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diff --git a/10667-h/10667-h.htm b/10667-h/10667-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d267f2f --- /dev/null +++ b/10667-h/10667-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,12544 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Snake and Sword, by Percival Christopher Wren</title> + +<style type="text/css"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */ + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +.p2 {margin-top: 2em;} + +p.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: 90%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.letter {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +p.center {text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.right {text-align: right; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.footnote {font-size: 90%; + text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +sup { vertical-align: top; font-size: 0.6em; } + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> + +</head> + +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10667 ***</div> + +<h1>Snake and Sword</h1> + +<h3>A Novel</h3> + +<h2 class="no-break">by Percival Christopher Wren</h2> + +<hr /> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p class="center"> +DEDICATED<br/> +TO<br/> +MY WIFE<br/> +ALICE LUCILLE WREN +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#part01"><b>PART I. THE WELDING OF A SOUL</b></a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">CHAPTER I. The Snake and the Soul</a><br /><br /></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#part02"><b>PART II. THE SEARING OF A SOUL</b></a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">CHAPTER II. The Sword and the Snake</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">CHAPTER III. The Snake Appears</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">CHAPTER IV. The Sword and the Soul</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">CHAPTER V. Lucille</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">CHAPTER VI. The Snake’s “Myrmidon”</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">CHAPTER VII. Love—and the Snake</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08">CHAPTER VIII. Troopers of the Queen</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap09">CHAPTER IX. A Snake avenges a Haddock and Lucille behaves in an un-Smelliean Manner</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap10">CHAPTER X. Much Ado about Almost Nothing—A Mere Trooper</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap11">CHAPTER XI. More Myrmidons</a><br /><br /></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#part03"><b>PART III. THE SAVING OF A SOUL</b></a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap12">CHAPTER XII. Vultures and Luck—Good and Bad</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap13">CHAPTER XIII. Found</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap14">CHAPTER XIV. The Snake and the Sword</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap15">Seven Years After</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap16">EPILOGUE</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="part01"></a>PART I.<br/> +THE WELDING OF A SOUL.</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a>CHAPTER I.<br/> +THE SNAKE AND THE SOUL.</h2> + +<p> +When Colonel Matthew Devon de Warrenne, V.C., D.S.O., of the Queen’s Own +(118th) Bombay Lancers, pinned his Victoria Cross to the bosom of his dying +wife’s night-dress, in token of his recognition that she was the braver +of the twain, he was not himself. +</p> + +<p> +He was beside himself with grief. +</p> + +<p> +Afterwards he adjured the sole witness of this impulsive and emotional act, +Major John Decies, never to mention his “damned theatrical folly” +to any living soul, and to excuse him on the score of an ancient sword-cut on +the head and two bad sun-strokes. +</p> + +<p> +For the one thing in heaven above, on the earth beneath, or in the waters under +the earth, that Colonel de Warrenne feared, was breach of good form and +stereotyped convention. +</p> + +<p> +And the one thing he loved was the dying woman. +</p> + +<p> +This last statement applies also to Major John Decies, of the Indian Medical +Service, Civil Surgeon of Bimariabad, and may even be expanded, for the one +thing he ever <i>had</i> loved was the dying woman…. +</p> + +<p> +Colonel Matthew Devon de Warrenne did the deed that won him his Victoria Cross, +in the open, in the hot sunlight and in hot blood, sword in hand and with hot +blood on the sword-hand—fighting for his life. +</p> + +<p> +His wife did the deed that moved him to transfer the Cross to her, in darkness, +in cold blood, in loneliness, sickness and silence—fighting for the life +of her unborn child against an unseen foe. +</p> + +<p> +Colonel de Warrenne’s type of brave deed has been performed thousands of +times and wherever brave men have fought. +</p> + +<p> +His wife’s deed of endurance, presence of mind, self-control and cool +courage is rarer, if not unique. +</p> + +<p> +To appreciate this fully, it must be known that she had a horror of snakes, so +terrible as to amount to an obsession, a mental deformity, due, doubtless, to +the fact that her father (Colonel Mortimer Seymour Stukeley) died of snake-bite +before her mother’s eyes, a few hours before she herself was born. +</p> + +<p> +Bearing this in mind, judge of the conduct that led Colonel de Warrenne, +distraught, to award her his Cross “For Valour”. +</p> + +<p> +One oppressive June evening, Lenore de Warrenne returned from church (where she +had, as usual, prayed fervently that her soon-expected first-born might be a +daughter), and entered her dressing-room. Here her Ayah divested her of hat, +dress, and boots, and helped her into the more easeful tea-gown and satin +slippers. +</p> + +<p> +“Bootlair wanting ishweets for dinner-table from go-down,<a href="#fn1" name="fnref1" id="fnref1"><sup>[1]</sup></a> +please, Mem-Sahib,” observed Ayah, the change of garb accomplished. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn1" id="fn1"></a> <a href="#fnref1">[1]</a> +Store-room. +</p> + +<p> +“The butler wants sweets, does he? Give me my keys, then,” replied +Mrs. de Warrenne, and, rising with a sigh, she left the dressing-room and +proceeded, <i>via</i> the dining-room (where she procured some small silver +bowls, sweet-dishes, and trays), to the go-down or store-room, situate at the +back of the bungalow and adjoining the “dispense-khana”—the +room in which assemble the materials and ministrants of meals from the +extra-mural “bowachi-khana” or kitchen. Unlocking the door of the +go-down, Mrs. de Warrenne entered the small shelf-encircled room, and, stepping +on to a low stool proceeded to fill the sweet-trays from divers jars, tins and +boxes, with guava-cheese, crystallized ginger, <i>kulwa</i>, preserved mango +and certain of the more sophisticated sweetmeats of the West. +</p> + +<p> +It was after sunset and the <i>hamal</i> had not yet lit the lamps, so that +this pantry, a dark room at mid-day, was far from light at that time. But for +the fact that she knew exactly where everything was, and could put her hand on +what she wanted, she would not have entered without a light. +</p> + +<p> +For some minutes the unfortunate lady stood on the stool. +</p> + +<p> +Having completed her task she stepped down backwards and, as her foot touched +the ground, she knew <i>that she had trodden upon a snake.</i> +</p> + +<p> +Even as she stood poised, one foot on the ground, the other on the stool, both +hands gripping the high shelf, she felt the reptile whipping, writhing, +jerking, lashing, flogging at her ankle and instep, coiling round her leg…. And +in the fraction of a second the thought flashed through her mind: “If its +head is under my foot, or too close to my foot for its fangs to reach me, I am +safe while I remain as I am. If its head is free I am doomed—and matters +cannot be any the worse for my keeping as I am.” +</p> + +<p> +<i>And she kept as she was,</i> with one foot on the stool, out of reach, and +one foot on the snake. +</p> + +<p> +And screamed? +</p> + +<p> +No, called quietly and coolly for the butler, remembering that she had sent +Nurse Beaton out, that her husband was at polo, that there were none but native +servants in the house, and that if she raised an alarm they would take it, and +with single heart consider each the safety of Number One. +</p> + +<p> +“Boy!” she called calmly, though the room swam round her and a +deadly faintness began to paralyse her limbs and loosen her hold upon the +shelf—“Boy! Come here.” +</p> + +<p> +Antonio Ferdinand Xavier D’Souza, Goanese butler, heard and came. +</p> + +<p> +“Mem-Sahib?” quoth he, at the door of the go-down. +</p> + +<p> +“Bring a lamp quickly,” said Lenore de Warrenne in a level voice. +</p> + +<p> +The worthy Antonio, fat, spectacled, bald and wheezy, hurried away and +peremptorily bade the <i>hamal</i><a href="#fn2" name="fnref2" id="fnref2"><sup>[2]</sup></a>, +son of a jungle-pig, to light and bring a lamp quickly. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn2" id="fn2"></a> <a href="#fnref2">[2]</a> +Footman and male “housemaid”. +</p> + +<p> +The <i>hamal</i>, respectfully pointing out to the Bootlair Sahib that the +daylight was yet strong and lusty enough to shame and smother any lamp, +complied with deliberation and care, polishing the chimney, trimming the wick, +pouring in oil and generally making a satisfactory and commendable job of it. +</p> + +<p> +Lenore de Warrenne, sick, faint, sinking, waited … waited … waited … gripping +the shelf and fighting against her over-mastering weakness for the life of the +unborn child that, even in that awful moment, she prayed might be a daughter. +</p> + +<p> +After many cruelly long centuries, and as she swayed to fall, the good Antonio +entered with the lamp. Her will triumphed over her falling body. +</p> + +<p> +“Boy, I am standing on a snake!” said she coolly. “Put the +lamp—” +</p> + +<p> +But Antonio did not stay to “put” the lamp; incontinent he dropped +it on the floor and fled yelling “Sap! Sap!” and that the Mem-Sahib +was bitten, dying, dead—certainly dead; dead for hours. +</p> + +<p> +And the brave soul in the little room waited … waited … waited … gripping the +shelf, and thinking of the coming daughter, and wondering whether she must die +by snake-bite or fire—unborn—with her unhappy mother. For the +fallen lamp had burst, the oil had caught fire, and the fire gave no light by +which she could see what was beneath her foot—head, body, or tail of the +lashing, squirming snake—as the flame flickered, rose and fell, burnt +blue, swayed, roared in the draught of the door—did anything but give a +light by which she could see as she bent over awkwardly, still gripping the +shelf, one foot on the stool, further prevented from seeing by her loose +draperies. +</p> + +<p> +Soon she realized that in any case she could not see her foot without changing +her position—a thing she would <i>not</i> do while there was +hope—and strength to hold on. For hope there was, inasmuch as <i>she had +not yet felt the stroke of the reptile’s fangs</i>. +</p> + +<p> +Again she reasoned calmly, though strength was ebbing fast; she must remain as +she was till death by fire or suffocation was the alternative to +flight—flight which was synonymous with death, for, as her other foot +came down and she stepped off the snake, in that instant it would +strike—if it had not struck already. +</p> + +<p> +Meantime—to call steadily and coolly again. +</p> + +<p> +This time she called to the <i>hamal</i>, a Bhil, engaged out of compassion, +and likely, as a son of the jungle’s sons, to be of more courage than the +stall-fed butler in presence of dangerous beast or reptile. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Hamal</i>: I want you,” she called coolly. +</p> + +<p> +“Mem-Sahib?” came the reply from the lamp-room near by, and the man +approached. +</p> + +<p> +“That stupid butler has dropped a lamp and run away. Bring a pail of +water quickly and call to the <i>malli</i><a href="#fn3" name="fnref3" id="fnref3"><sup>[3]</sup></a> +to bring a pail of earth as you get it. Hasten!—and there is +baksheesh,” said Mrs. de Warrenne quietly in the vernacular. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn3" id="fn3"></a> <a href="#fnref3">[3]</a> +Gardener. +</p> + +<p> +Tap and pail were by the door of the back verandah. In a minute the +<i>hamal</i> entered and flung a pail of water on the burning pool of oil, +reducing the mass of blue lambent flames considerably. +</p> + +<p> +“Now <i>hamal</i>,” said the fainting woman, the more immediate +danger confronted, “bring another lamp very quickly and put it on the +shelf. Quick! don’t stop to fill or to clean it.” +</p> + +<p> +Was the pricking, shooting pain the repeated stabbing of the snake’s +fangs or was it “pins and needles”? Was this deadly faintness death +indeed, or was it only weakness? +</p> + +<p> +In what seemed but a few more years the man reappeared carrying a lighted lamp, +the which he placed upon a shelf. +</p> + +<p> +“Listen,” said Mrs. de Warrenne, “and have no fear, brave +Bhil. I have <i>caught</i> a snake. Get a knife quickly and cut off its head +while I hold it.” +</p> + +<p> +The man glancing up, appeared to suppose that his mistress held the snake on +the shelf, hurried away, and rushed back with the cook’s big +kitchen-knife gripped dagger-wise in his right hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you see the snake?” she managed to whisper. “Under my +foot! Quick! It is moving … moving … moving <i>out</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +With a wild Bhil cry the man flung himself down upon his hereditary dread foe +and slashed with the knife. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. de Warrenne heard it scratch along the floor, grate on a nail, and crush +through the snake. +</p> + +<p> +“Aré!! Dead, Mem-Sahib!! Dead!! See, I have cut off its head! Aré!!!! +Wah!! The brave mistress!——” +</p> + +<p> +As she collapsed, Mrs. de Warrenne saw the twitching body of a large cobra with +its head severed close to its neck. Its head had just protruded from under her +foot and she had saved the unborn life for which she had fought so bravely by +just keeping still…. She had won her brief decoration with the Cross +by—keeping still. (Her husband had won his permanent right to it by +extreme activity.) … Had she moved she would have been struck instantly, for +the reptile was, by her, uninjured, merely nipped between instep and floor. +</p> + +<p> +Having realized this, Lenore de Warrenne fainted and then passed from fit to +fit, and her child—a boy—was born that night. Hundreds of times +during the next few days the same terrible cry rang from the sick-room through +the hushed bungalow: “It is under my foot! It is moving … moving … moving +… <i>out!</i>” +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +“If I had to make a prophecy concerning this young fella,” observed +the broken-hearted Major John Decies, I.M.S., Civil Surgeon of Bimariabad, as +he watched old Nurse Beaton performing the baby’s elaborate ablutions and +toilet, “I should say that he will <i>not</i> grow up fond of +snakes—not if there is anything in the ‘pre-natal influence’ +theory.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="part02"></a>PART II.<br/> +THE SEARING OF A SOUL.</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a>CHAPTER II.<br/> +THE SWORD AND THE SNAKE.</h2> + +<p> +Colonel Matthew Devon De Warrenne, commanding the Queen’s Own (118th) +Bombay Lancers, was in good time, in his best review-order uniform, and in a +terrible state of mind. +</p> + +<p> +He strode from end to end of the long verandah of his bungalow with clank of +steel, creak of leather, and groan of travailing soul. As the top of his +scarlet, blue and gold turban touched the lamp that hung a good seven feet +above his spurred heels he swore viciously. +</p> + +<p> +Almost for the first time in his hard-lived, selfish life he had been thwarted, +flouted, cruelly and evilly entreated, and the worst of it was that his enemy +was—not a man whom he could take by the throat, but—Fate. +</p> + +<p> +Fate had dealt him a cruel blow, and he felt as he would have done had he, +impotent, seen one steal the great charger that champed and pawed there at the +door, and replace it by a potter’s donkey. Nay, worse—for he had +<i>loved</i> Lenore, his wife, and Fate had stolen her away and replaced her by +a squealing brat. +</p> + +<p> +Within a year of his marriage his wife was dead and buried, and his son alive +and—howling. He could hear him (curse him!). +</p> + +<p> +The Colonel glanced at his watch, producing it from some mysterious recess +beneath his belted golden sash and within his pale blue tunic. +</p> + +<p> +Not yet time to ride to the regimental parade-ground and lead his famous corps +to its place on the brigade parade-ground for the New Year Review and +march-past. +</p> + +<p> +As he held the watch at the length of its chain and stared, half-comprehending, +his hand—the hand of the finest swordsman in the Indian Army—shook. +</p> + +<p> +Lenore gone: a puling, yelping whelp in her place…. A tall, severe-looking +elderly woman entered the verandah by a distant door and approached the savage, +miserable soldier. Nurse Beaton. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Will</i> you give your son a name, Sir?” she said, and it was +evident in voice and manner that the question had been asked before and had +received an unsatisfactory, if not unprintable; reply. Every line of feature +and form seemed to express indignant resentment. She had nursed and +foster-mothered the child’s mother, and—unlike the man—had +found the baby the chiefest consolation of her cruel grief, and already loved +it not only for its idolized mother’s sake, but with the devotion of a +childless child-lover. +</p> + +<p> +“The christening is fixed for to-day, Sir, as I have kept reminding you, +Sir,” she added. +</p> + +<p> +She had never liked the Colonel—nor considered him “good +enough” for her tender, dainty darling, “nearly three times her age +and no better than he ought to be”. +</p> + +<p> +“Name?” snarled Colonel Matthew Devon de Warrenne. “Name the +little beast? Call him what you like, and then drown him.” The +tight-lipped face of the elderly nurse flushed angrily, but before she could +make the indignant reply that her hurt and scandalized look presaged, the +Colonel added:— +</p> + +<p> +“No, look here, call him <i>Damocles</i>, and done with it. The Sword +hangs over him too, I suppose, and he’ll die by it, as all his ancestors +have done. Yes—” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s not a nice name, Sir, to my thinking,” interrupted the +woman, “not for an only name—and for an only child. Let it be a +second or third name, Sir, if you want to give him such an outlandish +one.” +</p> + +<p> +She fingered her new black dress nervously with twitching hands and the tight +lips trembled. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s to be named Damocles and nothing else,” replied the +Master, and, as she turned away with a look of positive hate, he added +sardonically:— +</p> + +<p> +“And then you can call him ‘Dam’ for short, you know, +Nurse.” +</p> + +<p> +Nurse Beaton bridled, clenched her hands, and stiffened visibly. Had the man +been her social equal or any other than her master, her pent-up wrath and +indignation would have broken forth in a torrent of scathing abuse. +</p> + +<p> +“Never would I call the poor motherless lamb <i>Dam</i>, Sir,” she +answered with restraint. +</p> + +<p> +“Then call him <i>Dummy!</i> Good morning, Nurse,” snapped the +Colonel. +</p> + +<p> +As she turned to go, with a bitter sigh, she asked in the hopeless tone of one +who knows the waste of words:— +</p> + +<p> +“You will not repent—I mean relent—and come to the +christening of your only son this afternoon, Sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“Good morning, Nurse,” observed Colonel Matthew Devon de Warrenne, +and resumed his hurried pacing of the verandah. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +It is not enough that a man love his wife dearly and hold her the sweetest, +fairest, and best of women—he should tell her so, morning and night. +</p> + +<p> +There is a proverb (the unwisdom of many and the poor wit of one) that says +<i>Actions speak louder than Words</i>. Whether this is the most untrustworthy +of an untrustworthy class of generalizations is debateable. +</p> + +<p> +Anyhow, let no husband or lover believe it. Vain are the deeds of dumb +devotion, the unwearying forethought, the tender care, the gifts of price, and +the priceless gifts of attentive, watchful guard and guide, the labours of +Love—all vain. Silent is the speech of Action. +</p> + +<p> +But resonant loud is the speech of Words and profitable their investment in the +Mutual Alliance Bank. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Love me, love my Dog?</i>” Yes—and look to the dog for a +dog’s reward. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Do not show me that you love me—tell me so.</i>” Far too +true and pregnant ever to become a proverb. +</p> + +<p> +Colonel de Warrenne had omitted to tell his wife so—after she had +accepted him—and she had died thinking herself loveless, unloved, and +stating the fact. +</p> + +<p> +This was the bitterest drop in the bitter cup of the big, dumb, well-meaning +man. +</p> + +<p> +And now she would never know…. +</p> + +<p> +She had thought herself unloved, and, nerve-shattered by her terrible +experience with the snake, had made no fight for life when the unwanted boy was +born. For the sake of a girl she would have striven to live—but a boy, a +boy can fend for himself (and takes after his father)…. +</p> + +<p> +Almost as soon as Lenore Seymour Stukeley had landed in India (on a visit with +her sister Yvette to friends at Bimariabad), delighted, bewildered, +depolarized, Colonel Matthew Devon de Warrenne had burst with a blaze of glory +into her hitherto secluded, narrow life—a great pale-blue, white-and-gold +wonder, clanking and jingling, resplendent, bemedalled, ruling men, charging at +the head of thundering squadrons—a half-god (and to Yvette he had seemed +a whole-god). +</p> + +<p> +He had told her that he loved her, told her once, and had been accepted. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Once</i>! Only once told her that he loved her, that she was beautiful, that +he was hers to command to the uttermost. Only once! What could <i>she</i> know +of the changed life, the absolute renunciation of pleasant bachelor vices, the +pulling up short, and all those actions that speak more softly than words? +</p> + +<p> +What could she know of the strength and depth of the love that could keep such +a man as the Colonel from the bar, the bridge-table, the race-course and the +Paphian dame? Of the love that made him walk warily lest he offend one for whom +his quarter of a century, and more, of barrack and bachelor-bungalow life, made +him feel so utterly unfit and unworthy? What could she know of all that he had +given up and delighted to give up—now that he truly loved a true woman? +The hard-living, hard-hearted, hard-spoken man had become a gentle frequenter +of his wife’s tea-parties, her companion at church, her constant +attendant—never leaving the bungalow, save for duty, without her. +</p> + +<p> +To those who knew him it was a World’s Marvel; to her, who knew him not, +it was nothing at all—normal, natural. And being a man who spoke only +when he must, who dreaded the expression of any emotion, and who foolishly +thought that actions speak louder than words, he had omitted to tell her +daily—or even weekly or monthly—that he loved her; and she had died +pitying herself and reproaching him. +</p> + +<p> +Fate’s old, old game of Cross Purposes. Major John Decies, reserved, +high-minded gentleman, loving Lenore de Warrenne (and longing to tell her so +daily), with the one lifelong love of a steadfast nature; Yvette Stukeley, +reserved, high-minded gentlewoman, loving Colonel de Warrenne, and longing to +escape from Bimariabad before his wedding to her sister, and doing so at the +earliest possible date thereafter: each woman losing the man who would have +been her ideal husband, each man losing the woman who would have been his ideal +wife. +</p> + +<p> +Yvette Stukeley returned to her uncle and guardian, General Sir Gerald Seymour +Stukeley, K.C.B., K.C.S.I., at Monksmead, nursing a broken heart, and longed +for the day when Colonel de Warrenne’s child might be sent home to her +care. +</p> + +<p> +Major John Decies abode at Bimariabad, also nursing a broken heart (though he +scarcely realized the fact), watched over the son of Lenore de Warrenne, and +greatly feared for him. +</p> + +<p> +The Major was an original student of theories and facts of Heredity and +Pre-natal Influence. Further he was not wholly hopeful as to the effect of all +the <i>post</i>-natal influences likely to be brought to bear upon a child who +grew up in the bungalow, and the dislike of Colonel Matthew Devon de Warrenne. +</p> + +<p> +Upon the infant Damocles, Nurse Beaton, rugged, snow-capped volcano, lavished +the tender love of a mother; and in him Major John Decies, deep-running still +water, took the interest of a father. The which was the better for the infant +Damocles in that his real father had no interest to take and no love to lavish. +He frankly disliked the child—the outward and visible sign, the daily +reminder of the cruel loss he so deeply felt and fiercely resented. +</p> + +<p> +Yet, strangely enough, he would not send the child home. Relations who could +receive it he had none, and he declined to be beholden to its great-uncle, +General Sir Gerald Seymour Stukeley, and its aunt Yvette Stukeley, in spite of +the warmest invitations from the one and earnest entreaties from the other. +</p> + +<p> +Nurse Beaton fed, tended, clothed and nursed the baby by day; a worshipping +ayah wheeled him abroad, and, by night, slept beside his cot; a devoted +sepoy-orderly from the regiment guarded his cavalcade, and, when permitted, +proudly bore him in his arms. +</p> + +<p> +Major John Decies visited him frequently, watched and waited, waited and +watched, and, though not a youth, “thought long, long thoughts”. +</p> + +<p> +He also frequently laid his views and theories on paternal duties before +Colonel de Warrenne, until pointedly asked by that officer whether he had no +duties of his own which might claim his valuable time. +</p> + +<p> +Years rolled by, after the incorrigible habit of years, and the infant Damocles +grew and developed into a remarkably sturdy, healthy, intelligent boy, as +cheerful, fearless, impudent, and irrepressible as the heart of the Major could +desire—and with a much larger vocabulary than any one could desire, for a +baby. +</p> + +<p> +On the fifth anniversary of his birthday he received a matutinal call from +Major Decies, who was returning from his daily visit to the Civil Hospital. +</p> + +<p> +The Major bore a birthday present and a very anxious, undecided mind. +</p> + +<p> +“Good morrow, gentle Damocles,” he remarked, entering the big +verandah adown which the chubby boy pranced gleefully to meet his beloved +friend, shouting a welcome, and brandishing a sword designed, and largely +constructed, by himself from a cleaning-rod, a tobacco-tin lid, a piece of +wood, card-board and wire. +</p> + +<p> +“Thalaam, Major Thahib,” he said, flinging himself bodily upon that +gentleman. “I thaw cook cut a fowl’s froat vis morning. It squorked +boofly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did it? Alas, that I missed those pleasing-er-squorks,” replied +the Major, and added: “This is thy natal day, my son. Thou art a man of +five.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m a debble. I’m a <i>norful</i> little debble,” +corrected Damocles, cheerfully and with conviction. +</p> + +<p> +“Incidentally. But you are five also,” persisted the senior man. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s my birfday to-day,” observed the junior. +</p> + +<p> +“I just said so.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>That</i> you didn’t, Major Thahib. This is a thword. +Father’s charger’s got an over-weach. Jumping. He says it’s a +dam-nuithanth.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, that’s a sword, is it? And ‘Fire’ has got an +over-reach. And it’s a qualified nuisance, is it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yeth, and the mare is coughing and her <i>thythe</i> is a blathted fool +for letting her catch cold.” +</p> + +<p> +“The mare has a cold and the <i>syce</i><a href="#fn4" name="fnref4" id="fnref4"><sup>[4]</sup></a> +is a qualified fool, is he? H’m! I think it’s high time you had a +look in at little old England, my son, what? And who made you this elegant +rapier? Ochterlonie Sahib or—who?” (Lieutenant Lord Ochterlonie was +the Adjutant of the Queen’s Greys, a friend of Colonel de Warrenne, an +ex-admirer of his late wife, and a great pal of his son.) +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn4" id="fn4"></a> <a href="#fnref4">[4]</a> +Groom. +</p> + +<p> +“’Tithn’t a waper. It’th my thword. I made it +mythelf.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who helped?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nobody. At leatht, Khodadad Khan, Orderly, knocked the holes in the tin +like I showed him—or elthe got the Farrier Thargeant to do it, and thaid +<i>he</i> had.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—but who told you how to make it like this? Where did you see a +hand-part like this? It isn’t like Daddy’s sword, nor Khodadad +Khan’s <i>tulwar</i>. Where did you copy it?” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t copy it…. I shot ten rats wiv a bow-and-arrow last night. +At leatht—I don’t think I shot ten. Nor one. I don’t think I +didn’t, pwaps.” +</p> + +<p> +“But hang it all, the thing’s an Italian rapier, by Gad. Some one +<i>must</i> have shown you how to make the thing, or you’ve got a +picture. It’s a <i>pukka</i><a href="#fn5" name="fnref5" id="fnref5"><sup>[5]</sup></a> +mediaeval rapier.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn5" id="fn5"></a> <a href="#fnref5">[5]</a> +Real, solid, permanent, proper, ripe, genuine. +</p> + +<p> +“No it’th not. It’th my thword. I made it…. Have a jolly +fight”—and the boy struck an extraordinarily correct fencing +attitude—left hand raised in balance, sword poised, legs and feet well +placed, the whole pose easy, natural, graceful. +</p> + +<p> +Curiously enough, the sword was held horizontal instead of pointing upward, a +fact which at once struck the observant and practised eye of Major John Decies, +sometime champion fencer. +</p> + +<p> +“Who’s been teaching you fencing?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“What ith ‘fenthing’? Let’th have a fight,” +replied the boy. +</p> + +<p> +“Stick me here, Dam,” invited the Major, seating himself and +indicating the position of the heart. “Bet you can’t.” +</p> + +<p> +The boy lunged, straight, true, gracefully, straightening all his limbs except +his right leg, rigidly, strongly, and the “sword” bent upward from +the spot on which the man’s finger had just rested. +</p> + +<p> +“Gad! Who <i>has</i> taught you to lunge? I shall have a bruise there, +and perhaps—live. Who’s behind all this, young fella? Who taught +you to stand so, and to lunge? Ochterlonie Sahib or Daddy?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nobody. What is ‘lunge’? Will you buy me a little baby-camel +to play with and teach tricks? Perhaps it would sit up and beg. Do camelth lay +eggth? Chucko does. Millions and lakhs. You get a thword, too, and we’ll +fight every day. Yeth. All day long——” +</p> + +<p> +“Good morning, Sir,” said Nurse Beaton, bustling into the verandah +from the nursery. “He’s as mad as ever on swords and fighting, you +see. It’s a soldier he’ll be, the lamb. He’s taken to making +that black orderly pull out his sword when he’s in uniform. Makes him +wave and jab it about. Gives me the creeps—with his black face and white +eyes and all. You won’t <i>encourage</i> the child at it, will you, Sir? +And his poor Mother the gentlest soul that ever stepped. Swords! Where he gets +his notions <i>I</i> can’t think (though I know where he gets his +language, poor lamb!). Look at <i>that</i> thing, Sir! For all the world like +the dressed-up folk have on the stage or in pictures.” +</p> + +<p> +“You haven’t let him see any books, I suppose, Nurse?” asked +the Major. +</p> + +<p> +“No, Sir. Never a book has the poor lamb seen, except those you’ve +brought. I’ve always been in terror of his seeing a picture of a +you-know-what, ever since you told me what the effect <i>might</i> be. Nor he +hasn’t so much as heard the name of it, so far as I know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, he’ll see one to-day. I’ve brought it with +me—must see it sooner or later. Might see a live one anywhere—in +spite of all your care…. But about this sword—where <i>could</i> he have +got the idea? It’s unlike any sword he ever set eyes on. Besides if he +ever <i>did</i> see an Italian rapier—and there’s scarcely such a +thing in India—he’d not get the chance to use it as a copy. Fancy +his having the desire and the power to, anyhow!” +</p> + +<p> +“I give it up, Sir,” said Nurse Beaton. +</p> + +<p> +“I give it upper,” added the Major, taking the object of their +wonder from the child. +</p> + +<p> +And there was cause for wonder indeed. +</p> + +<p> +A hole had been punched through the centre of the lid of a tobacco tin and a +number of others round the edge. Through the centre hole the steel rod had been +passed so that the tin made a “guard”. To the other holes wires had +been fastened by bending, and their ends gathered, twisted, and bound with +string to the top of the handle (of bored corks) to form an ornamental +basket-hilt. +</p> + +<p> +But the most remarkable thing of all was that, before doing this, the juvenile +designer had passed the rod through a piece of bored stick so that the latter +formed a <i>cross-piece</i> (neatly bound) within the tin guard—the +distinctive feature of the ancient and modern Italian rapiers! +</p> + +<p> +Round this cross-piece the first two fingers of the boy’s right hand were +crooked as he held the sword—and this is the one and only correct way of +holding the Italian weapon, as the Major was well aware! +</p> + +<p> +“I give it most utterly-uppermost,” he murmured. “It’s +positively uncanny. No <i>uninitiated</i> adult of the utmost intelligence ever +held an Italian-pattern foil correctly yet—nor until he had been pretty +carefully shown. Who the devil put him up to the design in the first place, and +the method of holding, in the second? Explain yourself, you two-anna<a href="#fn6" name="fnref6" id="fnref6"><sup>[6]</sup></a> +marvel,” he demanded of the child. “It’s +<i>jadu</i>—black magic.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn6" id="fn6"></a> <a href="#fnref6">[6]</a> +Anna = a penny. +</p> + +<p> +“Ayah lothted a wupee latht night,” he replied. +</p> + +<p> +“Lost a rupee, did she? Lucky young thing. Wish I had one to lose. Who +showed you how to hold that sword? Why do you crook your fingers round the +cross-piece like that?” +</p> + +<p> +“Chucko laid me an egg latht night,” observed Damocles. “He +laid it with my name on it—so that cook couldn’t steal it.” +</p> + +<p> +“No doubt. Look here, where can I get a sword like yours? Where can I +copy it? Who makes them? Who knows about them?” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>I</i> don’t know, Major Thahib. Gunnoo sells +‘Fire’s’ gram to the <i>methrani</i> for her curry and +chuppatties.” +</p> + +<p> +“But how do you know swords are like this? <i>That</i> thing isn’t +a <i>pukka</i> sword.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it’th like Thir Theymour Thtukeley’s in my +dweam.” +</p> + +<p> +“What dream?” +</p> + +<p> +“The one I’m alwayth dweaming. They have got long hair like Nurse +in the night, and they fight and fight like anything. Norful good fighters! And +they wear funny kit. And their thwords are like vis. _Egg_zackly. Gunnoo gave +me a ride on ‘Fire,’ and he’th a dam-liar. He thaid he forgot +to put the warm <i>jhool</i> on him when Daddy was going to fwash him for being +a dam-fool. I thaid I’d tell Daddy how he alwayth thleepth in it +himthelf, unleth he gave me a ride on ‘Fire’. ‘Fire’ +gave a <i>norful</i> buck and bucked me off. At leatht I think he +didn’t.” +</p> + +<p> +Major Decies’ face was curiously intent—as of some midnight worker +in research who sees a bright near glimpse of the gold his alchemy has so long +sought to materialize in the alembic of fact. +</p> + +<p> +“Come back to sober truth, young youth. What about the dream? Who are +they, and what do they say and do?” +</p> + +<p> +“Thir Theymour Thtukeley Thahib tellth Thir Matthew Thahib about the +hilt-thwust. (What <i>is</i> ‘hilt-thwust’?) And Lubin, the +thervant, ith a <i>white</i> thervant. Why ith he white if he ith a +Thahib’s ‘boy’?” +</p> + +<p> +“Good Gad!” murmured the Major. “I’m favoured of the +gods. Tell me all about it, Sonny. Then I’ll undo this parcel for +you,” he coaxed. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I don’t wemember. They buck a lot by the tents and then Thir +Theymour Thtukeley goes and fights Thir Matthew and kills him, and it’th +awful lovely, but they dreth up like kids at a party in big collars and silly +kit.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I know,” murmured the Major. “Tell me what they say +when they buck to each other by the tents, and when they talk about the +‘hilt-thrust,’ old chap.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I don’t wemember. I’ll listen next time I dweam it, and +tell you. Chucko’s egg was all brown—not white like those cook +brings from the bazaar. He’s a dam-thief. Open the parcel, Major Thabib. +What’s in it?” +</p> + +<p> +“A picture-book for you, Sonny. All sorts of jolly beasts that +you’ll <i>shikar</i> some day. You’ll tell me some more about the +dream to-morrow, won’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yeth. I’ll wemember and fink, and tell you what I have +finked.” +</p> + +<p> +Turning to Nurse Beaton, the Major whispered:— +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t worry him about this dream at all. Leave it to me. +It’s wonderful. Take him on your lap, Nurse, and—er—be +<i>ready</i>. It’s a very life-like picture, and I’m going to +spring it on him without any remark—but I’m more than a little +anxious, I admit. Still, it’s <i>got</i> to come, as I say, and better a +picture first, with ourselves present. If the picture don’t affect him +I’ll show him a real one. May be all right of course, but I don’t +know. I came across a somewhat similar case once before—and it was +<i>not</i> all right. Not by any means,” and he disclosed the brilliantly +coloured Animal Picture Book and knelt beside the expectant boy. +</p> + +<p> +On the first page was an incredibly leonine lion, who appeared to have solved +with much satisfaction the problem of aerial flight, so far was he from the +mountain whence he had sprung and above the back of the antelope towards which +he had propelled himself. One could almost hear him roar. There was menace and +fate in eye and tooth and claw, yea, in the very kink of the prehensile-seeming +tail wherewith he apparently steered his course in mid-air. To gaze upon his +impressive and determined countenance was to sympathize most fully with the +sore-tried Prophet of old (known to Damocles as Dannle-in-the-lines-den) for +ever more. +</p> + +<p> +The boy was wholly charmed, stroked the glowing ferocity and observed that he +was a <i>pukka Bahadur</i>.<a href="#fn7" name="fnref7" id="fnref7"><sup>[7]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn7" id="fn7"></a> <a href="#fnref7">[7]</a> +Strong, powerful chief. +</p> + +<p> +On the next page, burning bright, was a tiger, if possible one degree more +terrible than the lion. His “fearful cemetery” appeared to be full, +judging by its burgeoned bulge and the shocking state of depletion exhibited by +the buffalo on which he fed with barely inaudible snarls and grunts of +satisfaction. Blood dripped from his capacious and over-furnished mouth. +</p> + +<p> +“Booful,” murmured Damocles. “I shall go shooting tigerth +to-mowwow. Shoot vem in ve mouth, down ve froat, so as not to spoil ve +wool.” +</p> + +<p> +Turning over the page, the Major disclosed a most grievous grizzly bear, +grizzly and bearish beyond conception, heraldic, regardant, expectant, not +collared, fanged and clawed proper, rampant, erect, requiring no supporters. +</p> + +<p> +“You could thtab him wiv a thword if you were quick, while he was doing +that,” opined Damocles, charmed, enraptured, delighted. One by one, other +savage, fearsome beasts were disclosed to the increasingly delighted boy until, +without warning, the Major suddenly turned a page and disclosed a brilliant and +hungry-looking snake. +</p> + +<p> +With a piercing shriek the boy leapt convulsively from Nurse Beaton’s +arms, rushed blindly into the wall and endeavoured to butt and bore his way +through it with his head, screaming like a wounded horse. As the man and woman +sprang to him he shrieked, “It’th under my foot! It’th +moving, moving, moving <i>out</i>” and fell to the ground in a fit. +</p> + +<p> +Major John Decies arose from his bachelor dinner-table that evening, lit his +“planter” cheroot, and strolled into the verandah that looked +across a desert to a mountain range. +</p> + +<p> +Dropping into a long low chair, he raised his feet on to the long leg-rest +extensions of its arms, and, as he settled down and waited for coffee, wondered +why no such chairs are known in the West; why the trunks of the palms looked +less flat in the moonlight than in the daylight (in which, from that spot, they +always looked exactly as though cut out of cardboard); why Providence had not +arranged for perpetual full-moon; why the world looked such a place of +peaceful, glorious beauty by moonlight, the bare cruel mountains like +diaphanous clouds of tenderest soothing mist, the Judge’s hideous +bungalow like a fairy palace, his own parched compound like a plot of Paradise, +when all was so abominable by day; and, as ever—why his darling, Lenore +Stukeley, had had to marry de Warrenne and die in the full flower and promise +of her beautiful womanhood. +</p> + +<p> +Having finished his coffee and lighted his pipe (<i>vice</i> the over-dry +friable cheroot, flung into the garden) the Major then turned his mind to +serious and consecutive thought on the subject of her son, his beloved little +pal, Dammy de Warrenne. +</p> + +<p> +Poor little beggar! What an eternity it had seemed before he had got him to +sleep. How the child had suffered. Mad! Absolutely stark, staring, raving +<i>mad</i> with sheer terror…. Had he acted rightly in showing him the picture? +He had meant well, anyhow. Cruel phrase, that. How cuttingly his friend de +Warrenne had observed, “You mean well, doubtless,” on more than one +occasion. He could make it the most stinging of insults…. Surely he had acted +rightly…. Poor little beggar—but he was bound to see a picture or a real +live specimen, sooner or later. Perhaps when there was no help at hand…. Would +he be like it always? <i>Might</i> grow out of it as he grew older and +stronger. What would have happened if he had encountered a live snake? Lost his +reason permanently, perhaps…. What would happen when he <i>did</i> see one, as +sooner or later, he certainly must? +</p> + +<p> +What would be the best plan? To attempt gradually to inure him—or to +guard him absolutely from contact with picture, stuffed specimen, model, toy, +and the real thing, wild or captive, as one would guard him against a fell +disease? +</p> + +<p> +<i>Could</i> he be inured? Could one “break it to him gently” bye +and bye, by first drawing a wiggly line and then giving it a head? One might +sketch a suggestion of a snake, make a sort of dissimilar clay model, improve +it, show him a cast skin, stuff it, make a more life-like picture, gradually +lead up to a well-stuffed one and then a live one. Might work up to having a +good big picture of one on the nursery wall; one in a glass case; keep a +harmless live one and show it him daily. Teach him by experience that +there’s nothing supernatural about a snake—just a nasty reptile +that wants exterminating like other dangerous creatures—something to +<i>shikar</i> with a gun. Nothing at all supernatural…. +</p> + +<p> +But this was “super”-natural, abnormal, a terrible devastating +agony of madness, inherited, incurable probably; part of mind and body and +soul. Inherited, and integrally of him as were the colour of his eyes, his +intelligence, his physique…. Heredity … pre-natal influence … breed…. +</p> + +<p> +Anyhow, nothing must be attempted yet awhile. Let the poor little chap get +older and stronger, in mind and body, first. Brave as a little bull-dog in +other directions! Absolutely devoid of fear otherwise, and with a natural bent +for fighting and adventure. Climb anywhere, especially up the hind leg of a +camel or a horse, fondle any strange dog, clamour to be put on any strange +horse, go into any deep water, cheek anybody, bear any ordinary pain with a +grin, thrill to any story of desperate deeds—a fine, brave, manly, hardy +little chap, and with art extraordinary physique for strength and endurance. +</p> + +<p> +Whatever was to be attempted later, he must be watched, day and night, now. No +unattended excursions into the compound, no uncensored picture-books, no +juggling snake-charmers…. Yet it <i>must</i> come, sooner or later. +</p> + +<p> +Would it ruin his life? +</p> + +<p> +Anyhow, he must never return to India when he grew up, or go to any +snake-producing country, unless he could be cured. +</p> + +<p> +Would it make him that awful thing—a coward? +</p> + +<p> +Would it grow and wax till it dominated his mind—drive him mad? +</p> + +<p> +Would succeeding attacks, following encounters with picture or reality, +progressively increase in severity? +</p> + +<p> +<i>Her</i> boy in an asylum? +</p> + +<p> +No. He was exaggerating an almost expected consequence that might never be +repeated—especially if the child were most carefully and gradually +reintroduced to the present terror. Later though—much later on. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile, wait and hope: hope and wait…. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a>CHAPTER III.<br/> +THE SNAKE APPEARS.</h2> + +<p> +The European child who grows up in India, if only to the age of six or seven +years, grows under a severe moral, physical, and mental handicap. +</p> + +<p> +However wise, devoted, and conscientious its parents may be, the evil is great, +and remains one of the many heavy costs (or punishments) of Empire. +</p> + +<p> +When the child has no mother and an indifferent father, life’s handicap +is even more severe. +</p> + +<p> +By his sixth birthday (the regiment being still in Bimariabad owing to the +prevalence of drought, famine, and cholera elsewhere) Damocles de Warrenne, +knowing the Urdu language and <i>argot</i> perfectly, knew, in theory also, +more of evil, in some directions, than did his own father. +</p> + +<p> +If the child who grows up absolutely straight-forward, honest, above-board and +pure in thought, word, and deed, in England, deserves commendation, what does +the child deserve who does so in India? +</p> + +<p> +Understanding every word they spoke to one another, the training he got from +native servants was one of undiluted evil and a series of object-lessons in +deceit, petty villainy, chicanery, oppression, lying, dishonesty, and all +immorality. And yet—thanks to his equal understanding of the words and +deeds of Nurse Beaton, Major Decies, Lieutenant Ochterlonie, his father, the +Officers of the Regiment, and the Europeans of the station—he had a +clear, if unconscious, understanding that what was customary for native +servants was neither customary nor possible for Sahibs…. +</p> + +<p> +But he knew too much…. +</p> + +<p> +He knew what percentage of his or her pay each servant had to hand to the +“butler-sahib” monthly—or lose his or her place through false +accusation. +</p> + +<p> +He knew why the ayah was graciously exempted from financial toll by this +autocrat. He knew roughly what proportion of the cook’s daily bill +represented the actual cost of his daily purchases. He knew what the door-peon +got for consenting to take in the card of the Indian aspirant for an interview +with Colonel de Warrenne. +</p> + +<p> +He knew the terms of the arrangements between the head-syce and the +grain-dealer, the lucerne-grass seller, the <i>ghas-wallah</i><a href="#fn8" name="fnref8" id="fnref8"><sup>[8]</sup></a> +who brought the hay (whereby reduced quantities were accepted in return for +illegal gratifications). He knew of retail re-sales of these reduced supplies. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn8" id="fn8"></a> <a href="#fnref8">[8]</a> +Grass-man. +</p> + +<p> +He knew of the purchase of oil, rice, condiments, fire-wood and other +commodities from the cook, of the theft (by arrangement) of the poultry and +eggs, of the surreptitious milking of the cow, and of the simple plan of +milking her—under Nurse Beaton’s eye—into a narrow-necked +vessel already half full of water. +</p> + +<p> +He knew that the ayah’s husband sold the Colonel’s soda-water, +paraffin, matches, candles, tobacco, cheroots, fruit, sugar, etc., at a little +portable shop round the corner of the road, and of the terms on which the +<i>hamal</i> and the butler supplied these commodities to the ayah for transfer +to her good man. +</p> + +<p> +He knew too much of the philosophy, manners, habits, and morals of the dog-boy, +of concealed cases of the most infectious diseases in the compound, of the +sub-letting and over-crowding of the servants’ quarters, of incredible +quarrels, intrigues, jealousies, revenges, base villainies and wrongs, +superstitions and beliefs. +</p> + +<p> +He would hear the hatching of a plot—an hour’s arrangement and +wrangle—whereby, through far-sighted activity, perjury, malpractice and +infinite ingenuity, the ringleader would gain a <i>pice</i> and the follower a +<i>pie</i> (a farthing and a third of a farthing respectively). +</p> + +<p> +Daily he saw the butler steal milk, sugar, and tea, for his own use; the +<i>hamal</i> steal oil when he filled the lamps, for sale; the <i>malli</i> +steal flowers, for sale; the coachman steal carriage-candles; the cook steal a +moiety of everything that passed through his hands—every one in that +black underworld stealing, lying, back-biting, cheating, intriguing (and all +meanwhile strictly and stoutly religious, even the sweeper-descended Goanese +cook, the biggest thief of all, purging his Christian soul on Sunday mornings +by Confession, and fortifying himself against the temptations of the Evil One +at early Mass). +</p> + +<p> +Between these <i>nowker log</i>, the servant-people, and his own <i>jat</i> or +class, the <i>Sahib-log</i>, the master-people, were the troopers, splendid +Sikhs, Rajputs, Pathans and Punjabis, men of honour, courage, physique, +tradition. Grand fighters, loyal as steel while properly understood and +properly treated—in other words, while properly officered. (Men, albeit, +with deplorably little understanding of, or regard for, Pagett, M.P., and his +kind, who yearn to do so much for them.) +</p> + +<p> +These men Damocles admired and loved, though even <i>they</i> were apt to be +very naughty in the bazaar, to gamble and to toy with opium, bhang, and +(alleged) brandy, to dally with houris and hearts’-delights, to use +unkind measures towards the good <i>bunnia</i> and <i>sowkar</i> who had lent +them monies, and to do things outside the Lines that were not known in the +Officers’ Mess. +</p> + +<p> +The boy preferred the Rissaldar-Major even to some Sahibs of his +acquaintance—that wonderful old man-at-arms, horseman, <i>shikarri</i>, +athlete, gentleman. (Yet how strange and sad to see him out of his splendid +uniform, in sandals, <i>dhotie</i>, untrammelled shirt-tails, dingy old cotton +coat and loose <i>puggri</i>, undistinguishable from a school-master, clerk, or +post-man; so <i>un</i>-sahib-like.) +</p> + +<p> +And what a fine riding-master he made for an ambitious, fearless +boy—though Ochterlonie Sahib said he was too cruel to be a good +<i>horse</i>-master. +</p> + +<p> +How <i>could</i> people be civilians and live away from regiments? Live without +ever touching swords, lances, carbines, saddles? +</p> + +<p> +What a queer feeling it gave one to see the regiment go past the saluting base +on review-days, at the gallop, with lances down. One wanted to shout, to +laugh—to <i>cry</i>. (It made one’s mouth twitch and chin work.) +</p> + +<p> +Oh, to <i>lead</i> the regiment as Father did—horse and man one welded +piece of living mechanism. +</p> + +<p> +Father said you couldn’t ride till you had taken a hundred tosses, been +pipped a hundred times. A hundred falls! Surely Father had <i>never</i> been +thrown—it must be impossible for such a rider to come off. See him at +polo. +</p> + +<p> +By his sixth birthday Damocles de Warrenne, stout and sturdy, was an +accomplished rider and never so happy (save when fencing) as when flogging his +active and spirited little pony along the “rides” or over the dusty +<i>maidans</i> and open country of Bimariabad. To receive a quarter-mile start +on the race-course and ride a mile race against Khodadad Khan on his +troop-horse, or with one of the syces on one of the Colonel’s +polo-ponies, or with some obliging male or female early morning rider, was the +joy of his life. Should he suspect the competitor of “pulling” as +he came alongside, that the tiny pony might win, the boy would lash at both +horses impartially. +</p> + +<p> +People who pitied him (and they were many) wondered as to how soon he would +break his neck, and remonstrated with his father for allowing him to ride +alone, or in charge of an attendant unable to control him. +</p> + +<p> +In the matter of his curious love of fencing Major John Decies was deeply +concerned, obtained more and more details of his “dweam,” taught +him systematically and scientifically to fence, bought him foils and got them +shortened. He also interested him in a series of muscle-developing exercises +which the boy called his “dismounted squad-dwill wiv’out +arms,” and performed frequently daily, and with gusto. +</p> + +<p> +Lieutenant Lord Ochterlonie (Officers’ Light-Weight Champion at +Aldershot) rigged him up a small swinging sand-bag and taught him to punch with +either hand, and drilled him in foot-work for boxing. +</p> + +<p> +Later he brought the very capable ten-year-old son of a boxing Troop-Sergeant +and set him to make it worth Dam’s while to guard smartly, to learn to +keep his temper, and to receive a blow with a grin. +</p> + +<p> +(Possibly a better education than learning declensions, conjugations, and +tables from a Eurasian “governess”.) +</p> + +<p> +He learnt to read unconsciously and automatically by repeating, after Nurse +Beaton, the jingles and other letter-press beneath the pictures in the books +obtained for him under Major Decies’ censorship. +</p> + +<p> +On his sixth birthday, Major John Decies had Damocles over to his bungalow for +the day, gave him a box of lead soldiers and a schooner-rigged ship, helped him +to embark them and sail them in the bath to foreign parts, trapped a squirrel +and let it go again, allowed him to make havoc of his possessions, fired at +bottles with his revolver for the boy’s delectation, shot a crow or two +with a rook-rifle, played an improvised game of fives with a tennis-ball, told +him tales, and generally gave up the day to his amusement. What he did +<i>not</i> do was to repeat the experiment of a year ago, or make any kind of +reference to snakes…. +</p> + +<p> +A few days later, on the morning of the New-Year’s-Day Review, Colonel +Matthew de Warrenne once again strode up and down his verandah, arrayed in full +review-order, until it should be time to ride to the regimental parade-ground. +</p> + +<p> +He had coarsened perceptibly in the six years since he had lost his wife, and +the lines that had grown deepest on his hard, handsome face were those between +his eyebrows and beside his mouth—the mouth of an unhappy, dissipated, +cynical man…. +</p> + +<p> +He removed his right-hand gauntlet and consulted his watch…. Quarter of an hour +yet. +</p> + +<p> +He continued the tramp that always reminded Damocles of the restless, angry +to-and-fro pacing of the big bear in the gardens. Both father and the bear +seemed to fret against fate, to suffer under a sense of injury; both seemed +dangerous, fierce, admirable. Hearing the clink and clang and creak of his +father’s movement, Damocles scrambled from his cot and crept down the +stairs, pink-toed, blue-eyed, curly-headed, night-gowned, to peep through the +crack of the drawing-room door at his beautiful father. He loved to see him in +review uniform—so much more delightful than plain khaki—pale blue, +white, and gold, in full panoply of accoutrement, jackbooted and spurred, and +with the great turban that made his English face look more English still. +</p> + +<p> +Yes—he would ensconce himself behind the drawing-room door and watch. +Perhaps “Fire” would be bobbery when the Colonel mounted him, would +get “what-for” from whip and spur, and be put over the compound +wall instead of being allowed to canter down the drive and out at the gate…. +</p> + +<p> +Colonel de Warrenne stepped into his office to get a cheroot. Re-appearing in +the verandah with it in his mouth he halted and thrust his hand inside his +tunic for his small match-case. Ere he could use the match his heart was +momentarily chilled by the most blood-curdling scream he had ever heard. It +appeared to come from the drawing-room. (Colonel de Warrenne never lit the +cheroot that he had put to his lips—nor ever another again.) Springing to +the door, one of a dozen that opened into the verandah, he saw his son +struggling on the ground, racked by convulsive spasms, with glazed, sightless +eyes and foaming mouth, from which issued appalling, blood-curdling shrieks. +Just above him, on the fat satin cushion in the middle of a low settee, a huge +half-coiled cobra swayed from side to side in the Dance of Death. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>It’s under my foot—it’s +moving—moving—moving out</i>,” shrieked the child. +</p> + +<p> +Colonel de Warrenne attended to the snake first. He half-drew his sword and +then slammed it back into the scabbard. No—his sword was not for snakes, +whatever his son might be. On the wall was a trophy of Afghan weapons, one of +which was a sword that had played a prominent part on the occasion of the +Colonel’s winning of the Victoria Cross. +</p> + +<p> +Striding to the wall he tore the sword down, drew it and, with raised arm, +sprang towards the cobra. A good “Cut Three” across the coils would +carve it into a dozen pieces. No. Lenore made that cushion—and +Lenore’s cushion made more appeal to Colonel de Warrenne than did +Lenore’s son. No. A neat horizontal “Cut Two,” just below the +head, with the deadly “drawing” motion on it, would meet the case +nicely. Swinging it to the left, the Colonel subconsciously placed the sword, +“resting flat on the left shoulder, edge to the left, hand in front of +the shoulder and square with the elbow, elbow as high as the hand,” as +per drill-book, and delivered a lightning stroke—thinking as he did so +that the Afghan <i>tulwar</i> is an uncommonly well-balanced, handy +cutting-weapon, though infernally small in the hilt. +</p> + +<p> +The snake’s head fell with a thud upon the polished boards between the +tiger-skins, and the body dropped writhing and twitching on to the settee. +</p> + +<p> +Damocles appeared to be dead. Picking him up, the callous-hearted father strode +out to where Khodadad Khan held “Fire’s” bridle, handed him +to the orderly, mounted, received him again from the man, and, holding him in +his strong right arm, cantered to the bungalow of Major John Decies—since +it lay on the road to the parade-ground. +</p> + +<p> +Would the jerking hurt the little beggar in his present comatose state? Well, +brats that couldn’t stand a little jerking were better dead, especially +when they screamed and threw fits at the sight of a common snake. +</p> + +<p> +Turning into Major Decies’ compound and riding up to his porch, the +Colonel saw the object of his search, arrayed in pyjamas, seated in his long +cane chair beside a tray of tea, toast, and fruit, in the verandah. +</p> + +<p> +“Morning, de Warrenne,” he cried cheerily. +</p> + +<p> +“How’s little—” and caught sight of the inanimate +child. +</p> + +<p> +“Little coward’s fainted after throwing a fit—over a common +snake,” observed the Colonel coolly. +</p> + +<p> +“Give him here,” answered the Major, taking the boy tenderly in his +arms,—“and kindly—er—clear out.” +</p> + +<p> +He did not wish to strike his friend and senior. How the black rage welled up +in his heart against the callous brute who had dared to marry Lenore Seymour +Stukeley. +</p> + +<p> +Colonel de Warrenne wheeled his horse without a word, and rode out of Major +Decies’ life and that of his son. +</p> + +<p> +Galloping to the parade-ground he spoke a few curt words to his Adjutant, +inspected the <i>rissala</i>, and then rode at its head to the brigade +parade-ground where it took up its position on the left flank of the Guns and +the Queen’s Greys, “sat at ease,” and awaited the arrival of +the Chief Commissioner at the saluting-base. A British Infantry regiment +marched to the left flank of the 118th (Bombay) Lancers, left-turned and stood +at ease. Another followed and was followed in turn by Native Infantry +Regiments—grand Sikhs in scarlet tunics, baggy black breeches and blue +putties; hefty Pathans and Baluchis in green tunics, crimson breeches and high +white gaiters, sturdy little Gurkhas in rifle-green, stalwart Punjabi +Mahommedans. +</p> + +<p> +The great double line grew and grew, and stood patiently waiting, Horse, Foot, +and Guns, facing the sun and a dense crowd of spectators ranked behind the +rope-encircled, guard-surrounded saluting-base over which flew the Flag of +England. +</p> + +<p> +The Brigadier and his Staff rode on to the ground, were saluted by the mile of +troops, and took up their position. +</p> + +<p> +Followed the Chief Commissioner in his state carriage, accompanied by a very +Distinguished Guest, and surrounded by his escort. The mile of men again came +to attention and the review began. Guns boomed, massed bands played the +National Anthem, the crackling rattle of the <i>feu-de-joie</i> ran up the +front rank and down the rear. +</p> + +<p> +After the inspection and the salutes came the march-past by the regiments. +</p> + +<p> +Now the Distinguished Visitor’s wife had told the Chief Commissioner that +she “did not want to see the cavalry go past at the gallop as it raised +such a dreadful dust”. But her maid bungled, her toilette failed, and she +decided not to accompany her husband to the Review at all. Her husband, the +Distinguished Visitor, <i>did</i> desire to see the cavalry go past at the +gallop, and so the Chief Commissioner’s Distinguished Visitor’s +wife’s maid’s bungling had a tremendous influence upon the fate of +Damocles de Warrenne, as will be seen. +</p> + +<p> +Passed the massed Guns at the walk, followed by the Cavalry at the walk in +column of squadrons and the Infantry in column of companies, each unit saluting +the Chief Commissioner by turning “eyes right” as it passed the +spot where he sat on horseback surrounded by the civil and military staffs. +</p> + +<p> +Wheeling to the left at the end of the ground the Guns and Cavalry again +passed, this time at the trot, while the Infantry completed its circular march +to its original position. +</p> + +<p> +Finally the Cavalry passed for the third time, and now at the gallop, an +orderly whirlwind, a controlled avalanche of men and horses, with levelled +lances, and the hearts of all men were stirred at one of the most stirring +sights and sounds in the world—a cavalry charge. +</p> + +<p> +At the head of the leading squadron galloped Colonel de Warrenne, cool, +methodical, keeping a distant flag-staff in line with a still more distant +church spire, that he might lead the regiment in a perfectly straight line. +(Few who have not tried it realize the difficulty of leading a galloping line +of men absolutely straight and at true right-angles to the line of their +ranks.) +</p> + +<p> +On thundered the squadrons unbending of rank, uncrowded, unopened, +squadron-leaders maintaining distance, the whole mass as ordered, shapely, and +precisely correct as when at the walk. +</p> + +<p> +Past the saluting-base thundered the squadrons and in full career Colonel de +Warrenne’s charger put his near fore into ground honey-combed by insect, +reptile, or burrowing beast, crashed on its head, rolled like a shot rabbit, +and Colonel Matthew Devon de Warrenne lay dead—killed by his own sword. +</p> + +<p> +Like his ancestors of that fated family, he had died by the sword, but unlike +them, he had died by the <i>hilt</i> of it. +</p> + +<p> +Major John Decies, I.M.S., Civil Surgeon of Bimariabad, executor of the will of +the late Colonel de Warrenne and guardian of his son, cabled the sad news of +the Colonel’s untimely death to Sir Gerald Seymour Stukeley at Monksmead, +he being, so far as Major Decies knew, the boy’s only male relative in +England—uncle of the late Mrs. de Warrenne. +</p> + +<p> +The reply, which arrived in a day or two, appeared from its redundancy and +incoherence to be the composition of Miss Yvette Seymour Stukeley, and bade +Major Decies either send or bring the infant Damocles to Monksmead +<i>immediately</i>. +</p> + +<p> +The Major decided to apply forthwith for such privilege-leave and furlough as +were due to him, and to proceed to England with the boy. It would be as well +that his great-uncle should hear from him, personally, of the matter of the +child’s mental condition resultant upon the tragedy of his own birth and +his mother’s death. The Major was decidedly anxious as to the future in +this respect—all might be well in time, and all might be very far indeed +from well. +</p> + +<p> +Nurse Beaton absolutely and flatly refused to be parted from her charge, and +the curious party of three set sail for England in due course. +</p> + +<p> +“Hm!—He’s every inch a Stukeley,” remarked the General +when Damocles de Warrenne was ushered into his presence in the great library at +Monksmead. “Hope he’s Stukeley by nature too. Sturdy young fella! +’Spose he’s vetted sound in wind and limb?” +</p> + +<p> +The Major replied that the boy was physically rather remarkably strong, +mentally very sound, and in character all that could be desired. He then did +his best to convey to the General an understanding of the psychic condition +that must be a cause of watchfulness and anxiety on the part of those who +guarded his adolescence. +</p> + +<p> +At dinner, over the General’s wonderful Clos Vougeot, the Major again +returned to the subject and felt that his words of advice fell upon somewhat +indifferent and uncomprehending ears. +</p> + +<p> +It was the General’s boast that he had never feed a doctor in his life, +and his impression that a sound resort for any kind of invalid is a lethal +chamber…. +</p> + +<p> +The seven years since the Major had last seen her, seemed to have dealt lightly +with the sad-faced, pretty Miss Yvette, gentle, good, and very kind. Over the +boy she rhapsodized to her own content and his embarrassment. Effusive +endearments and embraces were new to Dam, and he appeared extraordinarily +ignorant of the art of kissing. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, how like his dear Father!” she would exclaim afresh every few +minutes, to the Major’s slight annoyance and the General’s plain +disgust. +</p> + +<p> +“Every inch a Stukeley!” he would growl in reply. +</p> + +<p> +But Yvette Seymour Stukeley had prayed for Colonel de Warrenne nightly for +seven years and had idealized him beyond recognition. Possibly Fate’s +greatest kindness to her was to ordain that she should not see him as he had +become in fact, and compare him with her wondrous mental image…. The boy was to +her, must be, should be, the very image of her life’s hero and beloved…. +</p> + +<p> +The depolarized and bewildered Damocles found himself in a strange and truly +foreign land, a queer, cold, dismal country inhabited by vast quantities of +“second-class sahibs,” as he termed the British lower middle-class +and poor, a country of a strange greenness and orderedness, where there were +white servants, strangely conjoined rows of houses in the villages, +dangerous-looking fires inside the houses, a kind of tomb-stones on all +house-tops, strange horse-drawn vehicles, butlerless and <i>ghari</i><a href="#fn9" name="fnref9" id="fnref9"><sup>[9]</sup></a>-less +sahibs, and an utter absence of “natives,” sepoys, +<i>byle-gharies</i>,<a href="#fn10" name="fnref10" id="fnref10"><sup>[10]</sup></a> +camels, monkeys, kites, squirrels, bulbuls, <i>minahs</i>,<a href="#fn11" name="fnref11" id="fnref11"><sup>[11]</sup></a> +mongooses, palm-trees, and temples. Cattle appeared to have no humps, crows to +have black heads, and trees to have no fruit. The very monsoon seemed +inextricably mixed with the cold season. Fancy the rains coming in the cold +weather! Perhaps there was no hot weather and nobody went to the hills in this +strange country of strange people, strange food, strange customs. Nobody seemed +to have any tents when they left the station for the districts, nor to take any +bedding when they went on tour or up-country. A queer, foreign land. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn9" id="fn9"></a> <a href="#fnref9">[9]</a> +Carriage. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn10" id="fn10"></a> <a href="#fnref10">[10]</a> +Bullock-carts. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn11" id="fn11"></a> <a href="#fnref11">[11]</a> +A kind of starling. +</p> + +<p> +But Monksmead was a most magnificent “bungalow” standing in a truly +beautiful “compound”—wherein the very <i>bhistis</i><a href="#fn12" name="fnref12" id="fnref12"><sup>[12]</sup></a> +and <i>mallis</i> were European and appeared to be second-class sahibs. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn12" id="fn12"></a> <a href="#fnref12">[12]</a> +Water-carriers. +</p> + +<p> +Marvellous was the interior of the bungalow with its countless rooms and +mountainous stair-cases (on the wall of one of which hung <i>the Sword</i> +which he had never seen but instantly recognized) and its army of white +servants headed by the white butler (so like the Chaplain of Bimariabad in +grave respectability and solemn pompousness) and its extraordinary white +“ayahs” or maids, and silver-haired Mrs. Pont, called the +“house-keeper”. Was she a <i>pukka</i> Mem-Sahib or a +<i>nowker</i><a href="#fn13" name="fnref13" id="fnref13"><sup>[13]</sup></a> or +what? And how did she “keep” the house? +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn13" id="fn13"></a> <a href="#fnref13">[13]</a> +Servant. +</p> + +<p> +A wonderful place—but far and away the most thrilling and delightful of +its wonders was the little white girl, Lucille—Damocles’ first +experience of the charming genus. +</p> + +<p> +The boy never forgot his first meeting with Lucille. +</p> + +<p> +On his arrival at Monksmead he had been “vetted,” as he expressed +it, by the Burra-Sahib, the General; and then taken to an attractive place +called “the school-room” and there had found Lucille…. +</p> + +<p> +“Hullo! Boy,” had been her greeting. “What’s your +name?” He had attentively scrutinized a small white-clad, blue-sashed +maiden, with curling chestnut hair, well-opened hazel eyes, decided chin, Greek +mouth and aristocratic cheek-bones. A maiden with a look of blood and breed +about her. (He did not sum her up in these terms at the time.) +</p> + +<p> +“Can you ride, Boy?” +</p> + +<p> +“A bit.” +</p> + +<p> +“Can you fight?” +</p> + +<p> +“A bit.” +</p> + +<p> +“Can you swim?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not well.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>I</i> can—ever so farther. D’you know French and +German?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not a word.” +</p> + +<p> +“Play the piano?” +</p> + +<p> +“Never heard of it. D’you play it with cards or dice?” +</p> + +<p> +“Lucky dog! It’s music. I have to practise an hour a day.” +</p> + +<p> +“What for?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing … it’s lessons. Beastly. How old are you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Seven—er—nearly.” +</p> + +<p> +“So’m I—nearly. I’ve got to be six first though. I +shall have a birthday next week. A big one. Have you brought any ellyfunts from +India?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve never seen a nellyfunt—only in pictures.” +</p> + +<p> +A shudder shook the boy’s sturdy frame. +</p> + +<p> +“Why do you go like that? Feel sick?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. I don’t know. I seemed to remember something—in a book. +I dream about it. There’s a nasty blue room with a mud floor. And +<i>Something</i>. Beastly. Makes you yell out and you can’t. You +can’t run away either. But the Sword dream is lovely.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucille appeared puzzled and put this incoherence aside. +</p> + +<p> +“What a baby never to see ellyfunts! I’ve seen lots. Hundreds. Zoo. +Circuses. Persessions. Camels, too.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I used to ride a camel every day. There was one in the compound with +his <i>oont-wallah</i>,<a href="#fn14" name="fnref14" id="fnref14"><sup>[14]</sup></a> +Abdul Ghaffr; and Khodadad Khan used to beat the <i>oont-wallah</i> on cold +mornings to warm himself.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn14" id="fn14"></a> <a href="#fnref14">[14]</a> +Camel-man. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s an <i>oont-wallah</i>?” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you <i>know</i>? Why, he’s just the +<i>oont-wallah</i>, of course. Who’d graze the camel or load it up if +there wasn’t one?” +</p> + +<p> +At tea in the nursery the young lady suddenly remarked:— +</p> + +<p> +“I like you, Boy. You’re worth nine Haddocks.” +</p> + +<p> +This cryptic valuation puzzled Damocles the more in that he had never seen or +heard of a haddock. Had he been acquainted with the fowl he might have been yet +more astonished. +</p> + +<p> +Later he discovered that the comparison involved the fat boy who sat solemnly +stuffing on the other side of the table, his true baptismal name being Haddon. +</p> + +<p> +Yes, Lucille was a revelation, a marvel. +</p> + +<p> +Far quicker of mind than he, cleverer at games and inventing “make +believe,” very strong, active, and sporting, she was the most charming, +interesting, and attractive experience in his short but eventful life. +</p> + +<p> +How he loved to make her laugh and clap her hands! How he enjoyed her quaint +remarks, speculations, fairy-tales and jokes. How he yearned to win her +approval and admiration. How he strove to please her! +</p> + +<p> +In Lucille and his wonderful new surroundings he soon forgot Major Decies, who +returned to live (and, at a ripe old age, to die) at Bimariabad, where had +lived and died the woman whom he had so truly and purely loved. The place where +he had known her was the only place for him. +</p> + +<p> +On each of his birthdays Damocles received a long fatherly letter and a +handsome present from the Major, and by the time he went away to school at +Wellingborough, he wondered who on earth the Major might be. +</p> + +<p> +To his great delight Damocles found that he was not doomed to discontinue his +riding, fencing, boxing, and “dismounted drill without arms”. +</p> + +<p> +General Seymour Stukeley sent for a certain Sergeant Havlan (once a trooper in +his own regiment), rough-rider, swordsman, and boxer, now a professional +trainer, and bade him see that the boy learned all he could teach him of arms +and horsemanship, boxing, swimming, and general physical prowess and skill. +Lucille and Haddon Berners were to join in to the extent to which their age and +sex permitted. +</p> + +<p> +The General intended his great-nephew to be worthy of his Stukeley blood, and +to enter Sandhurst a finished man-at-arms and horseman, and to join his +regiment, Cavalry, of course, with nothing much to learn of sword, lance, +rifle, revolver, and horse. +</p> + +<p> +Sergeant Havlan soon found that he had little need to begin at the beginning +with Damocles de Warrenne in the matter of riding, fencing or boxing, and was +unreasonably annoyed thereat. +</p> + +<p> +In time, it became the high ambition and deep desire of Dam to overcome +Sergeant Havlan’s son in battle with the gloves. As young Havlan was a +year his senior, a trained infant prodigy, and destined for the Prize Ring, +there was plenty for him to learn and to do. +</p> + +<p> +With foil or sabre the boy was beneath Dam’s contempt. +</p> + +<p> +Daily the children were in Sergeant Havlan’s charge for riding and +physical drill, Dam getting an extra hour in the evening for the more manly and +specialized pursuits suitable to his riper years. +</p> + +<p> +He and Lucille loved it all, and the Haddock bitterly loathed it. +</p> + +<p> +Until Miss Smellie came Dam was a happy boy—but for queer sudden spasms +of terror of Something unknown; and, after her arrival, he would have been well +content could he have been assured of an early opportunity of attending her +obsequies and certain of a long-postponed resurrection; well content, and often +wildly happy (with Lucille) … but for the curious undefinable fear of Something +… Something about which he had the most awful dreams … Something in a blue room +with a mud floor. Something that seemed at times to move beneath his foot, +making his blood freeze, his knees smite together, the sunlight turn to +darkness…. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap04"></a>CHAPTER IV.<br/> +THE SWORD AND THE SOUL.</h2> + +<p> +One of the very earliest of all Dam’s memories in after life—for in +a few years he forgot India absolutely—was of <i>the Sword</i> (that hung +on the oak-panelled wall of the staircase by the portrait of a cavalier), and +of a gentle, sad-eyed lady, Auntie Yvette, who used to say:— +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sonny darling, it is more than two-hundred-and-fifty years old. It +belonged to Sir Seymour Stukeley, who carried the King’s Standard at +Edgehill and died with that sword in his hand … <i>You</i> shall wear a sword +some day.” +</p> + +<p> +(He did—with a difference.) +</p> + +<p> +The sword grew into the boy’s life and he would rather have owned it than +the mechanical steamboat with real brass cannon for which he prayed to God so +often, so earnestly, and with such faith. On his seventh birthday he preferred +a curious request, which had curious consequences. +</p> + +<p> +“Can I take the sword to bed with me to-night, Dearest, as it is my +birthday?” he begged. “I won’t hurt it.” +</p> + +<p> +And the sword was taken down from the oak-panelled wall, cleaned, and laid on +the bed in his room. +</p> + +<p> +“Promise you will not try to take it out of the sheath, sonny +darling,” said the gentle, sad-eyed lady as she kissed him “Good +night”. +</p> + +<p> +“I promise, Dearest,” replied the boy, and she knew that she need +have no fear. +</p> + +<p> +He fell asleep fondling and cuddling the sword that had pierced the hearts of +many men and defended the honour of many ancestors, and dreamed, with far +greater vividness and understanding, the dream he had so often dreamt before. +</p> + +<p> +Frequently as he dreamed it during his chequered career, it was henceforth +always most vivid and real. It never never varied in the slightest detail, and +he generally dreamed it on the night before some eventful, dangerful day on +which he risked his life or fought for it. +</p> + +<p> +Of the early dreamings, of course, he understood little, but while he was still +almost a boy he most fully understood the significance of every word, act, and +detail of the marvellous, realistic dream. +</p> + +<p> +It began with a view of a camp of curious little bell-tents about which strode +remarkable, big-booted, long-haired, bedizened men—looking strangely +effeminate and strangely fierce, with their feathered hats, curls, silk sashes, +velvet coats, and with their long swords, cruel faces, and savage oaths. +</p> + +<p> +Some wore steel breastplates, like that of the suit of armour in the hall, and +steel helmets. The sight of the camp thrilled the boy in his dream, and yet he +knew that he had seen it all before actually, and in real life—in some +former life. +</p> + +<p> +Beside one of a small cluster of tents that stood well apart from the rest sat +a big man who instantly reminded the boy of his dread +“Grandfather,” whom he would have loved to have loved had he been +given the chance. +</p> + +<p> +The big man was even more strangely attired than those others who clumped and +clattered about the lower part of the camp. +</p> + +<p> +Fancy a great big strong man with long curls, a lace collar, and a velvet +coat—like a kid going to a party! +</p> + +<p> +The velvet coat had the strangest sleeves, too—made to button to the +elbow and full of slits that seemed to have been mended underneath with blue +silk. There was a regular pattern of these silk-mended slits about the body of +the coat, too, and funny silk-covered buttons. +</p> + +<p> +On his head the man had a great floppy felt hat with a huge feather—a hat +very like one that Dearest wore, only bigger. +</p> + +<p> +One of his long curls was tied with a bow of ribbon—like young Lucille +wore—and the boy felt quite uncomfortable as he noted it. A grown +man—the silly ass! And, yes! he had actually got lace round the bottoms +of his quaint baggy knickerbockers—as well as lace cuffs! +</p> + +<p> +The boy could see it, where one of the great boots had sagged down below the +knee. +</p> + +<p> +Extraordinary boots they were, too. Nothing like “Grumper’s” +riding-boots. They were yellowish in colour, and dull, not nicely polished, and +although the square-toed, ugly foot part looked solid as a house, the legs were +more like wrinkled leather stockings, and so long that the pulled-up one came +nearly to the hip. +</p> + +<p> +Spurs had made black marks on the yellow ankles, and saddle and stirrup-leather +had rubbed the legs…. +</p> + +<p> +And a sash! Whoever heard of a grown-up wearing a sash? It was a great blue +silk thing, wound round once or twice, and tied with a great bow, the ends of +which hung down in front. +</p> + +<p> +Of all the Pip-squeaks! +</p> + +<p> +And yet the big man’s face was not that of a Pip-squeak—far from +it. It was very like Grumper’s in fact. +</p> + +<p> +The boy liked the face. It was strong and fierce, thin and +clean-cut—marred only, in his estimation, by the funny little tuft of +hair on the lower lip. He liked the wavy, rough, up-turned moustache, but not +that silly tuft. How nice he would look with his hair cut, his lower lip +shaved, and his ridiculous silks, velvet, and lace exchanged for a tweed +shooting-suit or cricketing-flannels! How Grumper, Father, Major Decies, and +even Khodadad Khan and the sepoys would have laughed at the get-up. Nay, they +would have blushed for the fellow—a Sahib, a gentleman—to tog +himself up so! +</p> + +<p> +The boy also liked the man’s voice when he turned towards the tent and +called:— +</p> + +<p> +“Lubin, you drunken dog, come hither,” a call which brought forth a +servant-like person, who, by reason of his clean-shaven face and red nose, +reminded the boy of Pattern the coachman. +</p> + +<p> +He wore a dark cloth suit, cotton stockings, shoes that had neither laces nor +buttons, but fastened with a kind of strap and buckle, and, queer creature, a +big Eton collar! +</p> + +<p> +“Sword and horse, rascal,” said the gentleman, “and warn +Digby for duty. Bring me wine and a manchet of bread.” +</p> + +<p> +The man bowed and re-entered the tent, to emerge a moment later bearing <i>the +Sword</i>. +</p> + +<p> +How the cut-steel hilt sparkled and shone! How bright and red the leather +scabbard—now black, dull, cracked and crumbling. But it was unmistakeably +<i>the</i> Sword. +</p> + +<p> +It hung from a kind of broad cross-belt and was attached to it by several +parallel buckled straps—not like Father’s Sam Browne belt at all. +</p> + +<p> +As the gentleman rose from his stool (he must have been over six feet in +height) Lubin passed the cross-belt over his head and raised left arm so that +it rested on his right shoulder, and the Sword hung from hip to heel. +</p> + +<p> +To the boy it had always seemed such a huge, unwieldy thing. At this big +man’s side it looked—just right. +</p> + +<p> +Lubin then went off at a trot to where long lines of bay horses pawed the +ground, swished their tails, tossed their heads, and fidgeted generally…. +</p> + +<p> +From a neighbouring tent came the sounds of a creaking camp-bed, two feet +striking the ground with violence, and a prodigious, prolonged yawn. +</p> + +<p> +A voice then announced that all parades should be held in Hell, and that it was +better to be dead than damned. Why should gentlemen drill on a fine evening +while the world held wine and women? +</p> + +<p> +After a brief space, occupied with another mighty yawn, it loudly and tunefully +requested some person or persons unknown to superintend its owner’s +obsequies. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Lay a garland on my hearse<br/> +Of the dismal yew;<br/> +Maidens, willow branches bear;<br/> +Say I died true.<br/> +My love was false, but I was firm<br/> +From my hour of birth.<br/> +Upon my buried body lie<br/> +Lightly, gentle earth….” +</p> + +<p> +“May it do so soon,” observed the tall gentleman distinctly. +</p> + +<p> +“What ho, without there! That you, Seymour, lad?” continued the +voice. “Tarry a moment. Where’s that cursed …” and sounds of +hasty search among jingling accoutrements were followed by a snatch of song of +which the boy instantly recognized the words. He had often heard Dearest sing +them. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Drink to me only with thine eyes<br/> +And I will pledge with mine:<br/> +Or leave a kiss within the cup<br/> +And I’ll not look for wine.<br/> +The thirst that from the soul doth rise<br/> +Doth ask a drink divine;<br/> +But might I of Jove’s nectar sup,<br/> +I would not change for thine.” +</p> + +<p> +Lubin appeared, bearing a funny, fat, black bottle, a black cup (both appeared +to be of leather), and a kind of leaden plate on which was a small +funnily-shaped loaf of bread. +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis well you want none,” observed the tall gentleman, +“I had asked you to help me crush a flask else,” and on the word +the singer emerged from the tent. +</p> + +<p> +“Jest not on solemn subjects, Seymour,” he said soberly, +“Wine may carry me over one more pike-parade…. Good lad…. Here’s to +thee…. Why should gentlemen drill?… I came to fight for the King, not to … But, +isn’t this thy day for de Warrenne? Oh, ten million fiends! Plague and +pest! And I cannot see thee stick him, Seymour …” and the speaker dashed +the black drinking-vessel violently on the ground, having carefully emptied it. +</p> + +<p> +The boy did not much like him. +</p> + +<p> +His lace collar was enormous and his black velvet coat was embroidered all over +with yellow silk designs, flowers, and patterns. It was like the silly +mantel-borders and things that Mrs. Pont, the housekeeper, did in her leisure +time. (“Cruel-work” she called it, and the boy quite agreed.) +</p> + +<p> +This man’s face was pink and fair, his hair golden. +</p> + +<p> +“Warn him not of the hilt-thrust, Seymour, lad,” he said suddenly. +“Give it him first—for a sneering, bullying, taverning, chambering +knave.” +</p> + +<p> +The tall gentleman glanced at his down-flung cup, raised his eyebrows, and +drank from the bottle. +</p> + +<p> +“Such <i>would</i> annoy <i>you</i>, Hal, of course,” he murmured. +</p> + +<p> +A man dressed in what appeared to be a striped football jersey under a leather +waistcoat and steel breast-plate, high boots and a steel helmet led up a great +horse. +</p> + +<p> +The boy loved the horse. It was very like “Fire”. +</p> + +<p> +The gentleman (called Seymour) patted it fondly, stroked his nose, and gave it +a piece of his bread. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Crony Long-Face?” he said fondly. +</p> + +<p> +He then put his left foot in the great box-stirrup and swung himself into the +saddle—a very different kind of saddle from those with which the boy was +familiar. +</p> + +<p> +It reminded him of Circuses and the Lord Mayor’s Show. It was big enough +for two and there was a lot of velvet and stuff about it and a fine gold +<i>C.R.</i>—whatever that might mean—on a big pretty cloth under it +(perhaps the gentleman’s initials were C.R. just as his own were D. de W. +and on some of his things). +</p> + +<p> +The great fat handle of a great fat pistol stuck up on each side of the front +of the saddle. +</p> + +<p> +“Follow,” said the gentleman to the iron-bound person, and moved +off at a walk towards a road not far distant. +</p> + +<p> +“Stap him! Spit him, Seymour,” called the pink-faced man, +“and warn him not of the hilt-thrust.” +</p> + +<p> +As he passed the corner of the camp, two men with great axe-headed spear things +performed curious evolutions with their cumbersome weapons, finally laying the +business ends of them on the ground as the gentleman rode by. +</p> + +<p> +He touched his hat to them with his switch. +</p> + +<p> +Continuing for a mile or so, at a walk, he entered a dense coppice and +dismounted. +</p> + +<p> +“Await me,” he said to his follower, gave him the curb-rein, and +walked on to an open glade a hundred yards away. +</p> + +<p> +(It was a perfect spot for Red Indians, Smugglers, Robin Hood, Robinson Crusoe +or any such game, the boy noted.) +</p> + +<p> +Almost at the same time, three other men entered the clearing, two together, +and one from a different quarter. +</p> + +<p> +“For the hundredth time, Seymour, lad, <i>mention not the +hilt-thrust</i>, as you love me and the King,” said this last one quietly +as he approached the gentleman; and then the two couples behaved in a +ridiculous manner with their befeathered hats, waving them in great circles as +they bowed to each other, and finally laying them on their hearts before +replacing them. +</p> + +<p> +“Mine honour is my guide, Will,” answered the gentleman called +Seymour, somewhat pompously the boy considered, though he did not know the +word. +</p> + +<p> +Sir Seymour then began to remove the slashed coat and other garments until he +stood in his silk stockings, baggy knickerbockers, and jolly cambric +shirt—nice and loose and free at the neck as the boy thought. +</p> + +<p> +He rolled up his right sleeve, drew the sword, and made one or two +passes—like Sergeant Havlan always did before he began fencing. +</p> + +<p> +The other two men, meantime, had been behaving somewhat similarly—talking +together earnestly and one of them undressing. +</p> + +<p> +The one who did this was a very powerful-looking man and the arm he bared +reminded the boy of that of a “Strong Man” he had seen recently at +Monksmead Fair, in a tent, and strangely enough his face reminded him of that +of his own Father. +</p> + +<p> +He had a nasty face though, the boy considered, and looked like a bounder +because he had pimples, a swelly nose, a loud voice, and a swanky manner. The +boy disapproved of him wholly. It was like his cheek to resemble Father, as +well as to have the same name. +</p> + +<p> +His companion came over to the gentleman called Will, carrying the strong +man’s bared sword and, bowing ridiculously (with his hat, both hands, and +his feet) said:— +</p> + +<p> +“Shall we measure, Captain Ormonde Delorme?” +</p> + +<p> +Captain Delorme then took the sword from Sir Seymour, bowed as the other had +done, and handed him the sword with a mighty flourish, hilt first. +</p> + +<p> +It proved to be half an inch shorter than the other, and Captain Delorme +remarked that his Principal would waive that. +</p> + +<p> +He and the strong man’s companion then chose a spot where the grass was +very short and smooth, where there were no stones, twigs or inequalities, and +where the light of the setting sun fell sideways upon the combatants—who +tip-toed gingerly, and rather ridiculously, in their stockinged feet, to their +respective positions. Facing each other, they saluted with their swords and +then stood with the right arm pointing downwards and across the body so that +the hilt of the sword was against the right thigh and the blade directed to the +rear. +</p> + +<p> +“One word, Sir Matthew de Warrenne,” said Sir Seymour as they +paused in this attitude. “If my point rests for a second on your hilt +<i>you are a dead man</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +Sir Matthew laughed in an ugly manner and replied:— +</p> + +<p> +“And what is your knavish design now, Sir Seymour Stukeley?” +</p> + +<p> +“My design <i>was</i> to warn you of an infallible trick of fence, Sir +Matthew. It <i>now</i> is to kill you—for the insult, and on behalf of … +your own unhappy daughter.” +</p> + +<p> +The other yawned and remarked to his friend:— +</p> + +<p> +“I have a parade in half an hour.” +</p> + +<p> +“On guard,” cried the person addressed, drawing his sword and +striking an attitude. +</p> + +<p> +“Play,” cried Captain Delorme, doing similarly. +</p> + +<p> +Both principals crouched somewhat, held their swords horizontal, with point to +the adversary’s breast and hilt drawn back, arm sharply bent—for +both, it appeared, had perfected the Art of Arts in Italy. +</p> + +<p> +These niceties escaped the boy in his earlier dreamings of the dream—but +the time came when he could name every pass, parry, invitation, and riposte. +</p> + +<p> +The strong man suddenly threw his sword-hand high and towards his left +shoulder, keeping his sword horizontal, and exposing the whole of his right +side. +</p> + +<p> +Sir Seymour lunged hard for his ribs, beneath the right arm-pit and, as the +other’s sword swooped down to catch his, twist it over, and riposte, he +feinted, cleared the descending sword, and thrust at the throat. A swift +ducking crouch let the sword pass over the strong man’s head, and only a +powerful French circular parry saved the life of Sir Seymour Stukeley. +</p> + +<p> +As the boy realized later, he fought Italian in principle, and used the best of +French parries, ripostes, and tricks, upon occasion—and his own perfected +combination of the two schools made him, according to Captain Delorme, the best +fencer in the King’s army. So at least the Captain said to the other +second, as they amicably chatted while their friends sought to slay each other +before their hard, indifferent-seeming eyes. +</p> + +<p> +To the boy their talk conveyed little—as yet. +</p> + +<p> +The duellists stepped back as the “phrase” ended, and then Sir +Seymour gave an “invitation,” holding his sword-arm wide to the +right of his body. Sir Matthew lunged, his sword was caught, carried out to the +left, and held there as Sir Seymour’s blade slid inward along it. Just in +time, Sir Matthew’s inward pressure carried Sir Seymour’s sword +clear to the right again. Sir Matthew disengaged over, and, as the sudden +release brought Sir Seymour’s sword springing in, he thrust under that +gentleman’s right arm and scratched his side. +</p> + +<p> +As he recovered his sword he held it for a moment with the point raised toward +Sir Seymour’s face. Instantly Sir Seymour’s point tinkled on his +hilt, and Captain Delorme murmured “Finis” beneath his breath. +</p> + +<p> +Sir Stukeley Seymour’s blade shot in, Sir Matthew’s moved to parry, +and the point of the advancing sword flickered under his hand, turned upward, +and pierced his heart. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Captain Delorme, as the stricken man fell, “if he +parries outward the point goes under, if he anticipates a feint it comes +straight in, and if he parries a lunge-and-feint-under, he gets feint-over +before he can come up. I have never seen Stukeley miss when once he rests on +the hilt. <i>Exit</i> de Warrenne—and Hell the worse for +it——” and the boy awoke. +</p> + +<p> +He kissed the sword and fell asleep again. +</p> + +<p> +One day, when receiving his morning fencing and boxing lessons of Sergeant +Havlan, he astonished that warrior (and made a bitter enemy of him) by warning +him against allowing his blade to rest on the Sergeant’s hilt, and by +hitting him clean and fair whenever it was allowed to happen. Also, by talking +of “the Italian school of fence” and of +“invitations”—the which were wholly outside the +fencing-philosophy of the French-trained swordsman. At the age of fifteen the +boy was too good for the man who had been the best that Aldershot had known, +who had run a <i>salle d’armes</i> for years, and who was much sought by +ambitious members of the Sword Club. +</p> + +<p> +The Sword, from the day of that newly vivid dream, became to the boy what his +Symbol is to the religious fanatic, and he was content to sit and stare at it, +musing, for hours. +</p> + +<p> +The sad-eyed, sentimental lady encouraged him and spoke of Knights, Chivalry, +Honour, <i>Noblesse Oblige</i>, and Ideals such as the nineteenth century knew +not and the world will never know again. +</p> + +<p> +“Be a real and true Knight, sonny darling,” she would say, +“and live to <i>help</i>. Help women—God knows they need it. And +try to be able to say at the end of your life, ‘I have never made a woman +weep’. Yes—be a Knight and have ‘Live pure, Speak true, Right +wrong’ on your shield. Be a Round Table Knight and ride through the world +bravely. Your dear Father was a great swordsman. You may have the sword down +and kiss it, the first thing every morning—and you must salute it every +night as you go up to bed. You shall wear a sword some day.” +</p> + +<p> +(Could the poor lady but have foreseen!) +</p> + +<p> +She also gave him over-copiously and over-early of her simple, fervent, vague +Theology, and much Old and New Testament History, with the highest and noblest +intentions—and succeeded in implanting a deep distrust and dislike of +“God” in his acutely intelligent mind. +</p> + +<p> +To a prattling baby, <i>Mother</i> should be God enough—God and all the +angels and paradise in one … (but he had never known a mother and Nurse Beaton +had ever been more faithfully conscientious in deed than tenderly loving in +manner). +</p> + +<p> +She filled his soul with questionings and his mouth with questions which she +could not answer, and which he answered for himself. The questions sometimes +appalled her. +</p> + +<p> +If God so loved the world, why did He let the Devil loose in it? +</p> + +<p> +If God could do <i>anything</i>, why didn’t He lay the Devil out with one +hand? +</p> + +<p> +If He always rewarded the Good and punished the Bad, why was Dearest so +unhappy, and drunken Poacher Iggulsby so very gay and prosperously naughty? +</p> + +<p> +He knew too that his dead Father had not been “good,” for he heard +servant-talk, and terrible old “Grandfather” always forgot that +“Little Pitchers have Long Ears”. +</p> + +<p> +If God always answered devout and faith-inspired prayer, why did He not +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +1. Save Caiaphas the cat when earnestly prayed for—having been run over +by Pattern in the dog-cart, coming out of the stables? +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +2. Send the mechanical steam-boat so long and earnestly prayed for, with Faith +and Belief? +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +3. Help the boy to lead a higher and a better life, to eat up his crusts and +fat as directed, to avoid chivvying the hens, inking his fingers, haunting the +stables, stealing green apples in the orchard, tearing his clothes, and +generally doing evil with fire, water, mud, stones and other tempting and +injurious things? +</p> + +<p> +And was it entirely decent of God to be eternally spying on a fellow, as +appeared to be His confirmed habit? +</p> + +<p> +As for that awful heart-rending Crucifixion, was that the sort of thing for a +Father to look on at…. As bad as that brutal old Abraham with Isaac his son … +were <i>all</i> “Good” Fathers like that …? +</p> + +<p> +And nightmare dreams of Hell—a Hell in which there was a +<i>Snake</i>—wrought no improvement. +</p> + +<p> +And the Bible! How strangely and dully they talked, and what people! That nasty +Jacob and Esau business, those horrid Israelites, the Unfaithful Steward; the +Judge who let himself be pestered into action; those poor unfortunate swine +that were made to rush violently down the steep place into the sea; Ananias and +Sapphira. No—not a nice book at all. +</p> + +<p> +The truth is that Theology, at the age of seven, is not +commendable—setting aside the question of whether (at any age) Theology +is a web of words, ritual, dogma, tradition, invention, shibboleth; a web +originally spun by interested men to obscure God from their dupes. +</p> + +<p> +So the boy worshipped Dearest and distrusted and disliked the God she gave him, +a big sinister bearded Man who hung spread-eagled above the world, covering the +entire roof of the Universe, and watched, watched, watched, with unwinking, +all-seeing eye, and remembered with unforgetting, unrelenting mind. Cruel. +Ungentlemanly. <i>Jealous!</i> Cold. +</p> + +<p> +Also the boy fervently hoped it might never be his lot to go to Heaven—a +shockingly dreary place where it was always Sunday and one must, presumably, be +very quiet except when singing hymns. A place tenanted by white-robed Angels, +unsympathetic towards dirty-faced little sinners who tore their clothes. +Angels, cold, superior, unhuggable, haughty, given to ecstatic throes, singers +of <i>Hallelujah</i> and other silly words—always <i>praising</i>. +</p> + +<p> +How he loathed and dreaded the idea of Dearest being an Angel! Fancy sweet +Dearest or his own darling Lucille with silly wings (like a beastly goose or +turkey in dear old Cook’s larder), with a long trumpet, perhaps, in a +kind of night-gown, flying about the place, it wasn’t decent at +all—Dearest and Lucille, whom he adored and hugged—unsympathetic, +cold, superior, unhuggable, haughty; and the boy who was very, <i>very</i> +tender-hearted, would throw his arms round Dearest’s neck and hug and hug +and hug, for he abhorred the thought of her becoming a beastly angel. +</p> + +<p> +Surely, if God knew His business, Dearest would be always happy and bright and +live ever so long, and be ever so old, forty years and more. +</p> + +<p> +And Dearest, fearing that her idolized boy might grow up a man like—well, +like “Grumper” had been—hard, quarrelsome, adventurous, +flippant, wicked, pleasure-loving, drunken, Godless … redoubled her efforts to +Influence-the-child’s-mind-for-good by means of the Testaments and +Theology, the Covenant, the Deluge, Miracles, the Immaculate Conception, the +Last Supper, the Resurrection, Pentecost, Creeds, Collects, Prayers. +</p> + +<p> +And the boy’s mind weighed these things deliberately, pondered them, +revolted—and rejected them one and all. +</p> + +<p> +Dearest had been taken in…. +</p> + +<p> +He said the prayers she taught him mechanically, and when he felt the need of +real prayer—(as he did when he had dreamed of the Snake)—he always +began, “If you <i>are</i> there, God, and <i>are</i> a good, kind +God” … and concluded, “Yours sincerely, Damocles de +Warrenne”. +</p> + +<p> +He got but little comfort, however, for his restless and logical mind +asked:— +</p> + +<p> +“If God <i>knows</i> best and will surely <i>do</i> what is best, why +bother Him? And if He does not and will not, why bother yourself?” +</p> + +<p> +But Dearest succeeded, at any rate, in filling his young soul with a love of +beauty, romance, high adventure, honour, and all physical, mental, and moral +cleanliness. +</p> + +<p> +She taught him to use his imagination, and she made books a necessity. She made +him a gentleman in soul—as distinct from a gentleman in clothes, pocket, +or position. +</p> + +<p> +She gave him a beautiful veneration for woman that no other woman was capable +of destroying—though one or two did their best. Then the sad-eyed lady +was superseded and her professional successor, Miss Smellie, the governess, +finding the boy loved the Sword, asked Grumper to lock it away for the +boy’s Good. +</p> + +<p> +Also she got Grumper to dismiss Nurse Beaton for impudence and not +“knowing her place”. +</p> + +<p> +But Damocles entered into an offensive and defensive alliance with Lucille, on +whom he lavished the whole affection of his deeply, if undemonstratively, +affectionate nature, and the two “hunted in couples,” sinned and +suffered together, pooled their resources and their wits, found consolation in +each other when harried by Miss Smellie, spent every available moment in each +other’s society and, like the Early Christians, had all things in common. +</p> + +<p> +On birthdays, “high days and holidays” he would ask +“Grumper” to let him have the Sword for an hour or two, and would +stand with it in his hand, rapt, enthralled, ecstatic. How strange it made one +feel! How brave, and anxious to do fine deeds. He would picture himself bearing +an unconscious Lucille in his left arm through hostile crowds, while with the +Sword he thrust and hewed, parried and guarded…. Who could fear <i>anything</i> +with the Sword in his hand, the Sword of the Dream! How glorious to die +wielding it, wielding it in a good cause … preferably on behalf of Lucille, his +own beloved little pal, staunch, clever, and beautiful. And he told Lucille +tales of the Sword and of how he loved it! +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap05"></a>CHAPTER V.<br/> +LUCILLE.</h2> + +<p> +“If you drinks a drop more, Miss Lucy, you’ll just go like my pore +young sister goed,” observed Cook in a warning voice, as Lucille paused +to get her second wind for the second draught. +</p> + +<p> +(Lucille had just been tortured at the stake by Sioux and +Blackfeet—thirsty work on a July afternoon.) +</p> + +<p> +“And how did she go, Cookie-Bird—<i>Pop?</i>” inquired +Lucille politely, with round eyes, considering over the top of the big +lemonade-flagon as it rose again to her determined little mouth. +</p> + +<p> +“No, Miss Lucy,” replied Cook severely. “Pop she did not. She +swole … swole and swole.” +</p> + +<p> +“You mean ‘swelled,’ Cookoo,” corrected Lucille, +inclined to be a little didactic and corrective at the age of ten. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, she were <i>my</i> sister after all, Miss Lucy,” retorted +Cook, “and perhaps I may, or may not, know what she done. <i>I</i> say +she swole—and what is more she swole clean into a dropsy. All along of +drinking water…. <i>Drops</i> of water—<i>Dropsy</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never drink water,” murmured Dam, absentmindedly annexing, and +pocketing, an apple. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, water, but you see this is lemonade,” countered Lucille. +“Home-made, too, and not—er—gusty. It doesn’t make you +go——” and here it is regrettable to have to relate that +Lucille made a shockingly realistic sound, painfully indicative of the +condition of one who has imbibed unwisely and too well of a gas-impregnated +liquor. +</p> + +<p> +“No more does water in my experiants,” returned Cook, “and I +was not allooding to wulgarity, Miss Lucy, which you should know better than to +do such. My pore young sister’s systerm turned watery and they tapped her +at the last. All through drinking too much water, which lemonade ain’t so +very different either, be it never so ’ome-made…. Tapped ’er they +did—like a carksk, an’ ’er a Band of ’Oper, Blue +Ribander, an’ Sunday Schooler from birth, an’ not departin’ +from it when she grew up. Such be the Ways of Providence,” and Cook +sighed with protestive respectfulness…. +</p> + +<p> +“Tapped ’er systerm, they did,” she added pensively, and with +a little justifiable pride. +</p> + +<p> +“Were they hard taps?” inquired Lucille, reappearing from behind +the flagon. “I hate them myself, even on the funny-bone or +knuckles—but on the <i>cistern!</i> Ugh!” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Hard</i> taps; they was <i>silver</i> taps,” ejaculated Cook, +“and drawed gallings and gallings—and nothing to laugh at, Master +Dammicles, neether…. So don’t you drink no more, Miss Lucy.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t,” admitted Lucille—and indeed, to Dam, who +regarded his “cousin” with considerable concern, it did seem that, +even as Cook’s poor young sister of unhappy memory, Lucille had +“swole”—though only locally. +</p> + +<p> +“Does <i>beer</i> make you swell or swole or swellow when you swallow, +Cooker?” he inquired; “because, if so, <i>you</i> had better +be—” but he was not allowed to conclude his deduction, for cook, +bridling, bristling, and incensed, bore down upon the children and swept them +from her kitchen. +</p> + +<p> +To the boy, even as he fled <i>via</i> a dish of tartlets and cakes, it seemed +remarkable that a certain uncertainty of temper (and figure) should invariably +distinguish those who devote their lives to the obviously charming and +attractive pursuit of the culinary art. +</p> + +<p> +Surely one who, by reason of unfortunate limitations of sex, age, ability, or +property, could not become a Colonel of Cavalry could still find infinite +compensation in the career of cook or railway-servant. +</p> + +<p> +Imagine, in the one case, having absolute freedom of action with regard to +raisins, tarts, cream, candy-peel, jam, plum-puddings and cakes, making life +one vast hamper, and in the other case, boundless opportunity in the matter of +leaping on and off moving trains, carrying lighted bull’s-eye lanterns, +and waving flags. +</p> + +<p> +One of the early lessons that life taught him, without troubling to explain +them, and she taught him many and cruel, was that Cooks are Cross. +</p> + +<p> +“What shall we do now, Dam?” asked Lucille, and added, +“Let’s raid the rotten nursery and rag the Haddock. Little ass! +Nothing else to do. How I <i>hate</i> Sunday afternoon…. No work and no play. +Rotten.” +</p> + +<p> +The Haddock, it may be stated, owed his fishy title to the fact that he once +possessed a Wealthy Relative of the name of Haddon. With far-sighted +reversionary intent his mother, a Mrs. Berners <i>née</i> Seymour Stukeley, had +christened him Haddon. +</p> + +<p> +But the Wealthy Relative, on being informed of his good fortune, had bluntly +replied that he intended to leave his little all to the founding of +Night-Schools for illiterate Members of Parliament, Travelling-Scholarships for +uneducated Cabinet Ministers, and Deportment Classes for New Radical Peers. He +was a Funny Man as well as a Wealthy Relative. +</p> + +<p> +And, thereafter, Haddon Berners’ parents had, as Cook put it, “up +and died” and “Grandfather” had sent for, and adopted, the +orphan Haddock. +</p> + +<p> +Though known to Dam and Lucille as “The Haddock” he was in reality +an utter Rabbit and esteemed as such. A Rabbit he was born, a Rabbit he lived, +and a Rabbit he died. Respectable ever. Seen in the Right Place, in the Right +Clothes, doing the Right Thing with the Right People at the Right Time. +</p> + +<p> +Lucille was the daughter of Sylvester Bethune Gavestone, the late and lamented +Bishop of Minsterbury (once a cavalry subaltern), a school, Sandhurst, and +life-long friend of “Grandfather,” and husband of +“Grandfather’s” cousin, Geraldine Seymour Stukeley. +</p> + +<p> +Poor “Grandfather,” known to the children as “Grumper,” +the ferocious old tyrant who loved all mankind and hated all men, with him +adoption was a habit, and the inviting of other children to stay as long as +they liked with the adopted children, a craze. +</p> + +<p> +And yet he rarely saw the children, never played with them, and hated to be +disturbed. +</p> + +<p> +He had out-lived his soldier-contemporaries, his children, his power to ride to +hounds, his pretty taste in wine, his fencing, dancing, flirting, and all that +had made life bearable—everything, as he said, but his gout and his liver +(and, it may be added, except his ferocious, brutal temper). +</p> + +<p> +“Yes…. Let us circumvent, decoy, and utterly destroy the common +Haddock,” agreed Dam. +</p> + +<p> +The entry into the nursery was an effective night-attack by Blackfeet (not to +mention hands) but was spoilt by the presence of Miss Smellie who was sitting +there knitting relentlessly. +</p> + +<p> +“Never burst into rooms, children,” she said coldly. “One +expects little of a boy, but a <i>girl</i> should try to appear a Young Lady. +Come and sit by me, Lucille. What did you come in for—or rather for what +did you burst in?” +</p> + +<p> +“We came to play with the Haddock,” volunteered Dam. +</p> + +<p> +“Very kind and thoughtful of you, I am sure,” commented Miss +Smellie sourly. “Most obliging and benevolent,” and, with a sudden +change to righteous anger and bitterness, “Why don’t you speak the +truth?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am speaking the truth, Miss—er—Smellie,” replied the +boy. “We did come to play with the dear little Haddock—like one +plays with a football or a frog. I didn’t say we came for Haddock’s +<i>good</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“We needed the Haddock, you see, Miss Smellie,” confirmed Lucille. +</p> + +<p> +“How many times am I to remind you that Haddon Berners’ name +<i>is</i> Haddon, Lucille,” inquired Miss Smellie. “Why must you +always prefer vulgarity? One expects vulgarity from a boy—but a girl +should try to appear a Young Lady.” +</p> + +<p> +With an eye on Dam, Lucille protruded a very red tongue at surprising length, +turned one eye far inward toward her nose, wrinkled that member incredibly, +corrugated her forehead grievously, and elongated her mouth disastrously. The +resultant expression of countenance admirably expressed the general juvenile +view of Miss Smellie and all her works. +</p> + +<p> +Spurred to honourable emulation, the boy strove to excel. Using both hands for +the elongation of his eyes, the extension of his mouth, and the depression of +his ears, he turned upon the Haddock so horrible a mask that the stricken child +burst into a howl, if not into actual tears. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the matter, Haddon?” demanded Miss Smellie, looking +up with quick suspicion. +</p> + +<p> +“Dam made a <i>fathe</i> at me,” whimpered the smitten one. +</p> + +<p> +“Say ‘made a grimace’ not ‘made a face,’” +corrected Miss Smellie. “Only God can make <i>faces</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +Dam exploded. +</p> + +<p> +“At what are you laughing, Damocles?” she asked sternly. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing, Miss Smellie. What you said sounded rather funny and a little +irrevilent or is it irrembrant?” +</p> + +<p> +“Damocles! Should <i>I</i> be likely to say anything Irreverent? Should +<i>I</i> ever dream of Irreverence? What <i>can</i> you mean? And never let me +see you make faces again.” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t let you see me, Miss Smellie, and only God can make +faces—” +</p> + +<p> +“Leave the room at once, Sir, I shall report your impudence to your +great-uncle,” hissed Miss Smellie, rising in wrath—and the bad +abandoned boy had attained his object. Detention in the nursery for a Sunday +afternoon was no part of his programme. +</p> + +<p> +Most unobtrusively Lucille faded away also. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Isn’t</i> she a hopeless beast,” murmured she as the door +closed. +</p> + +<p> +“Utter rotter,” admitted the boy. “Let’s slope out into +the garden and dig some worms for bait.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” agreed Lucille, and added, “Parse +<i>Smellie,</i>” whereupon, with one voice and heart and purpose the +twain broke into a paean, not of praise—a kind of tribal lay, and +chanted:— +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Smellie</i>—Very common noun, absurd person, singular back +number, tutor gender, objectionable case governed by the word <i>I</i>,” +and so <i>da capo</i>. +</p> + +<p> +And yet the poor lady strove to do her duty in that station of life in which it +had pleased Providence (or a drunken father) to place her—and to make the +children “genteel”. Had she striven to win their love instead, her +ministrations might have had some effect (other than infinite irritation and +bitter dislike). +</p> + +<p> +She was the Compleat Governess, on paper, and all that a person entrusted with +the training of young children should not be, in reality. She had innumerable +and admirable testimonials from various employers of what she termed +“aristocratic standing”; endless certificates that testified unto +her successful struggles in Music, Drawing, Needlework, German, French, +Calisthenics, Caligraphy, and other mysteries, including the more decorous +Sciences (against Physiology, Anatomy, Zoology, Biology, and Hygiene she set +her face as subjects apt to be, at times, improper), and an appearance and +manner themselves irrefragible proofs of the highest moral virtue. +</p> + +<p> +She also had the warm and unanimous witness of the children at Monksmead that +she was a Beast. +</p> + +<p> +To those who frankly realize with open eyes that the student of life must +occasionally encounter indelicacies upon the pleasant path of research, it may +be revealed, in confidence, that they alluded to Miss Smellie as +“Sniffy” when not, under extreme provocation, as +“Stinker”. +</p> + +<p> +She taught them many things and, prominently, Deceit, Hate, and an utter +dislike of her God and her Religion—a most disastrous pair. +</p> + +<p> +Poor old “Grumper”; advertising, he got her, paid her highly, and +gave her almost absolute control of the minds, souls, and bodies of his young +wards and “grandchildren”. +</p> + +<p> +“The best of everything” for them—and they, at the average +age of eight, a band of depressed, resentful babes, had “hanged, drawed, +and quartered” her in effigy, within a month of coming beneath her stony +ministrations. +</p> + +<p> +In appearance Miss Smellie was tall, thin, and flat. Most exceedingly and +incredibly flat. Impossibly flat. Her figure, teeth, voice, hair, manner, hats, +clothes, and whole life and conduct were flat as Euclid’s plane-surface +or yesterday’s champagne. +</p> + +<p> +To counter-balance the possession, perhaps, of so many virtues, gifts, +testimonials, and certificates she had no chin, no eyebrows, and no eyelashes. +Her eyes were weak and watery; her spectacles strong and thick; her nose +indeterminate, wavering, erratic; her ears large, her teeth irregular and +protrusive, her mouth unfortunate and not guaranteed to close. +</p> + +<p> +An ugly female face is said to be the index and expression of an ugly mind. It +certainly was so in the case of Miss Smellie. Not that she had an evil or +vicious mind in any way—far from it, for she was a narrowly pious and +dully conscientious woman. Her mind was ugly as a useful building may be very +ugly—or as a room devoid of beautiful furniture or over-crowded with +cheap furniture may be ugly. +</p> + +<p> +And her mind was devoid of beautiful thought-furniture, and over-crowded with +cheap and ugly furniture of text-book facts. She was an utterly loveless woman, +living unloving, and unloved—a terrible condition. +</p> + +<p> +One <i>could not</i> like her. +</p> + +<p> +Deadly dull, narrow, pedantic, petty, uninspiring, Miss Smellie’s ideals, +standards, and aims were incredibly low. +</p> + +<p> +She lived, and taught others to live, for appearances. +</p> + +<p> +The children were so to behave that they might appear “genteel”. If +they were to do this or that, no one would think they were young ladies or +young gentlemen. +</p> + +<p> +“If we were out at tea and you did that, I <i>should</i> be +ashamed,” she would cry when some healthy little human licked its jarnmy +fingers, and “<i>Do</i> you wish to be considered vulgar or a little +gentleman, Damocles?” +</p> + +<p> +Damocles was profoundly indifferent on the point and said so plainly. +</p> + +<p> +They were not to be clean of hand for hygienic reasons—but for fear of +what people might “think”; they were not to be honourable, gentle, +brave and truthful because these things are fine—but because of what the +World might dole out in reward; they were not to eat slowly and masticate well +for their health’s sake—but by reason of “good +manners”; they were not to study that they might develop their powers of +reasoning, store their minds, and enlarge their horizons—but that they +might pass some infernal examination or other, <i>ad majorem Smelliae +gloriam</i>; they were not to practise the musical art that they might have a +soul-developing aesthetic training, a means of solace, delight, and +self-expression—but that they might “play their piece” to the +casual visitor to the school-room with priggish pride, expectant of praise; +they were not to be Christian for any other reason than that it was the +recommended way to Eternal Bliss and a Good Time Hereafter—the whole duty +of canny and respectable man being to “save his soul” therefore. +</p> + +<p> +Her charges were skilfully, if unintentionally, trained in hypocrisy and mean +motive, to look for low reward and strive for paltry ends—to do what +looked well, say what sounded well, to be false, veneered, ungenuine. +</p> + +<p> +And Miss Smellie was giving them the commonly accepted “education” +of their class and kind. +</p> + +<p> +The prize product of the Smellie system was the Haddock whose whole life was a +pose, a lie, a refusal to see the actual. Perhaps she influenced him more +strongly than the others because he was caught younger and was of weaker fibre. +Anyhow he grew up the perfect and heartless snob, and by the time he left +Oxford, he would sooner have been seen in a Black Maria with Lord Snooker than +in a heavenly chariot with a prophet of unmodish garment and vulgar ancestry. +</p> + +<p> +To the finished Haddock, a tie was more than a character, and the cut of a coat +more than the cutting of a loving heart. +</p> + +<p> +To him a “gentleman” was a person who had the current accent and +waistcoat, a competence, the entree here and there—a goer unto the +correct places with the correct people. Manners infinitely more than conduct; +externals everything; let the whitening be white and the sepulchre mattered +not. +</p> + +<p> +The Haddock had no bloodful vice, but he was unstable as water and could not +excel, a moral coward and weakling, a liar, a borrower of what he never +intended to return, undeniably and incurably mean, the complete parasite. +</p> + +<p> +From the first he feared and blindly obeyed Miss Smellie, propitiated while +loathing her; accepted her statements, standards, and beliefs; curried favour +and became her spy and informer. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s about the record cricket-ball throw, Dam?” inquired +Lucille, as they strolled down the path to the orchard and kitchen-garden, +hot-houses, stream and stables, to seek the coy, reluctant worm. +</p> + +<p> +“Dunno,” replied the boy, “but a hundred yards wants a lot of +doing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wonder if <i>I</i> could do it,” mused Lucille, picking up a +tempting egg-shaped pebble, nearly as big as her fist, and throwing it with +remarkably neat action (for a girl) at the first pear-tree over the bridge that +spanned the trout-stream. +</p> + +<p> +<i>At</i>, but not into. +</p> + +<p> +With that extraordinary magnetic attraction which glass has for the missile of +the juvenile thrower, the orchid-house, on the opposite side of the path from +the pear-tree, drew the errant stone to its hospitable shelter. +</p> + +<p> +Through the biggest pane of glass it crashed, neatly decapitated a rare, choice +exotic, the pride of Mr. Alastair Kenneth MacIlwraith, head gardener, released +from its hold a hanging basket, struck a large pot (perched high in a state of +unstable equilibrium), and passed out on the other side with something +accomplished, something done, to earn a long repose. +</p> + +<p> +So much for the stone. +</p> + +<p> +The descending pot lit upon the edge of one side of the big glass aquarium, +smashed it, and continued its career, precipitating an avalanche of lesser pots +and their priceless contents. +</p> + +<p> +The hanging basket, now an unhung and travelling basket, heavy, iron-ribbed, +anciently mossy, oozy of slime, fell with neat exactitude upon the bald, bare +cranium of Mr. Alastair Kenneth MacIlwraith, head gardener, and dour, irascible +child and woman hater. +</p> + +<p> +“Bull’s-eye!” commented Dam—always terse when not +composing fairy-tales. +</p> + +<p> +“Crikey!” shrieked Lucille. “That’s done it,” and +fled straightway to her room and violent earnest prayer, not for forgiveness +but for salvation, from consequences. (What’s the good of Saying your +Prayers if you can’t look for Help in Time of Trouble such as this?) +</p> + +<p> +The face of Mr. Alastair Kenneth MacIlwraith was not pleasant to see as he +pranced forth from the orchid-house, brandishing an implement of his trade. +</p> + +<p> +“Ye’ll be needing a wash the day, Mon Sandy, and the Sawbath but +fower days syne,” opined Dam, critically observing the moss-and-mud +streaked head, face and neck of the raving, incoherent victim of +Lucille’s effort. +</p> + +<p> +When at all lucid and comprehensible Mr. MacIlwraith was understood to say +he’d give his place (and he twanty-twa years in it) to have the personal +trouncing of Dam, that Limb, that Deevil, that predestined and fore-doomed +Child of Sin, that— +</p> + +<p> +Dam pocketed his hands and said but:— +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Havers</i>, Mon Sandy!” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll tak’ the hide fra y’r bones yet, ye feckless, +impident—” +</p> + +<p> +Dam shook a disapproving head and said but:— +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Clavers</i>, Mon Sandy!” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll <i>see</i> ye skelped onny-how—or lose ma job, +ye—” +</p> + +<p> +More in sorrow than in anger Dam sighed and said but:— +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Hoots</i>, Mon Sandy!” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll go straight to y’r Grandfer the noo, and if ye’r +not flayed alive! Aye! I’ll gang the noo to Himself——” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Wi’ fower an twanty men, an’ five an’ thairrty +pipers</i>,” suggested Dam in tuneful song. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Alastair Kenneth MacIlwraith did what he rarely did—swore violently. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Do you think at your age it is right</i>?” quoted the wicked +boy … the exceedingly bad and reprehensible boy. +</p> + +<p> +The maddened gardener turned and strode to the house with all his imperfections +on his head and face and neck. +</p> + +<p> +Taking no denial from Butterson, he forced his way into the presence of his +master and clamoured for instant retributive justice—or the acceptance of +his resignation forthwith, and him twanty-twa years in the ane place. +</p> + +<p> +“Grandfather,” roused from slumber, gouty, liverish, ferociously +angry, sent for Dam, Sergeant Havlan, and Sergeant Havlan’s cane. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the meaning of this, Sir,” he roared as Dam, cool, +smiling, friendly ever, entered the Sanctum. “What the Devil d’ye +mean by it, eh? Wreckin’ my orchid-houses, assaultin’ my servants, +waking me up, annoying M<small>E</small>! Seven days C.B.<a href="#fn15" name="fnref15" id="fnref15"><sup>[15]</sup></a> +and bread and water, on each count. What d’ye mean by it, ye young hound? +Eh? Answer me before I have ye flogged to death to teach ye better manners! +Guilty or Not Guilty? and I’ll take your word for it.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn15" id="fn15"></a> <a href="#fnref15">[15]</a> +Confined to barracks. +</p> + +<p> +“The missile, describing a parabola, struck its subjective with fearful +impact, Sir,” replied the bad boy imperturbably, misquoting from his +latest fiction (and calling it a “parry-bowler,” to +“Grandfather’s” considerable and very natural mystification). +</p> + +<p> +“<i>What?</i>” roared that gentleman, sitting bolt upright in +astonishment and wrath. +</p> + +<p> +“No. It’s _ob_jective,” corrected Dam. “Yes. With +fearful impact. Fearful also were the words of the Mon Sandy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Grandfather” flushed and smiled a little wryly. +</p> + +<p> +“You’d favour <i>me</i> with pleasantries too, would you? +I’ll reciprocate to the best of my poor ability,” he remarked +silkily, and his mouth set in the unpleasant Stukeley grimness, while a little +muscular pulse beat beneath his cheek-bone. +</p> + +<p> +“A dozen of the very best, if you please, Sergeant,” he added, +turning to Sergeant Havlan. +</p> + +<p> +“Coat off, Sir,” remarked that worthy, nothing loath, to the boy +who could touch him almost as he would with the foil. +</p> + +<p> +Dam removed his Eton jacket, folded his arms, turned his back to the smiter and +assumed a scientific arrangement of the shoulders with tense muscles and coyly +withdrawn bones. He had been there before…. +</p> + +<p> +The dozen were indeed of the Sergeant’s best and he was a master. The boy +turned not a hair, though he turned a little pale…. His mouth grew +extraordinarily like that of his grandfather and a little muscular pulse beat +beneath his cheek-bone. +</p> + +<p> +“And what do you think of <i>my</i> pleasantries, my young friend?” +inquired Grandfather. “Feeling at all witty <i>now</i>?” +</p> + +<p> +“Havlan is failing a bit, Sir,” was the cool reply. “I have +noticed it at fencing too—Getting old—or beer perhaps. I scarcely +felt him and so did not see or feel the point of your joke.” +</p> + +<p> +“Grandfather’s” flush deepened and his smile broadened +crookedly. “Try and do yourself justice, Havlan,” he said. +“’Nother dozen. ’Tother way.” +</p> + +<p> +Sergeant Havlan changed sides and endeavoured to surpass himself. It was a +remarkably sound dozen. +</p> + +<p> +He mopped his brow. +</p> + +<p> +The bad boy did not move, gave no sign, but retained his rigid, slightly +hunched attitude, as though he had not counted the second dozen and expected +another stroke. +</p> + +<p> +“Let that be a lesson to you to curb your damned tongue,” said +“Grandfather,” his anger evaporating, his pride in the +stiff-necked, defiant young rogue increasing. +</p> + +<p> +The boy changed not the rigid, slightly hunched attitude. +</p> + +<p> +“Be pleased to wreck no more of my orchid-houses and to exercise your +great wit on your equals and juniors,” he added. +</p> + +<p> +Dam budged not an inch and relaxed not a muscle. +</p> + +<p> +“You may go,” said “Grandfather”…. +“Well—what are you waiting for?” +</p> + +<p> +“I was waiting for Sergeant Havlan to <i>begin</i>,” was the reply. +“I thought I was to have a second dozen.” +</p> + +<p> +With blazing eyes, bristling moustache, swollen veins and bared teeth, +“Grandfather” rose from his chair. Resting on one stick he struck +and struck and struck at the boy with the other, passion feeding on its own +passionate acts, and growing to madness—until, as the head gardener and +Sergeant rushed forward to intervene, Dam fell to the ground, stunned by an +unintentional blow on the head. +</p> + +<p> +“Grandfather” stood trembling…. “<i>Quite</i> a +Stukeley,” observed he. “Oblige me by flinging his carcase down the +stairs.” +</p> + +<p> +“‘Angry Stookly’s mad Stookly’ is about right, mate, +wot?” observed the Sergeant to the gardener, quoting an ancient local +saying, as they carried Dam to his room after dispatching a groom for Dr. Jones +of Monksmead. +</p> + +<p> +“Dammy Darling,” whispered a broken and tear-stained voice outside +Dam’s locked and keyless door the next morning, “are you dead +yet?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nit,” was the prompt reply, “but I’m starving to +death, fast.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am so glad,” was the sobbed answer, “for I’ve got +some flat food to push under the door.” +</p> + +<p> +“Shove it under,” said Dam. “Good little beast!” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t know anything about the fearful fracass until +tea-time,” continued Lucille, “and then I went straight to Grumper +and confessed, and he sent me to bed on an empty stummick and I laid upon it, +the bed I mean, and howled all night, or part of it anyhow. I howled for your +sake, not for the empty stummick. I thought my howls would break or at least +soften his hard heart, but I don’t think he heard them. I’m sure he +didn’t, in fact, or I should not have been allowed to howl so loud and +long…. Did he blame you with anger as well as injustice?” +</p> + +<p> +“With a stick,” was the reply. “What about that grub?” +</p> + +<p> +“I told him you were an innocent unborn babe and that Justice had had a +mis-carriage, but he only grinned and said you had got C.B. and dry bread for +insilence in the Orderly Room. What is ‘insilence’?” +</p> + +<p> +“Pulling Havlan’s leg, I s’pose,” opined Dam. +“What about that <i>grub</i>? There comes a time when you are too hungry +to eat and then you die. I—” +</p> + +<p> +“Here it is,” squealed Lucille, “don’t go and die after +all my trouble. I’ve got some thin ice-wafer biscuits, sulphur tablets, +thin cheese, a slit-up apple and three sardines. They’ll all come under +the door—though the sardines may get a bit out of shape. I’ll come +after lessons and suck some brandy-balls here and breathe through the key-hole +to comfort you. I could blow them through the key-hole when they are small +too.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thanks,” acknowledged Dam gratefully, “and if you could tie +some up and a sausage and a tart or two and some bread-and-jam and some chicken +and cake and toffee and things in a handkerchief, and climb on to the porch +with Grumper’s longest fishing-rod, you might be able to relieve the +besieged garrison a lot. If the silly Haddock were any good he could fire +sweets up with a catapult.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’d try that too,” announced Lucille, “but I’d +break the windows. I feel I shall never have the heart to throw a stone or +anything again. My heart is broken,” and the penitent sinner groaned in +deep travail of soul. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you eaten everything, Darling? How do you feel?” she suddenly +asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. Hungrier than ever,” was the reply. “I like sulphur +tablets with sardines. Wonder when they’ll bring that beastly dry +bread?” +</p> + +<p> +“If there’s a sulphur tablet left I could eat one myself,” +said Lucille. “They are good for the inside and I have wept mine +sore.” +</p> + +<p> +“Too late,” answered Dam. “Pinch some more.” +</p> + +<p> +“They were the last,” was the sad rejoinder. “They were for +Rover’s coat, I think. Perhaps they will make your coat hairy, Dam. I +mean your skin.” +</p> + +<p> +“Whiskers to-morrow,” said Dam. +</p> + +<p> +After a pregnant silence the young lady announced:— +</p> + +<p> +“Wish I could hug and kiss you, Darling. Don’t you?… I’ll +write a kiss on a piece of paper and push it under the door to you. Better than +spitting it through the key-hole.” +</p> + +<p> +“Put it on a piece of <i>ham</i>,—more sense,” answered Dam. +</p> + +<p> +The quarter-inch rasher that, later, made its difficult entry, pulled fore and +pushed aft, was probably the only one in the whole history of Ham that was the +medium of a kiss—located and indicated by means of a copying-ink pencil +and a little saliva. +</p> + +<p> +Before being sent away to school at Wellingborough Dam had a very curious +illness, one which greatly puzzled Dr. Jones of Monksmead village, annoyed Miss +Smellie, offended Grumper, and worried Lucille. +</p> + +<p> +Sitting in solitary grandeur at his lunch one Sabbath, sipping his old +Chambertin, Grumper was vexed and scandalized by a series of blood-curdling +shrieks from the floor above his breakfast-room. Butterson, dispatched in haste +to see “who the Devil was being killed in that noisy fashion,” +returned to state deferentially as how Master Damocles was in a sort of +heppipletic fit, and foaming at the mouth. They had found him in the +General’s study where he had been reading a book, apparently; a big +Natural History book. +</p> + +<p> +A groom was galloping for Dr. Jones and Mrs. Pont was doin’ her possible. +</p> + +<p> +No. Nothing appeared to have hurt or frightened the young gentleman—but +he was distinctly ’eard to shout: “<i>It is under my foot. It is +moving—moving—moving out</i>….” before he became unconscious. +</p> + +<p> +No, Sir. Absolutely nothing under the young gentleman’s foot. +</p> + +<p> +Dr. Jones could shed no light and General Sir Gerald Seymour Stukeley hoped to +God that the boy was not going to grow up a wretched epileptic. Miss Smellie +appeared to think the seizure a judgment upon an impudent and deceitful boy who +stole into his elders’ rooms in their absence and looked at their books. +</p> + +<p> +Lucille was troubled in soul for, to her, Damocles confessed the ghastly, +terrible, damning truth that he was a Coward. He said that he had hidden the +fearful fact for all these years within his guilty bosom and that now it had +emerged and convicted him. He lived in subconscious terror of the Snake, and in +its presence—nay even in that of its counterfeit presentment—he was +a gibbering, lunatic coward. Such, at least, was her dimly realized conception +resultant upon the boy’s bald, stammering confession. +</p> + +<p> +But how could her dear Dammy be a <i>coward</i>—the vilest thing on +earth! He who was willing to fight anyone, ride anything, go anywhere, act +anyhow. Dammy the boxer, fencer, rider, swimmer. Absurd! Think of the day +“the Cads” had tried to steal their boat from them when they were +sailing it on the pond at Revelmead. There had been five of them, two big and +three medium. Dam had closed the eye of one of them, cut the lip of another, +and knocked one of the smaller three weeping into the dust. +</p> + +<p> +They had soon cleared off and flung stones until Dam had started running for +them and then they had fled altogether. +</p> + +<p> +Think of the time when she set fire to the curtains. Why, he feared no bull, no +dog, no tramp in England. +</p> + +<p> +A coward! Piffle. +</p> + +<p> +And yet he had screamed and kicked and cried—yes <i>cried</i>—as he +had shouted that it was under his foot and moving out. Rum! <i>Very</i> rum! +</p> + +<p> +On the day that Dam left Monksmead for school Lucille wept till she could weep +no more. Life for the next few years was one of intermittent streaks of +delirious joy and gloomy grief, vacation time when he was at Monksmead and term +time when he was at school. All the rest of the world weighed as a grain of +dust against her hero, Dam. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap06"></a>CHAPTER VI.<br/> +THE SNAKE’S “MYRMIDON”.</h2> + +<p> +For a couple of years and more, in the lower School at Wellingborough, Damocles +de Warrenne, like certain States, was happy in that he had no history. In games +rather above the average, and in lessons rather below it, he was very popular +among his fellow “squeakers” for his good temper, modesty, generous +disposition, and prowess at football and cricket. +</p> + +<p> +Then, later, dawned the day when from this comfortable high estate a common +adder, preserved in spirits of wine, was the cause of his downfall and Bully +Harberth the means of his reinstatement…. +</p> + +<p> +One afternoon Mr. Steynker, the Science Master, for some reason and without +preliminary mention of his intent, produced a bottled specimen of a snake. He +entered the room with the thing under his arm and partly concealed by the +sleeve of his gown. Watching him as he approached the master’s desk and +spoke with Mr. Colfe, the form-master, Dam noted that he had what appeared to +be a long oblong glass box of which the side turned towards him was white and +opaque. +</p> + +<p> +When Mr. Steynker stepped on to the dais, as Mr. Colfe took up his books and +departed, he placed the thing on the desk with the other side to the class…. +</p> + +<p> +And there before Dam’s starting, staring eyes, fastened to the white back +of the tall glass box, and immersed in colourless liquid was the Terror. +</p> + +<p> +He rose, gibbering, to his feet, pale as the dead, and pointed, mopping and +mowing like an idiot. +</p> + +<p> +How should a glass box restrain the Fiend that had made his life a Hell upon +earth? What did Steynker and Colfe and these others—all gaping at him +open-mouthed—know of the Devil with whom he had wrestled deep beneath the +Pit itself for ten thousand centuries of horror—centuries whose every +moment was an aeon? +</p> + +<p> +What could these innocent men and boys know of the living Damnation that made +him pray to die—provided only that he could be <i>really</i> dead and +finished, beyond all consciousness and fear. The fools!… to think that it was a +harmless, concrete thing. It would emerge in a moment like the +Fisherman’s Geni from the Brass Bottle and grow as big as the world. He +felt he was going mad again. +</p> + +<p> +“Help!” he suddenly shrieked. “<i>It is under my foot. It is +moving … moving … moving out</i>.” He sprang to his astounded friend, +Delorme, and screamed to him for help—and then realizing that there was +<i>no</i> help, that neither man nor God could save him, he fled from the room +screaming like a wounded horse. +</p> + +<p> +Rushing madly down the corridor, falling head-long down the stone stairs, +bolting blindly across the entrance-hall, he fled until (unaware of his portly +presence up to the moment when he rebounded from him as a cricket-ball from a +net) he violently encountered the Head. +</p> + +<p> +Scrambling beneath his gown the demented boy flung his arms around the massy +pillar of the Doctor’s leg, and prayed aloud to him for help, between +heart-rending screams. +</p> + +<p> +Now it is undeniable that no elderly gentleman, of whatsoever position or +condition, loves to be butted violently upon a generous lunch as he makes his +placid way to his arm-chair, cigar, book, and ultimate pleasant doze. If he be +pompous by profession, precise by practice, dignified as a duty, a monument of +most stately correctness and, to small boys and common men, a great and +distant, if tiny, God—he may be expected to resent it. +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor did. Almost before he knew what he was doing, he struck the sobbing, +gasping child twice, and then endeavoured to remove him by the ungentle +application of the untrammelled foot, from the leg to which, limpet-like, he +clung. +</p> + +<p> +To Dam the blows were welcome, soothing, reassuring. Let a hundred Heads flog +him with two hundred birch-rods, so they could keep him from the Snake. What +are mere blows? +</p> + +<p> +Realizing quickly that something very unusual was in the air, the worthy Doctor +repented him of his haste and, with what dignity he might, inquired between a +bleat and a bellow:— +</p> + +<p> +“What is the matter, my boy? Hush! Hush!” +</p> + +<p> +“The Snake! The Snake!” shrieked Dam. “Save me! Save me! +<i>It is under my foot! It is moving … moving … moving out</i>,” and +clung the tighter. +</p> + +<p> +The good Doctor also moved with alacrity—but saw no snake. He was +exceedingly perturbed, between a hypothetical snake and an all too actual +lunatic boy. +</p> + +<p> +Fortunately, “Stout” (so called because he was Porter), passing the +big doors without, was attracted by the screams. +</p> + +<p> +Entering, he hastened to the side of the agitated Head, and, with some +difficulty, untied from that gentleman’s leg, a small boy—but not +until the small boy had fainted…. +</p> + +<p> +When Dam regained consciousness he had a fit, recovered, and found himself in +the Head’s study, and the object of the interested regard of the Head, +Messrs. Colfe and Steynker, the school medico, and the porter. +</p> + +<p> +It was agreed (while the boy fought for his sanity, bit his hand for the +reassuring pleasure of physical pain, and prayed for help to the God in whom he +had no reason to believe) that the case was “very unusual, very curious, +v-e-r-y interesting indeed”. Being healthier and stronger than at the +time of previous attacks, Dam more or less recovered before night and was not +sent home. But he had fallen from his place, and in the little republics of the +dormitory and class-room, he was a thing to shun, an outcast, a disgrace to the +noble race of Boy. +</p> + +<p> +Not a mere liar, a common thief, a paltry murderer or vulgar +parricide—but a COWARD, a blubberer, a baby. Even Delorme, more in sorrow +than in anger, shunned his erstwhile bosom-pal, and went about as one betrayed. +</p> + +<p> +The name of “Funky Warren” was considered appropriate, and even the +Haddock, his own flesh and blood, and most junior of “squeakers,” +dared to apply it!…. +</p> + +<p> +The infamy of the Coward spread abroad, was talked of in other Houses, and +fellows made special excursions to see the cry-baby, who funked a dead snake, a +blooming bottled, potted, dead snake, and who had blubbed aloud in his terror. +</p> + +<p> +And Bully Harberth of the Fifth, learning of these matters, revolved in his +breast the thought that he who fears dead serpents must, even more, fear living +bullies, put Dam upon his list as a safe and pliant client, and thereby +(strange instrument of grace!) gave him the chance to rehabilitate himself, +clear the cloud of infamy from about his head, and live a bearable life for the +rest of his school career…. +</p> + +<p> +One wet Wednesday afternoon, as Dam, a wretched, forlorn Ishmael, sat alone in +a noisy crowd, reading a “penny horrible” (admirable, stimulating +books crammed with brave deeds and noble sentiments if not with faultless +English) the Haddock entered the form-room, followed by Bully Harberth. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s him, Harberth, by the window, reading a penny blood,” +said the Haddock, and went and stood afar off to see the fun. +</p> + +<p> +Harberth, a big clumsy boy, a little inclined to fat, with small eyes, heavy +low forehead, thick lips, and amorphous nose, lurched over to where Dam +endeavoured to read himself into a better and brighter world inhabited by +Deadwood Dick, Texas Joe, and Red Indians of no manners and nasty customs. +</p> + +<p> +“I want you, Funky Warren. I’m going to torture you,” he +announced with a truculent scowl and a suggestive licking of blubber lips. +</p> + +<p> +Dam surveyed him coolly. +</p> + +<p> +Of thick build, the bully was of thicker wit and certainly of no proven +courage. Four years older than Dam and quite four inches taller, he had never +dreamed of molesting him before. Innumerable as were the stories of his +brutalities to the smallest “squeakers” and of his cruel practical +jokes on new boys, there were no stories of his fighting, such as there were +about Ormond Delorme, of Dam’s form, whose habit it was to implore bigger +boys of their courtesy to fight him, and to trail his coat where there were +“chaws” about. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m going to torture you, Funky. Every day you must come to me and +<i>beg</i> me to do it. If you don’t come and pray for it I’ll come +to <i>you</i> and you’ll get it double and treble. If you sneak +you’ll get it quadru—er—quadrupedal—and also be known +as Sneaky as well as Funky. See?” he continued. +</p> + +<p> +“How will you torture me, Harberth, please?” asked Dam meekly, as +he measured the other with his eye, noted his puffiness, short reach, and +inward tendency of knee. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! lots of ways,” was the reply. “Dry shaves, tweaks, +scalpers, twisters, choko, tappers, digs, benders, shinners, windos, all +sorts.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t even know what they are,” moaned Dam. +</p> + +<p> +“Poor Kid!” sympathized the bully, “you soon will, though. +Dry shaves are beautiful. You die dotty in about five minutes if I don’t +see fit to stop. Twisters break your wrists and you yell the roof off—or +would do if I didn’t gag you first with a cake of soap and a towel. +Tappers are very amusing, too, for me that is—not for you. They are done +on the side of your knee with a cricket stump. Wonderful how kids howl when you +understand knee-treatment. Choko is good too. Makes you black in the face and +your eyes goggle out awful funny. Done with a silk handkerchief and a stick. +Windos and benders go together and really want two fellows to do it properly. I +hit you in the wind and you double up, and the other fellow un-doubles you from +behind—with a cane—so that I can double you up again. Laugh! I +nearly died over young Berners. Shinners, scalpers, and tweaks are good +too—jolly good!… but of course all this comes after lamming and tunding…. +Come along with me….” +</p> + +<p> +“Nit,” was Dam’s firm but gentle reply, and a little pulse +began to beat beneath his cheek bone. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! Ho!” smiled Master Harberth, “then I’ll +<i>begin</i> here, and when you’re broke and blubbing you’ll come +with me—and get just double for a start.” +</p> + +<p> +Dam’s spirits rose and he felt almost happy—certainly far better +than he had done since the hapless encounter with the bottled adder and his +fall from grace. It was a positive, <i>joy</i> to have an enemy he could +tackle, a real flesh-and-blood foe and tormentor that came upon him in broad +daylight and in mere human form. +</p> + +<p> +After countless thousands of centuries of awful nightmare struggling—in +which he was bound hand-and-foot and doomed to failure and torture from the +outset, the sport, plaything, and victim of a fearful, intangible +Horror—this would be sheer amusement and recreation. What could mere man +do to <i>him</i>, much less mere boy! Why, the most awful torture-chamber of +the Holy Inquisition of old was a pleasant recreation-room compared with +<i>any</i> place where the Snake could enter. +</p> + +<p> +Oh, if the Snake could only be met and fought in the open with free hands and +untrammelled limbs, as Bully Harberth could! +</p> + +<p> +Oh, if it could only inflict mere physical pain instead of such agonies of +terror as made the idea of any bodily injury—mere cutting, burning, +beating, blinding—a trifling nothing-at-all. Anyhow, he could +<i>imagine</i> that Bully Harberth was the Snake or Its emissary and, since he +was indirectly brought upon him by the Snake, regard him as a +myrmidon—and deal with him accordingly…. +</p> + +<p> +“How do you like this?” inquired that young gentleman as he +suddenly seized the seated and unsuspecting Dam by the head, crushed him down +with his superior weight and dug cruelly into the sides of his neck, below the +ears, with his powerful thumb and fingers. “It is called +‘grippers’. You’ll begin to enjoy it in a minute.” … In +a few seconds the pain became acute and after a couple of minutes, +excruciating. +</p> + +<p> +Dam kept absolutely still and perfectly silent. +</p> + +<p> +To Harberth this was disappointing and after a time he grew tired. Releasing +his impassive victim he arose preparatory to introducing the next item of his +programme of tortures. +</p> + +<p> +“How do you like <i>this</i>?” inquired Dam rising also—and +he smote his tormentor with all his strength beneath the point of his chin. +Rage, pain, rebellion, and undying hatred (of the Snake) lent such force to the +skilful blow—behind which was the weight and upward spring of his +body—that Bully Harberth went down like a nine-pin, his big head striking +the sharp edge of a desk with great violence. +</p> + +<p> +He lay still and white with closed eyes. “Golly,” shrilled the +Haddock, “Funky Warren has murdered Bully Harberth. Hooray! +Hooray!” and he capered with joy. +</p> + +<p> +A small crowd quickly collected, and, it being learned from credible +eye-witnesses that the smaller boy had neither stabbed the bully in the back +nor clubbed him from behind, but had well and truly smitten him on the jaw with +his fist, he went at one bound from despised outcast coward to belauded, +admired hero. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll be hung, of course, Warren,” said Delorme. +</p> + +<p> +“And a jolly good job,” replied Dam, fervently and sincerely. +</p> + +<p> +As he spoke, Harberth twitched, moved his arms and legs, and opened his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +Sitting up, he blinked owl-like and inquired as to what was up. +</p> + +<p> +“You are down is what’s up,” replied Delorme. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh—he’s not dead,” squeaked the Haddock, and there was +a piteous break in his voice. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s up?” asked Harberth again. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Funky—that is to say, Warren—knocked you out, and +you’ve got to give him best and ask for <i>pax</i>, or else fight +him,” said Delorme, adding hopefully, “but of course you’ll +fight him.” +</p> + +<p> +Harberth arose and walked to the nearest seat. +</p> + +<p> +“He hit me a ‘coward’s poke’ when I wasn’t +looking,” quoth he. “It’s well known he is a coward.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are a liar, Bully Harberth,” observed Delorme. “He hit +you fair, and anyhow he’s not afraid of <i>you</i>. If you don’t +fight him you become Funky Harberth <i>vice</i>. Funky Warren—no longer +Funky. So you’d better fight. See?” The Harberth bubble was +evidently pricked, for the sentiment was applauded to the echo. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t fight cowards,” mumbled Harberth, holding his +jaw—and, at this meanness, Dam was moved to go up to Harberth and slap +him right hard upon his plump, inviting cheek, a good resounding blow that made +his hand tingle with pain and his heart with pleasure. +</p> + +<p> +He still identified him somehow with the Snake, and had a glorious, if passing, +sensation of successful revolt and some revenge. +</p> + +<p> +He felt as the lashed galley-slave must have felt when, during a lower-deck +mutiny, he broke from his oar and sprang at the throat of the cruel overseer, +the embodiment and source of the agony, starvation, toil, brutality, and +hopeless woe that had thrust him below the level of the beasts (fortunate +beasts) that perish. +</p> + +<p> +“Now you’ve <i>got</i> to fight him, of course,” said +Delorme, and fled to spread the glad tidings far and wide. +</p> + +<p> +“I—I—don’t feel well now,” mumbled Harberth. +“I’ll fight him when I’m better,” and shambled away, +outraged, puzzled, disgusted. What was the world coming to? The little brute! +He had a punch like the kick of a horse. The little cad—to <i>dare</i>! +Well, he’d show him something if he had the face to stand up to his +betters and olders and biggers in the ring…. +</p> + +<p> +News of the affair spread like wild-fire, and the incredible conduct of the +extraordinary Funky Warren—said to be no longer Funky—became the +topic of the hour. +</p> + +<p> +At tea, Dam was solemnly asked if it were true that he had cast Harberth from a +lofty window and brought him to death’s door, or that of the hospital; +whether he had strangled him with the result that he had a permanent squint; if +he had so kicked him as to break both his thigh bones; if he had offered to +fight him with one hand. +</p> + +<p> +Even certain more or less grave and reverend seniors of the upper school took a +well-disguised interest in the matter and pretended that the affair should be +allowed to go on, as it would do Harberth a lot of good if de Warrenne could +lick him, and do the latter a lot of good to reinstate himself by showing that +he was not really a coward in essentials. Of course they took no interest in +the fight as a fight. Certainly not (but it was observed that Flaherty of the +Sixth stopped the fight most angrily and peremptorily when it was over, and +that no sign of anger or peremptoriness escaped him until it was over—and +he happened to pass behind the gymnasium, curiously enough, just as it +started)…. +</p> + +<p> +Good advice was showered upon Dam from all sides. He was counselled to live on +meat, to be a vegetarian, to rise at 4 a.m. and swim, to avoid all brain-fag, +to run twenty miles a day, to rest until the fight, to get up in the night and +swing heavy dumb-bells, to eat no pudding, to drink no tea, to give up sugar, +avoid ices, and deny himself all “tuck” and everything else that +makes life worth living. +</p> + +<p> +He did none of these things—but simply went on as usual, save in one +respect. +</p> + +<p> +For the first time since the adder episode, he was really happy. Why, he did +not know, save that he was about to “get some of his own back,” to +strike a blow against the cruel coward Incubus (for he persisted in identifying +Harberth with the Snake and in regarding him as a materialization of the +life-long Enemy), and possibly to enjoy a brief triumph over what had so long +triumphed over him. +</p> + +<p> +If he were at this time a little mad the wonder is that he was still on the +right side of the Lunatic Asylum gates. +</p> + +<p> +Mad or not, he was happy—and the one thing wanting was the presence of +Lucille at the fight. How he would have loved to show her that he was not +really a coward—given a fair chance and a tangible foe. +</p> + +<p> +If only Lucille could be there—dancing from one foot to the other, and +squealing. (Strictly <i>between</i>, and not during, the rounds, of course.) +</p> + +<p> +“Buck up, Dammy! Ginger for pluck! Never say croak!” +</p> + +<p> +A very large and very informal committee took charge of the business of the +fight, and what was alluded to as “a friendly boxing contest between +Bully Harberth of the Fifth and de Warrenne—late Funky—” was +arranged for the following Saturday afternoon. On being asked by a delegate of +the said large and informal committee as to whether he would be trained by then +or whether he would prefer a more distant date, Dam replied that he would be +glad to fight Harberth that very moment—and thus gained the reputation of +a fierce and determined fellow (though erstwhile “funky”—the +queer creature). +</p> + +<p> +Those who had been loudest in dubbing him Funky Warrenne were quickest in +finding explanations of his curious conduct and explained it well away. +</p> + +<p> +It was at this time that Dam’s heart went wholly and finally out to +Ormonde Delorme who roundly stated that his father, a bemedalled heroic Colonel +of Gurkhas, was “in a blind perishing funk” during a thunderstorm +and always sought shelter in the wine cellar when one was in progress in his +vicinity. +</p> + +<p> +Dam presented Delorme with his knife and a tiger’s tooth forthwith. +Saturday came and Dam almost regretted its advent, for, though a child in +years, he was sufficiently old, weary, and cynical in spirit to know that all +life’s fruit contains dust and ashes, that the joys of anticipation +exceed those of realization, and that with possession dies desire. +</p> + +<p> +With the fight would end the glorious feeling of successful revolt, and if he +overcame one emissary of the Snake there would be a million more to take his +place. +</p> + +<p> +And if Providence should be, as usual, on the side of the “big +battalions,” and the older, taller, stronger, heavier boy should win? +Why—then he would bully the loser to his heart’s content and the +limit of his ingenuity. +</p> + +<p> +Good! Let him! He would fight him every day with the greatest pleasure. A +chance to fight the Snake on fair terms was all he asked…. +</p> + +<p> +Time and place had been well chosen and there was little likelihood of +interference. +</p> + +<p> +Some experienced youth, probably Cokeson himself, had made arrangements as to +seconds, time-keeper, judges, and referee; and, though there was no ring of +ropes and stakes, a twenty-four-foot square had been marked out and inclosed by +forms and benches. Seating was provided for the “officials” and +seniors, and two stools for the principals. A couple of bowls of water, +sponges, and towels lent a business-like air to the scene. +</p> + +<p> +To his delight, Dam discovered that Delorme was to be his second—a person +of sound advice, useful ministrations, and very present help in time of +trouble…. +</p> + +<p> +Delorme led him to his stool in an angle of the square of benches, bade him +spread wide his arms and legs and breathe deeply “for all he was worth, +with his eyes closed and his thoughts fixed on jolly things”. +</p> + +<p> +Feeling himself the cynosure of neighbouring eyes and able to hear the comments +of the crowd, the last part of his second’s instructions was a little +difficult of strict observation. However, he continued to think of licking +Harberth—the “jolliest” thing he could conceive, until his +mind wandered home to Lucille, and he enhanced the imaginary jollity by +conceiving her present…. “Sturdy little brute,” observed a big +Fifth Form boy seated with a couple of friends on the bench beside him, +“but I’d lay two to one in sovs. (if I had ’em) that he +doesn’t last a single round with Harberth”. +</p> + +<p> +“Disgrace to Harberth if he doesn’t eat the kid alive,” +responded the other. +</p> + +<p> +“Got a good jaw and mouth, though,” said the third. “Going to +die hard, you’ll see. Good little kid.” +</p> + +<p> +“Fancy funking a bottled frog or something and fighting a chap who can +give him about four years, four inches, and four stone,” observed the +first speaker. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. Queer little beast. He knocked Harberth clean out, they say. +Perhaps his father has had him properly taught and he can really box. Ever seen +him play footer? Nippiest little devil <i>I</i> ever saw. Staunch too. Rum +go,” commented his friend. +</p> + +<p> +Dam thought of Sergeant Havlan and his son, the punching-ball, and the fighting +days at Monksmead. Perhaps he could “really” box, after all. Anyhow +he knew enough to hit straight and put his weight into it, to guard chin and +mark, to use his feet, duck, dodge, and side step. Suppose Harberth knew as +much? Well—since he was far stronger, taller, and heavier, the only hope +of success lay in the fact that he was connected with the Snake—from whom +mere blows in the open would be welcome. +</p> + +<p> +Anyhow he would die or win. +</p> + +<p> +The positive joy of fighting <i>It</i> in the glorious day and open air, +instead of in the Bottomless Pit—bound, stifled, mad with Fear—none +could realize…. +</p> + +<p> +Bully Harberth entered the ring accompanied by Shanner, who looked like a Sixth +Form boy and was in the Shell. +</p> + +<p> +Harberth wore a thick sweater and looked very strong and heavy. +</p> + +<p> +“If the little kid lasts three rounds with <i>that</i>” observed +Cokeson to Coxe Major, “he ought to be chaired.” +</p> + +<p> +Dam was disposed to agree with him in his heart, but he had no fear. The +feeling that <i>his</i> brief innings had come—after the Snake had had +Its will of him for a dozen years—swallowed up all other feelings. +</p> + +<p> +Coxe Major stepped into the ring. “I announce a friendly boxing contest +between Harberth of the Fifth, nine stone seven, and Funky Warren (said to be +no longer Funky) of Barton’s House, weight not worth mentioning,” +he declaimed. +</p> + +<p> +“Are the gloves all right,” called Cokeson (whose father owned +racehorses, was a pillar of the National Sporting Club, and deeply interested +in the welfare of a certain sporting newspaper). +</p> + +<p> +“No fault can be found with Warren’s gloves,” said Shanner, +coming over to Dam. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s nothing wrong with the gloves here,” added Delorme, +after visiting Harberth’s corner. +</p> + +<p> +This was the less remarkable in that there were no gloves whatsoever. +</p> + +<p> +Presumably the fiction of a “friendly boxing contest” was to be +stoutly maintained. The crowd of delighted boys laughed. +</p> + +<p> +“Then come here, both of you,” said Cokeson. +</p> + +<p> +The combatants complied. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t hold and hit. Don’t butt nor trip. Don’t clinch. +Don’t use knee, elbow, nor shoulder. When I call ‘Break +away,’ break without hitting. If you do any of these things you will be +jolly well disqualified. Fight fair and God have mercy on your souls.” To +Dam it seemed that the advice was superfluous—and of God’s mercy on +his soul he had had experience. +</p> + +<p> +Returning to their corners, the two stripped to the waist and sat ready, +arrayed in shorts and gymnasium shoes. +</p> + +<p> +Seen thus, they looked most unevenly matched, Harberth looking still bigger for +undressing and Dam even smaller. But, as the knowing Coxe Major observed, what +there was of Dam was in the right place—and was muscle. Certainly he was +finely made. +</p> + +<p> +“Seconds out of the ring. <i>Time!</i>” called the time-keeper and +Dam sprang to his feet and ran at Harberth who swung a mighty round-arm blow at +his face as Dam ducked and smote him hard and true just below the breast-bone +and fairly on the “mark “. +</p> + +<p> +The bully’s grunt of anguish was drowned in howls of “Shake +hands!” “They haven’t shaken hands!” +</p> + +<p> +“Stop! Stop the fight,” shouted Cokeson, and as they backed from +each other he inquired with anger and reproach in his voice:— +</p> + +<p> +“Is this a friendly boxing-contest or a vulgar fight?” adding, +“Get to your corners and when <i>Time</i> is called, shake hands and then +begin.” +</p> + +<p> +Turning to the audience he continued in a lordly and injured manner: “And +there is only <i>one</i> Referee, gentlemen, please. Keep silence or I shall +stop the fight—I mean—the friendly boxing contest.” +</p> + +<p> +As Dam sat down Delorme whispered:— +</p> + +<p> +“Splendid! _In_fighting is your tip. Duck and go for the body every time. +He knows nothing of boxing I should say. Tire him—and remember that if he +gets you with a swing like that you’re out.” +</p> + +<p> +“Seconds out of the ring. <i>Time!</i>” called the time-keeper and +Dam walked towards Harberth with outstretched hand, met him in the middle of +the ring and shook hands with great repugnance. As Harberth’s hand left +Dam’s it rose swiftly to Dam’s face and knocked him down. +</p> + +<p> +“Shame! Foul poke! Coward,” were some of the indignant cries that +arose from the spectators. +</p> + +<p> +“Silence,” roared the referee. “<i>Will</i> you shut up and +be quiet. Perfectly legitimate—if not very sporting.” +</p> + +<p> +Dam sprang to his feet, absolutely unhurt, and, if possible, more determined +than ever. It was only because he had been standing with feet together that he +had been knocked down at all. Had he been given time to get into sparring +position the blow would not have moved him. Nor was Harberth himself in an +attitude to put much weight behind the blow and it was more a cuff than a +punch. +</p> + +<p> +Circling round his enemy, Dam sparred for an opening and watched his style and +methods. +</p> + +<p> +Evidently the bully expected to make short work of him, and he carried his +right fist as though it were a weapon and not a part of his body. +</p> + +<p> +As he advanced with his right extended, quivering, menacing, and poised for a +knock-out blow, his left did not appear in the matter at all. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly he aimed his fist at Dam like a stone and with great force. Dam +side-stepped and it brushed his ear; with his right he smote with all his force +upon Harberth’s ribs and with his left he drove at his eye as he came up. +Both blows were well and truly laid and with good sounding thuds that seemed to +delight the audience. +</p> + +<p> +Bully Harberth changed his tactics and advanced upon his elusive opponent with +his left in the position of guard and his right drawn back to the arm-pit. +Evidently he was going to hold him off with the one and smash him with the +other. Not waiting for him to develop his attack, but striking the +bully’s left arm down with his own left, Dam hit over it with his right +and reached his nose and—so curious are the workings of the human +mind—thought of Moses striking the rock and bringing forth water. +</p> + +<p> +The sight of blood seemed to distress Harberth and, leaping in as the latter +drew his hand across his mouth, Dam drove with all his strength at his mark and +with such success that Harberth doubled up and fetched his breath with deep +groans. Dam stood clear and waited. +</p> + +<p> +Delorme called out, “You’ve a right to finish him,” and was +sternly reproved by the referee. +</p> + +<p> +As Harberth straightened up, Dam stepped towards him, but the bully turned and +ran to his stool. As he reached it amid roars of execration the time-keeper +arose and cried “<i>Time!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“You had him, you little ass,” said Delorme, as he squeezed a +sponge of water on Dam’s head. “Why on earth didn’t you go in +and finish him?” +</p> + +<p> +“It didn’t seem decent when he was doubled up,” replied Dam. +</p> + +<p> +“Did it seem decent his hitting you while you shook hands?” +returned the other, beginning to fan his principal with a towel. +</p> + +<p> +“Anyhow he’s yours if you go on like this. Keep your head and +don’t worry about his. Stick to his body till you have a clear chance at +the point of his jaw.” +</p> + +<p> +“Seconds out of the ring. <i>Time!</i>” cried the time-keeper. +</p> + +<p> +This round was less fortunate for the smaller boy. Harberth’s second had +apparently given him some good advice, for he kept his mark covered and used +his left both to guard and to hit. +</p> + +<p> +Also he had learned something from Dam, and, on one occasion as the latter went +at his face with a straight left, he dropped the top of his head towards him +and made a fierce hooking punch at Dam’s body. Luckily it was a little +high, but it winded him for a moment, and had his opponent rushed him then, Dam +could have done nothing at all. +</p> + +<p> +Just as “Time” was called, Harberth swung a great round-arm blow at +Dam which would have knocked him head over heels had not he let his knees go +just in time and ducked under it, hitting his foe once again on the mark with +all his strength. +</p> + +<p> +“How d’you feel?” asked Delorme as Dam went to his stool. +</p> + +<p> +“Happy,” said he. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t talk piffle,” was the reply. “How do you feel? +Wind all right? Groggy at all?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not a bit,” said Dam. “I am enjoying it.” +</p> + +<p> +And so he was. Hitherto the Snake had had him bound and helpless. As it pursued +him in nightmares, his knees had turned to water, great chains had bound his +arms, devilish gags had throttled him, he could not breathe, and he had not had +a chance to escape nor to fight. He could not even scream for help. He could +only cling to a shelf. <i>Now</i> he had a chance. His limbs were free, his +eyes were open, he could breathe, think, act, defend himself and <i>attack</i>. +</p> + +<p> +“Seconds out of the ring. <i>Time!</i>” called the time-keeper and +Delorme ceased fanning with the towel, splashed a spongeful of water in +Dam’s face and backed away with his stool. +</p> + +<p> +Harberth seemed determined to make an end. +</p> + +<p> +He rushed at his opponent whirling his arms, breathing stertorously, and +scowling savagely. +</p> + +<p> +Guarding hurt Dam’s arms, he had no time to hit, and in ducking he was +slow and got a blow (aimed at his chin) in the middle of his forehead. Down he +went like a nine-pin, but was up as quickly, and ready for Harberth who had +rushed at him in the act of rising, while the referee shouted “Stand +clear”. +</p> + +<p> +As he came on, Dam fell on one knee and drove at his mark again. +</p> + +<p> +Harberth grunted and placed his hands on the smitten spot. +</p> + +<p> +Judging time and distance well, Dam hit with all his force at the bully’s +chin and he went down like a log. +</p> + +<p> +Rising majestically, the time-keeper lifted up his voice and counted: +“<i>One—two—three—four—five—six”</i>—and +Harberth opened his eyes, sat up, +“<i>seven—eight—nine</i>”—and lay down again; and +just as Dam was about to leap for joy and the audience to roar their +approval—instead of the fatal “<i>OUT</i>” the time-keeper +called “<i>Time</i>”. +</p> + +<p> +Had Dam struck the blow a second sooner, the fight would have been over and he +would have won. As it was, Harberth had the whole interval in which to recover. +Dam’s own luck! (But Miss Smellie had always said there is no such thing +as Luck!) Well—so much the better. <i>Fighting</i> the Snake was the real +joy, and victory would end it. So would defeat and he must not get cock-a-hoop +and careless. +</p> + +<p> +Delorme filled his mouth with water and ejected it in a fine spray over +Dam’s head and chest. He was very proud of this feat, but, though most +refreshing, Dam could have preferred that the water had come from a sprayer. +</p> + +<p> +“Seconds out of the ring, <i>Time!</i>” called the referee. +</p> + +<p> +Harberth appeared quite recovered, but he was of a curious colour and seemed +tired. +</p> + +<p> +Acting on his second’s advice, Dam gave his whole attention to getting at +his opponent’s body again, and overdid it. As Harberth struck at him with +his left, he ducked, and as he was aiming at Harberth’s mark, he was +suddenly knocked from day into night, from light into darkness, from life into +death…. +</p> + +<p> +Years passed and Dam strove to explain that the mainspring had broken and that +he had heard it click—when suddenly a great black drop-curtain rolled up, +while some one snapped back some slides that had covered his ears, and had +completely deafened him. +</p> + +<p> +Then he saw Harberth and heard the voice of the time-keeper saying: +“<i>five—six—seven</i>”. +</p> + +<p> +He scrambled to his knees, “<i>eight</i>” swayed and staggered to +his feet, collapsed, rose, “<i>nine</i>” and was knocked down by +Harberth. +</p> + +<p> +The time-keeper again stood up and counted, +“<i>One—two—three</i>”. But this blow actually helped +him. +</p> + +<p> +He lay collecting his strength and wits, breathing deeply and taking nine +seconds’ rest. +</p> + +<p> +On the word <i>“nine”</i> he sprang to his feet and as Harberth +rushed in, side-stepped, and, as that youth instinctively covered his +much-smitten “mark,” Dam drove at his chin and sent him staggering. +As he went after him he saw that Harberth was breathing hard, trembling, and +swaying on his feet. Springing in, he rained short-arm blows until Harberth +fell and then he stepped well back. +</p> + +<p> +Harberth sat shaking his head, looking piteous, and, in the middle of the +time-keeper’s counting, he arose remarking, “I’ve had +enough”—and walked to his chair. +</p> + +<p> +Bully Harberth was beaten—and Dam felt that the Snake was farther from +him than ever it had been since he could remember. +</p> + +<p> +“De Warrenne wins,” said Cokeson, and then Flaherty of the Sixth +stepped into the ring and stopped the fight with much show of wrath and +indignation. +</p> + +<p> +Dam was wildly cheered and chaired and thence-forth was as popular and as +admired as he had been shunned and despised. +</p> + +<p> +Nor did he have another Snake seizure by day (though countless terrible +nightmares in what must be called his sleep) till some time after he had left +school. +</p> + +<p> +When he did, it had a most momentous influence upon his career. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +She is mine! She is mine!<br/> +By her soul divine<br/> +By her heart’s pure guile<br/> +By her lips’ sweet smile<br/> +She is mine! She is mine.<br/> +<br/> +Encapture? Aye<br/> +In dreams as fair<br/> +As angel whispers, low and rare,<br/> +In thoughts as pure<br/> +As childhood’s innocent allure<br/> +In hopes as bright<br/> +In deeds as white<br/> +As altar lilies, bathed in light.<br/> +<br/> +She is mine! She is mine!<br/> +By seal as true<br/> +To spirit view<br/> +As holy scripture writ in dew,<br/> +By bond as fair<br/> +To vision rare<br/> +As holy scripture writ in air,<br/> +By writ as wise to spirit eyes<br/> +As holy scripture in God’s skies v<br/> +She is mine! She is mine!<br/> +<br/> +Elude me? Nay,<br/> +Ere earth reclaimed<br/> +In joy unveils a Heaven regained,<br/> +Ere sea unbound,<br/> +Unfretting, rolls in mist—nor sound,<br/> +Ere sun and star repentent crash<br/> +In scattered ash, across the bar<br/> +She is <i>mine</i> I She is <i>mine</i>! +</p> + +<p class="right"> +A. L. W<small>REN</small>. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap07"></a>CHAPTER VII.<br/> +LOVE—AND THE SNAKE.</h2> + +<p> +Damocles de Warrenne, gentleman-cadet, on the eve of returning from Monksmead +to the Military Academy of Sandhurst, appeared to have something on his mind as +he sat on the broad coping of the terrace balustrade and idly kicked his heels. +Every time he had returned to Monksmead from Wellingborough and Sandhurst, he +had found Lucille yet more charming, delightful, and lovable. As her skirts and +hair lengthened she became more and more the real companion, the pal, the +adviser, without becoming any less the sportsman. +</p> + +<p> +He had always loved her quaint terms of endearment, slang, and epithets, but as +she grew into a beautiful and refined and dignified girl, it was still more +piquant to be addressed in the highly unladylike (or un-Smelliean) terms that +she affected. +</p> + +<p> +Dam never quite knew when she began to make his heart beat quicker, and when +her presence began to act upon him as sunshine and her absence as dull cloud; +but there came a time when (whether she were riding to hounds in her neat +habit, rowing with him in sweater and white skirt, swinging along the lanes in +thick boots and tailor-made costume, sitting at the piano after dinner in +simple white dinner-gown, or waltzing at some ball—always the belle +thereof for him) he <i>did</i> know that Lucille was more to him than a jolly +pal, a sound adviser, an audience, a confidant, and ally. Perhaps the day she +put her hair up marked an epoch in the tale of his affections. He found that he +began to hate to see other fellows dancing, skating, or playing golf or tennis +with her. He did not like to see men speaking to her at meets or taking her in +to dinner. He wanted the blood of a certain neighbouring spring-Captain, a +hunter of “flappers” and molester of parlour-maids, home on +furlough, who made eyes at her at the Hunt Ball and followed her about all +Cricket Week and said something to her which, as Dam heard, provoked her coolly +to request him “not to be such a priceless ass”. What it was she +would not tell Dam, and he, magnifying it, called, like the silly raw boy he +was, upon the spring-Captain, and gently requested him to “let my cousin +alone, Sir, if you don’t mind, or—er—I’ll jolly well +make you”. Dam knew things about the gentleman, and considered him wholly +unfit to come within a mile of Lucille. The spring-Captain was obviously much +amused and inwardly much annoyed—but he ceased his scarce-begun pursuit +of the hoydenish-queenly girl, for Damocles de Warrenne had a reputation for +the cool prosecution of his undertakings and the complete fulfilment of his +promises. Likewise he had a reputation for Herculean strength and uncanny +skill. Yet the gay Captain had been strongly attracted by the beauty and grace +of the unspoilt, unsophisticated, budding woman, with her sweet freshness and +dignity (so quaintly enhanced by lapses into the slangy, unfettered schoolgirl +…). Not that he was a marrying man at all, of course…. Yes—Dam had it +weightily on his mind that he might come down from Sandhurst at any time and +find Lucille engaged to some other fellow. Girls did get engaged…. It was the +natural and obvious thing for them to do. She’d get engaged to some +brainy clever chap worth a dozen of his own mediocre self…. Of course she liked +him dearly as a pal and all that, an ancient crony and chum—but how +should he hope to compete with the brilliant fellers she’d meet as she +went about more, and knew them. She was going to have a season in London next +year. Think of the kind of chaps she’d run across in Town in the season. +Intellectual birds, artists, poets, authors, travellers, distinguished coves, +rising statesmen, under-secretaries, soldiers, swells, all sorts. Not much show +for him against that lot! +</p> + +<p> +Gad! What a rotten look-out! What a rotten world to be sure! Fancy losing +Lucille!… Should he put his fortunes to the touch, risk all, and propose to +her. Fellows did these things in such circumstances…. No—hardly fair to +try to catch her like that before she had had at least one season, and knew +what was what and who was who…. Hardly the clean potato—to take advantage +of their long intimacy and try to trap her while she was a country mouse. +</p> + +<p> +It was not as though he were clever and could hope for a great career and the +power to offer her the position for which she was fitted. Why, he was nearly +bottom of his year at Sandhurst—not a bit brilliant and brainy. Suppose +she married him in her inexperience, and then met the right sort of +intellectual, clever feller too late. No, it wouldn’t be the straight +thing and decent at all, to propose to her now. How would Grumper view such a +step? What had he to offer her? What was he? Just a penniless orphan. Apart +from Grumper’s generosity he owned a single five-pound note in money. +Never won a scholarship or exam-prize in his life. Mere Public Schools boxing +and fencing champion, and best man-at-arms at Sandhurst, with a score or so of +pots for running, jumping, sculling, swimming, shooting, boxing, fencing, +steeple-chasing and so forth. His total patrimony encashed would barely pay for +his Army outfit. But for Grumper’s kindness he couldn’t go into the +Army at all. And Grumper, the splendid old chap, couldn’t last very much +longer. Why—for many a long year he would not earn more than enough to +pay his mess-bills and feed his horses. Not in England certainly…. Was he to +ask Lucille to leave her luxurious home in a splendid mansion and live in a +subaltern’s four-roomed hut in the plains in India? (Even if he could +scrape into the Indian army so as to live on his pay—more or less.) +Grumper, her guardian, and executor of the late Bishop’s will, might have +very different views for her. Why, she might even be his heiress—he was +very fond of her, the daughter of his lifelong friend and kinsman. Fancy a +pauper making up to a very rich girl—if it came to her being that, which +he devoutly hoped it would not. It would remove her so hopelessly beyond his +reach. By the time he could make a position, and an income visible to the naked +eye, he would be grey-haired. Money was not made in the army. Rather was it +becoming no place for a poor gentleman but the paradise of rich bounders, +brainy little squits of swotters, and commission-without-training +nondescripts—thanks to the growing insecurity of things among the army +class and gentry generally. If she were really penniless he might—as a +Captain—ask her to share his poverty—but was it likely shed be a +spinster ten years hence—even if he were a Captain so soon? Promotion is +not violently rapid in the Cavalry…. And yet he simply hated the bare thought +of life without Lucille. Better to be a gardener at Monksmead, and see her +every day, than be the Colonel of a Cavalry Corps and know her to be married to +somebody else…. Yes—he would come home one of these times from Sandburst +or his Regiment and find her engaged to some other fellow. And what then? +Well—nothing—only life would be of no further interest. It was +bound to happen. Everybody turned to look at her. Even women gave generous +praise of her beauty, grace, and sweetness. Men raved about her, and every male +creature who came near her was obviously dpris in five minutes. The curate, +plump “Holy Bill,” was well known to be fading away, slowly and +beautifully, but quite surely, on her account. Grumper’s old pal, General +Harringport, had confided to Dam himself in the smoking-room, one very late +night, that since he was fifty years too old for hope of success in that +direction he’d go solitary to his lonely grave (here a very wee hiccup), +damn his eyes, so he would, unwed, unloved, uneverything. Very trag(h)ic, but +such was life, the General had declared, the one alleviation being the fact +that he might die any night now, and ought to have done so a decade ago. +</p> + +<p> +Why, even the little useless snob and tuft-hunter, the Haddock, that +tailor’s dummy and parody of a man, cast sheep’s eyes and made what +he called “love” to her when down from Oxford (and was duly snubbed +for it and for his wretched fopperies, snobberies, and folly). He’d have +to put the Haddock across his knee one of these days. +</p> + +<p> +Then there was his old school pal and Sandhurst senior, Ormonde Delorme, who +frequently stayed at, and had just left, Monksmead —fairly dotty about +her. She certainly liked Delorme—and no wonder, so handsome, clever, +accomplished, and so fine a gentleman. Rich, too. Better Ormonde than +another—but, God! what pain even to think of it…. Why had he cleared off +so suddenly, by the way, and obviously in trouble, though he would not admit +it?… +</p> + +<p> +Lucille emerged from a French window and came swinging across the terrace. The +young man, his face aglow, radiant, rose to meet her. It was a fine +face—with that look on it. Ordinarily it was somewhat marred by a +slightly cynical grimness of the mouth and a hint of trouble in the +eyes—a face a little too old for its age. +</p> + +<p> +“Have a game at tennis before tea, young Piggy-wig?” asked Lucille +as she linked her arm in his. +</p> + +<p> +“No, young Piggy-wee,” replied Dam. “Gettin’ old +an’ fat. Joints stiffenin’. Come an’ sit down and hear the +words of wisdom of your old Uncle Dammiculs, the Wise Man of Monksmead.” +</p> + +<p> +“Come off it, Dammy. Lazy little beast. Fat little brute,” +commented the lady. +</p> + +<p> +As Damocles de Warrenne was six feet two inches high, and twelve stone of +iron-hard muscle, the insults fell but lightly upon him. +</p> + +<p> +“I will, though,” she continued. “I shan’t have the +opportunity of hearing many more of your words of wisdom for a time, as you go +back on Monday. And you’ll be the panting prey of a gang of giggling +girls at the garden party and dance to-morrow…. Why on earth must we muck up +your last week-day with rotten ‘functions’. You don’t want to +dance and you don’t want to garden-part in the least.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nit,” interrupted Dam. +</p> + +<p> +“ … Grumper means it most kindly but … we want you to ourselves the last +day or two … anyhow….” +</p> + +<p> +“D’you want me to yourself, Piggy-wee?” asked Dam, trying to +speak lightly and off-handedly. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course I do, you Ass. Shan’t see you for centuries and months. +Nothing to do but weep salt tears till Christmas. Go into a decline or a red +nose very likely. Mind you write to me twice a week at the very least,” +replied Lucille, and added:— +</p> + +<p> +“Bet you that silly cat Amelia Harringport is in your pocket all +to-morrow afternoon and evening. <i>All</i> the Harringport crowd are coming +from Folkestone, you know. If you run the clock-golf she’ll <i>adore</i> +clock-golf, and if you play tennis she’ll <i>adore</i> tennis…. +Can’t think what she sees in you….” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be cattish, Lusilly,” urged the young man. +“‘Melier’s all right. It’s you she comes to see, of +course.” +</p> + +<p> +To which, it is regrettable to have to relate, Lucille replied +“Rodents”. +</p> + +<p> +Talk languished between the young people. Both seemed unwontedly ill at ease +and nervous. +</p> + +<p> +“D’you get long between leaving Sandhurst and joining the Corps +you’re going to distinguish, Dammy?” asked the girl after an uneasy +and pregnant silence, during which they had furtively watched each other, and +smiled a little uncomfortably and consciously when they had caught each other +doing so. +</p> + +<p> +“Dunno. Sure not to. It’s a rotten world,” replied Dam +gloomily. “I expect I shall come back and find you—” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course you’ll come back and find me! What do you mean, +Dam?” said the girl. She flushed curiously as she interrupted him. Before +he could reply she continued:— +</p> + +<p> +“You won’t be likely to have to go abroad directly you join your +Regiment, will you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall try for the Indian Army or else for a British Regiment in +India,” was the somewhat sullen answer. +</p> + +<p> +“Dam! What ever for?” +</p> + +<p> +“More money and less expenses.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dam! You mercenary little toad! You grasping, greedy hog!… Why! I +thought….” +</p> + +<p> +Lucille gazed straight and searchingly at her life-long friend for a full +minute and then rose to her feet. +</p> + +<p> +“Come to tea,” she said quietly, and led the way to the big lawn +where, beneath an ancient cedar of Lebanon, the pompous Butterton and his +solemn satellite were setting forth the tea “things”. +</p> + +<p> +Aunt Yvette presided at the tea-table and talked bravely to two woolly-witted +dames from the Vicarage who had called to consult her anent the covering of a +foot-stool “that had belonged to their dear Grandmamma”. +</p> + +<p> +(“‘Time somebody shot it,” murmured Dam to Lucille as he +handed her cup.) +</p> + +<p> +Anon Grumper bore down upon the shady spot; queer old Grumper, very stiff, +red-faced, dapper, and extremely savage. +</p> + +<p> +Having greeted the guests hospitably and kindly he confined his subsequent +conversation to two grunts and a growl. +</p> + +<p> +Lucille and Damocles could not be said to have left the cane-chaired group +about the rustic tables and cake-stands at any given moment. Independently they +evaporated, after the manner of the Cheshire Cat it would appear, really +getting farther and farther from the circle by such infinitely small degrees +and imperceptible distances as would have appealed to the moral author of +“Little by Little”. At length the intervening shrubbery seemed to +indicate that they were scarcely in the intimate bosom of the tea-party, if +they had never really left it. +</p> + +<p> +“Come for a long walk, Liggy,” remarked Dam as they met, using an +ancient pet-name. +</p> + +<p> +“Right-O, my son,” was the reply. “But we must start off +mildly. I have a lovely feeling of too much cake. Too good to waste. Wait here +while I put on my clod-hoppers.” +</p> + +<p> +The next hour was <i>the</i> Hour of the lives of Damocles de Warrenne and +Lucille Gavestone—the great, glorious, and wonderful hour that comes but +once in a lifetime and is the progenitor of countless happy hours—or +hours of poignant pain. The Hour that can come only to those who are worthy of +it, and which, whatever may follow, is an unspeakably precious blessing, +confuting the cynic, shaming the pessimist, confounding the atheist, rewarding +the pure in heart, revealing God to Man. +</p> + +<p> +Heaven help the poor souls to whom that Hour never comes, with its memories +that nothing can wholly destroy, its brightness that nothing can ever wholly +darken. Heaven especially help the poor purblind soul that can sneer at it, the +greatest and noblest of mankind’s gifts, the countervail of all his cruel +woes and curses. +</p> + +<p> +As they walked down the long sweep of the elm-avenue, the pair encountered the +vicar coming to gather up his wife and sister for the evening drive, and the +sight of the two fine young people gladdened the good man’s heart. He +beheld a tall, broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped young man, with a frank handsome +face, steady blue eyes, fair hair and determined jaw, a picture of the +clean-bred, clean-living, out-door Englishman, athletic, healthy-minded, +straight-dealing; and a slender, beautiful girl, with a strong sweet face, +hazel-eyed, brown-haired, upright and active of carriage, redolent of sanity, +directness, and all moral and physical health. +</p> + +<p> +“A well-matched pair,” he smiled to himself as they passed him with +a cheery greeting. +</p> + +<p> +For a mile or two both thought much and spoke little, the man thinking of the +brilliant, hated Unknown who would steal away his Lucille; the woman thinking +of the coming separation from the friend, without whom life was very empty, +dull, and poor. Crossing a field, they reached a fence and a beautiful view of +half the county. Stopping by mutual consent, they gazed at the peaceful, +familiar scene, so ennobled and etherealized by the moon’s soft radiance. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall think of this walk, somehow, whenever I see the full +moon,” said Dam, breaking a long silence. +</p> + +<p> +“And I,” replied Lucille. +</p> + +<p> +“I hate going away this time, somehow, more than usual,” he blurted +out after another spell of silence. “I can’t help wondering whether +you’ll be—the same—when I come back at Christmas.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why—how should I be different, Dammy?” asked the girl, +turning her gaze upon his troubled face, which seemed to twitch and work as +though in pain. +</p> + +<p> +“How?… Why, you might be—” +</p> + +<p> +“Might be what, dear?” +</p> + +<p> +“You might be—engaged.” +</p> + +<p> +The girl saw that in the man’s eyes to which his tongue could not, or +would not, give utterance. As he spoke the word, with a catch in his breath, +she suddenly flung her arms round his neck, pressed her lips to his white face, +and, with a little sob, whispered:— +</p> + +<p> +“Not unless to you, Dam, darling—there is no other man in the world +but you,” and their lips met in their first lover’s kiss…. Oh, the +wonderful, glorious world!… The grand, beautiful old world! Place of delight, +joy, wonder, beauty, gratitude. How the kind little stars sang to them and the +benign old moon looked down and said: “Never despair, never despond, +never fear, God has given you Love. What matters else?” How the man swore +to himself that he would be worthy of her, strive for her, live for her; if +need be—die for her. How the woman vowed to herself that she would be +worthy of her splendid, noble lover, help him, cheer him, watch over him. Oh, +if he might only need her some day and depend on her for something in spite of +his strength and manhood. How she yearned to do something for him, to give, to +give, to give. Their hour lasted for countless ages, and passed in a flash. The +world intruded, spoiling itself as always. +</p> + +<p> +“Home to dinner, darling,” said the girl at last. “Hardly +time to dress if we hurry. Grumper will simply rampage and roar. He gets worse +every day.” She disengaged herself from the boy’s arms and her +terribly beautiful, painfully exquisite, trance. +</p> + +<p> +“Give me one more kiss, tell me once more that you love me and only me, +for ever, and let us go…. God bless this place. I thank God. I love +God—now …” she said. +</p> + +<p> +Dam could not speak at all. +</p> + +<p> +They walked away, hand in hand, incredulous, tremulous, bewildered by the +beauty and wonder and glory of Life. +</p> + +<p> +Alas! +</p> + +<p> +As they passed the Lodge and entered the dark avenue, Dam found his tongue. +</p> + +<p> +“Must tell Grumper,” he said. Nothing mattered since Lucille loved +him like that. She’d be happier in the subaltern’s hut in the +plains of India than in a palace. If Grumper didn’t like it, he must lump +it. Her happiness was more important than Grumper’s pleasure. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” acquiesced Lucille, “but tell him on Monday morning +when you go. Let’s have this all to ourselves, darling, just for a few +hours. I believe he’ll be jolly glad. Dear old bear, isn’t +he—really.” +</p> + +<p> +In the middle of the avenue Lucille stopped. +</p> + +<p> +“Dammy, my son,” quoth she, “tell me the absolute, bare, bald +truth. Much depends upon it and it’ll spoil everything if you +aren’t perfectly, painfully honest.” +</p> + +<p> +“Right-O,” responded Dam. “Go it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Am I the very very loveliest woman that ever lived?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” replied Dam, “but I wouldn’t have a line of your +face changed.” +</p> + +<p> +“Am I the cleverest woman in the world?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. But you’re quite clever enough for me. I wouldn’t have +you any cleverer. God forbid.” +</p> + +<p> +“Am I absolutely perfect and without flaw—in character.” +</p> + +<p> +“No. But I love your faults.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you wish to enshrine me in a golden jewel-studded temple and worship +me night and day?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. I want to put you in a house and live with you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hurrah,” cried the surprising young woman. “That’s +<i>love</i>, Dam. It’s not rotten idealizing and sentimentalizing that +dies away as soon as facts are seen as such. You’re a man, Dam, and +I’m going to be a woman. I loathe that bleating, glorified nonsense that +the Reverend Bill and Captain Luniac and poor old Ormonde and people talk when +they’re ‘in love’. <i>Love!</i> It’s just sentimental +idealizing and the worship of what does not exist and therefore cannot last. +You love <i>me</i>, don’t you, Dammy, not an impossible figment of a +heated imagination? This will last, dear…. If you’d idealized me into +something unearthly and impossible you’d have tired of me in six months +or less. You’d have hated me when you saw the reality, and found yourself +tied to it for life.” +</p> + +<p> +“Make a speech, Daughter,” replied Damocles. “Get on a stump +and make a blooming speech.” +</p> + +<p> +Both were a little unstrung. +</p> + +<p> +“I must wire this news to Delorme,” said he suddenly. +“He’ll be delighted.” Lucillemade no reply. +</p> + +<p> +As they neared the end of the drive and came within sight of the house, the +girl whispered:— +</p> + +<p> +“My own pal, Dammy, for always. And you thought I could be engaged to +anyone but <i>you</i>. There <i>is</i> no one but you in the world, dear. It +would be quite empty if you left it. Don’t worry about ways and means and +things, Dam, I shall enjoy waiting for <i>you</i>—twenty years.” +</p> + +<p> +He thought of that, later. +</p> + +<p> +On the morrow of that incredible day, Damocles de Warrenne sprang from his bed +at sunrise and sought the dew-washed garden below the big south terrace. +</p> + +<p> +The world contained no happier man. Sunrise in a glorious English summer and a +grand old English garden, on the day after the Day of Days. He trod on air as +he lived over again every second of that wonderful over-night scene, and +scarcely realized the impossible truth. +</p> + +<p> +Lucille loved him, as a lover! Lucille the <i>alter ego</i>, the understanding, +splendid friend; companion in play and work, in idle gaiety and serious +consideration; the <i>bon camarade</i>, the real chum and pal. +</p> + +<p> +Life was a Song, the world a Paradise, the future a long-drawn Glory. +</p> + +<p> +He would like to go and hold the Sword in his hand for a minute, +and—something seemed to stir beneath his foot, and a shudder ran through +his powerful frame. +</p> + +<p> +The brightness of the morning was dimmed, and then Lucille came towards him +blushing, radiant, changed, and all was well with the world, and God in high +heaven. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +After breakfast they again walked in the garden, the truly enchanted garden, +and talked soberly with but few endearments though with over-full hearts, and +with constant pauses to eye the face of the other with wondering rapture. They +came of a class and a race not given to excessive demonstrativeness, but each +knew that the other loved—for life. +</p> + +<p> +In the afternoon, guests began to arrive soon after lunch, duties usurped the +place of pleasures, and the lovers met as mere friends in the crowd. There was +meaning in the passing glances, however, and an occasional hand-touch in the +giving of tennis-ball, or tea-cup. +</p> + +<p> +“Half the County” was present, and while the younger fry played +tennis, croquet, clock-golf, and bowls, indulged in “mixed +cricket,” or attempted victory at archery or miniature-rifle shooting, +the sedate elders strolled o’er velvet lawns beneath immemorial elms, sat +in groups, or took tea by carpet-spread marquees. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Amelia Harringport, seeing Dam with a croquet-mallet in his hand, observed +that she <i>adored</i> croquet. Dam stated in reply that Haddon Berners was a +fearful dog at it, considered there should be a croquet Blue in fact, and would +doubtless be charmed to make up a set with her and the curate, the Reverend +William Williamson Williams (Holy Bill), and Another. Dam himself was cut off +from the bliss of being the Other—did not know the game at all. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Amelia quickly tired of her croquet with the Haddock, Holy Bill and the +Vicar’s Wife’s Sister, who looked straitly after Holy Bill on this +and all other occasions. Seeing Dam shepherding a flock of elders to the +beautifully-mown putting-tracks radiating from the central circle of +“holes” for the putting competition, she informed him that she +<i>adored</i> putting, so much so that she wanted lessons from him, the local +amateur golf-champion. +</p> + +<p> +“I just want a little <i>personal tuition</i> from the Champion and I +shall be quite a classy putter,” she gurgled. +</p> + +<p> +“I will personally tuit,” replied Dam, “and when you are +tuited we will proceed to win the prize.” +</p> + +<p> +Carefully posing the maiden aspirant for putting excellence at the end of the +yard-wide velvety strip leading to the green and “hole,” Dam gave +his best advice, bade her smite with restraint, and then proceeded to the +“hole” to retrieve the ball for his own turn. Other couples did +“preliminary canters” somewhat similarly on the remaining spokes of +the great wheel of the putting “clock”. +</p> + +<p> +The canny and practised Amelia, who had designs upon the handsome silver prize +as well as upon the handsome Damocles, smote straight and true with admirable +judgment, and the ball sped steadily down the track direct for the +“hole,” a somewhat large and deep one. +</p> + +<p> +“By Jove! Magnificent!” cried Dam, with quick and generous +appreciation of the really splendid putt. “You’ll hole out in one +this time, anyhow.” As the slowing ball approached the “hole” +he inserted his hand therein, laughing gaily, to anticipate the ball which with +its last grain of momentum would surely reach it and topple in. +</p> + +<p> +Then the thing happened! +</p> + +<p> +As he put his hand to the grass-encircled goal of the maiden’s hopes and +ball, its gloomy depths appeared to move, swirl round, rise up, as a small +green snake uncoiled in haste and darted beneath Dam’s approaching +upturned hand, and swiftly undulated across the lawn. +</p> + +<p> +With a shriek that momentarily paralysed the gay throng, turned all eyes in his +direction, and brought the more cool and helpful running to the spot, Dam fell +writhing, struggling, and screaming to the ground. +</p> + +<p> +“The SNAKE! The SNAKE!” he howled, while tears gushed from his eyes +and he strove to dig his way into the ground for safety. +</p> + +<p> +“There it goes!” squealed the fair Amelia pointing tragically. +Ladies duly squeaked, bunched their skirts tightly, jumped on chairs or sought +protection by the side of stalwart admirers. +</p> + +<p> +Men cried “Where?” and gathered for battle. One sporting character +emitted an appalling “View Halloo” and there were a few +“Yoicks” and “Gone Aways” to support his little +solecism. Lucille, rushing to Dam, encountered the fleeing reptile and with a +neat stroke of her putter ended its career. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s all right, old chap,” sneered Haddon Berners, as the +mad, convulsed, and foaming Dam screamed: “<i>It’s under my foot. +It’s moving, moving, moving out</i>,” and doubled up into a knot. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, it isn’t,” he continued. “Lucille has killed +it. Nothing to be terrified about…. Oh, chuck it, man! Get up and blow your +nose….” He was sent sprawling on his back as Lucille dropped by +Dam’s side and strove to raise his face from the grass. +</p> + +<p> +“Come off it, Dam! You’re very funny, we know,” adjured the +sporting character, rather ashamed and discomfortable at seeing a brother man +behaving so. There are limits to acting the goat—especially with wimmin +about. Why couldn’t Dam drop it?… +</p> + +<p> +Lucille was shocked and horrified to the innermost fibres of her being. Her +dignified, splendid Dam rolling on the ground, shrieking, sobbing, writhing…. +Ill or well, joke or seizure, it was horrible, unseemly…. Why couldn’t +the gaping fools be obliterated?… +</p> + +<p> +“Dam, dear,” she whispered in his ear, as she knelt over the +shuddering, gasping, sobbing man. “What is it, Dam? Are you ill? Dam, +it’s Lucille…. The snake is quite dead, dear. I killed it. Are you +joking? Dam! <i>Dam</i>!” … +</p> + +<p> +The stricken wretch screamed like a terrified child. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, won’t somebody fetch Dr. Jones if he’s not here +yet,” she wailed, turning to the mystified crowd of guests. “Get +some water quickly, somebody, salts, brandy, anything! Oh, <i>do</i> go +away,” and she deftly unfastened the collar of the spasm-wracked +sufferer. “Haddon,” she cried, looking up and seeing the grinning +Haddock, “go straight for Dr. Jones. Cycle if you’re afraid of +spoiling your clothes by riding. Quick!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, he’ll be all right in a minute,” drawled the Haddock, +who did not relish a stiff ride along dusty roads in his choicest confection. +“He’s playing the fool, I believe—or a bit scared at the +ferocious serpent.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucille gave the youth a look that he never forgot, and turned to the sporting +person. +</p> + +<p> +“You know the stables, Mr. Fellerton,” she said. “Would you +tell Pattern or somebody to send a man for Dr. Jones? Tell him to beat the +record.” +</p> + +<p> +The sporting one sprinted toward the shrubbery which lay between the grounds +and the kitchen-gardens, beyond which were the stables. +</p> + +<p> +Most people, with the better sort of mind, withdrew and made efforts to +recommence the interrupted games or to group themselves once more about the +lawns and marquees. +</p> + +<p> +Others remained to make fatuous suggestions, to wonder, or merely to look on +with feelings approaching awe and fascination. There was something uncanny +here—a soldier and athlete weeping and screaming and going into fits at +the sight of a harmless grass-snake, probably a mere blind worm! Was he a +hysterical, neurotic coward, after all—a wretched decadent? +</p> + +<p> +Poor Lucille suffered doubly—every pang, spasm, and contortion that shook +and wrung the body of her beloved, racked her own frame, and her mind was +tortured by fear, doubts, and agony. “Oh, please go away, dear +people,” she moaned. “It is a touch of sun. He is a little subject +to slight fits—very rarely and at long intervals, you know. He may never +have another.” A few of the remaining onlookers backed away a little +shamefacedly. Others offered condolences while inwardly scoffing at the +“sun” explanation. Did not de Warrenne bowl, bat, or field, +bare-headed, throughout the summer’s day without thinking of the sun? Who +had heard of the “fits” before? Why had they not transpired during +the last dozen years or so? “Help me carry him indoors, somebody,” +said the miserable, horrified Lucille. That would get rid of the silly staring +“helpers” anyhow—even if it brought matters to the notice of +Grumper, who frankly despised and detested any kind of sick person or invalid. +</p> + +<p> +What would he say and do? What had happened to the glowing, glorious world that +five minutes ago was fairy-land and paradise? Was her Dam a wretched coward, +afraid of things, screaming like a girl at the sight of a common snake, +actually terrified into a fit? Better be a pick-pocket than a…. Into the +thinning, whispering circle came General Sir Gerald Seymour Stukeley, +apoplectically angry. Some silly fool, he understood, had fainted or +something—probably a puling tight-laced fool of a woman who starved +herself to keep slim. People who wanted to faint should stay and do it at +home—not come creating disturbances and interruptions at Monksmead +garden-parties…. +</p> + +<p> +And then he saw a couple of young men and Lucille striving to raise the +recumbent body of a man. The General snorted as snorts the wart-hog in love and +war, or the graceful hippopotamus in the river. +</p> + +<p> +“What the Devil’s all this?” he growled. “Some poor +fella fainted with the exertions of putting?” A most bitter old +gentleman. +</p> + +<p> +Lucille turned to him and his fierce gaze fell upon the pale, contorted, and +tear-stained face of Dam. +</p> + +<p> +The General flushed an even deeper purple, and the stick he held +perpendicularly slowly rose to horizontal, though he did not raise his hand. +</p> + +<p> +He made a loud but wholly inarticulate sound. +</p> + +<p> +Haddon Berners, enjoying himself hugely, volunteered the information. +</p> + +<p> +“He saw a little grass-snake and yelled out. Then he wept and fainted. +Coming round now. Got the funks, poor chap.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucille’s hands closed (the thumbs correctly on the knuckles of the +second fingers), and, for a moment, it was in her heart to smite the Haddock on +the lying mouth with the straight-from-the-shoulder drive learned in days of +yore from Dam, and practised on the punching-ball with great assiduity. +Apparently the Haddock realized the fact for he skipped backward with agility. +</p> + +<p> +“He is ill, Grumper dear,” she said instead. “He has had a +kind of fit. Perhaps he had sunstroke in India, and it has just affected him +now in the sun….” +</p> + +<p> +Grumper achieved the snort of his life. +</p> + +<p> +It may have penetrated Dam’s comatose brain, indeed, for at that moment, +with a moan and a shudder, he struggled to a sitting posture. +</p> + +<p> +“The Snake,” he groaned, and collapsed again. +</p> + +<p> +“What the Devil!” roared the General. “Get up, you miserable, +whining cur! Get indoors, you bottle-fed squalling workhouse brat! Get out of +it, you decayed gentlewoman!” … The General bade fair to have a fit of +his own. +</p> + +<p> +Lucille flung herself at him. +</p> + +<p> +“Can’t you see he’s very ill, Grumper? Have you no heart at +all? Don’t be so cruel … and … stupid.” +</p> + +<p> +The General gasped…. Insults!… From a chit of a girl!… “Ill!” he +roared. “What the Devil does he want to be ill for now, here, to-day? I +never …” +</p> + +<p> +Dam struggled to his feet with heroic efforts at self-mastery, and stood +swaying, twitching, trembling in every limb, and obviously in an agony of +terror. +</p> + +<p> +“The Snake!” he said again. +</p> + +<p> +“Ha!” barked General Stukeley. “Been fighting forty +boa-constrictors, what? Just had a fearful struggle with five thousand fearful +pythons, what? There’ll be another Victoria Cross in your family soon, if +you’re not careful.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are an unjust and cruel old man,” stormed Lucille, stamping +her foot at the hitherto dread Grumper. “He is ill, I tell you! +You’ll be ill yourself someday. He had a fit. He’ll be all right in +a minute. Let him go in and lie down. It wasn’t the snake at all. There +wasn’t any snake—where he was. He is just ill. He has been working +too hard. Let him go in and lie down.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let him go to the Devil,” growled the infuriated General, and +turned to such few of the guests as had not displayed sufficient good sense and +good taste to go elsewhere and resume their interrupted games, tea, or scandal, +to remark:— +</p> + +<p> +“I really apologize most sincerely and earnestly for this ridiculous +scene. The boy should be in petticoats, apparently. I hope he won’t +encounter a mouse or a beetle to-night. Let’s all—er—come and +have a drink.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucille led her shaking and incoherent lover indoors and established him on a +sofa, had a fire lit for him as he appeared to be deathly cold, and sat holding +his clammy hand until the arrival of Dr. Jones. +</p> + +<p> +As well as his chattering teeth and white frozen lips would allow, he begged +for forgiveness, for understanding. “He wasn’t really wholly a +coward in essentials.” … +</p> + +<p> +The girl kissed the contorted face and white lips passionately. Dr. Jones +prescribed bed and “complete mental and bodily rest”. He said he +would “send something,” and in a cloud of wise words disguised the +fact that he did not in the least know what to do. It was not in his experience +that a healthy young Hercules, sound as a bell, without spot or blemish, should +behave like an anaemic, neurotic girl…. +</p> + +<p> +Dam passed the night in the unnameable, ghastly hell of agony that he knew so +well and that he wondered to survive. +</p> + +<p> +In the morning he received a note from Sir Gerald Seymour Stukeley. It was +brief and clear:—“Sandhurst is scarcely the place for a squealing +coward, still less the Army. Nor is there room for one at Monksmead. I shall +not have the pleasure of seeing you before you catch the 11.15 train; I might +say things better left unsaid. I thank God you do not bear our name though you +have some of our blood. This will be the one grain of comfort when I think that +the whole County is gibing and jeering. No—your name is no more Seymour +Stukeley than is your nature. If you will favour my Solicitors with your +address, they will furnish you with an account of your patrimony and such +balance thereof as may remain—if any. But I believe you came to England +worth about fifty pounds—which you have probably spent as pocket-money. I +beg of you to communicate with me or my household in no way whatsoever. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“G.S.S.” +</p> + +<p> +Hastily dressing, Dam fled from the house on foot, empty handed and with no +money but a five-pound note legitimately his own private property. On his +dressing-table he left the cheque given to him by his “grandfather” +for ensuing Sandhurst expenses. Hiding in the station waiting-room, he awaited +the next train to London—with thoughts of recruiting-sergeants and the +Guards. From force of habit he travelled first-class, materially lessening his +five pounds. In the carriage, which he had to himself, he sat stunned. He was +rather angry than dismayed and appalled. He was like the soldier, cut down by a +sabre-slash or struck by a bullet, who, for a second, stares dully at the red +gash or blue hole—waiting for the blood to flow and the pain to commence. +</p> + +<p> +He was numbed, emotionally dead, waiting the terrible awakening to the +realization that he had <i>lost Lucille</i>. What mattered the loss of home, +career, friends, honour—mere anti-climax to glance at it. +</p> + +<p> +Yesterday!… To-day! +</p> + +<p> +What was Lucille thinking? What would she do and say? Would she grow to hate +the coward who had dared to make love to her, dared to win her love! +</p> + +<p> +Would she continue to love him in spite of all? +</p> + +<p> +<i>I shall enjoy waiting twenty years for you</i>, she had said yesterday, and +<i>The world would be quite empty if you left it</i>. What would it be while he +remained in it a publicly disgraced coward? A coward ridiculed by the +effeminate, degenerate Haddock, who had no soul above club-ribbons, and no body +above a Piccadilly crawl! +</p> + +<p> +Could she love him in spite of all? She was great-hearted enough for anything. +Perhaps for anything but that. To her, cowardice must be the last lowest depths +of degradation. Anyhow he had done the straight thing by Grumper, in leaving +the house without any attempt to let her know, to say farewell, to ask her to +believe in him for a while. If there had been any question as to the propriety +of his trying to become engaged to her when he was the penniless +gentleman-cadet, was there any question about it when he was the disgraced +out-cast, the publicly exposed coward? +</p> + +<p> +Arrived at the London terminus he sought a recruiting-sergeant and, of course, +could not find one. +</p> + +<p> +However, Canterbury and Cavalry were indissolubly connected in his mind, and it +had occurred to him that, in the Guards, he would run more risk of coming face +to face with people whom he knew than in any other corps. He would go for the +regiment he had known and loved in India (as he had been informed) and about +which he had heard much all his life. It was due for foreign service in a year +or two, and, so far as he knew, none of its officers had ever heard of him. +Ormonde Delorme was mad about it, but could not afford its expensive mess. Dam +had himself thought how jolly it would be if Grumper “came down” +sufficiently handsomely for him to be able to join it on leaving Sandhurst. +He’d join it <i>now</i>! +</p> + +<p> +He hailed a hansom and proceeded to Charing Cross, whence he booked for the +noble and ancient city of Canterbury. +</p> + +<p> +Realizing that only one or two sovereigns would remain to him otherwise, he +travelled in a third-class carriage for the first time in his hitherto +luxurious life. Its bare discomfort and unpleasant occupants (one was a very +malodorous person indeed, and one a smoker of what smelt like old hats and +chair-stuffing in a rank clay pipe) brought home to him more clearly than +anything had done, the fact that he was a homeless, destitute person about to +sell his carcase for a shilling, and seek the last refuge of the out-of-work, +the wanted-by-the-police, the disgraced, and the runaway. +</p> + +<p> +That carriage and its occupants showed him, in a blinding flash, that his whole +position, condition, outlook, future, and life were utterly and completely +changed. +</p> + +<p> +He was Going Under. Had anybody else ever done it so quickly?… +</p> + +<p> +He went Under, and his entrance to the Underworld was through the great +main-gates of the depot of the Queen’s Own (2nd) Regiment of Heavy +Cavalry, familiarly known as the Queen’s Greys. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap08"></a>CHAPTER VIII.<br/> +TROOPERS OF THE QUEEN.</h2> + +<p class="center"> +GLIMPSES OF CERTAIN “POOR DEVILS” AND THE HELL THEY +INHABITED. +</p> + +<p> +The Queen’s Own (2nd) Regiment of Heavy Cavalry (The Queen’s Greys) +were under orders for India and the influence of great joy. That some of its +members were also under the influence of potent waters is perhaps a +platitudinous corollary. +</p> + +<p> +… “And phwat the Divvle’s begone of me ould pal Patsy Flannigan, at +all, at all?” inquired Trooper Phelim O’Shaughnessy, entering the +barrack-room of E Troop of the Queen’s Greys, lying at Shorncliffe Camp. +“Divvle a shmell of the baste can I see, and me back from furlough-leaf +for minnuts. Has the schamer done the two-shtep widout anny flure, as +Oi’ve always foretould? Is ut atin’ his vegetables by the roots he +now is in the bone-orchard, and me owing the poor bhoy foive shillin’? +Where is he?” +</p> + +<p> +“In ’orsepittle,” laconically replied Trooper Henry Hawker, +late of Whitechapel, without looking up from the jack-boot he was polishing. +</p> + +<p> +“Phwat wid?” anxiously inquired the bereaved Phelim. +</p> + +<p> +“Wot wiv’? Wiv’ callin’ ‘Threes abaht’ +after one o’ the Young Jocks,”<a href="#fn16" name="fnref16" id="fnref16"><sup>[16]</sup></a> +was the literal reply. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn16" id="fn16"></a> <a href="#fnref16">[16]</a> +A famous Hussar regiment. +</p> + +<p> +“Begob that same must be a good hand wid his fisties—or was it a +shillaleigh?” mused the Irishman. +</p> + +<p> +“’Eld the Helliot belt in Hinjer last year, they say,” +continued the Cockney. “<i>Good?</i> Not’arf. I wouldn’t go +an’ hinsult the bloke for the price of a pot. No. ’Erbert +’Awker would not. (Chuck us yore button-stick, young ’Enery Bone.) +<i>Good?</i> ’E’s a ’Oly Terror—and I don’t know +as there’s a man in the Queen’s Greys as could put ’im to +sleep—not unless it’s Matthewson,” and here Trooper Herbert +Hawker jerked his head in the direction of Trooper Damocles de Warrenne +(<i>alias</i> D. Matthewson) who, seated on his truckle-bed, was engaged in +breathing hard, and rubbing harder, upon a brass helmet from which he had +unscrewed a black horse-hair plume. +</p> + +<p> +Dam, arrayed in hob-nailed boots, turned-up overalls “authorized for +grooming,” and a “grey-back” shirt, looked indefinably a +gentleman. +</p> + +<p> +Trooper Herbert Hawker, in unlaced gymnasium shoes, “leathers,” and +a brown sweater (warranted not to show the dirt), looked quite definably what +he was, a Commercial Road ruffian; and his foreheadless face, greasy cow-lick +“quiff” (or fringe), and truculent expression, inspired more +disgust than confidence in the beholder. +</p> + +<p> +His reference to Dam as the only likely champion of the Heavy Cavalry against +the Hussar was a tribute to the tremendous thrashing he had received from +“Trooper D. Matthewson” when the same had become necessary after a +long course of unresented petty annoyance. Hawker was that very rare creature, +a boaster, who made good, a bully of great courage and determination, and a +loud talker, who was a very active doer; and the battle had been a terrible +one. +</p> + +<p> +The weary old joke of having a heavy valise pulled down on to one’s +upturned face from the shelf above, by means of a string, as one sleeps, Dam +had taken in good part. Being sent to the Rough-Riding Sergeant-Major for the +“Key of the Half Passage” by this senior recruit, he did not mind +in the least (though he could have kicked himself for his gullibility when he +learned that the “Half Passage” is not a place, but a Riding-School +manoeuvre, and escaped from the bitter tongue of the incensed +autocrat—called untimely from his tea! How the man had <i>bristled</i>. +Hair, eyebrows, moustache, buttons even—the Rough-Riding Sergeant-Major +had been rough indeed, and had done his riding rough-shod over the wretched +lad). +</p> + +<p> +Being instructed to “go and get measured for his hoof-picker” Dam +had not resented, though he had considered it something of an insult to his +intelligence that Hawker should expect to “have” him so easily as +that. He had taken in good part the arrangement of his bed in such a way that +it collapsed and brought a pannikin of water down with it, and on to it, in the +middle of a cold night. He had received with good humour, and then with silent +contempt, the names of “Gussie the Bank Clurk,” references to +“broken-dahn torfs” and “tailor’s bleedn’ +dummies,” queries as to the amount of “time” he had got for +the offence that made him a “Queen’s Hard Bargain,” and +various the other pleasantries whereby Herbert showed his distaste for people +whose accent differed from his own, and whose tastes were unaccountable. +</p> + +<p> +Dam had borne these things because he was certain he could thrash the silly +animal when the time came, and because he had a wholesome dread of the +all-too-inevitable military “crimes” (one of which fighting +is—as subversive of good order and military discipline). +</p> + +<p> +It had come, however, and for Dam this exotic of the Ratcliffe Highway had +thereafter developed a vast admiration and an embarrassing affection. It was a +most difficult matter to avoid his companionship when “walking-out” +and also to avoid hurting his feelings. +</p> + +<p> +It was a humiliating and chastening experience to the man, who had supported +himself by boxing in booths at fairs and show-grounds, to find this +“bloomin’ dook of a ‘Percy,’” this +“lah-de-dar ‘Reggie’” who looked askance at good +bread-and-dripping, this finnicky “Clarence” without a +“bloody” to his conversation, this “blasted, up-the-pole<a href="#fn17" name="fnref17" id="fnref17"><sup>[17]</sup></a> +‘Cecil’”—a man with a quicker guard, a harder punch, a +smarter ring-craft, a better wind, and a tougher appetite for +“gruel” than himself. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn17" id="fn17"></a> <a href="#fnref17">[17]</a> +Teetotal. +</p> + +<p> +The occasion was furnished by a sad little experience. +</p> + +<p> +Poor drunken Trooper Bear (once the Honourable MacMahon FitzUrse), kindliest, +weakest, gentlest of gentlemen, had lurched one bitter soaking night (or early +morning) into the barrack-room, singing in a beautiful tenor:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Menez-moi” dit la belle,<br/> +“A la rive fidèle<br/> +Où l’on aime toujours.”<br/> +…—“Cette rive ma chère<br/> +On ne la connait guère<br/> +Au pays des amours.”…. +</p> + +<p> +Trooper Herbert Hawker had no appreciation for Theophile Gautier—or +perhaps none for being awakened from his warm slumbers. +</p> + +<p> +“’Ere! stow that blarsted catawaulin’,” he roared, with +a choice selection from the Whitechapel tongue, in which he requested the +adjectived noun to be adverbially “quick about it, too”. +</p> + +<p> +With a beatific smile upon his weak handsome face, Trooper Bear staggered +toward the speaker, blew him a kiss, and, in a vain endeavour to seat himself +upon the cot, collapsed upon the ground. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re a….” (adverbially adjectived noun) shouted Hawker. +“You ain’t a man, you’re a….” “ +σκιᾶς ὄναρ +ἄνθρωπος” … “Man is the +dream of a shadow,” suggested Bear dreamily with a hiccup…. +</p> + +<p> +“D’yer know where you <i>are</i>, you …” roared Hawker. +</p> + +<p> +“Dear Heart, I am in hell,” replied the recumbent one, “but +by the Mercy of God I’m splendidly drunk. Yes, hell. ‘<i>Lasciate +ogni speranza,</i>’ sweet Amaryllis. I am Morag of the Misty Way. +<i>Mos’</i> misty. Milky Way. Yesh. Milk Punchy Way.” … +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll give you all the <i>punch</i> you’ll want, in abaht two +ticks if you don’t chuck it—you blarsted edjucated flea,” +warned Hawker, half rising. +</p> + +<p> +Dam got up and pulled on his cloak preparatory to helping the o’er-taken +one to bed, as a well-aimed ammunition boot took the latter nearly on the ear. +</p> + +<p> +Struggling to his feet with the announcement that he was “the +King’s fair daughter, weighed in the balance and found—devilish +heavy and very drunk,” the unhappy youth lurched and fell upon the +outraged Hawker—who struck him a cruel blow in the face. +</p> + +<p> +At the sound of the blow and heavy fall, Dam turned, saw the blood—and +went Stukeley-mad. Springing like a tiger upon Hawker he dragged him from his +cot and knocked him across it. In less than a minute he had twice sent him to +the boards, and it took half-a-dozen men on either side to separate the +combatants and get them to postpone the finish till the morning. That night Dam +dreamed his dream and, on the morrow, behind the Riding-School, and in fifteen +rounds, became, by common consent, champion bruiser of the Queen’s +Greys—by no ambition of his own. +</p> + +<p> +And so—as has been said—Trooper Henry Hawker ungrudgingly referred +Trooper Phelim O’Shaughnessy to him in the matter of reducing the pride +of the Young Jock who had dared to “desthroy” a dragoon. +</p> + +<p> +Trooper Phelim O’Shaughnessy—in perfect-fitting glove-tight scarlet +stable-jacket (that never went near a stable, being in fact the smart +shell-jacket, shaped like an Eton coat, sacred to “walking-out” +purposes), dark blue overalls with broad white stripe, strapped over +half-wellington boots adorned with glittering swan-neck spurs, a pill-box cap +with white band and button, perched jauntily on three hairs—also looked +what he was, the ideal heavy-cavalry man, the swaggering, swashbuckling +trooper, <i>beau sabreur</i>, good all round and all through…. +</p> + +<p> +The room in which these worthies and various others (varying also in dress, +from shirt and shorts to full review-order for Guard) had their being, +expressed the top note and last cry—or the lowest note and deepest +groan—of bleak, stark utilitarianism. Nowhere was there hint or sign of +grace and ornament. Bare deal-plank floor, bare white-washed walls, plank and +iron truckle beds, rough plank and iron trestle tables, rough plank and iron +benches, rough plank and iron boxes clamped to bedsteads, all bore the same +uniform impression of useful ugliness, ugly utility. The apologist in search of +a solitary encomium might have called it clean—save around the hideous +closed stove where muddy boots, coal-dust, pipe-dottels, and the bitter-end of +five-a-penny “gaspers”<a href="#fn18" name="fnref18" id="fnref18"><sup>[18]</sup></a> rebuked his rashness. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn18" id="fn18"></a> <a href="#fnref18">[18]</a> +Cigarettes. +</p> + +<p> +A less inviting, less inspiring, less home-like room for human habitation could +scarce be found outside a jail. Perhaps this was the less inappropriate in that +a jail it was, to a small party of its occupants—born and bred to better +things. +</p> + +<p> +The eye was grateful even for the note of cheer supplied by the red cylindrical +valise on the shelf above each cot, and by the occasional scarlet tunic and +stable-jacket. But for these it had been, to the educated eye, an even more +grim, grey, depressing, beauty-and-joy-forsaken place than it was…. +</p> + +<p> +Dam (<i>alias</i> Trooper D. Matthewson) placed the gleaming helmet upon his +callous straw-stuffed pillow, carefully rubbed the place where his hand had +last touched it, and then took from a peg his scarlet tunic with its white +collar, shoulder-straps and facings. Having satisfied himself that to burnish +further its glittering buttons would be to gild refined gold, he commenced a +vigorous brushing—for it was now his high ambition to “get the +stick”—in other words to be dismissed from guard-duty as reward for +being the best-turned-out man on parade…. As he reached up to his shelf for his +gauntlets and pipe-clay box, Trooper Phelim O’Shaughnessy swaggered over +with much jingle of spur and playfully smote him, netherly, with his cutting +whip. +</p> + +<p> +“What-ho, me bhoy,” he roared, “and how’s me natty +Matty—the natest foightin’ man in E Troop, which is sayin’ in +all the Dhraghoons, which is sayin’ in all the Arrmy! How’s +Matty?” +</p> + +<p> +“Extant,” replied Dam. “How’s Shocky, the biggest liar +in the same?” +</p> + +<p> +As he extended his hand it was noticeable that it was much smaller than the +hand of the smaller man to whom it was offered. “Ye’ll have to plug +and desthroy the schamin’ divvle that strook poor Patsy Flannigan, +Matty,” said the Irishman. “Ye must bate the sowl out of the baste +before we go to furrin’ parts. Loife is uncertain an’ ye moight +never come back to do ut, which the Holy Saints forbid—an’ the +Hussars troiumphin’ upon our prosprit coorpses. For the hanner an’ +glory av all Dhraghoons, of the Ould Seconds, and of me pore bed-ridden frind, +Patsy Flannigan, ye must go an’ plug the wicked scutt, Matty +darlint.” +</p> + +<p> +“It was Flannigan’s fault,” replied Dam, daubing pipe-clay on +the huge cuff of a gauntlet which he had drawn on to a weird-looking wooden +hand, sacred to the purposes of glove-drying. “He got beastly drunk and +insulted a better man than himself by insulting his Corps—or trying to. +He called a silly lie after a total stranger and got what he deserved. He +shouldn’t seek sorrow if he doesn’t want to find it, and he +shouldn’t drink liquor he can’t carry.” +</p> + +<p> +“And the Young Jock beat Patsy when drunk, did he?” murmured +O’Shaughnessy, in tones of awed wonder. “I riverince the man, for +there’s few can beat him sober. Knocked Patsy into hospital an’ him +foightin’ dhrunk! Faith, he must be another Oirish gintleman himself, +indade.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s a Scotchman and was middle-weight champion of India last +year,” rejoined Dam, and moistened his block of pipe-clay again in the +most obvious, if least genteel, way. +</p> + +<p> +“Annyhow he’s a mere Hussar and must be rimonsthrated wid for +darin’ to assault and batther a Dhraghoon—an’ him dhrunk, +poor bhoy. Say the wurrud, Matty. We’ll lay for the spalpeen, the whole +of E Troop, at the <i>Ring o’ Bells</i>, an’ whin he shwaggers in +like he was a Dhraghoon an’ a sodger, ye’ll up an’ say +<i>‘Threes about’</i> an’ act accordin’ subsequint, +an’ learn the baste not to desthroy an’ insult his betthers of the +Ould Second. Thread on the tail of his coat, Matty….” +</p> + +<p> +“If I had anything to do with it at all I’d tread on +Flannigan’s coat, and you can tell him so, for disgracing the Corps…. +Take off your jacket and help with my boots, Shocky. I’m for +Guard.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oi’d clane the boots of no man that ud demane himself to ax +it,” was the haughty reply of the disappointed warrior. “Not for +less than a quart at laste,” he amended. +</p> + +<p> +“A quart it is,” answered Dam, and O’Shaughnessy speedily +divested himself of his stable-jacket, incidentally revealing the fact that he +had pawned his shirt. +</p> + +<p> +“You have got your teeth ready, then?” observed Dam, noting the +underlying bareness—and thereby alluded to O’Shaughnessy’s +habit of pawning his false teeth after medical inspection and redeeming them in +time for the next, at the cost of his underclothing—itself redeemed in +turn by means of the teeth. Having been compelled to provide himself with a +“plate” he invariably removed the detested contrivance and placed +it beside him when sitting down to meals (on those rare occasions when he and +not his “uncle” was the arbiter of its destinies)…. +</p> + +<p> +A young and important Lance-Corporal, a shocking tyrant and bully, strode into +the room, his sword clanking. O’Shaughnessy arose and respectfully drew +him aside, offering him a “gasper”. They were joined by a lean +hawk-faced individual answering to the name of Fish, who said he had been in +the American navy until buried alive at sea for smiling within sight of the +quarter-deck. +</p> + +<p> +“Yep,” he was heard to say to some statement of +O’Shaughnessy’s. “We’ll hatch a five-bunch frame-up to +put the eternal kibosh on the tuberous spotty—souled skunklet. Some. +We’ll make him wise to whether a tippy, chew-the-mop, bandy-legged, +moke-monkey can come square-pushing, and with his legs out, down <i>this</i> +side-walk, before we ante out. Some.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, Yus,” agreed the Lance-Corporal. “Damned if I +wouldn’t chawnce me arm<a href="#fn19" name="fnref19" id="fnref19"><sup>[19]</sup></a> +and go fer ’im meself before we leave—on’y I’m +expectin’ furver permotion afore long. But fer that I’d take it up +meself”—and he glanced at Dam. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn19" id="fn19"></a> <a href="#fnref19">[19]</a> +When a non-commissioned officer does anything to risk losing his stripes he +says he “chances his arm”. +</p> + +<p> +“Ketch the little swine at it,” remarked Trooper Herbert Hawker, as +loudly as he dared, to his “towny,” Trooper Henry Bone. +“’Chawnst ’is arm!’ It’s ’is bloomin’ +life ’e’d chawnce if that Young Jock got settin’ abaht +’im. Not ’arf!” and the exotic of the Ratcliffe Highway added +most luridly expressed improprieties anent the origins of the Lance-Corporal, +his erstwhile enemy and, now, superior officer, in addition. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s enough,” said Dam shortly. +</p> + +<p> +“Yep. Quit those low-browed sounds, guttermut, or I’ll get mad all +over,” agreed Fish, whose marvellous vocabulary included no foul words. +There was no need for them. +</p> + +<p> +“Hi halso was abaht ter request you not to talk beastial, Mr. +’Erbert ’Awker,” chimed in Trooper “Henery” Bone, +anxious to be on the side of the saints. “Oo’d taike you to be the +Missin’ Hair of a noble ’ouse when you do +such—‘Missin’ Hair!’ <i>Missin’ Link</i> more +like,” he added with spurious indignation. +</p> + +<p> +The allusion was to the oft-expressed belief of Trooper Herbert Hawker, a +belief that became a certainty and subject for bloodshed and battle after the +third quart or so, that there was a mystery about his birth. +</p> + +<p> +There was, according to his reputed papa…. +</p> + +<p> +The plotters plotted, and Dam completed the burnishing of his arms, spurs, +buckles, and other glittering metal impedimenta (the quantity of which earned +the Corps its barrack-room soubriquet of “the Polish Its”), +finished the flicking of spots of pipe-clay from his uniform, and dressed for +Guard. +</p> + +<p> +Being ready some time before he had to parade, he sat musing on his +truckle-bed. +</p> + +<p> +What a life! What associates (outside the tiny band of gentlemen-rankers). What +cruel awful <i>publicity</i> of existence—that was the worst of all. Oh, +for a private room and a private coat, and a meal in solitude! Some place of +one’s own, where one could express one’s own individuality in the +choice and arrangement of property, and impress it upon one’s +environment. +</p> + +<p> +One could not even think in private here. +</p> + +<p> +And he was called a <i>private</i> soldier! A grim joke indeed, when the crying +need of one’s soul was a little privacy. +</p> + +<p> +A <i>private</i> soldier! +</p> + +<p> +Well—and what of the theory of Compensations, that all men get the same +sum-total of good and bad, that position is really immaterial to happiness? +What of the theory that more honour means also more responsibility and worry, +that more pay also means more expenses and a more difficult position, that more +seniority also means less youth and joy—that Fate only robs Peter to pay +Paul, and, when bestowing a blessing with one hand, invariably bestows a curse +with the other? +</p> + +<p> +Too thin. +</p> + +<p> +Excellent philosophy for the butterfly upon the road, preaching contentment to +the toad, who, beneath the harrow, knows exactly where each tooth-point goes. +Let the butterfly come and try it. +</p> + +<p> +<i>What</i> a life! +</p> + +<p> +Not so bad at first, perhaps, for a stout-hearted, hefty sportsman, during +recruit days when everything is novel, there is something to learn, time is +fully occupied, and one is too busy to think, too busy evading strange +pit-falls, and the just or (more often) unjust wrath of the Room Corporal, the +Squadron Orderly Sergeant, the Rough-Riding Corporal, the Squadron +Sergeant-Major, the Rough-Riding Sergeant-Major, the Regimental Sergeant-Major, +the Riding-Master. +</p> + +<p> +But when, to the passed “dismissed soldier,” everything is familiar +and easy, weary, flat, stale and unprofitable? +</p> + +<p> +The (to one gently nurtured) ghastly food, companions, environment, +monotony—the ghastly ambitions! +</p> + +<p> +Fancy an educated gentleman’s ambitions and horizon narrowed to a +good-conduct “ring,” a stripe in the far future (and to be a +Lance-Corporal with far more duty and no more pay, in the hope of becoming a +Corporal—that comfortable rank with the same duty and much more pay, and +little of the costly gold-lace to mount, and heavy expenses to assume that, +while putting the gilt on, takes it off, the position of Sergeant); and, for +the present, to “keep off the peg,” not to be “for it,” +to “get the stick,” for smartest turn-out, to avoid the +Red-Caps,<a href="#fn20" name="fnref20" id="fnref20"><sup>[20]</sup></a> to +achieve an early place in the scrimmage at the corn-bin and to get the correct +amount of two-hundred pounds in the corn-sack when drawing forage and corn; to +placate Troop Sergeants, the Troop Sergeant-Major and Squadron Sergeant-Major; +to have a suit of mufti at some safe place outside and to escape from the +branding searing scarlet occasionally; possibly even the terrible ambition to +become an Officer’s servant so as to have a suit of mufti as a right, and +a chance of becoming Mess-Sergeant and then Quarter-Master, and perhaps of +getting an Honorary Commission without doing a single parade or guard after +leaving the troop!… +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn20" id="fn20"></a> <a href="#fnref20">[20]</a> +Permanent Military Police. +</p> + +<p> +What a life for a man of breeding and refinement!… Fancy having to remember the +sacred and immeasurable superiority of a foul-mouthed Lance-Corporal who might +well have been your own stable-boy, a being who can show you a deeper depth of +hell in Hell, wreak his dislike of you in unfair “fatigues,” and +keep you at the detested job of coal-drawing on Wednesdays; who can achieve a +“canter past the beak”<a href="#fn21" name="fnref21" id="fnref21"><sup>[21]</sup></a> +for you on a trumped-up charge and land you in the “digger,”<a href="#fn22" name="fnref22" id="fnref22"><sup>[22]</sup></a> +who can bring it home to you in a thousand ways that you are indeed the toad +beneath the harrow. Fancy having to remember, night and day, that a Sergeant, +who can perhaps just spell and cypher, is a monarch to be approached in +respectful spirit; that the Regimental Sergeant-Major, perhaps coarse, rough, +and ignorant, is an emperor to be approached with fear and trembling; that a +Subaltern, perhaps at school with you, is a god not to be approached at all. +Fancy looking forward to being “branded with a blasted worsted +spur,” and, as a Rough-Riding Corporal, receiving a forfeit tip from each +young officer who knocks off his cap with his lance in Riding-School…. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn21" id="fn21"></a> <a href="#fnref21">[21]</a> +Summons before the Commanding Officer in Orderly Room. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn22" id="fn22"></a> <a href="#fnref22">[22]</a> +Guard-room. +</p> + +<p> +Well! One takes the rough with the smooth—but perceives with great +clearness that the (very) rough predominates, and that one does not recommend a +gentleman to enlist, save when a Distinguished Relative with Influence has an +early Commission ready in his pocket for him. +</p> + +<p> +Lacking the Relative, the gently-nurtured man, whether he win to a Commission +eventually or not, can only do one thing more rash than enlist in the British +Army, and that is enlist in the French Foreign Legion. +</p> + +<p> +Discipline for soul and body? The finest thing in all the world—in +reason. But the discipline of the tram-horse, of the blinded bullock at the +wheel, of the well-camel, of the galley-slave—meticulous, puerile, +unending, unchanging, impossible …? Necessary perhaps, once upon a +time—but hard on the man of brains, sensibility, heart, and +individuality. +</p> + +<p> +Soul and body? Deadly for the soul—and fairly dangerous for the body in +the Cavalry Regiment whose riding-master prefers the abominable stripped-saddle +training to the bare-backed…. +</p> + +<p> +Dam yawned and looked at the tin clock on the shelf above the cot of the Room +Corporal. Half an hour yet…. Did time drag more heavily anywhere in the world?… +</p> + +<p> +His mind roamed back over his brief, age-long life in the Queen’s Greys +and passed it in review. +</p> + +<p> +The interview with the Doctor, the Regimental Sergeant-Major, the Adjutant, the +Colonel—the Oath on the Bible before that dread Superman…. How well he +remembered his brief exordium—“Obey your Superiors blindly; serve +your Queen, Country, and Regiment to the best of your ability; keep clean, +don’t drink, fear God, and—most important of all—take care of +your horse. <i>Take care of your horse</i>, d’ye hear?” +</p> + +<p> +Also the drawled remark of the Adjutant afterwards, +“Ah—what—ah—University?”—his own prompt +reply of “Whitechapel, sir,” and the Adjutant’s approving +“Exactly…. You’ll get on here by good conduct, good riding, and +good drill—not by—ah—good accent or anything else.” +</p> + +<p> +How well he remembered the strange depolarized feeling consequent upon +realizing that his whole worldly possessions consisted in three +“grey-back” shirts, two pairs of cotton pants, two pairs of woollen +socks, a towel; a hold-all containing razor, shaving-brush, spoon, knife and +fork, and a button-stick; a cylindrical valise with hair-brush, clothes-brush, +brass-brush, and boot-brushes; a whip, burnisher, and dandy-brush (all three, +for some reason, to be paid for as part of a “free” kit); +jack-boots and jack-spurs, wellington-boots and swan-neck box-spurs, ammunition +boots; a tin of blacking and another of plate powder; blue, white-striped +riding-breeches, blue, white-striped overalls, drill-suit of blue serge, +scarlet tunic, scarlet stable-jacket, scarlet drill “frock,” a pair +of trousers of lamentable cut “authorized for grooming,” brass +helmet with black horse-hair plume, blue pill-box cap with white stripe and +button, gauntlets and gloves, sword-belt and pouch-belt, a carbine and a sword. +Also of a daily income of one loaf, butter, tea, and a pound of meat (often +uneatable), and the sum of one shilling and twopence subject to a deduction of +threepence a day “mess-fund,” fourpence a month for delft, and +divers others for library, washing, hair-cutting, barrack-damages, etc. +</p> + +<p> +Yes, it had given one a strange feeling of nakedness, and yet of a freedom from +the tyranny of things, to find oneself so meagrely and yet so sufficiently +endowed. +</p> + +<p> +Then, the strange, lost, homeless feeling that Home is nothing but a cot and a +box in a big bare barrack-room, that the whole of God’s wide Universe +contains no private and enclosed spot that is one’s own peculiar place +wherein to be alone—at first a truly terrible feeling. +</p> + +<p> +How one envied the Rough-Riding Sergeant-Major his Staff Quarters—without +going so far as to envy the great Riding-Master his real separate and detached +house! +</p> + +<p> +No privacy—and a scarlet coat that encarnadined the world and made its +wearer feel, as he so often thought, like a live coal glowing bright in Hell. +</p> + +<p> +Surely the greatest of all an officer’s privileges was his right of +mufti, his daily escape from the burning cloth. +</p> + +<p> +“Why does not the British officer wear his uniform always?” writes +the perennial gratuitous ass to the Press, periodically in the Silly Season…. +Dam could tell him. +</p> + +<p> +Memories …! +</p> + +<p> +Being jerked violently from uneasy slumber and broken, vivid dreams at 5 a.m., +by the thunderous banging of the Troop Sergeant’s whip on the table, and +his raucous roar of “Tumble out, you lazy swine, before you get +sunstroke! Rise and shine! Rise and shine, you tripe-hounds!” … Broken +dreams on a smelly, straw-stuffed pillow and lumpy straw-stuffed pallet, dreams +of “<i>Circle and cha-a-a-a-a-a-a-nge” “On the Fore-hand, +Right About” “Right Pass, Shoulder Out” +“Serpentine” “Order Lance” “Trail Lance” +“Right Front Thrust”</i> (for the front rank of the Queen’s +Greys carry lances); dreams of riding wild mad horses to unfathomable +precipices and at unsurmountable barriers…. +</p> + +<p> +Memories …! +</p> + +<p> +His first experience of “mucking out” stables at five-thirty on a +chilly morning—doing horrible work, horribly clad, feeling horribly sick. +Wheeling away intentionally and maliciously over-piled barrows to the +muck-pits, upsetting them, and being cursed. +</p> + +<p> +Being set to water a notoriously wild and vicious horse, and being pulled about +like a little dog at the end of the chain, burning into frozen fingers. +</p> + +<p> +Not much of the glamour and glow and glory left! +</p> + +<p> +Better were the interesting and amusing experiences of the Riding-School where +his trained and perfected hands and seat gave him a tremendous advantage, an +early dismissal, and some amelioration of the roughness of one of the very +roughest experiences in a very rough life. +</p> + +<p> +Even he, though, knew what it was to have serge breeches sticking to abraided +bleeding knees, to grip a stripped saddle with twin suppurating sores, and to +burrow face-first in filthy tan <i>via</i> the back of a stripped-saddled +buck-jumper. How he had pitied some of the other recruits, making their first +acquaintance with the Trooper’s “long-faced chum” under the +auspices of a pitiless, bitter-tongued Rough-Riding Sergeant-Major! +<i>Rough!</i> What a character the fellow was! Never an oath, never a foul +word, but what a vocabulary and gift of invective, sarcasm and cruel stinging +reproof! A well-educated man if not a gentleman. “Don’t dismount +again, Muggins—or is it Juggins?—without permission” when +some poor fellow comes on his head as his horse (bare of saddle and bridle) +refuses at a jump. “Get up (and SIT BACK) you—you—hen, you +pierrot, you <i>Aard Vark,</i> you after-thought, you refined entertainer, you +pimple, you performing water-rat, you mistake, you <i>byle</i>, you drip, you +worm-powder…. What? You think your leg’s broken? +Well—<i>you’ve got another</i>, haven’t you? Get up and break +that. Keep your neck till you get a stripped saddle and no reins…. Don’t +embrace the horse like that, you pawn-shop, I can hear it blushing…. Send for +the key and get inside it…. Keep those fine feet forward. Keep them +<i>forward</i> (and SIT BACK), Juggins or Muggins, or else take them into the +Infantry—what they were meant for by the look of them. Now +then—over you go without falling if I have to keep you here all night…. +Look at <i>that</i>” (as the poor fellow is thrown across the jump by the +cunning brute that knows its rider has neither whip, spurs, saddle nor reins). +“What? The <i>horse</i> refuse? One of <i>my</i> horses <i>refuse? If the +man’ll jump, the horse’ll jump.</i> (All of you repeat that after +me and don’t forget it.) No. It’s the <i>man</i> refuses, not the +poor horse. Don’t you know the ancient proverb ‘Faint heart +ne’er took fair jump’….? What’s the good of coming here if +your heart’s the size of your eye-ball instead of being the size of your +fist? <i>Refuse?</i> Put him over it, man. <i>Put</i> him over—SIT BACK +and lift him, and <i>put</i> him over. I’ll give you a thousand pounds if +he refuses <i>me</i>….” +</p> + +<p> +Then the day when poor bullied, baited, nervous Muggins had reached his limit +and come to the end of his tether—or thought he had. Bumped, banged, +bucketed, thrown, sore from head to foot, raw-kneed, laughed at, lashed by the +Rough-Riding Sergeant-Major’s cruel tongue, blind and sick with dust and +pain and rage, he had at last turned his horse inward from his place in the +ride to the centre of the School, and dismounted. +</p> + +<p> +How quaintly the tyrant’s jaw had dropped in sheer astonishment, and how +his face had purpled with rage when he realized that his eyes had not deceived +him and that the worm had literally turned—without orders. +</p> + +<p> +Indian, African, and Egyptian service, disappointment, and a bad wife had left +Rough-Riding Sergeant-Major Blount with a dangerous temper. +</p> + +<p> +Poor silly Muggins. He had been Juggins indeed on that occasion, and, as the +“ride” halted of its own accord in awed amazement, Dam had longed +to tell him so and beg him to return to his place ere worse befell…. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve ’ad enough, you bull-’eaded brute,” shouted +poor Muggins, leaving his horse and advancing menacingly upon his +(incalculably) superior officer, “an’ fer two damns I’d break +yer b—— jaw, I would. You …” +</p> + +<p> +Even as the Rough-Riding Corporal and two other men were dragging the +struggling, raving recruit to the door, <i>en route</i> for the Guard-room, +entered the great remote, dread Riding-Master himself. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s this?” inquired Hon. Captain Style, Riding-Master of +the Queen’s Greys, strict, kind-hearted martinet. +</p> + +<p> +Salute, and explanations from the Rough-Riding Sergeant-Major. +</p> + +<p> +Torrent of accusation and incoherent complaint and threat from the baited +Muggins. +</p> + +<p> +“Mount that horse,” says the Riding-Master. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll go to Clink first,” gasps Muggins. “I’ll go +to ’Ell first.” +</p> + +<p> +“No. <i>Afterwards,</i>” replies the Riding-Master and sends the +Rough-Riding Corporal for the backboard—dread instrument of equestrian +persuasion. +</p> + +<p> +Muggins is forcibly mounted, put in the lunging ring and sent round and round +till he throws himself off at full gallop and lies crying and sobbing like a +child—utterly broken. +</p> + +<p> +Riding-Master smiles, allows Muggins to grow calmer, accepts his apologies and +promises, shows him he has had his Hell <i>after</i>, as promised, and that it +is a better punishment than one that leaves him with a serious +“crime” entry on his Defaulter’s Sheet for life…. That vile +and damning sheet that records the youthful peccadilloes and keeps it a +life-long punishment after its own severe punishment…. To the Rough-Riding +Sergeant-Major he quietly remarks: “No good non-com <i>makes</i> crimes … +and don’t forget that the day of riding-school brutality is passing. You +can carry a man further than you can kick him.” +</p> + +<p> +And the interrupted lesson continues. +</p> + +<p> +“Sit <i>back</i> and you can’t come off. Nobody falls off +backwards.” … +</p> + +<p> +Poor “Old Sit-Back”! (as he was called from his constant +cry)—after giving that order and guarantee daily for countless +days—was killed in the riding-school by coming off backwards from the +stripped saddle of a rearing horse—(which promptly fell upon him and +crushed his chest)—that had never reared before and would not have reared +then, it was said, but for the mysterious introduction, under its saddle, of a +remarkably “foreign” body. +</p> + +<p> +Memories …! +</p> + +<p> +How certain old “Sit-Back” had been that Dam was a worthless +“back-to-the-Army-again” when he found him a finished horseman, an +extraordinarily expert swordsman, and a master of the lance. +</p> + +<p> +“You aren’t old enough for a ‘time-expired,’” he +mused, “nor for a cashiered officer. One of the professional +‘enlist-desert-and-sell-me-kit,’ I suppose. Anyhow you’ll do +time for one of the three if <i>I</i> don’t approve of ye…. You’ve +been in the Cavalry before. Lancer regiment, too. Don’t tell <i>me</i> +lies … but see to it that I’m satisfied with your conduct. +Gentlemen-rankers are better in their proper place—<i>Jail</i>.” … +</p> + +<p> +None the less it had given Dam a thrill of pride when, on being dismissed +recruit-drills and drafted from the reserve troop to a squadron, the Adjutant +had posted him to E Troop, wherein were congregated the seven other undoubted +gentlemen-rankers of the Queen’s Greys (one of whom would one day become +a peer of the realm and, meantime, followed what he called “the only +profession in the world” in discomfort for a space, the while his +Commission ripened). +</p> + +<p> +To this small band of “rankers” the accession of the finest boxer, +swordsman, and horseman in the corps, was invaluable, and helped them notably +in their endeavour to show that there are exceptions to all rules, and that a +gentleman <i>can</i> make a first-class trooper. At least so +“Peerson” had said, and Dam had been made almost happy for a day. +</p> + +<p> +Memories …! +</p> + +<p> +His first walk abroad from barracks, clad in the “walking-out” +finery of shell-jacket and overalls, with the jingle of spurs and effort at the +true Cavalry swagger, or rather the first attempt at a walk abroad, for the +expedition had ended disastrously ere well begun. Unable to shake off his +admirer, Trooper Herbert Hawker, Dam had just passed the Main Guard and main +gates in the company of Herbert, and the two recruits had encountered the +Adjutant and saluted with the utmost smartness and respect…. +</p> + +<p> +“What the Purple Hell’s that thing?” had drawled the Adjutant +thereupon—pointing his whip at Trooper Henry Hawker, whose trap-like +mouth incontinent fell open with astonishment. “It’s got up in an +imitation of the uniform of the Queen’s Greys, I do believe!… It’s +not a rag doll either…. It’s a God-forsaken undertaker’s mute in a +red and black shroud with a cake-tin at the back of its turnip head and a pair +of chemises on its ugly hands…. Sergeant of the Guard!… Here!” +</p> + +<p> +“Sir?” and a salute of incredible precision from the Sergeant of +the Guard. +</p> + +<p> +“What the name of the Devil’s old Aunt is <i>this</i> thing? What +are you on Guard for? To write hymns and scare crows—or to allow decayed +charwomen to stroll out of barracks in a dem parody of your uniform? Look at +her! Could turn round in the jacket without taking it off. Room for both legs +in one of the overalls. Cap on his beastly neck. Gloves like a pair of … <i>Get +inside you</i>!… Take the thing in with a pair of tongs and bury it where it +won’t contaminate the dung-pits. Burn it! Shoot it! Drown it! D’ye +hear?… And then I’ll put you under arrest for letting it pass….” +</p> + +<p> +It had been a wondrously deflated and chapfallen Herbert that had slunk back to +the room of the reserve troop, and perhaps his reputation as a mighty bruiser +had never stood him in so good stead as when it transpired that an Order had +been promulgated that no recruit should leave barracks during the first three +months of his service, and that the names of all such embryos should be posted +in the Main Guard for the information of the Sergeant…. +</p> + +<p> +Memories …! +</p> + +<p> +His first march behind the Band to Church…. +</p> + +<p> +The first Review and March Past…. +</p> + +<p> +His first introduction to bread-and-lard…. +</p> + +<p> +His wicked carelessness in forgetting—or attempting to +disregard—the law of the drinking-troughs. “So long as one horse +has his head down no horse is to go.” There had been over a score +drinking and he had moved off while one dipsomaniac was having a last suck. +</p> + +<p> +His criminal carelessness in not removing his sword and leaving it in the +Guard-room, when going on sentry after guard-mounting—“getting the +good Sergeant into trouble, too, and making it appear that <i>he</i> had been +equally criminally careless “. +</p> + +<p> +The desperate quarrel between Hawker and Bone as to whether the 10th Hussars +were called the “Shiny Tenth” because of their general material and +spiritual brilliance, or the “Chainy Tenth” because their Officers +wore pouch-belts of gold chain-mail…. The similar one between Buttle and Smith +as to the reason of a brother regiment being known as “The Virgin +Mary’s Body-guard,” and their reluctant acceptance of Dam’s +dictum that they were both wrong, it having been earned by them in the service +of a certain Maria Theresa, a lady unknown to Messrs. Buttle and Smith…. Dam +had found himself developing into a positive bully in his determination to +prevent senseless quarrelling, senseless misconduct, senseless humourless +foulness, senseless humourless blasphemy, and all that unnecessary, avoidable +ugliness that so richly augmented the unavoidable…. +</p> + +<p> +Memories …! +</p> + +<p> +Sitting throughout compulsory church, cursing and mutinous of heart, because +after spending several hours of the Day of Rest in burnishing and pipe-claying, +blacking and shining (“Sunday spit an’ polish”), he was under +orders for sharp punishment—because at the last moment his tunic had been +fouled by a passing pigeon! When would the Authorities realize that soldiers +are still men, still Englishmen (even if they have, by becoming soldiers, lost +their birthright of appeal to the Law of the Land, though not their amenability +to its authority), and cease to make the Blessed Sabbath a curse, the worst day +of the week, and to herd angry, resentful soldiers into church to blaspheme +with politely pious faces? Oh, British, British, Pharisees and +Humbugs—make Sunday a curse, and drive the soldier into church to do his +cursing—make it the chief day of dress “crimes” and +punishments, as well as the busiest day, and force the soldier into church to +Return Thanks…. +</p> + +<p> +The only man in the world flung into church as though into jail for punishment! +Shout it in the Soldier’s ear, “<i>You are not a Man, you are a +Slave</i>,” on Sundays also, on Sundays louder than usual…. And when he +has spent his Sunday morning in extra hard labour, in suffering the indignity +of being compulsorily marched to church, and very frequently of having been +punished because it is a good day on which a Sergeant may decide that he is not +sufficiently cleanly shaved or his boots of minor effulgence—then let him +sit and watch his hot Sunday dinner grow stone cold before the Colonel stalks +through the room, asks a perfunctory question, and he is free to fall to. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“O Day of Rest and Gladness,<br/> + O Day of Joy most Bright….” +</p> + +<p> +<i>Yah!</i> +</p> + +<p> +A pity some of the energy that went to making the annual 20,000 military +“criminals” out of honest, law-abiding, well-intending men could +not go to harassing the Canteen instead of the soldier (whom the Canteen +swindles right and left, and whence <i>he</i> gets salt-watery beer, and an +“ounce” of tobacco that will go straight into his pipe in one +“fill”—no need to wrap it up, thank you) and discovering how +handsome fortunes, as well as substantial “illegal gratifications,” +are made out of his much-stoppaged one-and-tuppence-a-week. +</p> + +<p> +Did the Authorities really yearn to _dis_courage enlistment and to _en_courage +desertion and “crime”? When would they realize that making +“crimes,” and manufacturing “criminals” from honest +men, is <i>not</i> discipline, is <i>not</i> making soldiers, is <i>not</i> +improving the Army—is <i>not</i> common ordinary sanity and sense? When +would they break their dull, unimaginative, hide-bound—no, +tape-bound—souls from the ideas that prevailed before (and murdered) the +Crimean Army…. The Army is not now the sweepings of the jails, and more in need +of the wild-beast tamer than of the kind firm teacher, as once it was. How long +will they continue to suppose that you make a fine fighting-man, and a +self-reliant, intelligent soldier, by treating him as a depraved child, as a +rightless slave, as a mindless automaton, and by encouraging the public (whom +he protects) to regard him as a low criminal ruffian to be classed with the +broad-arrowed convict, and to be excluded from places where any loafing rotten +lout may go…. When would a lawyer-ridden Army Council realize that there is a +trifle of significance in the fact that there are four times as many soldier +suicides as there are civilian, and that the finest advertisement for the +dwindling Army <i>is the soldier</i>. To think that sober men should, with one +hand spend vast sums in lying advertisements for the Army, and with the other +maintain a system that makes the soldier on furlough reply to the question +“Shall I enlist, mate?” with the words “Not while you got a +razor to cut yer throat”…. Ah, well, common sense would reach even the +Army some day, and the soldier be treated and disciplined as a man and a +citizen—and perhaps, when it did, and the soldier gave a better +description of his life, the other citizen, the smug knave who despises him +while he shelters behind him, will become less averse from having his own round +shoulders straightened, his back flattened and his muscles developed as he +takes his part in the first fundamental elementary duty of a +citizen—preparation for the defence of hearth and home…. Lucille! Well … +Thank God she could not see him and know his life. If <i>she</i> had any +kindness left for him she would suffer to watch him eating well-nigh uneatable +food, grooming a horse, sweeping a stable, polishing trestle-legs with +blacklead, scrubbing floors, sleeping on damp straw, carrying coals, doing +scullion-work for uneducated roughs, being brow-beaten, bullied, and cursed by +them in tight-lipped silence—not that these things troubled him +personally—the less idle leisure for thought the better, and no real man +minds physical hardship—there is no indignity in labour <i>per se</i> any +more than there is dignity…. +</p> + +<p> +“’Ere, Maffewson, you bone-idle, moonin’ waster,” +bawled the raucous voice of Lance-Corporal Prag, and Dam’s soaring spirit +fell to earth. +</p> + +<p> +The first officer to whom Trooper Matthewson gave his smart respectful salute +as he stood on sentry-duty was the Major, the Second-in-Command of the +Queen’s Greys, newly rejoined from furlough,—a belted Earl, famous +for his sporting habit of riding always and everywhere without a +saddle—who, as a merry subaltern, had been Lieutenant Lord Ochterlonie +and Adjutant of the Queen’s Greys at Bimariabad in India. There, he had, +almost daily, taken upon his knee, shoulder, saddle, or dog-cart, the chubby +son of his polo and pig-sticking exemplar, Colonel Matthew Devon de Warrenne. +</p> + +<p> +The sentry had a dim idea that he had seen the Major somewhere before. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap09"></a>CHAPTER IX.<br/> +A SNAKE AVENGES A HADDOCK AND LUCILLE BEHAVES IN AN UN-SMELLIEAN MANNER.</h2> + +<p> +Finding himself free for the afternoon, and the proud possessor of several +shillings, “Trooper Matthewson” decided to walk to Folkestone, +attend an attractively advertised concert on the pier, and then indulge in an +absolutely private meal in some small tea-room or confectioner’s shop. +</p> + +<p> +Arrayed in scarlet shell-jacket, white-striped overalls, and pill-box cap, he +started forth, carrying himself as though exceeding proud to be what he was, +and wondering whether a swim in the sea, which should end somewhere between +Shorncliffe and Dieppe (and end his troubles too), would not be a better +pastime. +</p> + +<p> +Arrived at the Folkestone pier, Dam approached the ticket office at the +entrance and tendered his shilling to the oily-curled, curly-nosed young Jew +who sat at the receipt of custom. +</p> + +<p> +“Clear out o’ this,” said Levi Solomonson. +</p> + +<p> +“I want a ticket for the concert,” said Dam, not understanding. +</p> + +<p> +“Would you like a row o’ stalls to sprawl your dirty carcase on?… +Outside, I tell yer, Tommy Atkins, this ain’t a music-’all nor yet +a pub. Soldiers <i>not</i> ‘’alf-price to cheap seats’ nor +yet full-price—nor yet for ten pound a time. Out yer go, lobster.” +</p> + +<p> +The powerful hand of Damocles de Warrenne approached the window and, for a +second, Mr. Levi Solomonson was in danger—but only for a second. Dam was +being well-broken-in, and quickly realized that he was no longer a free British +citizen entitled to the rights of such so long as he behaved as a citizen +should, but a mere horrible defender of those of his countrymen, who were +averse from the toils and possible dangers of self-defence. It was brought home +to him, then and there, with some clearness, that the noble Britons who +(perhaps) “never never will be slaves,” have a fine and high +contempt for those whose life-work is to save them from that distressing +position; that the noble Briton, while stoutly (and truly Britishly) refusing +to hear of universal service and the doing by each man of his first duty to the +State, is informed with a bitter loathing of those who, for wretched hire and +under wretched conditions, perform those duties for him. Dam did not mind, +though he did not enjoy, doing housemaid’s work in the barrack-room, +scrubbing floors, blackleading iron table-legs and grates, sweeping, dusting, +and certain other more unpleasant menial tasks; he did not mind, though he did +not like, “mucking-out” stables and scavenging; he could take at +their proper value the insults of ignorant boors set in authority over him; he +could stand, if not enjoy, the hardships of the soldier’s life—but +he did <i>not</i> see why his doing his duty in that particular sphere—an +arduous, difficult, and frequently dangerous sphere—should earn him the +united insult of the united public! Why should an educated and cultured man, a +gentleman in point of fact, be absolutely prohibited from hearing a +“classical” concert because he wore the Queen’s uniform and +did that most important and necessary work which the noble Briton is too +slack-baked, too hypocritically genteel, too degenerate, to perform, each man +for himself? +</p> + +<p> +In a somewhat bitter frame of mind the unfortunate young man strolled along the +Leas and seated himself on a public bench, honestly wondering as he did so, +whether he were sufficiently a member of the great and glorious public to have +a right to do it while wearing the disgraceful and disgracing garb of a Trooper +of the Queen…. Members of that great and glorious public passed him by in rapid +succession. Narrow-chested youths of all classes, and all crying aloud in +slack-lipped silence for the drill-sergeant to teach them how to stand and +walk; for the gymnasium-instructor to make them, what they would never be, +<i>men</i>; for some one to give them an aim and an ideal beyond cigarettes, +socks, and giggling “gels” or “gals” or +“garls” or “gyurls” or “gurrls” according +to their social sphere. Vast-stomached middle-aged men of all classes, and all +crying aloud in fat-lipped silence of indulgence, physical sloth, physical +decay before physical prime should have been reached, of mental, moral, and +physical decadence from the great Past incredible, and who would one and all, +if asked, congratulate themselves on living in these glorious modern times of +’igh civilization and not in the dark, ignorant days of old. +</p> + +<p> +(Decidedly a bitter young man, this.) +</p> + +<p> +Place Mister Albert Pringle, Insurance Agent; Mister Peter Snagget, Grocer; +Mister Alphonso Pumper, Rate Collector; Mister Bill ’Iggins, Publican; +Mister Walter Weed, Clerk; Mister Jeremiah Ramsmouth, Local Preacher; Mr. +’Ookey Snagg, Loafer; Mister William Guppy, Potman—place them +beside Hybrias, Goat-herd; Damon, Shepherd; Phydias, Writer; Nicarchus, +Ploughman; Balbus, Bricklayer; Glaucus, Potter; Caius, Carter; Marcus, Weaver; +Aeneas, Bronze-worker; Antonius, Corn-seller; Canidius, Charioteer—and +then talk of the glorious modern times of high civilization and the dark +ignorant days of old!… +</p> + +<p> +And as he sat musing thus foolishly and pessimistically, who should loom upon +his horizon but—of all people in the world—the Haddock, the fishy, +flabby, stale, unprofitable Haddock! Most certainly Solomon in all his glory +was not arrayed like this. A beautiful confection of pearly-grey, +pearl-buttoned flannel draped his droopy form, a pearly-grey silk tie, +pearl-pinned, encircled his lofty collar, pearly-grey silk socks spanned the +divorcing gap ’twixt beautiful grey kid shoes and correctest trousers, a +pearly-grey silk handkerchief peeped knowingly from the cuff of his pearly-grey +silk shirt by his pearly-grey kid glove, and his little cane was of grey +lacquer, and of pearl handle. One could almost have sworn that a pearl-grey +smile adorned the scarce-shut mouth of the beautiful modern product of +education and civilization, to carry on the so well-devised colour-scheme to +the pearly-grey grey-ribboned soft hat. +</p> + +<p> +The Haddock’s mind wandered not in empty places, but wrestled sternly +with the problem—<i>would</i> it not have been better, after all, +perhaps, to have worn the pearly-grey spats (with the pearl buttons) instead of +relying on the pearly-grey socks alone? When one sat down and modestly +protruded an elegant foot as one crossed one’s legs and gently drew up +one’s trouser (lest a baggy knee bring black shame), one could display +both—the spat itself, <i>and</i>, above it, the sock. Of course! To the +passer-by, awe-inspired, admiring, stimulated, would then have been +administered the double shock and edification. While gratefully observing the +so-harmonizing grey spat and grey shoe he would have noted the Ossa of grey +silk sock piled upon that Pelion of ultra-fashionable foot-joy! Yes. He had +acted hastily and had erred and strayed from the Perfect Way—and a cloud, +at first no bigger than a continent or two, arose and darkened his mental sky. +</p> + +<p> +But what of the cloud that settled upon him, black as that of the night’s +Plutonian shore, a cloud much bigger than the Universe, when a beastly, awful, +ghastly, common private soldier arose from a seat—a common seat for which +you do not pay a penny and show your selectitude—arose, I say, from a +beastly common seat and SEIZED HIM BY THE ARM and remarked in horrible, +affected, mocking tones:— +</p> + +<p> +“And how’s the charming little Haddock, the fourpenny, common +breakfast Haddock?” +</p> + +<p> +Yes, in full sight of the Leas of Folkestone, and the nobility, gentry, +shopmen, nurse-girls, suburban yachtsmen, nuts, noisettes, bath-chairmen and +all the world of rank and fashion, a common soldier took the pearly-grey arm of +<i>the</i> Haddon Berners as he took the air and walked abroad to give the +public a treat. And proved to be his shameful, shameless, disgraced, +disgraceful, cowardly relative, Damocles de Warrenne! +</p> + +<p> +The Haddock reeled, but did not fall. +</p> + +<p> +On catching sight of the beautiful young man, Dam’s first impulse was to +spring up and flee, his second to complete the work of Mr. Levi Solomonson of +the pier concert and see for himself, once again, how he was regarded by the +eyes of all right-minded and respectable members of society, including those of +a kinsman with whom he had grown up. +</p> + +<p> +Yes, in his bitterness of soul, and foolish youthful revolt against Fate, he +was attracted by the idea of claiming acquaintance with the superb Haddock in +his triumphant progress, take him by the arm, and solemnly march him the whole +length of the Leas! He would, by Jove! <i>He did</i>. +</p> + +<p> +Confronting the resplendent languid loafer, he silkily observed, as he placed +his cutting-whip beneath his left arm and extended his white cotton-gloved +right hand:— +</p> + +<p> +“And how’s the charming little Haddock, the fourpenny, common +breakfast Haddock?” +</p> + +<p> +Had it been Ormonde Delorme, any friend of Monksmead days, any school or +Sandhurst acquaintance, had it been any other relative, had it been Lucille, he +would have fled for his life, he would have seen his hand paralysed ere he +would have extended it, he would have been struck dumb rather than speak, he +would have died before he would have inflicted upon them the indignity of being +seen in the company of a common soldier. But the Haddock! ’twould do the +Haddock a world of good; the Haddock who had mocked him as he fought for sanity +and life on the lawn at Monksmead—the Haddock who “made love” +to Lucille. +</p> + +<p> +The Haddock affected not to see the hand. +</p> + +<p> +“I—er—don’t—ah—know you, surely, do +I?” he managed to mumble as he backed away and turned to escape. +</p> + +<p> +“Probably not, dear Haddock,” replied the embittered desperate Dam, +“but you’re going to. We’re going for a walk together.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you—ah—dwunk, fellow? Do you suppose I walk +with—ah—<i>soldiers</i>?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t, my Fish, but you’re going to now—if I have to +carry you. And if I have to do that I’ll slap you well, when I put you +down!” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll call a policeman and give you in charge if you dare molest +me. What do you—ah—desire? Money?… If you come to my hotel this +evening—” and the hapless young man was swung round, his limp thin +arm tucked beneath a powerful and mighty one, and he was whirled along at five +miles an hour in the direction of the pier, gasping, feebly struggling, and a +sight to move the High Gods to pity. +</p> + +<p> +“To the pier, my Haddock, and then back to the turnpike gate, and if you +let a yell, or signal a policeman, I’ll twist your little neck. Fancy our +Haddock in a vulgar street row with a common soldier and in the Police Court! +Step it out, you worm!” +</p> + +<p> +Then the agonized Haddock dropped pretence. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Dam, I’m awf’ly sorry. I apologize, old chap. <i>Let +up</i>—I say—this is <i>awful</i>…. Good God, here’s Lady +Plonk, the Mayor’s wife!” +</p> + +<p> +“You shall introduce me, Lovely One—but no, we mustn’t annoy +ladies. You must <i>not</i> go trying to introduce your low +companions—nay, relations—to Lady Plonkses. Step out—and look +happy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dam—for God’s sake, let me go! I didn’t know you, old +chap. I swear I didn’t. The disgrace will kill me. I’ll give +you—” +</p> + +<p> +“Look here, wee Fish, you offer me money again and +I’ll—I’ll undress you and run away with your clothes. I will, +upon my soul.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall call to this policeman,” gasped the Haddock. +</p> + +<p> +“And appear with your low-class <i>relation</i> in Court? Not you, +Haddock. I’d swear you were my twin brother, and that you wouldn’t +pay me the four pence you borrowed of me last week.” +</p> + +<p> +And the cruel penance was inflicted to the last inch. Near the end the Haddock +groaned: “Here’s Amelia Harringport—Oh! my God,” and +Dam quickly turned his face unto the South and gazed at the fair land of +France. He remembered that General Harringport dwelt in these parts. +</p> + +<p> +At the toll-gate Dam released the perspiration-soaked wretch, who had suffered +the torments of the damned, and who seemed to have met every man and woman whom +he knew in the world as he paraded the promenade hanging lovingly to the arm of +a common soldier! He thought of suicide and shuddered at the bare idea. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’m awf’ly sorry to have to run away and leave you +now, dear Haddock. I might have taken you to all the pubs in Folkestone if +I’d had time. I might have come to your hotel and dined with you. You +<i>will</i> excuse me, won’t you? I <i>must</i> go now. I’ve got to +wash up the tea things and clean the Sergeant’s boots,” said Dam, +cruelly wringing the Haddock’s agonized soft hand, and, with a complete +and disconcerting change, added, “And if you breathe a word about having +seen me, at Monksmead, or tell Lucille, <i>I’ll seek you out, my +Haddock</i>, and—we will hold converse with thee”. Then he strode +away, cursing himself for a fool, a cad, and a deteriorated, demoralized +ruffian. Anyhow, the Haddock would not mention the appalling incident and give +him away. +</p> + +<p> +Nemesis followed him. +</p> + +<p> +Seeking a quiet shop in a back street where he could have the long-desired meal +in private, he came to a small taxidermist’s, glanced in as he passed, +and beheld the pride and joy of the taxidermist’s heart—a +magnificent and really well-mounted boa-constrictor, and fell shrieking, +struggling, and screaming in the gutter. +</p> + +<p> +That night Damocles de Warrenne, ill, incoherent, and delirious, passed in a +cell, on a charge of drunk and disorderly and disgracing the Queen’s +uniform. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Levi Solomonson had not disgraced it, of course. +</p> + +<p> +“If we were not eating this excellent bread-and-dripping and drinking +this vile tea, what would you like to be eating and drinking, +Matthewson?” asked Trooper Nemo (formerly Aubrey Roussac d’Aubigny +of Harrow and Trinity). +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, … a little real turtle,” said Dam, “just a lamina of +<i>sole frite</i>, a trifle of <i>vol an vent à la financière</i>, a breast of +partridge, a mite of <i>paté de fois gras</i>, a peach <i>à la Melba</i>, the +roe of a bloater, and a few fat grapes—” +</p> + +<p> +“’Twould do. ’Twould pass,” sighed Trooper Burke, and +added, “I would suggest a certain Moselle I used to get at the Byculla +Club in Bombay, and a wondrous fine claret that spread a ruby haze of charm +o’er my lunch at the Yacht Club of the same fair city. A ‘<i>Mouton +Rothschild</i> something,’ which was cheap at nine rupees a small bottle +on the morrow of a good day on the Mahaluxmi Racecourse.” (It was +strongly suspected that Trooper Burke had worn a star on his shoulder-strap in +those Indian days.) +</p> + +<p> +“It’s an awful shame we can’t all emerge from the depths and +run up to Town to breathe the sweet original atmosphere for just one night +before we leave old England,” put in Trooper Punch Peerson (son of a +noble lord) who would at that moment have been in the Officers’ Mess but +for a congenital weakness in spelling and a dislike of mathematics. “Pity +we can’t get ‘leaf,’ and do ourselves glorious at the +Carlton, and ‘afterwards’. We could change at my Governor’s +place into borrowed, stolen, and hired evening-kit, paint the village as +scarlet as Sin or a trooper’s jacket, and then come home, like the +Blackbird, to tea. I am going, and if I can’t get ‘leaf’ I +shall return under the bread in the rations-cart. Money’s the root of all +(successful) evil.” +</p> + +<p> +Trooper Punch Peerson was a born leader of men, a splendid horseman and +soldier, and he had the Army in his ardent, gallant blood and bones; but how +shall a man head a cavalry charge or win the love and enthusiastic obedience of +men and horses when he is weak in spelling and has a dislike of mathematics? +</p> + +<p> +However, he was determined to follow in the footsteps of his ancestors, to +serve his country in spite of her, and his Commission was certain and near. +Meanwhile he endeavoured to be a first-class trooper, had his uniform made of +officers’ materials in Bond Street by his father’s famous tailor, +and “got the stick” with ease and frequency. +</p> + +<p> +“We’re not all gilded popinjays (nor poppin’ bottles),” +observed a young giant who called himself Adam Goate, and had certainly been +one in the days when he was Eugene Featherstonthwaite. “All very well for +you to come to the surface and breathe, seeing that you’ll be out of it +soon. You’re having nothing but a valuable experience and a hardening. +You’re going through the mill. We’ve got to <i>live</i> in it. +What’s the good of our stirring everything up again? Dam-silly of a +skinned eel to grow another skin, to be skinned again…. No, ‘my co-mates +and brothers in exile,’ what I say is—you can get just as drunk on +‘four-’arf’ as on champagne, and a lot cheaper. Ask my +honourable friend, Bear.” +</p> + +<p> +(Trooper Bear gave a realistic, but musical hiccup.) +</p> + +<p> +“Also, to the Philosopher, bread-and-dripping is as interesting and +desirable prog as the voluble-varied heterogeny of the menu at the Carlton or +the Ritz—’specially when you’ve no choice.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hear, hear,” put in Dam. +</p> + +<p> +“Goatey ol’ Goate!” said Trooper Bear with impressive +solemnity. “Give me your hand, Philossiler. I adore dripping. I’ss +a (hic) mystery. (No, I don’ want both hands,” as Goate offered his +right to Bear’s warm embrace.) I’m a colliseur of Dripping. I +understan’ it. I write odes to it. Yesh. A basin of dripping is like a +Woman. ’Strornarillily. You never know what’s beneath fair +surface…. Below a placid, level, unrevealing surface there may be—nothing +… and there may be a rich deposit of glorious, stimulating, piquant +<i>essence</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, shut up, Bear, and don’t be an Ass,” implored Trooper +Burke (formerly Desmond Villiers FitzGerald) … “but I admit, all the +same, there’s lots of worse prog in the Officers’ Mess than a crisp +crust generously bedaubed with the rich jellified gravy that (occasionally) +lurks like rubies beneath the fatty soil of dripping.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sound plan to think so, anyway,” agreed Trooper Little (<i>ci +devant</i> Man About Town and the Honourable Bertie Le Grand). “Reminds +me of a proverb I used to hear in Alt Heidelberg, <i>‘What I have in my +hand is best’</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“Qui’ sho,” murmured Trooper Bear with a seraphic smile, +“an’ wha’ I have in my ‘place of departed +<i>spirits</i>,’ my tummy, is better. Glor’us mixshure. Earned an +honest penny sheven sheparate times cleaning the ’coutrements of better +men … <i>‘an look at me for shevenpence’</i> …” and he slept +happily on Dam’s shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +In liquor, Trooper Bear was, if possible, gentler, kinder, and of sweeter +disposition than when sober; wittier, more hopelessly lovable and disarming. +These eight men—the “gentlemen-rankers” of the Queen’s +Greys, made it a point of honour to out-Tommy “Tommy” as troopers, +and, when in his company, to show a heavier cavalry-swagger, a broader accent, +a quiffier “quiff,” a cuttier cutty-pipe, a smarter smartness; to +groom a horse better, to muck out a stall better, to scrub a floor better, to +spring more smartly to attention or to a disagreeable “fatigue,” +and to set an example of Tomminess from turning out on an Inspection Parade to +waxing a moustache. +</p> + +<p> +Trooper Bear professed to specialize as a model in the carrying of liquor +“like a man and a soldier”. When by themselves, they made it a +point of honour to behave and speak as though in the clubs to which they once +belonged, to eat with washen hands and ordered attire, to behave at table and +elsewhere with that truest of consideration that offends no man willingly by +mannerism, appearance, word or act, and which is the whole Art of Gentility. +</p> + +<p> +They carefully avoided any appearance of exclusiveness, but sought every +legitimate opportunity of united companionship, and formed a “mess” +of eight at a table which just held that number, and on a couple of benches +each of which exactly fulfilled the slang expression “room for four +Dragoons on a form”. +</p> + +<p> +It was their great ambition to avoid the reproach of earning the soubriquet +“gentleman-ranker,” a term that too often, and too justly, stinks +in the nostrils of officer, non-commissioned officer, and man (for, as a rule, +the “gentleman-ranker” is a complete failure as a gentleman and a +completer one as a ranker). +</p> + +<p> +To prove a rule by a remarkably fine exception, these eight were among the very +smartest and best troopers of one of the smartest and best Corps in the +world—and to Damocles de Warrenne, their “Society of the Knights of +the dirty Square Table” was a Rock and a Salvation in the midst of a +howling sea of misery—a cool pool in a searing branding Hell. +</p> + +<p> +Trooper Bear’s brief nap appeared to have revived him wonderfully. +</p> + +<p> +“Let us, like the Hosts of Midian, prowl around this happy Sabbeth eve, +my dear,” quoth he to Dam, “and, like wise virgins, up and smite +them, when we meet the Red-Caps…. No, I’m getting confused. It’s +they up and smite us, when we’ve nothing to tip them…. I feel I could be +virtuous in your company—since you never offer beer to the (more or less) +fatherless and widowed—and since I’m stony. How <i>did</i> you work +that colossal drunk, Matty, when you came home on a stretcher and the Red-Caps +said you <i>‘was the first-classest delirious-trimmings as ever was, +aseein’ snakes somethink ’orrible,’</i> and in no wise to be +persuaded <i>‘as ’ow there wasn’t one underyer bloomin’ +foot the ’ole time’</i>. Oh you teetotallers!” +</p> + +<p> +Dam shuddered and paled. “Yes, let’s go for as long a walk as we +can manage, and get as far from this cursed place as time allows,” he +replied. +</p> + +<p> +His hair was still short and horribly hacked from the prison-crop he had had as +a preliminary to “168 hours cells,” for “drunk and +disorderly”. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll come too,” announced the Honourable Bertie. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” chimed in Trooper Adam Goate, “let’s go and +gladden the eyes, if not the hearts of the nurse-maids of Folkestone.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bless their nurse-maidenly hearts,” murmured Trooper Bear. +“One made honourable proposals of marriage to me, quite recently, in +return for my catching the runaway hat of her young charge…. Come on.” +And in due course the four derelicts set forth with a uniformity of step and +action that corresponded with their uniformity of dress. +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s take the Lower Road,” said Dam, as they reached the +western limit of the front at Folkestone. “I fear we rather contaminate +the pure social air of the Upper Road and the fashionable promenade.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where every prospect pleases and only man, in the Queen’s uniform, +is vile,” observed Trooper Bear. +</p> + +<p> +Dam remembered afterwards that it was he who sought the quiet Lower +Road—and he had good reason to remember it. For suddenly, a fashionably +dressed and beautiful young girl, sitting alone in a passing private victoria, +stood up, called “Stop! Stop!” to the coachman, and ere the +carriage well came to a standstill, sprang out, rushed up to the double file of +soldiers, and flung her arms around the neck of the outside one of the front +rank. +</p> + +<p> +With a cry of “Oh, <i>Dam</i>! Oh, <i>Dammy</i>!”—a cry that +mightily scandalized a serious-minded policeman who stood monumentally at the +corner—she kissed him again and again! +</p> + +<p> +Troopers Bear, Goate, and Little, halting not in their stride, glancing not +unto the right hand nor unto the left hand, speaking no word, and giving no +sign of surprise, marched on in perfect silence, until Trooper Bear observed to +the world in general “The lady was <i>not</i> swearing. His <i>name</i> +must be Dam—short for Damon or Pythias or Iphigenia or something which we +may proceed to forget…. Poor old chappie—no wonder he’s taking to +secret drinking. <i>I</i> should drink, myself. <i>Poor</i> chap!” and +Trooper Goate, heaving a sympathetic sigh, murmured also “Poor +chap!” +</p> + +<p> +But Trooper Little, once the Hon. Bertie Le Grand, thought “Poor +<i>lady</i>!” +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +The heart of Damocles de Warrenne bounded within him, stood still, and then +seemed like to burst. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, <i>Lucille</i>! Oh, darling!” he groaned, as he kissed her +fiercely and then endeavoured to thrust her from him. “Jump into your +carriage quickly. <i>Lucille</i>—Don’t … <i>Here</i> …! Not +<i>here</i>…. People are looking … <i>You …!</i> A common soldier…. Let me go. +Quick…. Your carriage…. Some one may—” +</p> + +<p> +“Let you <i>go</i>, darling …! Now I have found you…. If you say another +word I’ll serve you as you served the Haddock. I’ll hang on to your +arm right along the Leas. I’ll hang round your neck and scream if you try +to run away. This is poetic justice, darling. Now you know how our Haddock +felt. <i>No</i>—I <i>won’t</i> leave go of your sleeve. Where shall +we go, dearest darling Dammy. Dare you drive up and down the Front with me in +Amelia Harringport’s sister’s young man’s mother’s +victoria? oh, my <i>darling</i> Dam….” and Lucille burst into happy +tears. +</p> + +<p> +“Go up that winding path and I’ll follow in a minute. There will be +secluded seats.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you’ll bolt directly I leave go of you?… I—” +</p> + +<p> +“No, darling, God knows I should if I were a man, but I can’t, <i>I +can’t</i>. Oh, Lucille!” +</p> + +<p> +“Stay here,” cried the utterly fearless, unashamed girl to the +unspeakably astounded coachman of the mother of the minor Canon who had the +felicity of being Amelia Harringport’s sister’s young man, and she +strode up the pathway that wound, tree-shaded, along the front of the gently +sloping cliff. +</p> + +<p> +In the utter privacy of a small seat-enclosing, bush-hidden half-cave, Damocles +de Warrenne crushed Lucille to his breast as she again flung her arms around +his neck. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Lucille, how <i>could</i> you expose yourself to scandal like that; +I ought to be hung for not taking to my heels as you came, but I could not +believe my eyes, I thought I was going mad again,” and he shivered. +</p> + +<p> +“What should I have cared if every soul in the world who knows me had +arranged himself and herself in rows and ranks to get a good view? I’d +have done the same if Grumper had been beside me in the carriage. What is the +rest of the World to me, beside <i>you</i>, darling?… Oh, your <i>poor</i> +hair, and what is that horrid scar, my dearest? And you are a ‘2 +Q.G.’ are you, and how soon may you marry? I’m going to disappear +from Monksmead, now, just like you did, darling, and I’m coming here and +I’m going to be a soldier’s wife. Can I live with you in your house +in barracks, Dammy, or must I live outside, and you come home directly your +drill and things are finished?” +</p> + +<p> +Dam groaned aloud in hopeless bitterness of soul. +</p> + +<p> +“Lucille—listen,” said he. “I earn one-and tuppence a +day. I may not marry. If you were a factory-girl or a coster-woman I would not +drag you down so. Apart from that, I am unfit to marry any decent woman. I +am—what you know I am…. I have—fits. I am +not—sound—normal—I may go m….” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be a pure priceless Ass, darling. You are my own splendid +hero—and I am going to marry you, if I have to <i>be</i> a factory-girl +or a coster-woman, and I am going to live either with you or near you. You want +looking after, my own boy. I shall have some money, though, when I am of age. +When may I run away from Monksmead, darling?” +</p> + +<p> +“Lucille,” groaned the miserable man. “Do you think that the +sight of you in the mire in which I wallow would make me happier? Can’t +you realize that I’m ruined and done—disgraced and smashed? +Lucille, I am not sane at times…. The S<small>NAKE</small> … <i>Do</i> you love +me, Lucille? Then if so, I beg and implore you to forget me, to leave me alone, +to wait awhile and then marry Delorme or some sane, wholesome +<i>man</i>—who is neither a coward nor a lunatic nor an epileptic. +Lucille, you double and treble my misery. I <i>can’t</i> bear it if I see +you. Oh, why didn’t you forget me and do the right and proper thing? I am +unfit to touch you! I am a damned scoundrel to be here now,” and leaping +up he fled like a maddened horse, bounded down the slope, sprang into the road, +nor ceased to run till he fell exhausted, miles away from the spot whereon he +had suffered as he believed few men had done before. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +And thus and thus we women live!<br/> +With none to question, none to give<br/> +The Nay or Aye, the Aye or Nay<br/> +That might smoothe half our cares away.<br/> +O, strange indeed! And sad to know<br/> +We pitch too high and doing so,<br/> +Intent and eager not to fall,<br/> +We miss the low clear note of call.<br/> +Why is it so? Are we indeed<br/> +So like unto the shaken reed?<br/> +Of such poor clay? Such puny strength?<br/> +That e’en throughout the breadth and length<br/> +Of purer vision’s stern domain<br/> +We bend to serve and serve in vain?<br/> +To some, indeed, strange power is lent<br/> +To stand content. Love, heaven-sent,<br/> +(For things or high or pure or rare)<br/> +Shows likest God, makes Life less bare.<br/> +And, ever and anon there stray<br/> +In faint far-reaching virèlay<br/> +The songs of angels, Heav’nward-found,<br/> +Of little children, earthward-bound. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +A. L. W<small>REN</small>. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap10"></a>CHAPTER X.<br/> +MUCH ADO ABOUT ALMOST NOTHING—A TROOPER.</h2> + +<p> +Mr. Ormonde Delorme, Second Lieutenant of the 34th Lancers, sat in his quarters +at Aldershot, reading and re-reading with mingled feelings a letter from the +woman he loved. +</p> + +<p> +It is one thing to extract a promise from The Woman that she will turn to you +for help if ever your help should be needed (knowing that there could be no +greater joy than to serve her at any cost whatsoever, though it led to death or +ruin), but it is quite another thing when that help is invited for the benefit +of the successful rival! +</p> + +<p> +To go to the world’s end for Lucille were a very small matter to Ormonde +Delorme—but to go across the road for the man who had won her away, was +not. +</p> + +<p> +For Dam <i>had</i> won her away from him, Delorme considered, inasmuch as he +had brought him to Monksmead, time after time, had seen him falling in love +with Lucille, had received his confidences, and spoken no warning word. Had he +said but “No poaching, Delorme,” nothing more would have been +necessary; he would have kept away thenceforth, and smothered the flame ere it +became a raging and consuming fire. No, de Warrenne had served him badly in not +telling him plainly that there was an understanding between him and his cousin, +in letting him sink more and more deeply over head and ears in love, in letting +him go on until he proposed to Lucille and learnt from her that while she liked +him better than any man in the world but one—she did not love him, and +that, frankly, yes, she <i>did</i> love somebody else, and it was hopeless for +him to hope…. +</p> + +<p> +He read the letter again:— +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +“M<small>Y DEAR</small> O<small>RMONDE</small>, +</p> + +<p> +“This is a begging letter, and I should loathe to write it, under the +circumstances, to any man but such a one as you. For I am going to ask a great +deal of you and to appeal to that nobleness of character for which I have +always admired you and which made you poor Dam’s hero from Lower School +days at Wellingborough until you left Sandhurst (and, alas! quarrelled with +him—or rather with his memory—about me). That was a sad blow to me, +and I tell you again as I told you before, Dam had not the faintest notion that +<i>I</i> cared for <i>him</i> and would not have told me that he cared for me +had I not shown it. Your belief that he didn’t trouble to warn you +because he had me safe is utterly wrong, absurd, and unjust. +</p> + +<p> +“When you did me the great honour and paid me the undeserved and +tremendous compliment of asking me to marry you, and I told you that I could +not, and <i>why</i> I could not, I never dreamed that Dam could care for me in +that way, and I knew that I should never marry any one at all unless he did. +</p> + +<p> +“And on the same occasion, Ormonde, you begged me to promise that if ever +you could serve me in any way, I would ask for your help. You were a dear +romantic boy then, Ormonde, and I loved you in a different way, and cried all +night that you and I could not be friends without thought of love, and I most +solemnly promised that I would turn to you if I ever needed help that you could +give. (Alas, I thought to myself then that nobody in the world could do +anything for me that Dam could not do, and that I should never need help from +others while he lived.) +</p> + +<p> +“I want your help, Ormonde, and I want it for Dam—and me. +</p> + +<p> +“You have, of course, heard some garbled scandal about his being driven +away from home and cut off from Sandhurst by grandfather. I need not ask if you +have believed ill of him and I need not say he is absolutely innocent of any +wrong or failure whatever. He is <i>not</i> an effeminate coward, he is as +brave as a lion. He is a splendid hero, Ormonde, and I want you to simply +strangle and kill any man who says a word to the contrary. +</p> + +<p> +“When he left home, he enlisted, and Haddon Berners saw him in uniform at +Folkestone where he had gone from Canterbury (cricket week) to see Amelia +Harringport’s gang. Amelia whose sister is to be the Reverend Mrs. Canon +Mellifle at Folkestone, you know, met the wretched Haddon being rushed along +the front by a soldier and nearly died at the sight—she declares he was +weeping! +</p> + +<p> +“Directly she told me I guessed at once that he had met Dam and either +insulted or cut him, and that poor Dam, in his bitter humour and self-loathing +had used his own presence as a punishment and had made the Haddock walk with +him! Imagine the company of Damocles de Warrenne being anything but an +ennobling condescension! Fancy Dam’s society a horrible injury and +disgrace! To a thing like Haddon Berners! +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I simply haunted Folkestone after that, and developed a love for +Amelia Harringport and her brothers that surprised them—hypocrite that I +am! (but I was punished when they talked slightingly of Dam and she sneered at +the man whom she had shamelessly pursued when all was well with him. She +‘admires’ Haddon now.) +</p> + +<p> +“At last I met him on one of my week-end visits—on a Sunday evening +it was—and I simply flew at him in the sight of all respectable, +prayer-book-displaying, before-Church-parading, well-behaved Folkestone, and +kissed him nearly to death…. And can you believe a woman could be such a +<i>fool</i>, Ormonde—while carefully noting the ‘2 Q.G.’ on +his shoulder-straps, I never thought to find out his <i>alias</i>—for of +course he hides his identity, thinking as he does, poor darling boy, that he +has brought eternal disgrace on an honoured name—a name that appears +twice on the rolls of the V.C. records. +</p> + +<p> +“Ormonde, were it not that it would <i>increase</i> his misery and agony +of mind I would run away from Monksmead, take a room near the Queen’s +Greys barracks, and haunt the main gates until I saw him again. He should then +tell me how to communicate with him, or I would hang about there till he did. +I’d marry him ‘off the strength’ and live (till I am +‘of age’) by needlework if he would have me. But, of course, +he’d <i>never</i> understand that I’d be happier, and a better +woman, in a Shorncliffe lodging, as a soldier’s wife, than ever I shall +be here in this dreary Monksmead—until he is restored and re-habilitated +(is that the word? I mean—comes into his own as a brave and noble +gentleman who never did a mean or cowardly action in his life). +</p> + +<p> +“And he is <i>so</i> thin and unhappy looking, Ormonde, and his poor +hands are in such a state and his beautiful hair is all hacked about and done +like a soldier’s, all short except for a long piece brushed down his +forehead and round to his cap—oh, dreadful … and he has a scar on his +face! No wonder Amelia never recognized him. Oh, <i>do</i> help me, Ormonde. I +<i>must</i> find out how to address him. I dare not let them know there is a +<i>D. de Warrenne</i> in the regiment—and he’d never get it +either—he’s probably Smith or Jones or Robinson now. If some horrid +Sergeant called out ‘Trooper D. de Warrenne,’ when distributing +letters, Dam would never answer to the name he thinks he has eternally +disgraced, and disgrace it further by dragging it in the mire of the ranks. How +<i>can</i> people be such snobs? Isn’t a good private a better man than a +bad officer? Why should there be any ‘taint’ about serving your +country in any capacity? +</p> + +<p> +“How <i>can</i> I find him, Ormonde, unless you help me? I could pay a +servant to hang about the barracks until he recognized Dam—but that would +be horrible for the poor boy. He’d deny it and say the man was mad, I +expect—and it would be most unpleasant and unfair to Dam to set some one +to find out from his comrades what he calls himself. If he chooses to hide from +what he thinks is the chance of further disgracing his people, and suffers what +he does in order to remain hidden, shall <i>I</i> be the one to do anything to +show him up and cause him worse suffering—expose him to a servant? +</p> + +<p> +“How <i>can</i> I get him a letter that shall not have his name on it? If +I wrote to his Colonel or the Adjutant and enclosed a letter with just +‘Dam’ on it they’d not know for whom it was meant—and I +dare not tell them his real name. +</p> + +<p> +“Could you get a letter to him, Ormonde, without letting him know that +you know he is a private soldier, and without letting a soul know his real +name? +</p> + +<p> +“I do apologize for the length of this interminable letter, but if you +only knew the <i>relief</i> it is to me to be doing something that may help +him, and to be talking, or rather writing about him, you would forgive me. +</p> + +<p> +“His name must not be mentioned here. Think of it! +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, if it only would not make him <i>more</i> unhappy, I would go to him +this minute, and refuse ever to leave him again. +</p> + +<p> +“Does that sound unmaidenly, Ormonde? I don’t care whether it does +or not, nor whether it <i>is</i> or not. I love him, and he loves me. I am his +<i>friend</i>. Could I stay here in luxury if it would make him happier to +marry me? Am I a terribly abandoned female? I told Auntie Yvette just what I +had done, and though it simply saved her life to know he had not committed +suicide (I believe she <i>worshipped</i> father)—she seemed mortally +shocked at me for behaving so. I am not a bit ashamed though. Dam is more +important than good form, and I had to show him in the strongest possible way +that he was dearer to me than ever. If it <i>was</i> ‘behaving like a +servant-girl’—all honour to servant-girls, I think … considering +the circumstances. You should have seen his face before he caught sight of me. +Yes—<i>and</i> after, too. Though really I think he suffered more from my +kissing him—in uniform, in the street—than if I had cut him. It +would be only for the minute though … it <i>must</i> comfort him <i>now</i>, +and always, to think that I love him so (since he loves <i>me</i>—and +always has done). But what I must know before I can sleep peacefully again is +the name by which he goes in the ‘2 Q.G’s.,’ so that I can +write and comfort him regularly, send him things, and make him buy himself out +when he sees he has been foolish and wicked in supposing that he has publicly +disgraced himself and his name and us. And I’m going to make +Grandfather’s life a misery, and go about skinny and ragged and weeping, +and say: ‘<i>This</i> is how you treat the daughter of your dead friend, +you wicked, cruel, unjust old man,’ until he relents and sends for Dam +and gets him into the Army properly…. But I am afraid Dam will think it his +silly duty to flee from me and all my works, and hide himself where the names +of de Warrenne and Stukeley are unknown and cannot be disgraced. +</p> + +<p> +“I rely on you, Ormonde, +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Your ashamed grateful friend, <br/> +“L<small>UCILLE</small> G<small>AVESTONE</small>.” +</p> + +<p> +Second Lieutenant Delorme rang the bell. +</p> + +<p> +“Bradshaw,” he said, as his soldier-servant appeared. “And +get me a telegraph form.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yussir,” said Private Billings, and marched to the Mess ante-room +purposefully, with hope in his heart that Mr. Delorme ’ad nothink less +than a ’alf dollar for the telegram and would forgit to arx for the +chainge, as was his occasional praiseworthy procedure. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Delorme, alas, proved to have a mean and vulgar shilling, the which he +handed to Private Billings with a form containing the message:— +</p> + +<p> +“Can do. So cheer up. Writing his adjutant, pal of mine. Coming over +Saturday if get leave. Going Shorncliffe if necessary. Leave due. Dam all +right. Will blow over. Thanks for letting me help.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Fraid they don’ give no tick at the Telegraft Orfis, +Sir,” observed Private Billings, who, as quondam “trained +observer” of his troop, had noted the length of the telegram and the +shortness of the allowance therefor. +</p> + +<p> +“What the deuce…?” +</p> + +<p> +“This is more like a ’alf-dollar job, Sir,” he groaned, +waving the paper, “wot wiv’ the haddress an’ all.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh—er—yes, bit thick for a bob, perhaps; here’s half a +sov….” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>That’s</i> more like ‘<i>’Eres to yer</i>,’ +Mr. D——” remarked the good man—outside the door. +“And don’t yer werry about trifles o’ chainge. Be a +gent!” +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +Lucille read and re-read the telegram in many ways. +</p> + +<p> +“Can do so. Cheer up. Writing his adjutant. Pal of mine coming over +Saturday. If get leave going Shorncliffe if necessary leave due Dam. All right +will blow over thanks.” No, <i>that</i> wouldn’t do. +</p> + +<p> +(What a pity people <i>would</i> not remember when writing telegrams that the +stops and capitals they put are ignored by the operators.) +</p> + +<p> +At last, the wish being father to the thought, she decided it to be “Can +do” (she knew that to be a navy expression). “So cheer up. Writing. +His adjutant a pal of mine. Coming over Saturday if I get leave. Going +Shorncliffe if necessary. Leave due. Dam all right. Will blow over. Thanks for +letting me help.” Which was not far wrong. +</p> + +<p> +Dear old Ormonde! She knew he would not fail her—although he had been +terribly cut up by her rejection of his suit and by his belief that Dam had let +him haunt her in the knowledge that she was his own private property, secured +to him. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +Having dispatched his telegram and interviewed his Adjutant, Captain, and +Colonel, Mr. Delorme sat him down and wrote to Lieutenant the Honourable +Reginald Montague Despencer, Adjutant of the Queen’s Greys:— +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +“M<small>Y DEAR</small> M<small>ONTY</small>, +</p> + +<p> +“At the Rag. the other day, respectfully dining with my respected parent, +I encountered, respectfully dining with his respected parent, your embryo +Strawberry Leaf, old ‘Punch Peerson’. (Do you remember his standing +on his head on the engine at Blackwater Station when he was too +‘merry’ to be able to stand steady on his feet?) I learnt that he +is still with you and I want him to do something for me. He’ll be serious +about it if <i>you</i> speak to him about it—and I am writing to him +direct. I’m going to send you a letter (under my cover), and on it will +be one word ‘Dam’ (on the envelope, of course). I want you to give +this to Punch and order him to show it privately to the +<i>gentlemen-rankers</i> of the corps till one says he recognizes the force of +the word (pretty forceful, too, what!) and the writing. To this chap he is to +give it. Be good to your poor ‘rankers,’ Monty, I know one damned +hard case among them. No fault of <i>his</i>, poor chap. I could say a +lot—surprise you—but I mustn’t. It’s awfully good of +you, old chap. I know you’ll see it through. It concerns as fine a +gentleman as ever stepped and <i>the</i> finest woman! +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Ever thine, <br/> +“O. D<small>ELORME</small>.” +</p> + +<p> +“Look here, my lambs—or rather, Black Sheep,” quoth Trooper +Punch Peerson one tea-time to Troopers Bear, Little, Goate, Nemo, Burke, Jones, +and Matthewson, “I suppose none of you answers to the name of +‘<i>Dam</i>’?” +</p> + +<p> +No man answered, and Trooper Peerson looked at the face of no man, nor any one +at any other. +</p> + +<p> +“No. I thought not. Well, I have a letter addressed in that objurgatory +term, and I am going to place it beneath my pillow before I go out to-night. If +it is there when I come in I’ll destroy it unopened. ‘Nuff +said,’ as the lady remarked when she put the mop in her husband’s +mouth. Origin of the phrase ‘don’t chew the mop,’ I should +think,” and he babbled on, having let his unfortunate friends know that +for one of them he had a letter which might be received by the addressed +without the least loss of his anonymity. +</p> + +<p> +Dam’s heart beat hard and seemed to swell to bursting. He felt +suffocated. +</p> + +<p> +“Quaint superscription,” he managed to observe. “How did you +come by it?” and then wished he had not spoken…. Who but the recipient +could be interested in its method of delivery? If anyone suspected him of being +“Dam” would they not at once connect him with the notorious +Damocles de Warrenne, ex-Sandhurst cadet, proclaimed coward and wretched +neurotic decadent before the pained, disgusted eyes of his county, kicked out +by his guardian … a disgrace to two honoured names. … “The Adjer handed +it over. Thought <i>I</i> was the biggest Damn here, I suppose,” Trooper +Peerson replied without looking up from his plate. “Practical silly joke +I should think. No one here with such a l_oath_some, name as <i>Dam</i>, of +course,” but Trooper Punch Peerson had his philosophic +“doots”. He, like others of that set, had heard of a big chap who +was a marvel at Sandhurst with the gloves, sword, horse, and other things, and +who had suddenly and marvellously disappeared into thin air leaving no trace +behind him, after some public scandal or other…. But that was no concern of +Trooper Punch Peerson, gentleman…. +</p> + +<p> +With a wary eye on Peerson, Dam lay on his bed, affecting to read a stale and +dirty news-sheet. He saw him slip something beneath his pillow and swagger out +of the barrack-room. Anon no member of the little band of gentleman-rankers was +left. Later, the room was empty, save for a heavily snoring drunkard and a busy +polisher who, at the shelf-table at the far end of the room, laboured on his +jack-boots, hissing the while, like a groom with a dandy-brush. +</p> + +<p> +Going to Peerson’s bed, Dam snatched the letter, returned to his own, and +flung himself down again—his heart pumping as though he had just finished +a mile race. <i>Lucille had got a letter to him somehow</i>. Lucille was not +going to drop him yet—in spite of having seen him a red-handed, +crop-haired, “quiff”-wearing, coarse-looking soldier…. Was there +another woman in the world like Lucille? Would any other girl have so risen +superior to her breeding, and the teachings of Miss Smellie, as to do what she +thought right, regardless of public scandal…? But he must not give her the +opportunity of being seen talking to a soldier again—much less kissing +one. Not that she would want to kiss him again like that. That was the kiss of +welcome, of encouragement, of proof that she was unchanged to him—her +first sight of him after the <i>débâcle</i>. It was the unchecked impulse of a +noble heart—and the action showed that Miss Smellie had been unable to do +it much harm with her miserable artificialities and stiflings of all that is +natural and human and right…. Should he read the letter at once or treasure it +up and keep it as a treat in store? He would hold it in his hand unopened and +imagine its contents. He would spin out the glorious pleasure of possession of +an unopened letter from Lucille. He could, of course, read it hundreds of +times—but he would then soon know it by heart, and although its charm and +value would be no less, it would merge with his other memories and become a +memory itself. He did not want it to become a memory too soon. +</p> + +<p> +The longer it remained an anticipation, the more distant the day when it became +a memory…. +</p> + +<p> +With a groan of “Oh, my brain’s softening and I’m becoming a +sentimentalist,” he opened the letter and read Lucille’s loving, +cheering—yet agonizing, maddening—words:— +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +“M<small>Y OWN DARLING</small> D<small>AM</small>, +</p> + +<p> +“If this letter reaches you safely you are to sit down at once and write +to me to tell me how to address you by post in the ordinary way. If you +don’t I shall come and haunt the entrance to the Lines and waylay you. +People will think I am a poor soul whom you have married and deserted, or whom +you won’t marry. <i>I’ll</i> show up your wicked cruelty to a poor +girl! How would you like your comrades to say ‘Look out, Bill, your pore +wife’s ’anging about the gates’ and to have to lie +low—and send out scouts to see if the coast was clear later on? +Don’t you go playing fast and loose with <i>me</i>, master Dam, winning +my young affections, making love to me, kissing me—and then refusing to +marry me after it all! I don’t want to be too hard on you (and I am +reasonable enough to admit that one-and-two a day puts things on a smaller +scale than I have been accustomed to in the home of my fathers—or rather +uncles, or perhaps uncles-in-law), and like the kind Tailor whom the Haddock +advertises (and like the unkind Judge before whom he’ll some day come for +something) I will ‘give you time’. But it’s only a respite, +Mr. de Warrenne. You are not going to trifle with my young feelings and escape +altogether. I have my eye on you—and if I respect your one-and-twopence a +day <i>now</i>, it is on the clear understanding that you share my Little All +on the day I come of age. I will trust you once more, although you <i>have</i> +treated me so—bolting and hiding from your confiding fiancée. +</p> + +<p> +“So write and tell me what you call yourself, so that I can write to you +regularly and satisfy myself that you are not escaping me again. How +<i>could</i> you treat a poor trusting female so—and then when she had +found you again, and was showing her delight and begging to be married and +settled in life—to rush away from her, leaving her and her modest +matrimonial proposals scorned and rejected! For shame, Sir! I’ve a good +mind to come and complain to your Colonel and ask him to make you keep your +solemn promises and marry me…. +</p> + +<p> +“Now look here, darling, nonsense aside—I solemnly swear that if +you don’t buy yourself out of the army on the day I come of age (or +before, if you will, and can) I will really come and make you marry me and I +will live with you as a soldier’s wife. If you persist in your +wrong-headed notion of being a ‘disgrace’ (<i>you</i>!) then +we’ll just adopt the army as a career, and we’ll go through all the +phases till you get a Commission. I hope you won’t take this +course—but if you do, you’ll be a second Hector Macdonald and +retire as Lieutenant-General Sir Damocles de Warrenne (K.C.B., K.C.M.G., +K.C.S.I., D.S.O., and, of course, V.C.), having confessed to an <i>alias</i>. +It will be a long time before we should be in really congenial society, that +way, darling, but I’m sure I should enjoy every hour of it with you, so +long as I felt I was a comfort and happiness to you. And when you got your +Commission I should not be a social drag upon you as sometimes happens. Nor +before it should I be a nuisance and hindrance to you and make you wish you +were ‘shut of the curse of a soldier’. I could ‘rough +it’ as well as you and, besides, there would <i>be</i> no ‘roughing +it’ where you were, for me. It is <i>here</i> that I am ‘roughing +it,’ sitting impotent and wondering what is happening to you, and whether +that terrible illness ever seizes you, and whether you are properly looked +after when it does. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, just realize, dearest Dam—I said I would wait twenty years +for you, if necessary. I would and I will, but don’t make me do it, +darling. Realize how happy I should be if I could only come and sew and cook +and scrub and work for you. Can you understand that life is only measurable in +terms of happiness and that <i>my</i> happiness can only be where <i>you,</i> +are? If you weren’t liable to these seizures I could bear to wait, but as +it is, I can’t. I beg and beseech you not to make me wait till I am of +age, Dam. There’s no telling what may happen to you and I just +can’t bear it. <i>I’m coming</i>, if I don’t hear from you, +and I can easily do something to compel you to marry me, if I come. You are +<i>not</i> going to bear this alone, darling, so don’t imagine it. +We’re not going to keep separate shops after all these years, just +because you’re ill with a trouble of some kind that fools can’t +understand. +</p> + +<p> +“Now write to me at once and put me in a position to write to you in the +ordinary way—or look out for me! I’m all ready to run away, all +sorts of useful things packed—ready to come and be a soldier’s +girl. +</p> + +<p> +“You know that I <i>do</i> what I think I’ll do—you spoke of +my ‘steel-straight directness and sweet brave will’ in the poem you +were making about me, you poor funny old boy, when you vanished, and which I +found in your room when I went there to cry, (Oh, <i>how</i> I cried when I +found your odds and ends of verse about me there—I really did think my +heart was ‘broken’ in actual fact.) Don’t make me suffer any +more, darling. I’m sure your Colonel will be sweet about it and give us a +nice little house all to ourselves, now he has seen what a splendid soldier you +are. If you stick to your folly about ‘disgrace’ I need not tell +him our names and Grumper couldn’t take me away from you, even if he ever +found out where we were. +</p> + +<p> +“I could go on writing all night, darling, but I’ll only just say +again <i>I am going to marry you and take care of you, Dam, in the army or out +of it.</i> +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Your fiancee and friend, <br/> +“L<small>UCILLE</small> G<small>AVESTONE</small>.” +</p> + +<p> +Dam groaned aloud. +</p> + +<p> +“Four o’ rum ’ot, is wot <i>you</i> want, mate, for +that,” said the industrious self-improver at the shelf-table. “Got +a chill on yer stummick on sentry-go in the fog an’ rine las’ +night…. I’d give a ’ogs’ead to see the bloke who wrote in the +bloomin’ Reggilashuns <i>‘nor must bloomin’ sentries stand in +their blasted sentry-boxes in good or even in moderate-weather’</i> a +doin’ of it ’isself in ’is bloomin’ ‘moderate +weather’ with water a runnin’ down ’is back, an’ +’is feet froze into a puddle, an’ the fog a chokin’ of +’im, an’ ’is blighted carbine feelin’ like a yard +o’ bad ice—an’ then find the bloomin’ winder above +’is bed been opened by some kind bloke an’ ’is bed a blasted +swamp… Yus—you ’ave four o’ rum ’ot and you’ll +feel like the bloomin’ ’Ouse o’ Lords. Then ’ave a +Livin’stone Rouser.” “Oh, shut up,” said Dam, cursing +the Bathos of Things and returning to the beginning of Lucille’s letter. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +In his somewhat incoherent reply, Dam assured Lucille that he was in the rudest +health and spirits, and the particular pet of his Colonel who inquired after +his health almost daily with tender solicitude; that he had exaggerated his +feeling on That Evening when he had kissed Lucille as a lover, and begged +forgiveness; that marriage would seriously hamper a most promising military +career; that he had had no recurrence of the “fit” (a mere touch of +sun); that it would be unkind and unfair of Lucille to bring scandal and +disgrace upon a rising young soldier by hanging about the Lines and making +inquiries about him with a view to forcing him into marriage, making him keep +to a bargain made in a rash, unguarded moment of sentimentality; that, in any +case, soldiers could not marry until they had a certain income and status, and, +if they did so, it was no marriage and they were sent to jail; that his worst +enemy would not do anything to drag him out once again into the light of +publicity, and disgrace his family further, now that he had effectually +disappeared and was being forgotten; and that he announced that he was known as +Trooper Matthewson (E Troop, The Queen’s Greys, Cavalry Lines, +Shorncliffe) to prevent Lucille from keeping her most unladylike promise of +persecuting him. +</p> + +<p> +Lucille’s next letter was shorter than the first. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +“M<small>Y DARLING</small> D<small>AM</small>, +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be such a <i>priceless</i> Ass. Come off it. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Your own <br/> +“L<small>UCILLE</small>. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +“P.S.—Write to me properly at once—or expect me on +Monday.” +</p> + +<p> +He obeyed, poured out his whole heart in love and thanks and blessings, and +persuaded her that the one thing that could increase his misery would be her +presence, and swore that he would strain every nerve to appear before her at +the earliest possible moment a free man with redeemed name—provided he +could persuade himself he was not <i>a congenital lunatic, an epileptic, a +decadent—could cure himself of his mental disease….</i> +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap11"></a>CHAPTER XI.<br/> +MORE MYRMIDONS.</h2> + +<p> +The truly busy man cannot be actively and consciously unhappy. The truly +miserable and despondent person is never continuously and actively employed. +Fits of deep depression there may be for the worker when work is impossible, +but, unless there be mental and physical illness, sleep is the other +anaesthetic, refuge—and reward. +</p> + +<p> +The Wise thank God for Work and for Sleep—and pay large premia of the +former as Insurance in the latter. +</p> + +<p> +To Damocles de Warrenne—to whom the name “Trooper Matthewson” +now seemed the only one he had ever had—the craved necessity of life and +sanity was <i>work</i>, occupation, mental and physical labour. He would have +blessed the man who sentenced him to commence the digging of a trench ten miles +long and a yard deep for morning and evening labour, and to take over all the +accounts of each squadron, for employment in the heat of the day. There was no +man in the regiment so indefatigable, so energetic, so persevering, so +insatiable of “fatigues,” so willing and anxious to do other +people’s duty as well as his own, so restless, so untiring as Trooper +Matthewson of E Troop. For Damocles de Warrenne was in the Land of the Serpent +and lived in fear. He lived in fear and feared to live; he thought of Fear and +feared to think. He turned to work as, but for the memory of Lucille, he would +have turned to drink: he laboured to earn deep dreamless sleep and he dreaded +sleep. Awake, he could drug himself with work; asleep, he was the +prey—the bound, gagged helpless, abject prey—of the Snake. The +greediest glutton for work in the best working regiment in the world was +Trooper Matthewson—but for him was no promotion. He was, alas, +“unreliable”—apt to be “drunk and disorderly,” +drunk to the point of “seeing snakes” and becoming a weeping, +screaming lunatic—a disgusting spectacle. And, when brought up for +sentence, would solemnly assure the Colonel that he was <i>a total +abstainer</i>, and stick to it when “told-off” for adding impudent +lying to shameful indulgence and sickening behaviour. No promotion for that +type of waster while Colonel the Earl of A—— commanded the +Queen’s Greys, nor while Captain Daunt commanded the squadron the trooper +occasionally disgraced. +</p> + +<p> +But he had his points, mark you, and it was a thousand pities that so fine a +soldier was undeniably subject to attacks of <i>delirium tremens</i> and +unmistakeably a secret drinker who might at any time have a violent outburst, +finishing in screams, sobs, and tears. A <i>most</i> remarkable case! Who ever +heard of a magnificent athlete—regimental champion boxer and swordsman, +admittedly as fine and bold a horseman and horse-master as the Rough-Riding +Sergeant-Major or the Riding-Master himself—being a sufficiently +industrious secret-drinker to get “goes” of “d.t.,” to +drink till he behaved like some God-and-man-forsaken wretch that lives on cheap +gin in a chronic state of alcoholism. He had his points, and if the Brigadier +had ever happened to say to the Colonel: “Send me your smartest, most +intelligent, and keenest man to gallop for me at the manoeuvres,” or the +Inspector of Army Gymnasia had asked for the regiment’s finest specimen, +or if one representative private soldier had to be sent somewhere to uphold the +credit and honour of the Queen’s Greys, undoubtedly Trooper Matthewson +would have been chosen. +</p> + +<p> +What a splendid squadron-sergeant major, regimental sergeant-major, yea, what a +fine officer he would have made, had he been reliable. But there, you +can’t have an officer, nor a non-com., either, who lies shrieking and +blubbering on the floor <i>coram publico</i>, and screams to God and man to +save him from the snakes that exist only in his own drink-deranged mind. For of +course it can only be Drink that produces “Snakes”! Yes, it is only +through the ghastly alcohol-tinted glasses that you can “see +snakes”—any fool knows <i>that</i>. +</p> + +<p> +And the fools of the Queen’s Greys knew it, and hoped to God that +Matthewson would “keep off it” till after the Divisional Boxing +Tournament and Assault-at-Arms, for, if he did, the Queen’s Greys would +certainly have the Best Man-at-Arms in the Division and have a mighty good shot +at having the Heavy-Weight All-India Champion, since Matthewson had challenged +the Holder and held an absolutely unbroken record of victories in the various +regimental and inter-regimental boxing tournaments in which he had taken part +since joining the regiment. And he had been “up against some useful +lads” as Captain Chevalier, the president and Maecenas of the +Queen’s Greys’ boxing-club, expressed it. Yes, Matthewson had his +points and the man who brought the Regiment the kudos of having best +Man-at-Arms and Heavy-Weight Champion of India would be forgiven a lot. +</p> + +<p> +And Damocles de Warrenne blessed the Divisional Boxing Tournament, +Assault-at-Arms, and, particularly, the All-India Heavy-Weight Championship. +</p> + +<p> +Occupation, labour, anodyne…. Work and deep Sleep. Fighting to keep the Snake +at bay. No, fighting to get away from it—there was no keeping it at +bay—nothing but shrieking collapse when It came…. +</p> + +<p> +From parade ground to gymnasium, from gymnasium to swimming-bath, from +swimming-bath to running-track, from running-track to boxing-ring, from +boxing-ring to gymnasium again. Work, occupation, forgetfulness. Forget the +Snake for a little while—even though it is surely lurking +near—waiting, waiting, waiting; nay, even beneath his very foot and +<i>moving</i>…. +</p> + +<p> +Well, a man can struggle with himself until the Thing actually appears in the +concrete, and he goes mad—but Night! Oh, God grant deep sleep at +night—or wide wakefulness <i>and a light</i>. Neither Nightmare nor +wakefulness <i>in the dark</i>, oh, Merciful God. +</p> + +<p> +Yes, things were getting worse. <i>He was going mad. MAD</i>. Desert—and +get out of India somehow? +</p> + +<p> +Never! No gentleman “deserts” anything or anybody. +</p> + +<p> +Suicide—and face God unafraid and unashamed? +</p> + +<p> +Never! The worst and meanest form of “deserting”. +</p> + +<p> +No. Stick it. And live to work—work to live. And strive and strive and +strive to obliterate the image of Lucille—that sorrow’s crown of +sorrow. +</p> + +<p> +And so Trooper Matthewson’s course of training was a severe one and he +appeared to fear rest and relaxation as some people fear work and employment. +</p> + +<p> +His favourite occupation was to get the ten best boxers of the regiment to +jointly engage in a ten-round contest with him, one round each. He would +frequently finish fresher than the tenth man. Coming of notedly powerful stock +on both sides, and having been physically <i>educated</i> from babyhood, Dam, +with clean living and constant training, was a very uncommon specimen. There +may have been one or two other men in the regiment as well developed, or nearly +so; but when poise, rapidity, and skill were taken into account there was no +one near him. Captain Chevalier said he was infinitely the quickest +heavy-weight boxer he had ever seen—and Captain Chevalier was a pillar of +the National Sporting Club and always knew the current professionals personally +when he was in England. In fact, with the enormous strength of the best +heavy-weight, Dam combined the lightning rapidity and mobility of the best +feather-weight. +</p> + +<p> +His own doubt as to the result of his contest with the heavy-weight Champion of +India arose from the fact that the latter was a person of much lower nervous +development, a creature far less sensitive to shock, a denser and more +elementary organism altogether, and possessed of a far thicker skull, shorter +jaw, and thicker neck. Dam summed him up thus with no sense of contemptuous +superiority, but with a plain recognition of the facts that the Champion was a +fighting machine, a dull, foreheadless, brutal gladiator who owed his +championship very largely to the fact that he was barely sensible to pain, and +impervious to padded blows. It was said that he had never been knocked out in +all his boxing-career, that the kick of a horse on his chin would not knock him +out, that his head was solid bone, and that the shortness of his jaw and +thickness of his neck absolutely prevented sufficient leverage between the +point of the jaw and the spinal cord for the administration of the shock to the +<i>medulla oblongata</i> that causes the necessary ten-seconds’ +unconsciousness of the “knock-out”. +</p> + +<p> +He was known as the Gorilla by reason of his long arms, incredible strength, +beauty, and pleasing habits, and he bore the reputation of a merciless and +unchivalrous opponent and one who needed the strictest and most experienced +refereeing. It would be a real terrific fight, and that was the main thing to +Dam, though he would do his very utmost to win, for the credit of the +Queen’s Greys, and would leave no stone unturned to that end. He +regretted that he could not get leave and go to Pultanpur to see the Champion +box, and learn something of his style and methods when easily defending his +title in the Pultanpur tournament. And when the Tournament and Assault-at-Arms +were over he must find something else to occupy him by day and tire him before +night. Meanwhile life was bearable, with the fight to come—except for +sentry-go work. That was awful, unspeakable, and each time was worse than the +last. Sitting up all night in the guard-room under the big lamp, and perhaps +with some other wakeful wretch to talk to, was nothing. That was well +enough—but to be on a lonely post on a dark night … well—he +couldn’t do it much longer. +</p> + +<p> +Darkness and the Snake that was always coming and never came! To prowl round +and round some magazine, store, or boundary-stone with his carbine at the +“support,” or to tramp up and down by the horse-lines, armed only +with his cutting-whip; to stand in a sentry-box while the rain fell in sheets +and there was no telling what the next flash of lightning might +reveal—that was what would send him to a lunatic’s padded cell. +</p> + +<p> +To see the Snake by day would give him a cruel, terrible fit—but to be +aware of it in the dark would be final—and fatal to his reason (which was +none too firmly enthroned). No, he had the dreadful feeling that his reason was +none too solidly based and fixed. He had horrible experiences, apart from the +snake-nightmares, nowadays. One night when he awoke and lay staring up at his +mosquito-curtain in the blessed light of the big room-lamp (always provided in +India on account of rifle thieves) he had suddenly felt an overwhelming surge +of fear. He sat up. God!—he was in a marble box! These white walls and +roof were not mosquito-netting, they were solid marble! He was in a tomb. He +was buried alive. The air was growing foul. His screams would be absolutely +inaudible. He screamed, and struck wildly at the cold cruel marble, and found +it was soft, yielding netting after all. But it was a worse horror to find that +he had thought it marble than if he had found it to be marble. He sprang from +his cot. +</p> + +<p> +“I am going mad,” he cried. +</p> + +<p> +“Goin’?… <i>Gorn</i>, more like,” observed the disrobing +room-corporal. “Why donchew keep orf the booze, Maffewson? You silly +gapin’ goat. Git inter bed and shut yer ’ead—or I’ll +get yew a night in clink, me lad—and wiv’out a light, see?” +</p> + +<p> +Corporal Prag knew his victim’s little weakness and grinned maliciously +as Dam sprang into bed without a word. +</p> + +<p> +The Stone Jug without a gleam of light! Could a man choke himself with his own +fingers if the worst came to the worst? The Digger and Stygian +darkness—now—<i>when he was going mad</i>! Men could not be so +cruel…. But they’d say he was drunk. He would lie still and cling with +all his strength and heart and soul to sanity. He would think of That Evening +with Lucille—and of her kisses. He would recite the Odes of Horace, the +Aeneid, the Odyssey as far as he could remember them, and then fall back on +Shakespeare and other English poets. Probably he knew a lot more Greek and +Latin poetry (little as it was) than he did of English…. +</p> + +<p> +Corporal Prag improved the occasion as he unlaced his boots. +“Bloomin’ biby! Afraid o’ the dark! See wot boozin’ +brings yer to. Look at yer! An’ look at <i>me</i>. +Non-c’misshn’d orficer in free an’ a ’arf years from +j’inin’. Never tasted alc’ol in me life, an’ if any man +offud me a glarse, d’ye know what I’d <i>dew</i>?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, Corporal, I’d like to hear,” replied Dam. (Must keep the +animal talking as long as possible for the sake of human company. He’d go +mad at once, perhaps, when the Corporal went to bed.) +</p> + +<p> +“I’d frow it strite in ’is faice, I would,” announced +the virtuous youth. A big boot flopped heavily on the floor. +</p> + +<p> +“I daresay you come of good old teetotal stock,” observed Dam, to +make conversation. Perhaps the fellow would pause in his assault upon the other +boot and reply—so lengthening out the precious minutes of diversion. +Every minute was a minute nearer dawn…. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Do</i> yer? Well, you’re bloomin’ well wrong, Maffewson, +me lad. My farver ’ad a bout every Saturday arternoon and kep’ it +up all day a Sund’y, ’e did—an’ in the werry las’ +bout ’e ever ’ad ’e bashed ’is ole woman’s +’ead in wiv’ a bottle.” +</p> + +<p> +“And was hanged?” inquired Dam politely and innocently, but most +tactlessly. +</p> + +<p> +“Mind yer own b—— business,” roared Corporal Prag. +“Other people’s farvers wasn’t gallows-birds if yourn was. +’Ow’d you look if I come and punched you on the nose, eh? Wot +’ud you do if I come an’ set abaht yer, eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“Break your neck,” replied Dam tersely. +</p> + +<p> +“Ho, yus. <i>And</i> wot ’ud yew say when I calls the guard and +they frows you into clink? Without no light, Trooper Maffewson!” +</p> + +<p> +Dam shuddered. +</p> + +<p> +Corporal Prag yet further improved the occasion, earning Dam’s heartfelt +blessing. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you fergit it, Trooper Maffewson. I’m yore sooperier +orficer. You <i>may</i> be better’n me in the Ring, praps, or with the +sword (Dam could have killed him in five minutes, with or without weapons), but +if I ’olds up my little finger <i>you</i> comes to ’eel—or +other’ow you goes ter clink. ’Ung indeed! You look after yer own +farver an’ don’ pass remarks on yer betters. Why! You boozin’ +waster, I shall be Regimental Sargen’ Majer when you’re a +bloomin’ discharged private wiv an ’undred +‘<i>drunks</i>’ in red on yer Defaulter’s Sheet. Regimental +Sarjen’ Majer! I shall be an Orficer more like, and walk acrost the +crossin’ wot <i>you’re</i> asweepin’, to me Club in +bloomin’ well Pickerdilly! Yus. This is the days o’ <i>? +Demockerycy</i>, me lad. ‘Good Lloyd George’s golden days’ as +they sing—and steady fellers like me is goin’ to ave +C’missh’ns—an’ don’ you fergit it! Farver +’ung indeed!” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m awf’ly sorry, Corporal, really,” apologized Dam. +“I didn’t think….” +</p> + +<p> +“No, me lad,” returned the unmollified superior, as he stooped to +the other boot, “if you was to think more an’ booze less +you’d do better…. ’Ow an’ where you gets ’old of it, +beats me. I’ve seed you in delirium trimmings but I ain’t never +seed you drinkin’ nor yet smelt it on yer. You’re a cunnin’ +’ound in yer way. One o’ them beastly secret-drinkin’ swine +wots never suspected till they falls down ’owlin’ blue +’orrors an’ seem’ pink toadses. Leastways it’s snakes +<i>you</i> sees. See ’em oncte too orfen, you will…. See ’em on +p’rade one day in front o’ the Colonel. Fall orf yer long-face an +get trampled—an’ serve yer glad…. An’ now shut yer silly +’ed an’ don’t chew the mop so much. Let me get some sleep. +<i>I</i> ’as respontsibillaties <i>I</i> do….” +</p> + +<p> +A crossing outside a Club! More likely a padded cell in a troopship and +hospital until an asylum claimed him. +</p> + +<p> +In the finals, “Sword versus Sword Dismounted,” Dam had a foeman +worthy of his steel. +</p> + +<p> +A glorious chilly morning, sunrise on a wide high open <i>maidan</i>, rows of +tents for the spectators at the great evening final, and crowds of officers and +men in uniform or gymnasium kit. On a group of chairs sat the Divisional +General, his Colonel on the Staff, and Aide-de-Camp; the Brigadier-General, his +Brigade-Major, and a few ladies, wives of regimental colonels, officers, and +leading Civilians. +</p> + +<p> +Semi-finals of Tent-pegging, Sword v. Sword Mounted, Bayonet-fighting, +Tug-of-War, Fencing, and other officers’ and men’s events had been, +or were being, contested. +</p> + +<p> +The finals of the British Troops’ Sword <i>v.</i> Sword Dismounted, was +being reserved for the last, as of supreme interest to the experts present, but +not sufficiently spectacular to be kept for the evening final +“show,” when the whole of Society would assemble to be thrilled by +the final Jumping, Driving, Tent-pegging, Sword <i>v.</i> Sword Mounted, +Bayonet-fighting, Sword <i>v.</i> Lance, Tug-of-War, and other events for +British and Indian officers and men of all arms. +</p> + +<p> +It was rumoured that there was a Sergeant of Hussars who would give Trooper +Matthewson a warm time with the sabre. As the crowd of competitors and +spectators gathered round the sabres-ring, and chairs were carried up for the +Generals, ladies, and staff, to witness the last and most exciting contest of +the morning’s meeting, a Corporal-official of the Assault-at-Arms +Executive Committee called aloud, “Sergeant O’Malley, 14th Hussars, +get ready,” and another fastened a red band to the Sergeant’s arm +as he stepped forward, clad in leather jacket and leg-guards and carrying the +heavy iron-and-leather head-guard necessary in sabre combats, and the +blunt-edged, blunt-pointed sabre. +</p> + +<p> +Dam approached him. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t let my point rest on your hilt, Sergeant,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the game?” inquired the surprised and suspicious +Sergeant. +</p> + +<p> +“My little trick. I thrust rather than cut, you know,” said Dam. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll watch it, me lad,” returned Sergeant O’Malley, +wondering whether Dam were fool or knave. +</p> + +<p> +“Trooper Matthewson, get ready,” called the Corporal, and Dam +stepped into the ring, saluted, and faced the Sergeant. +</p> + +<p> +A brief direction and caution, the usual preliminary, and the word— +</p> + +<p> +“On guard—<i>Play</i>” and Dam was parrying a series of the +quickest cuts he had ever met. The Sergeant’s sword flickered like the +tongue of a—<i>Snake</i>. Yes—of a <i>Snake</i>! and even as +Dam’s hand dropped limp and nerveless, the Sergeant’s sword fell +with a dull heavy thud on his head-guard. The stroke would have split +Dam’s head right neatly, in actual fighting. +</p> + +<p> +“Stop,” shouted the referee. “Point to Red.” +</p> + +<p> +“On guard—<i>Play</i>” +</p> + +<p> +But if the Sergeant’s sword flickered like the tongue of a +snake—why then Dam must be fighting the Snake. <i>Fighting the Snake</i> +and in another second the referee again cried “Stop!” And added, +“Don’t fight savage, White, or I’ll disqualify you”. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m awf’ly sorry,” said Dam, “I thought I was +fighting the Sn——” +</p> + +<p> +“Hold your tongue, and don’t argue,” replied the referee +sternly. +</p> + +<p> +“On Guard—<i>Play</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +Ere the Sergeant could move his sword from its upward-inclined position +Dam’s blade dropped to its hilt, shot in over it, and as the Sergeant +raised his forearm in guard, flashed beneath it and bent on his breast. +</p> + +<p> +“Stop,” cried the referee. “Point to White. +Double”—two marks being then awarded for the thrust hit, and one +for the cut. +</p> + +<p> +“On guard—<i>Play</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +Absolutely the same thing happened again within the next half-second, and Dam +had won the British Troops’ Sword <i>v</i>. Sword Dismounted, in addition +to being in for the finals in Tent-pegging, Sword <i>v</i>. Sword Mounted, +Jumping (Individual and By Sections), Sword <i>v</i>. Lance, and Tug-of-War. +</p> + +<p> +“Now jest keep orf it, Matthewson, and sweep the bloomin’ +board,” urged Troop-Sergeant-Major Scoles as Dam removed his +fencing-jacket, preparatory to returning to barracks. “You be Best +Man-at-arms in the Division and win everythink that’s open to British +Troops Mounted, and git the ’Eavy-Weight Championship from the +Gorilla—an’ there’ll be some talk about promotion for yer, me +lad.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, Sergeant,” replied Dam. “I am a total +abstainer.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yah! <i>Chuck</i> it,” observed the Sergeant-Major. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Of no interest to Women nor modern civilized Men</i>. +</p> + +<p> +The long-anticipated hour had struck, the great moment had arrived, and +(literally) thousands of British soldiers sat in a state of expectant thrill +and excited interest, awaiting the appearance of the Gorilla (Corporal Dowdall +of the 111th Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery—fourteen stone twelve) and +Trooper Matthewson (Queen’s Greys—fourteen stone) who were to fight +for the Elliott Belt, the Motipur Cup, and the Heavy-Weight Championship of +India. +</p> + +<p> +The Boxing Tournament had lasted for a week and had been a huge success. Now +came the <i>pièce de resistance, the</i> fight of the Meeting, the event for +which special trains had brought hundreds of civilians and soldiers from +neighbouring and distant cantonments. Bombay herself sent a crowded train-load, +and it was said that a, by no means small, contingent had come from Madras. +Certainly more than one sporting patron of the Great Sport, the Noble Art, the +Manly Game, had travelled from far Calcutta. So well-established was the fame +of the great Gorilla, and so widely published the rumour that the Queen’s +Greys had a prodigy who’d lower his flag in ten rounds—or less. +</p> + +<p> +A great square of the grassy plain above Motipur had been enclosed by a high +canvas wall, and around a twenty-four foot raised “ring” (which was +square) seating accommodation for four thousand spectators had been provided. +The front rows consisted of arm-chairs, sofas, and drawing-room settees (from +the wonderful stock of Mr. Dadabhoy Pochajee Furniturewallah of the Sudder +Bazaar) for the officers and leading civilians of Motipur, and such other +visitors as chose to purchase the highly priced reserved-seat tickets. +</p> + +<p> +Not only was every seat in the vast enclosure occupied, but every square inch +of standing-room, by the time the combatants entered the arena. +</p> + +<p> +A few dark faces were to be seen (Native Officers of the pultans<a href="#fn23" name="fnref23" id="fnref23"><sup>[23]</sup></a> +and rissal<a href="#fn24" name="fnref24" id="fnref24"><sup>[24]</sup></a> of +the Motipur Brigade), and the idea occurred to not a few that it was a pity the +proceedings could not be witnessed by every Indian in India. It would do them +good in more ways than one. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn23" id="fn23"></a> <a href="#fnref23">[23]</a> +Infantry Regiments. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn24" id="fn24"></a> <a href="#fnref24">[24]</a> +Cavalry Regiment. +</p> + +<p> +Although a large number of the enormously preponderating military spectators +were in the khaki kit so admirable for work (and so depressing, unswanksome and +anti-enlistment for play, or rather for walking-out and leisure), the +experienced eye could see that almost every corps in India furnished +contingents to the gathering. Lancers, dragoons, hussars, artillery, riflemen, +Highlanders, supply and transport, infantry of a score of regiments, and, rare +sight away from the Ports, a small party of Man-o’-War’s-men in +white duck, blue collars, and straw hats (huge, solemn-faced men who jested +with grimmest seriousness of mien and insulted each other outrageously). +Officers in scarlet, in dark blue, in black and cherry colour, in fawn and +cherry colour, in pale blue and silver, in almost every combination of colours, +showed that the commissioned ranks of the British and Indian Services were well +represented, horse, foot, guns, engineers, doctors, and veterinary +surgeons—every rank and every branch. On two sides of the roped ring, +with its padded posts, sat the judges, boxing Captains both, who had won +distinction at Aldershot and in many a local tournament. On another side sat +the referee, <i>ex</i>-Public-Schools Champion, Aldershot Light-Weight +Champion, and, admittedly, the best boxer of his weight among the officers of +the British Army. Beside him sat the time-keeper. Overhead a circle of large +incandescent lamps made the scene as bright as day. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, d’you take it?” asked Seaman Jones of Seaman Smith. +“Better strike while the grog’s ’ot. A double-prick o’ +baccy and a gallon o’ four-’arf, evens, on the Griller. I +ain’t never ’eard o’ the Griller till we come ’ere, and +I never ’eard o’ t’other bloke neether—but I +’olds by the Griller, cos of ’is name and I backs me fancy afore I +sees ’em.—Loser to ’elp the winner with the gallon.” +</p> + +<p> +“Done, Bill,” replied the challenged promptly, on hearing the last +condition. (He could drink as fast as Bill if he lost, and he could borrer on +the baccy till it was wore out.) “Got that bloomin’ +’igh-falutin’ lar-de-dar giddy baccy-pouch and yaller baccy you +inwested in at Bombay?” he asked. “Yus, ’Enery,” +replied William, diving deeply for it. +</p> + +<p> +“Then push it ’ere, an’ likewise them bloomin’ +’igh-falutin’ lar-de-dar giddy fag-papers you fumble wiv’. +Blimey! ain’t a honest clay good enough for yer now? I knows wots the +matter wiv <i>you</i>, Billy Jones! You’ve got a weather-heye on the +Quarter Deck you ’ave. You fink you’re agoin’ to be a +blighted perishin’ orficer you do! Yus, you flat-footed matlot—not +even a blasted tiffy you ain’t, and you buys a blighted baccy-pouch and +yaller baccy and fag-pipers, like a Snottie, an’ reckons you’s on +the ’igh road to be a bloomin’ Winnie Lloyd Gorgeous Orficer. +’And ’em ’ere—fore I’m sick. +Lootenant,—Gunnery Jack,—Number One,—Commerdore!” +</p> + +<p> +“Parding me, ’Enery Smiff,” returned William Jones with quiet +dignity. “In consequents o’ wot you said, an’ more in +consequents o’ yore clumsy fat fingers not been used to +’andlin’ dellikit objex, and most in consequents o’ yore been +a most ontrustable thief, I will perceed to roll you a fag meself, me been +’ighly competent so fer to do. Not but wot a fag’ll look most outer +place in <i>your</i> silly great ugly faice.” +</p> + +<p> +The other sailor watched the speaker in cold contempt as he prepared a +distinctly exiguous, ill-fed cigarette. +</p> + +<p> +“Harthur Handrews,” he said, turning to his other neighbour, +“’Ave yew ’appened to see the Master Sail-maker or any of +’is mermydiuns ’ere-abahts, by any chawnst?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nope. ’An don’ want. Don’ wan’ see nothink to +remind me o’ +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Ther blue, ther fresh, ther <i>hever</i> free,<br/> +Ther blarsted, beastly, boundin’ sea. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Not even your distressin’ face and dirty norticle apparile. Why do you +arksk sich silly questchings?” +</p> + +<p> +“Willyerm Jones is amakin’ a needle for ’im.” +</p> + +<p> +“As ’ow?” +</p> + +<p> +“Wiv a fag-paper an’ a thread o’ yaller baccy. +’E’s makin’ a bloomin’ needle,” and with a sudden +grab he possessed himself of the pouch, papers, and finished product of Seaman +Jones’s labours and generosity. +</p> + +<p> +Having pricked himself severely and painfully with the alleged cigarette, he +howled with pain, cast it from him, proceeded to stick two papers together and +to make an uncommonly stout, well-nourished, and bounteous cigarette. +</p> + +<p> +“I ’fought I offered you to make yourself a cigarette, +’Enery,” observed the astounded owner of the <i>materia +nicotina</i>. +</p> + +<p> +“I grabbed for to make myself a cigarette, Willyerm,” was the +pedantically correct restatement of Henry. +</p> + +<p> +“Then why go for to try an’ mannyfacter a bloomin’ +banana?” asked the indignant victim, whose further remarks were drowned +in the roars of applause which greeted the appearance from the dressing-tents +of the Champion and the Challenger. +</p> + +<p> +Dam and Corporal Dowdall entered the ring from opposite corners, seated +themselves in the chairs provided for them, and submitted themselves to the +ministrations of their respective seconds. +</p> + +<p> +Trooper Herbert Hawker violently chafed Dam’s legs, Trooper Bear his arms +and chest, while Trooper Goate struggled to force a pair of new boxing-gloves +upon his hands, which were scientifically bandaged around knuckles, back, and +wrist, against untimely dislocations and sprains. +</p> + +<p> +Clean water was poured into the bowls which stood behind each chair, and fresh +resin was sprinkled over the canvas-covered boards of the Ring. +</p> + +<p> +Men whose favourite “carried their money” (and each carried a good +deal) anxiously studied that favourite’s opponent. +</p> + +<p> +The Queen’s Greys beheld a gorilla indeed, a vast, square, long-armed +hairy monster, with the true pugilist face and head. +</p> + +<p> +“Wot a werry ugly bloke,” observed Seaman Arthur Andrews to Seaman +Henry Smith. “’E reminds me o’ Hadmiral Sir Percy +’Opkinton, so ’e do. P’raps ’e’s a pore +relation.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yus,” agreed Seaman Smith. “A crost between our beloved +’Oppy an’ ole Bill Jones ’ere. Bill was reported to +’ave ’ad a twin brother—but it was allus serposed Bill ate +’im when ’e wasn’ lookin’.” +</p> + +<p> +The backers of Corporal Dowdall were encouraged at seeing a man who looked like +a gentleman and bore none of the traditional marks of the prize-fighter. His +head was not cropped to the point of bristly baldness, his nose was unbroken, +his eyes well opened and unblackened, his ears unthickened, his body +untattooed. He had the white skin, small trim moustache, high-bred features, +small extremities, and general appearance and bearing of an officer. +</p> + +<p> +Ho, G’rilla Dowdall would make short work of <i>that</i> tippy young +toff. Why, look at him! +</p> + +<p> +And indeed it made you shudder to think of that enormous ferocity, that dynamic +truculence, doing its best to destroy you in a space twenty-four feet square. +</p> + +<p> +Let the challenger wait till G’rilla put his fighting face on—fair +terrifyin’. +</p> + +<p> +Not an Artilleryman but felt sure that the garrison-gunner would successfully +defend the title and “give the swankin’ Queen’s Greys +something to keep them <i>choop</i><a href="#fn25" name="fnref25" id="fnref25"><sup>[25]</sup></a> +for a bit. Gettin’ above ’emselves they was, becos’ this +bloke of theirs had won Best Man-at-Arms and had the nerve to challenge +G’rilla Dowdall, R.G.A.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn25" id="fn25"></a> <a href="#fnref25">[25]</a> +Silent. +</p> + +<p> +Even the R.H.A. admitted the R.G.A. to terms of perfect equality on that great +occasion. +</p> + +<p> +But a few observant and experienced officers, gymnasium instructors, and +ancient followers of the Noble Art were not so sure. +</p> + +<p> +“Put steel-and-whalebone against granite and I back the former,” +said Major Decoulis to Colonel Hanking; “other things being equal of +course—skill and ring-craft. And I hear that No. 2—the +Queen’s Greys’ man—is unusually fast for a +heavy-weight.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’d like to see him win,” admitted the Colonel. “The +man looks a gentleman. <i>Doesn’t</i> the other look a Bill Sykes, by +Jove!” +</p> + +<p> +The Staff Sergeant Instructor of the Motipur Gymnasium stepped into the ring. +</p> + +<p> +“Silence, please,” he bawled. “Fifteen-round contest between +Corporal Dowdall, 111th Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery, Heavy-Weight +Champion of Hindia, fourteen twelve (Number 1—on my right ’and) and +Trooper Matthewson, Queen’s Greys, fourteen stun (Number 2—on my +left ’and). Please keep silence durin’ the rounds. The winner is +Heavy-Weight Champion of Hindia, winner of the Motipur Cup and ’older of +the Elliott Belt. All ready there?” +</p> + +<p> +Both combatants were ready. +</p> + +<p> +“Come here, both of you,” said the referee. +</p> + +<p> +As he arose to obey, Dam was irresistibly reminded of his fight with Bully +Harberth and smiled. +</p> + +<p> +“Nervous sort o’ grin on the figger-’ead o’ the smaller +wessel, don’t it,” observed Seaman Smith. +</p> + +<p> +“There wouldn’t be no grin on <i>your</i> fat face at all,” +returned Seaman Jones. “It wouldn’t be there. You’d be +full-steam-ahead, bearings ’eated, and showin’ no lights, for them +tents—when you see wot you was up against.” +</p> + +<p> +The referee felt Dam’s gloves to see that they contained no foreign +bodies in the shape of plummets of lead or other illegal gratifications. (He +had known a man fill the stuffing-compartments of his gloves with plaster of +Paris, that by the third or fourth round he might be striking with a kind of +stone cestus as the plaster moulded with sweat and water, and hardened to the +shape of the fist.) +</p> + +<p> +As he stepped back, Dam looked for the first time at his opponent, conned his +bruiser face and Herculean body, and, with a gasp and shudder, was aware that a +huge tattooed serpent reared its head in the centre of his vast chest while +smaller ones encircled the mighty biceps of his arms. He clutched the rope and +leant trembling against the post as the referee satisfied himself (with very +great care in this case) of the innocence of the Gorilla’s gloves. +</p> + +<p> +“I know you of old, Dowdall,” he said, “and I shall only +caution you once mind. Second offence—and out you go.” +</p> + +<p> +Corporal Dowdall grinned sheepishly. He appeared to think that a delicate and +gentlemanly compliment had been paid to his general downiness, flyness, and +ring-craft,—the last of which, for Corporal Dowdall, included every form +of foul that a weak referee would pass, an inexperienced one misunderstand, or +a lazy one miss. Major O’Halloran, first-class bruiser himself, was in +the habit of doing his refereeing inside the ring and within a foot or two of +the principals, where he expected foul play. +</p> + +<p> +As the Major cautioned the Gorilla, Dam passed his hand wearily across his +face, swallowed once or twice and groaned aloud. +</p> + +<p> +It was <i>not</i> fair. Why should the Snake be allowed to humiliate him before +thousands of spectators? Why should It be brought here to shame him in the +utmost publicity, to make him fail his comrades, disgrace his regiment, make +the Queen’s Greys a laughing-stock? +</p> + +<p> +But—he had fought an emissary of the Snake before—and he had won. +This villainous-looking pugilist was perhaps <i>the Snake Itself in human +form</i>—and, see, he was free, he was in God’s open air, no chains +bound him, he was not gagged, this place was not a pit dug beneath the Pit +itself! This was all tangible and real. He would have fair play and be able to +defend himself. This was not a blue room with a mud floor. Nay, he would be +able to attack—to fight, fight like a wounded pantheress for her cubs. +This accursed Snake in Human Form would only be able to use puny fists. Mere +trivial human fists and human strength. Everything would be on the human plane. +It would be unable to wrap him in its awful coils and crush and crush the soul +and life and manhood out of him, as it did at night before burrowing its way +ten million miles below the floor of Hell with him, and immuring him in a +molten incandescent tomb where he could not even scream or writhe. +</p> + +<p> +“Get to your corners,” said the referee, and Dam returned to his +place with a cruel smile upon his compressed lips. By the Merciful Living God +he had the Snake Itself delivered unto him in human form—to do with as he +could. Oh, that It might last out the fifteen times of facing him in his wrath, +his pent-up vengeful wrath at a ruined life, a dishonoured name and <i>a lost +Lucille!</i> +</p> + +<p> +When would they give the word for him to spring upon it and batter it lifeless +to the ground? +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t grind yer silly teeth like that,” whispered Hawker, +his grim ugly face white with anxiety and suspense (for he loved Damocles de +Warrenne as the faithfullest of hounds loves the best of masters). +“You’re awastin’ henergy all the time.” +</p> + +<p> +“God! if they don’t give the word in a minute I shall be unable to +hold off It,” replied Dam wildly. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s the sperrit, Cocky,” approved Hawker, “but +donchew fergit you gotter larst fifteen bloomin’ rahnds. ’Taint no +kindergarters. ’<i>E</i>’ll stick it orlrite, an’ +you’ll avter win on <i>points</i>——” +</p> + +<p> +“Seconds out of the Ring,” cried the time-keeper, staring at his +watch. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t get knocked out, dear boy,” implored Trooper Bear. +“Fight to win on points. You <i>can’t</i> knock him out. I’m +going to pray like hell through the rounds——” +</p> + +<p> +<i>“Time”</i> barked the time-keeper, and, catching up the chair as +Dam rose, Trooper Bear dropped down from the boards of the ring to the turf, +where already crouched Hawker and Goate, looking like men about to be hanged. +</p> + +<p> +The large assembly drew a deep breath as the combatants approached each other +with extended right hands—Dam clad in a pair of blue silk shorts, silk +socks and high, thin, rubber-soled boots, the Gorilla in an exiguous +bathing-garment and a pair of gymnasium shoes. +</p> + +<p> +Dam a picture of the Perfect Man, was the taller, and the Gorilla, a perfect +Caliban, was the broader and had the longer reach. Their right hands touched in +perfunctory shake, Dam drew back to allow the Snake to assume sparring +attitude, and, as he saw the huge shoulders hunch, the great biceps rise, and +the clenched gloves come to position, he assumed the American +“crouch” attitude and sprang like a tiger upon the incarnation of +the utter Damnation and Ruin that had cursed his life to living death. +</p> + +<p> +The Gorilla was shocked and pained! The tippy pink-and-white blasted rookie was +“all over him” and he was sent staggering with such a rain of +smashing blows as he had never, never felt, nor seen others receive. The whole +assembly of soldiers, saving the Garrison Artillerymen, raised a wild yell, +regardless of the referee’s ferocious expostulations (in dumb-show) and +even the ranks of the Horse-Gunners could scarce forbear to cheer. The +Queen’s Greys howled like fiends and Hawker, unknown to himself, punched +the boards before him with terrific violence. Never had anything like it been +seen. Matthewson was a human whirlwind, and Dowdall had not had a chance to +return a blow. More than half the tremendous punches, hooks and in-fighting +jabs delivered by his opponent had got home, and he was “rattled”. +A fair hook to the chin might send him down and out at any moment. +</p> + +<p> +Surely never had human being aimed such an unceasing, unending, rain of blows +in the space of two minutes as had Trooper Matthewson. His arms had worked like +the piston rods of an express engine—as fast and as untiringly. He had +taken the Gorilla by surprise, had rushed him, and had never given him a +fraction of time in which to attack. Beneath the rain of sledge-hammer blows +the Gorilla had shrunk, guarding for dear life. Driven into a corner, he +cowered down, crouched beneath his raised arms, and allowed his face to sink +forward. Like a whirling piece of machinery Dam’s arm flew round to +administer the <i>coup-de-grace</i>, the upper cut, that would lay the Snake +twitching and unconscious on the boards. +</p> + +<p> +The Gorilla was expecting it. +</p> + +<p> +As it came, his bullet head was jerked aside, and as the first swung harmlessly +up, he arose like a flash, and, as he did so, his mighty right shot up, took +Dam on the chin and laid him flat and senseless in the middle of the ring. +</p> + +<p> +The Gorilla breathed heavily and made the most of the respite. He knew it must +be about “Time,” and that he had not won. If it wasn’t +“Time,” and the cub arose he’d knock him to glory as he did +so. Yes, the moment the most liberal-minded critic could say he was just about +on his feet, he’d give him a finisher that he’d bear the mark of. +The bloomin’ young swine had nearly “had” him—him, the +great G’rilla Dowdall, about to buy himself out with his prize-money, and +take to pugilism as a profession. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>One—two—three—four,</i>” counted the +timekeeper amid the most deathly silence, and, as he added, +<i>“five—six—Time,”</i> a shout arose that was heard +for miles. +</p> + +<p> +Trooper Matthewson was saved—if his seconds could pull him round in time. +</p> + +<p> +At sound of the word “Time,” the seconds leapt into the ring. +Hawker and Bear rushed to the prostrate Dam, hauled him to his feet, and +dragged him to the chair which Goate had placed ready. As he was dropped into +it, a spongeful of icy water from Goate’s big sponge brought Dam to +consciousness. +</p> + +<p> +“Breave for all y’r worf,” grunted Hawker, as he mightily +swung a big bath-towel in swift eddies, to drive refreshing air upon the +heaving, panting body of his principal. +</p> + +<p> +Bear and Goate applied massaging hands with skilled violence. +</p> + +<p> +“By Jove, I thought you had him,” panted Goate as he kneaded +triceps and biceps. “And then I thought he had you. It’s +anybody’s fight, Matty—but <i>don’t</i> try and knock him +out. You couldn’t do it with an axe.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” agreed Bear. “You’ve got to keep on your feet and +win on points.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve got to kill <i>the Snake</i>,” hissed Dam, and his +seconds glanced at each other anxiously. +</p> + +<p> +He felt that nothing could keep him from victory. He was regaining his faith in +a just Heaven, now that the Snake had been compelled to face him in the puny +form of a wretched pugilist. Some one had said something about an axe. It would +be but fair if he had an axe, seeing that hitherto the Snake had had him +utterly defenceless while exercising its own immeasurable and supernatural +powers, when torturing him to its heart’s content for endless aeons. +But—no—since it was here in human form and without weapons, +<i>he</i> would use none, and would observe the strictest fairness in fight, +just as he would to a real human enemy. +</p> + +<p> +“Abaht that there little bet, ’Enery,” observed Seaman Jones, +“I fink we’ll alter of it. I don’t wish to give no moral +support to this ’ere Griller. T’other bloke’s only jus’ +fresh from the Novice Class, I reckon, jedgin’ by ’is innercent +young faice, an’ e’s aputtin’ up the werry best fight as ever +I see. We’ll chainge it like this ’ere. We backs the +’orse-soldier to win, and, if he <i>do</i>, we drinks a gallon between +us. If ’e don’t, we drinks <i>two</i> fer to console ’im, +an’ drahn sorrer, wot?” +</p> + +<p> +“So it are, Will’m,” agreed Henery. “Then we wins +<i>either</i> way! <i>You</i> got a ’ead fer logger-rhythms. Oughter been +a bloomin’ bookie. They ’as to be big an’ +ugly——” +</p> + +<p> +“Seconds out of the Ring,” called the referee, and a hush fell upon +the excited throng. +</p> + +<p> +Bear and Goate dropped to the ground, Hawker splashed water all over +Dam’s body and, as he rose on the word “<i>Time</i>” snatched +away the chair and joined his colleagues, who crouched with faces on a level +with the boards. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, buck him up, good Lord, and put ginger in his short-arm work, and O +Lord, take care of his chin and mark,” prayed Trooper Bear, with deep and +serious devoutness. +</p> + +<p> +No need to shake hands this bout—not again till the fifteenth, noted Dam, +as he arose and literally leapt at his opponent with a smashing drive of his +right and a feint of his left which drew the Gorilla’s guard and left his +face exposed. The Gorilla received Dam’s full weight and full strength, +and, but for the ropes, would have been knocked among the spectators. +</p> + +<p> +A tremendous yell went up, led by the Queen’s Greys. +</p> + +<p> +As the tautening of the ropes swayed the Gorilla inward again, Dam delivered a +brace of lightning strokes that, though they did not find the chin, staggered +and partly stunned him, and, ere he could pull himself together, Dam was inside +his guard, almost breast to breast with him, and raining terrific blows, just +above the belt. Left, right, left, right, and no chance for the Gorilla to get +his own hands up for a couple of seconds, and, when he could, and drove an +appalling blow at Dam’s chin, it was dodged and he received a +cross-counter that shook him. He must sham weariness and demoralization, lead +the tippy rookie on to over-confidence and then land him clean over the ropes. +A sullen rage grew in the Gorilla’s heart. He wasn’t doing himself +justice. He wasn’t having a fair show. This blasted half-set pink and +white recruit hadn’t given him time to settle down. A fifteen-round +contest shouldn’t be bustled like <i>this!</i> The bloke was more like a +wild-cat than a sober heavyweight boxer. +</p> + +<p> +He received a heavy blow in the face and, as he shook his head with an evil +grin, according to his custom when well struck, he found it followed +practically instantaneously by another. The swab was about the quickest thing +that ever got into a ring. He was like one of these bloomin’, tricky, +jack-in-the-box featherweights, instead of a steady lumbering +“heavy”. And the Gorilla allowed himself to be driven to a corner +again, and let his head sink forward, that the incautious youth might again put +all his strength into an upper-cut, miss as the other dodged, and be at the +mercy of the Gorilla as the errant fist completed its over-driven swing. +</p> + +<p> +But Damocles de Warrenne fought with his brain as well as his strength and +skill. He had learnt a lesson, and no dull-witted oaf of a Gorilla was going to +have him like that twice. As the Gorilla cowered and crouched in simulated +defeat and placed his face to tempt the <i>coup de grace</i> which he would see +swinging up, and easily dodge, Dam swiftly side-stepped and summoning every +ounce of strength, rage, and mad protesting frenzy against the life-long +torturing tyrant, he delivered a Homeric blow at the champion’s head, +beside and behind the ear. (Since he was indestructible by the ordinary +point-of-the-chin knock-out, let him make the best of that fearful blow upon +the base of the brain and spinal cord, direct.) +</p> + +<p> +Experienced men said it was the heaviest blow they had ever seen struck with +the human fist. It was delivered slightly downward, coolly, at measured +distance, with change from left foot to right in the act of delivery, and with +the uttermost strength of a most powerful athlete in perfect training—and +Hate Incarnate lent the strength of madness to the strength of training and +skill. +</p> + +<p> +THUD!—and the Gorilla dropped like a log. +</p> + +<p> +<i>“One—two—three—four—five—six—seven—”</i> +counted the time-keeper, as men scarcely breathed in the dead silence into +which the voice cut sharply—<i>“eight—”</i> and, in +perfect silence, every man of those thousands slowly rose to his +feet—<i>“nine—OUT!”</i> and such a roar arose as bade +fair to rend the skies. <i>“Outed” in two rounds!</i> Men howled +like lunatics, and the Queen’s Greys behaved like very dangerous +lunatics. Hawker flung his arms round Dam and endeavoured to raise him on his +shoulders and chair him unaided. Bear and Goate got each a hand and proceeded +to do their best to crush it. +</p> + +<p> +Seamen Jones and Smith exchanged a chaste kiss. +</p> + +<p> +Damocles de Warrenne was the hero of the Queen’s Greys. Best Man-at-Arms +in the Division, winner in Sword v. Sword Mounted and Dismounted, Tent-pegging, +Sword v. Lance, and Individual Jumping, and in the winning teams for +Tug-of-War, Section Jumping, and Section Tent-pegging! +</p> + +<p> +“Give him a trial as Corporal then, from the first of next month, sir, if +there’s no sign of anything wrong during the week,” agreed Captain +Daunt, talking him over with the Colonel, after receiving through +Troop-Sergeant-Major Scoles a petition to promote the man. +</p> + +<p> +Within twenty-four hours of his fight with the Gorilla, Dam found himself on +sentry-go over what was known in the Regiment as “the Dead +’Ole”—which was the mortuary, situated in a lonely, isolated +spot beyond a nullah some half-furlong from the Hospital, and cut off from view +of human habitation by a belt of trees. +</p> + +<p> +On mounting guard that evening, the Sergeant of the Guard had been informed +that a corpse lay in the mortuary, a young soldier having been taken ill and +having died within a few hours, of some disease of a distinctly choleraic +nature. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll tell <i>you</i> orf for that post, Matthewson,” said +the Sergeant. “P’raps you’ll see ghosties there, for a +change,” for it was customary to mount a sentry over “the Dead +’Ole” when it contained an occupant, and one of the sentry’s +pleasing duties was to rap loudly and frequently upon the door throughout the +night to scare away those vermin which are no respecters of persons when the +persons happen to be dead and the vermin ravenous. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not afraid of ghosts, Sergeant,” replied +Dam—though his heart sank within him at the thought of the long lonely +vigil in the dark, when he would be so utterly at the mercy of the +Snake—the Snake over whom he had just won a signal victory, and who would +be all the more vindictive and terrible in consequence. Could he keep sane +through the lonely darkness of those dreadful hours? Perhaps—if he kept +himself in some severe physical agony. He would put a spur beneath his +tight-drawn belt and next to his skin, he would strike his knee frequently with +the “toe of the butt” of his carbine, he would put pebbles in his +boots, and he would cause cramp in his limbs, one after the other. Any kind of +pain would help. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +It must be quarter of an hour since he had rapped on the mortuary door and sent +his messages of prohibition to mouse, rat, bandicoot, civet-cat, wild-cat or +other vermin intruder through the roof-ventilation holes. He would knock again. +A strange thing this—knocking at a dead man’s door in the middle of +the night. Suppose the dead man called “Come in!” It would be +intensely interesting, but in no wise terrifying or horrible. Presumably poor +young Trooper Priddell was no more dangerous or dreadful in the spirit than he +had been in the flesh…. Fortunate young man! Were he only on sentry-go outside +the peaceful mortuary and Damocles de Warrenne stretched on the bier within, to +await the morrow and its pomp and ceremony, when the carcass of the dead +soldier would receive honours never paid to the living, sentient man, be he +never so worthy, heroic, virtuous and deserving. Oh, to be lying in there at +rest, to be on the other side of that closed door at peace!… +</p> + +<p> +To-morrow that poor dead yokel’s body would receive a “Present +Arms” (as though he were an armed party commanded by an Officer) from the +Guard, which the sentry would turn out as the coffin passed the Guard-room. For +the first and last time in his life, he would get a “<i>Present +Arms</i>”. It wouldn’t be in his <i>life</i> though. For the first +and last time in his death? That didn’t sound right either. Anyhow he +would get it, and lots of strange, inexplicable, origin-forgotten rites would +be observed over this piece of clay—hitherto so cheaply held and roughly +treated. +</p> + +<p> +Queer! As “Trooper Priddell” he was of no account. As a piece of +fast-decaying carrion he would be the centre of a piece of elaborate +ceremonial! His troop would parade in full dress and (save for a firing-party +of twelve who would carry carbines) without arms. A special black horse would +be decked out with a pall of black velvet and black plumes. Across this horse +the spurred jackboots of the dead man would be slung with toes pointing to the +rear. Two men, wearing black cloaks, would lead the horse by means of new +handkerchiefs passed through the bridoon rings of its bridle, handkerchiefs +which would become their perquisites and <i>memento mori</i>. +</p> + +<p> +With crape-draped drums, the band, in silence, would lead the troop to the +mortuary where would await it a gun-carriage with its six horses and +coffin-supporting attachment. Here the troop would break ranks, file into the +mortuary and bare-headed take, each man, his last look at the face of the dead +as he lay in his coffin. The lid would then be screwed on, the troop would form +a double line, facing inward, the firing-party would “present +arms,” and six of the dead man’s more particular pals, or of his +“townies,” would bear the coffin out and place it upon the +gun-carriage. It would then be covered with a Union Jack and on it would be +placed the helmet, sword, and carbine of the deceased trooper, the firing-party +standing meanwhile, leaning on their reversed carbines, with bowed heads. +</p> + +<p> +As the melancholy procession formed up for its march to the graveyard, the +smallest and junior men would take front place, the bigger and senior men +behind them, non-commissioned officers would follow, and subalterns and captain +last of all. In stepping off from the halt, all would step off with the right +foot instead of with the left. Apparently the object was to reverse ordinary +procedure to the uttermost—which would but be in keeping with the great +reversal of showing honour to such an unhonoured thing as a private +soldier—one of the despised and rejected band that enable the +respectable, wealthy, and smug to remain so; one of the “licentious +soldiery” that have made, and that keep, the Empire of which the +respectable wealthy and smug are so proud. +</p> + +<p> +At the “slow march,” and in perfect silence until beyond hearing by +the inmates of the Hospital, the cortege would proceed. Anon the band would +call heaven and earth to mourn with the sonorous dreadful strains of the Dead +March; whereafter the ordinary “quick march” would bring the +funeral party to the cemetery, in sight of which the “slow march” +would be resumed, and the Chaplain, surpliced, book-bearing, come forth to put +himself at its head, leading the way to the grave-side where, with uncovered +heads, the mourners would listen to the impressive words with feelings varying +as their education, religion, temperament, and—digestion—impelled. +</p> + +<p> +At the close of the service, the firing-party in their places, six on either +side of the grave, would fire three volleys into the air, while the band +breathed a solemn dirge. +</p> + +<p> +And—perhaps most impressively tragic touch of all—the party would +march briskly off to the strains of the liveliest air in the whole repertoire +of the band. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Why</i> should John Humphreyville Priddell—doubtless scion of the +great Norman houses of Humphreyville and Paradelle, who shared much of +Dorsetshire between them from Domesday Book to Stuart downfall—have been +born in a tiny village of the Vale of Froom in “Dorset Dear,” to +die of cholera in vile Motipur? Was some maid, in barton, byre, or dairy, +thinking of him but now—with an ill-writ letter in her bosom, a letter +beginning with “<i>I now take up my pen to right you these few lines +hopping they find you the same which they now leave me at present</i>” +according to right tradition and proper custom, and continuing to speak of +homesick longings, dreams of furlough, promotion, marrying “on the +strength,” and retirement to green fair Dorset Dear on a +Sergeant-Major’s pension? +</p> + +<p> +What was the meaning of it all? Was it pure chance and accident—or had a +Living, Scheming, Purposeful Deity a great wise object in this that John +Humphreyville Priddell should have been born and bred and nurtured in the Vale +of Froom to be struck from lusty life to a death of agony in a few hours at +Motipur in the cruel accursed blighted land of Ind? +</p> + +<p> +Well, well!—high time to rap again upon the door, the last door, of John +Humphreyville Priddell, Trooper, ex-dairyhand, decaying carrion,—and +scare from his carcass such over-early visitants as anticipated…. +</p> + +<p> +How hollowly the blows re-echoed. Did they strike muffled but murderous upon +the heart of the thousand-league distant dairymaid, or of the old +cottage-mother whose evenings were spent in spelling out her boy’s loving +letters—that so oft covered a portion of his exiguous pay?… +</p> + +<p> +Was that a scuttling within? Quite probably. It might be—rats, it might +be a bandicoot; it could hardly be a jackal; it might be a SNAKE,—and +Trooper Matthewson’s carbine clattered to the ground and his knees smote +together as he thought the word. Pulling himself together he hastily snatched +up his carbine with a flush of shame at the slovenly unsoldierly +“crime” of dropping it. He’d be dropping his arms on parade +next! But it <i>might be a snake</i>—for he had certainly heard the sound +of a movement of some sort. The strong man felt faint and leant against the +mortuary wall for a moment. +</p> + +<p> +Oh, that the wretched carbine were a sword! A man could feel a <i>man</i> with +a sword in his hand. He could almost face the Snake, even in Snake form, if he +had a sword … but what is a carbine, even a loaded Martini-Henry carbine with +its good soft man-stopping slug? There are no traditions to a +carbine—nothing of the Spirit of one’s Ancestors in one—a +vile mechanic thing of villainous saltpetre. How should the Snake fear that? +Now a sword was different. It stood for human war and human courage and human +deeds from the mistiest past, and behind it must be a weight of human wrath, +feats, and tradition that must make even the Snake pause. Oh, for his +sword—if the Snake came upon him when he had but this wretched carbine he +would probably desert his post, fling the useless toy from him, and flee till +he fell blind and fainting on the ground…. And what would the Trooper of the +Queen get who deserted his sentry-post, threw away his arms and fled—and +explained in defence that he had seen a snake? Probably a court-martial would +give him a spell of Military Prison. Yes—<i>Jail</i>…. What proportion of +truth could there be in the firmly-held belief of the men that +“crimes” are made so numerous and so inevitable, to the +best-meaning and most careful, because there exist a great Military Prison +System and a great Military Prison personnel—and that +“criminals” are essential to the respective proper inhabitation and +<i>raison d’être</i> thereof—that unless a good supply of military +“criminals” were forthcoming there might have to be reductions and +curtailments—loss of snug billets…. Certainly soldiers got years of +imprisonment for “crimes” for which civilians would get reprimands +or nominal fines, and, moreover, when a man became a soldier he certainly lost +the elementary fundamental rights guaranteed to Englishmen by Magna +Charta—among them the right of trial by his peers…. +</p> + +<p> +Would poor Priddell mind if he did not knock again? If it were the Snake it +could do Priddell no harm now—he being happily dead—whereas, if +disturbed, it might emerge to the utter undoing—mind, body, and +soul—of Trooper Matthewson. It would certainly send him to Jail or +Lunatic Asylum—probably to both in due succession, for he was daily +getting worse in the matter of the Snake. +</p> + +<p> +No—it was part of his orders, on this sentry-post, to knock at the door, +and he would do his duty, Snake or not. He had always tried to do his duty +faithfully and he would continue…. +</p> + +<p> +Once more to knock at a dead man’s door…. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Bump, Bump: Bump, Bump: Bump, Bump</i>. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll soon be at rest, Priddell, old chap—and I wish I +could join you,” called Dam, and it seemed to his excited brain that <i>a +deep hollow groan replied</i>. +</p> + +<p> +“By Jove! He’s not dead,” coolly remarked the man who would +have fled shrieking from a harmless blind-worm, and, going round to the back of +the building, he placed his carbine against the wall and sprang up at a kind of +window-ledge that formed the base of a grated aperture made for purposes of +ventilation. Slowly raising his body till his face was above the ledge, he +peered into the dimly moonlit cell and then dropped to the ground and, catching +up his carbine, sprinted in the direction of the Hospital Guard-room. +</p> + +<p> +There arrived, he shouted for the Corporal of the Guard and was quickly +confronted by Corporal Prag. +</p> + +<p> +“Wot the devil you deserted yore”…. he began. +</p> + +<p> +“Get the key of the mortuary, send for the Surgeon, and come at +once,” gasped Dam as soon as he could speak. “<i>Priddell’s +not dead</i>. Must be some kind of catalepsy. Quick, man”…. +</p> + +<p> +“Catter wot? You drunken ’og,” drawled the Corporal. +“Catter_waulin’<i> more like it. Under arrest you goes, my lad. Now +you </i>’ave_ done it. ’Ere, ’Awker, run down an’ call +up the Sergeant o’ the Guard an’ tell ’im Maffewson’s +left ’is post. ’E’ll ’ave to plant annuvver sentry. +Maffewson goes ter clink.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—but send for the Surgeon and the key of the mortuary +too,” begged Dam. “I give you fair warning that Priddell is alive +and groaning and off the bier—” +</p> + +<p> +“Pity <i>you</i> ain’t ‘off the beer’ too,” said +the Corporal with a yawn. +</p> + +<p> +“Well—there are witnesses that I brought the report to you. If +Priddell is found dead on the ground to-morrow you’ll have to answer for +manslaughter.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Ere, <i>chuck</i> it you snaike-seeing delirying trimmer, +<i>will</i> yer! Give anyone the ’orrers to listen to yer! When Priddell +is wrote off as ‘Dead’ ’e <i>is</i> dead, whether ’e +likes it or no,” and he turned to give orders to the listening guard to +arrest Trooper Matthewson. +</p> + +<p> +The Sergeant of the Guard arrived at the “double,” followed by +Trooper Bear carrying a hurricane-lamp. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the row?” panted the Sergeant. “Matthewson on +the booze agin?” +</p> + +<p> +“I report that there is a living man in the mortuary, Sergeant,” +replied Dam. “Priddell is not dead. I heard him groan, and I scrambled up +to the grating and saw him lying on the ground by the door.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you’ll see yerself groanin’ an’ lyin’ on +the ground in the Digger, now,” replied the Sergeant, and, as much in +sorrow as in anger, he added, “An’ <i>you</i>’re the bloke I +signed a petition for his permotion are yer? At it agin a’ready!” +</p> + +<p> +“But, good Heavens, man, can’t you see I’m as sober as you +are, and much less excited? Can’t you send for the key of the mortuary +and call the doctor? The poor chap may die for your stupidity.” +</p> + +<p> +“You call <i>me</i> a ‘man’ again, my lad, an’ +I’ll show you what a Sergeant can do fer them as ’e don’t +like! As fer ‘sober’—I’ve ’ad enough o’ you +‘sober’. W’y, in two ticks you may be on the ground +’owlin’ and bellerin’ and squealin’ like a Berkshire +pig over the blood-tub. <i>Sober</i>! Yus—I seen you at it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why on earth can’t you come and <i>prove</i> I’m drunk or +mad,” besought Dam. “Open the mortuary and prove I’m +wrong—and then put me under arrest. Call the Surgeon and say the sentry +over the mortuary reports the inmate to be alive—<i>he</i> has heard of +catalepsy and comatose collapse simulating death if <i>you</i> +haven’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’ use sech ’orrible languidge,” besought the +respectable Corporal Prag. +</p> + +<p> +“Ho, yus! <i>I</i>’m agoin’ to see meself whipt on the peg +fer turnin’ out the Surgin from ’is little bed in the middle +o’ the night—to come an’ ’ave a look at the dead corpse +’e put in orders fer the Dead ’Ole, ain’t I? Jest becos the +champion snaike-seer o’ E Troop’s got ’em agin, wot?” +</p> + +<p> +Corporal Prag laughed merrily at the wit of his superior. +</p> + +<p> +Turning to Bear, whom he knew to be as well educated as himself, Dam +remarked:— +</p> + +<p> +“Poor chap has rallied from the cholera collapse and could probably be +saved by stimulants and warmth. This suspended animation is common enough in +cholera. Why, the Brahmins have a regular ritual for dealing with cases of +recovery on the funeral pyre—purification after defilement by the +corpse-washers or something of the sort. These stupid oafs are letting poor +Priddell die—” +</p> + +<p> +“What! you drunken talkin’ parrot,” roared the incensed +Sergeant. “’Ere, sling ’is drunken rotten +carkis—” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the row here?” cut in a quiet curt voice. +“Noise enough for a gang of crows——” +</p> + +<p> +Surgeon-Captain Blake of the Royal Army Medical Corps had just left the +Hospital, having been sent for by the night Nursing Sister. The men sprang to +attention and the Sergeant saluted. +</p> + +<p> +“Drunk sentry left ’is post, Sir,” he gabbled. +“’Spose the Dead ’Ole—er—Morshuerry, that is, +Sir, got on ’is nerves. ’E’s given to secret boozin’, +Sir——” +</p> + +<p> +“Excuse me, Sir,” broke in Dam, daring to address an Officer +unbidden, since a life was at stake, “I am a total abstainer and Trooper +Priddell is not dead. It must have been cataleptic trance. I heard him groan +and I climbed up and saw him lying on the ground.” +</p> + +<p> +“This man’s not drunk,” said Captain Blake, and added to +himself, “and he’s an educated man, and a cultured, poor +devil.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, that’s how ’e goes on, Sir, sober as a judge you’d +say, an’ then nex’ minnit ’e’s on the floor +aseein’ blue devils an’ pink serpients——” +</p> + +<p> +“The man’s dying while we talk, Sir,” put in Dam, whose wrath +was rising. (If these dull-witted ignorant louts could not tell a drunken man +from a sober, nor realize that a certified dead man may <i>not</i> be dead, +surely the doctor could.) +</p> + +<p> +The Sergeant and the Corporal ventured on a respectful snigger. +</p> + +<p> +“Bring me that lamp,” said Captain Blake, and Trooper Bear raised +it to his extended hand. Lifting it so that its light shone straight in +Dam’s face the doctor scanned the latter and examined his eyes. This was +not the face of a drunkard nor was the man in any way under the influence of +liquor now. Absurd! Had he fever? Was he of deranged intellect? But, alas, the +light that shone upon Dam’s face also shone upon Captain Blake’s +collar and upon the badge of his Corps which adorned it—and that badge is +a serpent entwining a rod. +</p> + +<p> +It was the last straw! Dam had passed through a most disturbing night; he had +kept guard in the lonely Snake-haunted darkness, guard over a mortuary in which +lay a corpse; he had had to keep knocking at the corpse’s door, his mind +had run on funerals, he had thought he heard the dead man groan, he believed he +had seen the dead man moving, he had wrestled with thick intelligences who held +him drunk or mad while precious moments passed, and he had had the Snake before +his mental vision throughout this terrible time—and here was another of +its emissaries <i>wearing its badge</i>, an emissary of high rank, an +Officer-Emissary!… Well, he was in the open air, thank God, and could put up a +fight as before. +</p> + +<p> +Like a panther he sprang upon the unfortunate officer and bore him to the +ground, with his powerful hands enclosing the astounded gentleman’s neck, +and upon the couple sprang the Sergeant, the Corporal, and the Hospital Guard, +all save the sentry, who (disciplined, well-drilled man!) brought his carbine +to the “order” and stood stiffly at “attention” in a +position favourable for a good view of the proceedings though strictly on his +beat. +</p> + +<p> +Trooper Bear, ejaculating “Why do the heathen rage furiously +together,” took a running jump and landed in sitting posture on the heap, +rolled off, and proceeded to seize every opportunity of violently smiting his +superior officers, in his apparent zeal to help to secure the dangerous +criminal-lunatic. Thoughts of having just <i>one</i> punch at a real Officer +(if only a non-combatant still a genuine Commissioned Officer) flashed across +his depraved mind. +</p> + +<p> +It was a Homeric struggle. Captain Blake was himself an old Guy’s Rugger +three-quarter and no mean boxer, and the Sergeant, Corporal, and Guard, were +all powerful men, while Dam was a Samson further endowed with the strength of +undeniable madness. When at length he was dragged from Captain Blake’s +recumbent form, his hands torn from that officer’s throat, and the group +stood for a second panting, Dam suddenly felled Corporal Prag with such a blow +as had been the undoing of the Gorilla, sent Sergeant Wotting head over heels +and, ere the Guard could again close with him, drove his fist into the face of +the supposed myrmidon of the Snake and sprang upon his body once more…. +</p> + +<p> +It was some time before seven strong men could pinion him and carry him on a +stretcher to the Guard-room, and, of those seven strong men, only Trooper Bear +bore no mark of serious damage. (Trooper Bear had struck two non-commissioned +officers with great violence, in his misdirected zeal, and one Commissioned +Officer—though only playfully and for the satisfaction of being able to +say that he had done so.) That night, half dead, wholly mad, bruised and +bleeding, Damocles de Warrenne lay in the dark cell awaiting trial on a charge +of assaulting an Officer, striking his superior officers, resisting the Guard, +deserting his sentry-post, and being drunk and disorderly. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +“What’ll he get, d’you think?” sadly asked Trooper +Goate of Trooper Hawker. +</p> + +<p> +“Two stretch ’ard laiber and discharged from the Army wiv’ +iggernerminny,” groaned Trooper Hawker. “Lucky fer ’im +floggin’s erbolished in the British Army.” +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +When the mortuary door was unlocked next morning a little force was required to +open it, some obstacle apparently retarding its inward movement. The obstacle +proved to be the body, now certainly the dead body, of Trooper Priddell who had +died with his fingers thrust under the said door.<a href="#fn26" name="fnref26" id="fnref26"><sup>[26]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn26" id="fn26"></a> <a href="#fnref26">[26]</a> +This actually happened some years ago at Bangalore.—A<small>UTHOR</small>. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="part03"></a>PART III.<br/> +THE SAVING OF A SOUL</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap12"></a>CHAPTER XII.<br/> +VULTURES AND LUCK—GOOD AND BAD.</h2> + +<p> +To the strongest and sanest mind there is something a small trifle disturbing, +perhaps, in riding silently hour after hour on a soft-footed camel over soft +sand in a silent empty land through the moonlit silent night, beside an +overland-telegraph wire on every individual post of which sits a huge vulture!… +Just as the sun set, a fiery red ball, behind the distant mountains, Damocles +de Warrenne, gentleman-at-large, had caught sight of what he had sought in the +desert for some days, the said overland telegraph, and thereby saved himself +from the highly unpleasant death that follows prolonged deprivation of water. +He had also saved his camel from a little earlier death, inasmuch as he had +decided to probe for the faithful creature’s jugular vein and carotid +artery during the torturing heats of the morrow and prolong his life at its +expense. (Had he not promised Lucille to do his best for himself?) +</p> + +<p> +The overland telegraph pointed absolutely straight to the border city of Kot +Ghazi and, better still, to a river-bed which would contain pools of water, +thirty miles this side of it, at a spot a few miles from which stood a lost +lone dak-bungalow on Indian soil—a dak-bungalow whereat would be waiting +a <i>shikarri</i> retainer, and such things as tea, fuel, potted foods, +possibly fresh meat, and luxury of luxuries, a hot bath…. +</p> + +<p> +And, with a sigh of relief, he had wheeled his camel under the telegraph wires +after a glance at the stars and brief calculation as to whether he should turn +to left or right. (He did not want to proceed until he collapsed under the +realization that he was making for the troubled land of Persia.) +</p> + +<p> +Anyhow, without knowing where he was, he knew he was on the road to water, +food, human companionship (imagine Abdul Ghani a human companion!—but he +had not seen a human face for three weeks, nor heard nor uttered a word), and +safety, after suffering the unpleasant experience of wandering in circles, lost +in the most inhospitable desert on the earth. Vultures! He had not realized +there were so many in the world. Hour after hour, a post at every few yards, +and on every post a vulture—a vulture that opened its eyes as he +approached, regarded him from its own point of view—that of the Eater +whose life is an unending search for Meat—calculatingly, and closed them +again with a sigh at his remaining vigorousness. +</p> + +<p> +He must have passed hundreds, thousands,—had he died of thirst in actual +fact and was he doomed to follow this line through this desert for evermore as +a punishment for his sins? No—much too mild a punishment for the God of +Love to inflict, according to the Chaplain. This would be Eternal Bliss +compared with the Eternal Fire. He must be still alive … Was he mad, then, and +<i>imagining</i> these unending bird-capped posts? If not mad, he soon would +be. Why couldn’t they say something—mannerless brutes! Should he +swerve off and leave the telegraph line? No, he had starved and suffered the +agonies of thirst for nearly a week—and, if he could hang on all night, +he might reach water tomorrow and be saved. Food was a minor consideration and +if he could drink a few gallons of water, soak his clothes in it, lie in +it,—he could carry on for another day or two. Nearly as easy to sprawl +face-downward on a camel-saddle as on the ground—and he had tied himself +on. The camel would rub along all right for days with camel-thorn and similar +dainties…. No, better not leave the line. Halt and camp within sight of it till +the morning, when the brutes would fly away in search of food? No … might find +it impossible to get going again, if once man and beast lay down now … Ride as +far as possible from the line, keeping it in sight? No … if he fell asleep the +camel would go round in a circle again, and he’d wake up a dozen miles +from the line, with no idea of direction and position. Best to carry straight +on. The camel would stick to the line so long as he was left exactly on it … +think it a road … He could sleep without danger thus. He would shut his eyes +and not see the vultures, for if he saw a dozen more he knew that he would go +raving mad, halt the camel and address an impassioned appeal to them to +<i>say</i> something—for God’s sake to <i>say something</i>. +Didn’t they know that he had been in solitary confinement in a desert for +three weeks or three centuries (what is time?) without hearing a sound or +seeing a living thing—expecting the SNAKE night and day, and, moreover, +that he was starving, dying of thirst, and light-headed, and that he was in the +awful position of choosing between murdering the camel that had stood by +him—no, under him—all that fearful time, and breaking his word to +Lucille—cheating and deceiving Lucille. Then why couldn’t they +<i>say</i> something instead of sitting there in their endless millions, mile +after billions of miles, post after billions of trillions of +posts—menacing, watchful, silent, silent as the awful desert, silent as +the SNAKE…. This would not do … he must think hard of Lucille, of the Sword, of +his Dream, his Dream that came so seldom now. He would repeat Lucille’s +last letter, word for word:— +</p> + +<h5>“MY DARLING,</h5> + +<p> +“It is over, thank God—Oh, thank God—and you can leave the +army at once and become a ‘gentleman’ in position as well as in +fact. Poor old Grumper died on Saturday (as I cabled) and before he died he +became quite another man—weak, gentle and anxious to make any amends he +could to anybody. For nearly a week he was like this, and it was a most +wonderful and pathetic thing. He spent most of the time in telling me, General +Harringport, Auntie Yvette or the Vicar, about wicked things he had done, +cruelties, meannesses, follies—it was most distressing, for really he has +been simply a strong character with all the faults of one—including, as +we know too well, lack of sympathy, hardness, and sometimes savage cruelty, +which, after all, was only the natural result of the lack of sympathy and +understanding. +</p> + +<p> +“As he grew weaker he grew more sympathetic with illness and suffering, I +suppose, for he sent for me in the middle of the night to say that he had +suddenly remembered Major Decies’ story about your probably being subject +to fits and seizures in certain circumstances, and that he was coming to the +conclusion that he had been hasty and unjust and had unmercifully punished you +for no fault whatever. He said ‘I have punished him for being punished. I +have added my injustice to that of Fate. Write to him that I ask his pardon and +confess my fault. Tell him I’ll make such reparation as I can,’ and +oh, Dam—he leaves <i>you</i> Monksmead, and <i>me</i> his money, on the +understanding that we marry as soon as any physician, now living in Harley +Street, says that you are fit to marry (I must write it I suppose) without fear +of our children being epileptic, insane, or in any way tainted. If none of them +will do this, I am to inherit Monksmead and part of the money and you are to +have a part of the money. If we marry <i>then</i>, we lose everything and it +goes to Haddon Berners. Mr. Wyllis, who has been his lawyer and agent for +thirty years, is to take you to Harley Street (presumably to prevent your +bribing and corrupting the whole of the profession there residing). +</p> + +<p> +“Come at once, Darling. If the silly old physicians won’t certify, +why—what <i>does</i> it matter? I am going to let lodgings at Monksmead +to a Respectable Single Man (with board) and Auntie Yvette will see that he +behaves himself. +</p> + +<p> +“Cable what boat you start by and I’ll meet you at Port Said. I +don’t know how I keep myself sitting in this chair. I could turn head +over heels for joy! (And poor Grumper only just buried and his Will read!) He +didn’t lose quite all his grim humour in that wonderful week of +softening, relenting and humanizing. What do you think he solemnly gave and +bequeathed to the poor Haddock? His <i>wardrobe</i>!!! And nothing else, but if +the Haddock wears only Grumper’s clothes, including his boots, shirts, +ties, collars and everything else, for one full and complete year, and wears +absolutely nothing else, he is to have five thousand pounds at the end of +it—and he is to begin on the day after the funeral! And even at the last +poor Grumper was a foot taller and a foot broader (not to mention +<i>thicker</i>) than the Haddock! It appears that he systematically tried to +poison Grumper’s mind against you—presumably with an eye on this +same last Will and Testament. He hasn’t been seen since the funeral. I +wonder if he is going to try to win the money by remaining in bed for a year in +Grumper’s pyjamas! +</p> + +<p> +“Am I not developing ‘self-control and balance’? Here I sit +writing news to you while my heart is screaming aloud with joy, crying +‘Dam is coming home. Dam’s troubles are over. Dam is saved!’ +Because if you are ever so ‘ill,’ Darling, there is nothing on +earth to prevent your coming to your old home at once—and if we +can’t marry we can be pals for evermore in the dear old place of our +childhood. But of <i>course</i> we can marry. Hurry home, and if any Harley +Street doctor gives you even a doubtful look, throw him up his own stairs to +show how feeble you are, or tie his poker round his neck in a neat bow, and +refuse to undo it until he apologizes. I’m sure you could! +‘<i>Ill</i>’ indeed! If you can’t have a little fit, on the +rare occasions when you see a snake, without fools saying you are ill or dotty +or something, it is a pity! Anyhow there is one small woman who understands, +and if she can’t marry you she can at any rate be your inseparable +pal—and if the Piffling Little World likes to talk scandal, in spite of +Auntie Yvette’s presence—why it will be amusing. Cable, Darling! I +am just bursting with excitement and joy—and fear (that something may go +wrong at the last moment). If it saved a single day I should start for Motipur +myself at once. If we passed in mid-ocean I should jump overboard and swim to +your ship. Then you’d do the same, and we should ‘get left,’ +and look silly…. Oh, what nonsense I am talking—but I don’t think I +shall talk anything else again—for sheer joy! +</p> + +<p> +“You can’t write me a lot of bosh <i>now</i> about ‘spoiling +my life’ and how you’d be ten times more miserable if I were your +wife. Fancy—a soldier to-day and a ‘landed proprietor’ +to-morrow! How I wish you were a <i>landed</i> traveller, and were in the train +from Plymouth—no, from Dover and London, because of course you’d +come the quickest way. Did my cable surprise you very much? +</p> + +<p> +“I enclose fifty ten-pound notes, as I suppose they will be quicker and +easier for you to cash than those ‘draft’ things, and they’ll +be quite safe in the insured packet. Send a cable at once, Darling. If you +don’t I shall imagine awful things and perhaps die of a broken heart or +some other silly trifle. +</p> + +<p> +“Mind then:—Cable to-day; Start to-morrow; Get here in a +fortnight—and keep a beady eye open at Port Said and Brindisi and +places—in case there has been time for me to get there. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Au revoir. Darling Dam, <br/> +“Your <br/> +“L<small>UCILLE</small>. +</p> + +<p> +“Three cheers! And a million more!” +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +Yes, a long letter, but he could almost say it backwards. He couldn’t be +anything like mad while he could do that?… How had she received his +answer—in which he tried to show her the impossibility of any decent man +compromising a girl in the way she proposed in her sweet innocence and +ignorance. Of course <i>he</i>, a half-mad, epileptic, fiend-ridden +monomaniac—nay, dangerous lunatic,—could not <i>marry</i>. Why, he +might murder his own wife under some such circumstances as those under which he +attacked Captain Blake. (Splendid fellow Blake! Not every man after such a +handling as that would make it his business to prove that his assailant was +neither drunk, mad, nor criminal—merely under a hallucination. But for +Blake he would now be in jail, or lunatic asylum, to a certainty. The Colonel +would have had him court-martialled as a criminal, or else have had him out of +the regiment as a lunatic. Nor, as a dangerous lunatic, would he have been +allowed to buy himself out when Lucille’s letter and his money arrived. +Blake had got him into the position of a perfectly sober and sane person whose +mind had been temporarily upset by a night of horror—in which a +coffin-quitting corpse had figured, and so he had been able to steer between +the cruel rocks of Jail and Asylum to the blessed harbour of Freedom.) +</p> + +<p> +Yes—in spite of Blake’s noble goodness and help, Dam knew that he +was <i>not</i> normal, that he <i>was</i> dangerous, that he spent long periods +on the very border-line of insanity, that he stood fascinated on that +border-line and gazed far into the awful country beyond—the Realms of the +Mad…. +</p> + +<p> +Marry! Not Lucille, while he had the sanity left to say “No”! +</p> + +<p> +As for going to live at Monksmead with her and Auntie Yvette—it would be +an even bigger crime. Was it for <i>him</i> to make <i>Lucille</i> a +“problem” girl, a girl who was “talked about,” a +by-word for those vile old women of both sexes whose favourite pastime is the +invention and dissemination of lies where they dare, and of even more damaging +head-shakes, lip-pursings, gasps and innuendoes where they do not? +</p> + +<p> +Was it for <i>him</i> to get <i>Lucille</i> called “The Woman Who +Did,” by those scum of the leisured classes, and “That peculiar +young woman,” by the better sort of matron, dowager and +chaperone,—make her the kind of person from whose company careful mothers +keep their innocent daughters (that their market price may never be in danger +of the faintest depreciation when they are for sale in the matrimonial market), +the kind of woman for whom men have a slightly and subtly different manner at +meet, hunt-ball, dinner or theatre-box? Get Lucille “talked about”? +</p> + +<p> +No—setting aside the question of the possibility of living under the same +roof with her and conquering the longing to marry. +</p> + +<p> +No—he had some decency left, tainted as he doubtless was by his +barrack-room life. +</p> + +<p> +Tainted of course…. What was it he had heard the senior soldierly-looking man, +whom the other addressed as “General,” say concerning some mutual +acquaintance, at breakfast in the dining-car going up to Kot Ghazi? +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, poor chap, was in the ranks—and no man can escape the +barrack-room taint when he has once lived in it. Take me into any +Officers’ Mess you like—say ‘There is a promoted +gentleman-ranker here,’ and I’ll lay a thousand to one I spot him. +Don’t care if he’s the son of a Dook—nor yet if he’s +Royal, you can spot him alright….” +</p> + +<p> +Pleasant hearing for the “landed proprietor,” whom a beautiful, +wealthy and high-bred girl proposed to marry! +</p> + +<p> +Tainted or not, in that way—he was <i>mentally</i> tainted, a fact beside +which the other, if as true as Truth, paled into utterest insignificance. +</p> + +<p> +No—he had taken the right line in replying to Lucille that he was getting +worse mentally, that no doctor would dream of “vetting” him +“sound,” that he was not scoundrel enough to come and cause scandal +and “talk” at Monksmead, and that he was going to disappear +completely from the ken of man, wrestle with himself, and come to her and beg +her to marry him directly he was better—sufficiently better to +“pass the doctor,” that is. If, meanwhile, she met and loved a man +worthy of her, such a man as Ormonde Delorme, he implored her to marry him and +to forget the wholly unworthy and undesirable person who had merely loomed +large upon her horizon through the accident of propinquity … +</p> + +<p> +(He could always disappear again and blow out such brains as he possessed, if +that came to pass, he told himself.) +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile letters to the Bank of Bombay would be sent for, at least once a +year—but she was not to write—she was to forget him. As to +searching for him—he had not quite decided whether he would walk from +Rangoon to Pekin or from Quetta to Constantinople—perhaps neither, but +from Peshawur to Irkutsk. Anyhow, he was going to hide himself pretty +effectually, and put himself beyond the temptation of coming and spoiling her +life. Sooner or later he would be mad, dead, or cured. If the last—why he +would make for the nearest place where he could get news of her—and if +she were then happily married to somebody else—why—why—she +<i>would</i> be happy, and that would make him quite happy … +</p> + +<p> +Had the letter been quite sane and coherent—or had he been in a queer +mental state when he wrote it?… +</p> + +<p> +He opened his eyes, saw a vulture within a few yards of him, closed them again, +and, soon after, fell into an uneasy slumber as the camel padded on at a steady +seven miles an hour unurged—save by the <i>smell</i> of pure clear water +which was still a score of miles distant…. +</p> + +<p> +When Damocles de Warrenne awoke, he was within a few hundred yards of the +nearly dry River Helnuddi, where, failing occasional pools, the traveller can +always procure water by digging and patiently awaiting the slow formation of a +little puddle at the bottom of the hole. +</p> + +<p> +For a minute he halted. Should he dig while he had strength, or should he turn +to the left and follow the river-bed until he came to a pool—or could go +no farther? Perhaps he would be too weak to dig, though, by that time…. +Remarkable how eager to turn to the left and get on, the camel +was—considering how tired he must be—perhaps he could smell distant +water or knew of a permanent pool hereabouts. Well, let that decide it…. +</p> + +<p> +An hour later, as the camel topped a rise in the river-bank, a considerable +pool came into view, tree-shaded, heron-haunted, too incredibly beautiful and +alluring for belief. Was it a mirage?… +</p> + +<p> +A few minutes later, Damocles de Warrenne and his camel were drinking, and a +few hours later entered the dreary featureless compound of a wretched hovel, +which, to the man at least, was a palatial and magnificent asylum (no, not +<i>asylum</i>—of all words)—refuge and home—the more so that +a camel knelt chewing in the shade of the building, and a man, Abdul Ghani +himself, lay slumbering in the verandah…. +</p> + +<p> +“You understand, then,” said Dam in the vernacular, to the +malodorous, hideous, avaricious Abdul who reappeared from Kot Ghazi a few days +later, “you return here again, one week from to-day, bringing the things +written down on this paper, from the shop of Rustomji at Kot Ghazi. Here you +wait until I come. If I find there is truth in your <i>khubbar</i><a href="#fn27" name="fnref27" id="fnref27"><sup>[27]</sup></a> +of ibex you will be rewarded … Why don’t I take you? Because I want to be +alone. Set out now for Kot Ghazi. I may return.” A stone fell and +clattered. Dam shrank, cringed, and shut his eyes—as one expecting a +heavy blow. <i>Ah-h-h-h-h</i>—had the beast bolted? With the slowness of +an hour-hand he raised his head above the bank of the watercourse until his eye +cleared the edge. <i>No</i>—still there. After a painful crawl that +seemed to last for hours, he reached the point where the low ridge ran off at +right-angles, crept behind it, and lay flat on his face, to rest and recover +breath. He was soaked in perspiration from head to foot, giddy with sun and +unnatural posture, very sore as to elbows and knees, out of breath, +trembling—and entirely happy. The half-mile crawl, with the greater part +of his body on the burning ground, and the rifle to shuffle steadily along +without noise or damage, was the equivalent of a hard day’s work to a +strong man. At the end of it he lay gasping and sick, aching in every limb, +almost blind with glare and over-exertion, weary to death—and entirely +happy. Thank God he would be able to stand up in a moment and rest behind a big +cactus. Then he would have a spell of foot-work for a change, and, though +crouching double, would not be doing any crawling until he had crossed the +plateau and reached the bushes. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn27" id="fn27"></a> <a href="#fnref27">[27]</a> +News, information. +</p> + +<p> +The upward climb was successfully accomplished with frequent halts for breath, +behind boulders. On the plateau all that was required was silence. The ibex +could not see him up there. In his rubber-soled khaki-coloured shoes he could +almost run, but it was a question whether a drink of cold water would not be +worth more than all the ibexes in the world. +</p> + +<p> +He tip-toed rapidly across the level hill-top, reached the belt of low bushes, +dropped, and lay to recover breath before resuming the painful and laborious +crawling part of his journey. Was it possible to tap one’s tongue against +one’s teeth and hear the noise of it as though it were made of wood? It +seemed so. Was this giddiness and dimness of vision sunstroke? What would he +give to have that fly (that had followed him for hundreds of thousands of miles +that morning) between his fingers? +</p> + +<p> +Last lap! There was the rock, and below it must be the quarry—if it had +not fled. He must keep that rock between himself and his prey and he must get +to it without a sound. It would be easy enough without the rifle. Could he +stick it through his belt and along his back, or trail it behind him? What +nonsense! He must be getting a touch of sun. Would these stones leave marks of +burns on his clothes? Surely he could smell himself singeing. Enough to explode +the rifle … The big rock at last! A rest and then a peep, with infinite +precaution. Dam held his breath and edged his face to the corner of the great +boulder. Moving imperceptibly, he peeped … <i>No ibex!</i> … He was about to +spring up with a hearty malediction on his luck when he perceived a peculiar +projection on a large stone some distance down the hill. It moved—and Dam +dropped back. It must be the top of the curve of one of the horns of the ibex +and the animal must be lying down…. What to do? It might lie for hours and he +himself might go to sleep. It might get up and depart at any moment without +coming into the line of fire—without being seen indeed. Better continue +the stalk and hope to get a standing shot, or, failing that, a running one. +</p> + +<p> +It looked a nasty descent, since silence was essential—steep, slippery, +and strewn with round stones. Anyhow, he could go down on his feet, which was +something to be thankful for, as it was agony to put a knee or elbow to the +ground. He crept on. +</p> + +<p> +Surely his luck was changing, for here he was, within fifty yards of a stone +behind which lay an unsuspecting ibex with a world’s-record head. Hullo! +a nasty little precipice! With a nastily sloping shelf at the bottom too, eight +feet away—and then another little precipice and another sloping shelf at +its base. +</p> + +<p> +Better lay the rifle on the edge, slip over, hang by the hands, grab it with +one, and then drop the intervening few inches. Rubber soles would play their +part here! Damn this giddiness—touch of sun, no doubt. Damocles de +Warrenne knelt on the edge of the eight-foot drop, turned round, swayed, fell, +struck the sloping ledge, rolled off it, fell, struck the next sloping ledge, +fell thirty feet—arousing an astounded ibex <i>en route</i>—and +landed in a queer heap on a third shelf, with a few broken ribs, a dislocated +shoulder, broken ankles, and a fractured thigh. +</p> + +<p> +A vulture, who had been interested in his proceedings for some time, dropped a +few thousand feet and had a look. What he saw decided him to come to earth. He +perched on a rock and waited patiently. He knew the symptoms and he knew the +folly of taking risks. A friend or two joined him—each, as he left his +place in the sky, being observed and followed by a brother who was himself in +turn observed and followed by another who brought others…. +</p> + +<p> +One of the hideous band had drawn quite near and was meditating rewarding his +own boldness with a succulent eye, when Dam groaned and moved. The pretty birds +also moved and probably groaned in spirit—but they didn’t move far. +</p> + +<p> +What was that Miss Smellie had been so fond of saying? “There is no such +thing as ‘luck,’ Damocles. All is ordered for the best by an +all-seeing and merciful Providence.” Yes. No doubt. +</p> + +<p> +What was that remark of his old friend, “Holy Bill”? +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean by ‘luck,’ Damocles? All that happens is +ordained by God in His infinite mercy.” Yes. +</p> + +<p> +Holy Bill had never done a day’s work in his life nor missed a +meal—save when bilious from overeating…. +</p> + +<p> +A pity the infinite mercy didn’t run to a little water! It would have +been easy for the all-seeing and merciful Providence to move him to retain his +water-bottle when starting the stalk—if it were necessary to the schemes +of the Deity to have him smashed like a dropped egg…. What agony a human being +could endure!… +</p> + +<p> +Not even his rifle at hand with its means of speedy death. He might live for +days and then be torn alive by those accursed vultures. One mighty effort to +turn on his back and he would breathe easier—but that would bring his +eyes to the sun—and the vultures…. Had he slept or fainted? How long had +he lain there?… Chance of being found? Absolutely none. Shikarri would have +visited the dak-bungalow a week ago. Camel left below on the plain—and it +would wander miles from where he left it when it grew hungry. Even if Abdul and +an organized search-party were after him <i>now</i> they might as well be +searching for a needle in a hay-stack. No one knew which of the thousand +gullies he had ascended and no one could track camel-pads or flat rubber soles +over bare solid rock, even if given the starting-point. No—he had got to +die of thirst, starvation, and vultures, barring miracles of luck—and he +had <i>never</i> had any good luck—for luck existed, undoubtedly, in +spite of mealy-mouthed platitude-makers and twaddle about everything being +pre-arranged and ordained with care and deliberation by a kind paternal +Providence. +</p> + +<p> +And what luck he had had—all his life! Born fated! +</p> + +<p> +Had he fainted again or slept? And could he hear the tinkle of ice against the +sides of a tall thin tumbler of lemonade, or was it the sound of a waterfall of +clear, cold water close by? Were the servants asleep, or was the drink he had +ordered being prepared?… No—he was dying in agony on a red-hot rock, +surrounded by vultures and probably watched by foxes, jackals and hyenas. And a +few yards away were the rifle that would have put him out of his misery, and +the water-bottle that would have alleviated his pain—to the extent, at +any rate, of enabling him to think clearly and perhaps scribble a few words in +blood or something, somehow, for Lucille … Lucille! Would the All-Merciful let +him see her once again for a moment in return for an extra thousand years of +Hell or whatever it was that unhappy mortals got as a continuation of the joys +of this gay world? Could he possibly induce the vultures to carry him +home—if he pledged himself to feed them and support their progeny? They +could each have a house in the compound. It would pay them far better than +eating him now. Did they understand Pushtoo or was it Persian? Certainly not +Hindustani and Urdu. People who came shooting alone in the desert and +mountains, where vultures abounded, should learn to talk Vulture and pass the +Higher Standard in that tongue. But even if they understood him they might be +unwilling to serve a coward. <i>Was</i> he a coward? Anyhow he lay glued with +his own blood to the spot he would never leave—unless the vultures could +be bribed. Useless to hope anything of the jackals. He had hunted too many +foxes to begin now to ask favours. Besides they could only drag, and he had +been dragged once by a horse. Quite enough for one lifetime. But he had never +injured a vulture. Pity he had no copy of Grimm or Anderson with him—they +contained much useful information about talking foxes, obliging birds, and +other matters germane to the occasion. If he could only get them to apply it, a +working-party of vultures and jackals certainly had the strength to transport +him a considerable distance—alternately carrying and dragging him. The +big bird, stalking nearer, was probably the <i>macuddam</i> or foreman. Would +it be at all possible for vultures to bring water? He would be very willing to +offer his right hand in return for a little water. The bird would be welcome to +eat it off his body if it would give him a drink first. Did not ravens bring +meat to the prophet Elijah? Intelligent and obliging birds. Probably cooked it, +too. But water was more difficult to carry, if easier to procure. +</p> + +<p> +How close they were coming and how they watched with their horrible +eyes—and pretended not to watch!… +</p> + +<p> +Oh, the awful, unspeakable agony! Why was he alive again? Was his chest full of +terribly rusty machinery that would go on when it ought to stop for want of +oil?… If pain is punishment for sin, as placid stall-fed Holy Bill held (never +having suffered any), then Damocles de Warrenne must have been the prince of +sinners. Oh God! a little drop of water! Rivers of it flowing not many miles +away! +</p> + +<p> +Monsoons of it falling recently! A water-bottle full a few yards +distant—and he must die for want of a drop … What a complete circle the +vultures made on the rocks and stunted trees of the sloping hill-side. Oh, for +a revolver! A man ought to carry one on shikar expeditions. One would give him +a chance of life when under a tiger or panther—and a chance of decent +death in a position such as this. Where had he read that vultures begin on the +eyes of their prey? Without awaiting its death either, so long as it could not +defend itself. There were other depraved gustatory preferences, too, if he +remembered rightly-He would have an opportunity of testing the accuracy of the +statement—though not of assuring its author as to its correctness. +</p> + +<p> +Water … Water … Water … +</p> + +<p> +Had he fainted again, that the vultures were so much nearer?… Why should he be +a second Prometheus? Had he not had suffering enough in his life, without +having more in his death?… If the sending of a little water were too obvious a +miracle, was it too much to ask that his next fainting and collapse might last +long enough for the vultures to get to work, make a beginning, and an end? +</p> + +<p> +Surely that would not be too great a miracle, since he had lain for years on a +red-hot rock with blood in his mouth and his body wrecked like a smashed egg. +He must be practically dead. Perhaps if he held his laboured breath and closed +his eyes they <i>would</i> begin, and he would have the strength to keep still +when they did so. That would be the quickest way. Once they started, it would +not be long before his bones were cleaned. No possible ghost of a chance of +being saved. Probably no human foot had been on these particular rocks since +human feet existed. Nor would he ever again have the strength to drag his +shattered body to where the rifle lay. Only a few yards away lay speedy happy +release. +</p> + +<p> +“No such thing as luck, Damocles.” +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps the vultures thought otherwise. +</p> + +<p> +Colonel John Decies, still of Bimariabad, but long retired on pension from the +Indian Medical Service, was showing his mental and physical unfitness for the +service of the Government that had ordered his retirement, by devoting himself +at the age of fifty-nine to aviation—aviation in the interests of the +wounded on the battlefield. What he wanted to live to see was a flying +stretcher-service of the Royal Army Medical Corps that should flash to and fro +at the rate of a hundred miles an hour between the rear of the firing-line and +the field hospital and base hospital in aeroplanes built especially for the +accommodation of wounded men—an officer of the Corps accompanying each in +the dual capacity of surgeon and potential pilot. When he allowed his practical +mind to wander among the vast possibilities of the distant future, he dreamed +of bigger and bigger aeroplanes until they became fully equipped flying +hospitals themselves, and removed the wounded from the danger zone to the +nearest salubrious spot for their convalescence. Meanwhile, he saw no reason +why the more powerful biplanes should not carry an operating-table and all +surgical accessories, a surgeon, and two or three wounded men who could not be +made sitting-up cases. +</p> + +<p> +To Colonel John Decies it seemed that if soldiers schemed to adapt the +flying-machine to purposes of death and destruction, doctors might do the same +to purposes of life and salvation. Think of the difference between being jolted +for hours in a bullock-cart in the dust and heat and being borne through the +air without jerk or jar. Think of the hundreds of men who, in the course of one +campaign, would be saved from the ghastly fate of lying unfound, unseen by the +stretcher-bearers, to starve to death, to lie weltering in their blood, to live +through days of agony…. +</p> + +<p> +He was making quite a name for himself by his experiments at the Kot Ghazi +flying-school and by his articles and speeches on the formation and training of +a R.A.M.C. flying branch. Small beginnings would content him (provided they +were intended to lead to great developments)—an aeroplane at first, that +could carry one or two special cases to which the ordinary means of transport +would be fatal, and that could scour the ground, especially in the case of very +broken terrain and hill-country, for overlooked cases, wounded men unable to +move or call, and undiscovered by the searchers. +</p> + +<p> +He was hard at work on the invention of a strong collapsible operating-table +(that could readily be brought into use in the field and also be used in aerial +transport) and a case for the concentration of equipment—operation +instruments, rubber gloves, surgical gauntlets, saline infusion apparatus, +sterilizer, aseptic towels, chloroform, bandages, gauze, wool, sponges, +drainage-tubing, inhaler, silk skeins, syringes, field tourniquets, waterproof +cloth, stethoscope—everything, and the whole outfit, table and all, +weighing forty pounds. This would be an improvement on the system of having to +open half a dozen medical and surgical cases when operating on the line of +march, cases requiring the most expert repacking after use … +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +Perhaps it was a sign of advancing years and weakening mind that this fine +specimen of a fine service felt that, when flying some thousands of feet above +the earth, he was nearer to Lenore in Heaven. All his science and sad +experience had failed to deprive him of a sub-conscious belief in an actual +place “above,” a material Hereafter beyond the sky, and, when +clouds cut him off from sight of the earth, he had a quaint, half-realized +feeling of being in the ante-room of the Great House of many mansions, wherein +dwelt Lenore. +</p> + +<p> +Yes, when flying, Colonel John Decies felt that he was nearer to the woman he +had lost nearly a quarter of a century before. In one sense he may have been +so, for he was a very reckless airman, and never in greater danger than when +engaged in what he called “ground-scouring” among the air-current +haunted, mist-haunted mountains of the Border. He anticipated an early +Border-war and realized that here would be a great opportunity for a +keen-sighted and iron-nerved medical airman to locate, if not to pick up, +overlooked wounded. Here, too, would be a double need of such service in a +country where “the women come out to cut up what remains”! Imagine, +too, cavalry reconnaissances and bad casualties a score of miles from medical +help … +</p> + +<p> +Whether it brought him nearer in any sense to Lenore de Warrenne, it brought +him nearer to her son, on one of those hundred-mile circular +“scours” which he practised when opportunity offered, generally +accompanied by a like-minded officer of the R.A.M.C., to which Corps he had +become a kind of unofficial and honorary instructor in “First- Aid +Flying” at the Kot Ghazi flying-school, situate in the plains at the foot +of the “Roof of the World”. +</p> + +<p> +“Hullo!” said Colonel John Decies to himself—“vultures! +I suppose they might be referred to in my manual as a likely guide to the +wounded. Good idea. ‘The flying casualty-scout should always take note of +the conduct of vultures, noting the direction of flight if any are seen +dropping to earth. These birds may prove invaluable guides. A collection of +them on the ground may indicate a wounded man who may be alive.’ …” +</p> + +<p> +The Colonel was thinking of his <i>magnum opus</i>, “The Aeroplane and +the Surgeon, in War,” wherewith he lived laborious days at Bimariabad in +the intervals of testing, developing, and demonstrating his theories at Kot +Ghazi. +</p> + +<p> +Turning his head, he shouted to Surgeon-Captain Digby-Soames, R.A.M.C., his +passenger and pupil:— +</p> + +<p> +“Vultures on the left-front or starboard bow. ‘Invariable +battle-field sign of wounded man. Note spot if unable to land and rescue. Call +up stretcher-party by signal—<i>Vide</i> page 100 of Decies’ great +work,’ what?” +</p> + +<p> +“By Jove, it is a wounded man,” replied Captain Digby-Soames, who +was using field-glasses. “Damned if it isn’t a Sahib, too! Out +shikarring and sprained his ankle, I suppose. Dead, I’m afraid. Poor +devil!” +</p> + +<p> +“Vultures aren’t <i>at work</i>, anyhow,” commented Colonel +Decies. “Can’t land anywhere hereabouts, and I’m afraid +‘calling up the stretcher party’ isn’t in the game +here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing nearer than Kot Ghazi and that’s a good thirty +miles,” replied Captain Digby-Soames as the aeroplane hovered and slowly +sank. +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s see all we can and then find the nearest landing-place. +Search all round for any sign of a tent or encampment. There may be a +dak-bungalow somewhere down in the plains, too. The river-bed down on the right +there, marks the border.” +</p> + +<p> +Captain Digby-Soames “scoured” earnestly with his glasses. +</p> + +<p> +“Camel on the port-bow, at the foot of the hills,” he announced. +“What may be a dak-bungalow several miles away … a white square dot, +anyhow … Camel saddled up, kneeling … His, no doubt. Wonder where his shikarri +is—” +</p> + +<p> +As the aeroplane approached, the disappointed vultures departed, misliking the +size, shape and sounds of the strange fowl. As it passed over him, and the +Major shouted, Dam opened his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +This must be pretty well the end—when he heard the voice of some one he +knew well, and saw a flying-machine just above him. He would see blocks of ice +and cascades of cold water in a moment, doubtless, and hear Lucille calling. +</p> + +<p> +A flying-machine in Ghazistan! The voice of an old, old friend to whom he could +not, for the moment, give a name … Why couldn’t the cowardly brutes of +vultures begin their business, and end his? What was that familiar voice +calling:— +</p> + +<p> +“Hold on a bit, we’ll soon be with you! Don’t give up. We +can’t land just here. If we drop anything can you crawl and get +it?” +</p> + +<p> +“He opened his eyes,” said Captain Digby-Soames, “but I doubt +if he’s conscious. He must have come a frightful cropper. You can see +there’s a compound fracture of the right femur from here, and one of his +feet is fairly pointing backwards. Blood from the mouth, too. Anyhow he’s +alive. Better shoot him if we can’t shift him——” +</p> + +<p> +“We’ll <i>get</i> him all right. This is a Heaven-sent +‘problem’ and we’ll solve it—and I’ll quote it in +my ‘manual’. Quite war-conditions. Very badly wounded +man—inaccessible position—stretcher-parties all out of +sight—aeroplane can’t land for any first-aid nor to pick up the +casualty—<i>excellent</i> problem and demonstration. That oont<a href="#fn28" name="fnref28" id="fnref28"><sup>[28]</sup></a> +will simplify it, though. Look here—I’ll drop down and land you by +it, and then come here again and hover. You bring the beast +up—you’ll be able to ride most of the way if you zig-zag, and lead +him most of the rest. Then you’ll have to carry the casualty to the oont +and bring him down.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn28" id="fn28"></a> <a href="#fnref28">[28]</a> +Camel. +</p> + +<p> +The aeroplane swooped down and grounded gently within a hundred yards of the +kneeling camel, who eyed it with the cold and supercilious disdain of his kind. +</p> + +<p> +“Tell you what,” said Colonel Decies, “when I get up there +again, have a good squint and see if you think you can locate the spot for +yourself from below. If you can, I’ll come down again and we’ll +both go up on the oont. Bring the poor beggar down much better if one of us can +hold him while the other drives the camel. It’s no Grand Trunk Road, by +Jove.” +</p> + +<p> +“Right-O,” acquiesced Captain Digby-Soames. “If I can get a +clear bearing to a point immediately below where you hover, I’ll lie flat +on the ground as an affirmative signal. If there’s no good landmark +I’ll stay perpendicular, what?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s it,” said Colonel Decies, and, with a swift run and +throbbing whirr, the aeroplane soared from the ground and rose to where, a +thousand feet from the plain, lay the mangled “problem”. As it came +to a halt and hovered<a href="#fn29" name="fnref29" id="fnref29"><sup>[29]</sup></a> +(like a gigantic dragon-fly poised on its invisibly-rapid wings above a pool), +the junior officer’s practised eye noted a practicable gully that +debouched on a level with, and not far from, the ledge over which the aeroplane +hung, and that a stunted thorn-tree stood below the shelf and two large cactus +bushes on its immediate left. Having taken careful note of other landmarks and +glanced at the sun, he lay on the ground at full length for a minute and then +arose and approached the camel, who greeted him with a bubbling snarl. On its +great double saddle were a gun-cover and a long cane, while from it dangled a +haversack, camera, cartridge-case, satchel, canvas water-bag, and a cord-net +holdall of odds and ends. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn29" id="fn29"></a> <a href="#fnref29">[29]</a> +By means of its “Decies Horizontal Screw Stabilizer,” which enabled +it to “hover” with only a very slight rise and fall. +</p> + +<p> +Obviously the “problem’s” shikar-camel. Apparently he was out +without any shikarri, orderly, or servant—a foolish thing to do when +stalking in country in which a sprained ankle is more than a possibility, and a +long-range bullet in the back a probability anywhere on that side of the +border. +</p> + +<p> +The aeroplane returned to earth and grounded near by. Stopping the engine +Colonel Decies climbed out and swung himself into the rear seat of the camel +saddle. Captain Digby-Soames sprang into the front one and the camel lurched to +its feet, and was driven to the mouth of the gully which the Captain had noted +as running up to the scene of the tragedy. +</p> + +<p> +To and fro, in and out of the gully, winding, zig-zagging, often travelling a +hundred yards to make a dozen, the sure-footed and well-trained beast made its +way upward. +</p> + +<p> +“Coming down will be joy,” observed the Colonel. “I’d +sooner be on a broken aeroplane in a cyclone.” +</p> + +<p> +“Better hop off here, I should think,” said Captain Digby-Soames +anon. “We can lead him a good way yet, though. Case of divided we stand, +united we fall. Let him fall by himself if he wants to,” and at the next +reasonably level spot the camel was made to kneel, that his riders might +descend. Slithering down from a standing camel is not a sport to practise on a +steep hillside, if indulged in at all. +</p> + +<p> +Another winding, scrambling climb and the head of the nullah was reached. +</p> + +<p> +“Have to get the beast kneeling when we climb down to him with the +casualty,” opined the Colonel. “Better get him down here, I think. +Doesn’t seem any decent place farther on,” and the camel was +brought to an anchor and left to his own devices. +</p> + +<p> +“By Jove, the poor beggar <i>has</i> come a purler,” said Captain +Digby-Soames, as the two bent over the apparently unconscious man. +</p> + +<p> +“Ever seen him at Kot Ghazi or Bimariabad?” inquired Colonel +Decies. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said the Captain, “never seen him anywhere. +Why—have you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly seen him somewhere—trying to remember where. I thought +perhaps it might have been at the flying-school or at one of the messes. +Can’t place him at all, but I’ll swear I’ve met him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Manoeuvres, perhaps,” suggested the other, “or ’board +ship.” +</p> + +<p> +“Extraordinary thing is that I feel I <i>ought</i> to know him well. +Something most familiar about the face. I’m afraid it’s a bit too +late to—Broken ribs—fractured thigh—broken +ankles—broken arm—perforated lungs—not much good trying to +get him down, I’m afraid. He might linger for days, though, if we decided +to stand by, up here. A really first-class problem for +solution—we’re in luck,” mused Colonel Decies, making his +rapid and skilful examination. “Yes, we must get him down, of +course—after a bit of splinting.” +</p> + +<p> +“And then the real ‘problem’ will commence, I suppose,” +observed Captain Digby-Soames. “You couldn’t put him into my seat +and fly him to Kot Ghazi while I dossed down with the camel and waited for you +to come for me. And it wouldn’t do to camel him to that building which +looks like a dak-bungalow.” +</p> + +<p> +“No. I think you’ll have to stand by while I fly to Kot Ghazi and +bring the necessary things for a temporary job, and then return and try to +guide an ambulance waggon here. Oh, for an aeroplane-ambulance! This job brings +it home to you pretty clearly, doesn’t it? Or I might first go and have a +look at the alleged dak-bungalow and see if we could possibly run him over +there on a charpoy<a href="#fn30" name="fnref30" id="fnref30"><sup>[30]</sup></a> +or an improvised camel-stretcher. It’ll be a ghastly job getting down. I +don’t know that you hadn’t better stick to him up here while I go +straight back for proper splints and bandages and so forth, and bring another +chap too … Where the devil have I seen him before? I shall forget my own name +next.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn30" id="fn30"></a> <a href="#fnref30">[30]</a> +Native bed-frame. +</p> + +<p> +The Colonel pondered a moment. +</p> + +<p> +“Look here,” he decided. “This case is urgent enough to +justify a risky experiment. He’s been here a devil of a time and if +he’s not in a <i>pukka</i> hospital within the next few hours it’s +all up with him. He’s going to have the distinction of being the first +casualty removed to hospital by flying-machine. I’ll tie him on +somewhere. We’ll splint him up as well as possible, and then make him +into a blooming cocoon with the cord, and whisk him away.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pity we haven’t a few planks,” observed Captain +Digby-Soames. “We could make one big splint of his whole body and sling +him, planks and all, underneath the aeroplane.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you start splinting that right leg on to the left and stiffen the +knees with something (you’ll probably be able to get a decent stick or +two off that small tree), and shove the arm inside his leather legging. +We’ve two pairs of putties you can bandage with, and there are +<i>puggries</i> on all three <i>topis</i>. Probably his gun’s somewhere +about, for another leg-splint, too. I’ll get down to the machine for the +cord and then I’ll skirmish around for anything in the nature of poles or +planks. I can get over to that hut and back before you’ve done. +It’ll be the camelling that’ll kill him.” +</p> + +<p> +At the distant building the Colonel found an abandoned broken-wheeled +bullock-cart, from which he looted the bottom-boards, which were planks six +feet long, laid upon, but not fastened to, the framework of the body of the +cart. From the compound of the place (an ancient and rarely-visited +dak-bungalow, probably the most outlying and deserted in India) he procured a +bamboo pole that had once supported a lamp, the long leg-rests of an old chair, +and two or three sticks, more or less serviceable for his purpose. +</p> + +<p> +Returning to the camel, he ascended to where his passenger and pupil awaited +him. Over his shoulder he bore the planks, pole and sticks that the +contemptuous but invaluable camel had borne to a point a few yards below the +scene of the tragedy. +</p> + +<p> +“Good egg,” observed the younger man. “We’ll do him up +in those like a mummy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” returned the Colonel, “then carry him to the oont and +bind him along one side of the saddle, and then lead the beast down. Easily +sling him on to the machine, and there we are. Lucky we’ve got the coil +of cord. Fine demonstration for the Kot Ghazi fellers! Show that the thing can +be done, even without the proper kind of ’plane and surgical outfit. What +luck we spotted him—or that he fell just in our return track!” +</p> + +<p> +“Doubtless he was born to that end,” observed the Captain, who was +apt to get a little peevish when hungry and tired. +</p> + +<p> +And when the Army Aeroplane <i>Hawk</i> returned from its +“ground-scouring for casualties” trip, lo, it bore, beneath and +beside the pilot and passenger, a real casualty slung in a kind of crude +coffin-cradle of planks and poles, a casualty in whose recovery the Colonel +took the very deepest interest, for was he not a heaven-sent case, born to the +end that he might be smashed to demonstrate the Colonel’s theories? But +no credit was given to the vultures, without whom the “casualty” +would never have been found. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap13"></a>CHAPTER XIII.<br/> +FOUND.</h2> + +<p> +Colonel John Decies, I.M.S. (retired), visiting the Kot Ghazi Station Hospital, +whereof his friend and pupil, Captain Digby-Soames, was Commandant, scanned the +temperature chart of the unknown, the desperately injured “case,” +retrieved by his beloved flying-machine, who, judging by his utterances in +delirium, appeared to be even worse damaged in spirit than he was in body. +</p> + +<p> +“Very high again last night,” he observed to Miss Norah +O’Neill of the Queen Alexandra Military Nursing Sisterhood. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, and very violent,” replied Miss O’Neill. “I had +to call two orderlies and they could hardly hold him. He appeared to think he +was fighting a huge snake or fleeing from one. He also repeatedly screamed: +‘It is under my foot! It is moving, moving, moving +<i>out</i>.’” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Got it</i>, by God!” cried the Colonel, suddenly smiting his +forehead with violence. “<i>Of course!</i> Fool! Fool that I am! Merciful +God in Heaven—<i>it’s her boy</i>—and <i>I</i> have saved +him! <i>Her boy!</i> And I’ve been cudgelling my failing addled brains +for months, wondering where I had seen his face before. He’s my godson, +Sister, and I haven’t set eyes on him for the last—nearly twenty +years!” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Norah O’Neill had never before seen an excited doctor in a hospital +ward, but she now beheld one nearly beside himself with excitement, joy, +surprise, and incredulity. (It is sad to have to relate that she also heard one +murmuring over and over again to himself, “Well, I am damned”.) +</p> + +<p> +At last Colonel John Decies announced that the world was a tiny, small place +and a very rum one, that it was just like <i>The Hawk</i> to be the means of +saving <i>her</i> boy of all people, and then took the patient’s hand in +his, and sat studying his face, in wondering, pondering silence. +</p> + +<p> +To Miss Norah O’Neill this seemed extraordinarily powerful affection for +a mere <i>godson</i>, and one lost to sight for twenty years at that. Yet +Colonel Decies was a bachelor and, no, the patient certainly resembled him in +no way whatsoever. The tiny new-born germ of a romance died at once in Miss +O’Neill’s romantic heart—and yet, had she but known, here was +a romance such as her soul loved above all things—the son of the adored +dead mistress discovered <i>in extremis</i>, and saved, by the devout platonic +lover, the life-long lover, and revealed to him by the utterance of the +pre-natally learnt words of the dead woman herself! +</p> + +<p> +Yes—how many times through those awful days had Decies heard that +heart-rending cry! How cruelly the words had tortured him! And here, they were +repeated twenty years on—for the identification of the son by the friend! +</p> + +<p> +That afternoon Colonel Decies dispatched a cablegram addressed to a Miss +Gavestone, Monksmead, Southshire, England, and containing the words, +“Have found him, Kot Ghazi, bad accident, doing well, Decies,” and +by the next mail Lucille, with Aunt Yvette and a maid, left Port Said, having +travelled overland to Brindisi and taken passage to Egypt by the <i>Osiris</i> +to overtake the liner that had left Tilbury several days before the cable +reached Monksmead. And in Lucille’s largest trunk was an article the like +of which is rarely to be found in the baggage of a young lady—nothing +more nor less than an ancient rapier of Italian pattern!… +</p> + +<p> +To Lucille, who knew her lover so well, it seemed that the sight and feel of +the worshipped Sword of his Ancestors must bring him comfort, self-respect, +memories, thoughts of the joint youth and happiness of himself and her. +</p> + +<p> +She knew what the Sword had been to him, how he had felt a different person +when he held its inspiring hilt, how it had moved him to the telling of his +wondrous dream and stories of its stirring past, how he had revered and loved +it …surely it must do him good to have it? If he were stretched upon a bed of +sickness, and it were hung where he could see it, it <i>must</i> help him. It +would bring diversion of thought, cheer him, suggest bright +memories—perhaps give him brave dreams that would usurp the place of bad +ones. +</p> + +<p> +If he were well or convalescent it might be even more needful as a tonic to +self-respect, a reminder of high tradition, a message from dead sires. Yes, +surely it must do him good where she could not. If there were any really +insurmountable obstacle to their—their —union—the Sword could +still be with him always, and say unceasingly: “Do not be world-beaten, +son of the de Warrennes and Stukeleys. Do not despair. Do not be +fate-conquered. Fight! Fight! Look upon me not as merely the symbol of struggle +but as the actual Sword of your actual Fathers. Fight Fate! Die +fighting—but do not live defeated”—but of course her hero Dam +needed no such exhortations. Still—the Sword must be a comfort, a +pleasure, a hope, an inspiration, a symbol. When she brought it him he would +understand. Swords were to sever, but <i>the</i> Sword should be a link—a +visible bond between them, and between them again and their common past. +</p> + +<p> +To her fellow-passengers Lucille was a puzzling enigma. What could be the story +of the beautiful, and obviously wealthy, girl with the anxious, preoccupied +look, whose thoughts were always far away, who took no interest in the pursuits +and pastimes usual to her sex and age on a long sea voyage; who gave no glance +at the wares of local vendors that came aboard at Port Said and Aden; who +occupied her leisure with no book, no writing, no conversation, no deck-games; +and who constantly consulted her watch as though impatient of the slow flight +of time or the slow progress of the ship? +</p> + +<p> +Many leading questions were put to Auntie Yvette, but, dearly as she would have +liked to talk about her charge’s romantic trouble, her tongue was tied +and she dreaded to let slip any information that might possibly lead to a train +of thought connecting Lucille, Dam, and the old half-forgotten scandal of the +outcast from Monksmead and Sandhurst. If her beloved nephew foolishly chose to +hide his head in shame when there was no shame, it was not for those who loved +him best to say anything which might possibly lead to his discovery and +identification. +</p> + +<p> +While cordially polite to all men (including women) Lucille was found to be +surrounded by an impenetrable wall of what was either glass or ice according to +the nature of the investigator. Those who would fain extend relationship beyond +that of merest ephemeral ship-board acquaintanceship (and the inevitabilities +of close, though temporary, daily contact), while admitting that her manner and +manners were beautiful, had to admit also that she was an extremely difficult +young person “to get to know”. A gilt-edged, bumptious young +subalternknut, who commenced the voyage apoplectically full of self-admiration, +self-confidence, and admiring wonder at his enormous attractiveness, +importance, and value, finished the same in a ludicrously deflated +condition—and a quiet civilian, to whom the cub had been shamefully +insolent, was moved to present him with a little poem of his composition +commencing “There was a puppy caught a wasp,” which gave him the +transient though salutary gift of sight of himself as certain others saw him…. +</p> + +<p> +Even the Great Mrs. “Justice” Spywell (her husband was a wee meek +joint-sessions-judge) was foiled in her diligent endeavours, and those who know +the Great Mrs. “Justice” Spywell will appreciate the defensive +abilities of Lucille. To those poor souls, throughout the world, who stand lorn +and cold without the charmed and charming circle of Anglo-Indiandom, it may be +explained that the Great Mrs. “Justice” Spywell was far too Great +to be hampered by silly scruples of diffidence when on the track of information +concerning the private affairs of lesser folk—which is to say other folk. +</p> + +<p> +When travelling abroad she is T<small>HE</small> Judge’s Wife; when +staying at Hill Stations she is The J<small>UDGE’S</small> Wife, and when +adorning her proper sphere, her native heath of Chota Pagalabad, she is The +Judge’s WIFE. As she is the Senior Lady of all Chota Pagalabad she, of +course, always (like Mary) Goes In First at the solemn and superior dinner +parties of that important place, and is feared, flattered, and fawned upon by +the other ladies of the station, since she can socially put down the mighty +from their seat and exalt the humble and meek and them of low degree (though +she would not be likely to touch the last-named with a pair of tongs, socially +speaking, of course). And yet, such is this queer world, the said lesser ladies +of the famous mofussil station of Chota Pagalabad are, among themselves, agreed +<i>nemine contradicente</i> that the Great Mrs. “Justice” Spywell +is a vulgar old frump (“country-bred to say the least of it”), and +call her The First Seven Sister. This curious and unsyntactically expressed +epithet alludes to the fact that she and six other “ladies” of like +instincts meet daily for tea and scandal at the Gymkhana and, for three solid +hours, pull to pieces the reputations of all and sundry their acquaintances, +reminding the amused on-looker, by their voices, manner, and appearance, of +those strange birds the <i>Sat Bai</i> or Seven Sisters, who in gangs of seven +make day hideous in their neighbourhood … +</p> + +<p> +“Are you going to India to be married, my dear child?” she asked +Lucille, before she knew her name. +</p> + +<p> +“I really don’t know,” replied Lucille. +</p> + +<p> +“You are not actually engaged, then?” +</p> + +<p> +“I really don’t know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, of course, if you’d rather keep your own counsel, pray do +so,” snapped the Great Lady, bridling. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” replied Lucille, and Mrs. Spywell informed her circle of +stereotypes that Lucille was a stupid chit without a word to say for herself, +and an artful designing hussy who was probably an adventuress of the +“fishing-fleet”. +</p> + +<p> +To Auntie Yvette it appeared matter of marvel that earth and sky and sea were +much as when she last passed that way. In quarter of a century or so there +appeared to be but little change in the Egyptian and Arabian deserts, in the +mountains of the African and Arabian coasts, of the Gulf of Suez, in the +contours of the islands of the Red Sea, and of Aden, whilst, in mid-ocean, +there was absolutely no observable difference between then and now. Wonderful +indeed! +</p> + +<p> +This theme, that of what was going on at Monksmead, and that of what to do when +Dam was recaptured, formed the bulk of her conversation with her young +companion. +</p> + +<p> +“What will you <i>do</i>, dear, when we <i>have</i> found the poor +darling boy?” she would ask. +</p> + +<p> +“Take him by the ear to the nearest church and marry him,” Lucille +would reply; or—“Stick to him like a leech for evermore, +Auntie”; or—“Marry him when he isn’t looking, or while +he’s asleep, if he’s ill—or by the scruff of his neck if +he’s well….” +</p> + +<p> +(What a pity the Great Mrs. “Justice” Spywell could not hear these +terrible and unmaidenly sentiments! An adventuress of the +“fishing-fleet” in very truth!) +</p> + +<p> +And with reproving smile the gentle spinster would reply:— +</p> + +<p> +“My <i>dear!</i> Suppose anyone overheard you, what <i>would</i> they +think?” Whereunto the naughty girl would answer:— +</p> + +<p> +“The truth, Auntie—that I’m going to pursue some poor young +man to his doom. If Dam were a leper in the gutter, begging his bread, I would +marry him in spite of himself—or share the gutter and bread +in—er—guilty splendour. If he were a criminal in jail I would sit +on the doorstep till he came out, and do the same dreadful thing. I’m +just going to marry Dam at the first possible moment—like the Wild West +‘shoot on sight’ idea. I’m going to seize him and marry him +and take care of him for the rest of his life. If he never had another grief, +ache, or pain in the whole of his life, he must have had more than ten times +his share already. Anyhow whether he’ll marry me or whether he +won’t—in his stupid quixotic ideas of his ‘fitness’ to +do so—I’m never going to part from him again.” +</p> + +<p> +And Auntie Yvette would endeavour to be less shocked than a right-minded +spinster aunt should be at such wild un-Early-Victorian sentiments. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +Come, this was a better sort of dream! This was better than dreaming of +prison-cells, lunatic asylums, tortures by the Snake, lying smashed on rocks, +being eaten alive by vultures, wandering for aeons in red- hot waterless +deserts, and other horrors. However illusory and tantalizing, this was at least +a glorious dream, a delirium to welcome, a wondrous change indeed—to seem +to be holding the hand of Lucille while she gazed into his eyes and, from time +to time, pressed her lips to his forehead. A good job most of the bandages were +gone or she could hardly have done that, even in a dream. And how wondrously +<i>real!</i> Her hand felt quite solid, there were tears trickling down her +cheeks, tears that sometimes dropped on to his own hand with an incredible +effect of actuality. It was even more vivid than his Sword-dream which was +always so extraordinarily realistic and clear. And there, yes, by Jove, was +dear old Auntie Yvette, smiling and weeping simultaneously. Such a dream was +the next best thing to reality—save that it brought home to one too +vividly what one had lost. Pain of that kind was nevertheless a magnificent +change from the other ghastly nightmares, of the wholly maleficent kind. This +was a kindly, helpful pain….It is so rare to see the faces of our best-beloved +in dreams … Sleep was going to be something other than a procession of hideous +nightmares then … +</p> + +<p> +“I believe he knew me, Auntie,” whispered Lucille. “Oh, when +will Colonel Decies come back. I want him to be here when he opens his eyes +again. He would know at a glance whether he were in his right mind and knew +me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am certain he did, dear,” replied Auntie Yvette. “I am +positive he smiled at you, and I believe he knew me too.” +</p> + +<p> +“I <i>won’t</i> believe I have found him too late. It +<i>couldn’t</i> be true,” wept the girl, overstrained and unstrung +by long vigils, heart-sick with hope deferred, as she turned to her companion. +</p> + +<p> +“Lucille! Is it real?” came a feeble whisper from the bed—and +Lucille, in the next moments, wondered if it be true that joy cannot kill … +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +A few weeks later, Damocles de Warrenne sat on the verandah of the Grand +Imperial Hotel Royal of Kot Ghazi, which has five rooms and five million +cockroaches, and stared blankly into the moonlit compound, beyond which +stretched the bare rocky plain that was bounded on the north and west by mighty +mountains, on the east by a mighty river, and on the south by the more mighty +ocean, many hundreds of miles away. +</p> + +<p> +He had just parted from Auntie Yvette and Lucille—Lucille whose last +words as she turned to go to her room had been:— +</p> + +<p> +“Now, understand, Dammy, what you want now is a sea-voyage, a sea-voyage +to England and Monksmead. When we have got you absolutely right, Mr. Wyllis +shall show you as a specimen of the Perfect Man in Harley Street—and +<i>then</i>, Dammy …” and his burning kisses had closed her mouth. +</p> + +<p> +Was he scoundrel enough to do it? Had he deteriorated to such a depth of +villainy? Could he let that noblest and finest flower of womanhood marry +a—dangerous lunatic, a homicidal maniac who had nearly killed the man who +proved to be almost his greatest benefactor? Could he? Would the noble-hearted +Decies frankly say that he was normal and had a right to marry? He would not, +and no living man was better qualified to give an opinion on the case of +Damocles de Warrenne than the man who was a foster-father to him in childhood, +and who brought him into the world in such tragic circumstances. Decies had +loved his mother, Lenore de Warrenne. Would he have married <i>her</i> in such +circumstances? Would he have lived under the same roof with her +permanently—knowing how overpowering would be the temptation to give way +and marry her, knowing how scandal would inevitably arise? A thousand times No. +Was there <i>no</i> gentlemanliness left in Damocles de Warrenne that he should +even contemplate the doing of a deed at which his old comrades-in-arms, Bear, +Burke, Jones, Little, Goate, Nemo and Peerson would stand aghast, would be +ready to kick him out of a decent barrack-room—and the poor demented +creature called for a “boy,” and ordered him to send, at once, for +one Abdul Ghani who would, as usual, be found sleeping beside his camels in the +market-place … +</p> + +<p> +Anon the gentle Abdul came, received certain instructions, and departed smiling +till his great yellow fangs gleamed in the moonlight beneath the bristling +moustache, cut back from the lips as that of a righteous Mussulman +<i>shikarri</i> and <i>oont-wallah</i> should be. +</p> + +<p> +Damocles de Warrenne’s brain became active with plots and plans for +escape—escape from himself and the temptation which he must avoid by +flight, since he felt he could not conquer it in fight. +</p> + +<p> +He must disappear. He must die—die in such a way that Lucille would never +suppose he had committed suicide. It was the only way to save himself from so +awful a crime and to save her from himself. +</p> + +<p> +He would start just before dawn on Abdul’s shikar camel, be well away +from Kot Ghazi by daylight and reach the old deserted dak-bungalow, that no one +ever used, by evening. There Abdul would come to him with his +<i>bhoja-oont</i><a href="#fn31" name="fnref31" id="fnref31"><sup>[31]</sup></a> +bringing the usual supplies, and on receipt of them he would dismiss Abdul +altogether and disappear again into the desert, this time for good. Criminal +lunatics and homicidal maniacs are better dead, especially when they are +tempted beyond their strength to marry innocent, beautiful girls who do not +understand the position. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn31" id="fn31"></a> <a href="#fnref31">[31]</a> +Baggage-camel. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap14"></a>CHAPTER XIV.<br/> +THE SNAKE AND THE SWORD.</h2> + +<p> +The dak-bungalow again at last! But how terribly dreary, depressing, and +horrible it looked <i>now</i>—the hut that had once seemed a kind of +heaven on earth to the starving wanderer. Then, Lucille was thousands of miles +away (geographically, and millions of miles away in imagination). Now, she was +but thirty miles away—and it was almost more than human endurance could +bear…. Should he turn back even now, ride straight to Kot Ghazi, fall at her +feet and say: “I can struggle no longer. Come back to Monksmead—and +let what will be, be. I have no more courage.” +</p> + +<p> +And go mad, one day, and kill her? Keep sane, and sully her fair name? On to +the hovel. Rest for the night, and, at dawn, strike into the desert and there +let what will be, be. +</p> + +<p> +Making the camel kneel, Damocles de Warrenne removed its saddle, fastened its +rein-cord tightly to a post, fed it, and then detached the saddle-bags that +hung flatly on either side of the saddle frame, as well as a patent-leather +sword-cover which contained a sword of very different pattern from that for +which it had been made. +</p> + +<p> +Entering the hut, of which the doors and windows were bolted on the outside, he +flung open the shutters of the glassless windows, lit a candle, and prepared to +eat a frugal meal. From the saddlebags he took bread, eggs, chocolate, +sardines, biscuits and apples. With a mixture of permanganate of potash, tea +and cold water from the well, if the puddle at the bottom of a deep hole could +be so termed, he made a drink that, while drinkable by one who has known worse, +was unlikely to cause an attack upon an enfeebled constitution, of cholera, +enteric, dysentery or any other of India’s specialities. What would he +not have given for a clean whisky-and-soda in the place of the nauseating +muck—but what should be the end of a man who, in his position, turned to +<i>alcohol</i> for help and comfort? “The last state of that man …” +</p> + +<p> +After striking a judicious balance between what he should eat for dinner and +what he should reserve for breakfast, he fell to, ate sparingly, lit his pipe, +and gazed around the wretched room, of which the walls were blue-washed with a +most offensive shade of blue, the bare floor was frankly dry mud and dust, the +roof was bare cob-webbed thatch and rafter, and the furniture a rickety table, +a dangerous-looking cane-bottomed settee and a leg-rest arm-chair from which +some one had removed the leg-rests. Had some scoundrelly <i>oont-wallah</i> +pinched them for fuel? (No, Damocles, an ex-Colonel of the Indian Medical +Service “pinched” them for splints.) A most depressing human +habitation even for the most cheerful and care-free of souls, a terrible place +for a man in a dangerous mental state of unstable equilibrium and cruel agony…. +Only thirty miles away—and a camel at the door. <i>Lucille</i> still +within a night’s ride. Lucille and absolute joy…. The desert and certain +death—a death of which she must be assured, that in time she might marry +Ormonde Delorme or some such sound, fine man. Abdul must find his +body—and it must be the body not of an obvious suicide, but of a man who, +lost in the desert, had evidently travelled in circles, trying to find his way +to the hut he had left, on a shooting expedition. Yes—he knew all about +travelling in circles—and what he had done in ignorance (as well as in +agony and horror), he would now do intentionally and with grim purpose. Hard on +the poor camel!… Perhaps he could manage so that it was set free in time to +find its way back somehow. It would if it were loosed within smell of water…. +He must die fairly and squarely of hunger and thirst—no blowing out of +brains or throat-cutting, no trace of suicide; just lost, poor chap, and no +more to be said…. Death of <i>thirst</i>—in that awful +desert—<i>again</i>—No! God in Heaven he had faced the actual pangs +of it once, and escaped—he could <i>not</i> face it again—he +wasn’t strong enough … and the unhappy man sprang to his feet to rush +from the room and saddle-up the camel for—Life and Lucille—and then +his eye fell on the Sword, the Sword of his Fathers, brought to him by Lucille, +who had said, “Have it with you always, Dearest. It can <i>talk</i> to +you, as even I can not….” +</p> + +<p> +He sat down and drew it from the incongruous modern case and from its scabbard. +Ha! What did it say but “<i>Honour</i>!” What was its message but +“Do the right thing. Death is nothing—Honour is everything. Be +worthy of your Name, your Traditions, your Ancestors—” +</p> + +<p> +He would die. +</p> + +<p> +Let him die that Lucille’s honour, Lucille’s happiness, +Lucille’s welfare, might live—and he kissed the hilt of the Sword +as he had so often done in childhood. Having removed boots, leggings and socks, +he lay down on the settee—innocent of bedding and pillows, pulled over +him the coat that had been rolled and strapped trooper-fashion behind the +saddle and fell asleep…. +</p> + +<p> +And dreamed that he was shut naked in a tiny cell with a gigantic python upon +whose yard-long fangs he was about to be impaled and, as usual, awoke trembling +and bathed in perspiration, with dry mouth and throbbing head, sickness, and +tingling extremities. +</p> + +<p> +The wind had got up and had blown out the candle which should have lasted till +dawn!… +</p> + +<p> +As he lay shaking, terrified (uncertain as to whether he were a soul in torment +or a human being still alive), and debating as to whether he could get off the +couch, relight the candle, and close the windward window, he heard a sound that +caused his heart to miss a beat and his hair to rise on end. A strange, dry +rustle merged in the sound of paper being dragged across the floor, and he knew +that he <i>was</i> shut in with a snake, shut up in a <i>blue room</i>, cut off +from the matches on the table, and doomed to lie and await the Death he dreaded +more than ten thousand others—or, going mad, to rush upon that Death. +</p> + +<p> +<i>He was shut in with the SNAKE</i>. At last it had come for him in its own +concrete form and had him bound and gagged by fascination and fear—in the +Dark, the awful cruel Dark. No more mere myrmidons. <i>The SNAKE ITSELF</i>. +</p> + +<p> +He tried to scream and could not. He tried to strike out at an imaginary +serpent-head, huge as an elephant, that reared itself above him—and could +not. +</p> + +<p> +He could not even draw his bare foot in under the overcoat. And steadily the +paper dragged across the floor … Was it approaching? Was it progressing round +and round by the walls? Would the Snake find the bed and climb on to it? Would +it coil round his throat and gaze with-luminescent eyes into his, and torture +him thus for hours ere thrusting its fangs into his brain? Would it coil up and +sleep upon his body for hours before doing so, knowing that he could not move? +Here were his Snake-Dreams realized, and in the actual flesh he lay awake and +conscious, and could neither move nor cry aloud! +</p> + +<p> +In the Dark he lay bound and gagged, in a blue-walled room, and the Snake +enveloped him with its Presence, and he could in no wise save himself. +</p> + +<p> +Oh, God, why let a sentient creature suffer thus? He himself would have shot +any human being guilty of inflicting a tithe of the agony on a pariah dog. +There could <i>be</i> no God!… and then the beams of the rising moon fell upon +the blade of the Sword, making it shine like a lamp, and, with a roar as of a +charging lion, Damocles de Warrenne sprang from the bed, seized it by the hilt, +and was aware, without a tremor, of a cobra that reared itself before him in +the moonlight, swaying in the Dance of Death. +</p> + +<p> +With a mere flick of the sword he laid the reptile twitching on the +floor—and for a few minutes was madder with Joy than ever in his life he +had been with Fear. +</p> + +<p> +<i>For Fear was gone. The World of Woe had fallen from his shoulders. The Snake +was to him but a wretched reptile whose head he would crush ere it bruised his +heel. He was sane—he was safe—he was a Man again, and ere many days +were past he would be the husband of Lucille and the master of Monksmead.</i> +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, God forgive me for a blind, rebellious worm,” he prayed. +“Forgive me, and strike not this cup from my lips. You would not punish +the blasphemy of a madman? I <i>cannot</i> pray in ordered forms, but I beg +forgiveness for my hasty cry ‘There is on God’ …” and then +pressed the Sword to his lips—the Sword that, under God, had overthrown +the Snake for ever, saved his reason—and given him Lucille…. +</p> + +<p> +With the Sword in his hand he lay on the bed once more, and slept the sweet, +dreamless sleep of a healthy, happy child. In the morning, when he awoke, his +eyes fell upon the still living cobra that appeared to watch him with the hate +of a baffled Lucifer as it lay broken-backed, impotent, and full of vicious +fury. +</p> + +<p> +Rising, Damocles de Warrenne stepped across to the reptile, and, with a quick +snatch, seized it behind the head and raised it from the ground. Staring into +its baleful, evil-looking eyes, he remarked:— +</p> + +<p> +“Well, mine ancient enemy and almost victor! I’m not of a +particularly vengeful disposition, but I fancy a few of your brethren have got +to die before I leave India. Why, you poor wretched worm, you miserable +maggot,—to think what I have <i>suffered</i>” and he angrily dashed +it on the ground and spurned it with his foot. +</p> + +<p> +“Easy to do that when your back’s broken, you think?” he +continued. “Right-O, my lad, wait till I find your mate, and we’ll +see. Hand to hand, no weapons—my quickness and strength against his +quickness and venom. Snakes! The paltriest things that crawl”—and +he kicked the reptile into a corner and burst into song as he busied himself +about preparations for washing, food for himself and the camel, +and—<i>return</i>. After enough food to hearten them both for the +thirty-mile journey he would go as fast as camel’s legs could move to +Lucille and the announcement that would send her frantic with joy. He would +take her in his arms—then they would waltz for an hour to keep themselves +from behaving like lunatics…. Fear was dead! The SNAKE was dead—killed by +the SWORD, the Sword that Lucille had brought, and thereby saved him! Madness +was dead! Joy, Peace, Sanity, Health were come—the wedding-bells were +trembling to burst into peals of joyous announcement. +</p> + +<p> +He would, for Lucille’s sake and the names of de Warrenne and Stukeley, +show whether he was a Coward or a snake-fearing Lunatic, an epileptic, an +unfit-to-marry monstrosity and freak. He would show the Harley Street +physicians how much he feared snakes, and would challenge them to an +undertaking which would give them food for thought before acceptance…. Where +were his boots? He must fly to Lucille!… +</p> + +<p> +And then the galloping hoofs of a horse were heard thudding towards the hut, +and, hastening to the door, he saw Lucille whipping a lathered horse. +</p> + +<p> +Rushing towards her he shouted:— +</p> + +<p> +“Will you marry me to-morrow? Will you marry me to-day, Lucille?” +and, as she pulled her horse in, he darted back into the room and reappeared +twirling a twitching cobra by its tail, and laughing uproariously…. +</p> + +<p> +Lucille appeared to be about to faint as he dropped it, seized her in his arms, +and said:— +</p> + +<p> +<i>“Darling, I am cured! I have not the slightest fear of snakes. The +Sword has saved me. I am a Man again.”</i> +</p> + +<p> +He told her all as she sat laughing and sobbing for joy and the dying snake lay +at their feet. +</p> + +<p> +In her heart of hearts Lucille determined that the wedding should take place +immediately, so that if this were but a temporary respite, the result of the +flash of daring inspired by the Sword, she would have the right to care for him +for the rest of his life … She would—— +</p> + +<p> +“Look!” she suddenly shrieked, and pointed to where, in the +doorway, cutting them off from escape, was the mate of the cobra that lay +mangled before them. Had the injured reptile in some way called its +mate—or were they regular inhabitants of this deserted hut? +</p> + +<p> +It was Lucille’s first experience of cobras and she shuddered to see the +second—evidently comprehending, aggressive, vengeful—would it +spring from there … and the Sword lay on the bed, out of reach. +</p> + +<p> +Dam arose with a laugh, picked up his heavy boot as he did so, and, all in one +swift movement, hurled it at the half-coiled swaying creature, with the true +aim of the first-class cricketer and trained athlete; then, following his boot +with a leap, he snatched at the tail of the coiling, thrashing reptile and +“cracked” the snake as a carter cracks a whip—whereafter it +dangled limp and dead from his hand! Lucille shrieked, paled, and sprang +towards him. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Dam!” she cried, “how <i>could</i> you!” +</p> + +<p> +“Pooh, Kiddy,” he replied. “I’m going to invite the +Harley Street cove to have a match at that—and I’m going to give a +little exhibition of it on the lawn at Monksmead—to all the good folk who +witnessed my disgrace…. What’s a snake after all? It’s <i>my</i> +turn now;” and Lucille’s heart was at rest and very thankful. This +was not a temporary “cure”. Oh, thank God for her inspiration anent +the Sword … Thank God, thank God!… +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap15"></a>SEVEN YEARS AFTER.</h2> + +<p> +A beautiful woman, whose face is that of one whose soul is full of peace and +joy, passes up the great staircase of the stately mansion of Monksmead. Slowly, +because her hand holds that of a chubby youth of five, a picture of sturdy +health, strength and happiness. They pass beneath an ancient Sword and the boy +wheels to the right, stiffens himself, brings his heels together, and raises a +fat little hand to his forehead in solemn salute. The journey is continued +without remark until they reach the day nursery, a big, bright room of which a +striking feature is the mural decoration in a conventional pattern of entwined +serpents, the number of brilliant pictures of snakes, framed and hung upon the +walls, and two glass cases, the one containing a pair of stuffed cobras and the +other a finely-mounted specimen of a boa-constrictor (which had once been the +pride of the heart of a Folkestone taxidermist). +</p> + +<p> +“Go away, Mitthis Beaton,” says the small boy to a white-haired but +fresh-looking and comely old dame; “I’se not going to bed till +Mummy hath tolded me about ve bwacelet again.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I’ve told you a <i>thousand</i> times, Dammykins,” says +the lady. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, now tell me ten hundred times,” replies the young man +coolly, and attempts to draw from the lady’s wrist a huge and remarkable +bracelet. +</p> + +<p> +This uncommon ornament consists of a great ruby-eyed gold snake which coils +around the lady’s arm and which is pierced through every coil by a +platinum, diamond-hilted sword, an exact model of the Sword which hangs on the +staircase. +</p> + +<p> +“You tell <i>me</i>, Sonny, for a change,” suggests the lady. +</p> + +<p> +“Velly well,” replies the boy…. “Vere was once a Daddy and a +hobberell gweat Thnake always bovvered him and followed him about and +wouldn’t let him gone to thleep and made him be ill like he had eaten too +much sweets, and the doctor came and gave him lotths of meddisnin. Then he had +to wun away from the Thnake, but it wunned after him, and it wath jutht going +to kill him when Mummy bwoughted the Thword and Daddy killed the Thnake all +dead. And I am going to have the Thword when I gwow up, but vere aren’t +any more bad Thnakes. They is all good now and Daddy likes vem and I likes vem. +Amen.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>I</i> never said <i>Amen</i>, when I told you the story, +Sonny,” remarks the lady. +</p> + +<p> +“Well you can, now I have tolded you it,” permits her son. +“It means <i>bus</i><a href="#fn32" name="fnref32" id="fnref32"><sup>[32]</sup></a>—all +finished. Mitthis Beaton thaid tho. And when I am as big as Daddy I’m +going to be the Generwal of the Queenth Gweyth and thay +‘<i>Charge!</i>’ and wear the Thword.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Lucille de Warrenne here smothers conversation in the manner common to +worshipping mothers whose prodigies make remarks indicative of marvellous +precocity, in fact absolutely unique intelligence. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn32" id="fn32"></a> <a href="#fnref32">[32]</a> +Hindustani—enough, finished, complete. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap16"></a>EPILOGUE.</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +Is it well, O my Soul, is it well?<br/> +<br/> + In silent aisles of sombre tone<br/> + Where phantoms roam, thou dwell’st apart<br/> + In drear alone.<br/> + Where serpents coil and night-birds dart<br/> + Thou liest prone, O Heart, my Heart,<br/> + In dread unknown.<br/> + O Soul of Night, surpassing fair,<br/> + Guide this poor spirit through the air,<br/> + And thus atone …<br/> +<br/> +This sad Soul, searching for the light….<br/> +<br/> +O Soul of Night, enstarréd bright,<br/> + Shine over all.<br/> + Enforce thy right to fend for us<br/> + Extend thy power to fight for us<br/> + Raise thou night’s pall.<br/> + Ensteep our minds in loveliness<br/> + In all sweet hope and godliness<br/> + Give guard o’er all …<br/> +This brave Soul striving in stern fight….<br/> +<br/> +Thou soul of Night, thou spirit-elf,<br/> + Rise up and bless.<br/> + Help us to cleanse in holiness<br/> + Show how to dress in saintliness<br/> + Our weary selves,<br/> + Expurge our deeds of earthiness<br/> + Expunge desires of selfliness<br/> + Rise up and bless …<br/> +This strong Soul dying in such plight…. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="poem"> + Night gently spreads her wings and flies<br/> + Star-laden, wide across the skies.<br/> + My Soul, new strong,<br/> + So late enstained with earthly dust<br/> + So long estranged in wander-lust<br/> + Gives praise and song,<br/> + Strives to create in morning light<br/> + The starry wonders of the night<br/> + In praise and song …<br/> +<br/> +This strong Soul praising in new right.<br/> +It is well, O my Soul, it is well…. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +A. L. W<small>REN</small>. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10667 ***</div> +</body> + +</html> + + |