Pride.

Capt. G. Eh! Wha-at?

Capt. M. Don’t you know? The men have called Mrs. Gadsby the Pride of the
Pink Hussars ever since she came to us.

Capt. G. ‘Tisn’t her fault. Don’t think that. It’s all mine.

Capt. M. What does she say?

Capt. G. I haven’t exactly put it before her. She’s the best little woman
in the world, Jack, and all that—but she wouldn’t counsel a man to
stick to his calling if it came between him and her. At least, I think—

Capt. M. Never mind. Don’t tell her what you told me. Go on the Peerage
and Landed-Gentry tack.

Capt. G. She’d see through it. She’s five times cleverer than I am.

Capt. M. (Aside.) Then she’ll accept the sacrifice and think a little bit
worse of him for the rest of her days.

Capt. G. (Absently.) I say, do you despise me?

Capt. M. ‘Queer way of putting it. Have you ever been asked that question?
Think a minute. What answer used you to give?

Capt. G. So bad as that? I’m not entitled to expect anything more, but
it’s a bit hard when one’s best friend turns round and—

Capt. M. So I have found. But you will have consolations—Bailiffs
and Drains and Liquid Manure and the Primrose League, and, perhaps, if
you’re lucky, the Colonelcy of a Yeomanry Cav-al-ry Regiment—all
uniform and no riding, I believe. How old are you?

Capt. G. Thirty-three. I know it’s—

Capt. M. At forty you’ll be a fool of a J. P. landlord. At fifty you’ll
own a bath-chair, and The Brigadier, if he takes after you, will be
fluttering the dovecotes of—what’s the particular dunghill you’re
going to? Also, Mrs. Gadsby will be fat.

Capt. G. (Limply.) This is rather more than a joke.

Capt. M. D’you think so? Isn’t cutting the Service a joke? It generally
takes a man fifty years to arrive at it. You’re quite right, though. It is
more than a joke. You’ve managed it in thirty-three.

Capt. G. Don’t make me feel worse than I do. Will it satisfy you if I own
that I am a shirker, a skrim-shanker, and a coward?

Capt. M. It will not, because I’m the only man in the world who can talk
to you like this without being knocked down. You mustn’t take all that
I’ve said to heart in this way. I only spoke—a lot of it at least—out
of pure selfishness, because, because—Oh, damn it all, old man,—I
don’t know what I shall do without you. Of course, you’ve got the money
and the place and all that—and there are two very good reasons why
you should take care of yourself.

Capt. G. ‘Doesn’t make it any sweeter. I’m backing out—I know I am.
I always had a soft drop in me somewhere—and I daren’t risk any
danger to them.

Capt. M. Why in the world should you? You’re bound to think of your family—bound
to think. Er—hmm. If I wasn’t a younger son I’d go too—be shot
if I wouldn’t!

Capt. G. Thank you, Jack. It’s a kind lie, but it’s the blackest you’ve
told for some time. I know what I’m doing, and I’m going into it with my
eyes open. Old man, I can’t help it. What would you do if you were in my
place?

Capt. M. (Aside.) ‘Couldn’t conceive any woman getting permanently between
me and the Regiment. (Aloud.) ‘Can’t say. ‘Very likely I should do no
better. I’m sorry for you—awf’ly sorry—but “if them’s your
sentiments,” I believe, I really do, that you are acting wisely.

Capt. G. Do you? I hope you do. (In a whisper.) Jack, be very sure of
yourself before you marry. I’m an ungrateful ruffian to say this, but
marriage—even as good a marriage as mine has been—hampers a
man’s work, it cripples his sword-arm, and oh, it plays Hell with his
notions of duty. Sometimes—good and sweet as she is—sometimes
I could wish that I had kept my freedom—No, I don’t mean that
exactly.

Mrs. G. (Coming down veranda.) What are you wagging your head over, Pip?

Capt. M. (Turning quickly.) Me, as usual. The old sermon. Your husband is
recommending me to get married. ‘Never saw such a one-ideaed man.

Mrs. G. Well, why don’t you? I dare say you would make some woman very
happy.

Capt. G. There’s the Law and the Prophets, Jack. Never mind the Regiment.
Make a woman happy. (Aside.) O Lord!

Capt. M. We’ll see. I must be off to make a Troop Cook desperately
unhappy. I won’t have the wily Hussar fed on Government Bullock Train
shinbones—(Hastily.) Surely black ants can’t be good for The
Brigadier. He’s picking em off the matting and eating ’em. Here, Senor
Comandante Don Grubbynose, come and talk to me. (Lifts G. JUNIOR in his
arms.) ‘Want my watch? You won’t be able to put it into your mouth, but
you can try. (G. JUNIOR drops watch, breaking dial and hands.)

Mrs. G. Oh, Captain Mafflin, I am so sorry! Jack, you bad, bad little
villain. Ahhh!

Capt. M. It’s not the least consequence, I assure you. He’d treat the
world in the same way if he could get it into his hands. Everything’s made
to be played, with and broken, isn’t it, young ‘un?

Mrs. G. Mafflin didn’t at all like his watch being broken, though he was
too polite to say so. It was entirely his fault for giving it to the
child. Dem little puds are werry, werry feeble, aren’t dey, by
Jack-in-de-box? (To G.) What did he want to see you for?

Capt. G. Regimental shop as usual.

Mrs. G. The Regiment! Always the Regiment. On my word, I sometimes feel
jealous of Mafflin.

Capt. G. (Wearily.) Poor old Jack? I don’t think you need. Isn’t it time
for The Butcha to have his nap? Bring a chair out here, dear. I’ve got
some thing to talk over with you.

THIS IS THE END OF THE STORY OF THE GADSBYS

VOLUME VIII from MINE OWN PEOPLE

BIMI

THE orangoutang in the big iron cage lashed to the sheep-pen began the
discussion. The night was stiflingly hot, and as Hans Breitmann and I
passed him, dragging our bedding to the fore-peak of the steamer, he
roused himself and chattered obscenely. He had been caught somewhere in
the Malayan Archipelago, and was going to England to be exhibited at a
shilling a head. For four days he had struggled, yelled, and wrenched at
the heavy iron bars of his prison without ceasing, and had nearly slain a
Lascar incautious enough to come within reach of the great hairy paw.

“It would be well for you, mine friend, if you was a liddle seasick,” said
Hans Breitmann, pausing by the cage. “You haf too much Ego in your
Cosmos.”

The orangoutang’s arm slid out negligently from between the bars. No one
would have believed that it would make a sudden snake-like rush at the
German’s breast. The thin silk of the sleeping-suit tore out: Hans stepped
back unconcernedly, to pluck a banana from a bunch hanging close to one of
the boats.

“Too much Ego,” said he, peeling the fruit and offering it to the caged
devil, who was rending the silk to tatters.

Then we laid out our bedding in the bows, among the sleeping Lascars, to
catch any breeze that the pace of the ship might give us. The sea was like
smoky oil, except where it turned to fire under our forefoot and whirled
back into the dark in smears of dull flame. There was a thunderstorm some
miles away: we could see the glimmer of the lightning. The ship’s cow,
distressed by the heat and the smell of the ape-beast in the cage, lowed
unhappily from time to time in exactly the same key as the lookout man at
the bows answered the hourly call from the bridge. The trampling tune of
the engines was very distinct, and the jarring of the ash-lift, as it was
tipped into the sea, hurt the procession of hushed noise. Hans lay down by
my side and lighted a good-night cigar. This was naturally the beginning
of conversation. He owned a voice as soothing as the wash of the sea, and
stores of experiences as vast as the sea itself; for his business in life
was to wander up and down the world, collecting orchids and wild beasts
and ethnological specimens for German and American dealers. I watched the
glowing end of his cigar wax and wane in the gloom, as the sentences rose
and fell, till I was nearly asleep. The orangoutang, troubled by some
dream of the forests of his freedom, began to yell like a soul in
purgatory, and to wrench madly at the bars of the cage.

“If he was out now dere would not be much of us left hereabouts,” said
Hans, lazily. “He screams good. See, now, how I shall tame him when he
stops himself.”

There was a pause in the outcry, and from Hans’ mouth came an imitation of
a snake’s hiss, so perfect that I almost sprung to my feet. The sustained
murderous sound ran along the deck, and the wrenching at the bars ceased.
The orangoutang was quaking in an ecstasy of pure terror.

“Dot stop him,” said Hans. “I learned dot trick in Mogoung Tanjong when I
was collecting liddle monkeys for some peoples in Berlin. Efery one in der
world is afraid of der monkeys except der snake. So I blay snake against
monkey, and he keep quite still. Dere was too much Ego in his Cosmos. Dot
is der soul-custom of monkeys. Are you asleep, or will you listen, and I
will tell a dale dot you shall not pelief?”

“There’s no tale in the wide world that I can’t believe,” I said.

“If you have learned pelief you haf learned somedings. Now I shall try
your pelief. Good! When I was collecting dose liddle monkeys—it was
in ’79 or ’80, und I was in der islands of der Archipelago—over dere
in der dark”—he pointed southward to New Guinea generally—“Mein
Gott! I would sooner collect life red devils than liddle monkeys. When dey
do not bite off your thumbs dey are always dying from nostalgia—homesick—for
dey haf der imperfect soul, which is midway arrested in defelopment—und
too much Ego. I was dere for nearly a year, und dere I found a man dot was
called Bertran. He was a Frenchman, und he was a goot man—naturalist
to the bone. Dey said he was an escaped convict, but he was a naturalist,
und dot was enough for me. He would call all her life beasts from der
forests, und dey would come. I said he was St. Francis of Assisi in a new
dransmigration produced, und he laughed und said he had never preach to
der fishes. He sold dem for trepang—beche-de-mer.

“Und dot man, who was king of beasts-tamer men, he had in der house shush
such anoder as dot devil-animal in der cage—a great orangoutang dot
thought he was a man. He haf found him when he was a child—der
orangoutang—und he was child and brother and opera comique all round
to Bertran. He had his room in dot house—not a cage, but a room—mit
a bed and sheets, and he would go to bed and get up in der morning and
smoke his cigar und eat his dinner mit Bertran, und walk mit him
hand-in-hand, which was most horrible. Herr Gott! I haf seen dot beast
throw himself back in his chair and laugh when Bertran haf made fun of me.
He was not a beast; he was a man, and he talked to Bertran, und Bertran
comprehended, for I have seen dem. Und he was always politeful to me
except when I talk too long to Bertran und say nodings at all to him. Den
he would pull me away—dis great, dark devil, mit his enormous paws
shush as if I was a child. He was not a beast, he was a man. Dis I saw
pefore I know him three months, und Bertran he haf saw the same; and Bimi,
der orangoutang, haf understood us both, mit his cigar between his big-dog
teeth und der blue gum.

“I was dere a year, dere und at dere oder islands—somedimes for
monkeys and somedimes for butterflies und orchits. One time Bertran says
to me dot he will be married, because he hass found a girl dot was goot,
and he inquire if this marrying idea was right. I would not say, pecause
it was not me dot was going to be married. Den he go off courting der girl—she
was a half-caste French girl—very pretty. Haf you got a new light
for my cigar? Oof! Very pretty. Only I say ‘Haf you thought of Bimi? If he
pulls me away when I talk to you, what will he do to your wife? He will
pull her in pieces. If I was you, Bertran, I would gif my wife for wedding
present der stuff figure of Bimi.’ By dot time I bad learned somedings
about der monkey peoples. ‘Shoot him?’ says Bertran. ‘He is your beast,’ I
said; ‘if he was mine he would be shot now.’

“Den I felt at der back of my neck der fingers of Bimi. Mein Gott! I tell
you dot he talked through dose fingers. It was der deaf-and-dumb alphabet
all gomplete. He slide his hairy arm round my neck, and he tilt up my chin
and look into my face, shust to see if I understood his talk so well as he
understood mine.

“’See now dere!’ says Bertran, ‘und you would shoot him while he is
cuddling you? Dot is der Teuton ingrate!’

“But I knew dot I had made Bimi a life’s enemy, pecause his fingers haf
talk murder through the back of my neck. Next dime I see Bimi dere was a
pistol in my belt, und he touch it once, and I open de breech to show him
it was loaded. He haf seen der liddle monkeys killed in der woods, and he
understood.

“So Bertran he was married, and he forgot clean about Bimi dot was
skippin’ alone on the beach mit der haf of a human soul in his belly. I
was see him skip, und he took a big bough und thrash der sand till he haf
made a great hole like a grave. So I says to Bertran ‘For any sakes, kill
Bimi. He is mad mit der jealousy.’

“Bertran haf said: ‘He is not mad at all. He haf obey and love my wife,
und if she speaks he will get her slippers,’ und he looked at his wife
across der room. She was a very pretty girl.

“Den I said to him: ‘Dost thou pretend to know monkeys und dis beast dot
is lashing himself mad upon der sands, pecause you do not talk to him?
Shoot him when he comes to der house, for he haf der light in his eyes dot
means killing—und killing.’ Bimi come to der house, but dere was no
light in his eyes. It was all put away, cunning—so cunning—und
he fetch der girl her slippers, and Bertran turn to me und say: ‘Dost thou
know him in nine months more dan I haf known him in twelve years? Shall a
child stab his fader? I have fed him, und he was my child. Do not speak
this nonsense to my wife or to me any more.’

“Dot next day Bertran came to my house to help me make some wood cases for
der specimens, und he tell me dot he haf left his wife a liddle while mit
Bimi in der garden. Den I finish my cases quick, und I say: ‘Let us go to
your house und get a trink.’ He laugh und say: ‘Come along, dry mans.’

“His wife was not in der garden, und Bimi did not come when Bertran
called. Und his wife did not come when he called, und he knocked at her
bedroom door und dot was shut tight-locked. Den he looked at me, und his
face was white. I broke down der door mit my shoulder, und der thatch of
der roof was torn into a great hole, und der sun came in upon der floor.
Haf you ever seen paper in der waste-basket, or cards at whist on der
table scattered? Dere was no wife dot could be seen. I tell you dere was
noddings in dot room dot might be a woman. Dere was stuff on der floor,
und dot was all. I looked at dese things und I was very sick; but Bertran
looked a little longer at what was upon the floor und der walls, und der
hole in der thatch. Den he pegan to laugh, soft and low, und I know und
thank God dot he was mad. He nefer cried, he nefer prayed. He stood still
in der doorway und laugh to himself. Den he said: ‘She haf locked herself
in dis room, and he haf torn up der thatch. Fi donc. Dot is so. We will
mend der thatch und wait for Bimi. He will surely come.’

“I tell you we waited ten days in dot house, after der room was made into
a room again, and once or twice we saw Bimi comin’ a liddle way from der
woods. He was afraid pecause he haf done wrong. Bertran called him when he
was come to look on the tenth day, und Bimi come skipping along der beach
und making noises, mit a long piece of Nack hair in his hands. Den Bertran
laugh and say, ‘Fi donc’ shust as if it was a glass broken upon der table;
und Bimi come nearer, und Bertran was honey-sweet in his voice and laughed
to himself. For three days he made love to Bimi, pecause Bimi would not
let himself be touched Den Bimi come to dinner at der same table mit us,
und der hair on his hands was all black und thick mit—mit what had
dried on his hands. Bertran gave him sangaree till Bimi was drunk and
stupid, und den—”

Hans paused to puff at his cigar.

“And then?” said I.

“Und den Bertran kill him with his hands, und I go for a walk upon der
heach. It was Bertran’s own piziness. When I come back der ape he was
dead, und Bertran he was dying abofe him; but still he laughed a liddle
und low, and he was quite content. Now you know der formula uf der
strength of der orangoutang—it is more as seven to one in relation
to man. But Bertran, he haf killed Bimi mit sooch dings as Gott gif him.
Dot was der mericle.”

The infernal clamor in the cage recommenced. “Aha! Dot friend of ours haf
still too much Ego in his Cosmos, Be quiet, thou!”

Hans hissed long and venomously. We could hear the great beast quaking in
his cage.

“But why in the world didn’t you help Bertran instead of letting him be
killed?” I asked.

“My friend,” said Hans, composedly stretching himself to slumber, “it was
not nice even to mineself dot I should lif after I had seen dot room wit
der hole in der thatch. Und Bertran, he was her husband. Good-night, und
sleep well.”

NAMGAY DOOLA

ONCE upon a time there was a king who lived on the road to Thibet, very
many miles in the Himalaya Mountains. His kingdom was 11,000 feet above
the sea, and exactly four miles square, but most of the miles stood on
end, owing to the nature of the country. His revenues were rather less
than 400 pounds yearly, and they were expended on the maintenance of one
elephant and a standing army of five men. He was tributary to the Indian
government, who allowed him certain sums for keeping a section of the
Himalaya-Thibet road in repair. He further increased his revenues by
selling timber to the railway companies, for he would cut the great deodar
trees in his own forest and they fell thundering into the Sutlej River and
were swept down to the Plains, 300 miles away, and became railway ties.
Now and again this king, whose name does not matter, would mount a
ring-streaked horse and ride scores of miles to Simlatown to confer with
the lieutenant-governor on matters of state, or assure the viceroy that
his sword was at the service of the queen-empress. Then the viceroy would
cause a ruffle of drums to be sounded and the ring-streaked horse and the
cavalry of the state—two men in tatters—and the herald who
bore the Silver Stick before the king would trot back to their own place,
which was between the tail of a heaven-climbing glacier and a dark birch
forest.

Now, from such a king, always remembering that he possessed one veritable
elephant and could count his descent for 1,200 years, I expected, when it
was my fate to wander through his dominions, no more than mere license to
live.

The night had closed in rain, and rolling clouds blotted out the lights of
the villages in the valley. Forty miles away, untouched by cloud or storm,
the white shoulder of Dongo Pa—the Mountain of the Council of the
Gods—upheld the evening star. The monkeys sung sorrowfully to each
other as they hunted for dry roots in the fern-draped trees, and the last
puff of the day-wind brought from the unseen villages the scent of damp
wood smoke, hot cakes, dripping undergrowth, and rotting pine-cones. That
smell is the true smell of the Himalayas, and if it once gets into the
blood of a man he will, at the last, forgetting everything else, return to
the Hills to die. The clouds closed and the smell went away, and there
remained nothing in all the world except chilling white mists and the boom
of the Sutlej River.

A fat-tailed sheep, who did not want to die, bleated lamentably at my
tent-door. He was scuffling with the prime minister and the
director-general of public education, and he was a royal gift to me and my
camp servants. I expressed my thanks suitably and inquired if I might have
audience of the king. The prime minister readjusted his turban—it
had fallen off in the struggle—and assured me that the king would be
very pleased to see me. Therefore I dispatched two bottles as a foretaste,
and when the sheep had entered upon another incarnation, climbed up to the
king’s palace through the wet. He had sent his army to escort me, but it
stayed to talk with my cook. Soldiers are very much alike all the world
over.

The palace was a four-roomed, white-washed mud-and-timber house, the
finest in all the Hills for a day’s journey. The king was dressed in a
purple velvet jacket, white muslin trousers, and a saffron-yellow turban
of price. He gave me audience in a little carpeted room opening off the
palace courtyard, which was occupied by the elephant of state. The great
beast was sheeted and anchored from trunk to tail, and the curve of his
back stood out against the sky line.

The prime minister and the director-general of public instruction were
present to introduce me; but all the court had been dismissed lest the two
bottles aforesaid should corrupt their morals. The king cast a wreath of
heavy, scented flowers round my neck as I bowed, and inquired how my
honored presence had the felicity to be. I said that through seeing his
auspicious countenance the mists of the night had turned into sunshine,
and that by reason of his beneficent sheep his good deeds would be
remembered by the gods. He said that since I had set my magnificent foot
in his kingdom the crops would probably yield seventy per cent more than
the average. I said that the fame of the king had reached to the four
corners of the earth, and that the nations gnashed their teeth when they
heard daily of the glory of his realm and the wisdom of his moon-like
prime minister and lotus-eyed director-general of public education.

Then we sat down on clean white cushions, and I was at the king’s right
hand. Three minutes later he was telling me that the condition of the
maize crop was something disgraceful, and that the railway companies would
not pay him enough for his timber. The talk shifted to and fro with the
bottles. We discussed very many quaint things, and the king became
confidential on the subject of government generally. Most of all he dwelt
on the shortcomings of one of his subjects, who, from what I could gather,
had been paralyzing the executive.

“In the old days,” said the king, “I could have ordered the elephant
yonder to trample him to death. Now I must e’en send him seventy miles
across the hills to be tried, and his keep for that time would be upon the
state. And the elephant eats everything.”

“What be the man’s crimes, Rajah Sahib?” said I.

“Firstly, he is an ‘outlander,’ and no man of mine own people. Secondly,
since of my favor I gave him land upon his coming, he refuses to pay
revenue. Am I not the lord of the earth, above and below—entitled by
right and custom to one-eighth of the crop? Yet this devil, establishing
himself, refuses to pay a single tax… and he brings a poisonous spawn of
babes.”

“Cast him into jail,” I said.

“Sahib,” the king answered, shifting a little on the cushions, “once and
only once in these forty years sickness came upon me so that I was not
able to go abroad. In that hour I made a vow to my God that I would never
again cut man or woman from the light of the sun and the air of God, for I
perceived the nature of the punishment. How can I break my vow? Were it
only the lopping off of a hand or a foot, I should not delay. But even
that is impossible now that the English have rule. One or another of my
people”—he looked obliquely at the director-general of public
education—“would at once write a letter to the viceroy, and perhaps
I should be deprived of that ruffle of drums.”

He unscrewed the mouthpiece of his silver water-pipe, fitted a plain amber
one, and passed the pipe to me. “Not content with refusing revenue,” he
continued, “this outlander refuses also to beegar” (this is the corvee or
forced labor on the roads), “and stirs my people up to the like treason.
Yet he is, if so he wills, an expert log-snatcher. There is none better or
bolder among my people to clear a block of the river when the logs stick
fast.”

“But he worships strange gods,” said the prime minister, deferentially.

“For that I have no concern,” said the king, who was as tolerant as Akbar
in matters of belief. “To each man his own god, and the fire or Mother
Earth for us all at the last. It is the rebellion that offends me.”

“The king has an army,” I suggested. “Has not the king burned the man’s
house, and left him naked to the night dews?”

“Nay. A hut is a hut, and it holds the life of a man. But once I sent my
army against him when his excuses became wearisome. Of their heads he
brake three across the top with a stick. The other two men ran away. Also
the guns would not shoot.”

I had seen the equipment of the infantry. One-third of it was an old
muzzle-loading fowling-piece with ragged rust holes where the nipples
should have been; one-third a wirebound matchlock with a worm-eaten stock,
and one-third a four-bore flint duck-gun, without a flint.

“But it is to be remembered,” said the king, reaching out for the bottle,
“that he is a very expert log-snatcher and a man of a merry face. What
shall I do to him, sahib?”

This was interesting. The timid hill-folk would as soon have refused taxes
to their king as offerings to their gods. The rebel must be a man of
character.

“If it be the king’s permission,” I said, “I will not strike my tents till
the third day, and I will see this man. The mercy of the king is godlike,
and rebellion is like unto the sin of witchcraft. Moreover, both the
bottles, and another, be empty.”

“You have my leave to go,” said the king.

Next morning the crier went through the stare proclaiming that there was a
log-jam on the river and that it behooved all loyal subjects to clear it.
The people poured down from their villages to the moist, warm valley of
poppy fields, and the king and I went with them.

Hundreds of dressed deodar logs had caught on a snag of rock, and the
river was bringing down more logs every minute to complete the blockade.
The water snarled and wrenched and worried at the timber, while the
population of the state prodded at the nearest logs with poles, in the
hope of easing the pressure. Then there went up a shout of “Namgay Doola!
Namgay Doola!” and a large, red-haired villager hurried up, stripping off
his clothes as he ran.

“That he is. That is the rebel!” said the king. “Now will the dam be
cleared.”

“But why has he red hair?” I asked, since red hair among hill-folk is as
uncommon as blue or green.

“He is an outlander,” said the king. “Well done! Oh, well done!”

Namgay Doola had scrambled on the jam and was clawing out the butt of a
log with a rude sort of a boat-hook. It slid forward slowly, as an
alligator moves, and three or four others followed it. The green water
spouted through the gaps. Then the villagers howled and shouted and leaped
among the logs, pulling and pushing the obstinate timber, and the red head
of Namgay Doola was chief among them all. The logs swayed and chafed and
groaned as fresh consignments from up-stream battered the now weakening
dam. It gave way at last in a smother of foam, racing butts, bobbing black
heads, and a confusion indescribable, as the river tossed everything
before it. I saw the red head go down with the last remnants of the jam
and disappear between the great grinding tree trunks. It rose close to the
hank, and blowing like a grampus, Namgay Doola wiped the water out of his
eyes and made obeisance to the king.

I had time to observe the man closely. The virulent redness of his shock
head and beard was most startling, and in the thicket of hair twinkled
above high cheek-bones two very merry blue eyes. He was indeed an
outlander, but yet a Thibetan in language, habit and attire. He spoke the
Lepcha dialect with an indescribable softening of the gutturals. It was
not so much a lisp as an accent.

“Whence comest thou?” I asked, wondering.

“From Thibet.” He pointed across the hills and grinned. That grin went
straight to my heart. Mechanically I held out my hand and Namgay Doola
took it. No pure Thibetan would have understood the meaning of the
gesture. He went away to look for his clothes, and as he climbed back to
his village, I heard a joyous yell that seemed unaccountably familiar. It
was the whooping of Namgay Doola.

“You see now,” said the king, “why I would not kill him. He is a bold man
among my logs, but,” and he shook his head like a schoolmaster, “I know
that before long there will be complaints of him in the court. Let us
return to the palace and do justice.”

It was that king’s custom to judge his subjects every day between eleven
and three o’clock. I heard him do justice equitably on weighty matters of
trespass, slander, and a little wife-stealing. Then his brow clouded and
he summoned me.

“Again it is Namgay Doola,” he said, despairingly. “Not content with
refusing revenue on his own part, he has bound half his village by an oath
to the like treason. Never before has such a thing befallen me! Nor are my
taxes heavy.”

A rabbit-faced villager, with a blush-rose stuck behind his ear, advanced
trembling. He had been in Namgay Doola’s conspiracy, but had told
everything and hoped for the king’s favor.

“Oh, king!” said I, “if it be the king’s will, let this matter stand over
till the morning. Only the gods can do right in a hurry, and it may be
that yonder villager has lied.”

“Nay, for I know the nature of Namgay Doola; but since a guest asks, let
the matter remain. Wilt thou, for my sake, speak harshly to this
red-headed outlander? He may listen to thee.”

I made an attempt that very evening, but for the life of me I could not
keep my countenance. Namgay Doola grinned so persuasively and began to
tell me about a big brown bear in a poppy field by the river. Would I care
to shoot that bear? I spoke austerely on the sin of detected conspiracy
and the certainty of punishment. Namgay Doola’s face clouded for a moment.
Shortly afterward he withdrew from my tent, and I heard him singing softly
among the pines. The words were unintelligible to me, but the tune, like
his liquid, insinuating speech, seemed the ghost of something strangely
familiar.

“Dir hane mard-i-yemen dir To weeree ala gee,” crooned Namgay Doola again
and again, and I racked my brain for that lost tune. It was not till after
dinner that I discovered some one had cut a square foot of velvet from the
centre of my best camera-cloth. This made me so angry that I wandered down
the valley in the hope of meeting the big brown bear. I could hear him
grunting like a discontented pig in the poppy field as I waited shoulder
deep in the dew-dripping Indian corn to catch him after his meal. The moon
was at full and drew out the scent of the tasseled crop. Then I heard the
anguished bellow of a Himalayan cow—one of the little black crummies
no bigger than Newfoundland dogs. Two shadows that looked like a bear and
her cub hurried past me. I was in the act of firing when I saw that each
bore a brilliant red head. The lesser animal was trailing something
rope-like that left a dark track on the path. They were within six feet of
me, and the shadow of the moonlight lay velvet-black on their faces.
Velvet-black was exactly the word, for by all the powers of moonlight they
were masked in the velvet of my camera-cloth. I marveled, and went to bed.

Next morning the kingdom was in an uproar. Namgay Doola, men said, had
gone forth in the night and with a sharp knife had cut off the tail of a
cow belonging to the rabbit-faced villager who had betrayed him. It was
sacrilege unspeakable against the holy cow. The state desired his blood,
but he had retreated into his hut, barricaded the doors and windows with
big stones, and defied the world.

The king and I and the populace approached the hut cautiously. There was
no hope of capturing our man without loss of life, for from a hole in the
wall projected the muzzle of an extremely well-cared-for gun—the
only gun in the state that could shoot. Namgay Doola had narrowly missed a
villager just before we came up.

The standing army stood.

It could do no more, for when it advanced pieces of sharp shale flew from
the windows. To these were added from time to time showers of scalding
water. We saw red beads bobbing up and down within. The family of Namgay
Doola were aiding their sire. Blood-curdling yells of defiance were the
only answer to our prayers.

“Never,” said the king, puffing, “has such a thing befallen my state. Next
year I will certainly buy a little cannon.” He looked at me imploringly.

“Is there any priest in the kingdom to whom he will listen?” said I, for a
light was beginning to break upon me.

“He worships his own god,” said the prime minister. “We can but starve him
out.”

“Let the white man approach,” said Namgay Doola from within. “All others I
will kill. Send me the white man.”

The door was thrown open and I entered the smoky interior of a Thibetan
hut crammed with children. And every child had flaming red hair. A
freshgathered cow’s tail lay on the floor, and by its side two pieces of
black velvet—my black velvet—rudely hacked into the semblance
of masks.

“And what is this shame, Namgay Doola?” I asked.

He grinned more charmingly than ever. “There is no shame,” said he. “I did
but cut off the tail of that man’s cow. He betrayed me. I was minded to
shoot him, sahib, but not to death. Indeed, not to death; only in the
legs.”

“And why at all, since it is the custom to pay revenue to the king? Why at
all?”

“By the god of my father, I cannot tell,” said Namgay Doola.

“And who was thy father?”

“The same that had this gun.” He showed me his weapon, a Tower musket,
bearing date 1832 and the stamp of the Honorable East India Company.

“And thy father’s name?” said I.

He obeyed, and I understood whence the puzzling accent in his speech came.
“Thimla Dhula!” said he, excitedly. “To this hour I worship his god.”

“May I see that god?”

“In a little while—at twilight time.”

“Rememberest thou aught of thy father’s speech?”

“It is long ago. But there was one word which he said often. Thus,
”Shun!’ Then I and my brethren stood upon our feet, our hands to our
sides, thus.”

“Even so. And what was thy mother?”

“A woman of the Hills. We be Lepchas of Darjiling, but me they call an
outlander because my hair is as thou seest.”

The Thibetan woman, his wife, touched him on the arm gently. The long
parley outside the fort had lasted far into the day. It was now close upon
twilight—the hour of the Angelus. Very solemnly the red-headed brats
rose from the floor and formed a semicircle. Namgay Doola laid his gun
aside, lighted a little oil-lamp, and set it before a recess in the wall.
Pulling back a wisp of dirty cloth, he revealed a worn brass crucifix
leaning against the helmet badge of a long-forgotten East India Company’s
regiment. “Thus did my father,” he said, crossing himself clumsily. The
wife and children followed suit. Then, all together, they struck up the
wailing cham that I heard on the hillside:

“Dir bane mard-i-yemen dir To weeree ala gee.”

I was puzzled no longer. Again and again they sung, as if their hearts
would break, their version of the chorus of “The Wearing of the Green”:

A diabolical inspiration came to me. One of the brats, a boy about eight
years old—could he have been in the fields last night?—was
watching me as he sung. I pulled out a rupee, held the coin between finger
and thumb, and looked—only looked—at the gun leaning against
the wall. A grin of brilliant and perfect comprehension overspread his
porringer-like face. Never for an instant stopping the song, he held out
his hand for the money, and then slid the gun to my hand. I might have
shot Namgay Doola dead as he chanted, but I was satisfied. The inevitable
blood-instinct held true. Namgay Doola drew the curtain across the recess.
Angelus was over.

“Thus my father sung. There was much more, but I have forgotten, and I do
not know the purport of even these words, but it may be that the god will
understand. I am not of this people, and I will not pay revenue.”

“And why?”

Again that soul-compelling grin. “What occupation would be to me between
crop and crop? It is better than scaring bears. But these people do not
understand.”

He picked the masks off the floor and looked in my face as simply as a
child.

“By what road didst thou attain knowledge to make those deviltries?” I
said, pointing.

“I cannot tell. I am but a Lepcha of Darjiling, and yet the stuff”—

“Which thou hast stolen,” said I.

“Nay, surely. Did I steal? I desired it so. The stuff—the stuff.
What else should I have done with the stuff?” He twisted the velvet
between his fingers.

“But the sin of maiming the cow—consider that.”

“Oh, sahib, the man betrayed me; the heifer’s tail waved in the moonlight,
and I had my knife. What else should I have done? The tail came off ere I
was aware. Sahib, thou knowest more than I.”

“That is true,” said I. “Stay within the door. I go to speak to the king.”
The population of the state were ranged on the hillside. I went forth and
spoke.

“O king,” said I, “touching this man, there be two courses open to thy
wisdom. Thou canst either hang him from a tree—him and his brood—till
there remains no hair that is red within thy land.”

“Nay,” said the king. “Why should I hurt the little children?”

They had poured out of the hut and were making plump obeisances to
everybody. Namgay Doola waited at the door with his gun across his arm.

“Or thou canst, discarding their impiety of the cow-maiming, raise him to
honor in thy army. He comes of a race that will not pay revenue. A red
flame is in his blood which comes out at the top of his head in that
glowing hair. Make him chief of thy army. Give him honor as may befall and
full allowance of work, but look to it, oh, king, that neither he nor his
hold a foot of earth from thee henceforward. Feed him with words and
favor, and also liquor from certain bottles that thou knowest of, and he
will be a bulwark of defense. But deny him even a tuftlet of grass for his
own. This is the nature that God has given him. Moreover, he has brethren”—

The state groaned unanimously.

“But if his brethren come they will surely fight with each other till they
die; or else the one will always give information concerning the other.
Shall he be of thy army, oh, king? Choose!”

The king bowed his head, and I said:

“Come forth, Namgay Doola, and command the king’s army. Thy name shall no
more be Namgay in the mouths of men, but Patsay Doola, for, as thou hast
truly said, I know.”

Then Namgay Doola, never christened Patsay Doola, son of Timlay Doola—which
is Tim Doolan—clasped the king’s feet, cuffed the standing army, and
hurried in an agony of contrition from temple to temple making offerings
for the sin of the cattle—maiming.

And the king was so pleased with my perspicacity that he offered to sell
me a village for 20 pounds sterling. But I buy no village in the Himalayas
so long as one red head flares between the tail of the heaven-climbing
glacier and the dark birch forest.

I know that breed.

THE RECRUDESCENCE OF IMRAY

Imray had achieved the impossible. Without warning, for no conceivable
motive, in his youth and at the threshold of his career he had chosen to
disappear from the world—which is to say, the little Indian station
where he lived. Upon a day he was alive, well, happy, and in great
evidence at his club, among the billiard-tables. Upon a morning he was
not, and no manner of search could make sure where he might be. He had
stepped out of his place; he had not appeared at his office at the proper
time, and his dog-cart was not upon the public roads. For these reasons
and because he was hampering in a microscopical degree the administration
of the Indian Empire, the Indian Empire paused for one microscopical
moment to make inquiry into the fate of Imray. Ponds were dragged, wells
were plumbed, telegrams were dispatched down the lines of railways and to
the nearest seaport town—1,200 miles away—but Imray was not at
the end of the drag-ropes nor the telegrams. He was gone, and his place
knew him no more. Then the work of the great Indian Empire swept forward,
because it could not be delayed, and Imray, from being a man, became a
mystery—such a thing as men talk over at their tables in the club
for a month and then forget utterly. His guns, horses, and carts were sold
to the highest bidder. His superior officer wrote an absurd letter to his
mother, saying that Imray had unaccountably disappeared and his bungalow
stood empty on the road.

After three or four months of the scorching hot weather had gone by, my
friend Strickland, of the police force, saw fit to rent the bungalow from
the native landlord. This was before he was engaged to Miss Youghal—an
affair which has been described in another place—and while he was
pursuing his investigations into native life. His own life was
sufficiently peculiar, and men complained of his manners and customs.
There was always food in his house, but there were no regular times for
meals. He ate, standing up and walking about, whatever he might find on
the sideboard, and this is not good for the insides of human beings. His
domestic equipment was limited to six rifles, three shotguns, five
saddles, and a collection of stiff-jointed masheer rods, bigger and
stronger than the largest salmon rods. These things occupied one half of
his bungalow, and the other half was given up to Strickland and his dog
Tietjens—an enormous Rampur slut, who sung when she was ordered, and
devoured daily the rations of two men. She spoke to Strickland in a
language of her own, and whenever, in her walks abroad she saw things
calculated to destroy the peace of Her Majesty the Queen Empress, she
returned to her master and gave him information. Strickland would take
steps at once, and the end of his labors was trouble and fine and
imprisonment for other people. The natives believed that Tietjens was a
familiar spirit, and treated her with the great reverence that is born of
hate and fear One room in the bungalow was set apart for her special use.
She owned a bedstead, a blanket, and a drinking-trough, and if any one
came into Strickland’s room at night, her custom was to knock down the
invader and give tongue till some one came with a light. Strickland owes
his life to her. When he was on the frontier in search of the local
murderer who came in the grey dawn to send Strickland much further than
the Andaman Islands, Tietjens caught him as he was crawling into
Strickland’s tent with a dagger between his teeth, and after his record of
iniquity was established in the eyes of the law, he was hanged. From that
date Tietjens wore a collar of rough silver and employed a monogram on her
night blanket, and the blanket was double-woven Kashmir cloth, for she was
a delicate dog.

Under no circumstances would she be separated from Strickland, and when he
was ill with fever she made great trouble for the doctors because she did
not know how to help her master and would not allow another creature to
attempt aid. Macarnaght, of the Indian Medical Service, beat her over the
head with a gun, before she could understand that she must give room for
those who could give quinine.

A short time after Strickland had taken Imray’s bungalow, my business took
me through that station, and naturally, the club quarters being full, I
quartered myself upon Strickland. It was a desirable bungalow,
eight-roomed, and heavily thatched against any chance of leakage from
rain. Under the pitch of the roof ran a ceiling cloth, which looked just
as nice as a whitewashed ceiling. The landlord had repainted it when
Strickland took the bungalow, and unless you knew how Indian bungalows
were built you would never have suspected that above the cloth lay the
dark, three-cornered cavern of the roof, where the beams and the under
side of the thatch harbored all manner of rats, hats, ants, and other
things.

Tietjens met me in the veranda with a bay like the boom of the bells of
St. Paul’s, and put her paws on my shoulders and said she was glad to see
me. Strickland had contrived to put together that sort of meal which he
called lunch, and immediately after it was finished went out about his
business. I was left alone with Tietjens and my own affairs. The heat of
the summer had broken up and given place to the warm damp of the rains.
There was no motion in the heated air, but the rain fell like bayonet rods
on the earth, and flung up a blue mist where it splashed back again. The
bamboos and the custard apples, the poinsettias and the mango-trees in the
garden stood still while the warm water lashed through them, and the frogs
began to sing among the aloe hedges. A little before the light failed, and
when the rain was at its worst, I sat in the back veranda and heard the
water roar from the eaves, and scratched myself because I was covered with
the thing they called prickly heat. Tietjens came out with me and put her
head in my lap, and was very sorrowful, so I gave her biscuits when tea
was ready, and I took tea in the back veranda on account of the little
coolness I found there. The rooms of the house were dark behind me. I
could smell Strickland’s saddlery and the oil on his guns, and I did not
the least desire to sit among these things. My own servant came to me in
the twilight, the muslin of his clothes clinging tightly to his drenched
body, and told me that a gentleman had called and wished to see some one.
Very much against my will, and because of the darkness of the rooms, I
went into the naked drawing-room, telling my man to bring the lights.
There might or might not have been a caller in the room—it seems to
me that I saw a figure by one of the windows, but when the lights came
there was nothing save the spikes of the rain without and the smell of the
drinking earth in my nostrils. I explained to my man that he was no wiser
than he ought to be, and went back to the veranda to talk to Tietjens. She
had gone out into the wet and I could hardly coax her back to me—even
with biscuits with sugar on top. Strickland rode back, dripping wet, just
before dinner, and the first thing he said was:

“Has any one called?”

I explained, with apologies, that my servant had called me into the
drawing-room on a false alarm; or that some loafer had tried to call on
Strickland, and, thinking better of it, fled after giving his name.
Strickland ordered dinner without comment, and since it was a real dinner,
with white tablecloth attached, we sat down.

At nine o’clock Strickland wanted to go to bed, and I was tired too.
Tietjens, who had been lying underneath the table, rose up and went into
the least exposed veranda as soon as her master moved to his own room,
which was next to the stately chamber set apart for Tietjens. If a mere
wife had wished to sleep out-of-doors in that pelting rain, it would not
have mattered, but Tietjens was a dog, and therefore the better animal. I
looked at Strickland, expecting to see him flog her with a whip. He smiled
queerly, as a man would smile after telling some hideous domestic tragedy.
“She has done this ever since I moved in here.”

The dog was Strickland’s dog, so I said nothing, but I felt all that
Strickland felt in being made light of. Tietjens encamped outside my
bedroom window, and storm after storm came up, thundered on the thatch,
and died away. The lightning spattered the sky as a thrown egg spattered a
barn door, but the light was pale blue, not yellow; and looking through my
slit bamboo blinds, I could see the great dog standing, not sleeping, in
the veranda, the hackles alift on her back, and her feet planted as
tensely as the drawn wire rope of a suspension bridge. In the very short
pauses of the thunder I tried to sleep, but it seemed that some one wanted
me very badly. He, whoever he was, was trying to call me by name, but his
voice was no more than a husky whisper. Then the thunder ceased and
Tietjens went into the garden and howled at the low moon. Somebody tried
to open my door, and walked about and through the house, and stood
breathing heavily in the verandas, and just when I was falling asleep I
fancied that I heard a wild hammering and clamoring above my head or on
the door.

I ran into Strickland’s room and asked him whether he was ill and had been
calling for me. He was lying on the bed half-dressed, with a pipe in his
mouth. “I thought you’d come,” he said. “Have I been walking around the
house at all?”

I explained that he had been in the dining-room and the smoking-room and
two or three other places; and he laughed and told me to go back to bed. I
went back to bed and slept till the morning, but in all my dreams I was
sure I was doing some one an injustice in not attending to his wants. What
those wants were I could not tell, but a fluttering, whispering,
bolt-fumbling, luring, loitering some one was reproaching me for my
slackness, and through all the dreams I heard the howling of Tietjens in
the garden and the thrashing of the rain.

I was in that house for two days, and Strickland went to his office daily,
leaving me alone for eight or ten hours a day, with Tietjens for my only
companion. As long as the full light lasted I was comfortable, and so was
Tietjens; but in the twilight she and I moved into the back veranda and
cuddled each other for company. We were alone in the house, but for all
that it was fully occupied by a tenant with whom I had no desire to
interfere. I never saw him, but I could see the curtains between the rooms
quivering where he had just passed through; I could hear the chairs
creaking as the bamboos sprung under a weight that had just quitted them;
and I could feel when I went to get a book from the dining-room that
somebody was waiting in the shadows of the front veranda till I should
have gone away. Tietjens made the twilight more interesting by glaring
into the darkened rooms, with every hair erect, and following the motions
of something that I could not see. She never entered the rooms, but her
eyes moved, and that was quite sufficient. Only when my servant came to
trim the lamps and make all light and habitable, she would come in with me
and spend her time sitting on her haunches watching an invisible extra man
as he moved about behind my shoulder. Dogs are cheerful companions.

I explained to Strickland, gently as might be, that I would go over to the
club and find for myself quarters there. I admired his hospitality, was
pleased with his guns and rods, but I did not much care for his house and
its atmosphere. He heard me out to the end, and then smiled very wearily,
but without contempt, for he is a man who understands things. “Stay on,”
he said, “and see what this thing means. All you have talked about I have
known since I took the bungalow. Stay on and wait. Tietjens has left me.
Are you going too?”

I had seen him through one little affair connected with an idol that had
brought me to the doors of a lunatic asylum, and I had no desire to help
him through further experiences. He was a man to whom unpleasantnesses
arrived as do dinners to ordinary people.

Therefore I explained more clearly than ever that I liked him immensely,
and would be happy to see him in the daytime, but that I didn’t care to
sleep under his roof. This was after dinner, when Tietjens had gone out to
lie in the veranda.

“’Pon my soul, I don’t wonder,” said Strickland, with his eyes on the
ceiling-cloth. “Look at that.”

The tails of two snakes were hanging between the cloth and the cornice of
the wall. They threw long shadows in the lamp-light. “If you are afraid of
snakes, of course”—said Strickland. “I hate and fear snakes, because
if you look into the eyes of any snake you will see that it knows all and
more of man’s fall, and that it feels all the contempt that the devil felt
when Adam was evicted from Eden. Besides which its bite is generally
fatal, and it bursts up trouser legs.”

“You ought to get your thatch over-hauled,” I said. “Give me a masheer
rod, and we’ll poke ’em down.”

“They’ll hide among the roof beams,” said Strickland. “I can’t stand
snakes overhead. I’m going up. If I shake ’em down, stand by with a
cleaning-rod and break their backs.”

I was not anxious to assist Strickland in his work, but I took the
loading-rod and waited in the dining-room, while Strickland brought a
gardener’s ladder from the veranda and set it against the side of the
room. The snake tails drew themselves up and disappeared. We could hear
the dry rushing scuttle of long bodies running over the baggy cloth.
Strickland took a lamp with him, while I tried to make clear the danger of
hunting roof snakes between a ceiling cloth and a thatch, apart from the
deterioration of property caused by ripping out ceiling-cloths.

“N o n s en s e,” said Strickland. “They’re sure to hide near the walls by
the cloth. The bricks are too cold for ’em, and the heat of the room is
just what they like.” He put his hands to the corner of the cloth and
ripped the rotten stuff from the cornice. It gave great sound of tearing,
and Strickland put his head through the opening into the dark of the angle
of the roof beams. I set my teeth and lifted the loading-rod, for I had
not the least knowledge of what might descend.

“H’m,” said Strickland; and his voice rolled and rumbled in the roof.
“There’s room for another set of rooms up here, and, by Jove! some one is
occupying em.”

“Snakes?” I said down below.

“No. It’s a buffalo. Hand me up the two first joints of a masheer rod, and
I’ll prod it. It’s lying on the main beam.”

I handed up the rod.

“What a nest for owls and serpents! No wonder the snakes live here,” said
Strickland, climbing further into the roof. I could see his elbow
thrusting with the rod. “Come out of that, whoever you are! Look out!
Heads below there! It’s tottering.”

I saw the ceiling-cloth nearly in the centre of the room bag with a shape
that was pressing it downward and downward toward the lighted lamps on the
table. I snatched a lamp out of danger and stood back. Then the cloth
ripped out from the walls, tore, split, swayed, and shot down upon the
table something that I dared not look at till Strickland had slid down the
ladder and was standing by my side.

He did not say much, being a man of few words, but he picked up the loose
end of the table-cloth and threw it over the thing on the table.

“It strikes me,” said he, pulling down the lamp, “our friend Imray has
come back. Oh! you would, would you?”

There was a movement under the cloth, and a little snake wriggled out, to
be back-broken by the butt of the masheer rod. I was sufficiently sick to
make no remarks worth recording.

Strickland meditated and helped himself to drinks liberally. The thing
under the cloth made no more signs of life.

“Is it Imray?” I said.

Strickland turned back the cloth for a moment and looked. “It is Imray,”
he said, “and his throat is cut from ear to ear.”

Then we spoke both together and to ourselves:

“That’s why he whispered about the house.”

Tietjens, in the garden, began to bay furiously. A little later her great
nose heaved upon the dining-room door.

She sniffed and was still. The broken and tattered ceiling-cloth hung down
almost to the level of the table, and there was hardly room to move away
from the discovery.

Then Tietjens came in and sat down, her teeth bared and her forepaws
planted. She looked at Strickland.

“It’s bad business, old lady,” said he. “Men don’t go up into the roofs of
their bungalows to die, and they don’t fasten up the ceiling-cloth behind
’em. Let’s think it out.”

“Let’s think it out somewhere else,” I said.

“Excellent idea! Turn the lamps out. We’ll get into my room.”

I did not turn the lamps out. I went into Strickland’s room first and
allowed him to make the darkness. Then he followed me, and we lighted
tobacco and thought. Strickland did the thinking. I smoked furiously
because I was afraid.

“Imray is back,” said Strickland. “The question is, who killed Imray?
Don’t talk—I have a notion of my own. When I took this bungalow I
took most of Imray’s servants. Imray was guileless and inoffensive, wasn’t
he?”

I agreed, though the heap under the cloth looked neither one thing nor the
other.

“If I call the servants they will stand fast in a crowd and lie like
Aryans. What do you suggest?”

“Call ’em in one by one,” I said.

“They’ll run away and give the news to all their fellows,” said
Strickland.

“We must segregate ’em. Do you suppose your servant knows anything about
it?”

“He may, for aught I know, but I don’t think it’s likely. He has only been
here two or three days.”

“What’s your notion?” I asked.

“I can’t quite tell. How the dickens did the man get the wrong side of the
ceiling-cloth?”

There was a heavy coughing outside Strickland’s bedroom door. This showed
that Bahadur Khan, his body-servant, had waked from sleep and wished to
put Strickland to bed.

“Come in,” said Strickland. “It is a very warm night, isn’t it?”

Bahadur Khan, a great, green-turbaned, six-foot Mohammedan, said that it
was a very warm night, but that there was more rain pending, which, by his
honor’s favor, would bring relief to the country.

“It will be so, if God pleases,” said Strickland, tugging off his hoots.
“It is in my mind, Bahadur Khan, that I have worked thee remorselessly for
many days—ever since that time when thou first came into my service.
What time was that?”

“Has the heaven-born forgotten? It was when Imray Sahib went secretly to
Europe without warning given, and I—even I—came into the
honored service of the protector of the poor.”

“And Imray Sahib went to Europe?”

“It is so said among the servants.”

“And thou wilt take service with him when he returns?”

“Assuredly, sahib. He was a good master and cherished his dependents.”

“That is true. I am very tired, but I can go buck-shooting tomorrow. Give
me the little rifle that I use for black buck; it is in the case yonder.”

The man stooped over the case, banded barrels, stock, and fore-end to
Strickland, who fitted them together. Yawning dolefully, then he reached
down to the gun-case, took a solid drawn cartridge, and slipped it into
the breech of the .360 express.

“And Imray Sahib has gone to Europe secretly? That is very strange,
Bahadur Khan, is it not?”

“What do I know of the ways of the white man, heaven-born?”

“Very little, truly. But thou shalt know more. It has reached me that
Imray Sahib has returned from his so long journeyings, and that even now
he lies in the next room, waiting his servant.”

“Sahib!”

The lamp-light slid along the barrels of the rifle as they leveled
themselves against Bahadur Khan’s broad breast.

“Go, then, and look!” said Strickland. “Take a lamp. Thy master is tired,
and he waits. Go!”

The man picked up a lamp and went into the dining-room, Strickland
following, and almost pushing him with the muzzle of the rifle. He looked
for a moment at the black depths behind the ceiling-cloth, at the carcass
of the mangled snake under foot, and last, a grey glaze setting on his
face, at the thing under the table-cloth.

“Hast thou seen?” said Strickland, after a pause.

“I have seen. I am clay in the white man’s hands. What does the presence
do?”

“Hang thee within a month! What else?”

“For killing him? Nay, sahib, consider. Walking among us, his servants, he
cast his eyes upon my child, who was four years old. Him he bewitched, and
in ten days he died of the fever. My child!”

“What said Imray Sahib?”

“He said he was a handsome child, and patted him on the head; wherefore my
child died. Wherefore I killed Imray Sahib in the twilight, when he came
back from office and was sleeping. The heaven-born knows all things. I am
the servant of the heaven-born.”

Strickland looked at me above the rifle, and said, in the vernacular:
“Thou art witness to this saying. He has killed.”

Bahadur Khan stood ashen grey in the light of the one lamp. The need for
justification came upon him very swiftly.

“I am trapped,” he said, “but the offence was that man’s. He cast an evil
eye upon my child, and I killed and hid him. Only such as are served by
devils,” he glared at Tietjens, crouched stolidly before him, “only such
could know what I did.”

“It was clever. But thou shouldst have lashed him to the beam with a rope.
Now, thou thyself wilt hang by a rope. Orderly!”

A drowsy policeman answered Strickland’s call. He was followed by another,
and Tietjens sat still.

“Take him to the station,” said Strickland. “There is a case toward.”

“Do I hang, then?” said Bahadur Khan, making no attempt to escape and
keeping his eyes on the ground.

“If the sun shines, or the water runs, thou wilt hang,” said Strickland.
Bahadur Khan stepped back one pace, quivered, and stood still. The two
policemen waited further orders.

“Go!” said Strickland.

“Nay; but I go very swiftly,” said Bahadur Khan. “Look! I am even now a
dead man.”

He lifted his foot, and to the little toe there clung the head of the
half-killed snake, firm fixed in the agony of death.

“I come of land-holding stock,” said Bahadur Khan, rocking where he stood.
“It were a disgrace for me to go to the public scaffold, therefore I take
this way. Be it remembered that the sahib’s shirts are correctly
enumerated, and that there is an extra piece of soap in his washbasin. My
child was bewitched, and I slew the wizard. Why should you seek to slay
me? My honor is saved, and—and—I die.”

At the end of an hour he died as they die who are bitten by the little
kariat, and the policeman bore him and the thing under the table-cloth to
their appointed places. They were needed to make clear the disappearance
of Imray.

“This,” said Strickland, very calmly, as he climbed into bed, “is called
the nineteenth century. Did you hear what that man said?”

“I heard,” I answered. “Imray made a mistake.”

“Simply and solely through not knowing the nature and coincidence of a
little seasonal fever. Bahadur Khan has been with him for four years.”

I shuddered. My own servant had been with me for exactly that length of
time. When I went over to my own room I found him waiting, impassive as
the copper head on a penny, to pull off my boots.

“What has befallen Bahadur Khan?” said I.

“He was bitten by a snake and died; the rest the sahib knows,” was the
answer.

“And how much of the matter hast thou known?”

“As much as might be gathered from one coming in the twilight to seek
satisfaction. Gently, sahib. Let me pull off those boots.”

I had just settled to the sleep of exhaustion when I heard Strickland
shouting from his side of the house:

“Tietjens has come back to her room!”

And so she had. The great deer-hound was couched on her own bedstead, on
her own blanket, and in the next room the idle, empty ceiling-cloth wagged
light-heartedly as it flailed on the table.

MOTI GUJ—MUTINEER

ONCE upon a time there was a coffee-planter in India who wished to clear
some forest land for coffee-planting. When he had cut down all the trees
and burned the underwood, the stumps still remained. Dynamite is expensive
and slow fire slow. The happy medium for stump-clearing is the lord of all
beasts, who is the elephant. He will either push the stump out of the
ground with his tusks, if he has any, or drag it out with ropes. The
planter, therefore, hired elephants by ones and twos and threes, and fell
to work. The very best of all the elephants belonged to the very worst of
all the drivers or mahouts; and this superior beast’s name was Moti Guj.
He was the absolute property of his mahout, which would never have been
the case under native rule; for Moti Guj was a creature to be desired by
kings, and his name, being translated, meant the Pearl Elephant. Because
the British government was in the land, Deesa, the mahout, enjoyed his
property undisturbed. He was dissipated. When he had made much money
through the strength of his elephant, he would get extremely drunk and
give Moti Guj a beating with a tent-peg over the tender nails of the
forefeet. Moti Guj never trampled the life out of Deesa on these
occasions, for he knew that after the beating was over, Deesa would
embrace his trunk and weep and call him his love and his life and the
liver of his soul, and give him some liquor. Moti Guj was very fond of
liquor—arrack for choice, though he would drink palm-tree toddy if
nothing better offered. Then Deesa would go to sleep between Moti Guj’s
forefeet, and as Deesa generally chose the middle of the public road, and
as Moti Guj mounted guard over him, and would not permit horse, foot, or
cart to pass by, traffic was congested till Deesa saw fit to wake up.

There was no sleeping in the daytime on the planter’s clearing: the wages
were too high to risk. Deesa sat on Moti Guj’s neck and gave him orders,
while Moti Guj rooted up the stumps—for he owned a magnificent pair
of tusks; or pulled at the end of a rope—for he had a magnificent
pair of shoulders—while Deesa kicked him behind the ears and said he
was the king of elephants. At evening time Moti Guj would wash down his
three hundred pounds’ weight of green food with a quart of arrack, and
Deesa would take a share, and sing songs between Moti Guj’s legs till it
was time to go to bed. Once a week Deesa led Moti Guj down to the river,
and Moti Gui lay on his side luxuriously in the shallows, while Deesa went
over him with a coir swab and a brick. Moti Guj never mistook the pounding
blow of the latter for the smack of the former that warned him to get up
and turn over on the other side. Then Deesa would look at his feet and
examine his eyes, and turn up the fringes of his mighty ears in case of
sores or budding ophthalmia. After inspection the two would come up with a
song from the sea, Moti Guj, all black and shining, waving a torn tree
branch twelve feet long in his trunk, and Deesa knotting up his own long
wet hair.

It was a peaceful, well-paid life till Deesa felt the return of the desire
to drink deep. He wished for an orgy. The little draughts that led nowhere
were taking the manhood out of him.

He went to the planter, and “My mother’s dead,” said he, weeping.

“She died on the last plantation two months ago, and she died once before
that when you were working for me last year,” said the planter, who knew
something of the ways of nativedom.

“Then it’s my aunt, and she was just the same as a mother to me,” said
Deesa, weeping more than ever. “She has left eighteen small children
entirely without bread, and it is I who must fill their little stomachs,”
said Deesa, beating his head on the floor.

“Who brought the news?” said the planter.

“The post,” said Deesa.

“There hasn’t been a post here for the past week. Get back to your
lines!”,

“A devastating sickness has fallen on my village, and all my wives are
dying,” yelled Deesa, really in tears this time.

“Call Chihun, who comes from Deesa’s village,” said the planter. “Chihun,
has this man got a wife?”

“He?” said Chihun. “No. Not a woman of our village would look at him.
They’d sooner marry the elephant!”

Chihun snorted. Deesa wept and bellowed.

“You will get into a difficulty in a minute,” said the planter. “Go back
to your work!”

“Now I will speak Heaven’s truth,” gulped Deesa, with an inspiration. “I
haven’t been drunk for two months. I desire to depart in order to get
properly drunk afar off and distant from this heavenly plantation. Thus I
shall cause no trouble.”

A flickering smile crossed the planter’s face. “Deesa,” said he, “you’ve
spoken the truth, and I’d give you leave on the spot if anything could be
done with Moti Guj while you’re away. You know that he will only obey your
orders.”

“May the light of the heavens live forty thousand years. I shall be absent
but ten little days. After that, upon my faith and honor and soul, I
return. As to the inconsiderable interval, have I the gracious permission
of the heaven-born to call up Moti Guj?”

Permission was granted, and in answer of Deesa’s shrill yell, the mighty
tusker swung out of the shade of a clump of trees where he had been
squirting dust over himself till his master should return.

“Light of my heart, protector of the drunken, mountain of might, give
ear!” said Deesa, standing in front of him.

Moti Guj gave ear, and saluted with his trunk. “I am going away,” said
Deesa.

Moti Guj’s eyes twinkled. He liked jaunts as well as his master. One could
snatch all manner of nice things from the roadside then.

“But you, you fussy old pig, must stay behind and work.”

The twinkle died out as Moti Guj tried to look delighted. He hated
stump-hauling on the plantation. It hurt his teeth.

“I shall be gone for ten days, oh, delectable one! Hold up your near
forefoot and I’ll impress the fact upon it, warty toad of a dried
mud-puddle.” Deesa took a tent-peg and banged Moti Guj ten times on the
nails. Moti Guj grunted and shuffled from foot to foot.

“Ten days,” said Deesa, “you will work and haul and root the trees as
Chihun here shall order you. Take up Chihun and set him on your neck!”
Moti Guj curled the tip of his trunk, Chihun put his foot there, and was
swung on to the neck. Deesa handed Chihun the heavy ankus—the iron
elephant goad.

Chihun thumped Moti Guj’s bald head as a paver thumps a curbstone.

Moti Guj trumpeted.

“Be still, hog of the backwoods! Chihun’s your mahout for ten days. And
now bid me goodbye, beast after mine own heart. Oh, my lord, my king!
Jewel of all created elephants, lily of the herd, preserve your honored
health; be virtuous. Adieu!”

Moti Guj lapped his trunk round Deesa and swung him into the air twice.
That was his way of bidding him goodbye.

“He’ll work now,” said Deesa to the planter. “Have I leave to go?”

The planter nodded, and Deesa dived into the woods. Moti Guj went back to
haul stumps.

Chihun was very kind to him, but he felt unhappy and forlorn for all that.
Chihun gave him a ball of spices, and tickled him under the chin, and
Chihun’s little baby cooed to him after work was over, and Chihun’s wife
called him a darling; but Moti Guj was a bachelor by instinct, as Deesa
was. He did not understand the domestic emotions. He wanted the light of
his universe back again—the drink and the drunken slumber, the
savage beatings and the savage caresses.

None the less he worked well, and the planter wondered. Deesa had wandered
along the roads till he met a marriage procession of his own caste, and,
drinking, dancing, and tippling, had drifted with it past all knowledge of
the lapse of time.

The morning of the eleventh day dawned, and there returned no Deesa, Moti
Guj was loosed from his ropes for the daily stint. He swung clear, looked
round, shrugged his shoulders, and began to walk away, as one having
business elsewhere.

“Hi! ho! Come back you!” shouted Chihun. “Come back and put me on your
neck, misborn mountain! Return, splendor of the hillsides! Adornment of
all India, heave to, or I’ll bang every toe off your forefoot!”

Moti Guj gurgled gently, but did not obey. Chihun ran after him with a
rope and caught him up. Moti Guj put his ears forward, and Chihun knew
what that meant, though he tried to carry it off with high words.

“None of your nonsense with me,” said he. “To your pickets, devil-son!”

“Hrrump!” said Moti Guj, and that was all—that and the forebent
ears.

Moti Guj put his hands in his pockets, chewed a branch for a toothpick,
and strolled about the clearing, making fun of the other elephants who had
just set to work.

Chihun reported the state of affairs to the planter, who came out with a
dog-whip and cracked it furiously. Moti Guj paid the white man the
compliment of charging him nearly a quarter of a mile across the clearing
and “Hrrumphing” him into his veranda. Then he stood outside the house,
chuckling to himself and shaking all over with the fun of it, as an
elephant will.

“We’ll thrash him,” said the planter. “He shall have the finest thrashing
ever elephant received. Give Kala Nag and Nazim twelve foot of chain
apiece, and tell them to lay on twenty.”

Kala Nag—which means Black Snake—and Nazim were two of the
biggest elephants in the lines, and one of their duties was to administer
the graver punishment, since no man can beat an elephant properly.

They took the whipping-chains and rattled them in their trunks as they
sidled up to Moti Guj, meaning to hustle him between them. Moti Guj had
never, in all his life of thirty-nine years, been whipped, and he did not
intend to begin a new experience. So he waited, waving his head from right
to left, and measuring the precise spot in Kala Nag’s fat side where a
blunt tusk could sink deepest. Kala Nag had no tusks; the chain was the
badge of his authority; but for all that, he swung wide of Moti Guj at the
last minute, and tried to appear as if he had brought the chain out for
amusement. Nazim turned round and went home early. He did not feel
fighting fit that morning, and so Moti Guj was left standing alone with
his ears cocked.

That decided the planter to argue no more, and Moti Guj rolled back to his
amateur inspection of the clearing. An elephant who will not work and is
not tied up is about as manageable as an eighty-one-ton gun loose in a
heavy seaway. He slapped old friends on the back and asked them if the
stumps were coming away easily; he talked nonsense concerning labor and
the inalienable rights of elephants to a long ‘nooning’; and, wandering to
and fro, he thoroughly demoralized the garden till sundown, when he
returned to his picket for food.

“If you won’t work, you sha’n’t eat,” said Chihun, angrily. “You’re a wild
elephant, and no educated animal at all. Go back to your jungle.”

Chihun’s little brown baby was rolling on the floor of the hut, and
stretching out its fat arms to the huge shadow in the doorway. Moti Guj
knew well that it was the dearest thing on earth to Chihun. He swung out
his trunk with a fascinating crook at the end, and the brown baby threw
itself, shouting, upon it. Moti Guj made fast and pulled up till the brown
baby was crowing in the air twelve feet above his father’s head.

“Great Lord!” said Chihun. “Flour cakes of the best, twelve in number, two
feet across and soaked in rum, shall be yours on the instant, and two
hundred pounds weight of fresh-cut young sugar-cane therewith. Deign only
to put down safely that insignificant brat who is my heart and my life to
me!”

Moti Guj tucked the brown baby comfortably between his forefeet, that
could have knocked into toothpicks all Chihun’s hut, and waited for his
food. He ate it, and the brown baby crawled away. Moti Guj dozed and
thought of Deesa. One of many mysteries connected with the elephant is
that his huge body needs less sleep than anything else that lives. Four or
five hours in the night suffice—two just before midnight, lying down
on one side; two just after one o’clock, lying down on the other. The rest
of the silent hours are filled with eating and fidgeting, and long
grumbling soliloquies.

At midnight, therefore, Moti Guj strode out of his pickets, for a thought
had come to him that Deesa might be lying drunk somewhere in the dark
forest with none to look after him. So all that night he chased through
the undergrowth, blowing and trumpeting and shaking his ears. He went down
to the river and blared across the shallows where Deesa used to wash him,
but there was no answer. He could not find Deesa, but he disturbed all the
other elephants in the lines, and nearly frightened to death some gypsies
in the woods.

At dawn Deesa returned to the plantation. He had been very drunk in deed,
and he expected to get into trouble for outstaying his leave. He drew a
long breath when he saw that the bungalow and the plantation were still
uninjured, for he knew something of Moti Guj’s temper, and reported
himself with many lies and salaams. Moti Guj had gone to his pickets for
breakfast. The night exercise had made him hungry.

“Call up your beast,” said the planter; and Deesa shouted in the
mysterious elephant language that some mahouts believe came from China at
the birth of the world, when elephants and not men were masters. Moti Guj
heard and came. Elephants do not gallop They move from places at varying
rates of speed. If an elephant wished to catch an express train he could
not gallop, but he could catch the train. So Moti Guj was at the planter’s
door almost before Chihun noticed that he had left his pickets. He fell
into Deesa’s arms trumpeting with joy, and the man and beast wept and
slobbered over each other, and handled each other from head to heel to see
that no harm had befallen.

“Now we will get to work,” said Deesa. “Lift me up, my son and my joy!”

Moti Guj swung him up, and the two went to the coffee-clearing to look for
difficult stumps.

The planter was too astonished to be very angry.

THE WORKS OF RUDYARD KIPLING: ONE VOLUME EDITION

By Rudyard Kipling

VOLUME I DEPARTMENTAL DITTIES AND OTHER VERSES

GENERAL SUMMARY

ARMY HEADQUARTERS

STUDY OF AN ELEVATION, IN INDIAN INK

A LEGEND

THE STORY OF URIAH

THE POST THAT FITTED

DELILAH

WHAT HAPPENED

PINK DOMINOES

THE MAN WHO COULD WRITE

MUNICIPAL

A CODE OF MORALS

THE LAST DEPARTMENT

OTHER VERSES

THE VAMPIRE

TO THE UNKNOWN GODDESS

THE RUPAIYAT OF OMAR KAL’VIN

LA NUIT BLANCHE

MY RIVAL

THE LOVERS’ LITANY

A BALLAD OF BURIAL

DIVIDED DESTINIES

THE MASQUE OF PLENTY

THE MARE’S NEST

POSSIBILITIES

CHRISTMAS IN INDIA

PAGETT, M.P.

THE SONG OF THE WOMEN

A BALLAD OF JAKKO HILL

THE PLEA OF THE SIMLA DANCERS

THE BALLAD OF FISHER’S BOARDING-HOUSE

AS THE BELL CLINKS

AN OLD SONG

CERTAIN MAXIMS OF HAFIZ

THE GRAVE OF THE HUNDRED HEAD

THE MOON OF OTHER DAYS

THE UNDERTAKER’S HORSE

THE FALL OF JOCK GILLESPIE

ARITHMETIC ON THE FRONTIER

THE BETROTHED

A TALE OF TWO CITIES

VOLUME II BALLADS AND BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS

BALLADS

THE BALLAD OF EAST AND WEST

THE LAST SUTTEE

THE BALLAD OF THE KING’S MERCY

THE BALLAD OF THE KING’S JEST

THE BALLAD OF BOH DA THONE

THE LAMENT OF THE BORDER CATTLE THIEF

THE RHYME OF THE THREE CAPTAINS

THE BALLAD OF THE CLAMPHERDOWN

THE BALLAD OF THE “BOLIVAR”

THE ENGLISH FLAG

AN IMPERIAL RESCRIPT

TOMLINSON

BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS

TOMMY

SOLDIER, SOLDIER

SCREW-GUNS

GUNGA DIN

LOOT

‘SNARLEYOW’

THE WIDOW AT WINDSOR

BELTS

THE YOUNG BRITISH SOLDIER

MANDALAY

FORD O’ KABUL RIVER

ROUTE MARCHIN’

VOLUME III. THE PHANTOM ‘RICKSHAW AND OTHER GHOST STORIES

THE PHANTOM ‘RICKSHAW

MY OWN TRUE GHOST STORY

THE STRANGE RIDE OF MORROWBIE JUKES

THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING

“THE FINEST STORY IN THE WORLD”

VOLUME IV UNDER THE DEODARS

THE EDUCATION OF OTIS YEERE

I

THE WORKS OF RUDYARD KIPLING:
ONE VOLUME EDITION