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| author | www-data <www-data@mail.pglaf.org> | 2026-03-19 09:31:37 -0700 |
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| committer | www-data <www-data@mail.pglaf.org> | 2026-03-19 09:31:37 -0700 |
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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/78240-0.txt b/78240-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..46fda03 --- /dev/null +++ b/78240-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11715 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78240 *** + + + + + MANY INVENTIONS + + [Illustration] + + + + + MANY INVENTIONS + + BY + + RUDYARD KIPLING + + + ‘Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but + they have sought out many inventions.’--ECCLESIASTES vii. 29. + + + London + + MACMILLAN AND CO. + + AND NEW YORK + + 1893 + + _All rights reserved_ + + + + + CONTENTS + + + PAGE + + THE DISTURBER OF TRAFFIC 1 + + A CONFERENCE OF THE POWERS 22 + + MY LORD THE ELEPHANT 41 + + ONE VIEW OF THE QUESTION 67 + + ‘THE FINEST STORY IN THE WORLD’ 90 + + HIS PRIVATE HONOUR 129 + + A MATTER OF FACT 154 + + THE LOST LEGION 172 + + IN THE RUKH 189 + + ‘BRUGGLESMITH’ 226 + + ‘LOVE-O’-WOMEN’ 247 + + THE RECORD OF BADALIA HERODSFOOT 279 + + JUDSON AND THE EMPIRE 309 + + THE CHILDREN OF THE ZODIAC 342 + + + + + TO THE TRUE ROMANCE. + + + _Thy face is far from this our war, + Our call and counter-cry, + I shall not find Thee quick and kind, + Nor know Thee till I die. + Enough for me in dreams to see + And touch Thy garments’ hem: + Thy feet have trod so near to God + I may not follow them._ + + Through wantonness if men profess + They weary of Thy parts, + E’en let them die at blasphemy + And perish with their arts; + But we that love, but we that prove + Thine excellence august, + While we adore discover more + Thee perfect, wise, and just. + + Since spoken word Man’s spirit stirred + Beyond his belly-need, + What is is Thine of fair design + In thought and craft and deed; + Each stroke aright of toil and fight, + That was and that shall be, + And hope too high wherefore we die, + Has birth and worth in Thee. + + Who holds by Thee hath Heaven in fee + To gild his dross thereby, + And knowledge sure that he endure + A child until he die-- + For to make plain that man’s disdain + Is but new Beauty’s birth-- + For to possess in loneliness + The joy of all the earth. + + As Thou didst teach all lovers speech + And Life her mystery, + So shalt Thou rule by every school + Till love and longing die, + Who wast or yet the lights were set, + A whisper in the Void, + Who shalt be sung through planets young + When this is clean destroyed. + + Beyond the bounds our staring rounds, + Across the pressing dark, + The children wise of outer skies + Look hitherward and mark + A light that shifts, a glare that drifts, + Rekindling thus and thus, + Not all forlorn, for Thou hast borne + Strange tales to them of us. + + Time hath no tide but must abide + The servant of Thy will; + Tide hath no time, for to Thy rhyme + The ranging stars stand still-- + Regent of spheres that lock our fears + Our hopes invisible, + Oh ’twas certes at Thy decrees + We fashioned Heaven and Hell! + + Pure Wisdom hath no certain path + That lacks thy morning-eyne, + And captains bold by Thee controlled + Most like to Gods design; + Thou art the Voice to kingly boys + To lift them through the fight, + And Comfortress of Unsuccess, + To give the dead good-night-- + + A veil to draw ’twixt God His Law + And Man’s infirmity, + A shadow kind to dumb and blind + The shambles where we die; + A sum to trick th’ arithmetic + Too base of leaguing odds, + The spur of trust, the curb of lust, + Thou handmaid of the Gods! + + Oh Charity, all patiently + Abiding wrack and scaith! + Oh Faith, that meets ten thousand cheats + Yet drops no jot of faith! + Devil and brute Thou dost transmute + To higher, lordlier show, + Who art in sooth that utter Truth + The careless angels know! + + _Thy face is far from this our war, + Our call and counter-cry, + I may not find Thee quick and kind, + Nor know Thee till I die._ + + _Yet may I look with heart unshook + On blow brought home or missed-- + Yet may I hear with equal ear + The clarions down the List; + Yet set my lance above mischance + And ride the barriere-- + Oh, hit or miss, how little ’tis, + My Lady is not there!_ + + + + + THE DISTURBER OF TRAFFIC. + + + From the wheel and the drift of Things + Deliver us, good Lord; + And we will meet the wrath of kings, + The faggot, and the sword. + + Lay not Thy toil before our eyes, + Nor vex us with Thy wars, + Lest we should feel the straining skies + O’ertrod by trampling stars. + + A veil ’twixt us and Thee, dread Lord, + A veil ’twixt us and Thee: + Lest we should hear too clear, too clear, + And unto madness see! + + MIRIAM COHEN. + + +The Brothers of the Trinity order that none unconnected with their +service shall be found in or on one of their Lights during the hours +of darkness; but their servants can be made to think otherwise. If you +are fair-spoken and take an interest in their duties, they will allow +you to sit with them through the long night and help to scare the ships +into mid-channel. + +Of the English south-coast Lights, that of St. Cecilia-under-the-Cliff +is the most powerful, for it guards a very foggy coast. When the +sea-mist veils all, St. Cecilia turns a hooded head to the sea and +sings a song of two words once every minute. From the land that +song resembles the bellowing of a brazen bull; but off-shore they +understand, and the steamers grunt gratefully in answer. + +Fenwick, who was on duty one night, lent me a pair of black glass +spectacles, without which no man can look at the Light unblinded, and +busied himself in last touches to the lenses before twilight fell. +The width of the English Channel beneath us lay as smooth and as +many-coloured as the inside of an oyster-shell. A little Sunderland +cargo-boat had made her signal to Lloyd’s Agency, half a mile up the +coast, and was lumbering down to the sunset, her wake lying white +behind her. One star came out over the cliffs, the waters turned to +lead colour, and St. Cecilia’s Light shot out across the sea in eight +long pencils that wheeled slowly from right to left, melted into one +beam of solid light laid down directly in front of the tower, dissolved +again into eight, and passed away. The light-frame of the thousand +lenses circled on its rollers, and the compressed-air engine that drove +it hummed like a bluebottle under a glass. The hand of the indicator +on the wall pulsed from mark to mark. Eight pulse-beats timed one +half-revolution of the Light; neither more nor less. + +Fenwick checked the first few revolutions carefully; he opened the +engine’s feed-pipe a trifle, looked at the racing governor, and again +at the indicator, and said: ‘She’ll do for the next few hours. We’ve +just sent our regular engine to London, and this spare one’s not by any +manner so accurate.’ + +‘And what would happen if the compressed air gave out?’ I asked. + +‘We’d have to turn the flash by hand, keeping an eye on the indicator. +There’s a regular crank for that. But it hasn’t happened yet. We’ll +need all our compressed air to-night.’ + +‘Why?’ said I. I had been watching him for not more than a minute. + +‘Look,’ he answered, and I saw that the dead sea-mist had risen out +of the lifeless sea and wrapped us while my back had been turned. The +pencils of the Light marched staggeringly across tilted floors of white +cloud. From the balcony round the light-room the white walls of the +lighthouse ran down into swirling, smoking space. The noise of the tide +coming in very lazily over the rocks was choked down to a thick drawl. + +‘That’s the way our sea-fogs come,’ said Fenwick, with an air of +ownership. ‘Hark, now, to that little fool calling out ’fore he’s hurt.’ + +Something in the mist was bleating like an indignant calf; it might +have been half a mile or half a hundred miles away. + +‘Does he suppose we’ve gone to bed?’ continued Fenwick. ‘You’ll hear +us talk to him in a minute. He knows puffickly where he is, and he’s +carrying on to be told like if he was insured.’ + +‘Who is “he”?’ + +‘That Sunderland boat, o’ course. Ah!’ + +I could hear a steam-engine hiss down below in the mist where the +dynamos that fed the Light were clacking together. Then there came a +roar that split the fog and shook the lighthouse. + +‘GIT-_toot_!’ blared the fog-horn of St. Cecilia. The bleating ceased. + +‘Little fool!’ Fenwick repeated. Then, listening: ‘Blest if that +aren’t another of them! Well, well, they always say that a fog do draw +the ships of the sea together. They’ll be calling all night, and so’ll +the siren. We’re expecting some tea-ships up-Channel.... If you put my +coat on that chair, you’ll feel more so-fash, sir.’ + +It is no pleasant thing to thrust your company upon a man for the +night. I looked at Fenwick, and Fenwick looked at me; each gauging the +other’s capacities for boring and being bored. Fenwick was an old, +clean-shaven, gray-haired man who had followed the sea for thirty +years, and knew nothing of the land except the lighthouse in which he +served. He fenced cautiously to find out the little that I knew, and +talked down to my level till it came out that I had met a captain in +the merchant service who had once commanded a ship in which Fenwick’s +son had served; and further, that I had seen some places that Fenwick +had touched at. He began with a dissertation on pilotage in the Hugli. +I had been privileged to know a Hugli pilot intimately. Fenwick had +only seen the imposing and masterful breed from a ship’s chains, and +his intercourse had been cut down to ‘Quarter less five,’ and remarks +of a strictly business-like nature. Hereupon he ceased to talk down +to me, and became so amazingly technical that I was forced to beg him +to explain every other sentence. This set him fully at his ease; and +then we spoke as men together, each too interested to think of anything +except the subject in hand. And that subject was wrecks, and voyages, +and old-time trading, and ships cast away in desolate seas, steamers +we both had known, their merits and demerits, lading, Lloyd’s, and, +above all, Lights. The talk always came back to Lights: Lights of +the Channel; Lights on forgotten islands, and men forgotten on them; +Light-ships--two months’ duty and one month’s leave--tossing on kinked +cables in ever-troubled tideways; and Lights that men had seen where +never lighthouse was marked on the charts. + +Omitting all those stories, and omitting also the wonderful ways by +which he arrived at them, I tell here, from Fenwick’s mouth, one that +was not the least amazing. It was delivered in pieces between the +roller-skate rattle of the revolving lenses, the bellowing of the +fog-horn below, the answering calls from the sea, and the sharp tap of +reckless night-birds that flung themselves at the glasses. It concerned +a man called Dowse, once an intimate friend of Fenwick, now a waterman +at Portsmouth, believing that the guilt of blood is on his head, and +finding no rest either at Portsmouth or Gosport Hard. + + * * * * * + +... ‘And if anybody was to come to you and say, “I know the Javva +currents,” don’t you listen to him; for those currents is never yet +known to mortal man. Sometimes they’re here, sometimes they’re there, +but they never runs less than five knots an hour through and among +those islands of the Eastern Archipelagus. There’s reverse currents +in the Gulf of Boni--and that’s up north in Celebes--that no man can +explain; and through all those Javva passages from the Bali Narrows, +Dutch Gut, and Ombay, which I take it is the safest, they chop and they +change, and they banks the tides fust on one shore and then on another, +till your ship’s tore in two. I’ve come through the Bali Narrows, stern +first, in the heart o’ the south-east monsoon, with a sou’-sou’-west +wind blowing atop of the northerly flood, and our skipper said he +wouldn’t do it again, not for all Jamrach’s. You’ve heard o’ Jamrach’s, +sir?’ + +‘Yes; and was Dowse stationed in the Bali Narrows?’ I said. + +‘No; he was not at Bali, but much more east o’ them passages, and +that’s Flores Strait, at the east end o’ Flores. It’s all on the +way south to Australia when you’re running through that Eastern +Archipelagus. Sometimes you go through Bali Narrows if you’re +full-powered, and sometimes through Flores Strait, so as to stand south +at once, and fetch round Timor, keeping well clear o’ the Sahul Bank. +Elseways, if you aren’t full-powered, why it stands to reason you go +round by the Ombay Passage, keeping careful to the north side. You +understand that, sir?’ + +I was not full-powered, and judged it safer to keep to the north +side--of Silence. + +‘And on Flores Strait, in the fairway between Adonare Island and the +mainland, they put Dowse in charge of a screw-pile Light called the +Wurlee Light. It’s less than a mile across the head of Flores Strait. +Then it opens out to ten or twelve mile for Solor Strait, and then it +narrows again to a three-mile gut, with a topplin’ flamin’ volcano +by it. That’s old Loby Toby by Loby Toby Strait, and if you keep his +Light and the Wurlee Light in a line you won’t take much harm, not on +the darkest night. That’s what Dowse told me, and I can well believe +him, knowing these seas myself; but you must ever be mindful of the +currents. And there they put Dowse, since he was the only man that that +Dutch government which owns Flores could find that would go to Wurlee +and tend a fixed Light. Mostly they uses Dutch and Italians; Englishmen +being said to drink when alone. I never could rightly find out what +made Dowse accept of that position, but accept he did, and used to sit +for to watch the tigers come out of the forests to hunt for crabs and +such like round about the lighthouse at low tide. The water was always +warm in those parts, as I know well, and uncommon sticky, and it ran +with the tides as thick and smooth as hogwash in a trough. There was +another man along with Dowse in the Light, but he wasn’t rightly a +man. He was a Kling. No, nor yet a Kling he wasn’t, but his skin was +in little flakes and cracks all over, from living so much in the salt +water as was his usual custom. His hands was all webby-foot, too. He +was called, I remember Dowse saying now, an Orange-Lord, on account of +his habits. You’ve heard of an Orange-Lord, sir?’ + +‘Orang-Laut?’ I suggested. + +‘That’s the name,’ said Fenwick, smacking his knee. ‘An Orang-Laut, of +course, and his name was Challong; what they call a sea-gypsy. Dowse +told me that that man, long hair and all, would go swimming up and down +the straits just for something to do; running down on one tide and +back again with the other, swimming side-stroke, and the tides going +tremenjus strong. Elseways he’d be skipping about the beach along with +the tigers at low tide, for he was most part a beast; or he’d sit in +a little boat praying to old Loby Toby of an evening when the volcano +was spitting red at the south end of the strait. Dowse told me that he +wasn’t a companionable man, like you and me might have been to Dowse. + +‘Now I can never rightly come at what it was that began to ail Dowse +after he had been there a year or something less. He was saving of all +his pay and tending to his Light, and now and again he’d have a fight +with Challong and tip him off the Light into the sea. Then, he told me, +his head began to feel streaky from looking at the tide so long. He +said there was long streaks of white running inside it; like wall-paper +that hadn’t been properly pasted up, he said. The streaks, they would +run with the tides, north and south, twice a day, accordin’ to them +currents, and he’d lie down on the planking--it was a screw-pile +Light--with his eye to a crack and watch the water streaking through +the piles just so quiet as hogwash. He said the only comfort he got +was at slack water. Then the streaks in his head went round and round +like a sampan in a tide-rip; but that was heaven, he said, to the +other kind of streaks,--the straight ones that looked like arrows on a +wind-chart, but much more regular, and that was the trouble of it. No +more he couldn’t ever keep his eyes off the tides that ran up and down +so strong, but as soon as ever he looked at the high hills standing +all along Flores Strait for rest and comfort his eyes would be pulled +down like to the nesty streaky water; and when they once got there he +couldn’t pull them away again till the tide changed. He told me all +this himself, speaking just as though he was talking of somebody else.’ + +‘Where did you meet him?’ I asked. + +‘In Portsmouth harbour, a-cleaning the brasses of a Ryde boat, but I’d +known him off and on through following the sea for many years. Yes, he +spoke about himself very curious, and all as if he was in the next +room laying there dead. Those streaks, they preyed upon his intellecks, +he said; and he made up his mind, every time that the Dutch gunboat +that attends to the Lights in those parts come along, that he’d ask to +be took off. But as soon as she did come something went click in his +throat, and he was so took up with watching her masts, because they +ran longways, in the contrary direction to his streaks, that he could +never say a word until she was gone away and her masts was under sea +again. Then, he said, he’d cry by the hour; and Challong swum round +and round the Light, laughin’ at him and splashin’ water with his +webby-foot hands. At last he took it into his pore sick head that the +ships, and particularly the steamers that came by,--there wasn’t many +of them,--made the streaks, instead of the tides as was natural. He +used to sit, he told me, cursing every boat that come along,--sometimes +a junk, sometimes a Dutch brig, and now and again a steamer rounding +Flores Head and poking about in the mouth of the strait. Or there’d +come a boat from Australia running north past old Loby Toby hunting for +a fair current, but never throwing out any papers that Challong might +pick up for Dowse to read. Generally speaking, the steamers kept more +westerly, but now and again they came looking for Timor and the west +coast of Australia. Dowse used to shout to them to go round by the +Ombay Passage, and not to come streaking past him, making the water all +streaky, but it wasn’t likely they’d hear. He says to himself after a +month, “I’ll give them one more chance,” he says. “If the next boat +don’t attend to my just representations,”--he says he remembers using +those very words to Challong,--“I’ll stop the fairway.” + +‘The next boat was a Two-streak cargo-boat very anxious to make her +northing. She waddled through under old Loby Toby at the south end of +the strait, and she passed within a quarter of a mile of the Wurlee +Light at the north end, in seventeen fathom o’ water, the tide against +her. Dowse took the trouble to come out with Challong in a little prow +that they had,--all bamboos and leakage,--and he lay in the fairway +waving a palm branch, and, so he told me, wondering why and what for he +was making this fool of himself. Up come the Two-streak boat, and Dowse +shouts: “Don’t you come this way again, making my head all streaky! +Go round by Ombay, and leave me alone.” Some one looks over the port +bulwarks and shies a banana at Dowse, and that’s all. Dowse sits down +in the bottom of the boat and cries fit to break his heart. Then he +says, “Challong, what am I a-crying for?” and they fetches up by the +Wurlee Light on the half-flood. + +‘“Challong,” he says, “there’s too much traffic here, and that’s why +the water’s so streaky as it is. It’s the junks and the brigs and +the steamers that do it,” he says; and all the time he was speaking +he was thinking, “Lord, Lord, what a crazy fool I am!” Challong said +nothing, because he couldn’t speak a word of English except say “dam,” +and he said that where you or me would say “yes.” Dowse lay down on +the planking of the Light with his eye to the crack, and he saw the +muddy water streaking below, and he never said a word till slack water, +because the streaks kept him tongue-tied at such times. At slack water +he says, “Challong, we must buoy this fairway for wrecks,” and he holds +up his hands several times, showing that dozens of wrecks had come +about in the fairway; and Challong says, “Dam.” + +‘That very afternoon he and Challong rows to Wurlee, the village in +the woods that the Light was named after, and buys canes,--stacks and +stacks of canes, and coir rope thick and fine, all sorts,--and they +sets to work making square floats by lashing of the canes together. +Dowse said he took longer over those floats than might have been +needed, because he rejoiced in the corners, they being square, and +the streaks in his head all running longways. He lashed the canes +together, criss-cross and thwartways,--any way but longways,--and +they made up twelve-foot-square floats, like rafts. Then he stepped +a twelve-foot bamboo or a bundle of canes in the centre, and to the +head of that he lashed a big six-foot W letter, all made of canes, and +painted the float dark green and the W white, as a wreck-buoy should be +painted. Between them two they makes a round dozen of these new kind of +wreck-buoys, and it was a two months’ job. There was no big traffic, +owing to it being on the turn of the monsoon, but what there was Dowse +cursed at, and the streaks in his head, they ran with the tides, as +usual. + +‘Day after day, so soon as a buoy was ready, Challong would take it +out, with a big rock that half sunk the prow and a bamboo grapnel, and +drop it dead in the fairway. He did this day or night, and Dowse could +see him of a clear night, when the sea brimed, climbing about the buoys +with the sea-fire dripping off him. They was all put into place, twelve +of them, in seventeen-fathom water; not in a straight line, on account +of a well-known shoal there, but slantways, and two, one behind the +other, mostly in the centre of the fairway. You must keep the centre +of those Javva currents, for currents at the side is different, and in +narrow water, before you can turn a spoke, you get your nose took round +and rubbed upon the rocks and the woods. Dowse knew that just as well +as any skipper. Likeways he knew that no skipper daren’t run through +uncharted wrecks in a six-knot current. He told me he used to lie +outside the Light watching his buoys ducking and dipping so friendly +with the tide; and the motion was comforting to him on account of its +being different from the run of the streaks in his head. + +‘Three weeks after he’d done his business up comes a steamer through +Loby Toby Straits, thinking she’d run into Flores Sea before night. He +saw her slow down; then she backed. Then one man and another come up +on the bridge, and he could see there was a regular powwow, and the +flood was driving her right on to Dowse’s wreck-buoys. After that she +spun round and went back south, and Dowse nearly killed himself with +laughing. But a few weeks after that a couple of junks came shouldering +through from the north, arm in arm, like junks go. It takes a good +deal to make a Chinaman understand danger. They junks set well in the +current, and went down the fairway, right among the buoys, ten knots +an hour, blowing horns and banging tin pots all the time. That made +Dowse very angry; he having taken so much trouble to stop the fairway. +No boats run Flores Straits by night, but it seemed to Dowse that if +junks’d do that in the day, the Lord knew but what a steamer might +trip over his buoys at night; and he sent Challong to run a coir rope +between three of the buoys in the middle of the fairway, and he fixed +naked lights of coir steeped in oil to that rope. The tides was the +only things that moved in those seas, for the airs was dead still +till they began to blow, and _then_ they would blow your hair off. +Challong tended those lights every night after the junks had been so +impident,--four lights in about a quarter of a mile hung up in iron +skillets on the rope; and when they was alight,--and coir burns well, +very like a lamp wick,--the fairway seemed more madder than anything +else in the world. First there was the Wurlee Light, then these four +queer lights, that couldn’t be riding-lights, almost flush with the +water, and behind them, twenty mile off, but the biggest light of all, +there was the red top of old Loby Toby volcano. Dowse told me that he +used to go out in the prow and look at his handiwork, and it made him +scared, being like no lights that ever was fixed. + +‘By and by some more steamers came along, snorting and snifting at +the buoys, but never going through, and Dowse says to himself: “Thank +goodness I’ve taught them not to come streaking through my water. Ombay +Passage is good enough for them and the like of them.” But he didn’t +remember how quick that sort of news spreads among the shipping. Every +steamer that fetched up by those buoys told another steamer and all the +port officers concerned in those seas that there was something wrong +with Flores Straits that hadn’t been charted yet. It was block-buoyed +for wrecks in the fairway, they said, and no sort of passage to use. +Well, the Dutch, of course they didn’t know anything about it. They +thought our Admiralty Survey had been there, and they thought it very +queer but neighbourly. You understand us English are always looking up +marks and lighting sea-ways all the world over, never asking with your +leave or by your leave, seeing that the sea concerns us more than any +one else. So the news went to and back from Flores to Bali, and Bali +to Probolingo, where the railway is that runs to Batavia. All through +the Javva seas everybody got the word to keep clear o’ Flores Straits, +and Dowse, he was left alone except for such steamers and small craft +as didn’t know. They’d come up and look at the straits like a bull +over a gate, but those nodding wreck-buoys scared them away. By and by +the Admiralty Survey ship--the _Britomarte_ I think she was--lay in +Macassar Roads off Fort Rotterdam, alongside of the _Amboina_, a dirty +little Dutch gunboat that used to clean there; and the Dutch captain +says to our captain, “What’s wrong with Flores Straits?” he says. + +‘“Blowed if I know,” says our captain, who’d just come up from the +Angelica Shoal. + +‘“Then why did you go and buoy it?” says the Dutchman. + +‘“Blowed if I have,” says our captain. “That’s your lookout.” + +‘“Buoyed it is,” says the Dutch captain, “according to what they tell +me; and a whole fleet of wreck-buoys, too.” + +‘“Gummy!” says our captain. “It’s a dorg’s life at sea, any way. I must +have a look at this. You come along after me as soon as you can;” +and down he skimmed that very night, round the heel of Celebes, three +days’ steam to Flores Head, and he met a Two-streak liner, very angry, +backing out of the head of the strait; and the merchant captain gave +our Survey ship something of his mind for leaving wrecks uncharted in +those narrow waters and wasting his company’s coal. + +‘“It’s no fault o’ mine,” says our captain. + +‘“I don’t care whose fault it is,” says the merchant captain, who had +come aboard to speak to him just at dusk. “The fairway’s choked with +wreck enough to knock a hole through a dock-gate. I saw their big ugly +masts sticking up just under my forefoot. Lord ha’ mercy on us!” he +says, spinning round. “The place is like Regent Street of a hot summer +night.” + +‘And so it was. They two looked at Flores Straits, and they saw lights +one after the other stringing across the fairway. Dowse, he had seen +the steamers hanging there before dark, and he said to Challong: “We’ll +give ’em something to remember. Get all the skillets and iron pots you +can and hang them up alongside o’ the regular four lights. We must +teach ’em to go round by the Ombay Passage, or they’ll be streaking +up our water again!” Challong took a header off the lighthouse, got +aboard the little leaking prow, with his coir soaked in oil and all +the skillets he could muster, and he began to show his lights, four +regulation ones and half-a-dozen new lights hung on that rope which +was a little above the water. Then he went to all the spare buoys with +all his spare coir, and hung a skillet-flare on every pole that he +could get at,--about seven poles. So you see, taking one with another, +there was the Wurlee Light, four lights on the rope between the three +centre fairway wreck-buoys that was hung out as a usual custom, six or +eight extry ones that Challong had hung up on the same rope, and seven +dancing flares that belonged to seven wreck-buoys,--eighteen or twenty +lights in all crowded into a mile of seventeen-fathom water, where no +tide ’d ever let a wreck rest for three weeks, let alone ten or twelve +wrecks, as the flares showed. + +‘The Admiralty captain, he saw the lights come out one after another, +same as the merchant skipper did who was standing at his side, and he +said:-- + +‘“There’s been an international cata-strophe here or elseways,” and +then he whistled. “I’m going to stand on and off all night till the +Dutchman comes,” he says. + +‘“I’m off,” says the merchant skipper. “My owners don’t wish for me to +watch illuminations. That strait’s choked with wreck, and I shouldn’t +wonder if a typhoon hadn’t driven half the junks o’ China there.” +With that he went away; but the Survey ship, she stayed all night at +the head o’ Flores Strait, and the men admired of the lights till the +lights was burning out, and then they admired more than ever. + +‘A little bit before morning the Dutch gunboat come flustering up, and +the two ships stood together watching the lights burn out and out, till +there was nothing left ’cept Flores Straits, all green and wet, and a +dozen wreck-buoys, and Wurlee Light. + +‘Dowse had slept very quiet that night, and got rid of his streaks by +means of thinking of the angry steamers outside. Challong was busy, +and didn’t come back to his bunk till late. In the gray early morning +Dowse looked out to sea, being, as he said, in torment, and saw all +the navies of the world riding outside Flores Strait fairway in a +half-moon, seven miles from wing to wing, most wonderful to behold. +Those were the words he used to me time and again in telling the tale. + +‘Then, he says, he heard a gun fired with a most tremenjus explosion, +and all them great navies crumbled to little pieces of clouds, and +there was only two ships remaining, and a man-o’-war’s boat rowing to +the Light, with the oars going sideways instead o’ longways as the +morning tides, ebb or flow, would continually run. + +‘“What the devil’s wrong with this strait?” says a man in the boat as +soon as they was in hailing distance. “Has the whole English Navy sunk +here, or what?” + +‘“There’s nothing wrong,” says Dowse, sitting on the platform outside +the Light, and keeping one eye very watchful on the streakiness of the +tide, which he always hated, ’specially in the mornings. “You leave +me alone and I’ll leave you alone. Go round by the Ombay Passage, +and don’t cut up my water. You’re making it streaky.” All the time +he was saying that he kept on thinking to himself, “Now that’s +foolishness,--now that’s nothing but foolishness;” and all the time he +was holding tight to the edge of the platform in case the streakiness +of the tide should carry him away. + +‘Somebody answers from the boat, very soft and quiet, “We’re going +round by Ombay in a minute, if you’ll just come and speak to our +captain and give him his bearings.” + +‘Dowse, he felt very highly flattered, and he slipped into the boat, +not paying any attention to Challong. But Challong swum along to the +ship after the boat. When Dowse was in the boat, he found, so he says, +he couldn’t speak to the sailors ’cept to call them “white mice with +chains about their neck,” and Lord knows he hadn’t seen or thought +o’ white mice since he was a little bit of a boy with them in his +hankerchief. So he kept himself quiet, and so they come to the Survey +ship; and the man in the boat hails the quarter-deck with something +that Dowse could not rightly understand, but there was one word he +spelt out again and again,--m-a-d, mad,--and he heard some one behind +him saying of it backwards. So he had two words,--m-a-d, mad, d-a-m, +dam; and he put they two words together as he come on the quarter-deck, +and he says to the captain very slowly, “I be damned if I am mad,” but +all the time his eye was held like by the coils of rope on the belaying +pins, and he followed those ropes up and up with his eye till he was +quite lost and comfortable among the rigging, which ran criss-cross, +and slopeways, and up and down, and any way but straight along under +his feet north and south. The deck-seams, they ran _that_ way, and +Dowse daresn’t look at them. They was the same as the streaks of the +water under the planking of the lighthouse. + +‘Then he heard the captain talking to him very kind, and for the life +of him he couldn’t tell why; and what he wanted to tell the captain was +that Flores Strait was too streaky, like bacon, and the steamers only +made it worse; but all he could do was to keep his eye very careful on +the rigging and sing:-- + + “I saw a ship a-sailing, + A-sailing on the sea; + And oh, it was all lading + With pretty things for me!” + +Then he remembered that was foolishness, and he started off to say +about the Ombay Passage, but all he said was: “The captain was a +duck,--meaning no offence to you, sir,--but there was something on his +back that I’ve forgotten. + + “And when the ship began to move + The captain says, ‘Quack-quack!’” + +‘He notices the captain turns very red and angry, and he says to +himself, “My foolish tongue’s run away with me again. I’ll go +forward;” and he went forward, and catched the reflection of himself +in the binnacle brasses; and he saw that he was standing there and +talking mother-naked in front of all them sailors, and he ran into +the fo’c’s’le howling most grievous. He must ha’ gone naked for weeks +on the Light, and Challong o’ course never noticed it. Challong was +swimmin’ round and round the ship, sayin’ “dam” for to please the men +and to be took aboard, because he didn’t know any better. + +‘Dowse didn’t tell what happened after this, but seemingly our Survey +ship lowered two boats and went over to Dowse’s buoys. They took one +sounding, and then finding it was all correct they cut the buoys that +Dowse and Challong had made, and let the tide carry ’em out through the +Loby Toby end of the strait; and the Dutch gunboat, she sent two men +ashore to take care o’ the Wurlee Light, and the _Britomarte_, she went +away with Dowse, leaving Challong to try to follow them, a-calling +“dam--dam” all among the wake of the screw, and half heaving himself +out of water and joining his webby-foot hands together. He dropped +astern in five minutes, and I suppose he went back to the Wurlee Light. +You can’t drown an Orange-Lord, not even in Flores Strait on flood-tide. + +‘Dowse come across me when he came to England with the Survey ship, +after being more than six months in her, and cured of his streaks by +working hard and not looking over the side more than he could help. +He told me what I’ve told you, sir, and he was very much ashamed of +himself; but the trouble on his mind was to know whether he hadn’t sent +something or other to the bottom with his buoyings and his lightings +and such like. He put it to me many times, and each time more and more +sure he was that something had happened in the straits because of him. +I think that distructed him, because I found him up at Fratton one +day, in a red jersey, a-praying before the Salvation Army, which had +produced him in their papers as a Reformed Pirate. They knew from his +mouth that he had committed evil on the deep waters,--that was what +he told them,--and piracy, which no one does now except Chineses, was +all they knew of. I says to him: “Dowse, don’t be a fool. Take off +that jersey and come along with me.” He says: “Fenwick, I’m a-saving +of my soul; for I do believe that I have killed more men in Flores +Strait than Trafalgar.” I says: “A man that thought he’d seen all the +navies of the earth standing round in a ring to watch his foolish false +wreck-buoys” (those was my very words I used) “ain’t fit to have a +soul, and if he did he couldn’t kill a louse with it. John Dowse, you +was mad then, but you are a damn sight madder now. Take off that there +jersey!” + +‘He took it off and come along with me, but he never got rid o’ that +suspicion that he’d sunk some ships a-cause of his foolishnesses at +Flores Straits; and now he’s a wherryman from Portsmouth to Gosport, +where the tides run crossways and you can’t row straight for ten +strokes together.... So late as all this! Look!’ + + * * * * * + +Fenwick left his chair, passed to the Light, touched something that +clicked, and the glare ceased with a suddenness that was pain. Day had +come, and the Channel needed St. Cecilia no longer. The sea-fog rolled +back from the cliffs in trailed wreaths and dragged patches, as the sun +rose and made the dead sea alive and splendid. The stillness of the +morning held us both silent as we stepped on the balcony. A lark went +up from the cliffs behind St. Cecilia, and we smelt a smell of cows in +the lighthouse pastures below. + +Then we were both at liberty to thank the Lord for another day of clean +and wholesome life. + + + + + A CONFERENCE OF THE POWERS. + + + Life liveth but in life, and doth not roam + To other lands if all be well at home: + ‘Solid as ocean foam,’ quoth ocean foam. + + +The room was blue with the smoke of three pipes and a cigar. The +leave-season had opened in India, and the firstfruits on this side of +the water were ‘Tick’ Boileau, of the 45th Bengal Cavalry, who called +on me, after three years’ absence, to discuss old things which had +happened. Fate, who always does her work handsomely, sent up the same +staircase within the same hour The Infant, fresh from Upper Burma, +and he and Boileau looking out of my window saw walking in the street +one Nevin, late in a Gurkha regiment which had been through the Black +Mountain Expedition. They yelled to him to come up, and the whole +street was aware that they desired him to come up, and he came up, and +there followed Pandemonium in my room because we had foregathered from +the ends of the earth, and three of us were on a holiday, and none of +us were twenty-five, and all the delights of all London lay waiting our +pleasure. + +Boileau took the only other chair, The Infant, by right of his bulk, +the sofa; and Nevin, being a little man, sat cross-legged on the top of +the revolving bookcase, and we all said, ‘Who’d ha’ thought it!’ and +‘What are you doing here?’ till speculation was exhausted and the talk +went over to inevitable ‘shop.’ Boileau was full of a great scheme for +winning a military _attaché_-ship at St. Petersburg; Nevin had hopes of +the Staff College, and The Infant had been moving heaven and earth and +the Horse Guards for a commission in the Egyptian army. + +‘What’s the use o’ that?’ said Nevin, twirling round on the bookcase. + +‘Oh, heaps! ’Course, if you get stuck with a Fellaheen regiment, you’re +sold; but if you are appointed to a Soudanese lot, you’re in clover. +They are first-class fighting-men--and just think of the eligible +central position of Egypt in the next row.’ + +This was putting the match to a magazine. We all began to explain the +Central Asian question off-hand, flinging army corps from the Helmund +to Kashmir with more than Russian recklessness. Each of the boys made +for himself a war to his own liking, and when we had settled all +the details of Armageddon, killed all our senior officers, handled +a division apiece, and nearly torn the atlas in two in attempts to +explain our theories, Boileau needs must lift up his voice above the +clamour, and cry, ‘Anyhow it’ll be the Hell of a row!’ in tones that +carried conviction far down the staircase. + +Entered, unperceived in the smoke, William the Silent. ‘Gen’elman to +see you, sir,’ said he, and disappeared, leaving in his stead none +other than Mr. Eustace Cleever. William would have introduced the +Dragon of Wantley with equal disregard of present company. + +‘I--I beg your pardon. I didn’t know that there was anybody--with you. +I----’ + +But it was not seemly to allow Mr. Cleever to depart: he was a great +man. The boys remained where they were, for any movement would have +choked up the little room. Only when they saw his gray hairs they stood +on their feet, and when The Infant caught the name, he said: + +‘Are you--did you write that book called _As it was in the Beginning_?’ + +Mr. Cleever admitted that he had written the book. + +‘Then--then I don’t know how to thank you, sir,’ said The Infant, +flushing pink. ‘I was brought up in the country you wrote about--all my +people live there; and I read the book in camp on the Hlinedatalone, +and I knew every stick and stone, and the dialect too; and, by Jove! it +was just like being at home and hearing the country-people talk. Nevin, +you know _As it was in the Beginning_? So does Ti--Boileau.’ + +Mr. Cleever has tasted as much praise, public and private, as one man +may safely swallow; but it seemed to me that the out-spoken admiration +in The Infant’s eyes and the little stir in the little company came +home to him very nearly indeed. + +‘Won’t you take the sofa?’ said The Infant. ‘I’ll sit on Boileau’s +chair, and----’ here he looked at me to spur me to my duties as a host; +but I was watching the novelist’s face. Cleever had not the least +intention of going away, but settled himself on the sofa. + +Following the first great law of the Army, which says ‘all property is +common except money, and you’ve only got to ask the next man for that,’ +The Infant offered tobacco and drink. It was the least he could do; but +not the most lavish praise in the world held half as much appreciation +and reverence as The Infant’s simple ‘Say when, sir,’ above the long +glass. + +Cleever said ‘when,’ and more thereto, for he was a golden talker, +and he sat in the midst of hero-worship devoid of all taint of +self-interest. The boys asked him of the birth of his book and +whether it was hard to write, and how his notions came to him; and +he answered with the same absolute simplicity as he was questioned. +His big eyes twinkled, he dug his long thin hands into his gray beard +and tugged it as he grew animated. He dropped little by little from +the peculiar pinching of the broader vowels--the indefinable ‘Euh,’ +that runs through the speech of the pundit caste--and the elaborate +choice of words, to freely-mouthed ‘ows’ and ‘ois,’ and, for him at +least, unfettered colloquialisms. He could not altogether understand +the boys, who hung upon his words so reverently. The line of the +chin-strap, that still showed white and untanned on cheek-bone and +jaw, the steadfast young eyes puckered at the corners of the lids with +much staring through red-hot sunshine, the slow, untroubled breathing, +and the curious, crisp, curt speech seemed to puzzle him equally. He +could create men and women, and send them to the uttermost ends of the +earth, to help delight and comfort; he knew every mood of the fields, +and could interpret them to the cities, and he knew the hearts of many +in city and the country, but he had hardly, in forty years, come into +contact with the thing which is called a Subaltern of the Line. He told +the boys this in his own way. + +‘Well, how should you?’ said The Infant. ‘You--you’re quite different, +y’ see, sir.’ + +The Infant expressed his ideas in his tone rather than his words, but +Cleever understood the compliment. + +‘We’re only Subs,’ said Nevin, ‘and we aren’t exactly the sort of men +you’d meet much in your life, I s’pose.’ + +‘That’s true,’ said Cleever. ‘I live chiefly among men who write, +and paint, and sculp, and so forth. We have our own talk and our own +interests, and the outer world doesn’t trouble us much.’ + +‘That must be awfully jolly,’ said Boileau, at a venture. ‘We have our +own shop, too, but ’tisn’t half as interesting as yours, of course. You +know all the men who’ve ever done anything; and we only knock about +from place to place, and we do nothing.’ + +‘The Army’s a very lazy profession if you choose to make it so,’ said +Nevin. ‘When there’s nothing going on, there is nothing going on, and +you lie up.’ + +‘Or try to get a billet somewhere, to be ready for the next show,’ said +The Infant with a chuckle. + +‘To me,’ said Cleever softly, ‘the whole idea of warfare seems so +foreign and unnatural, so essentially vulgar, if I may say so, that I +can hardly appreciate your sensations. Of course, though, any change +from life in garrison towns must be a godsend to you.’ + +Like many home-staying Englishmen, Cleever believed that the newspaper +phrase he quoted covered the whole duty of the Army whose toils enabled +him to enjoy his many-sided life in peace. The remark was not a happy +one, for Boileau had just come off the Frontier, The Infant had been on +the warpath for nearly eighteen months, and the little red man Nevin +two months before had been sleeping under the stars at the peril of +his life. But none of them tried to explain, till I ventured to point +out that they had all seen service and were not used to idling. Cleever +took in the idea slowly. + +‘Seen service?’ said he. Then, as a child might ask, ‘Tell me. Tell me +everything about everything.’ + +‘How do you mean?’ said The Infant, delighted at being directly +appealed to by the great man. + +‘Good Heavens! How am I to make you understand, if you can’t see. In +the first place, what is your age?’ + +‘Twenty-three next July,’ said The Infant promptly. + +Cleever questioned the others with his eyes. + +‘I’m twenty-four,’ said Nevin. + +‘And I’m twenty-two,’ said Boileau. + +‘And you’ve all seen service?’ + +‘We’ve all knocked about a little bit, sir, but The Infant’s the +war-worn veteran. He’s had two years’ work in Upper Burma,’ said Nevin. + +‘When you say work, what do you mean, you extraordinary creatures?’ + +‘Explain it, Infant,’ said Nevin. + +‘Oh, keeping things in order generally, and running about after little +_dakus_--that’s dacoits--and so on. There’s nothing to explain.’ + +‘Make that young Leviathan speak,’ said Cleever impatiently, above his +glass. + +‘How can he speak?’ said I. ‘He’s done the work. The two don’t go +together. But, Infant, you’re ordered to _bukh_.’ + +‘What about? I’ll try.’ + +‘_Bukh_ about a _daur_. You’ve been on heaps of ’em,’ said Nevin. + +‘What in the world does that mean? Has the Army a language of its own?’ + +The Infant turned very red. He was afraid he was being laughed at, and +he detested talking before outsiders; but it was the author of _As it +was in the Beginning_ who waited. + +‘It’s all so new to me,’ pleaded Cleever; ‘and--and you said you liked +my book.’ + +This was a direct appeal that The Infant could understand, and he began +rather flurriedly, with much slang bred of nervousness-- + +‘Pull me up, sir, if I say anything you don’t follow. About six months +before I took my leave out of Burma, I was on the Hlinedatalone, +up near the Shan States, with sixty Tommies--private soldiers, +that is--and another subaltern, a year senior to me. The Burmese +business was a subaltern’s war, and our forces were split up into +little detachments, all running about the country and trying to keep +the dacoits quiet. The dacoits were having a first-class time, y’ +know--filling women up with kerosine and setting ’em alight, and +burning villages, and crucifying people.’ + +The wonder in Eustace Cleever’s eyes deepened. He could not quite +realise that the cross still existed in any form. + +‘Have you ever seen a crucifixion?’ said he. + +‘Of course not. ’Shouldn’t have allowed it if I had; but I’ve seen the +corpses. The dacoits had a trick of sending a crucified corpse down +the river on a raft, just to show they were keeping their tail up and +enjoying themselves. Well, that was the kind of people I had to deal +with.’ + +‘Alone?’ said Cleever. Solitude of the soul he could understand--none +better--but he had never in the body moved ten miles from his fellows. + +‘I had my men, but the rest of it was pretty much alone. The nearest +post that could give me orders was fifteen miles away, and we used to +heliograph to them, and they used to give us orders same way--too many +orders.’ + +‘Who was your C. O.?’ said Boileau. + +‘Bounderby--Major. _Pukka_ Bounderby; more Bounder than _pukka_. He +went out up Bhamo way. Shot, or cut down, last year,’ said The Infant. + +‘What are these interludes in a strange tongue?’ said Cleever to me. + +‘Professional information--like the Mississippi pilots’ talk,’ said +I. ‘He did not approve of his major, who died a violent death. Go on, +Infant.’ + +‘Far too many orders. You couldn’t take the Tommies out for a two days’ +_daur_--that’s expedition--without being blown up for not asking leave. +And the whole country was humming with dacoits. I used to send out +spies, and act on their information. As soon as a man came in and told +me of a gang in hiding, I’d take thirty men with some grub, and go out +and look for them, while the other subaltern lay doggo in camp.’ + +‘Lay! Pardon me, but _how_ did he lie?’ said Cleever. + +‘Lay doggo--lay quiet, with the other thirty men. When I came back, +he’d take out his half of the men, and have a good time of his own.’ + +‘Who was he?’ said Boileau. + +‘Carter-Deecey, of the Aurungabadis. Good chap, but too _zubberdusty_, +and went _bokhar_ four days out of seven. He’s gone out, too. Don’t +interrupt a man.’ + +Cleever looked helplessly at me. + +‘The other subaltern,’ I translated swiftly, ‘came from a native +regiment, and was overbearing in his demeanour. He suffered much from +the fever of the country, and is now dead. Go on, Infant.’ + +‘After a bit, we got into trouble for using the men on frivolous +occasions, and so I used to put my signaller under arrest to prevent +him reading the helio-orders. Then I’d go out and leave a message +to be sent an hour after I got clear of the camp, something like +this: “Received important information; start in an hour unless +countermanded.” If I was ordered back, it didn’t much matter. I swore +the C. O.’s watch was wrong, or something, when I came back. The +Tommies enjoyed the fun, and--Oh, yes, there was one Tommy who was the +bard of the detachment. He used to make up verses on everything that +happened.’ + +‘What sort of verses?’ said Cleever. + +‘Lovely verses; and the Tommies used to sing ’em. There was one song +with a chorus, and it said something like this.’ The Infant dropped +into the true barrack-room twang: + + ‘Theebaw, the Burma king, did a very foolish thing, + When ’e mustered ’ostile forces in ar-rai, + ’E little thought that _we_, from far across the sea, + Would send our armies up to Mandalai!’ + +‘O gorgeous!’ said Cleever. ‘And how magnificently direct! The notion +of a regimental bard is new to me, but of course it must be so.’ + +‘He was awf’ly popular with the men,’ said The Infant. ‘He had them +all down in rhyme as soon as ever they had done anything. He was a +great bard. He was always ready with an elegy when we picked up a +Boh--that’s a leader of dacoits.’ + +‘How did you pick him up?’ said Cleever. + +‘Oh! shot him if he wouldn’t surrender.’ + +‘You! Have you shot a man?’ + +There was a subdued chuckle from all three boys, and it dawned on the +questioner that one experience in life which was denied to himself, and +he weighed the souls of men in a balance, had been shared by three very +young gentlemen of engaging appearance. He turned round on Nevin, who +had climbed to the top of the bookcase, and was sitting cross-legged as +before. + +‘And have _you_, too?’ + +‘’Think so,’ said Nevin sweetly. ‘In the Black Mountain. He was rolling +cliffs on to my half-company, and spoiling our formation. I took a +rifle from a man, and brought him down at the second shot.’ + +‘Good heavens! And how did you feel afterwards?’ + +‘Thirsty. I wanted a smoke, too.’ + +Cleever looked at Boileau--the youngest. Surely his hands were +guiltless of blood. + +Boileau shook his head and laughed. ‘Go on, Infant,’ said he. + +‘And you too?’ said Cleever. + +‘Fancy so. It was a case of cut, cut or be cut, with me; so I +cut--One. I couldn’t do any more, sir.’ + +Cleever looked as though he would like to ask many questions, but The +Infant swept on, in the full tide of his tale. + +‘Well, we were called insubordinate young whelps at last, and strictly +forbidden to take the Tommies out any more without orders. I wasn’t +sorry, because Tommy is such an exacting sort of creature. He wants +to live as though he were in barracks all the time. I was grubbing on +fowls and boiled corn, but my Tommies wanted their pound of fresh meat, +and their half ounce of this, and their two ounces of t’other thing, +and they used to come to me and badger me for plug-tobacco when we were +four days in jungle. I said: “I can get you Burma tobacco, but I don’t +keep a canteen up my sleeve.” They couldn’t see it. They wanted all the +luxuries of the season, confound ’em.’ + +‘You were alone when you were dealing with these men?’ said Cleever, +watching The Infant’s face under the palm of his hand. He was getting +new ideas, and they seemed to trouble him. + +‘Of course, unless you count the mosquitoes. They were nearly as big as +the men. After I had to lie doggo I began to look for something to do; +and I was great pals with a man called Hicksey in the Police, the best +man that ever stepped on earth; a first-class man.’ + +Cleever nodded applause. He knew how to appreciate enthusiasm. + +‘Hicksey and I were as thick as thieves. He had some Burma mounted +police--rummy chaps, armed with sword and snider carbine. They rode +punchy Burma ponies, with string stirrups, red cloth saddles, and red +bell-rope headstalls. Hicksey used to lend me six or eight of them +when I asked him--nippy little devils, keen as mustard. But they told +their wives too much, and all my plans got known, till I learned to +give false marching orders over-night, and take the men to quite a +different village in the morning. Then we used to catch the simple +_daku_ before breakfast, and make him very sick. It’s a ghastly country +on the Hlinedatalone; all bamboo jungle, with paths about four feet +wide winding through it. The _dakus_ knew all the paths, and potted at +us as we came round a corner; but the mounted police knew the paths as +well as the _dakus_, and we used to go stalking ’em in and out. Once +we flushed ’em, the men on the ponies had the advantage of the men on +foot. We held all the country absolutely quiet, for ten miles round, in +about a month. Then we took Boh Na-ghee, Hicksey and I and the Civil +officer. That was a lark!’ + +‘I think I am beginning to understand a little,’ said Cleever. ‘It was +a pleasure to you to administer and fight?’ + +‘Rather! There’s nothing nicer than a satisfactory little expedition, +when you find your plans fit together, and your conformation’s +_teek_--correct, you know, and the whole _sub-chiz_--I mean, when +everything works out like formulæ on a blackboard. Hicksey had all the +information about the Boh. He had been burning villages and murdering +people right and left, and cutting up Government convoys and all that. +He was lying doggo in a village about fifteen miles off, waiting to +get a fresh gang together. So we arranged to take thirty mounted +police, and turn him out before he could plunder into our newly-settled +villages. At the last minute, the Civil officer in our part of the +world thought he’d assist at the performance.’ + +‘Who was he?’ said Nevin. + +‘His name was Dennis,’ said The Infant slowly. ‘And we’ll let it stay +so. He’s a better man now than he was then.’ + +‘But how old was the Civil power?’ said Cleever. ‘The situation is +developing itself.’ + +‘He was about six-and-twenty, and he was awf’ly clever. He knew a +lot of things, but I don’t think he was quite steady enough for +dacoit-hunting. We started overnight for Boh Na-ghee’s village, and we +got there just before morning, without raising an alarm. Dennis had +turned out armed to his teeth--two revolvers, a carbine, and all sorts +of things. I was talking to Hicksey about posting the men, and Dennis +edged his pony in between us, and said, “What shall I do? What shall I +do? Tell me what to do, you fellows.” We didn’t take much notice; but +his pony tried to bite me in the leg, and I said, “Pull out a bit, old +man, till we’ve settled the attack.” He kept edging in, and fiddling +with his reins and his revolvers, and saying, “Dear me! Dear me! Oh, +dear me! What do you think I’d better do?” The man was in a deadly +funk, and his teeth were chattering.’ + +‘I sympathise with the Civil power,’ said Cleever. ‘Continue, young +Clive.’ + +‘The fun of it was, that he was supposed to be our superior officer. +Hicksey took a good look at him, and told him to attach himself to +my party. ’Beastly mean of Hicksey, that. The chap kept on edging in +and bothering, instead of asking for some men and taking up his own +position, till I got angry, and the carbines began popping on the +other side of the village. Then I said, “For God’s sake be quiet, and +sit down where you are! If you see anybody come out of the village, +shoot at him.” I knew he couldn’t hit a hay-rick at a yard. Then I +took my men over the garden wall--over the palisades, y’ know--somehow +or other, and the fun began. Hicksey had found the Boh in bed under a +mosquito-curtain, and he had taken a flying jump on to him.’ + +‘A flying jump!’ said Cleever. ‘Is _that_ also war?’ + +‘Yes,’ said The Infant, now thoroughly warmed. ‘Don’t you know how you +take a flying jump on to a fellow’s head at school, when he snores in +the dormitory? The Boh was sleeping in a bedful of swords and pistols, +and Hicksey came down like Zazel through the netting, and the net got +mixed up with the pistols and the Boh and Hicksey, and they all rolled +on the floor together. I laughed till I couldn’t stand, and Hicksey +was cursing me for not helping him; so I left him to fight it out and +went into the village. Our men were slashing about and firing, and so +were the dacoits, and in the thick of the mess, some ass set fire to a +house, and we all had to clear out. I froze on to the nearest _daku_ +and ran to the palisade, shoving him in front of me. He wriggled loose, +and bounded over the other side. I came after him; but when I had one +leg one side and one leg the other of the palisade, I saw that the +_daku_ had fallen flat on Dennis’s head. That man had never moved from +where I left him. They rolled on the ground together, and Dennis’s +carbine went off and nearly shot me. The _daku_ picked himself up and +ran, and Dennis buzzed his carbine after him, and it caught him on the +back of his head, and knocked him silly. You never saw anything so +funny in your life. I doubled up on the top of the palisade and hung +there, yelling with laughter. But Dennis began to weep like anything. +“Oh, I’ve killed a man,” he said. “I’ve killed a man, and I shall never +know another peaceful hour in my life! Is he dead? Oh, _is_ he dead? +Good Lord, I’ve killed a man!” I came down and said, “Don’t be a fool;” +but he kept on shouting, “Is he dead?” till I could have kicked him. +The _daku_ was only knocked out of time with the carbine. He came to +after a bit, and I said, “Are you hurt much?” He groaned and said “No.” +His chest was all cut with scrambling over the palisade. “The white +man’s gun didn’t do that,” he said, “I did that, and _I_ knocked the +white man over.” Just like a Burman, wasn’t it? But Dennis wouldn’t be +happy at any price. He said: “Tie up his wounds. He’ll bleed to death. +Oh, he’ll bleed to death!” “Tie ’em up yourself,” I said, “if you’re so +anxious.” “I can’t touch him,” said Dennis, “but here’s my shirt.” He +took off his shirt, and fixed the braces again over his bare shoulders. +I ripped the shirt up, and bandaged the dacoit quite professionally. He +was grinning at Dennis all the time; and Dennis’s haversack was lying +on the ground, bursting full of sandwiches. Greedy hog! I took some, +and offered some to Dennis. “How can I eat?” he said. “How can you ask +me to eat? His very blood is on your hands now, and you’re eating _my_ +sandwiches!” “All right,” I said; “I’ll give ’em to the _daku_.” So I +did, and the little chap was quite pleased, and wolfed ’em down like +one o’clock.’ + +Cleever brought his hand down on the table with a thump that made the +empty glasses dance. ‘That’s Art!’ he said. ‘Flat, flagrant mechanism! +Don’t tell me that happened on the spot!’ + +The pupils of The Infant’s eyes contracted to two pin-points. ‘I beg +your pardon,’ he said, slowly and stiffly, ‘but I am telling this thing +_as_ it happened.’ + +Cleever looked at him a moment. ‘My fault entirely,’ said he; ‘I should +have known. Please go on.’ + +‘Hicksey came out of what was left of the village with his prisoners +and captives, all neatly tied up. Boh Na-ghee was first, and one of the +villagers, as soon as he found the old ruffian helpless, began kicking +him quietly. The Boh stood it as long as he could, and then groaned, +and we saw what was going on. Hicksey tied the villager up, and gave +him a half-a-dozen, good, with a bamboo, to remind him to leave a +prisoner alone. You should have seen the old Boh grin. Oh! but Hicksey +was in a furious rage with everybody. He’d got a wipe over the elbow +that had tickled up his funny-bone, and he was rabid with me for not +having helped him with the Boh and the mosquito-net. I had to explain +that I couldn’t do anything. If you’d seen ’em both tangled up together +on the floor in one kicking cocoon, you’d have laughed for a week. +Hicksey swore that the only decent man of his acquaintance was the Boh, +and all the way to camp Hicksey was talking to the Boh, and the Boh +was complaining about the soreness of his bones. When we got back, and +had had a bath, the Boh wanted to know when he was going to be hanged. +Hicksey said he couldn’t oblige him on the spot, but had to send him +to Rangoon. The Boh went down on his knees, and reeled off a catalogue +of his crimes--he ought to have been hanged seventeen times over, by +his own confession--and implored Hicksey to settle the business out of +hand. “If I’m sent to Rangoon,” said he, “they’ll keep me in jail all +my life, and that is a death every time the sun gets up or the wind +blows.” But we had to send him to Rangoon, and, of course, he was let +off down there, and given penal servitude for life. When I came to +Rangoon I went over the jail--I had helped to fill it, y’ know--and the +old Boh was there, and he spotted me at once. He begged for some opium +first, and I tried to get him some, but that was against the rules. +Then he asked me to have his sentence changed to death, because he was +afraid of being sent to the Andamans. I couldn’t do that either, but I +tried to cheer him, and told him how things were going up-country, and +the last thing he said was--“Give my compliments to the fat white man +who jumped on me. If I’d been awake I’d have killed him.” I wrote that +to Hicksey next mail, and--and that’s all. I’m ’fraid I’ve been gassing +awf’ly, sir.’ + +Cleever said nothing for a long time. The Infant looked uncomfortable. +He feared that, misled by enthusiasm, he had filled up the novelist’s +time with unprofitable recital of trivial anecdotes. + +Then said Cleever, ‘I can’t understand. Why should you have seen and +done all these things before you have cut your wisdom-teeth?’ + +‘Don’t know,’ said The Infant apologetically. ‘I haven’t seen +much--only Burmese jungle.’ + +‘And dead men, and war, and power, and responsibility,’ said Cleever, +under his breath. ‘You won’t have any sensations left at thirty, if you +go on as you have done. But I want to hear more tales--more tales!’ He +seemed to forget that even subalterns might have engagements of their +own. + +‘We’re thinking of dining out somewhere--the lot of us--and going on to +the Empire afterwards,’ said Nevin, with hesitation. He did not like to +ask Cleever to come too. The invitation might be regarded as perilously +near to ‘cheek.’ And Cleever, anxious not to wag a gray beard unbidden +among boys at large, said nothing on his side. + +Boileau solved the little difficulty by blurting out: ‘Won’t you come +too, sir?’ + +Cleever almost shouted ‘Yes,’ and while he was being helped into his +coat, continued to murmur ‘Good heavens!’ at intervals in a way that +the boys could not understand. + +‘I don’t think I’ve been to the Empire in my life,’ said he; ‘but--what +_is_ my life after all? Let us go.’ + +They went out with Eustace Cleever, and I sulked at home because they +had come to see me but had gone over to the better man; which was +humiliating. They packed him into a cab with utmost reverence, for was +he not the author of _As it was in the Beginning_, and a person in +whose company it was an honour to go abroad? From all I gathered later, +he had taken less interest in the performance before him than in their +conversations, and they protested with emphasis that he was ‘as good a +man as they make. ’Knew what a man was driving at almost before he said +it; and yet he’s so damned simple about things any man knows.’ That was +one of many comments. + +At midnight they returned, announcing that they were ‘highly +respectable gondoliers,’ and that oysters and stout were what they +chiefly needed. The eminent novelist was still with them, and I think +he was calling them by their shorter names. I am certain that he said +he had been moving in worlds not realised, and that they had shown him +the Empire in a new light. + +Still sore at recent neglect, I answered shortly, ‘Thank heaven we have +within the land ten thousand as good as they,’ and when he departed, +asked him what he thought of things generally. + +He replied with another quotation, to the effect that though singing +was a remarkably fine performance, I was to be quite sure that few lips +would be moved to song if they could find a sufficiency of kissing. + +Whereby I understood that Eustace Cleever, decorator and colourman in +words, was blaspheming his own Art, and would be sorry for this in the +morning. + + + + + MY LORD THE ELEPHANT. + + + ’Less you want your toes trod off you’d better get back at once, + For the bullocks are walkin’ two by two, + The _byles_ are walkin’ two by two, + The bullocks are walkin’ two by two, + An’ the elephants bring the guns! + Ho! Yuss! + Great--big--long--black forty-pounder guns: + Jiggery-jolty to and fro, + Each as big as a launch in tow-- + Blind--dumb--broad-breeched beggars o’ batterin’ guns! + + _Barrack-room Ballad._ + + +Touching the truth of this tale there need be no doubt at all, for +it was told to me by Mulvaney at the back of the elephant-lines, one +warm evening when we were taking the dogs out for exercise. The twelve +Government elephants rocked at their pickets outside the big mud-walled +stables (one arch, as wide as a bridge-arch, to each restless beast), +and the _mahouts_ were preparing the evening meal. Now and again some +impatient youngster would smell the cooking flour-cakes and squeal; and +the naked little children of the elephant-lines would strut down the +row shouting and commanding silence, or, reaching up, would slap at the +eager trunks. Then the elephants feigned to be deeply interested in +pouring dust upon their heads, but, so soon as the children passed, the +rocking, fidgeting, and muttering broke out again. + +The sunset was dying, and the elephants heaved and swayed dead black +against the one sheet of rose-red low down in the dusty gray sky. It +was at the beginning of the hot weather, just after the troops had +changed into their white clothes, so Mulvaney and Ortheris looked +like ghosts walking through the dusk. Learoyd had gone off to another +barrack to buy sulphur ointment for his last dog under suspicion of +mange, and with delicacy had put his kennel into quarantine at the back +of the furnace where they cremate the anthrax cases. + +‘_You_ wouldn’t like mange, little woman?’ said Ortheris, turning +my terrier over on her fat white back with his foot. ‘You’re no end +bloomin’ partic’lar, you are. ’Oo wouldn’t take no notice o’ me t’other +day ’cause she was goin’ ’ome all alone in ’er dorg-cart, eh? Settin’ +on the box-seat like a bloomin’ little tart, you was, Vicy. Now you run +along an’ make them ’uttees ’oller. Sick ’em, Vicy, loo!’ + +Elephants loathe little dogs. Vixen barked herself down the pickets, +and in a minute all the elephants were kicking and squealing and +clucking together. + +‘Oh, you soldier-men,’ said a mahout angrily, ‘call off your she-dog. +She is frightening our elephant-folk.’ + +‘Rummy beggars!’ said Ortheris meditatively. ‘’Call ’em people, same as +if they was. An’ they are too. Not so bloomin’ rummy when you come to +think of it, neither.’ + +Vixen returned yapping to show that she could do it again if she liked, +and established herself between Ortheris’s knees, smiling a large smile +at his lawful dogs who dared not fly at her. + +‘’Seed the battery this mornin’?’ said Ortheris. He meant the +newly-arrived elephant-battery; otherwise he would have said simply +‘guns.’ Three elephants harnessed tandem go to each gun, and those +who have not seen the big forty-pounders of position trundling along +in the wake of their gigantic team have yet something to behold. The +lead-elephant had behaved very badly on parade; had been cut loose, +sent back to the lines in disgrace, and was at that hour squealing and +lashing out with his trunk at the end of the line; a picture of blind, +bound, bad temper. His mahout, standing clear of the flail-like blows, +was trying to soothe him. + +‘That’s the beggar that cut up on p’rade. ’E’s _must_,’ said Ortheris +pointing. ‘There’ll be murder in the lines soon, and then, per’aps, +’e’ll get loose an’ we’ll ’ave to be turned out to shoot ’im, same as +when one o’ they native king’s elephants _musted_ last June. ’Ope ’e +will.’ + +‘_Must_ be sugared!’ said Mulvaney contemptuously from his +resting-place on a pile of dried bedding. ‘He’s no more than in a +powerful bad timper wid bein’ put upon. I’d lay my kit he’s new to the +gun-team, an’ by natur’ he hates haulin’. Ask the mahout, sorr.’ + +I hailed the old white-bearded mahout who was lavishing pet words on +his sulky red-eyed charge. + +‘He is not _musth_,’ the man replied indignantly; ‘only his honour has +been touched. Is an elephant an ox or a mule that he should tug at +a trace? His strength is in his head--Peace, peace, my Lord! It was +not _my_ fault that they yoked thee this morning!--Only a low-caste +elephant will pull a gun, and _he_ is a Kumeria of the Doon. It cost +a year and the life of a man to break him to burden. They of the +Artillery put him in the gun-team because one of their base-born brutes +had gone lame. No wonder that he was, and is wrath.’ + +‘Rummy! Most unusual rum,’ said Ortheris. ‘Gawd, ’e is in a temper, +though! S’pose ’e got loose!’ + +Mulvaney began to speak but checked himself, and I asked the mahout +what would happen if the heel-chains broke. + +‘God knows, who made elephants,’ he said simply. ‘In his now state +peradventure he might kill you three, or run at large till his rage +abated. He would not kill me, except he were _musth_. _Then_ would he +kill me before any one in the world, because he loves me. Such is the +custom of the elephant-folk; and the custom of us mahout-people matches +it for foolishness. We trust each our own elephant, till our own +elephant kills us. Other castes trust women, but we the elephant-folk. +I have seen men deal with enraged elephants and live; but never was +man yet born of woman that met my lord the elephant in his _musth_ and +lived to tell of the taming. They are enough bold who meet him angry.’ + +I translated. Then said Terence: ‘Ask the heathen if he iver saw a man +tame an elephint,--anyways--a white man.’ + +‘Once,’ said the mahout, ‘I saw a man astride of such a beast in the +town of Cawnpore; a bare-headed man, a white man, beating it upon the +head with a gun. It was said he was possessed of devils or drunk.’ + +‘Is ut like, think you, he’d be doin’ it sober?’ said Mulvaney after +interpretation, and the chained elephant roared. + +‘There’s only one man top of earth that would be the partic’lar kind +o’ sorter bloomin’ fool to do it!’ said Ortheris. ‘When was that, +Mulvaney?’ + +‘As the naygur sez, in Cawnpore; an’ I was that fool--in the days av my +youth. But it came about as naturil as wan thing leads to another,--me +an’ the elephint, and the elephint and me; an’ the fight betune us was +the most naturil av all.’ + +‘That’s just wot it would ha’ been,’ said Ortheris. ‘Only you must ha’ +been more than usual full. You done one queer trick with an elephant +that I know of, why didn’t you never tell us the other one?’ + +‘Bekase, onless you had heard the naygur here say what he has said +spontaneous, you’d ha’ called me for a liar, Stanley, my son, an’ it +would ha’ bin my duty an’ my delight to give you the father an’ mother +av a beltin’! There’s only wan fault about you, little man, an’ that’s +thinking you know all there is in the world, an’ a little more. ’Tis a +fault that has made away wid a few orf’cers I’ve served undher, not to +spake av ivry man but two that I iver thried to make into a privit.’ + +‘Ho!’ said Ortheris with ruffled plumes, ‘an’ ’oo was your two bloomin’ +little Sir Garnets, eh?’ + +‘Wan was mesilf,’ said Mulvaney with a grin that darkness could not +hide; ‘an’--seein’ that he’s not here there’s no harm speakin’ av +him--t’other was Jock.’ + +‘Jock’s no more than a ’ayrick in trousies. ’E be’aves _like_ one; an’ +’e can’t _’it_ one at a ’undred; ’e was born _on_ one, an’ s’welp +me ’e’ll die _under_ one for not bein’ able to say wot ’e wants in a +Christian lingo,’ said Ortheris, jumping up from the piled fodder only +to be swept off his legs. Vixen leaped upon his stomach, and the other +dogs followed and sat down there. + +‘I know what Jock is like,’ I said. ‘I want to hear about the elephant, +though.’ + +‘It’s another o’ Mulvaney’s bloomin’ panoramas,’ said Ortheris, gasping +under the dogs. ‘’Im an’ Jock for the ’ole bloomin’ British Army! +You’ll be sayin’ you won Waterloo next,--you an’ Jock. Garn!’ + +Neither of us thought it worth while to notice Ortheris. The big +gun-elephant threshed and muttered in his chains, giving tongue now +and again in crashing trumpet-peals, and to this accompaniment Terence +went on: ‘In the beginnin’,’ said he, ‘me bein’ what I was, there was a +misunderstandin’ wid my sergeant that was then. He put his spite on me +for various reasons,’-- + +The deep-set eyes twinkled above the glow of the pipe-bowl, and +Ortheris grunted, ‘Another petticoat!’ + +‘For various an’ promiscuous reasons; an’ the upshot av it was that +he come into barricks wan afternoon whin’ I was settlin’ my cowlick +before goin’ walkin’, called me a big baboon (which I was not), an’ a +demoralisin’ beggar (which I was), an’ bid me go on fatigue thin an’ +there, helpin’ shift E. P. tents, fourteen av thim from the rest-camps. +At that, me bein’ set on my walk--’ + +‘Ah!’ from under the dogs, ‘’e’s a Mormon, Vic. Don’t you ’ave nothin’ +to do with ’im, little dorg.’ + +‘Set on my walk, I tould him a few things that came up in my mind, an’ +wan thing led on to another, an’ betune talkin’ I made time for to hit +the nose av him so that he’d be no Venus to any woman for a week to +come. ’Twas a fine big nose, and well it paid for a little groomin’. +Afther that I was so well pleased wid my handicraftfulness that I niver +raised fist on the gyard that came to take me to Clink. A child might +ha’ led me along, for I knew old Kearney’s nose was ruined. That summer +the Ould Rig’ment did not use their own Clink, bekase the cholera +was hangin’ about there like mildew on wet boots, an’ ’twas murdher +to confine in ut. We borrowed the Clink that belonged to the Holy +Christians (the rig’ment that has never seen service yet), and that lay +a matther av a mile away, acrost two p’rade-grounds an’ the main road, +an’ all the ladies av Cawnpore goin’ out for their afternoon dhrive. So +I moved in the best av society, my shadow dancin’ along forninst me, +an’ the gyard as solemn as putty, the bracelets on my wrists, an’ my +heart full contint wid the notion av Kearney’s pro--pro--probosculum in +a shling. + +‘In the middle av ut all I perceived a gunner-orf’cer in full +rig’mentals perusin’ down the road, hell-for-leather, wid his mouth +open. He fetched wan woild despairin’ look on the dog-kyarts an’ the +polite society av Cawnpore, an’ thin he dived like a rabbut into a +dhrain by the side av the road. + +‘“Bhoys,” sez I, “that orf’cer’s dhrunk. ’Tis scand’lus. Let’s take him +to Clink too.” + +‘The corp’ril of the gyard made a jump for me, unlocked my stringers, +an’ he sez: “If it comes to runnin’, run for your life. If it doesn’t, +I’ll trust your honour. Anyways,” sez he, “come to Clink whin you can.” + +‘Then I behild him runnin’ wan way, stuffin’ the bracelets in his +pocket, they bein’ Gov’ment property, and the gyard runnin’ another, +an’ all the dog-kyarts runnin’ all ways to wanst, an’ me alone lookin’ +down the red bag av a mouth av an elephint forty-two feet high at the +shoulder, tin feet wide, wid tusks as long as the Ochterlony Monumint. +That was my first reconnaissance. Maybe he was not quite so contagious, +nor quite so tall, but I didn’t stop to throw out pickets. Mother av +Hiven, how I ran down the road! The baste began to inveshtigate the +dhrain wid the gunner-orf’cer in ut; an’ that was the makin’ av me. I +tripped over wan of the rifles that my gyard had discarded (onsoldierly +blackguards they was!), an’ whin I got up I was facin’ t’other way +about an’ the elephint was huntin’ for the gunner-orf’cer. I can see +his big fat back yet. Excipt that he didn’t dig, he car’ied on for all +the world like little Vixen here at a rat-hole. He put his head down +(by my sowl he nearly stood on ut!) to shquint down the dhrain; thin +he’d grunt, and run round to the other ind in case the orf’cer was gone +out by the backdoor; an’ he’d shtuff his trunk down the flue an’ get +ut filled wid mud, an’ blow ut out, an’ grunt, an’ swear! My troth, +he swore all hiven down upon that orf’cer; an’ what a commissariat +elephint had to do wid a gunner-orf’cer passed me. Me havin’ nowhere to +go except to Clink, I stud in the road wid the rifle, a Snider an’ no +amm’nition, philosophisin’ upon the rear ind av the animal. All round +me, miles and miles, there was howlin’ desolation, for ivry human sowl +wid two legs, or four for the matther av that, was ambuscadin’, an’ +this ould rapparee stud on his head tuggin’ an’ gruntin’ above the +dhrain, his tail stickin’ up to the sky, an’ he thryin’ to thrumpet +through three feet av road-sweepin’s up his thrunk. Begad, ’twas wickud +to behold! + +‘Subsequint he caught sight av me standin’ alone in the wide, wide +world lanin’ on the rifle. That dishcomposed him, bekase he thought I +was the gunner-orf’cer got out unbeknownst. He looked betune his feet +at the dhrain, an’ he looked at me, an’ I sez to myself: “Terence, my +son, you’ve been watchin’ this Noah’s ark too long. Run for your life!” +Dear knows I wanted to tell him I was only a poor privit on my way to +Clink, an’ no orf’cer at all, at all; but he put his ears forward av +his thick head, an’ I rethreated down the road grippin’ the rifle, my +back as cowld as a tombstone, an’ the slack av my trousies, where I +made sure he’d take hould, crawlin’ wid,--wid invidjus apprehension. + +‘I might ha’ run till I dhropped, bekase I was betune the two straight +lines av the road, an’ a man, or a thousand men for the matther av +that, are the like av sheep in keepin’ betune right an’ left marks.’ + +‘Same as canaries,’ said Ortheris from the darkness. ‘Draw a line on a +bloomin’ little board, put their bloomin’ little beakses there; stay so +for hever an’ hever, amen, they will. ’Seed a ’ole reg’ment, I ’ave, +walk crabways along the edge of a two-foot water-cut ’stid o’ thinkin’ +to cross it. Men _is_ sheep--bloomin’ sheep. Go on.’ + +‘But I saw his shadow wid the tail av my eye,’ continued the man of +experiences, ‘an’ “Wheel,” I sez, “Terence, wheel!” an’ I wheeled. +’Tis truth that I cud hear the shparks flyin’ from my heels; an’ I +shpun into the nearest compound, fetched wan jump from the gate to +the verandah av the house, an’ fell over a tribe of naygurs wid a +half-caste boy at a desk, all manufacturin’ harness. ’Twas Antonio’s +Carriage Emporium at Cawnpore. You know ut, sorr? + +‘Ould Grambags must ha’ wheeled abreast wid me, for his trunk came +lickin’ into the verandah like a belt in a barrick-room row, before I +was in the shop. The naygurs an’ the half-caste boy howled an’ wint out +at the backdoor, an’ I stud lone as Lot’s wife among the harness. A +powerful thirsty thing is harness, by reason av the smell to ut. + +‘I wint into the backroom, nobody bein’ there to invite, an’ I found +a bottle av whisky and a goglet av wather. The first an’ the second +dhrink I never noticed bein’ dhry, but the fourth an’ the fifth tuk +good hould av me an’ I begun to think scornful av elephints. “Take the +upper ground in manœ’vrin’, Terence,” I sez; “an’ you’ll be a gen’ral +yet,” sez I. An’ wid that I wint up to the flat mud roof av the house +an’ looked over the edge av the parapit, threadin’ delicate. Ould +Barrel-belly was in the compound, walkin’ to an’ fro, pluckin’ a piece +av grass here an’ a weed there, for all the world like our colonel that +is now whin his wife’s given him a talkin’ down an’ he’s prom’nadin’ to +ease his timper. His back was to me, an’ by the same token I hiccupped. +He checked in his walk, wan ear forward like a deaf ould lady wid an +ear-thrumpet, an’ his thrunk hild out in a kind av fore-reaching hook. +Thin he wagged his ear sayin’, “Do my sinses deceive me?” as plain as +print, an’ he recomminst promenadin’. You know Antonio’s compound? +’Twas as full thin as ’tis now av new kyarts and ould kyarts, an’ +second-hand kyarts an’ kyarts for hire,--landos, an’ b’rooshes, an’ +brooms, an’ wag’nettes av ivry description. Thin I hiccupped again, +an’ he began to study the ground beneath him, his tail whistlin’ wid +emotion. Thin he lapped his thrunk round the shaft av a wag’nette an’ +dhrew it out circumspectuous an’ thoughtful. “He’s not there,” he sez, +fumblin’ in the cushions wid his thrunk. Thin I hiccupped again, an’ +wid that he lost his patience good an’ all, same as this wan in the +lines here.’ + +The gun-elephant was breaking into peal after peal of indignant +trumpetings, to the disgust of the other animals who had finished their +food and wished to drowse. Between the outcries we could hear him +picking restlessly at his ankle ring. + +‘As I was sayin’,’ Mulvaney went on, ‘he behaved dishgraceful. He let +out wid his fore-fut like a steam-hammer, bein’ convinced that I was +in ambuscade adjacent; an’ that wag’nette ran back among the other +carriages like a field-gun in charge. Thin he hauled ut out again +an’ shuk ut, an’ by nature it came all to little pieces. Afther that +he went sheer damn, slam, dancin’, lunatic, double-shuffle demented +wid the whole of Antonio’s shtock for the season. He kicked, an’ he +straddled, and he stamped, an’ he pounded all at wanst, his big bald +head bobbin’ up an’ down, solemn as a rigadoon. He tuk a new shiny +broom an’ kicked ut on wan corner, an’ ut opened out like a blossomin’ +lily; an’ he shtuck wan fool-foot through the flure av ut an’ a wheel +was shpinnin’ on his tusk. At that he got scared, an’ by this an’ that +he fair sat down plump among the carriages, an’ they pricked ’im wid +splinters till he was a boundin’ pincushin. In the middle av the mess, +whin the kyarts was climbin’ wan on top av the other, an’ rickochettin’ +off the mud walls, an’ showin’ their agility, wid him tearin’ their +wheels off, I heard the sound av distrestful wailin’ on the housetops, +an’ the whole Antonio firm an’ fam’ly was cursin’ me an’ him from the +roof next door; me bekase I’d taken refuge wid them, and he bekase he +was playin’ shtep-dances wid the carriages av the aristocracy. + +‘“Divart his attention,” sez Antonio, dancin’ on the roof in his big +white waistcoat. “Divart his attention,” he sez, “or I’ll prosecute +you.” An’ the whole fam’ly shouts, “Hit him a kick, mister soldier.” + +‘“He’s divartin’ himself,” I sez, for it was just the worth av a man’s +life to go down into the compound. But by way av makin’ show I threw +the whisky-bottle (’twas not full whin I came there) at him. He shpun +round from what was left av the last kyart, an’ shtuck his head into +the verandah not three feet below me. Maybe ’twas the temptin’ness av +his back or the whisky. Anyways, the next thing I knew was me, wid my +hands full av mud an’ mortar, all fours on his back, an’ the Snider +just slidin’ off the slope av his head. I grabbed that an’ scuffled +on his neck, dhruv my knees undher his big flappin’ ears, an’ we wint +to glory out av that compound wid a shqueal that crawled up my back +an’ down my belly. Thin I remimbered the Snider, an’ I grup ut by +the muzzle an’ hit him on the head. ’Twas most forlorn--like tappin’ +the deck av a throopship wid a cane to stop the engines whin you’re +sea-sick. But I parsevered till I sweated, an’ at last from takin’ no +notice at all he began to grunt. I hit wid the full strength that was +in me in those days, an’ it might ha’ discommoded him. We came back +to the p’rade-groun’ forty miles an hour, trumpetin’ vainglorious. I +never stopped hammerin’ him for a minut’; ’twas by way av divartin’ him +from runnin’ undher the trees an’ scrapin’ me off like a poultice. The +p’rade-groun’ an’ the road was all empty, but the throops was on the +roofs av the barricks, an’ betune Ould Thrajectory’s gruntin’ an’ mine +(for I was winded wid my stone-breakin’), I heard them clappin’ an’ +cheerin’. He was growin’ more confused an’ tuk to runnin’ in circles. + +‘“Begad,” sez I to mysilf, “there’s dacincy in all things, Terence. +’Tis like you’ve shplit his head, and whin you come out av Clink you’ll +be put under stoppages for killin’ a Gov’ment elephint.” At that I +caressed him.’ + +‘’Ow the devil did you do that? Might as well pat a barrick,’ said +Ortheris. + +‘Thried all manner av endearin’ epitaphs, but bein’ more than a little +shuk up I disremimbered what the divil would answer to. So, “Good dog,” +I sez; “Pretty puss,” sez I; “Whoa mare,” I sez; an’ at that I fetched +him a shtroke av the butt for to conciliate him, an’ he stud still +among the barricks. + +‘“Will no one take me off the top av this murderin’ volcano?” I sez at +the top av my shout; an’ I heard a man yellin’, “Hould on, faith an’ +patience, the other elephints are comin’.” “Mother av Glory,” I sez, +“will I rough-ride the whole stud? Come an’ take me down, ye cowards!” + +‘Thin a brace av fat she-elephints wid mahouts an’ a commissariat +sergint came shuffling round the corner av the barricks; an’ the +mahouts was abusin’ ould Potiphar’s mother an’ blood-kin. + +‘“Obsarve my reinforcemints,” I sez. “The’re goin’ to take you to +Clink, my son;” an’ the child av calamity put his ears forward an’ +swung head on to those females. The pluck av him, afther my oratorio on +his brain-pan, wint to the heart av me. “I’m in dishgrace mesilf,” I +sez, “but I’ll do what I can for ye. Will ye go to Clink like a man, or +fight like a fool whin there’s no chanst?” Wid that I fetched him wan +last lick on the head, an’ he fetched a tremenjus groan an’ dhropped +his thrunk. “Think,” sez I to him, an’ “Halt!” I sez to the mahouts. +They was anxious so to do. I could feel the ould reprobit meditating +undher me. At last he put his thrunk straight out an’ gave a most +melancholious toot (the like av a sigh wid an elephint); an’ by that I +knew the white flag was up an’ the rest was no more than considherin’ +his feelin’s. + +‘“He’s done,” I sez. “Kape open ordher left an’ right alongside. We’ll +go to Clink quiet.” + +‘Sez the commissariat sergeant to me from his elephant, “Are you a man +or a mericle?” sez he. + +‘“I’m betwixt an’ betune,” I sez, thryin’ to set up stiff-back. “An’ +what,” sez I, “may ha’ set this animal off in this opprobrious shtyle?” +I sez, the gun-butt light an’ easy on my hip an’ my left hand dhropped, +such as throopers behave. We was bowlin’ on to the elephint-lines under +escort all this time. + +‘“I was not in the lines whin the throuble began,” sez the sergeant. +“They tuk him off carryin’ tents an’ such like, an’ put him to the +gun-team. I knew he would not like ut, but by token it fair tore his +heart out.” + +‘“Faith, wan man’s meat is another’s poison,” I sez. “’Twas bein’ put +on to carry tents that was the ruin av me.” An’ my heart warrumed to +Ould Double Ends bekase he had been put upon. + +‘“We’ll close on him here,” sez the sergeant, whin we got to the +elephint-lines. All the mahouts an’ their childher was round the +pickets cursin’ my poney from a mile to hear. “You skip off on to my +elephint’s back,” he sez. “There’ll be throuble.” + +‘“Sind that howlin’ crowd away,” I sez, “or he’ll thrample the life +out av thim.” I cud feel his ears beginnin’ to twitch. “An’ do you an’ +your immoril she-elephints go well clear away. I will get down here. +He’s an Irishman,” I sez, “for all his long Jew’s nose, an’ he shall be +threated like an Irishman.” + +‘“Are ye tired av life?” sez the sergeant. + +‘“Divil a bit,” I sez; “but wan av us has to win, an’ I’m av opinion +’tis me. Get back,” I sez. + +‘The two elephints wint off, an’ Smith O’Brine came to a halt dead +above his own pickuts. “Down,” sez I, whackin’ him on the head, an’ +down he wint, shouldher over shouldher like a hill-side slippin’ afther +rain. “Now,” sez I, slidin down his nose an’ runnin’ to the front av +him, “you will see the man that’s betther than you.” + +‘His big head was down betune his big forefeet, an’ they was twisted +in sideways like a kitten’s. He looked the picture av innocince an’ +forlornsomeness, an’ by this an’ that his big hairy undherlip was +thremblin’, an’ he winked his eyes together to kape from cryin’. “For +the love av God,” I sez, clean forgettin’ he was a dumb baste; “don’t +take ut to heart so! Aisy, be aisy,” I sez; an’ wid that I rubbed his +cheek an’ betune his eyes an’ the top av his thrunk, talkin’ all the +time. “Now,” sez I, “I’ll make you comfortable for the night. Send wan +or two childher here,” I sez to the sergeant who was watchin’ for to +see me killed. “He’ll rouse at the sight av a man.”’ + +‘You got bloomin’ clever all of a sudden,’ said Ortheris. ‘’Ow did you +come to know ’is funny little ways that soon?’ + +‘Bekase,’ said Terence with emphasis, ‘bekase I had conquered the +beggar, my son.’ + +‘Ho!’ said Ortheris between doubt and derision. ‘G’on.’ + +‘His mahout’s child an’ wan or two other line-babies came runnin’ up, +not bein’ afraid av anything, an’ some got wather, an’ I washed the +top av his poor sore head (begad, I had done him to a turn!), an’ +some picked the pieces av carts out av his hide, an’ we scraped him, +an’ handled him all over, an’ we put a thunderin’ big poultice av +neem-leaves (the same that ye stick on a pony’s gall) on his head, an’ +it looked like a smokin’-cap, an’ we put a pile av young sugar-cane +forninst him, an’ he began to pick at ut. “Now,” sez I, settin’ down +on his fore-foot, “we’ll have a dhrink, an’ let bygones be.” I sent a +naygur-child for a quart av arrack, an’ the sergeant’s wife she sint me +out four fingers av whisky, an’ whin the liquor came I cud see by the +twinkle in Ould Typhoon’s eye that he was no more a stranger to ut than +me,--worse luck, than me! So he tuk his quart like a Christian, an’ +_thin_ I put his shackles on, chained him fore an’ aft to the pickets, +an’ gave him my blessin’, an wint back to barricks.’ + +‘And after?’ I said in the pause. + +‘Ye can guess,’ said Mulvaney. ‘There was confusion, an’ the colonel +gave me ten rupees, an’ the adj’tant gave me five, an’ my comp’ny +captain gave me five, an’ the men carried me round the barricks +shoutin’.’ + +‘Did you go to Clink?’ said Ortheris. + +‘I niver heard a word more about the misundherstandin’ wid Kearney’s +beak, if that’s what you mane; but sev’ril av the bhoys was tuk off +sudden to the Holy Christians’ Hotel that night. Small blame to +thim,--they had twenty rupees in dhrinks. I wint to lie down an’ sleep +ut off, for I was as done an’ double done as him there in the lines. +’Tis no small thing to go ride elephants. + +‘Subsequint, me an’ the Venerable Father av Sin became mighty friendly. +I wud go down to the lines, whin I was in dishgrace, an’ spend an +afthernoon collogin’ wid him; he chewin’ wan stick av sugar-cane an’ +me another, as thick as thieves. He’d take all I had out av my pockets +an’ put ut back again, an’ now an’ thin I’d bring him beer for his +dijistin’, an’ I’d give him advice about bein’ well behaved an’ keepin’ +off the books. Afther that he wint the way av the Army, an’ that’s +bein’ thransferred as soon as you’ve made a good friend.’ + +‘So you never saw him again?’ I demanded. + +‘Do you belave the first half av the affair?’ said Terence. + +‘I’ll wait till Learoyd comes,’ I said evasively. Except when he was +carefully tutored by the other two and the immediate money-benefit +explained, the Yorkshireman did not tell lies; and Terence, I knew, had +a profligate imagination. + +‘There’s another part still,’ said Mulvaney. ‘Ortheris was in that.’ + +‘Then I’ll believe it all,’ I answered, not from any special belief in +Ortheris’s word, but from desire to learn the rest. Ortheris stole a +pup from me when our acquaintance was new, and with the little beast +stifling under his overcoat, denied not only the theft, but that he +ever was interested in dogs. + +‘That was at the beginnin’ av the Afghan business,’ said Mulvaney; +‘years afther the men that had seen me do the thrick was dead or +gone home. I came not to speak av ut at the last bekase,--bekase I +do _not_ care to knock the face av ivry man that calls me a liar. At +the very beginnin’ av the marchin’ I wint sick like a fool. I had a +boot-gall, but I was all for keepin’ up wid the rig’mint and such +like foolishness. So I finished up wid a hole in my heel that you cud +ha’ dhruv a tent-peg into. Faith, how often have I preached that to +recruities since, for a warnin’ to thim to look afther their feet! Our +docthor, who knew our business as well as his own, he sez to me, in the +middle av the Tangi Pass it was: “That’s sheer damned carelessness,” +sez he. “How often have I tould you that a marchin’ man is no stronger +than his feet,--his feet,--his feet!” he sez. “Now to hospital you +go,” he sez, “for three weeks, an expense to your Quane an’ a nuisince +to your counthry. Next time,” sez he, “perhaps you’ll put some av the +whisky you pour down your throat, an’ some av the tallow you put into +your hair, into your socks,” sez he. Faith he was a just man. So soon +as we come to the head av the Tangi I wint to hospital, hoppin’ on wan +fut, woild wid disappointment. ’Twas a field-hospital (all flies an’ +native apothecaries an’ liniment) dhropped, in a way av speakin’, close +by the head av the Tangi. The hospital guard was ravin’ mad wid us +sick for keepin’ thim there, an’ we was ravin’ mad at bein’ kept; an’ +through the Tangi, day an’ night an’ night an’ day, the fut an’ horse +an’ guns an’ commissariat an’ tents an’ followers av the brigades was +pourin’ like a coffee-mill. The doolies came dancin’ through, scores +an’ scores av thim, an’ they’d turn up the hill to hospital wid their +sick, an’ I lay in bed nursin’ my heel, an’ hearin’ the men bein’ tuk +out. I remimber wan night (the time I was tuk wid fever) a man came +rowlin’ through the tents an’, “Is there any room to die here?” he sez; +“there’s none wid the columns”; an’ at that he dhropped dead acrost +a cot, an’ thin the man in ut began to complain against dyin’ all +alone in the dust undher dead men. Thin I must ha’ turned mad wid the +fever, an’ for a week I was prayin’ the saints to stop the noise av the +columns movin’ through the Tangi. Gun-wheels it was that wore my head +thin. Ye know how ’tis wid fever?’ + +We nodded; there was no need to explain. + +‘Gun-wheels an’ feet an’ people shoutin’, but mostly gun-wheels. ’Twas +neither night nor day to me for a week. In the mornin’ they’d rowl up +the tent-flies, an’ we sick cud look at the Pass an’ considher what was +comin’ next. Horse, fut, or guns, they’d be sure to dhrop wan or two +sick wid us an’ we’d get news. Wan mornin’, whin the fever hild off of +me, I was watchin’ the Tangi, an’ ’twas just like the picture on the +backside av the Afghan medal,--men an’ elephints an’ guns comin’ wan at +a time crawlin’ out of a dhrain.’ + +‘It were a dhrain,’ said Ortheris with feeling. ‘I’ve fell out an’ been +sick in the Tangi twice; an’ wot turns my innards ain’t no bloomin’ +vi’lets neither.’ + +‘The Pass give a twist at the ind, so everything shot out suddint an’ +they’d built a throop-bridge (mud an’ dead mules) over a nullah at the +head av ut. I lay an’ counted the elephints (gun-elephints) thryin’ +the bridge wid their thrunks an’ rolling out sagacious. The fifth +elephint’s head came round the corner, an’ he threw up his thrunk, an’ +he fetched a toot, an’ there he shtuck at the head of the Tangi like a +cork in a bottle. “Faith,” thinks I to mysilf, “he will not thrust the +bridge; there will be throuble.”’ + +‘Trouble! My Gawd!’ said Ortheris. ‘Terence, _I_ was be’ind that +blooming ’uttee up to my stock in dust. Trouble!’ + +‘Tell on then, little man; I only saw the hospital ind av ut.’ Mulvaney +knocked the ashes out of his pipe, as Ortheris heaved the dogs aside +and went on. + +‘We was escort to them guns, three comp’nies of us,’ he said. ‘Dewcy +was our major, an’ our orders was to roll up anything we come across in +the Tangi an’ shove it out t’other end. Sort o’ pop-gun picnic, see? +We’d rolled up a lot o’ lazy beggars o’ native followers, an’ some +commissariat supplies that was bivoo-whackin’ for ever seemin’ly, an’ +all the sweepin’s of ’arf a dozen things what ought to ’ave bin at the +front weeks ago, an’ Dewcy, he sez to us: “You’re most ’eart-breakin’ +sweeps,” ’e sez. “For ’eving’s sake,” sez ’e, “do a little sweepin’ +now.” So we swep’,--s’welp me, ’ow we did sweep ’em along! There was +a full reg’ment be’ind us; most anxious to get on they was; an’ they +kep’ on sendin’ to us with the colonel’s compliments, an’ what in ’ell +was we stoppin’ the way for, please? Oh, they was partic’lar polite! So +was Dewcy! ’E sent ’em back wot-for, an’ ’e give us wot-for, an’ we +give the guns wot-for, an’ they give the commissariat wot-for, an’ the +commissariat give first-class extry wot-for to the native followers, +an’ on we’d go again till we was stuck, an’ the ’ole Pass ’ud be +swimmin’ Allelujah for a mile an’ a ’arf. We ’adn’t no tempers, nor +no seats to our trousies, an’ our coats an’ our rifles was chucked in +the carts, so as we might ha’ been cut up any minute, an’ we was doin’ +drover-work. That was wot it was; drovin’ on the Islin’ton road! + +‘I was close up at the ’ead of the column when we saw the end of the +Tangi openin’ out ahead of us, an’ I sez: “The door’s open, boys. +’Oo’ll git to the gall’ry fust?” I sez. Then I saw Dewcy screwin’ ’is +bloomin’ eyeglass in ’is eye an’ lookin’ straight on. “Propped,--_ther_ +beggar!” he sez; an’ the be’ind end o’ that bloomin’ old ’uttee was +shinin’ through the dust like a bloomin’ old moon made ’o tarpaulin. +Then we ’alted, all chock-a-block, one atop o’ the other, an’ right at +the back o’ the guns there sails in a lot o’ silly grinnin’ camels, +what the commissariat was in charge of--sailin’ away as if they was at +the Zoological Gardens an’ squeezin’ our men most awful. The dust was +that up you couldn’t see your ’and; an’ the more we ’it ’em on the ’ead +the more their drivers sez, “Accha! Accha!” an’ by Gawd it was “at yer” +before you knew where you was. An’ that ’uttee’s be’ind end stuck in +the Pass good an’ tight, an’ no one knew wot for. + +‘Fust thing we ’ad to do was to fight they bloomin’ camels. I wasn’t +goin’ to be eat by no bull-_oont_; so I ’eld up my trousies with one +’and, standin’ on a rock, an’ ’it away with my belt at every nose I saw +bobbin’ above me. Then the camels fell back, an’ they ’ad to fight +to keep the rear-guard an’ the native followers from crushin’ into +them; an’ the rear-guard ’ad to send down the Tangi to warn the other +reg’ment that we was blocked. I ’eard the mahouts shoutin’ in front +that the ’uttee wouldn’t cross the bridge; an’ I saw Dewcy skippin’ +about through the dust like a musquito worm in a tank. Then our +comp’nies got tired o’ waitin’ an’ begun to mark time, an’ some goat +struck up _Tommy, make room for your Uncle_. After _that_, you couldn’t +neither see nor breathe nor ’ear; an’ there we was, singin’ bloomin’ +serenades to the end of a’ elephant that don’t care for tunes! I sung +too; I couldn’t do nothin’ else. They was strengthenin’ the bridge in +front, all for the sake of the ’uttee. By an’ by a’ orf’cer caught me +by the throat an’ choked the sing out of me. So I caught the next man I +could see by the throat an’ choked the sing out of _’im_.’ + +‘What’s the difference between being choked by an officer and being +hit?’ I asked, remembering a little affair in which Ortheris’s honour +had been injured by his lieutenant. + +‘One’s a bloomin’ lark, an’ one’s a bloomin’ insult!’ said Ortheris. +‘Besides, we was on service, an’ no one cares what an orf’cer does +then, s’long as ’e gets our rations an’ don’t get us unusual cut up. +After that we got quiet, an’ I ’eard Dewcy say that ’e’d court-martial +the lot of us soon as we was out of the Tangi. Then we give three +cheers for Dewcy an’ three more for the Tangi; an’ the ’uttee’s be’ind +end was stickin’ in the Pass, so we cheered _that_. Then they said +the bridge had been strengthened, an’ we give three cheers for the +bridge; but the ’uttee wouldn’t move a bloomin’ hinch. Not ’im! Then +we cheered ’im again, an’ Kite Dawson, that was corner-man at all the +sing-songs (’e died on the way down) began to give a nigger lecture +on the be’ind ends of elephants, an’ Dewcy, ’e tried to keep ’is face +for a minute, but, Lord, you couldn’t do such when Kite was playin’ +the fool an’ askin’ whether ’e mightn’t ’ave leave to rent a villa +an’ raise ’is orphan children in the Tangi, ’cos ’e couldn’t get ’ome +no more. Then up come a orf’cer (mounted, like a fool, too) from the +reg’mint at the back with some more of his colonel’s pretty little +compliments, an’ what was this delay, please. We sung ’im _There’s +another bloomin’ row downstairs_ till ’is ’orse bolted, an’ then we +give ’im three cheers; an’ Kite Dawson sez ’e was goin’ to write to +_The Times_ about the awful state of the streets in Afghanistan. The +’uttee’s be’ind end was stickin’ in the Pass all the time. At last one +o’ the mahouts came to Dewcy an’ sez something. “Oh Lord!” sez Dewcy, +“_I_ don’t know the beggar’s visiting-list! I’ll give ’im another ten +minutes an’ then I’ll shoot ’im.” Things was gettin’ pretty dusty in +the Tangi, so we all listened. “’E wants to see a friend,” sez Dewcy +out loud to the men, an’ ’e mopped ’is forehead an’ sat down on a +gun-tail. + +‘I leave it to you to judge ’ow the reg’ment shouted. “That’s all +right,” we sez. “Three cheers for Mister Winterbottom’s friend,” +sez we. “Why didn’t you say so at first? Pass the word for old +Swizzletail’s wife,”--and such like. Some o’ the men they didn’t laugh. +They took it same as if it might have been a’ introduction like, ’cos +they knew about ’uttees. Then we all run forward over the guns an’ in +an’ out among the elephants’ legs,--Lord, I wonder ’arf the comp’nies +wasn’t squashed--an’ the next thing I saw was Terence ’ere, lookin’ +like a sheet o’ wet paper, comin’ down the ’illside wid a sergeant. +“’Strewth,” I sez. “I might ha’ knowed ’e’d be at the bottom of any +cat’s trick,” sez I. Now you tell wot ’appened your end?’ + +‘I lay be the same as you did, little man, listenin’ to the noises an’ +the bhoys singin’. Presintly I heard whisperin’ an’ the doctor sayin’, +“Get out av this, wakin’ my sick wid your jokes about elephints.” An’ +another man sez, all angry: “’Tis a joke that is stoppin’ two thousand +men in the Tangi. That son av sin av a haybag av an elephint sez, or +the mahouts sez for him, that he wants to see a friend, an’ he’ll not +lift hand or fut till he finds him. I’m wore out wid inthrojucin’ +sweepers an’ coolies to him, an’ his hide’s as full o’ bay’net pricks +as a musquito-net av holes, an’ I’m here undher ordhers, docther dear, +to ask if any one, sick or well, or alive or dead, knows an elephint. +I’m not mad,” he sez, settin’ on a box av medical comforts. “’Tis my +ordhers, an’ ’tis my mother,” he sez, “that would laugh at me for the +father av all fools to-day. Does any wan here know an elephint?” We +sick was all quiet. + +‘“Now you’ve had your answer,” sez the doctor. “Go away.” + +‘“Hould on,” I sez, thinkin’ mistiways in my cot, an’ I did not know my +own voice. “I’m by way av bein’ acquainted wid an elephant, myself,” I +sez. + +‘“That’s delirium,” sez the doctor. “See what you’ve done, sergeant. +Lie down, man,” he sez, seein’ me thryin’ to get up. + +‘“’Tis not,” I sez. “I rode him round Cawnpore barricks. He will not +ha’ forgotten. I bruk his head wid a rifle.” + +‘“Mad as a coot,” sez the doctor, an’ thin he felt my head. “It’s +quare,” sez he. “Man,” he sez, “if you go, d’you know ’twill either +kill or cure?” + +‘“What do I care?” sez I. “If I’m mad, ’tis better dead.” + +‘“Faith, that’s sound enough,” sez the doctor. “You’ve no fever on you +now.” + +‘“Come on,” sez the sergeant. “We’re all mad to-day, an’ the throops +are wantin’ their dinner.” He put his arm round av me an’ I came +into the sun, the hills an’ the rocks skippin’ big giddy-go-rounds. +“Seventeen years have I been in the army,” sez the sergeant, “an’ the +days av mericles are not done. They’ll be givin’ us more pay next. +Begad,” he sez, “the brute knows you!” + +‘Ould Obstructionist was screamin’ like all possist whin I came up, an’ +I heard forty million men up the Tangi shoutin’, “He knows him!” Thin +the big thrunk came round me an’ I was nigh fainting wid weakness. “Are +you well, Malachi?” I sez, givin’ him the name he answered to in the +lines. “Malachi, my son, are you well?” sez I, “for I am not.” At that +he thrumpeted again till the Pass rang to ut, an’ the other elephints +tuk it up. Thin I got a little strength back. “Down, Malachi,” I sez, +“an’ put me up, but touch me tendher for I am not good.” He was on +his knees in a minut an’ he slung me up as gentle as a girl. “Go on +now, my son,” I sez. “You’re blockin’ the road.” He fetched wan more +joyous toot, an’ swung grand out av the head av the Tangi, his gun-gear +clankin’ on his back; an’ at the back av him there wint the most +amazin’ shout I iver heard. An’ thin I felt my head shpin, an’ a mighty +sweat bruk out on me, an’ Malachi was growin’ taller an’ taller to me +settin’ on his back, an’ I sez, foolish like an’ weak, smilin’ all +round an’ about, “Take me down,” I sez, “or I’ll fall.” + +‘The next I remimber was lyin’ in my cot again, limp as a chewed rag +but cured av the fever, an’ the Tangi as empty as the back av my hand. +They’d all gone up to the front, an’ ten days later I wint up too, +havin’ blocked an’ unblocked an entire army corps. What do you think av +ut, sorr?’ + +‘I’ll wait till I see Learoyd,’ I repeated. + +‘Ah’m here,’ said a shadow from among the shadows. ‘Ah’ve heard t’ tale +too.’ + +‘Is it true, Jock?’ + +‘Ay; true as t’owd bitch has getten t’mange. Orth’ris, yo’ maun’t let +t’dawgs hev owt to do wi’ her.’ + + + + + ONE VIEW OF THE QUESTION. + + +_From Shafiz Ullah Khan, son of Hyat Ullah Khan, in the honoured + service of His Highness the Rao Sahib of Jagesur, which is in the + northern borders of Hindustan, and Orderly to his Highness, this to + Kazi Jamal-ud-Din, son of Kazi Ferisht-ud-Din Khan, in the service of + the Rao Sahib, a minister much honoured. From that place which they + call the Northbrook Club, in the town of London, under the shadow of + the Empress, it is written:_ + +Between brother and chosen brother be no long protestations of Love + and Sincerity. Heart speaks naked to Heart, and the Head answers for + all. Glory and Honour on thy house till the ending of the years and a + tent in the borders of Paradise. + + +MY BROTHER,--In regard to that for which I was despatched follows the +account. I have purchased for the Rao Sahib, and paid sixty pounds +in every hundred, the things he most desired. Thus; two of the great +fawn-coloured tiger-dogs, male and female, their pedigree being written +upon paper, and silver collars adorning their necks. For the Rao +Sahib’s greater pleasure I send them at once by the steamer, in charge +of a man who will render account of them at Bombay to the bankers +there. They are the best of all dogs in this place. Of guns I have +bought five--two silver-sprigged in the stock, with gold scroll-work +about the hammer, both double-barrelled, hard-striking, cased in +velvet and red leather; three of unequalled workmanship, but lacking +adornment; a pump-gun that fires fourteen times--this when the Rao +Sahib drives pig; a double-barrelled shell-gun for tiger, and that is a +miracle of workmanship; and a fowling-piece no lighter than a feather, +with green and blue cartridges by the thousand. Also a very small rifle +for blackbuck, that yet would slay a man at four hundred paces. The +harness with the golden crests for the Rao Sahib’s coach is not yet +complete, by reason of the difficulty of lining the red velvet into +leather; but the two-horse harness and the great saddle with the golden +holsters that is for state use have been put with camphor into a tin +box, and I have signed it with my ring. Of the grained leather case of +women’s tools and tweezers for the hair and beard, of the perfumes and +the silks, and all that was wanted by the women behind the curtains, I +have no knowledge. They are matters of long coming, and the hawk-bells, +hoods, and jesses with the golden lettering are as much delayed as +they. Read this in the Rao Sahib’s ear, and speak of my diligence +and zeal, that favour may not be abated by absence, and keep the eye +of constraint upon that jesting dog without teeth--Bahadur Shah--for +by thy aid and voice, and what I have done in regard to the guns, I +look, as thou knowest, for the headship of the army of Jagesur. That +conscienceless one desires it also, and I have heard that the Rao Sahib +leans thatward. Have ye done, then, with the drinking of wine in your +house, my brother, or has Bahadur Shah become a forswearer of brandy? I +would not that drink should end him; but the well-mixed draught leads +to madness. Consider. + +And now in regard to this land of the Sahibs, follows that thou hast +demanded. God is my witness that I have striven to understand all that +I saw and a little of what I heard. My words and intention are those of +truth, yet it may be that I write of nothing but lies. + +Since the first wonder and bewilderment of my beholding is gone--we +note the jewels in the ceiling-dome, but later the filth on the +floor--I see clearly that this town, London, which is as large as +all Jagesur, is accursed, being dark and unclean, devoid of sun, and +full of low-born, who are perpetually drunk, and howl in the streets +like jackals, men and women together. At nightfall it is the custom +of countless thousands of women to descend into the streets and sweep +them, roaring, making jests, and demanding liquor. At the hour of this +attack it is the custom of the householders to take their wives and +children to the playhouses and the places of entertainment; evil and +good thus returning home together as do kine from the pools at sundown. +I have never seen any sight like this sight in all the world, and I +doubt that a double is to be found on the hither side of the gates of +Hell. Touching the mystery of their craft, it is an ancient one, but +the householders assemble in herds, being men and women, and cry aloud +to their God that it is not there; the said women pounding at the doors +without. Moreover, upon the day when they go to prayer the drink-places +are only opened when the mosques are shut; as who should dam the +Jumna river for Friday only. Therefore the men and women, being +forced to accomplish their desires in the shorter space, become the +more furiously drunk, and roll in the gutter together. They are there +regarded by those going to pray. Further, and for visible sign that +the place is forgotten of God, there falls upon certain days, without +warning, a cold darkness, whereby the sun’s light is altogether cut off +from all the city, and the people, male and female, and the drivers of +the vehicles grope and howl in this Pit at high noon, none seeing the +other. The air being filled with the smoke of Hell--sulphur and pitch +as it is written--they die speedily with gaspings, and so are buried in +the dark. This is a terror beyond the pen, but, by my head, I write of +what I have seen! + +It is not true that the Sahibs worship one God, as do we of the Faith, +or that the differences in their creed be like those now running +between Shiah and Sunni. I am but a fighting man, and no darvesh, +caring, as thou knowest, as much for Shiah as Sunni. But I have spoken +to many people of the nature of their Gods. One there is who is the +head of the Mukht-i-Fauj,[1] and he is worshipped by men in blood-red +clothes, who shout and become without sense. Another is an image, +before whom they burn candles and incense in just such a place as I +have seen when I went to Rangoon to buy Burma ponies for the Rao. +Yet a third has naked altars facing a great assembly of dead. To +him they sing chiefly; and for others there is a woman who was the +mother of the great prophet that was before Mahommed. The common folk +have no God, but worship those who may speak to them hanging from +the lamps in the street. The most wise people worship themselves and +such things as they have made with their mouths and their hands, and +this is to be found notably among the barren women, of whom there are +many. It is the custom of men and women to make for themselves such +God as they desire; pinching and patting the very soft clay of their +thought into the acceptable mould of their lusts. So each is furnished +with a Godling after his own heart; and this Godling is changed in a +little, as the stomach turns or the health is altered. Thou wilt not +believe this tale, my brother. Nor did I when I was first told, but +now it is nothing to me; so greatly has the foot of travel let out the +stirrup-holes of belief. + +But thou wilt say, ‘What matter to us whether Ahmed’s beard or Mahmud’s +be the longer! Speak what thou canst of the Accomplishment of Desire.’ +Would that thou wert here to talk face to face and walk abroad with me +and learn. + +To this people it is a matter of Heaven and Hell whether Ahmed’s beard +and Mahmud’s tally or differ but by a hair. Thou knowest the system of +their statecraft? It is this. Certain men, appointing themselves, go +about and speak to the low-born, the peasants, the leather-workers, +and the cloth-dealers, and the women, saying: ‘Give us leave by your +favour to speak for you in the council.’ Securing that permission by +large promises, they return to the council-place, and, sitting unarmed, +some six hundred together, speak at random each for himself and his own +ball of low-born. The viziers and dewans of the Empress must ever beg +money at their hands, for unless more than a half of the six hundred +be of one heart towards the spending of the revenues, neither horse can +be shod, rifle loaded, nor man clothed throughout the land. Remember +this very continually. The six hundred are above the Empress, above the +Viceroy of India, above the Head of the Army and every other power that +thou hast ever known. _Because they hold the revenues._ + +They are divided into two hordes--the one perpetually hurling abuse at +the other, and bidding the low-born hamper and rebel against all that +the other may devise for government. Except that they are unarmed, and +so call each other liar, dog, and bastard without fear, even under the +shadow of the Empress’s throne, they are at bitter war which is without +any end. They pit lie against lie, till the low-born and common folk +grow drunk with lies, and in their turn begin to lie and refuse to pay +the revenues. Further, they divide their women into bands, and send +them into this fight with yellow flowers in their hands, and since the +belief of a woman is but her lover’s belief stripped of judgment, very +many wild words are added. Well said the slave-girl to Mámún in the +delectable pages of the Son of Abdullah:-- + + ‘Oppression and the sword slay fast-- + Thy breath kills slowly but at last.’ + +If they desire a thing they declare that it is true. If they desire +it not, though that were Death itself, they cry aloud, ‘It has never +been.’ Thus their talk is the talk of children, and like children they +snatch at what they covet, not considering whether it is their own or +another’s. And in their councils, when the army of unreason has come +to the defile of dispute, and there is no more talk left on either +side, they, dividing, count heads, and the will of that side which has +the larger number of heads makes that law. But the outnumbered side run +speedily among the common people and bid them trample on that law, and +slay the officers thereof. Follows slaughter by night of men unarmed, +and the slaughter of cattle and insults to women. They do not cut off +the noses of women, but they crop their hair and scrape the flesh with +pins. Then those shameless ones of the council stand up before the +judges wiping their mouths and making oath. They say: ‘Before God we +are free from blame. Did we say “Heave that stone out of that road and +kill that one and no other”?’ So they are not made shorter by the head +because they said only: ‘Here are stones and yonder is such a fellow +obeying the Law which is no law because we do not desire it.’ + +Read this in the Rao Sahib’s ear, and ask him if he remembers that +season when the Manglôt headmen refused revenue, not because they could +not pay, but because they judged the cess extreme. I and thou went out +with the troopers all one day and the black lances raised the thatch, +so that there was hardly any need of firing; and no man was slain. +But this land is at secret war and veiled killing. In five years of +peace they have slain within their own borders and of their own kin +more men than would have fallen had the ball of dissension been left +to the mallet of the army. And yet there is no hope of peace, for soon +the sides again divide, and then they will cause to be slain more men +unarmed and in the fields. And so much for that matter, which is to our +advantage. There is a better thing to be told, and one tending to the +Accomplishment of Desire. Read here with a fresh mind after sleep. I +write as I understand. + +Above all this war without honour lies that which I find hard to put +into writing, and thou knowest I am unhandy of the pen. I will ride +the steed of Inability sideways at the wall of Expression. The earth +under foot is sick and sour with the much handling of man, as a grazing +ground sours under cattle; and the air is sick too. Upon the ground +they have laid in this town, as it were, the stinking boards of a +stable, and through these boards, between a thousand thousand houses, +the rank humours of the earth sweat through to the overburdened air +that returns them to their breeding-place; for the smoke of their +cooking fires keeps all in as the cover the juices of the sheep. And in +like manner there is a green-sickness among the people, and especially +among the six hundred men who talk. Neither winter nor autumn abates +that malady of the soul. I have seen it among women in our own country, +and in boys not yet blooded to the sword; but I have never seen so +much thereof before. Through the peculiar operation of this thing the +people, abandoning honour and steadfastness, question all authority, +not as men question, but as girls, whimperingly, with pinching in the +back when the back is turned and mowing. If one cries in the streets, +‘There has been an injustice,’ they take him not to make complaint to +those appointed, but all who pass, drinking his words, fly clamorously +to the house of the accused and write evil things of him, his wives and +his daughters; for they take no thought to the weighing of evidence, +but are as women. And with one hand they beat their constables who +guard the streets, and with the other beat the constables for resenting +that beating, and fine them. When they have in all things made light of +the State they cry to the State for help, and it is given, so that the +next time they will cry more. Such as are oppressed riot through the +streets, bearing banners that hold four days’ labour and a week’s bread +in cost and toil; and when neither horse nor foot can pass by they +are satisfied. Others, receiving wages, refuse to work till they get +more, and the priests help them, and also men of the six hundred--for +where rebellion is, one of those men will come as a kite to a dead +bullock--and priests, talker, and men together declare that it is right +because these will not work that no others may attempt. In this manner +they have so confused the loading and the unloading of the ships that +come to this town that, in sending the Rao Sahib’s guns and harness, +I saw fit to send the cases by the train to another ship that sailed +from another place. There is now no certainty in any sending. But who +injures the merchants shuts the door of well-being on the city and the +army. And ye know what Sa’adi saith:-- + + ‘How may the merchant westward fare + When he hears the tale of the tumults there?’ + +No man can keep faith because he cannot tell how his underlings will +go. They have made the servant greater than the master, for that he +is the servant; not reckoning that each is equal under God to the +appointed task. That is a thing to be put aside in the cupboard of the +mind. + +Further, the misery and outcry of the common folk of whom the earth’s +bosom is weary, has so wrought upon the minds of certain people who +have never slept under fear nor seen the flat edge of the sword on the +heads of a mob, that they cry out: ‘Let us abate everything that is, +and altogether labour with our bare hands.’ Their hands in that employ +would fester at the second stroke; and I have seen, for all their +unrest at the agonies of others, they abandon no whit of soft living. +Unknowing the common folk, or indeed the minds of men, they offer +strong drink of words, such as they themselves use, to empty bellies; +and that wine breeds drunkenness of soul. The distressful persons stand +all day long at the door of the drink-places to the number of very many +thousands. The well-wishing people of small discernment give them words +or pitifully attempt in schools to turn them into craftsmen, weavers, +or builders, of whom there be more than enough. Yet they have not +the wisdom to look at the hands of the taught, whereon a man’s craft +and that of his father is written by God and Necessity. They believe +that the son of a drunkard shall drive a straight chisel and the +charioteer do plaster-work. They take no thought in the dispensation of +generosity, which is as the closed fingers of a water-scooping palm. +Therefore the rough timber of a very great army drifts unhewn through +the slime of their streets. If the Government, which is to-day and +to-morrow changes, spent on these hopeless ones some money to clothe +and equip, I should not write what I write. But these people despise +the trade of arms, and rest content with the memory of old battles; the +women and the talking men aiding them. + +Thou wilt say: ‘Why speak continually of women and fools?’ I answer by +God, the Fashioner of the Heart, the fools sit among the six hundred, +and the women sway their councils. Hast thou forgotten when the order +came across the seas that rotted out the armies of the English with us, +so that soldiers fell sick by the hundred where but ten had sickened +before? That was the work of not more than twenty of the men and some +fifty of the barren women. I have seen three or four of them, male and +female, and they triumph openly, in the name of their God, because +three regiments of the white troops are not. This is to our advantage; +because the sword with the rust-spot breaks over the turban of the +enemy. But if they thus tear their own flesh and blood ere their +madness be risen to its height, what will they do when the moon is full? + +Seeing that power lay in the hands of the six hundred, and not in the +Viceroy or elsewhere, I have throughout my stay sought the shadow +of those among them who talk most and most extravagantly. They lead +the common folk, and receive permission from their good will. It is +the desire of some of these men--indeed, of almost as many as caused +the rotting of the English army--that our lands and peoples should +accurately resemble those of the English upon this very day. May God, +the Contemner of Folly, forbid! I myself am accounted a show among +them, and of us and ours they know naught, some calling me Hindu and +others Rajput, and using towards me, in ignorance, slave-talk and +expressions of great disrespect. Some of them are well-born, but +the greater part are low-born, coarse-skinned, waving their arms, +high-voiced, without dignity, slack in the mouth, shifty-eyed, and, as +I have said, swayed by the wind of a woman’s cloak. + +Now this is a tale but two days old. There was a company at meat, and a +high-voiced woman spoke to me, in the face of the men, of the affairs +of our womankind. It was her ignorance that made each word an edged +insult. Remembering this I held my peace till she had spoken a new law +as to the control of our zenanas, and all who are behind the curtains. + +Then I--‘Hast thou ever felt the life stir under thy heart or laid a +little son between thy breasts, O most unhappy?’ Thereto she hotly, +with a haggard eye--‘No, for I am a free woman, and no servant of +babes.’ Then I softly--‘God deal lightly with thee, my sister, for thou +art in heavier bondage than any slave, and the fuller half of the earth +is hidden from thee. The first ten years of the life of a man are his +mother’s, and from the dusk to the dawn surely the wife may command the +husband. Is it a great thing to stand back in the waking hours while +the men go abroad unhampered by thy hands on the bridle-rein?’ Then she +wondered that a heathen should speak thus: yet she is a woman honoured +among these men, and openly professes that she hath no profession of +faith in her mouth. Read this in the ear of the Rao Sahib, and demand +how it would fare with me if I brought such a woman for his use. It +were worse than that yellow desert-bred girl from Cutch, who set the +girls to fighting for her own pleasure, and slippered the young prince +across the mouth. Rememberest thou? + +In truth the fountain-head of power is putrid with long standing still. +These men and women would make of all India a dung-cake, and would +fain leave the mark of the fingers upon it. And they have power and +the control of the revenues, and that is why I am so particular in +description. _They have power over all India._ Of what they speak they +understand nothing, for the low-born’s soul is bounded by his field, +and he grasps not the connection of affairs from pole to pole. They +boast openly that the Viceroy and the others are their servants. When +the masters are mad, what shall the servants do? + +Some hold that all war is sin, and Death the greatest fear under God. +Others declare with the Prophet that it is evil to drink, to which +teaching their streets bear evident witness; and others there are, +specially the low-born, who aver that all dominion is wicked and +sovereignty of the sword accursed. These protested to me, making, as +it were, an excuse that their kin should hold Hindustan, and hoping +that upon a day they will depart. Knowing well the breed of white man +in our borders I would have laughed, but forbore, remembering that +these speakers had power in the counting of heads. Yet others cry aloud +against the taxation of Hindustan under the Sahibs’ rule. To this I +assent, remembering the yearly mercy of the Rao Sahib when the turbans +of the troopers come through the blighted corn, and the women’s anklets +go into the melting-pot. But I am no good speaker. _That_ is the duty +of the boys from Bengal--hill asses with an eastern bray--Mahrattas +from Poona, and the like. These, moving among fools, represent +themselves as the sons of some one, being beggar-taught, offspring of +grain-dealers, curriers, sellers of bottles, and money-lenders, as thou +knowest. Now, we of Jagesur owe naught save friendship to the English +who took us by the sword, and having taken us let us go, assuring the +Rao Sahib’s succession for all time. But _these_ base-born, having won +their learning through the mercy of the Government, attired in English +clothes, forswearing the faith of their fathers for gain, spread rumour +and debate against the Government, and are, therefore, very dear to +certain of the six hundred. I have heard these cattle speak as princes +and rulers of men, and I have laughed; but not altogether. + +Once it happened that a son of some grain-bag sat with me at meat, +who was arrayed and speaking after the manner of the English. At each +mouthful he committed perjury against the Salt that he had eaten; the +men and women applauding. When, craftily falsifying, he had magnified +oppression and invented untold wrong, together with the desecration +of his tun-bellied gods, he demanded in the name of his people the +government of all our land, and turning, laid palm to my shoulder, +saying--‘Here is one who is with us, albeit he professes another faith; +he will bear out my words.’ This he delivered in English, and, as it +were, exhibited me to that company. Preserving a smiling countenance, I +answered in our own tongue--‘Take away that hand, man without a father, +or the folly of these folk shall not save thee, nor my silence guard +thy reputation. Sit off, herd.’ And in their speech I said--‘He speaks +truth. When the favour and wisdom of the English allows us yet a little +larger share in the burden and the reward, the Mussalman will deal with +the Hindu.’ He alone saw what was in my heart. I was merciful towards +him because he was accomplishing our desires; but remember that his +father is one Durga Charan Laha, in Calcutta. Lay thy hand upon _his_ +shoulder if ever chance sends. It is not good that bottle-dealers and +auctioneers should paw the sons of princes. I walk abroad sometimes +with the man that all this world may know the Hindu and Mussalman are +one, but when we come to the unfrequented streets I bid him walk behind +me and that is sufficient honour. + +And why did I eat dirt? + +Thus, my brother, it seems to my heart, which has almost burst in the +consideration of these matters. The Bengalis and the beggar-taught +boys know well that the Sahibs’ power to govern comes neither from the +Viceroy nor the head of the army, but from the hands of the six hundred +in this town, and peculiarly those who talk most. They will therefore +yearly address themselves more and more to that protection, and working +on the green-sickness of the land, as has ever been their custom, will +in time cause, through the perpetually-instigated interference of the +six hundred, the hand of the Indian Government to become inoperative, +so that no measure nor order may be carried through without clamour and +argument on their part; for that is the delight of the English at this +hour. Have I overset the bounds of possibility? No. Even thou must have +heard that one of the six hundred, having neither knowledge, fear, nor +reverence before his eyes, has made in sport a new and a written scheme +for the government of Bengal, and openly shows it abroad as a king +might read his crowning proclamation. And this man, meddling in affairs +of State, speaks in the council for an assemblage of leather-dressers, +makers of boots and harness, and openly glories in that he has no God. +Has either minister of the Empress, Empress, Viceroy, or any other +raised a voice against this leather-man? Is not his power therefore to +be sought, and that of his like-thinkers with it? Thou seest. + +The telegraph is the servant of the six hundred, and all the Sahibs in +India, omitting not one, are the servants of the telegraph. Yearly, +too, thou knowest, the beggar-taught will hold that which they call +their Congress, first at one place and then at another, leavening +Hindustan with rumour, echoing the talk among the low-born people here, +and demanding that they, like the six hundred, control the revenues. +And they will bring every point and letter over the heads of the +Governors and the Lieutenant-Governors, and whoever hold authority, and +cast it clamorously at the feet of the six hundred here; and certain +of those word-confounders and the barren women will assent to their +demands, and others will weary of disagreement. Thus fresh confusion +will be thrown into the councils of the Empress even as the island +near by is helped and comforted into the smothered war of which I have +written. Then yearly, as they have begun and we have seen, the low-born +men of the six hundred anxious for honour will embark for our land, +and, staying a little while, will gather round them and fawn before +the beggar-taught, and these departing from their side will assuredly +inform the peasants, and the fighting men for whom there is no employ, +that there is a change toward and a coming of help from over the seas. +That rumour will not grow smaller in the spreading. And, most of all, +the Congress, when it is not under the eye of the six hundred--who, +though they foment dissension and death, pretend great reverence for +the law which is no law--will, stepping aside, deliver uneasy words +to the peasants, speaking, as it has done already, of the remission +of taxation, and promising a new rule. That is to our advantage, but +the flower of danger is in the seed of it. Thou knowest what evil a +rumour may do; though in the Black Year when thou and I were young +our standing to the English brought gain to Jagesur and enlarged our +borders, for the Government gave us land on both sides. Of the Congress +itself nothing is to be feared that ten troopers could not remove; +but if its words too soon perturb the minds of those waiting or _of +princes in idleness_, a flame may come before the time, and since there +are now many white hands to quench it, all will return to the former +condition. If the flame be kept under we need have no fear, because, +sweating and panting, the one trampling on the other, the white people +here are digging their own graves. The hand of the Viceroy will be +tied, the hearts of the Sahibs will be downcast, and all eyes will turn +to England disregarding any orders. Meantime, keeping tally on the +sword-hilt against the hour when the score must be made smooth by the +blade, it is well for us to assist and greatly befriend the Bengali +that he may get control of the revenues and the posts. We must even +write to England that we be of one blood with the school-men. It is +not long to wait; by my head it is not long! This people are like the +great king Ferisht, who, eaten with the scabs of long idleness, plucked +off his crown and danced naked among the dung-hills. But I have not +forgotten the profitable end of that tale. The vizier set him upon a +horse and led him into battle. Presently his health returned, and he +caused to be engraven on the crown:-- + + ‘Though I was cast away by the king + Yet, through God, I returned and he added to my brilliance + Two great rubies (Balkh and Iran).’ + +If this people be purged and bled out by battle, their sickness may go +and their eyes be cleared to the necessities of things. But they are +now far gone in rottenness. Even the stallion, too long heel-roped, +forgets how to fight: and these men are mules. I do not lie when I say +that unless they are bled and taught with the whip, they will hear and +obey all that is said by the Congress and the black men here, hoping to +turn our land into their own orderless Jehannum. For the men of the six +hundred, being chiefly low-born and unused to authority, desire much to +exercise rule, extending their arms to the sun and moon, and shouting +very greatly in order to hear the echo of their voices, each one saying +some new strange thing and parting the goods and honour of others among +the rapacious, that he may obtain the favour of the common folk. And +all this is to our advantage. + +Therefore write, that they may read, of gratitude and of love and the +law. I myself, when I return, will show how the dish should be dressed +to take the taste here; for it is here that we must come. Cause to be +established in Jagesur a newspaper, and fill it with translations of +their papers. A beggar-taught may be brought from Calcutta for thirty +rupees a month, and if he writes in Gurmukhi our people cannot read. +Create, further, councils other than the panchayats of headmen, village +by village and district by district, instructing them beforehand what +to say according to the order of the Rao. Print all these things in +a book in English, and send it to this place, and to every man of +the six hundred. Bid the beggar-taught write in front of all that +Jagesur follows fast on the English plan. If thou squeezest the Hindu +shrine at Theegkot, and it is ripe, remit the head-tax, and perhaps +the marriage-tax, with great publicity. But above all things keep the +troops ready, and in good pay, even though we glean the stubble with +the wheat and stint the Rao Sahib’s women. All must go softly. Protest +thou thy love for the voice of the common people in all things, and +affect to despise the troops. That shall be taken for a witness in this +land. The headship of the troops must be mine. See that Bahadur Shah’s +wits go wandering over the wine, but do not send him to God. I am an +old man, but I may yet live to lead. + +If this people be not bled out and regain strength, we, watching how +the tide runs, when we see that the shadow of their hand is all but +lifted from Hindustan, must bid the Bengali demand the removal of the +residue or set going an uneasiness to that end. We must have a care +neither to hurt the life of the Englishmen nor the honour of their +women, for in that case six times the six hundred here could not hold +those who remain from making the land swim. We must care that they are +not mobbed by the Bengalis, but honourably escorted, while the land is +held down with the threat of the sword if a hair of their heads fall. +Thus we shall gain a good name, and when rebellion is unaccompanied +by bloodshed, as has lately befallen in a far country, the English, +disregarding honour, call it by a new name: even one who has been a +minister of the Empress, but is now at war against the law, praises +it openly before the common folk. So greatly are they changed since +the days of Nikhal Seyn![2] And then, if all go well and the Sahibs, +who through continual checking and browbeating will have grown sick +at heart, see themselves abandoned by their kin--for this people have +allowed their greatest to die on dry sand through delay and fear of +expense--we may go forward. This people are swayed by names. A new +name therefore must be given to the rule of Hindustan (and that the +Bengalis may settle among themselves), and there will be many writings +and oaths of love, such as the little island over seas makes when it +would fight more bitterly; and after that the residue are diminished +the hour comes, and we must strike so that the sword is never any more +questioned. + +By the favour of God and the conservation of the Sahibs these many +years, Hindustan contains very much plunder, which we can in no way eat +hurriedly. There will be to our hand the scaffolding of the house of +state, for the Bengali shall continue to do our work, and must account +to us for the revenue, and learn his seat in the order of things. +Whether the Hindu kings of the west will break in to share that spoil +before we have swept it altogether, thou knowest better than I; but +be certain that, then, strong hands will seek their own thrones, and +it may be that the days of the king of Delhi will return if we only, +curbing our desires, pay due obedience to the outward appearances and +the names. Thou rememberest the old song:-- + + ‘Hadst thou not called it Love, I had said it were a drawn sword, + But since thou hast spoken, I believe and--I die.’ + +It is in my heart that there will remain in our land a few Sahibs +undesirous of returning to England. These we must cherish and protect, +that by their skill and cunning we may hold together and preserve unity +in time of war. The Hindu kings will never trust a Sahib in the core of +their counsels. I say again that if we of the Faith confide in them, we +shall trample upon our enemies. + +Is all this a dream to thee, gray fox of my mother’s bearing? I have +written of what I have seen and heard, but from the same clay two men +will never fashion platters alike, nor from the same facts draw equal +conclusions. Once more, there is a green-sickness upon all the people +of this country. They eat dirt even now to stay their cravings. Honour +and stability have departed from their councils, and the knife of +dissension has brought down upon their heads the flapping tent-flies +of confusion. The Empress is old. They speak disrespectfully of her +and hers in the street. They despise the sword, and believe that the +tongue and the pen sway all. The measure of their ignorance and their +soft belief is greater than the measure of the wisdom of Solomon, the +son of David. All these things I have seen whom they regard as a wild +beast and a spectacle. By God the Enlightener of Intelligence, if +the Sahibs in India could breed sons who lived so that their houses +might be established, I would almost fling my sword at the Viceroy’s +feet, saying: ‘Let us here fight for a kingdom together, thine and +mine, disregarding the babble across the water. Write a letter to +England, saying that we love them but would depart from their camps +and make all clean under a new crown.’ But the Sahibs die out at +the third generation in our land, and it may be that I dream dreams. +Yet not altogether. Until a white calamity of steel and bloodshed, +the bearing of burdens, the trembling for life, and the hot rage of +insult--_for pestilence would unman them if eyes not unused to men +see clear_--befall this people, our path is safe. They are sick. The +Fountain of Power is a gutter which all may defile; and the voices of +the men are overborne by the squealings of mules and the whinnying of +barren mares. If through adversity they become wise, then, my brother, +strike with and for them, and later, when thou and I are dead, and the +disease grows up again (the young men bred in the school of fear and +trembling and word-confounding have yet to live out their appointed +span), those who have fought on the side of the English may ask and +receive what they choose. At present seek quietly to confuse, and +delay, and evade, and make of no effect. In this business four score of +the six hundred are our true helpers. + +Now the pen, and the ink, and the hand weary together, as thy eyes will +weary in this reading. Be it known to my house that I return soon, but +do not speak of the hour. Letters without name have come to me touching +my honour. The honour of my house is thine. If they be, as I believe, +the work of a dismissed groom, Futteh Lal, that ran at the tail of +my wine-coloured Katthiawar stallion, his village is beyond Manglôt; +look to it that his tongue no longer lengthens itself on the names of +those who are mine. If it be otherwise, put a guard upon my house till +I come, and especially see that no sellers of jewellery, astrologers, +or midwives have entrance to the women’s rooms. We rise by our +slaves, and by our slaves we fall, as it was said. To all who are of +my remembrance I bring gifts according to their worth. I have written +twice of the gift that I would cause to be given to Bahadur Shah. + +The blessing of God and his Prophet on thee and thine till the end +which is appointed. Give me felicity by informing me of the state of +thy health. My head is at the Rao Sahib’s feet; my sword is at his left +side, a little above my heart. Follows my seal. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Salvation Army. + +[2] Nicholson, a gentleman once of some notoriety in India. + + + + + ‘THE FINEST STORY IN THE WORLD.’ + + + ‘Or ever the knightly years were gone + With the old world to the grave, + I was a king in Babylon + And you were a Christian slave.’ + + W. E. HENLEY. + + +His name was Charlie Mears; he was the only son of his mother who was +a widow, and he lived in the north of London, coming into the City +every day to work in a bank. He was twenty years old and was full of +aspirations. I met him in a public billiard-saloon where the marker +called him by his first name, and he called the marker ‘Bullseye.’ +Charlie explained, a little nervously, that he had only come to the +place to look on, and since looking on at games of skill is not a cheap +amusement for the young, I suggested that Charlie should go back to his +mother. + +That was our first step towards better acquaintance. He would call +on me sometimes in the evenings instead of running about London with +his fellow-clerks; and before long, speaking of himself as a young +man must, he told me of his aspirations, which were all literary. +He desired to make himself an undying name chiefly through verse, +though he was not above sending stories of love and death to the +penny-in-the-slot journals. It was my fate to sit still while Charlie +read me poems of many hundred lines, and bulky fragments of plays that +would surely shake the world. My reward was his unreserved confidence, +and the self-revelations and troubles of a young man are almost as +holy as those of a maiden. Charlie had never fallen in love, but was +anxious to do so on the first opportunity; he believed in all things +good and all things honourable, but at the same time, was curiously +careful to let me see that he knew his way about the world as befitted +a bank-clerk on twenty-five shillings a week. He rhymed ‘dove’ with +‘love’ and ‘moon’ with ‘June,’ and devoutly believed that they had +never so been rhymed before. The long lame gaps in his plays he filled +up with hasty words of apology and description and swept on, seeing all +that he intended to do so clearly that he esteemed it already done, and +turned to me for applause. + +I fancy that his mother did not encourage his aspirations; and I know +that his writing-table at home was the edge of his washstand. This he +told me almost at the outset of our acquaintance--when he was ravaging +my bookshelves, and a little before I was implored to speak the truth +as to his chances of ‘writing something really great, you know.’ Maybe +I encouraged him too much, for, one night, he called on me, his eyes +flaming with excitement, and said breathlessly:-- + +‘Do you mind--can you let me stay here and write all this evening? I +won’t interrupt you, I won’t really. There’s no place for me to write +in at my mother’s.’ + +‘What’s the trouble?’ I said, knowing well what that trouble was. + +‘I’ve a notion in my head that would make the most splendid story that +was ever written. Do let me write it out here. It’s _such_ a notion!’ + +There was no resisting the appeal. I set him a table; he hardly +thanked me, but plunged into his work at once. For half an hour the +pen scratched without stopping. Then Charlie sighed and tugged his +hair. The scratching grew slower, there were more erasures, and at last +ceased. The finest story in the world would not come forth. + +‘It looks such awful rot now,’ he said mournfully. ‘And yet it seemed +so good when I was thinking about it. What’s wrong?’ + +I could not dishearten him by saying the truth. So I answered: ‘Perhaps +you don’t feel in the mood for writing.’ + +‘Yes I do--except when I look at this stuff. Ugh!’ + +‘Read me what you’ve done,’ I said. + +He read, and it was wondrous bad, and he paused at all the specially +turgid sentences, expecting a little approval; for he was proud of +those sentences, as I knew he would be. + +‘It needs compression,’ I suggested cautiously. + +‘I hate cutting my things down. I don’t think you could alter a word +here without spoiling the sense. It reads better aloud than when I was +writing it.’ + +‘Charlie, you’re suffering from an alarming disease afflicting a +numerous class. Put the thing by, and tackle it again in a week.’ + +‘I want to do it at once. What do you think of it?’ + +‘How can I judge from a half-written tale? Tell me the story as it lies +in your head.’ + +Charlie told, and in the telling there was everything that his +ignorance had so carefully prevented from escaping into the written +word. I looked at him, wondering whether it were possible that he did +not know the originality, the power of the notion that had come in his +way? It was distinctly a Notion among notions. Men had been puffed +up with pride by ideas not a tithe as excellent and practicable. But +Charlie babbled on serenely, interrupting the current of pure fancy +with samples of horrible sentences that he purposed to use. I heard him +out to the end. It would be folly to allow his thought to remain in his +own inept hands, when I could do so much with it. Not all that could be +done indeed; but, oh so much! + +‘What do you think?’ he said at last. ‘I fancy I shall call it “The +Story of a Ship.”’ + +‘I think the idea’s pretty good; but you won’t be able to handle it for +ever so long. Now I----’ + +‘Would it be of any use to you? Would you care to take it? I should be +proud,’ said Charlie promptly. + +There are few things sweeter in this world than the guileless, +hot-headed, intemperate, open admiration of a junior. Even a woman +in her blindest devotion does not fall into the gait of the man she +adores, tilt her bonnet to the angle at which he wears his hat, or +interlard her speech with his pet oaths. And Charlie did all these +things. Still it was necessary to salve my conscience before I +possessed myself of Charlie’s thoughts. + +‘Let’s make a bargain. I’ll give you a fiver for the notion,’ I said. + +Charlie became a bank-clerk at once. + +‘Oh, that’s impossible. Between two pals, you know, if I may call you +so, and speaking as a man of the world, I couldn’t. Take the notion if +it’s any use to you. I’ve heaps more.’ + +He had--none knew this better than I--but they were the notions of +other men. + +‘Look at it as a matter of business--between men of the world,’ I +returned. ‘Five pounds will buy you any number of poetry-books. +Business is business, and you may be sure I shouldn’t give that price +unless----’ + +‘Oh, if you put it _that_ way,’ said Charlie, visibly moved by the +thought of the books. The bargain was clinched with an agreement that +he should at unstated intervals come to me with all the notions that he +possessed, should have a table of his own to write at, and unquestioned +right to inflict upon me all his poems and fragments of poems. Then I +said, ‘Now tell me how you came by this idea.’ + +‘It came by itself.’ Charlie’s eyes opened a little. + +‘Yes, but you told me a great deal about the hero that you must have +read before somewhere.’ + +‘I haven’t any time for reading, except when you let me sit here, and +on Sundays I’m on my bicycle or down the river all day. There’s nothing +wrong about the hero, is there?’ + +‘Tell me again and I shall understand clearly. You say that your hero +went pirating. How did he live?’ + +‘He was on the lower deck of this ship-thing that I was telling you +about.’ + +‘What sort of ship?’ + +‘It was the kind rowed with oars, and the sea spurts through the +oar-holes and the men row sitting up to their knees in water. Then +there’s a bench running down between the two lines of oars and an +overseer with a whip walks up and down the bench to make the men work.’ + +‘How do you know that?’ + +‘It’s in the tale. There’s a rope running overhead, looped to the upper +deck, for the overseer to catch hold of when the ship rolls. When the +overseer misses the rope once and falls among the rowers, remember the +hero laughs at him and gets licked for it. He’s chained to his oar of +course--the hero.’ + +‘How is he chained?’ + +‘With an iron band round his waist fixed to the bench he sits on, and a +sort of handcuff on his left wrist chaining him to the oar. He’s on the +lower deck where the worst men are sent, and the only light comes from +the hatchways and through the oar-holes. Can’t you imagine the sunlight +just squeezing through between the handle and the hole and wobbling +about as the ship moves?’ + +‘I can, but I can’t imagine your imagining it.’ + +‘How could it be any other way? Now you listen to me. The long oars on +the upper deck are managed by four men to each bench, the lower ones by +three, and the lowest of all by two. Remember it’s quite dark on the +lowest deck and all the men there go mad. When a man dies at his oar +on that deck he isn’t thrown overboard, but cut up in his chains and +stuffed through the oar-hole in little pieces.’ + +‘Why?’ I demanded amazed, not so much at the information as the tone of +command in which it was flung out. + +‘To save trouble and to frighten the others. It needs two overseers to +drag a man’s body up to the top deck; and if the men at the lower deck +oars were left alone, of course they’d stop rowing and try to pull up +the benches by all standing up together in their chains.’ + +‘You’ve a most provident imagination. Where have you been reading about +galleys and galley-slaves?’ + +‘Nowhere that I remember. I row a little when I get the chance. But, +perhaps, if you say so, I may have read something.’ + +He went away shortly afterwards to deal with booksellers, and I +wondered how a bank-clerk aged twenty could put into my hands with a +profligate abundance of detail, all given with absolute assurance, the +story of extravagant and bloodthirsty adventure, riot, piracy, and +death in unnamed seas. He had led his hero a desperate dance through +revolt against the overseers, to command of a ship of his own, and at +last to the establishment of a kingdom on an island ‘somewhere in the +sea, you know;’ and, delighted with my paltry five pounds, had gone +out to buy the notions of other men, that these might teach him how to +write. I had the consolation of knowing that this notion was mine by +right of purchase, and I thought that I could make something of it. + +When next he came to me he was drunk--royally drunk on many poets for +the first time revealed to him. His pupils were dilated, his words +tumbled over each other, and he wrapped himself in quotations--as a +beggar would enfold himself in the purple of Emperors. Most of all was +he drunk with Longfellow. + +‘Isn’t it splendid? Isn’t it superb?’ he cried, after hasty greetings. +‘Listen to this-- + + ‘“Wouldst thou,”--so the helmsman answered, + “Know the secret of the sea? + Only those who brave its dangers + Comprehend its mystery.” + +By gum! + + ‘“Only those who brave its dangers + Comprehend its mystery,”’ + +he repeated twenty times, walking up and down the room and forgetting +me. ‘But _I_ can understand it too,’ he said to himself. ‘I don’t know +how to thank you for that fiver. And this; listen-- + + ‘“I remember the black wharves and the slips + And the sea-tides tossing free; + And the Spanish sailors with bearded lips, + And the beauty and mystery of the ships, + And the magic of the sea.”’ + +I haven’t braved any dangers, but I feel as if I knew all about it.’ + +‘You certainly seem to have a grip of the sea. Have you ever seen it?’ + +‘When I was a little chap I went to Brighton once; we used to live in +Coventry, though, before we came to London. I never saw it, + + ‘“When descends on the Atlantic + The gigantic + Storm-wind of the Equinox.”’ + +He shook me by the shoulder to make me understand the passion that was +shaking himself. + +‘When that storm comes,’ he continued, ‘I think that all the oars in +the ship that I was talking about get broken, and the rowers have their +chests smashed in by the oar-heads bucking. By the way, have you done +anything with that notion of mine yet?’ + +‘No. I was waiting to hear more of it from you. Tell me how in the +world you’re so certain about the fittings of the ship. You know +nothing of ships.’ + +‘I don’t know. It’s as real as anything to me until I try to write it +down. I was thinking about it only last night in bed, after you had +lent me _Treasure Island_; and I made up a whole lot of new things to +go into the story.’ + +‘What sort of things?’ + +‘About the food the men ate; rotten figs and black beans and wine in a +skin bag, passed from bench to bench.’ + +‘Was the ship built so long ago as _that_?’ + +‘As what? I don’t know whether it was long ago or not. It’s only a +notion, but sometimes it seems just as real as if it was true. Do I +bother you with talking about it?’ + +‘Not in the least. Did you make up anything else?’ + +‘Yes, but it’s nonsense.’ Charlie flushed a little. + +‘Never mind; let’s hear about it.’ + +‘Well, I was thinking over the story, and after awhile I got out of bed +and wrote down on a piece of paper the sort of stuff the men might be +supposed to scratch on their oars with the edges of their handcuffs. It +seemed to make the thing more life-like. It _is_ so real to me, y’know.’ + +‘Have you the paper on you?’ + +‘Ye--es, but what’s the use of showing it? It’s only a lot of +scratches. All the same, we might have ’em reproduced in the book on +the front page.’ + +‘I’ll attend to those details. Show me what your men wrote.’ + +He pulled out of his pocket a sheet of notepaper, with a single line of +scratches upon it, and I put this carefully away. + +‘What is it supposed to mean in English?’ I said. + +‘Oh, I don’t know. I mean it to mean “I’m beastly tired.” It’s great +nonsense,’ he repeated, ‘but all those men in the ship seem as real as +real people to me. Do do something to the notion soon; I should like to +see it written and printed.’ + +‘But all you’ve told me would make a long book.’ + +‘Make it then. You’ve only to sit down and write it out.’ + +‘Give me a little time. Have you any more notions?’ + +‘Not just now. I’m reading all the books I’ve bought. They’re splendid.’ + +When he had left I looked at the sheet of notepaper with the +inscription upon it. Then I took my head tenderly between both hands, +to make certain that it was not coming off or turning round. Then +... but there seemed to be no interval between quitting my rooms and +finding myself arguing with a policeman outside a door marked _Private_ +in a corridor of the British Museum. All I demanded, as politely as +possible, was ‘the Greek antiquity man.’ The policeman knew nothing +except the rules of the Museum, and it became necessary to forage +through all the houses and offices inside the gates. An elderly +gentleman called away from his lunch put an end to my search by holding +the notepaper between finger and thumb and sniffing at it scornfully. + +‘What does this mean? H’mm,’ said he. ‘So far as I can ascertain it +is an attempt to write extremely corrupt Greek on the part’--here he +glared at me with intention--‘of an extremely illiterate--ah--person.’ +He read slowly from the paper, ‘_Pollock_, _Erckmann_, _Tauchnitz_, +_Henniker_’--four names familiar to me. + +‘Can you tell me what the corruption is supposed to mean--the gist of +the thing?’ I asked. + +‘I have been--many times--overcome with weariness in this particular +employment. That is the meaning.’ He returned me the paper, and I fled +without a word of thanks, explanation, or apology. + +I might have been excused for forgetting much. To me of all men had +been given the chance to write the most marvellous tale in the world, +nothing less than the story of a Greek galley-slave, as told by +himself. Small wonder that his dreaming had seemed real to Charlie. +The Fates that are so careful to shut the doors of each successive +life behind us had, in this case, been neglectful, and Charlie was +looking, though that he did not know, where never man had been +permitted to look with full knowledge since Time began. Above all, he +was absolutely ignorant of the knowledge sold to me for five pounds; +and he would retain that ignorance, for bank-clerks do not understand +metempsychosis, and a sound commercial education does not include +Greek. He would supply me--here I capered among the dumb gods of +Egypt and laughed in their battered faces--with material to make my +tale sure--so sure that the world would hail it as an impudent and +vamped fiction. And I--I alone would know that it was absolutely and +literally true. I--I alone held this jewel to my hand for the cutting +and polishing! Therefore I danced again among the gods of the Egyptian +court till a policeman saw me and took steps in my direction. + +It remained now only to encourage Charlie to talk, and here there +was no difficulty. But I had forgotten those accursed books of +poetry. He came to me time after time, as useless as a surcharged +phonograph--drunk on Byron, Shelley, or Keats. Knowing now what the boy +had been in his past lives, and desperately anxious not to lose one +word of his babble, I could not hide from him my respect and interest. +He misconstrued both into respect for the present soul of Charlie +Mears, to whom life was as new as it was to Adam, and interest in his +readings; and stretched my patience to breaking point by reciting +poetry--not his own now, but that of others. I wished every English +poet blotted out of the memory of mankind. I blasphemed the mightiest +names of song because they had drawn Charlie from the path of direct +narrative, and would, later, spur him to imitate them; but I choked +down my impatience until the first flood of enthusiasm should have +spent itself and the boy returned to his dreams. + +‘What’s the use of my telling you what _I_ think, when these chaps +wrote things for the angels to read?’ he growled, one evening. ‘Why +don’t you write something like theirs?’ + +‘I don’t think you’re treating me quite fairly,’ I said, speaking under +strong restraint. + +‘I’ve given you the story,’ he said shortly, replunging into ‘Lara.’ + +‘But I want the details.’ + +‘The things I make up about that damned ship that you call a galley? +They’re quite easy. You can just make ’em up for yourself. Turn up the +gas a little, I want to go on reading.’ + +I could have broken the gas globe over his head for his amazing +stupidity. I could indeed make up things for myself did I only know +what Charlie did not know that he knew. But since the doors were shut +behind me I could only wait his youthful pleasure and strive to keep +him in good temper. One minute’s want of guard might spoil a priceless +revelation: now and again he would toss his books aside--he kept them +in my rooms, for his mother would have been shocked at the waste of +good money had she seen them--and launched into his sea-dreams. Again I +cursed all the poets of England. The plastic mind of the bank-clerk had +been overlaid, coloured, and distorted by that which he had read, and +the result as delivered was a confused tangle of other voices most like +the mutter and hum through a City telephone in the busiest part of the +day. + +He talked of the galley--his own galley had he but known it--with +illustrations borrowed from the ‘Bride of Abydos.’ He pointed the +experiences of his hero with quotations from ‘The Corsair,’ and threw +in deep and desperate moral reflections from ‘Cain’ and ‘Manfred,’ +expecting me to use them all. Only when the talk turned on Longfellow +were the jarring cross-currents dumb, and I knew that Charlie was +speaking the truth as he remembered it. + +‘What do you think of this?’ I said one evening, as soon as I +understood the medium in which his memory worked best, and, before he +could expostulate, read him nearly the whole of ‘The Saga of King Olaf!’ + +He listened open-mouthed, flushed, his hands drumming on the back of +the sofa where he lay, till I came to the Song of Einar Tamberskelver +and the verse:-- + + ‘Einar then, the arrow taking + From the loosened string, + Answered, “That was Norway breaking + ’Neath thy hand, O King.”’ + +He gasped with pure delight of sound. + +‘That’s better than Byron, a little?’ I ventured. + +‘Better! Why it’s _true_! How could he have known?’ + +I went back and repeated:-- + + ‘“What was that?” said Olaf, standing + On the quarter-deck, + “Something heard I like the stranding + Of a shattered wreck.”’ + +‘How could he have known how the ships crash and the oars rip out and +go _z-zzp_ all along the line? Why only the other night.... But go back +please and read “The Skerry of Shrieks” again.’ + +‘No, I’m tired. Let’s talk. What happened the other night?’ + +‘I had an awful dream about that galley of ours. I dreamed I was +drowned in a fight. You see we ran alongside another ship in harbour. +The water was dead still except where our oars whipped it up. You know +where I always sit in the galley?’ He spoke haltingly at first, under a +fine English fear of being laughed at. + +‘No. That’s news to me,’ I answered meekly, my heart beginning to beat. + +‘On the fourth oar from the bow on the right side on the upper deck. +There were four of us at that oar, all chained. I remember watching the +water and trying to get my handcuffs off before the row began. Then we +closed up on the other ship, and all their fighting men jumped over our +bulwarks, and my bench broke and I was pinned down with the three other +fellows on top of me, and the big oar jammed across our backs.’ + +‘Well?’ Charlie’s eyes were alive and alight. He was looking at the +wall behind my chair. + +‘I don’t know how we fought. The men were trampling all over my back, +and I lay low. Then our rowers on the left side--tied to their oars, +you know--began to yell and back water. I could hear the water sizzle, +and we spun round like a cockchafer and I knew, lying where I was, +that there was a galley coming up bow-on, to ram us on the left side. +I could just lift up my head and see her sail over the bulwarks. We +wanted to meet her bow to bow, but it was too late. We could only turn +a little bit because the galley on our right had hooked herself on to +us and stopped our moving. Then, by gum! there was a crash! Our left +oars began to break as the other galley, the moving one y’know, stuck +her nose into them. Then the lower-deck oars shot up through the deck +planking, butt first, and one of them jumped clear up into the air and +came down again close at my head.’ + +‘How was that managed?’ + +‘The moving galley’s bow was plunking them back through their own +oar-holes, and I could hear no end of a shindy in the decks below. +Then her nose caught us nearly in the middle, and we tilted sideways, +and the fellows in the right-hand galley unhitched their hooks and +ropes, and threw things on to our upper deck--arrows, and hot pitch or +something that stung, and we went up and up and up on the left side, +and the right side dipped, and I twisted my head round and saw the +water stand still as it topped the right bulwarks, and then it curled +over and crashed down on the whole lot of us on the right side, and I +felt it hit my back, and I woke.’ + +‘One minute, Charlie. When the sea topped the bulwarks, what did it +look like?’ I had my reasons for asking. A man of my acquaintance had +once gone down with a leaking ship in a still sea, and had seen the +water-level pause for an instant ere it fell on the deck. + +‘It looked just like a banjo-string drawn tight, and it seemed to stay +there for years,’ said Charlie. + +Exactly! The other man had said: ‘It looked like a silver wire laid +down along the bulwarks, and I thought it was never going to break.’ +He had paid everything except the bare life for this little valueless +piece of knowledge, and I had travelled ten thousand weary miles to +meet him and take his knowledge at second hand. But Charlie, the +bank-clerk on twenty-five shillings a week, who had never been out of +sight of a made road, knew it all. It was no consolation to me that +once in his lives he had been forced to die for his gains. I also must +have died scores of times, but behind me, because I could have used my +knowledge, the doors were shut. + +‘And then?’ I said, trying to put away the devil of envy. + +‘The funny thing was, though, in all the row I didn’t feel a bit +astonished or frightened. It seemed as if I’d been in a good many +fights, because I told my next man so when the row began. But that cad +of an overseer on my deck wouldn’t unloose our chains and give us a +chance. He always said that we’d all be set free after a battle, but we +never were; we never were.’ Charlie shook his head mournfully. + +‘What a scoundrel!’ + +‘I should say he was. He never gave us enough to eat, and sometimes +we were so thirsty that we used to drink salt-water. I can taste that +salt-water still.’ + +‘Now tell me something about the harbour where the fight was fought.’ + +‘I didn’t dream about that. I know it was a harbour, though; because we +were tied up to a ring on a white wall and all the face of the stone +under water was covered with wood to prevent our ram getting chipped +when the tide made us rock.’ + +‘That’s curious. Our hero commanded the galley, didn’t he?’ + +‘Didn’t he just! He stood by the bows and shouted like a good ’un. He +was the man who killed the overseer.’ + +‘But you were all drowned together, Charlie, weren’t you?’ + +‘I can’t make that fit quite,’ he said, with a puzzled look. ‘The +galley must have gone down with all hands, and yet I fancy that the +hero went on living afterwards. Perhaps he climbed into the attacking +ship. I wouldn’t see that, of course. I was dead, you know.’ + +He shivered slightly and protested that he could remember no more. + +I did not press him further, but to satisfy myself that he lay in +ignorance of the workings of his own mind, deliberately introduced him +to Mortimer Collins’s _Transmigration_, and gave him a sketch of the +plot before he opened the pages. + +‘What rot it all is!’ he said frankly, at the end of an hour. ‘I don’t +understand his nonsense about the Red Planet Mars and the King, and the +rest of it. Chuck me the Longfellow again.’ + +I handed him the book and wrote out as much as I could remember of +his description of the sea-fight, appealing to him from time to time +for confirmation of fact or detail. He would answer without raising +his eyes from the book, as assuredly as though all his knowledge lay +before him on the printed page. I spoke under the normal key of my +voice that the current might not be broken, and I knew that he was not +aware of what he was saying, for his thoughts were out on the sea with +Longfellow. + +‘Charlie,’ I asked, ‘when the rowers on the galleys mutinied how did +they kill their overseers?’ + +‘Tore up the benches and brained ’em. That happened when a heavy sea +was running. An overseer on the lower deck slipped from the centre +plank and fell among the rowers. They choked him to death against the +side of the ship with their chained hands quite quietly, and it was too +dark for the other overseer to see what had happened. When he asked, he +was pulled down too and choked, and the lower deck fought their way up +deck by deck, with the pieces of the broken benches banging behind ’em. +How they howled!’ + +‘And what happened after that?’ + +‘I don’t know. The hero went away--red hair and red beard and all. That +was after he had captured our galley, I think.’ + +The sound of my voice irritated him, and he motioned slightly with his +left hand as a man does when interruption jars. + +‘You never told me he was red-headed before, or that he captured your +galley,’ I said, after a discreet interval. + +Charlie did not raise his eyes. + +‘He was as red as a red bear,’ said he abstractedly. ‘He came from +the north; they said so in the galley when he looked for rowers--not +slaves, but free men. Afterwards--years and years afterwards--news came +from another ship, or else he came back----’ + +His lips moved in silence. He was rapturously retasting some poem +before him. + +‘Where had he been, then?’ I was almost whispering that the sentence +might come gently to whichever section of Charlie’s brain was working +on my behalf. + +‘To the Beaches--the Long and Wonderful Beaches!’ was the reply after a +minute of silence. + +‘To Furdurstrandi?’ I asked, tingling from head to foot. + +‘Yes, to Furdurstrandi,’ he pronounced the word in a new fashion. ‘And +I too saw----’ The voice failed. + +‘Do you know what you have said?’ I shouted incautiously. + +He lifted his eyes, fully roused now. ‘No!’ he snapped. ‘I wish you’d +let a chap go on reading. Hark to this:-- + + ‘“But Othere, the old sea captain, + He neither paused nor stirred + Till the king listened, and then + Once more took up his pen + And wrote down every word. + + ‘“And to the King of the Saxons + In witness of the truth, + Raising his noble head, + He stretched his brown hand and said, + ‘Behold this walrus tooth.’” + +By Jove, what chaps those must have been, to go sailing all over the +shop never knowing where they’d fetch the land! Hah!’ + +‘Charlie,’ I pleaded, ‘if you’ll only be sensible for a minute or two +I’ll make our hero in our tale every inch as good as Othere.’ + +‘Umph! Longfellow wrote that poem. I don’t care about writing things +any more. I want to read.’ He was thoroughly out of tune now, and +raging over my own ill-luck, I left him. + +Conceive yourself at the door of the world’s treasure-house guarded by +a child--an idle irresponsible child playing knuckle-bones--on whose +favour depends the gift of the key, and you will imagine one-half my +torment. Till that evening Charlie had spoken nothing that might not +lie within the experiences of a Greek galley-slave. But now, or there +was no virtue in books, he had talked of some desperate adventure of +the Vikings, of Thorfin Karlsefne’s sailing to Wineland, which is +America, in the ninth or tenth century. The battle in the harbour he +had seen; and his own death he had described. But this was a much more +startling plunge into the past. Was it possible that he had skipped +half a dozen lives and was then dimly remembering some episode of a +thousand years later? It was a maddening jumble, and the worst of it +was that Charlie Mears in his normal condition was the last person in +the world to clear it up. I could only wait and watch, but I went to +bed that night full of the wildest imaginings. There was nothing that +was not possible if Charlie’s detestable memory only held good. + +I might rewrite the Saga of Thorfin Karlsefne as it had never been +written before, might tell the story of the first discovery of America, +myself the discoverer. But I was entirely at Charlie’s mercy, and so +long as there was a three-and-sixpenny Bohn volume within his reach +Charlie would not tell. I dared not curse him openly; I hardly dared +jog his memory, for I was dealing with the experiences of a thousand +years ago, told through the mouth of a boy of to-day; and a boy of +to-day is affected by every change of tone and gust of opinion, so that +he must lie even when he most desires to speak the truth. + +I saw no more of Charlie for nearly a week. When next I met him it was +in Gracechurch Street with a bill-book chained to his waist. Business +took him over London Bridge, and I accompanied him. He was very full +of the importance of that book and magnified it. As we passed over +the Thames we paused to look at a steamer unloading great slabs of +white and brown marble. A barge drifted under the steamer’s stern and +a lonely ship’s cow in that barge bellowed. Charlie’s face changed +from the face of the bank-clerk to that of an unknown and--though he +would not have believed this--a much shrewder man. He flung out his arm +across the parapet of the bridge and laughing very loudly, said:-- + +‘When they heard _our_ bulls bellow the Skrœlings ran away!’ + +I waited only for an instant, but the barge and the cow had disappeared +under the bows of the steamer before I answered. + +‘Charlie, what do you suppose are Skrœlings?’ + +‘Never heard of ’em before. They sound like a new kind of sea-gull. +What a chap you are for asking questions!’ he replied. ‘I have to go to +the cashier of the Omnibus Company yonder. Will you wait for me and we +can lunch somewhere together? I’ve a notion for a poem.’ + +‘No, thanks. I’m off. You’re sure you know nothing about Skrœlings?’ + +‘Not unless he’s been entered for the Liverpool Handicap.’ He nodded +and disappeared in the crowd. + +Now it is written in the Saga of Eric the Red or that of Thorfin +Karlsefne, that nine hundred years ago when Karlsefne’s galleys +came to Leif’s booths, which Leif had erected in the unknown land +called Markland, which may or may not have been Rhode Island, the +Skrœlings--and the Lord He knows who these may or may not have +been--came to trade with the Vikings, and ran away because they were +frightened at the bellowing of the cattle which Thorfin had brought +with him in the ships. But what in the world could a Greek slave know +of that affair? I wandered up and down among the streets trying to +unravel the mystery, and the more I considered it, the more baffling it +grew. One thing only seemed certain, and that certainty took away my +breath for the moment. If I came to full knowledge of anything at all, +it would not be one life of the soul in Charlie Mears’s body, but half +a dozen--half a dozen several and separate existences spent on blue +water in the morning of the world! + +Then I reviewed the situation. + +Obviously if I used my knowledge I should stand alone and +unapproachable until all men were as wise as myself. That would be +something, but manlike I was ungrateful. It seemed bitterly unfair that +Charlie’s memory should fail me when I needed it most. Great Powers +Above--I looked up at them through the fog-smoke--did the Lords of Life +and Death know what this meant to me? Nothing less than eternal fame +of the best kind, that comes from One, and is shared by one alone. +I would be content--remembering Clive, I stood astounded at my own +moderation--with the mere right to tell one story, to work out one +little contribution to the light literature of the day. If Charlie were +permitted full recollection for one hour--for sixty short minutes--of +existences that had extended over a thousand years--I would forego +all profit and honour from all that I should make of his speech. I +would take no share in the commotion that would follow throughout the +particular corner of the earth that calls itself ‘the world.’ The thing +should be put forth anonymously. Nay, I would make other men believe +that they had written it. They would hire bull-hided self-advertising +Englishmen to bellow it abroad. Preachers would found a fresh conduct +of life upon it, swearing that it was new and that they had lifted +the fear of death from all mankind. Every Orientalist in Europe would +patronise it discursively with Sanskrit and Pali texts. Terrible women +would invent unclean variants of the men’s belief for the elevation of +their sisters. Churches and religions would war over it. Between the +hailing and re-starting of an omnibus I foresaw the scuffles that would +arise among half a dozen denominations all professing ‘the doctrine of +the True Metempsychosis as applied to the world and the New Era’; and +saw, too, the respectable English newspapers shying, like frightened +kine, over the beautiful simplicity of the tale. The mind leaped +forward a hundred--two hundred--a thousand years. I saw with sorrow +that men would mutilate and garble the story; that rival creeds would +turn it upside down till, at last, the western world which clings to +the dread of death more closely than the hope of life, would set it +aside as an interesting superstition and stampede after some faith +so long forgotten that it seemed altogether new. Upon this I changed +the terms of the bargain that I would make with the Lords of Life and +Death. Only let me know, let me write, the story with sure knowledge +that I wrote the truth, and I would burn the manuscript as a solemn +sacrifice. Five minutes after the last line was written I would destroy +it all. But I must be allowed to write it with absolute certainty. + +There was no answer. The flaming colours of an Aquarium poster caught +my eye, and I wondered whether it would be wise or prudent to lure +Charlie into the hands of the professional mesmerist then, and whether, +if he were under his power, he would speak of his past lives. If he +did, and if people believed him ... but Charlie would be frightened and +flustered, or made conceited by the interviews. In either case he would +begin to lie, through fear or vanity. He was safest in my own hands. + +‘They are very funny fools, your English,’ said a voice at my elbow, +and turning round I recognised a casual acquaintance, a young Bengali +law student, called Grish Chunder, whose father had sent him to England +to become civilised. The old man was a retired native official, and +on an income of five pounds a month contrived to allow his son two +hundred pounds a year, and the run of his teeth in a city where he +could pretend to be the cadet of a royal house, and tell stories of the +brutal Indian bureaucrats who ground the faces of the poor. + +Grish Chunder was a young, fat, full-bodied Bengali, dressed with +scrupulous care in frock coat, tall hat, light trousers, and tan +gloves. But I had known him in the days when the brutal Indian +Government paid for his university education, and he contributed cheap +sedition to the _Sachi Durpan_, and intrigued with the wives of his +fourteen-year-old schoolmates. + +‘That is very funny and very foolish,’ he said, nodding at the poster. +‘I am going down to the Northbrook Club. Will you come too?’ + +I walked with him for some time. ‘You are not well,’ he said. ‘What is +there on your mind? You do not talk.’ + +‘Grish Chunder, you’ve been too well educated to believe in a God, +haven’t you?’ + +‘Oah, yes, _here_! But when I go home I must conciliate popular +superstition, and make ceremonies of purification, and my women will +anoint idols.’ + +‘And hang up _tulsi_ and feast the _purohit_, and take you back into +caste again and make a good _khuttri_ of you again, you advanced +Freethinker. And you’ll eat _desi_ food, and like it all, from the +smell in the courtyard to the mustard oil over you.’ + +‘I shall very much like it,’ said Grish Chunder unguardedly. ‘Once a +Hindu--always a Hindu. But I like to know what the English think they +know.’ + +‘I’ll tell you something that one Englishman knows. It’s an old tale to +you.’ + +I began to tell the story of Charlie in English, but Grish Chunder put +a question in the vernacular, and the history went forward naturally +in the tongue best suited for its telling. After all, it could never +have been told in English. Grish Chunder heard me, nodding from time to +time, and then came up to my rooms, where I finished the tale. + +‘_Beshak_,’ he said philosophically. ‘_Lekin darwaza band hai_. +(Without doubt; but the door is shut.) I have heard of this remembering +of previous existences among my people. It is of course an old tale +with us, but, to happen to an Englishman--a cow-fed _Mlechh_--an +outcast. By Jove, that is _most_ peculiar!’ + +‘Outcast yourself, Grish Chunder! You eat cow-beef every day. Let’s +think the thing over. The boy remembers his incarnations.’ + +‘Does he know that?’ said Grish Chunder quietly, swinging his legs as +he sat on my table. He was speaking in his English now. + +‘He does not know anything. Would I speak to you if he did? Go on!’ + +‘There is no going on at all. If you tell that to your friends they +will say you are mad and put it in the papers. Suppose, now, you +prosecute for libel.’ + +‘Let’s leave that out of the question entirely. Is there any chance of +his being made to speak?’ + +‘There is a chance. Oah, yess! But _if_ he spoke it would mean that all +this world would end now--_instanto_--fall down on your head. These +things are not allowed, you know. As I said, the door is shut.’ + +‘Not a ghost of a chance?’ + +‘How can there be? You are a Christi-án, and it is forbidden to eat, in +your books, of the Tree of Life, or else you would never die. How shall +you all fear death if you all know what your friend does not know that +he knows? I am afraid to be kicked, but I am not afraid to die, because +I know what I know. You are not afraid to be kicked, but you are afraid +to die. If you were not, by God! you English would be all over the shop +in an hour, upsetting the balances of power, and making commotions. It +would not be good. But no fear. He will remember a little and a little +less, and he will call it dreams. Then he will forget altogether. When +I passed my First Arts Examination in Calcutta that was all in the +cram-book on Wordsworth. “Trailing clouds of glory,” you know.’ + +‘This seems to be an exception to the rule.’ + +‘There are no exceptions to rules. Some are not so hard-looking as +others, but they are all the same when you touch. If this friend of +yours said so-and-so and so-and-so, indicating that he remembered all +his lost lives, or one piece of a lost life, he would not be in the +bank another hour. He would be what you called sack because he was mad, +and they would send him to an asylum for lunatics. You can see that, my +friend.’ + +‘Of course I can, but I wasn’t thinking of him. His name need never +appear in the story.’ + +‘Ah! I see. That story will never be written. You can try.’ + +‘I am going to.’ + +‘For your own credit and for the sake of money, _of_ course?’ + +‘No. For the sake of writing the story. On my honour that will be all.’ + +‘Even then there is no chance. You cannot play with the gods. It is a +very pretty story now. As they say, Let it go on that--I mean at that. +Be quick; he will not last long.’ + +‘How do you mean?’ + +‘What I say. He has never, so far, thought about a woman.’ + +‘Hasn’t he, though!’ I remembered some of Charlie’s confidences. + +‘I mean no woman has thought about him. When that comes; +_bus_--_hogya_--all up! I know. There are millions of women here. +Housemaids, for instance. They kiss you behind doors.’ + +I winced at the thought of my story being ruined by a housemaid. And +yet nothing was more probable. + +Grish Chunder grinned. + +‘Yes--also pretty girls--cousins of his house, and perhaps _not_ of his +house. One kiss that he gives back again and remembers will cure all +this nonsense, or else----’ + +‘Or else what? Remember he does not know that he knows.’ + +‘I know that. Or else, if nothing happens he will become immersed in +the trade and the financial speculation like the rest. It must be so. +You can see that it must be so. But the woman will come first, _I_ +think.’ + +There was a rap at the door, and Charlie charged in impetuously. He +had been released from office, and by the look in his eyes I could see +that he had come over for a long talk; most probably with poems in his +pockets. Charlie’s poems were very wearying, but sometimes they led him +to speak about the galley. + +Grish Chunder looked at him keenly for a minute. + +‘I beg your pardon,’ Charlie said uneasily; ‘I didn’t know you had any +one with you.’ + +‘I am going,’ said Grish Chunder. + +He drew me into the lobby as he departed. + +‘That is your man,’ he said quickly. ‘I tell you he will never speak +all you wish. That is rot--bosh. But he would be most good to make to +see things. Suppose now we pretend that it was only play’--I had never +seen Grish Chunder so excited--‘and pour the ink-pool into his hand. +Eh, what do you think? I tell you that he could see _anything_ that a +man could see. Let me get the ink and the camphor. He is a seer and he +will tell us very many things.’ + +‘He may be all you say, but I’m not going to trust him to your gods and +devils.’ + +‘It will not hurt him. He will only feel a little stupid and dull when +he wakes up. You have seen boys look into the ink-pool before.’ + +‘That is the reason why I am not going to see it any more. You’d better +go, Grish Chunder.’ + +He went, insisting far down the staircase that it was throwing away my +only chance of looking into the future. + +This left me unmoved, for I was concerned for the past, and no peering +of hypnotised boys into mirrors and ink-pools would help me to that. +But I recognised Grish Chunder’s point of view and sympathised with it. + +‘What a big black brute that was!’ said Charlie, when I returned to +him. ‘Well, look here, I’ve just done a poem; did it instead of playing +dominoes after lunch. May I read it?’ + +‘Let me read it to myself.’ + +‘Then you miss the proper expression. Besides, you always make my +things sound as if the rhymes were all wrong.’ + +‘Read it aloud, then. You’re like the rest of ’em.’ + +Charlie mouthed me his poem, and it was not much worse than the average +of his verses. He had been reading his books faithfully, but he was not +pleased when I told him that I preferred my Longfellow undiluted with +Charlie. + +Then we began to go through the MS. line by line; Charlie parrying +every objection and correction with: + +‘Yes, that may be better, but you don’t catch what I’m driving at.’ + +Charlie was, in one way at least, very like one kind of poet. + +There was a pencil scrawl at the back of the paper and ‘What’s that?’ I +said. + +‘Oh that’s not poetry at all. It’s some rot I wrote last night before I +went to bed, and it was too much bother to hunt for rhymes; so I made +it a sort of blank verse instead. + +Here is Charlie’s ‘blank verse’:-- + + ‘We pulled for you when the wind was against us and the sails were + low. + + _Will you never let us go?_ + + We ate bread and onions when you took towns, or ran aboard quickly + when you were beaten back by the foe, + + The captains walked up and down the deck in fair weather singing + songs, but we were below, + + We fainted with our chins on the oars and you did not see that we + were idle for we still swung to and fro. + + _Will you never let us go?_ + + The salt made the oar-handles like shark-skin; our knees were cut to + the bone with salt cracks; our hair was stuck to our foreheads; and + our lips were cut to our gums and you whipped us because we could not + row. + + _Will you never let us go?_ + + But in a little time we shall run out of the portholes as the water + runs along the oar-blade, and though you tell the others to row after + us you will never catch us till you catch the oar-thresh and tie up + the winds in the belly of the sail. Aho! + + _Will you never let us go?_’ + +‘H’m. What’s oar-thresh, Charlie?’ + +‘The water washed up by the oars. That’s the sort of song they might +sing in the galley y’ know. Aren’t you ever going to finish that story +and give me some of the profits?’ + +‘It depends on yourself. If you had only told me more about your hero +in the first instance it might have been finished by now. You’re so +hazy in your notions.’ + +‘I only want to give you the general notion of it--the knocking about +from place to place and the fighting and all that. Can’t you fill in +the rest yourself? Make the hero save a girl on a pirate-galley and +marry her or do something.’ + +‘You’re a really helpful collaborator. I suppose the hero went through +some few adventures before he married.’ + +‘Well then, make him a very artful card--a low sort of man--a sort +of political man who went about making treaties and breaking them--a +black-haired chap who hid behind the mast when the fighting began.’ + +‘But you said the other day that he was red-haired.’ + +‘I couldn’t have. Make him black-haired of course. You’ve no +imagination.’ + +Seeing that I had just discovered the entire principles upon which the +half-memory falsely called imagination is based, I felt entitled to +laugh, but forbore, for the sake of the tale. + +‘You’re right. _You’re_ the man with imagination. A black-haired chap +in a decked ship,’ I said. + +‘No, an open ship--like a big boat.’ + +This was maddening. + +‘Your ship has been built and designed, closed and decked in; you said +so yourself,’ I protested. + +‘No, no, not that ship. That was open or half-decked because---- By +Jove, you’re right. You made me think of the hero as a red-haired chap. +Of course if he were red, the ship would be an open one with painted +sails.’ + +Surely, I thought, he would remember now that he had served in two +galleys at least--in a three-decked Greek one under the black-haired +‘political man,’ and again in a Viking’s open sea-serpent under the +man ‘red as a red bear’ who went to Markland. The devil prompted me to +speak. + +‘Why, “of course,” Charlie?’ said I. + +‘I don’t know. Are you making fun of me?’ + +The current was broken for the time being. I took up a note-book and +pretended to make many entries in it. + +‘It’s a pleasure to work with an imaginative chap like yourself,’ I +said, after a pause. ‘The way that you’ve brought out the character of +the hero is simply wonderful.’ + +‘Do you think so?’ he answered, with a pleased flush. ‘I often tell +myself that there’s more in me than my mo----than people think.’ + +‘There’s an enormous amount in you.’ + +‘Then, won’t you let me send an essay on The Ways of Bank-Clerks to +_Tit-Bits_, and get the guinea prize?’ + +‘That wasn’t exactly what I meant, old fellow: perhaps it would be +better to wait a little and go ahead with the galley-story.’ + +‘Ah, but I sha’n’t get the credit of that. _Tit-Bits_ would publish my +name and address if I win. What are you grinning at? They _would_.’ + +‘I know it. Suppose you go for a walk. I want to look through my notes +about our story.’ + +Now this reprehensible youth who left me, a little hurt and put back, +might for aught he or I knew have been one of the crew of the Argo--had +been certainly slave or comrade to Thorfin Karlsefne. Therefore +he was deeply interested in guinea competitions. Remembering what +Grish Chunder had said I laughed aloud. The Lords of Life and Death +would never allow Charlie Mears to speak with full knowledge of his +pasts, and I must even piece out what he had told me with my own poor +inventions while Charlie wrote of the ways of bank-clerks. + +I got together and placed on one file all my notes; and the net +result was not cheering. I read them a second time. There was nothing +that might not have been compiled at second-hand from other people’s +books--except, perhaps, the story of the fight in the harbour. The +adventures of a Viking had been written many times before; the history +of a Greek galley-slave was no new thing, and though I wrote both, who +could challenge or confirm the accuracy of my details? I might as well +tell a tale of two thousand years hence. The Lords of Life and Death +were as cunning as Grish Chunder had hinted. They would allow nothing +to escape that might trouble or make easy the minds of men. Though I +was convinced of this, yet I could not leave the tale alone. Exaltation +followed reaction, not once, but twenty times in the next few weeks. +My moods varied with the March sunlight and flying clouds. By night or +in the beauty of a spring morning I perceived that I could write that +tale and shift continents thereby. In the wet windy afternoons, I saw +that the tale might indeed be written, but would be nothing more than +a faked, false-varnished, sham-rusted piece of Wardour Street work in +the end. Then I blessed Charlie in many ways--though it was no fault of +his. He seemed to be busy with prize competitions, and I saw less and +less of him as the weeks went by and the earth cracked and grew ripe to +spring, and the buds swelled in their sheaths. He did not care to read +or talk of what he had read, and there was a new ring of self-assertion +in his voice. I hardly cared to remind him of the galley when we met; +but Charlie alluded to it on every occasion, always as a story from +which money was to be made. + +‘I think I deserve twenty-five per cent, don’t I, at least?’ he said, +with beautiful frankness. ‘I supplied all the ideas, didn’t I?’ + +This greediness for silver was a new side in his nature. I assumed that +it had been developed in the City, where Charlie was picking up the +curious nasal drawl of the underbred City man. + +‘When the thing’s done we’ll talk about it. I can’t make anything of +it at present. Red-haired or black-haired hero are equally difficult.’ + +He was sitting by the fire staring at the red coals. ‘_I_ can’t +understand what you find so difficult. It’s all as clear as mud to +me,’ he replied. A jet of gas puffed out between the bars, took light, +and whistled softly. ‘Suppose we take the red-haired hero’s adventures +first, from the time that he came south to my galley and captured it +and sailed to the Beaches.’ + +I knew better now than to interrupt Charlie. I was out of reach of +pen and paper, and dared not move to get them lest I should break the +current. The gas-jet puffed and whinnied, Charlie’s voice dropped +almost to a whisper, and he told a tale of the sailing of an open +galley to Furdurstrandi, of sunsets on the open sea, seen under the +curve of the one sail evening after evening when the galley’s beak was +notched into the centre of the sinking disc, and ‘we sailed by that +for we had no other guide,’ quoth Charlie. He spoke of a landing on an +island and explorations in its woods, where the crew killed three men +whom they found asleep under the pines. Their ghosts, Charlie said, +followed the galley, swimming and choking in the water, and the crew +cast lots and threw one of their number overboard as a sacrifice to +the strange gods whom they had offended. Then they ate sea-weed when +their provisions failed, and their legs swelled, and their leader, the +red-haired man, killed two rowers who mutinied, and after a year spent +among the woods they set sail for their own country, and a wind that +never failed carried them back so safely that they all slept at night. +This, and much more Charlie told. Sometimes the voice fell so low that +I could not catch the words, though every nerve was on the strain. He +spoke of their leader, the red-haired man, as a pagan speaks of his +God; for it was he who cheered them and slew them impartially as he +thought best for their needs; and it was he who steered them for three +days among floating ice, each floe crowded with strange beasts that +‘tried to sail with us,’ said Charlie, ‘and we beat them back with the +handles of the oars.’ + +The gas-jet went out, a burnt coal gave way, and the fire settled with +a tiny crash to the bottom of the grate. Charlie ceased speaking, and I +said no word. + +‘By Jove!’ he said at last, shaking his head. ‘I’ve been staring at the +fire till I’m dizzy. What was I going to say?’ + +‘Something about the galley-book.’ + +‘I remember now. It’s twenty-five per cent of the profits, isn’t it?’ + +‘It’s anything you like when I’ve done the tale.’ + +‘I wanted to be sure of that. I must go now. I’ve--I’ve an +appointment.’ And he left me. + +Had not my eyes been held I might have known that that broken muttering +over the fire was the swan-song of Charlie Mears. But I thought it the +prelude to fuller revelation. At last and at last I should cheat the +Lords of Life and Death! + +When next Charlie came to me I received him with rapture. He was +nervous and embarrassed, but his eyes were very full of light, and his +lips a little parted. + +‘I’ve done a poem,’ he said; and then, quickly: ‘It’s the best I’ve +ever done. Read it.’ He thrust it into my hand and retreated to the +window. + +I groaned inwardly. It would be the work of half an hour to +criticise--that is to say, praise--the poem sufficiently to please +Charlie. Then I had good reason to groan, for Charlie, discarding his +favourite centipede metres, had launched into shorter and choppier +verse, and verse with a motive at the back of it. This is what I read:-- + + ‘The day is most fair, the cheery wind + Halloos behind the hill, + Where he bends the wood as seemeth good, + And the sapling to his will! + Riot, O wind; there is that in my blood + That would not have thee still! + + ‘She gave me herself, O Earth, O Sky; + Gray sea, she is mine alone! + Let the sullen boulders hear my cry, + And rejoice tho’ they be but stone! + + ‘Mine! I have won her, O good brown earth, + Make merry! ’Tis hard on Spring; + Make merry; my love is doubly worth + All worship your fields can bring! + Let the hind that tills you feel my mirth + At the early harrowing!’ + +‘Yes, it’s the early harrowing, past a doubt,’ I said, with a dread at +my heart. Charlie smiled, but did not answer. + + ‘Red cloud of the sunset, tell it abroad; + I am victor. Greet me, O Sun, + Dominant master and absolute lord + Over the soul of one!’ + +‘Well?’ said Charlie, looking over my shoulder. + +I thought it far from well, and very evil indeed, when he silently laid +a photograph on the paper--the photograph of a girl with a curly head, +and a foolish slack mouth. + +‘Isn’t it--isn’t it wonderful?’ he whispered, pink to the tips of his +ears, wrapped in the rosy mystery of first love. ‘I didn’t know; I +didn’t think--it came like a thunderclap.’ + +‘Yes. It comes like a thunderclap. Are you very happy, Charlie?’ + +‘My God--she--she loves me!’ He sat down repeating the last words to +himself. I looked at the hairless face, the narrow shoulders already +bowed by desk-work, and wondered when, where, and how he had loved in +his past lives. + +‘What will your mother say?’ I asked cheerfully. + +‘I don’t care a damn what she says!’ + +At twenty the things for which one does not care a damn should, +properly, be many, but one must not include mothers in the list. I told +him this gently; and he described Her, even as Adam must have described +to the newly-named beasts the glory and tenderness and beauty of Eve. +Incidentally I learned that She was a tobacconist’s assistant with a +weakness for pretty dress, and had told him four or five times already +that She had never been kissed by a man before. + +Charlie spoke on and on, and on; while I, separated from him by +thousands of years, was considering the beginnings of things. Now I +understood why the Lords of Life and Death shut the doors so carefully +behind us. It is that we may not remember our first and most beautiful +wooings. Were this not so, our world would be without inhabitants in a +hundred years. + +‘Now, about that galley-story,’ I said still more cheerfully, in a +pause in the rush of the speech. + +Charlie looked up as though he had been hit. ‘The galley--what galley? +Good heavens, don’t joke, man! This is serious! You don’t know how +serious it is!’ + +Grish Chunder was right. Charlie had tasted the love of woman that +kills remembrance, and the finest story in the world would never be +written. + + + + + HIS PRIVATE HONOUR. + + +The autumn batch of recruits for the Old Regiment had just been +uncarted. As usual they were said to be the worst draft that had ever +come from the Depôt. Mulvaney looked them over, grunted scornfully, and +immediately reported himself very sick. + +‘Is it the regular autumn fever?’ said the doctor, who knew something +of Terence’s ways. ‘Your temperature’s normal.’ + +‘’Tis wan hundred and thirty-seven rookies to the bad, sorr. I’m not +very sick now, but I will be dead if these boys are thrown at me in my +rejuced condition. Doctor, dear, supposin’ you was in charge of three +cholera camps an’----’ + +‘Go to hospital then, you old contriver,’ said the doctor, laughing. + +Terence bundled himself into a blue bedgown,--Dinah Shadd was away +attending to a major’s lady, who preferred Dinah without a diploma to +anybody else with a hundred,--put a pipe in his teeth, and paraded the +hospital balcony, exhorting Ortheris to be a father to the new recruits. + +‘They’re mostly your own sort, little man,’ he said, with a grin; ‘the +top-spit av Whitechapel. I’ll interogue them whin they’re more like +something they never will be,--an’ that’s a good honest soldier like +me.’ + +Ortheris yapped indignantly. He knew as well as Terence what the coming +work meant, and he thought Terence’s conduct mean. Then he strolled +off to look at the new cattle, who were staring at the unfamiliar +landscape with large eyes, and asking if the kites were eagles and the +pariah-dogs jackals. + +‘Well, you are a holy set of bean-faced beggars, _you_ are,’ he said +genially to a knot in the barrack-square. Then, running his eye over +them,--‘Fried fish an’ whelks is about your sort. Blimy if they haven’t +sent some pink-eyed Jews too. You chap with the greasy ’ed, which o’ +the Solomons was your father, Moses?’ + +‘My name’s Anderson,’ said a voice sullenly. + +‘Oh, Samuelson! All right, Samuelson! An’ ’ow many o’ the likes o’ you +Sheenies are comin’ to spoil B Company?’ + +There is no scorn so complete as that of the old soldier for the new. +It is right that this should be so. A recruit must learn first that he +is not a man but a thing, which in time, and by the mercy of Heaven, +may develop into a soldier of the Queen if it takes care and attends +to good advice. Ortheris’s tunic was open, his cap overlopped one +eye, and his hands were behind his back as he walked round, growing +more contemptuous at each step. The recruits did not dare to answer, +for they were new boys in a strange school, who had called themselves +soldiers at the Depôt in comfortable England. + +‘Not a single pair o’ shoulders in the whole lot. I’ve seen some bad +drafts in my time,--some bloomin’ bad drafts; but this ’ere draft +beats any draft I’ve ever known. Jock, come an’ look at these squidgy, +ham-shanked beggars.’ + +Learoyd was walking across the square. He arrived slowly, circled round +the knot as a whale circles round a shoal of small fry, said nothing, +and went away whistling. + +‘Yes, you may well look sheepy,’ Ortheris squeaked to the boys. ‘It’s +the likes of you breaks the ’earts of the likes of us. We’ve got to +lick you into shape, and never a ha’penny extry do we get for so doin’, +and you ain’t never grateful neither. Don’t you go thinkin’ it’s the +Colonel nor yet the company orf’cer that makes you. It’s _us_, you +Johnnie Raws--you Johnnie _bloomin’_ Raws!’ + +A company officer had come up unperceived behind Ortheris at the end +of this oration. ‘You may be right, Ortheris,’ he said quietly, ‘but +I shouldn’t shout it.’ The recruits grinned as Ortheris saluted and +collapsed. + +Some days afterwards I was privileged to look over the new batch, +and they were everything that Ortheris had said, and more. B Company +had been devastated by forty or fifty of them; and B Company’s drill +on parade was a sight to shudder at. Ortheris asked them lovingly +whether they had not been sent out by mistake, and whether they had not +better post themselves back to their friends. Learoyd thrashed them +methodically one by one, without haste but without slovenliness; and +the older soldiers took the remnants from Learoyd and went over them in +their own fashion. Mulvaney stayed in hospital, and grinned from the +balcony when Ortheris called him a shirker and other worse names. + +‘By the grace av God we’ll brew men av them yet,’ Terence said one +day. ‘Be vartuous an’ parsevere, me son. There’s the makin’s av +colonels in that mob if we only go deep enough--wid a belt.’ + +‘We!’ Ortheris replied, dancing with rage. ‘I just love you and your +“we’s.” ’Ere’s B Company drillin’ like a drunk Militia reg’ment.’ + +‘So I’ve been officially acquent,’ was the answer from on high; ‘but +I’m too sick this tide to make certain.’ + +‘An’ you, you fat H’irishman, shiftin’ an’ shirkin’ up there among the +arrerroot an’ the sago!’ + +‘_An’_ the port wine,--you’ve forgot the port wine, Orth’ris: ’tis none +so bad.’ Terence smacked his lips provokingly. + +‘And we’re wore off our feet with these ’ere--kangaroos. Come out o’ +that, an’ earn your pay. Come on down outer that, an’ _do_ something +’stead o’ grinnin’ up there like a Jew monkey, you frowsy-’eaded +Fenian!’ + +‘When I’m better av my various complaints I’ll have a little private +talkin’ wid you. In the meanwhile,--duck!’ + +Terence flung an empty medicine bottle at Ortheris’s head and dropped +into a long chair, and Ortheris came to tell me his opinion of Mulvaney +three times over,--each time entirely varying all the words. + +‘There’ll be a smash one o’ these days,’ he concluded. ‘Well, it’s none +o’ my fault, but it’s ’ard on B Company.’ + +It was very hard on B Company, for twenty seasoned men cannot push +twice that number of fools into their places and keep their own +places at the same time. The recruits should have been more evenly +distributed through the regiment, but it seemed good to the Colonel +to mass them in a company where there was a fair proportion of old +soldiers. He found his reward early one morning when the battalion was +advancing by companies in echelon from the right. The order was given +to form company squares, which are compact little bricks of men very +unpleasant for a line of charging cavalry to deal with. B Company was +on the left flank, and had ample time to know what was going on. For +that reason presumably it gathered itself into a thing like a decayed +aloe-clump, the bayonets pointing anywhere in general and nowhere in +particular; and in that clump, roundel, or mob, it stayed till the dust +had gone down and the Colonel could see and speak. He did both, and +the speaking part was admitted by the regiment to be the finest thing +that the ‘old man’ had ever risen to since one delightful day at a +sham-fight, when a cavalry division had occasion to walk over his line +of skirmishers. He said, almost weeping, that he had given no order +for rallying groups, and that he preferred to see a little dressing +among the men occasionally. He then apologised for having mistaken B +Company for men. He said that they were but weak little children, and +that since he could not offer them each a perambulator and a nursemaid +(this may sound comic to read, but B Company heard it by word of mouth +and winced) perhaps the best thing for them to do would be to go back +to squad-drill. To that end he proposed sending them, out of their +turn, to garrison duty in Fort Amara, five miles away,--D Company were +next for this detestable duty and nearly cheered the Colonel. There he +devoutly hoped that their own subalterns would drill them to death, as +they were of no use in their present life. + +It was an exceedingly painful scene, and I made haste to be near B +Company barracks when parade was dismissed and the men were free to +talk. There was no talking at first, because each old soldier took a +new draft and kicked him very severely. The non-commissioned officers +had neither eyes nor ears for these accidents. They left the barracks +to themselves, and Ortheris improved the occasion by a speech. I +did not hear that speech, but fragments of it were quoted for weeks +afterwards. It covered the birth, parentage, and education of every man +in the company by name: it gave a complete account of Fort Amara from +a sanitary and social point of view; and it wound up with an abstract +of the whole duty of a soldier, each recruit his use in life, and +Ortheris’s views on the use and fate of the recruits of B Company. + +‘You can’t drill, you can’t walk, you can’t shoot,--you,--you awful +rookies! Wot’s the good of you? You eats and you sleeps, and you eats, +and you goes to the doctor for medicine when your innards is out o’ +order for all the world as if you was bloomin’ generals. An’ now you’ve +topped it all, you bats’-eyed beggars, with getting us druv out to that +stinkin’ Fort ’Ammerer. We’ll fort you when we get out there; yes, an’ +we’ll ’ammer you too. Don’t you think you’ve come into the H’army to +drink Heno, an’ club your comp’ny, an’ lie on your cots an’ scratch +your fat heads. You can do that at ’ome sellin’ matches, which is all +you’re fit for, you keb-huntin’, penny-toy, bootlace, baggage-tout, +’orse-’oldin’, sandwich-backed se-werss, you.[3] I’ve spoke you as +fair as I know ’ow, and you give good ’eed, ’cause if Mulvaney stops +skrimshanking--gets out o’ ’orspital--when we’re in the Fort, I lay +your lives will be trouble to you.’ + +That was Ortheris’s peroration, and it caused B Company to be +christened the Boot-black Brigade. With this disgrace on their slack +shoulders they went to garrison duty at Fort Amara with their officers, +who were under instructions to twist their little tails. The army, +unlike every other profession, cannot be taught through shilling +books. First a man must suffer, then he must learn his work, and the +self-respect that that knowledge brings. The learning is hard, in a +land where the army is not a red thing that walks down the street to +be looked at, but a living tramping reality that may be needed at the +shortest notice, when there is no time to say, ‘Hadn’t you better?’ and +‘Won’t you please?’ + +The company officers divided themselves into three. When Brander the +captain was wearied, he gave over to Maydew, and when Maydew was hoarse +he ordered the junior subaltern Ouless to bucket the men through squad +and company drill, till Brander could go on again. Out of parade hours +the old soldiers spoke to the recruits as old soldiers will, and +between the four forces at work on them, the new draft began to stand +on their feet and feel that they belonged to a good and honourable +service. This was proved by their once or twice resenting Ortheris’s +technical lectures. + +‘Drop it now, lad,’ said Learoyd, coming to the rescue. ‘Th’ pups are +biting back. They’re none so rotten as we looked for.’ + +‘Ho! Yes. You think yourself soldiers now, ’cause you don’t fall over +each other on p’rade, don’t you? You think ’cause the dirt don’t cake +off you week’s end to week’s end that you’re clean men. You think +’cause you can fire your rifle without more nor shuttin’ both eyes, +you’re something to fight, don’t you? You’ll know later on,’ said +Ortheris to the barrack-room generally. ‘Not but what you’re a little +better than you was,’ he added, with a gracious wave of his cutty. + +It was in this transition-stage that I came across the new draft once +more. Their officers, in the zeal of youth forgetting that the old +soldiers who stiffened the sections must suffer equally with the raw +material under hammering, had made all a little stale and unhandy +with continuous drill in the square, instead of marching the men into +the open and supplying them with skirmishing drill. The month of +garrison-duty in the Fort was nearly at an end, and B Company were +quite fit for a self-respecting regiment to drill with. They had +no style or spring,--that would come in time,--but so far as they +went they were passable. I met Maydew one day and inquired after +their health. He told me that young Ouless was putting a polish on a +half-company of them in the great square by the east bastion of the +Fort that afternoon. Because the day was Saturday I went off to taste +the full beauty of leisure in watching another man hard at work. + +The fat forty-pound muzzle-loaders on the east bastion made a very +comfortable resting-place. You could sprawl full length on the iron +warmed by the afternoon sun to blood heat, and command an easy view of +the parade-ground which lay between the powder-magazine and the curtain +of the bastion. + +I saw a half-company called over and told off for drill, saw Ouless +come from his quarters, tugging at his gloves, and heard the first +_’Shun!_ that locks the ranks and shows that work has begun. Then I +went off on my own thoughts; the squeaking of the boots and the rattle +of the rifles making a good accompaniment, and the line of red coats +and black trousers a suitable background to them all. They concerned +the formation of a territorial army for India,--an army of specially +paid men enlisted for twelve years’ service in Her Majesty’s Indian +possessions, with the option of extending on medical certificates for +another five and the certainty of a pension at the end. They would +be such an army as the world had never seen,--one hundred thousand +trained men drawing annually five, no, fifteen thousand men from +England, making India their home, and allowed to marry in reason. Yes, +I thought, watching the line shift to and fro, break and re-form, we +would buy back Cashmere from the drunken imbecile who was turning it +into a hell, and there we would plant our much-married regiments,--the +men who had served ten years of their time,--and there they should +breed us white soldiers, and perhaps a second fighting-line of +Eurasians. At all events Cashmere was the only place in India that the +Englishman could colonise, and if we had foot-hold there we could.... +Oh, it was a beautiful dream! I left that territorial army swelled +to a quarter of a million men far behind, swept on as far as an +independent India, hiring war-ships from the mother-country, guarding +Aden on the one side and Singapore on the other, paying interest on +her loans with beautiful regularity, but borrowing no men from beyond +her own borders--a colonised, manufacturing India with a permanent +surplus and her own flag. I had just installed myself as Viceroy, +and by virtue of my office had shipped four million sturdy thrifty +natives to the Malayan Archipelago, where labour is always wanted and +the Chinese pour in too quickly, when I became aware that things were +not going smoothly with the half-company. There was a great deal too +much shuffling and shifting and ‘as you were-ing.’ The non-commissioned +officers were snapping at the men, and I fancied Ouless backed one of +his orders with an oath. He was in no position to do this, because he +was a junior who had not yet learned to pitch his word of command in +the same key twice running. Sometimes he squeaked, and sometimes he +grunted; and a clear full voice with a ring in it has more to do with +drill than people think. He was nervous both on parade and in mess, +because he was unproven and knew it. One of his majors had said in +his hearing, ‘Ouless has a skin or two to slough yet, and he hasn’t +the sense to be aware of it.’ That remark had stayed in Ouless’s mind +and caused him to think about himself in little things, which is not +the best training for a young man. He tried to be cordial at mess, +and became over-effusive. Then he tried to stand on his dignity, and +appeared sulky and boorish. He was only hunting for the just medium +and the proper note, and had found neither because he had never faced +himself in a big thing. With his men he was as ill at ease as he was +with his mess, and his voice betrayed him. I heard two orders and +then:--‘Sergeant, what _is_ that rear-rank man doing, damn him?’ That +was sufficiently bad. A company officer ought not to ask sergeants for +information. He commands, and commands are not held by syndicates. + +It was too dusty to see the drill accurately, but I could hear the +excited little voice pitching from octave to octave, and the uneasy +ripple of badgered or bad-tempered files running down the ranks. Ouless +had come on parade as sick of his duty as were the men of theirs. The +hot sun had told on everybody’s temper, but most of all on the youngest +man’s. He had evidently lost his self-control, and not possessing the +nerve or the knowledge to break off till he had recovered it again, was +making bad worse by ill-language. + +The men shifted their ground and came close under the gun I was lying +on. They were wheeling quarter-right and they did it very badly, +in the natural hope of hearing Ouless swear again. He could have +taught them nothing new, but they enjoyed the exhibition. Instead of +swearing Ouless lost his head completely, and struck out nervously +at the wheeling flank-man with a little Malacca riding-cane that he +held in his hand for a pointer. The cane was topped with thin silver +over lacquer, and the silver had worn through in one place, leaving a +triangular flap sticking up. I had just time to see that Ouless had +thrown away his commission by striking a soldier, when I heard the rip +of cloth and a piece of gray shirt showed under the torn scarlet on the +man’s shoulder. It had been the merest nervous flick of an exasperated +boy, but quite enough to forfeit his commission, since it had been +dealt in anger to a volunteer and no pressed man, who could not under +the rules of the service reply. The effect of it, thanks to the natural +depravity of things, was as though Ouless had cut the man’s coat off +his back. Knowing the new draft by reputation, I was fairly certain +that every one of them would swear with many oaths that Ouless had +actually thrashed the man. In that case Ouless would do well to pack +his trunk. His career as a servant of the Queen in any capacity was +ended. The wheel continued, and the men halted and dressed immediately +opposite my resting-place. Ouless’s face was perfectly bloodless. The +flanking man was a dark red, and I could see his lips moving in wicked +words. He was Ortheris! After seven years’ service and three medals, +he had been struck by a boy younger than himself! Further, he was my +friend and a good man, a proved man, and an Englishman. The shame of +the thing made me as hot as it made Ouless cold, and if Ortheris had +slipped in a cartridge and cleared the account at once I should have +rejoiced. The fact that Ortheris, of all men, had been struck, proved +that the boy could not have known whom he was hitting; but he should +have remembered that he was no longer a boy. And then I was sorry for +him, and then I was angry again, and Ortheris stared in front of him +and grew redder and redder. + +The drill halted for a moment. No one knew why, for not three men could +have seen the insult, the wheel being end-on to Ouless at the time. +Then, led, I conceived, by the hand of Fate, Brander, the captain, +crossed the drill-ground, and his eye was caught by not more than a +square foot of gray shirt over a shoulder-blade that should have been +covered by well-fitting tunic. + +‘Heavens and earth!’ he said, crossing in three strides. ‘Do you let +your men come on parade in rags, sir? What’s that scare-crow doing +here? Fall out, that flank-man. What do you mean by----_You_, Ortheris! +of all men. What the deuce do you mean?’ + +‘Beg y’ pardon, sir,’ said Ortheris. ‘I scratched it against the +guard-gate running up to parade.’ + +‘Scratched it! Ripped it up, you mean. It’s half off your back.’ + +‘It was a little tear at first, sir, but in portin’ arms it got +stretched, sir, an’--an’ I can’t look be’ind me. I felt it givin’, sir.’ + +‘Hm!’ said Brander. ‘I should think you did feel it give. I thought it +was one of the new draft. You’ve a good pair of shoulders. Go on!’ + +He turned to go. Ouless stepped after him, very white, and said +something in a low voice. + +‘Hey, what? What? Ortheris,’ the voice dropped. I saw Ortheris salute, +say something, and stand at attention. + +‘Dismiss,’ said Brander curtly. The men were dismissed. ‘I can’t make +this out. You say----?’ he nodded at Ouless, who said something again. +Ortheris stood still, the torn flap of his tunic falling nearly to his +waist-belt. He had, as Brander said, a good pair of shoulders, and +prided himself on the fit of his tunic. + +‘Beg y’ pardon, sir,’ I heard him say, ‘but I think Lieutenant Ouless +has been in the sun too long. He don’t quite remember things, sir. I +come on p’rade with a bit of a rip, and it spread, sir, through portin’ +arms, as I ’ave said, sir.’ + +Brander looked from one face to the other and I suppose drew his own +conclusions, for he told Ortheris to go with the other men who were +flocking back to barracks. Then he spoke to Ouless and went away, +leaving the boy in the middle of the parade-ground fumbling with his +sword-knot. + +He looked up, saw me lying on the gun, and came to me biting the back +of his gloved forefinger, so completely thrown off his balance that he +had not sense enough to keep his trouble to himself. + +‘I say, you saw that, I suppose?’ He jerked his head back to the +square, where the dust left by the departing men was settling down in +white circles. + +‘I did,’ I answered, for I was not feeling polite. + +‘What the devil ought I to do?’ He bit his finger again. ‘I told +Brander what I had done. I hit him.’ + +‘I’m perfectly aware of that,’ I said, ‘and I don’t suppose Ortheris +has forgotten it already.’ + +‘Ye--es; but I’m dashed if I know what I ought to do. Exchange into +another company, I suppose. I can’t ask the man to exchange, I suppose. +Hey?’ + +The suggestion showed the glimmerings of proper sense, but he should +not have come to me or any one else for help. It was his own affair, +and I told him so. He seemed unconvinced, and began to talk of the +possibilities of being cashiered. At this point the spirit moved me, +on behalf of the unavenged Ortheris, to paint him a beautiful picture +of his insignificance in the scheme of creation. He had a papa and a +mamma seven thousand miles away, and perhaps some friends. They would +feel his disgrace, but no one else would care a penny. He would be only +Lieutenant Ouless of the Old Regiment dismissed the Queen’s service for +conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. The Commander-in-Chief, +who would confirm the orders of the court-martial, would not know who +he was; his mess would not speak of him; he would return to Bombay, +if he had money enough to go home, more alone than when he had come +out. Finally,--I rounded the sketch with precision,--he was only one +tiny dab of red in the vast gray field of the Indian Empire. He must +work this crisis out alone, and no one could help him, and no one +cared--(this was untrue, because I cared immensely; he had spoken the +truth to Brander on the spot)--whether he pulled through it or did not +pull through it. At last his face set and his figure stiffened. + +‘Thanks, that’s quite enough. I don’t want to hear any more,’ he said +in a dry grating voice, and went to his own quarters. + +Brander spoke to me afterwards and asked me some absurd +question--whether I had seen Ouless cut the coat off Ortheris’s back. +I knew that jagged sliver of silver would do its work well, but I +contrived to impress on Brander the completeness, the wonderful +completeness, of my disassociation from that drill. I began to tell him +all about my dreams for the new territorial army in India, and he left +me. + +I could not see Ortheris for some days, but I learnt that when he +returned to his fellows he had told the story of the blow in vivid +language. Samuelson, the Jew, then asserted that it was not good enough +to live in a regiment where you were drilled off your feet and knocked +about like a dog. The remark was a perfectly innocent one, and exactly +tallied with Ortheris’s expressed opinions. Yet Ortheris had called +Samuelson an unmentionable Jew, had accused him of kicking women on +the head in London, and howling under the cat, had hustled him, as a +bantam hustles a barn-door cock, from one end of the barrack-room to +the other, and finally had heaved every single article of Samuelson’s +valise and bedding-roll into the verandah and the outer dirt, kicking +Samuelson every time that the bewildered creature stooped to pick +anything up. My informant could not account for this inconsistency, but +it seemed to me that Ortheris was working off his temper. + +Mulvaney had heard the story in hospital. First his face clouded, then +he spat, and then laughed. I suggested that he had better return to +active duty, but he saw it in another light, and told me that Ortheris +was quite capable of looking after himself and his own affairs. ‘An’ +if I did come out,’ said Terence, ‘like as not I would be catchin’ +young Ouless by the scruff av his trousies an’ makin’ an example av him +before the men. Whin Dinah came back I would be under court-martial, +an’ all for the sake av a little bit av a bhoy that’ll make an orf’cer +yet. What’s he goin’ to do, sorr, do ye know?’ + +‘Which?’ said I. + +‘Ouless, av course. I’ve no fear for the _man_. Begad, tho’, if ut had +come to me--but ut could not have so come--I’d ha’ made him cut his +wisdom-teeth on his own sword-hilt.’ + +‘I don’t think he knows himself what he means to do,’ I said. + +‘I should not wonder,’ said Terence. ‘There’s a dale av thinkin’ before +a young man whin he’s done wrong an’ knows ut, an’ is studyin’ how to +put ut right. Give the word from me to our little man there, that if he +had ha’ told on his shuperior orf’cer I’d ha’ come out to Fort Amara to +kick him into the Fort ditch, an’ that’s a forty-fut drop.’ + +Ortheris was not in good condition to talk to. He wandered up and down +with Learoyd brooding, so far as I could see, over his lost honour, +and using, as I could hear, incendiary language. Learoyd would nod and +spit and smoke and nod again, and he must have been a great comfort to +Ortheris--almost as great a comfort as Samuelson, whom Ortheris bullied +disgracefully. If the Jew opened his mouth in the most casual remark +Ortheris would plunge down it with all arms and accoutrements, while +the barrack-room stared and wondered. + +Ouless had retired into himself to meditate. I saw him now and again, +and he avoided me because I had witnessed his shame and spoken my mind +on it. He seemed dull and moody, and found his half-company anything +but pleasant to drill. The men did their work and gave him very little +trouble, but just when they should have been feeling their feet, +and showing that they felt them by spring and swing and snap, the +elasticity died out, and it was only drilling with war-game blocks. +There is a beautiful little ripple in a well-made line of men, exactly +like the play of a perfectly-tempered sword. Ouless’s half-company +moved as a broomstick moves, and would have broken as easily. + +I was speculating whether Ouless had sent money to Ortheris, which +would have been bad, or had apologised to him in private, which would +have been worse, or had decided to let the whole affair slide, which +would have been worst of all, when orders came to me to leave the +station for a while. I had not spoken directly to Ortheris, for his +honour was not my honour, and he was its only guardian, and he would +not say anything except bad words. + +I went away, and from time to time thought a great deal of that +subaltern and that private in Fort Amara, and wondered what would be +the upshot of everything. + +When I returned it was early spring. B Company had been shifted from +the Fort to regular duty in cantonments, the roses were getting +ready to bud on the Mall, and the regiment, which had been at a +camp of exercise among other things, was going through its spring +musketry-course under an adjutant who had a notion that its shooting +average was low. He had stirred up the company officers and they had +bought extra ammunition for their men--the Government allowance is +just sufficient to foul the rifling--and E Company, which counted +many marksmen, was vapouring and offering to challenge all the other +companies, and the third-class shots were very sorry that they had ever +been born, and all the subalterns were a rich ripe saddle-colour from +sitting at the butts six and eight hours a day. + +I went off to the butts after breakfast very full of curiosity to see +how the new draft had come forward. Ouless was there with his men by +the bald hillock that marks the six hundred yards’ range, and the men +were in gray-green _khaki_, that shows the best points of a soldier +and shades off into every background he may stand against. Before I +was in hearing distance I could see, as they sprawled on the dusty +grass, or stood up and shook themselves, that they were men made over +again--wearing their helmets with the cock of self-possession, swinging +easily, and jumping to the word of command. Coming nearer, I heard +Ouless whistling _Ballyhooley_ between his teeth as he looked down the +range with his binoculars, and the back of Lieutenant Ouless was the +back of a free man and an officer. He nodded as I came up, and I heard +him fling an order to a non-commissioned officer in a sure and certain +voice. The flag ran up from the target, and Ortheris threw himself +down on his stomach to put in his ten shots. He winked at me over the +breechblock as he settled himself, with the air of a man who has to go +through tricks for the benefit of children. + +‘Watch, you men,’ said Ouless to the squad behind. ‘He’s half your +weight, Brannigan, but he isn’t afraid of his rifle.’ + +Ortheris had his little affectations and pet ways as the rest of us +have. He weighed his rifle, gave it a little kick-up, cuddled down +again, and fired across the ground that was beginning to dance in the +sun-heat. + +‘Miss!’ said a man behind. + +‘Too much bloomin’ background in front,’ Ortheris muttered. + +‘I should allow two feet for refraction,’ said Ouless. + +Ortheris fired again, made his outer, crept in, found the bull and +stayed there; the non-commissioned officer pricking off the shots. + +‘Can’t make out ’ow I missed that first,’ he said, rising, and stepping +back to my side, as Learoyd took his place. + +‘Is it company practice?’ I asked. + +‘No. Only just knockin’ about. Ouless, ’e’s givin’ ten rupees for +second-class shots. I’m outer it, of course, but I come on to show ’em +the proper style o’ doin’ things. Jock looks like a sea-lion at the +Brighton Aquarium sprawlin’ an’ crawlin’ down there, don’t ’e? Gawd, +what a butt this end of ’im would make.’ + +‘B Company has come up very well,’ I said. + +‘They ’ad to. They’re none so dusty now, are they? Samuelson even, ’e +can shoot sometimes. We’re gettin’ on as well as can be expected, thank +you.’ + +‘How do you get on with----?’ + +‘Oh, _’im_! First-rate! There’s nothin’ wrong with ’im.’ + +‘Was it all settled then?’ + +‘’Asn’t Terence told you? I should say it was. ’E’s a gentleman, ’e is.’ + +‘Let’s hear,’ I said. + +Ortheris twinkled all over, tucked his rifle across his knees and +repeated, ‘’E’s a gentleman. ’E’s an officer too. You saw all that +mess in Fort ’Ammerer. ’Twasn’t none o’ _my_ fault, as you can guess. +Only some goat in the drill judged it was be’aviour or something to +play the fool on p’rade. That’s why we drilled so bad. When ’e ’it me, +I was so took aback I couldn’t do nothing, an’ when I wished for to +knock ’im down the wheel ’ad gone on, an’ I was facin’ you there lyin’ +on the guns. After the captain had come up an’ was raggin’ me about +my tunic bein’ tore, I saw the young beggar’s eye, an’ ’fore I could +’elp myself I begun to lie like a good ’un. You ’eard that? It was +quite instinkive, but, my! I was in a lather. Then _he_ said to the +captain, “I struck ’im!” sez ’e, an’ I ’eard Brander whistle, an’ then +I come out with a new set o’ lies all about portin’ arms an’ ’ow the +rip growed, same as you ’eard. I done that too before I knew where I +was. Then I give Samuelson what-for in barricks when he was dismissed. +You should ha’ seen ’is kit by the time I’d finished with it. It was +all over the bloomin’ Fort! Then me an’ Jock went off to Mulvaney in +’orspital, five-mile walk, an’ I was hoppin’ mad. Ouless, ’e knowed it +was court-martial for me if I ’it ’im back--’e _must_ ha’ knowed. Well, +I sez to Terence, whisperin’ under the ’orspital balcony--“Terence,” +sez I, “what in ’ell am I to do?” I told ’im all about the row same as +you saw. Terence ’e whistles like a bloomin’ old bullfinch up there in +’orspital, an’ ’e sez, “You ain’t to blame,” sez ’e. “’Strewth,” sez +I, “d’you suppose I’ve come ’ere five mile in the sun to take blame?” +I sez. “I want that young beggar’s hide took off. I ain’t a bloomin’ +conscrip’,” I sez. “I’m a private servin’ of the Queen, an’ as good +a man as ’e is,” I sez, “for all ’is commission an’ ’is airs an’ ’is +money,” sez I.’ + +‘What a fool you were,’ I interrupted. Ortheris, being neither a menial +nor an American, but a free man, had no excuse for yelping. + +‘That’s exactly what Terence said. I wonder you set it the same way so +pat if ’e ’asn’t been talkin’ to you. ’E sez to me--“You ought to ’ave +more sense,” ’e sez, “at your time of life. What differ do it make to +you,” ’e sez, “whether ’e ’as a commission or no commission? That’s +none o’ your affair. It’s between man an’ man,” ’e sez, “if ’e ’eld +a general’s commission. Moreover,” ’e sez, “you don’t look ’andsome +’oppin’ about on your ’ind legs like that. Take him away, Jock.” Then +’e went inside, an’ that’s all I got outer Terence. Jock, ’e sez as +slow as a march in slow time,--“Stanley,” ’e sez, “that young beggar +didn’t _go_ for to ’it you.” “I don’t give a damn whether ’e did or +’e didn’t. ’It me ’e did,” I sez. “Then you’ve only got to report to +Brander,” sez Jock. “What d’yer take me for?” I sez, as I was so mad I +nearly ’it Jock. An’ he got me by the neck an’ shoved my ’ead into a +bucket o’ water in the cook-’ouse an’ then we went back to the Fort, +an’ I give Samuelson a little more trouble with ’is kit. ’E sez to me, +“_I_ haven’t been strook without ’ittin’ back.” “Well, you’re goin’ to +be now,” I sez, an’ I give ’im one or two for ’isself, an’ arxed ’im +very polite to ’it back, but he didn’t. I’d ha’ killed ’im if ’e ’ad. +That done me a lot o’ good. + +‘Ouless ’e didn’t make no show for some days,--not till after you was +gone; an’ I was feelin’ sick an’ miserable, an’ didn’t know what I +wanted, ’cept to black his little eyes good. I ’oped ’e might send me +some money for my tunic. Then I’d ha’ had it out with him on p’rade +and took my chance. Terence was in ’orspital still, you see, an’ ’e +wouldn’t give me no advice. + +‘The day after you left, Ouless come across me carrying a bucket on +fatigue, an’ e’ sez to me very quietly, “Ortheris, you’ve got to come +out shootin’ with me,” ’e sez. I felt like to bunging the bucket in ’is +eye, but I didn’t. I got ready to go instead. Oh, ’e’s a gentleman! We +went out together, neither sayin’ nothin’ to the other till we was well +out into the jungle beyond the river with ’igh grass all round,--pretty +near that place where I went off my ’ead with you. Then ’e puts his gun +down an’ sez very quietly: “Ortheris, I strook you on p’rade,” ’e sez. +“Yes, sir,” sez I, “you did.” “I’ve been studying it out by myself,” +’e sez. “Oh, you ’ave, ’ave you?” sez I to myself, “an’ a nice time +you’ve been about it, you bun-faced little beggar.” “Yes, sir,” sez I. +“What made you screen me?” ’e sez. “I don’t know,” I sez, an’ no more I +did, nor do. “I can’t ask you to exchange,” ’e sez. “An’ I don’t want +to exchange myself,” sez ’e. “What’s comin’ now?” I thinks to myself. +“Yes, sir,” sez I. He looks round at the ’igh grass all about, an’ ’e +sez to himself more than to me,--“I’ve got to go through it alone, by +myself!” ’E looked so queer for a minute that, s’elp me, I thought the +little beggar was going to pray. Then he turned round again an’ ’e sez, +“What do you think yourself?” ’e sez. “I don’t quite see what you mean, +sir,” I sez. “What would you like?” ’e sez. An’ I thought for a minute +’e was goin’ to give me money, but ’e run ’is ’and up to the top-button +of ’is shootin’ coat an’ loosed it. “Thank you, sir,” I sez. “I’d like +that very well,” I sez, an’ both our coats was off an’ put down.’ + +‘Hooray!’ I shouted incautiously. + +‘Don’t make a noise on the butts,’ said Ouless from the shooting-place. +‘It puts the men off.’ + +I apologised, and Ortheris went on. + +‘Our coats was off, an’ ’e sez, “Are you ready?” sez ’e. “Come on +then.” I come on, a bit uncertain at first, but he took me one under +the chin that warmed me up. I wanted to mark the little beggar an’ I +hit high, but he went an’ jabbed me over the heart like a good one. He +wasn’t so strong as me, but he knew more, an’ in about two minutes I +calls “Time.” ’E steps back,--it was in-fightin’ then: “Come on when +you’re ready,” ’e sez; and when I had my wind I come on again, an’ I +got ’im one on the nose that painted ’is little aristocratic white +shirt for ’im. That fetched ’im, an’ I knew it quicker nor light. He +come all round me, close-fightin’, goin’ steady for my heart. I held on +all I could an’ split ’is ear, but then I began to hiccup, an’ the game +was up. I come in to feel if I could throw ’im, an’ ’e got me one on +the mouth that downed me an’--look ’ere!’ + +Ortheris raised the left corner of his upper lip. An eye-tooth was +wanting. + +‘’E stood over me an’ ’e sez, “Have you ’ad enough?” ’e sez. “Thank +you, I ’ave,” sez I. He took my ’and an’ pulled me up, an’ I was pretty +shook. “Now,” ’e sez, “I’ll apologise for ’ittin’ you. It was all my +fault,” ’e sez, “an’ it wasn’t meant for you.” “I knowed that, sir,” I +sez, “an’ there’s no need for no apology.” “Then it’s an accident,” ’e +sez; “an’ you must let me pay for the coat. Else it’ll be stopped out +o’ your pay.” I wouldn’t ha’ took the money before, but I did then. +’E give me ten rupees,--enough to pay for a coat twice over, an’ we +went down to the river to wash our faces, which was well marked. His +was special. Then he sez to himself, sputterin’ the water out of ’is +mouth, “I wonder if I done right,” ’e sez. “Yes, sir,” sez I. “There’s +no fear about that.” “It’s all well for _you_,” ’e sez, “but what +about the comp’ny?” “Beggin’ your pardon, sir,” I sez, “I don’t think +the comp’ny will give no trouble.” Then we went shootin’, an’ when we +come back I was feelin’ as chirpy as a cricket, an’ I took an’ rolled +Samuelson up an’ down the verandah, an’ give out to the comp’ny that +the difficulty between me an’ Lieutenant Ouless was satisfactory put a +stop to. I told Jock, o’ course, an’ Terence. Jock didn’t say nothing, +but Terence ’e sez: “You’re a pair, you two. An’, begad, I don’t know +which was the better man.” There ain’t nothin’ wrong with Ouless. ’E’s +a gentleman all over, an’ ’e’s come on as much as B Comp’ny. I lay ’e’d +lose ’is commission, tho’, if it come out that ’e’d been fightin’ with +a private. Ho! ho! Fightin’ all an afternoon with a bloomin’ private +like me! What do you think?’ he added, brushing the breech of his rifle. + +‘I think what the umpires said at the sham-fight; both sides deserve +great credit. But I wish you’d tell me what made you save him in the +first place.’ + +‘I was pretty sure that ’e ’adn’t meant it for me, though that wouldn’t +ha’ made no difference if ’e’d been copped for it. An’ ’e was that +young too that it wouldn’t ha’ been fair. Besides, if I had ha’ done +that I’d ha’ missed the fight, and I’d ha’ felt bad all my time. Don’t +you see it that way, sir?’ + +‘It was your right to get him cashiered if you chose,’ I insisted. + +‘My right!’ Ortheris answered with deep scorn. ‘My right! I ain’t a +recruity to go whinin’ about my rights to this an’ my rights to that, +just as if I couldn’t look after myself. My rights! ’Strewth A’mighty! +I’m a man.’ + +The last squad were finishing their shots in a storm of low-voiced +chaff. Ouless withdrew to a little distance in order to leave the men +at ease, and I saw his face in the full sunlight for a moment, before +he hitched up his sword, got his men together, and marched them back to +barracks. It was all right. The boy was proven. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[3] Ortheris meant _soors_--which means pigs. + + + + + A MATTER OF FACT. + + + And if ye doubt the tale I tell, + Steer through the South Pacific swell; + Go where the branching coral hives + Unending strife of endless lives, + Where, leagued about the ’wildered boat, + The rainbow jellies fill and float; + And, lilting where the laver lingers, + The starfish trips on all her fingers; + Where, ’neath his myriad spines ashock, + The sea-egg ripples down the rock; + An orange wonder dimly guessed, + From darkness where the cuttles rest, + Moored o’er the darker deeps that hide + The blind white Sea-snake and his bride + Who, drowsing, nose the long-lost ships + Let down through darkness to their lips. + + --_The Palms._ + + +Once a priest, always a priest; once a mason, always a mason; but once +a journalist, always and for ever a journalist. + +There were three of us, all newspaper men, the only passengers on a +little tramp steamer that ran where her owners told her to go. She had +once been in the Bilbao iron ore business, had been lent to the Spanish +Government for service at Manilla; and was ending her days in the +Cape Town coolie-trade, with occasional trips to Madagascar and even +as far as England. We found her going to Southampton in ballast, and +shipped in her because the fares were nominal. There was Keller, of an +American paper, on his way back to the States from palace executions in +Madagascar; there was a burly half-Dutchman, called Zuyland, who owned +and edited a paper up-country near Johannesberg; and there was myself, +who had solemnly put away all journalism, vowing to forget that I had +ever known the difference between an imprint and a stereo advertisement. + +Ten minutes after Keller spoke to me, as the _Rathmines_ cleared Cape +Town, I had forgotten the aloofness I desired to feign, and was in +heated discussion on the immorality of expanding telegrams beyond a +certain fixed point. Then Zuyland came out of his cabin, and we were +all at home instantly, because we were men of the same profession +needing no introduction. We annexed the boat formally, broke open +the passengers’ bath-room door--on the Manilla lines the Dons do not +wash--cleaned out the orange-peel and cigar-ends at the bottom of the +bath, hired a Lascar to shave us throughout the voyage, and then asked +each other’s names. + +Three ordinary men would have quarrelled through sheer boredom before +they reached Southampton. We, by virtue of our craft, were anything +but ordinary men. A large percentage of the tales of the world, the +thirty-nine that cannot be told to ladies and the one that can, are +common property coming of a common stock. We told them all, as a +matter of form, with all their local and specific variants which are +surprising. Then came, in the intervals of steady card-play, more +personal histories of adventure and things seen and suffered: panics +among white folk, when the blind terror ran from man to man on the +Brooklyn Bridge, and the people crushed each other to death they knew +not why; fires, and faces that opened and shut their mouths horribly +at red-hot window frames; wrecks in frost and snow, reported from the +sleet-sheathed rescue-tug at the risk of frost-bite; long rides after +diamond thieves; skirmishes on the veldt and in municipal committees +with the Boers; glimpses of lazy tangled Cape politics and the +mule-rule in the Transvaal; card-tales, horse-tales, woman-tales, by +the score and the half hundred; till the first mate, who had seen more +than us all put together, but lacked words to clothe his tales with, +sat open-mouthed far into the dawn. + +When the tales were done we picked up cards till a curious hand or a +chance remark made one or other of us say, ‘That reminds me of a man +who--or a business which--’ and the anecdotes would continue while the +_Rathmines_ kicked her way northward through the warm water. + +In the morning of one specially warm night we three were sitting +immediately in front of the wheel-house, where an old Swedish boatswain +whom we called ‘Frithiof the Dane’ was at the wheel, pretending that +he could not hear our stories. Once or twice Frithiof spun the spokes +curiously, and Keller lifted his head from a long chair to ask, ‘What +is it? Can’t you get any steerage-way on her?’ + +‘There is a feel in the water,’ said Frithiof, ‘that I cannot +understand. I think that we run downhills or somethings. She steers bad +this morning.’ + +Nobody seems to know the laws that govern the pulse of the big waters. +Sometimes even a landsman can tell that the solid ocean is atilt, and +that the ship is working herself up a long unseen slope; and sometimes +the captain says, when neither full steam nor fair wind justifies the +length of a day’s run, that the ship is sagging downhill; but how these +ups and downs come about has not yet been settled authoritatively. + +‘No, it is a following sea,’ said Frithiof; ‘and with a following sea +you shall not get good steerage-way.’ + +The sea was as smooth as a duck-pond, except for a regular oily swell. +As I looked over the side to see where it might be following us from, +the sun rose in a perfectly clear sky and struck the water with its +light so sharply that it seemed as though the sea should clang like a +burnished gong. The wake of the screw and the little white streak cut +by the log-line hanging over the stern were the only marks on the water +as far as eye could reach. + +Keller rolled out of his chair and went aft to get a pine-apple from +the ripening stock that was hung inside the after awning. + +‘Frithiof, the log-line has got tired of swimming. It’s coming home,’ +he drawled. + +‘What?’ said Frithiof, his voice jumping several octaves. + +‘Coming home,’ Keller repeated, leaning over the stern. I ran to his +side and saw the log-line, which till then had been drawn tense over +the stern railing, slacken, loop, and come up off the port quarter. +Frithiof called up the speaking-tube to the bridge, and the bridge +answered, ‘Yes, nine knots.’ Then Frithiof spoke again, and the answer +was, ‘What do you want of the skipper?’ and Frithiof bellowed, ‘Call +him up.’ + +By this time Zuyland, Keller, and myself had caught something of +Frithiof’s excitement, for any emotion on shipboard is most contagious. +The captain ran out of his cabin, spoke to Frithiof, looked at the +log-line, jumped on the bridge, and in a minute we felt the steamer +swing round as Frithiof turned her. + +‘Going back to Cape Town?’ said Keller. + +Frithiof did not answer, but tore away at the wheel. Then he beckoned +us three to help, and we held the wheel down till the _Rathmines_ +answered it, and we found ourselves looking into the white of our own +wake, with the still oily sea tearing past our bows, though we were not +going more than half steam ahead. + +The captain stretched out his arm from the bridge and shouted. A minute +later I would have given a great deal to have shouted too, for one-half +of the sea seemed to shoulder itself above the other half, and came on +in the shape of a hill. There was neither crest, comb, nor curl-over to +it; nothing but black water with little waves chasing each other about +the flanks. I saw it stream past and on a level with the _Rathmines’_ +bow-plates before the steamer hove up her bulk to rise, and I argued +that this would be the last of all earthly voyages for me. Then we +lifted for ever and ever and ever, till I heard Keller saying in my +ear, ‘The bowels of the deep, good Lord!’ and the _Rathmines_ stood +poised, her screw racing and drumming on the slope of a hollow that +stretched downwards for a good half-mile. + +We went down that hollow, nose under for the most part, and the air +smelt wet and muddy, like that of an emptied aquarium. There was a +second hill to climb; I saw that much: but the water came aboard and +carried me aft till it jammed me against the wheel-house door, and +before I could catch breath or clear my eyes again we were rolling +to and fro in torn water, with the scuppers pouring like eaves in a +thunderstorm. + +‘There were three waves,’ said Keller; ‘and the stoke-hold’s flooded.’ + +The firemen were on deck waiting, apparently, to be drowned. The +engineer came and dragged them below, and the crew, gasping, began to +work the clumsy Board of Trade pump. That showed nothing serious, and +when I understood that the _Rathmines_ was really on the water, and not +beneath it, I asked what had happened. + +‘The captain says it was a blow-up under the sea--a volcano,’ said +Keller. + +‘It hasn’t warmed anything,’ I said. I was feeling bitterly cold, and +cold was almost unknown in those waters. I went below to change my +clothes, and when I came up everything was wiped out in clinging white +fog. + +‘Are there going to be any more surprises?’ said Keller to the captain. + +‘I don’t know. Be thankful you’re alive, gentlemen. That’s a tidal wave +thrown up by a volcano. Probably the bottom of the sea has been lifted +a few feet somewhere or other. I can’t quite understand this cold +spell. Our sea-thermometer says the surface water is 44°, and it should +be 68° at least.’ + +‘It’s abominable,’ said Keller, shivering. ‘But hadn’t you better +attend to the fog-horn? It seems to me that I heard something.’ + +‘Heard! Good heavens!’ said the captain from the bridge, ‘I should +think you did.’ He pulled the string of our fog-horn, which was a weak +one. It sputtered and choked, because the stoke-hold was full of water +and the fires were half-drowned, and at last gave out a moan. It was +answered from the fog by one of the most appalling steam-sirens I have +ever heard. Keller turned as white as I did, for the fog, the cold fog, +was upon us, and any man may be forgiven for fearing a death he cannot +see. + +‘Give her steam there!’ said the captain to the engine-room. ‘Steam for +the whistle, if we have to go dead slow.’ + +We bellowed again, and the damp dripped off the awnings on to the deck +as we listened for the reply. It seemed to be astern this time, but +much nearer than before. + +‘The _Pembroke Castle_ on us!’ said Keller; and then, viciously, ‘Well, +thank God, we shall sink her too.’ + +‘It’s a side-wheel steamer,’ I whispered. ‘Can’t you hear the paddles?’ + +This time we whistled and roared till the steam gave out, and the +answer nearly deafened us. There was a sound of frantic threshing in +the water, apparently about fifty yards away, and something shot past +in the whiteness that looked as though it were gray and red. + +‘The _Pembroke Castle_ bottom up,’ said Keller, who, being a +journalist, always sought for explanations. ‘That’s the colours of a +Castle liner. We’re in for a big thing.’ + +‘The sea is bewitched,’ said Frithiof from the wheel-house. ‘There are +_two_ steamers!’ + +Another siren sounded on our bow, and the little steamer rolled in the +wash of something that had passed unseen. + +‘We’re evidently in the middle of a fleet,’ said Keller quietly. ‘If +one doesn’t run us down, the other will. Phew! What in creation is +that?’ + +I sniffed, for there was a poisonous rank smell in the cold air--a +smell that I had smelt before. + +‘If I was on land I should say that it was an alligator. It smells like +musk,’ I answered. + +‘Not ten thousand alligators could make that smell,’ said Zuyland; ‘I +have smelt them.’ + +‘Bewitched! Bewitched!’ said Frithiof. ‘The sea she is turned upside +down, and we are walking along the bottom.’ + +Again the _Rathmines_ rolled in the wash of some unseen ship, and a +silver-gray wave broke over the bow, leaving on the deck a sheet of +sediment--the gray broth that has its place in the fathomless deeps of +the sea. A sprinkling of the wave fell on my face, and it was so cold +that it stung as boiling water stings. The dead and most untouched +deep water of the sea had been heaved to the top by the submarine +volcano--the chill still water that kills all life and smells of +desolation and emptiness. We did not need either the blinding fog or +that indescribable smell of musk to make us unhappy--we were shivering +with cold and wretchedness where we stood. + +‘The hot air on the cold water makes this fog,’ said the captain; ‘it +ought to clear in a little time.’ + +‘Whistle, oh! whistle, and let’s get out of it,’ said Keller. + +The captain whistled again, and far and far astern the invisible twin +steam-sirens answered us. Their blasting shriek grew louder, till at +last it seemed to tear out of the fog just above our quarter, and I +cowered while the _Rathmines_ plunged bows under on a double swell that +crossed. + +‘No more,’ said Frithiof, ‘it is not good any more. Let us get away, in +the name of God.’ + +‘Now if a torpedo-boat with a _City of Paris_ siren went mad and broke +her moorings and hired a friend to help her, it’s just conceivable that +we might be carried as we are now. Otherwise this thing is----’ + +The last words died on Keller’s lips, his eyes began to start from his +head, and his jaw fell. Some six or seven feet above the port bulwarks, +framed in fog, and as utterly unsupported as the full moon, hung a +Face. It was not human, and it certainly was not animal, for it did not +belong to this earth as known to man. The mouth was open, revealing a +ridiculously tiny tongue--as absurd as the tongue of an elephant; there +were tense wrinkles of white skin at the angles of the drawn lips, +white feelers like those of a barbel sprung from the lower jaw, and +there was no sign of teeth within the mouth. But the horror of the face +lay in the eyes, for those were sightless--white, in sockets as white +as scraped bone, and blind. Yet for all this the face, wrinkled as the +mask of a lion is drawn in Assyrian sculpture, was alive with rage +and terror. One long white feeler touched our bulwarks. Then the face +disappeared with the swiftness of a blindworm popping into its burrow, +and the next thing that I remember is my own voice in my own ears, +saying gravely to the mainmast, ‘But the air-bladder ought to have been +forced out of its mouth, you know.’ + +Keller came up to me, ashy white. He put his hand into his pocket, +took a cigar, bit it, dropped it, thrust his shaking thumb into his +mouth and mumbled, ‘The giant gooseberry and the raining frogs! Gimme +a light--gimme a light! Say, gimme a light.’ A little bead of blood +dropped from his thumb-joint. + +I respected the motive, though the manifestation was absurd. ‘Stop, +you’ll bite your thumb off,’ I said, and Keller laughed brokenly as +he picked up his cigar. Only Zuyland, leaning over the port bulwarks, +seemed self-possessed. He declared later that he was very sick. + +‘We’ve seen it,’ he said, turning round. ‘That is it.’ + +‘What?’ said Keller, chewing the unlighted cigar. + +As he spoke the fog was blown into shreds, and we saw the sea, gray +with mud, rolling on every side of us and empty of all life. Then +in one spot it bubbled and became like the pot of ointment that the +Bible speaks of. From that wide-ringed trouble a Thing came up--a +gray and red Thing with a neck--a Thing that bellowed and writhed in +pain. Frithiof drew in his breath and held it till the red letters of +the ship’s name, woven across his jersey, straggled and opened out as +though they had been type badly set. Then he said with a little cluck +in his throat, ‘Ah me! It is blind. _Hur illa!_ That thing is blind,’ +and a murmur of pity went through us all, for we could see that the +thing on the water was blind and in pain. Something had gashed and cut +the great sides cruelly and the blood was spurting out. The gray ooze +of the undermost sea lay in the monstrous wrinkles of the back, and +poured away in sluices. The blind white head flung back and battered +the wounds, and the body in its torment rose clear of the red and +gray waves till we saw a pair of quivering shoulders streaked with +weed and rough with shells, but as white in the clear spaces as the +hairless, maneless, blind, toothless head. Afterwards, came a dot on +the horizon and the sound of a shrill scream, and it was as though a +shuttle shot all across the sea in one breath, and a second head and +neck tore through the levels, driving a whispering wall of water to +right and left. The two Things met--the one untouched and the other in +its death-throe--male and female, we said, the female coming to the +male. She circled round him bellowing, and laid her neck across the +curve of his great turtle-back, and he disappeared under water for an +instant, but flung up again, grunting in agony while the blood ran. +Once the entire head and neck shot clear of the water and stiffened, +and I heard Keller saying, as though he was watching a street accident, +‘Give him air. For God’s sake, give him air.’ Then the death-struggle +began, with crampings and twistings and jerkings of the white bulk +to and fro, till our little steamer rolled again, and each gray wave +coated her plates with the gray slime. The sun was clear, there was no +wind, and we watched, the whole crew, stokers and all, in wonder and +pity, but chiefly pity. The Thing was so helpless, and, save for his +mate, so alone. No human eye should have beheld him; it was monstrous +and indecent to exhibit him there in trade waters between atlas degrees +of latitude. He had been spewed up, mangled and dying from his rest on +the sea-floor, where he might have lived till the Judgment Day, and we +saw the tides of his life go from him as an angry tide goes out across +rocks in the teeth of a landward gale. His mate lay rocking on the +water a little distance off, bellowing continually, and the smell of +musk came down upon the ship making us cough. + +At last the battle for life ended, in a batter of coloured seas. We +saw the writhing neck fall like a flail, the carcase turn sideways, +showing the glint of a white belly and the inset of a gigantic hind +leg or flipper. Then all sank, and sea boiled over it, while the mate +swam round and round, darting her head in every direction. Though we +might have feared that she would attack the steamer, no power on earth +could have drawn any one of us from our places that hour. We watched, +holding our breaths. The mate paused in her search; we could hear the +wash beating along her sides; reared her neck as high as she could +reach, blind and lonely in all that loneliness of the sea, and sent one +desperate bellow booming across the swells as an oyster-shell skips +across a pond. Then she made off to the westward, the sun shining on +the white head and the wake behind it, till nothing was left to see but +a little pin point of silver on the horizon. We stood on our course +again; and the _Rathmines_, coated with the sea-sediment, from bow to +stern, looked like a ship made gray with terror. + + * * * * * + +‘We must pool our notes,’ was the first coherent remark from Keller. +‘We’re three trained journalists--we hold absolutely the biggest scoop +on record. Start fair.’ + +I objected to this. Nothing is gained by collaboration in journalism +when all deal with the same facts, so we went to work each according +to his own lights. Keller triple-headed his account, talked about +our ‘gallant captain,’ and wound up with an allusion to American +enterprise in that it was a citizen of Dayton, Ohio, that had seen the +sea-serpent. This sort of thing would have discredited the Creation, +much more a mere sea tale, but as a specimen of the picture-writing +of a half-civilised people it was very interesting. Zuyland took a +heavy column and a half, giving approximate lengths and breadths and +the whole list of the crew whom he had sworn on oath to testify to his +facts. There was nothing fantastic or flamboyant in Zuyland. I wrote +three-quarters of a leaded bourgeois column, roughly speaking, and +refrained from putting any journalese into it for reasons that had +begun to appear to me. + +Keller was insolent with joy. He was going to cable from Southampton +to the New York _World_, mail his account to America on the same day, +paralyse London with his three columns of loosely knitted headlines, +and generally efface the earth. ‘You’ll see how I work a big scoop when +I get it,’ he said. + +‘Is this your first visit to England?’ I asked. + +‘Yes,’ said he. ‘You don’t seem to appreciate the beauty of our scoop. +It’s pyramidal--the death of the sea-serpent! Good heavens alive, man, +it’s the biggest thing ever vouchsafed to a paper!’ + +‘Curious to think that it will never appear in any paper, isn’t it?’ I +said. + +Zuyland was near me, and he nodded quickly. + +‘What do you mean?’ said Keller. ‘If you’re enough of a Britisher to +throw this thing away, I shan’t. I thought you were a newspaper-man.’ + +‘I am. That’s why I know. Don’t be an ass, Keller. Remember, I’m seven +hundred years your senior, and what your grandchildren may learn five +hundred years hence, I learned from my grandfathers about five hundred +years ago. You won’t do it, because you can’t.’ + +This conversation was held in open sea, where everything seems +possible, some hundred miles from Southampton. We passed the Needles +Light at dawn, and the lifting day showed the stucco villas on the +green and the awful orderliness of England--line upon line, wall upon +wall, solid stone dock and monolithic pier. We waited an hour in the +Customs shed, and there was ample time for the effect to soak in. + +‘Now, Keller, you face the music. The _Havel_ goes out to-day. Mail by +her, and I’ll take you to the telegraph-office,’ I said. + +I heard Keller gasp as the influence of the land closed about him, +cowing him as they say Newmarket Heath cows a young horse unused to +open courses. + +‘I want to retouch my stuff. Suppose we wait till we get to London?’ he +said. + +Zuyland, by the way, had torn up his account and thrown it overboard +that morning early. His reasons were my reasons. + +In the train Keller began to revise his copy, and every time that he +looked at the trim little fields, the red villas, and the embankments +of the line, the blue pencil plunged remorselessly through the slips. +He appeared to have dredged the dictionary for adjectives. I could +think of none that he had not used. Yet he was a perfectly sound +poker-player and never showed more cards than were sufficient to take +the pool. + +‘Aren’t you going to leave him a single bellow?’ I asked +sympathetically. ‘Remember, everything goes in the States, from a +trouser-button to a double-eagle.’ + +‘That’s just the curse of it,’ said Keller below his breath. ‘We’ve +played ’em for suckers so often that when it comes to the golden +truth--I’d like to try this on a London paper. You have first call +there, though.’ + +‘Not in the least. I’m not touching the thing in our papers. I shall be +happy to leave ’em all to you; but surely you’ll cable it home?’ + +‘No. Not if I can make the scoop here and see the Britishers sit up.’ + +‘You won’t do it with three columns of slushy headline, believe me. +They don’t sit up as quickly as some people.’ + +‘I’m beginning to think that too. Does _nothing_ make any difference +in this country?’ he said, looking out of the window. ‘How old is that +farmhouse?’ + +‘New. It can’t be more than two hundred years at the most.’ + +‘Um. Fields, too?’ + +‘That hedge there must have been clipped for about eighty years.’ + +‘Labour cheap--eh?’ + +‘Pretty much. Well, I suppose you’d like to try the _Times_, wouldn’t +you?’ + +‘No,’ said Keller, looking at Winchester Cathedral. ‘Might as well try +to electrify a hay-stack. And to think that the _World_ would take +three columns and ask for more--with illustrations too! It’s sickening.’ + +‘But the _Times_ might,’ I began. + +Keller flung his paper across the carriage, and it opened in its +austere majesty of solid type--opened with the crackle of an +encyclopædia. + +‘Might! You _might_ work your way through the bow-plates of a cruiser. +Look at that first page!’ + +‘It strikes you that way, does it?’ I said. ‘Then I’d recommend you to +try a light and frivolous journal.’ + +‘With a thing like this of mine--of ours? It’s sacred history!’ + +I showed him a paper which I conceived would be after his own heart, in +that it was modelled on American lines. + +‘That’s homey,’ he said, ‘but it’s not the real thing. Now, I should +like one of these fat old _Times_ columns. Probably there’d be a bishop +in the office, though.’ + +When we reached London Keller disappeared in the direction of the +Strand. What his experiences may have been I cannot tell, but it seems +that he invaded the office of an evening paper at 11.45 a.m. (I told +him English editors were most idle at that hour), and mentioned my name +as that of a witness to the truth of his story. + +‘I was nearly fired out,’ he said furiously at lunch. ‘As soon as I +mentioned you, the old man said that I was to tell you that they didn’t +want any more of your practical jokes, and that you knew the hours to +call if you had anything to sell, and that they’d see you condemned +before they helped to puff one of your infernal yarns in advance. Say, +what record do you hold for truth in this country, anyway?’ + +‘A beauty. You ran up against it, that’s all. Why don’t you leave the +English papers alone and cable to New York? Everything goes over there.’ + +‘Can’t you see that’s just why?’ he repeated. + +‘I saw it a long time ago. You don’t intend to cable, then?’ + +‘Yes I do,’ he answered, in the over-emphatic voice of one who does not +know his own mind. + +That afternoon I walked him abroad and about, over the streets that run +between the pavements like channels of grooved and tongued lava, over +the bridges that are made of enduring stone, through subways floored +and sided with yard-thick concrete, between houses that are never +rebuilt, and by river-steps hewn, to the eye, from the living rock. A +black fog chased us into Westminster Abbey, and, standing there in the +darkness, I could hear the wings of the dead centuries circling round +the head of Litchfield A. Keller, journalist, of Dayton, Ohio, U.S.A., +whose mission it was to make the Britishers sit up. + +He stumbled gasping into the thick gloom, and the roar of the traffic +came to his bewildered ears. + +‘Let’s go to the telegraph-office and cable,’ I said. ‘Can’t you hear +the New York _World_ crying for news of the great sea-serpent, blind, +white, and smelling of musk, stricken to death by a submarine volcano, +and assisted by his loving wife to die in mid-ocean, as visualised by +an American citizen, the breezy, newsy, brainy newspaper-man of Dayton, +Ohio? ’Rah for the Buckeye State. Step lively! Both gates! Szz! Boom! +Aah!’ Keller was a Princeton man, and he seemed to need encouragement. + +‘You’ve got me on your own ground,’ said he, tugging at his overcoat +pocket. He pulled out his copy, with the cable forms--for he had +written out his telegram--and put them all into my hand, groaning, ‘I +pass. If I hadn’t come to your cursed country--If I’d sent it off at +Southampton--If I ever get you west of the Alleghannies, if----’ + +‘Never mind, Keller. It isn’t your fault. It’s the fault of your +country. If you had been seven hundred years older you’d have done what +I am going to do.’ + +‘What are you going to do?’ + +‘Tell it as a lie.’ + +‘Fiction?’ This with the full-blooded disgust of a journalist for the +illegitimate branch of the profession. + +‘You can call it that if you like. I shall call it a lie.’ + +And a lie it has become; for Truth is a naked lady, and if by accident +she is drawn up from the bottom of the sea, it behoves a gentleman +either to give her a print petticoat or to turn his face to the wall +and vow that he did not see. + + + + + THE LOST LEGION. + + +When the Indian Mutiny broke out, and a little time before the siege of +Delhi, a regiment of Native Irregular Horse was stationed at Peshawur +on the frontier of India. That regiment caught what John Lawrence +called at the time ‘the prevalent mania,’ and would have thrown in +its lot with the mutineers, had it been allowed to do so. The chance +never came, for, as the regiment swept off down south, it was headed +up by a remnant of an English corps into the hills of Afghanistan, and +there the newly-conquered tribesmen turned against it as wolves turn +against buck. It was hunted for the sake of its arms and accoutrements +from hill to hill, from ravine to ravine, up and down the dried beds +of rivers and round the shoulders of bluffs, till it disappeared as +water sinks in the sand--this officerless, rebel regiment. The only +trace left of its existence to-day is a nominal roll drawn up in +neat round hand and counter-signed by an officer who called himself +‘Adjutant, late ---- Irregular Cavalry.’ The paper is yellow with +years and dirt, but on the back of it you can still read a pencil note +by John Lawrence; to this effect: ‘See that the two native officers +who remained loyal are not deprived of their estates.--J. L.’ Of six +hundred and fifty sabres only two stood strain, and John Lawrence in +the midst of all the agony of the first months of the Mutiny found time +to think about their merits. + +That was more than thirty years ago, and the tribesmen across the +Afghan border who helped to annihilate the regiment are now old men. +Sometimes a graybeard speaks of his share in the massacre. ‘They +came,’ he will say, ‘across the border, very proud, calling upon us to +rise and kill the English, and go down to the sack of Delhi. But we +who had just been conquered by the same English knew that they were +over bold, and that the Government could account easily for those +down-country dogs. This Hindustani regiment, therefore, we treated +with fair words, and kept standing in one place till the redcoats came +after them very hot and angry. Then this regiment ran forward a little +more into our hills to avoid the wrath of the English, and we lay upon +their flanks watching from the sides of the hills till we were well +assured that their path was lost behind them. Then we came down, for we +desired their clothes, and their bridles, and their rifles, and their +boots--more especially their boots. That was a great killing--done +slowly.’ Here the old man will rub his nose, and shake his long snaky +locks, and lick his bearded lips, and grin till the yellow tooth-stumps +show. ‘Yes, we killed them because we needed their gear, and we +knew that their lives had been forfeited to God on account of their +sin--the sin of treachery to the salt which they had eaten. They rode +up and down the valleys, stumbling and rocking in their saddles, and +howling for mercy. We drove them slowly like cattle till they were all +assembled in one place, the flat wide valley of Sheor Kôt. Many had +died from want of water, but there still were many left, and they could +not make any stand. We went among them pulling them down with our hands +two at a time, and our boys killed them who were new to the sword. +My share of the plunder was such and such--so many guns, and so many +saddles. The guns were good in those days. Now we steal the Government +rifles, and despise smooth barrels. Yes, beyond doubt we wiped that +regiment from off the face of the earth, and even the memory of the +deed is now dying. But men say----’ + +At this point the tale would stop abruptly, and it was impossible to +find out what men said across the border. The Afghans were always a +secretive race, and vastly preferred doing something wicked to saying +anything at all. They would be quiet and well-behaved for months, till +one night without word or warning, they would rush a police-post, cut +the throats of a constable or two, dash through a village, carry away +three or four women, and withdraw, in the red glare of burning thatch, +driving the cattle and goats before them to their own desolate hills. +The Indian Government would become almost tearful on these occasions. +First it would say, ‘Please be good and we’ll forgive you.’ The tribe +concerned in the latest depredation would collectively put its thumb to +its nose and answer rudely. Then the Government would say: ‘Hadn’t you +better pay up a little money for those few corpses you left behind you +the other night?’ Here the tribe would temporise, and lie and bully, +and some of the younger men, merely to show contempt of authority, +would raid another police-post and fire into some frontier mud fort, +and, if lucky, kill a real English officer. Then the Government +would say: ‘Observe; if you really persist in this line of conduct, +you will be hurt.’ If the tribe knew exactly what was going on in +India, it would apologise or be rude, according as it learned whether +the Government was busy with other things or able to devote its full +attention to their performances. Some of the tribes knew to one corpse +how far to go. Others became excited, lost their heads, and told the +Government to come on. With sorrow and tears, and one eye on the +British taxpayer at home, who insisted on regarding these exercises as +brutal wars of annexation, the Government would prepare an expensive +little field-brigade and some guns, and send all up into the hills to +chase the wicked tribe out of the valleys, where the corn grew, into +the hill-tops where there was nothing to eat. The tribe would turn +out in full strength and enjoy the campaign, for they knew that their +women would never be touched, that their wounded would be nursed, +not mutilated, and that as soon as each man’s bag of corn was spent +they could surrender and palaver with the English General as though +they had been a real enemy. Afterwards, years afterwards, they would +pay the blood-money, driblet by driblet, to the Government and tell +their children how they had slain the redcoats by thousands. The only +drawback to this kind of picnic-war was the weakness of the redcoats +for solemnly blowing up with powder their fortified towers and keeps. +This the tribes always considered mean. + +Chief among the leaders of the smaller tribes--the little clans who +knew to a penny the expense of moving white troops against them--was +a priest-bandit-chief whom we will call the Gulla Kutta Mullah. +His enthusiasm for border murder as an art was almost dignified. He +would cut down a mail-runner from pure wantonness, or bombard a mud +fort with rifle fire when he knew that our men needed to sleep. In +his leisure moments he would go on circuit among his neighbours, and +try to incite other tribes to devilry. Also, he kept a kind of hotel +for fellow-outlaws in his own village, which lay in a valley called +Bersund. Any respectable murderer on that section of the frontier was +sure to lie up at Bersund, for it was reckoned an exceedingly safe +place. The sole entry to it ran through a narrow gorge which could +be converted into a death-trap in five minutes. It was surrounded by +high hills, reckoned inaccessible to all save born mountaineers, and +here the Gulla Kutta Mullah lived in great state, the head of a colony +of mud and stone huts, and in each mud hut hung some portion of a +red uniform and the plunder of dead men. The Government particularly +wished for his capture, and once invited him formally to come out and +be hanged on account of a few of the murders in which he had taken a +direct part. He replied:-- + +‘I am only twenty miles, as the crow flies, from your border. Come and +fetch me.’ + +‘Some day we will come,’ said the Government, ‘and hanged you will be.’ + +The Gulla Kutta Mullah let the matter from his mind. He knew that the +patience of the Government was as long as a summer day; but he did not +realise that its arm was as long as a winter night. Months afterwards, +when there was peace on the border, and all India was quiet, the +Indian Government turned in its sleep and remembered the Gulla Kutta +Mullah at Bersund, with his thirteen outlaws. The movement against him +of one single regiment--which the telegrams would have translated as +war--would have been highly impolitic. This was a time for silence and +speed, and, above all, absence of bloodshed. + +You must know that all along the north-west frontier of India there is +spread a force of some thirty thousand foot and horse, whose duty it is +quietly and unostentatiously to shepherd the tribes in front of them. +They move up and down, and down and up, from one desolate little post +to another; they are ready to take the field at ten minutes’ notice; +they are always half in and half out of a difficulty somewhere along +the monotonous line; their lives are as hard as their own muscles, and +the papers never say anything about them. It was from this force that +the Government picked its men. + +One night at a station where the mounted Night Patrol fire as they +challenge, and the wheat rolls in great blue-green waves under our cold +northern moon, the officers were playing billiards in the mud-walled +club-house, when orders came to them that they were to go on parade +at once for a night-drill. They grumbled, and went to turn out their +men--a hundred English troops, let us say, two hundred Goorkhas, and +about a hundred cavalry of the finest native cavalry in the world. + +When they were on the parade-ground, it was explained to them in +whispers that they must set off at once across the hills to Bersund. +The English troops were to post themselves round the hills at the +side of the valley; the Goorkhas would command the gorge and the +death-trap, and the cavalry would fetch a long march round and get to +the back of the circle of hills, whence, if there were any difficulty, +they could charge down on the Mullah’s men. But orders were very strict +that there should be no fighting and no noise. They were to return in +the morning with every round of ammunition intact, and the Mullah and +the thirteen outlaws bound in their midst. If they were successful, no +one would know or care anything about their work; but failure meant +probably a small border war, in which the Gulla Kutta Mullah would pose +as a popular leader against a big bullying power, instead of a common +border murderer. + +Then there was silence, broken only by the clicking of the compass +needles and snapping of watch-cases, as the heads of columns compared +bearings and made appointments for the rendezvous. Five minutes later +the parade-ground was empty; the green coats of the Goorkhas and the +overcoats of the English troops had faded into the darkness, and the +cavalry were cantering away in the face of a blinding drizzle. + +What the Goorkhas and the English did will be seen later on. The +heavy work lay with the horses, for they had to go far and pick their +way clear of habitations. Many of the troopers were natives of that +part of the world, ready and anxious to fight against their kin, and +some of the officers had made private and unofficial excursions into +those hills before. They crossed the border, found a dried river bed, +cantered up that, walked through a stony gorge, risked crossing a +low hill under cover of the darkness, skirted another hill, leaving +their hoof-marks deep in some ploughed ground, felt their way along +another watercourse, ran over the neck of a spur praying that no one +would hear their horses grunting, and so worked on in the rain and +the darkness, till they had left Bersund and its crater of hills a +little behind them, and to the left, and it was time to swing round. +The ascent commanding the back of Bersund was steep, and they halted +to draw breath in a broad level valley below the height. That is to +say, the men reined up, but the horses, blown as they were, refused to +halt. There was unchristian language, the worse for being delivered in +a whisper, and you heard the saddles squeaking in the darkness as the +horses plunged. + +The subaltern at the rear of one troop turned in his saddle and said +very softly:-- + +‘Carter, what the blessed heavens are you doing at the rear? Bring your +men up, man.’ + +There was no answer, till a trooper replied:-- + +‘Carter Sahib is forward--not there. There is nothing behind us.’ + +‘There is,’ said the subaltern. ‘The squadron’s walking on its own +tail.’ + +Then the Major in command moved down to the rear swearing softly and +asking for the blood of Lieutenant Halley--the subaltern who had just +spoken. + +‘Look after your rearguard,’ said the Major. ‘Some of your infernal +thieves have got lost. They’re at the head of the squadron, and you’re +a several kinds of idiot.’ + +‘Shall I tell off my men, sir?’ said the subaltern sulkily, for he was +feeling wet and cold. + +‘Tell ’em off!’ said the Major. ‘_Whip_ ’em off, by Gad! You’re +squandering them all over the place. There’s a troop behind you _now_!’ + +‘So I was thinking,’ said the subaltern calmly. ‘I have all my men +here, sir. Better speak to Carter.’ + +‘Carter Sahib sends salaam and wants to know why the regiment is +stopping,’ said a trooper to Lieutenant Halley. + +‘Where under heaven _is_ Carter?’ said the Major. + +‘Forward with his troop,’ was the answer. + +‘Are we walking in a ring, then, or are we the centre of a blessed +brigade?’ said the Major. + +By this time there was silence all along the column. The horses were +still; but, through the drive of the fine rain, men could hear the feet +of many horses moving over stony ground. + +‘We’re being stalked,’ said Lieutenant Halley. + +‘They’ve no horses here. Besides they’d have fired before this,’ said +the Major. ‘It’s--it’s villagers’ ponies.’ + +‘Then our horses would have neighed and spoilt the attack long ago. +They must have been near us for half an hour,’ said the subaltern. + +‘Queer that we can’t smell the horses,’ said the Major, damping his +finger and rubbing it on his nose as he sniffed up wind. + +‘Well, it’s a bad start,’ said the subaltern, shaking the wet from his +overcoat. ‘What shall we do, sir?’ + +‘Get on,’ said the Major. ‘We shall catch it to-night.’ + +The column moved forward very gingerly for a few paces. Then there +was an oath, a shower of blue sparks as shod hooves crashed on small +stones, and a man rolled over with a jangle of accoutrements that would +have waked the dead. + +‘Now we’ve gone and done it,’ said Lieutenant Halley. ‘All the hillside +awake, and all the hillside to climb in the face of musketry-fire. This +comes of trying to do night-hawk work.’ + +The trembling trooper picked himself up and tried to explain that his +horse had fallen over one of the little cairns that are built of loose +stones on the spot where a man has been murdered. There was no need +for reasons. The Major’s big Australian charger blundered next, and +the column came to a halt in what seemed to be a very graveyard of +little cairns all about two feet high. The manœuvres of the squadron +are not reported. Men said that it felt like mounted quadrilles without +training and without the music; but at last the horses, breaking rank +and choosing their own way, walked clear of the cairns, till every +man of the squadron re-formed and drew rein a few yards up the slope +of the hill. Then, according to Lieutenant Halley, there was another +scene very like the one which has been described. The Major and Carter +insisted that all the men had not joined rank, and that there were +more of them in the rear clicking and blundering among the dead men’s +cairns. Lieutenant Halley told off his own troopers again and resigned +himself to wait. Later on he told me:-- + +‘I didn’t much know, and I didn’t much care what was going on. The row +of that trooper falling ought to have scared half the country, and I +would take my oath that we were being stalked by a full regiment in the +rear, and _they_ were making row enough to rouse all Afghanistan. I sat +tight, but nothing happened.’ + +The mysterious part of the night’s work was the silence on the +hillside. Everybody knew that the Gulla Kutta Mullah had his outpost +huts on the reverse side of the hill, and everybody expected by the +time that the Major had sworn himself into a state of quiet that the +watchmen there would open fire. When nothing occurred, they said that +the gusts of the rain had deadened the sound of the horses, and thanked +Providence. At last the Major satisfied himself (_a_) that he had left +no one behind among the cairns, and (_b_) that he was not being taken +in the rear by a large and powerful body of cavalry. The men’s tempers +were thoroughly spoiled, the horses were lathered and unquiet, and one +and all prayed for the daylight. + +They set themselves to climb up the hill, each man leading his +mount carefully. Before they had covered the lower slopes or the +breast-plates had begun to tighten, a thunderstorm came up behind, +rolling across the low hills and drowning any noise less than that of +cannon. The first flash of the lightning showed the bare ribs of the +ascent, the hill-crest standing steely blue against the black sky, +the little falling lines of the rain, and, a few yards to their left +flank, an Afghan watch-tower, two-storied, built of stone, and entered +by a ladder from the upper story. The ladder was up, and a man with a +rifle was leaning from the window. The darkness and the thunder rolled +down in an instant, and, when the lull followed, a voice from the +watch-tower cried, ‘Who goes there?’ + +The cavalry were very quiet, but each man gripped his carbine and +stood beside his horse. Again the voice called, ‘Who goes there?’ and +in a louder key, ‘O, brothers, give the alarm!’ Now, every man in the +cavalry would have died in his long boots sooner than have asked for +quarter; but it is a fact that the answer to the second call was a +long wail of ‘Marf karo! Marf karo!’ which means, ‘Have mercy! Have +mercy!’ It came from the climbing regiment. + +The cavalry stood dumbfoundered, till the big troopers had time to +whisper one to another: ‘Mir Khan, was that thy voice? Abdullah, didst +_thou_ call?’ Lieutenant Halley stood beside his charger and waited. +So long as no firing was going on he was content. Another flash of +lightning showed the horses with heaving flanks and nodding heads, the +men, white eye-balled, glaring beside them, and the stone watch-tower +to the left. This time there was no head at the window, and the rude +iron-clamped shutter that could turn a rifle bullet was closed. + +‘Go on, men,’ said the Major. ‘Get up to the top at any rate.’ The +squadron toiled forward, the horses wagging their tails and the men +pulling at the bridles, the stones rolling down the hillside and +the sparks flying. Lieutenant Halley declares that he never heard a +squadron make so much noise in his life. They scrambled up, he said, +as though each horse had eight legs and a spare horse to follow him. +Even then there was no sound from the watch-tower, and the men stopped +exhausted on the ridge that overlooked the pit of darkness in which the +village of Bersund lay. Girths were loosed, curb-chains shifted, and +saddles adjusted, and the men dropped down among the stones. Whatever +might happen now, they had the upper ground of any attack. + +The thunder ceased, and with it the rain, and the soft thick darkness +of a winter night before the dawn covered them all. Except for the +sound of falling water among the ravines below, everything was still. +They heard the shutter of the watch-tower below them thrown back with +a clang, and the voice of the watcher calling: ‘Oh, Hafiz Ullah!’ + +The echoes took up the call, ‘La-la-la!’ And an answer came from the +watch-tower hidden round the curve of the hill, ‘What is it, Shahbaz +Khan?’ + +Shahbaz Khan replied in the high-pitched voice of the mountaineer: +‘Hast thou seen?’ + +The answer came back: ‘Yes. God deliver us from all evil spirits!’ + +There was a pause, and then: ‘Hafiz Ullah, I am alone! Come to me!’ + +‘Shahbaz Khan, I am alone also; but I dare not leave my post!’ + +‘That is a lie; thou art afraid.’ + +A longer pause followed, and then: ‘I am afraid. Be silent! They are +below us still. Pray to God and sleep.’ + +The troopers listened and wondered, for they could not understand what +save earth and stone could lie below the watch-towers. + +Shahbaz Khan began to call again: ‘They are below us. I can see them. +For the pity of God come over to me, Hafiz Ullah! My father slew ten of +them. Come over!’ + +Hafiz Ullah answered in a very loud voice, ‘Mine was guiltless. Hear, +ye Men of the Night, neither my father nor my blood had any part in +that sin. Bear thou they own punishment, Shahbaz Khan.’ + +‘Oh, some one ought to stop those two chaps crowing away like cocks +there,’ said Lieutenant Halley, shivering under his rock. + +He had hardly turned round to expose a new side of him to the rain +before a bearded, long-locked, evil-smelling Afghan rushed up the hill, +and tumbled into his arms. Halley sat upon him, and thrust as much of a +sword-hilt as could be spared down the man’s gullet. ‘If you cry out, I +kill you,’ he said cheerfully. + +The man was beyond any expression of terror. He lay and quaked, +grunting. When Halley took the sword-hilt from between his teeth, he +was still inarticulate, but clung to Halley’s arm, feeling it from +elbow to wrist. + +‘The Rissala! The dead Rissala!’ he gasped. ‘It is down there!’ + +‘No; the Rissala, the very much alive Rissala. It is up here,’ said +Halley, unshipping his watering-bridle, and fastening the man’s hands. +‘Why were you in the towers so foolish as to let us pass?’ + +‘The valley is full of the dead,’ said the Afghan. ‘It is better to +fall into the hands of the English than the hands of the dead. They +march to and fro below there. I saw them in the lightning.’ + +He recovered his composure after a little, and whispering, because +Halley’s pistol was at his stomach, said: ‘What is this? There is no +war between us now, and the Mullah will kill me for not seeing you +pass!’ + +‘Rest easy,’ said Halley; ‘we are coming to kill the Mullah, if God +please. His teeth have grown too long. No harm will come to thee unless +the daylight shows thee as a face which is desired by the gallows for +crime done. But what of the dead regiment?’ + +‘I only kill within my own border,’ said the man, immensely relieved. +‘The Dead Regiment is below. The men must have passed through it on +their journey--four hundred dead on horses, stumbling among their own +graves, among the little heaps--dead men all, whom we slew.’ + +‘Whew!’ said Halley. ‘That accounts for my cursing Carter and the Major +cursing me. Four hundred sabres, eh? No wonder we thought there were a +few extra men in the troop. Kurruk Shah,’ he whispered to a grizzled +native officer that lay within a few feet of him, ‘hast thou heard +anything of a dead Rissala in these hills?’ + +‘Assuredly,’ said Kurruk Shah with a grim chuckle. ‘Otherwise, why did +I, who have served the Queen for seven-and-twenty years, and killed +many hill-dogs, shout aloud for quarter when the lightning revealed us +to the watch-towers? When I was a young man I saw the killing in the +valley of Sheor-Kôt there at our feet, and I know the tale that grew up +therefrom. But how can the ghosts of unbelievers prevail against us who +are of the Faith? Strap that dog’s hands a little tighter, Sahib. An +Afghan is like an eel.’ + +‘But a dead Rissala,’ said Halley, jerking his captive’s wrist. ‘That +is foolish talk, Kurruk Shah. The dead are dead. Hold still, _sag_.’ +The Afghan wriggled. + +‘The dead are dead, and for that reason they walk at night. What need +to talk? We be men; we have our eyes and ears. Thou canst both see and +hear them, down the hillside,’ said Kurruk Shah composedly. + +Halley stared and listened long and intently. The valley was full of +stifled noises, as every valley must be at night; but whether he saw or +heard more than was natural Halley alone knows, and he does not choose +to speak on the subject. + +At last, and just before the dawn, a green rocket shot up from the far +side of the valley of Bersund, at the head of the gorge, to show that +the Goorkhas were in position. A red light from the infantry at left +and right answered it, and the cavalry burnt a white flare. Afghans in +winter are late sleepers, and it was not till full day that the Gulla +Kutta Mullah’s men began to straggle from their huts, rubbing their +eyes. They saw men in green, and red, and brown uniforms, leaning on +their arms, neatly arranged all round the crater of the village of +Bersund, in a cordon that not even a wolf could have broken. They +rubbed their eyes the more when a pink-faced young man, who was not +even in the Army, but represented the Political Department, tripped +down the hillside with two orderlies, rapped at the door of the Gulla +Kutta Mullah’s house, and told him quietly to step out and be tied up +for safe transport. That same young man passed on through the huts, +tapping here one cateran, and there another lightly with his cane; and +as each was pointed out, so he was tied up, staring hopelessly at the +crowned heights around where the English soldiers looked down with +incurious eyes. Only the Mullah tried to carry it off with curses and +high words, till a soldier who was tying his hands said:-- + +‘None o’ your lip! Why didn’t you come out when you was ordered, +instead o’ keepin’ us awake all night? You’re no better than my own +barrack-sweeper, you white-’eaded old polyanthus! Kim up!’ + +Half an hour later the troops had gone away with the Mullah and his +thirteen friends. The dazed villagers were looking ruefully at a +pile of broken muskets and snapped swords, and wondering how in the +world they had come so to miscalculate the forbearance of the Indian +Government. + +It was a very neat little affair, neatly carried out, and the men +concerned were unofficially thanked for their services. + +Yet it seems to me that much credit is also due to another regiment +whose name did not appear in the brigade orders, and whose very +existence is in danger of being forgotten. + + + + + IN THE RUKH. + + + The Only Son lay down again and dreamed that he dreamed a dream. + The last ash dropped from the dying fire with the click of a falling + spark, + And the Only Son woke up again and called across the dark:-- + ‘Now, was I born of womankind and laid in a mother’s breast? + For I have dreamed of a shaggy hide whereon I went to rest. + And was I born of womankind and laid on a father’s arm? + For I have dreamed of long white teeth that guarded me from harm. + Oh, was I born of womankind and did I play alone? + For I have dreamed of playmates twain that bit me to the bone. + And did I break the barley bread and steep it in the tyre? + For I have dreamed of a youngling kid new riven from the byre. + An hour it lacks and an hour it lacks to the rising of the moon-- + But I can see the black roof-beams as plain as it were noon! + ’Tis a league and a league to the Lena Falls where the trooping + sambhur go, + But I can hear the little fawn that bleats behind the doe! + ’Tis a league and a league to the Lena Falls where the crop and the + upland meet, + But I can smell the warm wet wind that whispers through the wheat!’ + + _The Only Son._ + + +Of the wheels of public service that turn under the Indian Government, +there is none more important than the Department of Woods and Forests. +The reboisement of all India is in its hands: or will be when +Government has the money to spend. Its servants wrestle with wandering +sand-torrents and shifting dunes: wattling them at the sides, damming +them in front, and pegging them down atop with coarse grass and +spindling pine after the rules of Nancy. They are responsible for all +the timber in the State forests of the Himalayas, as well as for the +denuded hillsides that the monsoons wash into dry gullies and aching +ravines; each cut a mouth crying aloud what carelessness can do. They +experiment with battalions of foreign trees, and coax the blue gum +to take root and, perhaps, dry up the Canal fever. In the plains the +chief part of their duty is to see that the belt fire-lines in the +forest reserves are kept clean, so that when drought comes and the +cattle starve, they may throw the reserve open to the villager’s herds +and allow the man himself to gather sticks. They poll and lop for the +stacked railway-fuel along the lines that burn no coal; they calculate +the profit of their plantations to five points of decimals; they are +the doctors and midwives of the huge teak forests of Upper Burma, the +rubber of the Eastern Jungles, and the gall-nuts of the South; and they +are always hampered by lack of funds. But since a Forest Officer’s +business takes him far from the beaten roads and the regular stations, +he learns to grow wise in more than wood-lore alone; to know the people +and the polity of the jungle; meeting tiger, bear, leopard, wild-dog, +and all the deer, not once or twice after days of beating, but again +and again in the execution of his duty. He spends much time in saddle +or under canvas--the friend of newly planted trees, the associate of +uncouth rangers and hairy trackers--till the woods, that show his care, +in turn set their mark upon him and he ceases to sing the naughty +French songs he learned at Nancy, and grows silent with the silent +things of the underbrush. + +Gisborne of the Woods and Forests had spent four years in the service. +At first he loved it without comprehension, because it led him into the +open on horseback and gave him authority. Then he hated it furiously, +and would have given a year’s pay for one month of such society as +India affords. That crisis over, the forests took him back again, and +he was content to serve them, to deepen and widen his fire-lines, to +watch the green mist of his new plantation against the older foliage, +to dredge out the choked stream, and to follow and strengthen the +last struggle of the forest where it broke down and died among the +long pig-grass. On some still day that grass would be burned off, and +a hundred beasts that had their homes there would rush out before +the pale flames at high noon. Later, the forest would creep forward +over the blackened ground in orderly lines of saplings, and Gisborne, +watching, would be well pleased. His bungalow, a thatched white-walled +cottage of two rooms, was set at one end of the great _rukh_ and +overlooking it. He made no pretence at keeping a garden, for the _rukh_ +swept up to his door, curled over in a thicket of bamboo, and he rode +from his verandah into its heart without the need of any carriage-drive. + +Abdul Gafur, his fat Mohammedan butler, fed him when he was at home, +and spent the rest of the time gossiping with the little band of native +servants whose huts lay behind the bungalow. There were two grooms, +a cook, a water-carrier, and a sweeper, and that was all. Gisborne +cleaned his own guns and kept no dog. Dogs scared the game, and it +pleased the man to be able to say where the subjects of his kingdom +would drink at moonrise, eat before dawn, and lie up in the day’s +heat. The rangers and forest-guards lived in little huts far away in +the _rukh_, only appearing when one of them had been injured by a +falling tree or a wild beast. There Gisborne was alone. + +In spring the _rukh_ put out few new leaves, but lay dry and still +untouched by the finger of the year, waiting for rain. Only there was +then more calling and roaring in the dark on a quiet night; the tumult +of a battle-royal among the tigers, the bellowing of arrogant buck, or +the steady wood-chopping of an old boar sharpening his tushes against +a bole. Then Gisborne laid aside his little-used gun altogether, for +it was to him a sin to kill. In summer, through the furious May heats, +the _rukh_ reeled in the haze, and Gisborne watched for the first sign +of curling smoke that should betray a forest fire. Then came the Rains +with a roar, and the _rukh_ was blotted out in fetch after fetch of +warm mist, and the broad leaves drummed the night through under the big +drops; and there was a noise of running water, and of juicy green stuff +crackling where the wind struck it, and the lightning wove patterns +behind the dense matting of the foliage, till the sun broke loose +again and the _rukh_ stood with hot flanks smoking to the newly washed +sky. Then the heat and the dry cold subdued everything to tiger-colour +again. So Gisborne learned to know his _rukh_ and was very happy. His +pay came month by month, but he had very little need for money. The +currency notes accumulated in the drawer where he kept his home-letters +and the recapping-machine. If he drew anything, it was to make a +purchase from the Calcutta Botanical Gardens, or to pay a ranger’s +widow a sum that the Government of India would never have sanctioned +for her man’s death. + +Payment was good, but vengeance was also necessary, and he took that +when he could. One night of many nights a runner, breathless and +gasping, came to him with the news that a forest-guard lay dead by the +Kanye stream, the side of his head smashed in as though it had been an +egg-shell. Gisborne went out at dawn to look for the murderer. It is +only travellers and now and then young soldiers who are known to the +world as great hunters. The Forest Officers take their _shikar_ as part +of the day’s work, and no one hears of it. Gisborne went on foot to the +place of the kill: the widow was wailing over the corpse as it lay on +a bedstead, while two or three men were looking at footprints on the +moist ground. ‘That is the Red One,’ said a man. ‘I knew he would turn +to man in time, but surely there is game enough even for him. This must +have been done for devilry.’ + +‘The Red One lies up in the rocks at the back of the _sal_ trees,’ said +Gisborne. He knew the tiger under suspicion. + +‘Not now, Sahib, not now. He will be raging and ranging to and fro. +Remember that the first kill is a triple kill always. Our blood makes +them mad. He may be behind us even as we speak.’ + +‘He may have gone to the next hut,’ said another. ‘It is only four +_koss_. Wallah, who is this!’ + +Gisborne turned with the others. A man was walking down the dried bed +of the stream, naked except for the loin-cloth, but crowned with a +wreath of the tasselled blossoms of the white convolvulus creeper. So +noiselessly did he move over the little pebbles, that even Gisborne, +used to the soft-footedness of trackers, started. + +‘The tiger that killed,’ he began, without any salute, ‘has gone to +drink, and now he is asleep under a rock beyond that hill.’ His voice +was clear and bell-like, utterly different from the usual whine of the +native, and his face as he lifted it in the sunshine might have been +that of an angel strayed among the woods. The widow ceased wailing +above the corpse and looked round-eyed at the stranger, returning to +her duty with double strength. + +‘Shall I show the Sahib?’ he said simply. + +‘If thou art sure--’ Gisborne began. + +‘Sure indeed. I saw him only an hour ago--the dog. It is before his +time to eat man’s flesh. He has yet a dozen sound teeth in his evil +head.’ + +The men kneeling above the footprints slunk off quietly, for fear that +Gisborne should ask them to go with him, and the young man laughed a +little to himself. + +‘Come, Sahib,’ he cried, and turned on his heel, walking before his +companion. + +‘Not so fast. I cannot keep that pace,’ said the white man. ‘Halt +there. Thy face is new to me.’ + +‘That may be. I am but newly come into this forest.’ + +‘From what village?’ + +‘I am without a village. I came from over there.’ He flung out his arm +towards the north. + +‘A gipsy then?’ + +‘No, Sahib. I am a man without caste, and for matter of that without a +father.’ + +‘What do men call thee?’ + +‘Mowgli, Sahib. And what is the Sahib’s name?’ + +‘I am the warden of this _rukh_--Gisborne is my name.’ + +‘How? Do they number the trees and the blades of grass here?’ + +‘Even so; lest such gipsy fellows as thou set them afire.’ + +‘I! I would not hurt the jungle for any gift. That is my home.’ + +He turned to Gisborne with a smile that was irresistible, and held up a +warning hand. + +‘Now, Sahib, we must go a little quietly. There is no need to wake the +dog, though he sleeps heavily enough. Perhaps it were better if I went +forward alone and drove him down wind to the Sahib.’ + +‘Allah! Since when have tigers been driven to and fro like cattle by +naked men?’ said Gisborne, aghast at the man’s audacity. + +He laughed again softly. ‘Nay, then, come along with me and shoot him +in thy own way with the big English rifle.’ + +Gisborne stepped in his guide’s track, twisted, crawled, and clomb and +stooped and suffered through all the many agonies of a jungle-stalk. +He was purple and dripping with sweat when Mowgli at the last bade him +raise his head and peer over a blue baked rock near a tiny hill pool. +By the water-side lay the tiger extended and at ease, lazily licking +clean again an enormous elbow and fore paw. He was old, yellow-toothed, +and not a little mangy, but in that setting and sunshine, imposing +enough. + +Gisborne had no false ideas of sport where the man-eater was concerned. +This thing was vermin, to be killed as speedily as possible. He waited +to recover his breath, rested the rifle on the rock and whistled. The +brute’s head turned slowly not twenty feet from the rifle-mouth, and +Gisborne planted his shots, business-like, one behind the shoulder and +the other a little below the eye. At that range the heavy bones were no +guard against the rending bullets. + +‘Well, the skin was not worth keeping at any rate,’ said he as the +smoke cleared away and the beast lay kicking and gasping in the last +agony. + +‘A dog’s death for a dog,’ said Mowgli quietly. ‘Indeed there is +nothing in that carrion worth taking away.’ + +‘The whiskers. Dost thou not take the whiskers?’ said Gisborne, who +knew how the rangers valued such things. + +‘I? Am I a lousy _shikarri_ of the jungle to paddle with a tiger’s +muzzle? Let him lie. Here come his friends already.’ + +A dropping kite whistled shrilly overhead, as Gisborne snapped out the +empty shells, and wiped his face. + +‘And if thou art not a _shikarri_, where didst thou learn thy knowledge +of the tiger-folk?’ said he. ‘No tracker could have done better.’ + +‘I hate all tigers,’ said Mowgli curtly. ‘Let the Sahib give me his gun +to carry. Arré, it is a very fine one. And where does the Sahib go now?’ + +‘To my house.’ + +‘May I come? I have never yet looked within a white man’s house.’ + +Gisborne returned to his bungalow, Mowgli striding noiselessly before +him, his brown skin glistening in the sunlight. + +He stared curiously at the verandah and the two chairs there, fingered +the split bamboo shade curtains with suspicion, and entered, looking +always behind him. Gisborne loosed a curtain to keep out the sun. It +dropped with a clatter, but almost before it touched the flagging of +the verandah Mowgli had leaped clear and was standing with heaving +chest in the open. + +‘It is a trap,’ he said quickly. + +Gisborne laughed. ‘White men do not trap men. Indeed thou art +altogether of the jungle.’ + +‘I see,’ said Mowgli, ‘it has neither catch nor fall. I--I never beheld +these things till to-day.’ + +He came in on tiptoe and stared with large eyes at the furniture of the +two rooms. Abdul Gafur, who was laying lunch, looked at him with deep +disgust. + +‘So much trouble to eat, and so much trouble to lie down after you have +eaten!’ said Mowgli with a grin. ‘We do better in the jungle. It is +very wonderful. There are very many rich things here. Is the Sahib not +afraid that he may be robbed? I have never seen such wonderful things.’ +He was staring at a dusty Benares brass plate on a ricketty bracket. + +‘Only a thief from the jungle would rob here,’ said Abdul Gafur, +setting down a plate with a clatter. Mowgli opened his eyes wide and +stared at the white-bearded Mohammedan. + +‘In my country when goats bleat very loud we cut their throats,’ he +returned cheerfully. ‘But have no fear, thou, I am going.’ + +He turned and disappeared into the _rukh_. Gisborne looked after him +with a laugh that ended in a little sigh. There was not much outside +his regular work to interest the Forest Officer, and this son of the +forest, who seemed to know tigers as other people know dogs, would have +been a diversion. + +‘He’s a most wonderful chap,’ thought Gisborne; ‘he’s like the +illustrations in the Classical Dictionary. I wish I could have made him +a gun-boy. There’s no fun in shikarring alone, and this fellow would +have been a perfect _shikarri_. I wonder what in the world he is.’ + +That evening he sat on the verandah under the stairs smoking as he +wondered. A puff of smoke curled from the pipe-bowl. As it cleared he +was aware of Mowgli sitting with arms crossed on the verandah edge. A +ghost could not have drifted up more noiselessly. Gisborne started and +let the pipe drop. + +‘There is no man to talk to out there in the _rukh_,’ said Mowgli; +‘I came here, therefore.’ He picked up the pipe and returned it to +Gisborne. + +‘Oh,’ said Gisborne, and after a long pause, ‘What news is there in the +_rukh_? Hast thou found another tiger?’ + +‘The nilghai are changing their feeding-ground against the new moon, as +is their custom. The pig are feeding near the Kanye river now, because +they will not feed with the nilghai, and one of their sows has been +killed by a leopard in the long grass at the water-head. I do not know +any more.’ + +‘And how didst thou know all these things?’ said Gisborne, leaning +forward and looking at the eyes that glittered in the starlight. + +‘How should I not know? The nilghai has his custom and his use, and a +child knows that pig will not feed with him.’ + +‘I do not know this,’ said Gisborne. + +‘Tck! Tck! And thou art in charge--so the men of the huts tell me--in +charge of all this _rukh_.’ He laughed to himself. + +‘It is well enough to talk and to tell child’s tales,’ Gisborne +retorted, nettled at the chuckle. ‘To say that this and that goes on in +the _rukh_. No man can deny thee.’ + +‘As for the sow’s carcass, I will show thee her bones to-morrow,’ +Mowgli returned, absolutely unmoved. ‘Touching the matter of the +nilghai, if the Sahib will sit here very still I will drive one nilghai +up to this place, and by listening to the sounds carefully, the Sahib +can tell whence that nilghai has been driven.’ + +‘Mowgli, the jungle has made thee mad,’ said Gisborne. ‘Who can drive +nilghai?’ + +‘Still--sit still, then. I go.’ + +‘Gad, the man’s a ghost!’ said Gisborne; for Mowgli had faded out into +the darkness and there was no sound of feet. The _rukh_ lay out in +great velvety folds in the uncertain shimmer of the star-dust--so still +that the least little wandering wind among the tree-tops came up as the +sigh of a child sleeping equably. Abdul Gafur in the cook-house was +clicking plates together. + +‘Be still there!’ shouted Gisborne, and composed himself to listen as +a man can who is used to the stillness of the _rukh_. It had been his +custom, to preserve his self-respect in his isolation, to dress for +dinner each night, and the stiff white shirt-front creaked with his +regular breathing till he shifted a little sideways. Then the tobacco +of a somewhat foul pipe began to purr, and he threw the pipe from him. +Now, except for the night-breath in the _rukh_, everything was dumb. + +From an inconceivable distance, and drawled through immeasurable +darkness, came the faint, faint echo of a wolf’s howl. Then silence +again for, it seemed, long hours. At last, when his legs below the +knees had lost all feeling, Gisborne heard something that might have +been a crash far off through the undergrowth. He doubted till it was +repeated again and yet again. + +‘That’s from the west,’ he muttered; ‘there’s something on foot there.’ +The noise increased--crash on crash, plunge on plunge--with the thick +grunting of a hotly pressed nilghai, flying in panic terror and taking +no heed to his course. + +A shadow blundered out from between the tree-trunks, wheeled back, +turned again grunting, and with a clatter on the bare ground dashed up +almost within reach of his hand. It was a bull nilghai, dripping with +dew--his withers hung with a torn trail of creeper, his eyes shining +in the light from the house. The creature checked at sight of the man, +and fled along the edge of the _rukh_ till he melted in the darkness. +The first idea in Gisborne’s bewildered mind was the indecency of +thus dragging out for inspection the big blue bull of the _rukh_--the +putting him through his paces in the night which should have been his +own. + +Then said a smooth voice at his ear as he stood staring: + +‘He came from the water-head where he was leading the herd. From the +west he came. Does the Sahib believe now, or shall I bring up the herd +to be counted? The Sahib is in charge of this _rukh_.’ + +Mowgli had reseated himself on the verandah, breathing a little +quickly. Gisborne looked at him with open mouth. ‘How was that +accomplished?’ he said. + +‘The Sahib saw. The bull was driven--driven as a buffalo is. Ho! ho! He +will have a fine tale to tell when he returns to the herd.’ + +‘That is a new trick to me. Canst thou run as swiftly as the nilghai, +then?’ + +‘The Sahib has seen. If the Sahib needs more knowledge at any time of +the movings of the game, I, Mowgli, am here. This is a good _rukh_, and +I shall stay.’ + +‘Stay then, and if thou hast need of a meal at any time my servants +shall give thee one.’ + +‘Yes, indeed, I am fond of cooked food,’ Mowgli answered quickly. ‘No +man may say that I do not eat boiled and roast as much as any other +man. I will come for that meal. Now, on my part, I promise that the +Sahib shall sleep safely in his house by night, and no thief shall +break in to carry away his so rich treasures.’ + +The conversation ended itself on Mowgli’s abrupt departure. Gisborne +sat long smoking, and the upshot of his thoughts was that in Mowgli he +had found at last that ideal ranger and forest-guard for whom he and +the Department were always looking. + +‘I must get him into the Government service somehow. A man who can +drive nilghai would know more about the _rukh_ than fifty men. He’s a +miracle--a _lusus naturæ_--but a forest-guard he must be if he’ll only +settle down in one place,’ said Gisborne. + +Abdul Gafur’s opinion was less favourable. He confided to Gisborne at +bedtime that strangers from God-knew-where were more than likely to be +professional thieves, and that he personally did not approve of naked +outcastes who had not the proper manner of addressing white people. +Gisborne laughed and bade him go to his quarters, and Abdul Gafur +retreated growling. Later in the night he found occasion to rise up and +beat his thirteen-year-old daughter. Nobody knew the cause of dispute, +but Gisborne heard the cry. + +Through the days that followed Mowgli came and went like a shadow. +He had established himself and his wild house-keeping close to the +bungalow, but on the edge of the _rukh_, where Gisborne, going out +on to the verandah for a breath of cool air, would see him sometimes +sitting in the moonlight, his forehead on his knees, or lying out along +the fling of a branch, closely pressed to it as some beast of the +night. Thence Mowgli would throw him a salutation and bid him sleep at +ease, or descending would weave prodigious stories of the manners of +the beasts in the _rukh_. Once he wandered into the stables and was +found looking at the horses with deep interest. + +‘That,’ said Abdul Gafur pointedly, ‘is sure sign that some day he +will steal one. Why, if he lives about this house, does he not take +an honest employment? But no, he must wander up and down like a loose +camel, turning the heads of fools and opening the jaws of the unwise +to folly.’ So Abdul Gafur would give harsh orders to Mowgli when they +met, would bid him fetch water and pluck fowls, and Mowgli, laughing +unconcernedly, would obey. + +‘He has no caste,’ said Abdul Gafur. ‘He will do anything. Look to +it, Sahib, that he does not do too much. A snake is a snake, and a +jungle-gipsy is a thief till the death.’ + +‘Be silent, then,’ said Gisborne. ‘I allow thee to correct thy own +household if there is not too much noise, because I know thy customs +and use. My custom thou dost not know. The man is without doubt a +little mad.’ + +‘Very little mad indeed,’ said Abdul Gafur. ‘But we shall see what +comes thereof.’ + +A few days later on his business took Gisborne into the _rukh_ for +three days. Abdul Gafur being old and fat was left at home. He did +not approve of lying up in rangers’ huts, and was inclined to levy +contributions in his master’s name of grain and oil and milk from those +who could ill afford such benevolences. Gisborne rode off early one +dawn a little vexed that his man of the woods was not at the verandah +to accompany him. He liked him--liked his strength, fleetness, and +silence of foot, and his ever-ready open smile; his ignorance of all +forms of ceremony and salutations, and the child-like tales that he +would tell (and Gisborne would credit now) of what the game was doing +in the _rukh_. After an hour’s riding through the greenery, he heard a +rustle behind him, and Mowgli trotted at his stirrup. + +‘We have a three days’ work toward,’ said Gisborne, ‘among the new +trees.’ + +‘Good,’ said Mowgli. ‘It is always good to cherish young trees. They +make cover if the beasts leave them alone. We must shift the pig again.’ + +‘Again? How?’ Gisborne smiled. + +‘Oh, they were rooting and tusking among the young _sal_ last night, +and I drove them off. Therefore I did not come to the verandah this +morning. The pig should not be on this side of the _rukh_ at all. We +must keep them below the head of the Kanye river.’ + +‘If a man could herd clouds he might do that thing; but, Mowgli, if +as thou sayest, thou art herder in the _rukh_ for no gain and for no +pay----’ + +‘It is the Sahib’s _rukh_,’ said Mowgli, quickly looking up. Gisborne +nodded thanks and went on: ‘Would it not be better to work for pay from +the Government? There is a pension at the end of long service.’ + +‘Of that I have thought,’ said Mowgli, ‘but the rangers live in huts +with shut doors, and all that is all too much a trap to me. Yet I +think----’ + +‘Think well then and tell me later. Here we will stay for breakfast.’ + +Gisborne dismounted, took his morning meal from his home-made +saddle-bags, and saw the day open hot above the _rukh_. Mowgli lay in +the grass at his side staring up to the sky. + +Presently he said in a lazy whisper: ‘Sahib, is there any order at the +bungalow to take out the white mare to-day?’ + +‘No, she is fat and old and a little lame beside. Why?’ + +‘She is being ridden now and _not_ slowly on the road that runs to the +railway line.’ + +‘Bah, that is two _koss_ away. It is a wood-pecker.’ + +Mowgli put up his forearm to keep the sun out of his eyes. + +‘The road curves in with a big curve from the bungalow. It is not more +than a _koss_, at the farthest, as the kite goes; and sound flies with +the birds. Shall we see?’ + +‘What folly! To run a _koss_ in this sun to see a noise in the forest.’ + +‘Nay, the pony is the Sahib’s pony. I meant only to bring her here. If +she is not the Sahib’s pony, no matter. If she is, the Sahib can do +what he wills. She is certainly being ridden hard.’ + +‘And how wilt thou bring her here, madman?’ + +‘Has the Sahib forgotten? By the road of the nilghai and no other.’ + +‘Up then and run if thou art so full of zeal.’ + +‘Oh, I do not run!’ He put out his hand to sign for silence, and still +lying on his back called aloud thrice--with a deep gurgling cry that +was new to Gisborne. + +‘She will come,’ he said at the end. ‘Let us wait in the shade.’ The +long eyelashes drooped over the wild eyes as Mowgli began to doze in +the morning hush. Gisborne waited patiently: Mowgli was surely mad, but +as entertaining a companion as a lonely Forest Officer could desire. + +‘Ho! ho!’ said Mowgli lazily, with shut eyes. ‘He has dropped off. +Well, first the mare will come and then the man.’ Then he yawned as +Gisborne’s pony stallion neighed. Three minutes later Gisborne’s white +mare, saddled, bridled, but riderless, tore into the glade where they +were sitting, and hurried to her companion. + +‘She is not very warm,’ said Mowgli, ‘but in this heat the sweat comes +easily. Presently we shall see her rider, for a man goes more slowly +than a horse--especially if he chance to be a fat man and old.’ + +‘Allah! This is the devil’s work,’ cried Gisborne leaping to his feet, +for he heard a yell in the jungle. + +‘Have no care, Sahib. He will not be hurt. He also will say that it is +devil’s work. Ah! Listen! Who is that?’ + +It was the voice of Abdul Gafur in an agony of terror, crying out upon +unknown things to spare him and his gray hairs. + +‘Nay, I cannot move another step,’ he howled. ‘I am old and my turban +is lost. Arré! Arré! But I will move. Indeed I will hasten. I will run! +Oh, Devils of the Pit, I am a Mussalman!’ + +The undergrowth parted and gave up Abdul Gafur, turbanless, shoeless, +with his waist-cloth unbound, mud and grass in his clutched hands, and +his face purple. He saw Gisborne, yelled anew, and pitched forward, +exhausted and quivering, at his feet. Mowgli watched him with a sweet +smile. + +‘This is no joke,’ said Gisborne sternly. ‘The man is like to die, +Mowgli.’ + +‘He will not die. He is only afraid. There was no need that he should +have come out of a walk.’ + +Abdul Gafur groaned and rose up, shaking in every limb. + +‘It was witchcraft--witchcraft and devildom!’ he sobbed, fumbling with +his hand in his breast. ‘Because of my sin I have been whipped through +the woods by devils. It is all finished. I repent. Take them, Sahib!’ +He held out a roll of dirty paper. + +‘What is the meaning of this, Abdul Gafur?’ said Gisborne, already +knowing what would come. + +‘Put me in the jail-khana--the notes are all here--but lock me up +safely that no devils may follow. I have sinned against the Sahib and +his salt which I have eaten; and but for those accursed wood-demons, +I might have bought land afar off and lived in peace all my days.’ He +beat his head upon the ground in an agony of despair and mortification. +Gisborne turned the roll of notes over and over. It was his accumulated +back-pay for the last nine months--the roll that lay in the drawer with +the home-letters and the recapping-machine. Mowgli watched Abdul Gafur, +laughing noiselessly to himself. ‘There is no need to put me on the +horse again. I will walk home slowly with the Sahib, and then he can +send me under guard to the jail-khana. The Government gives many years +for this offence,’ said the butler sullenly. + +Loneliness in the _rukh_ affects very many ideas about very many +things. Gisborne stared at Abdul Gafur, remembering that he was a very +good servant, and that a new butler must be broken into the ways of the +house from the beginning, and at the best would be a new face and a new +tongue. + +‘Listen, Abdul Gafur,’ he said. ‘Thou hast done great wrong, and +altogether lost thy _izzat_ and thy reputation. But I think that this +came upon thee suddenly.’ + +‘Allah! I had never desired the notes before. The Evil took me by the +throat while I looked.’ + +‘That also I can believe. Go then back to my house, and when I return +I will send the notes by a runner to the Bank, and there shall be no +more said. Thou art too old for the jail-khana. Also thy household is +guiltless.’ + +For answer Abdul Gafur sobbed between Gisborne’s cowhide riding-boots. + +‘Is there no dismissal then?’ he gulped. + +‘That we shall see. It hangs upon thy conduct when we return. Get upon +the mare and ride slowly back.’ + +‘But the devils! The _rukh_ is full of devils.’ + +‘No matter, my father. They will do thee no more harm unless, indeed, +the Sahib’s orders be not obeyed,’ said Mowgli. ‘Then, perchance, they +may drive thee home--by the road of the nilghai.’ + +Abdul Gafur’s lower jaw dropped as he twisted up his waist-cloth, +staring at Mowgli. + +‘Are they _his_ devils? His devils! And I had thought to return and lay +the blame upon this warlock!’ + +‘That was well thought of, Huzrut; but before we make a trap we see +first how big the game is that may fall into it. Now I thought no more +than that a man had taken one of the Sahib’s horses. I did not know +that the design was to make me a thief before the Sahib, or my devils +had haled thee here by the leg. It is not too late now.’ + +Mowgli looked inquiringly at Gisborne, but Abdul Gafur waddled hastily +to the white mare, scrambled on her back and fled; the woodways +crashing and echoing behind him. + +‘That was well done,’ said Mowgli. ‘But he will fall again unless he +holds by the mane.’ + +‘Now it is time to tell me what these things mean,’ said Gisborne a +little sternly. ‘What is this talk of thy devils? How can men be driven +up and down the _rukh_ like cattle? Give answer.’ + +‘Is the Sahib angry because I have saved him his money?’ + +‘No, but there is trick-work in this that does not please me.’ + +‘Very good. Now if I rose and stepped three paces into the _rukh_ there +is no one, not even the Sahib, could find me till I choose. As I would +not willingly do this, so I would not willingly tell. Have patience a +little, Sahib, and some day I will show thee everything, for, if thou +wilt, some day we will drive the buck together. There is no devil-work +in the matter at all. Only ... I know the _rukh_ as a man knows the +cooking-place in his house.’ + +Mowgli was speaking as he would speak to an impatient child. Gisborne, +puzzled, baffled, and a great deal annoyed, said nothing, but stared on +the ground and thought. When he looked up the man of the woods had gone. + +‘It is not good,’ said a level voice from the thicket, ‘for friends to +be angry. Wait till the evening, Sahib, when the air cools.’ + +Left to himself thus, dropped as it were in the heart of the _rukh_, +Gisborne swore, then laughed, remounted his pony, and rode on. He +visited a ranger’s hut, overlooked a couple of new plantations, left +some orders as to the burning of a patch of dry grass, and set out +for a camping-ground of his own choice, a pile of splintered rocks +roughly roofed over with branches and leaves, not far from the banks +of the Kanye stream. It was twilight when he came in sight of his +resting-place, and the _rukh_ was waking to the hushed ravenous life of +the night. + +A camp-fire flickered on the knoll, and there was the smell of a very +good dinner in the wind. + +‘Um,’ said Gisborne, ‘that’s better than cold meat at any rate. Now the +only man who’d be likely to be here’d be Muller, and, officially, he +ought to be looking over the Changamanga _rukh_. I suppose that’s why +he’s on my ground.’ + +The gigantic German who was the head of the Woods and Forests of all +India, Head Ranger from Burma to Bombay, had a habit of flitting +bat-like without warning from one place to another, and turning up +exactly where he was least looked for. His theory was that sudden +visitations, the discovery of shortcomings and a word-of-mouth +upbraiding of a subordinate were infinitely better than the slow +processes of correspondence, which might end in a written and official +reprimand--a thing in after years to be counted against a Forest +Officer’s record. As he explained it: ‘If I only talk to my boys like a +Dutch uncle, dey say, “It was only dot damned old Muller,” and dey do +better next dime. But if my fat-head clerk he write and say dot Muller +der Inspecdor-General fail to onderstand and is much annoyed, first dot +does no goot because I am not dere, and, second, der fool dot comes +after me he may say to my best boys: “Look here, you haf been wigged by +my bredecessor.” I tell you der big brass-hat pizness does not make der +trees grow.’ + +Muller’s deep voice was coming out of the darkness behind the firelight +as he bent over the shoulders of his pet cook. ‘Not so much sauce, you +son of Belial! Worcester sauce he is a gondiment and not a fluid. Ah, +Gisborne, you haf come to a very bad dinner. Where is your camp?’ and +he walked up to shake hands. + +‘I’m the camp, sir,’ said Gisborne. ‘I didn’t know you were about here.’ + +Muller looked at the young man’s trim figure. ‘Goot! That is very goot! +One horse and some cold things to eat. When I was young I did my camp +so. Now you shall dine with me. I went into Headquarters to make up +my rebort last month. I haf written half--ho! ho!--and der rest I haf +leaved to my glerks and come out for a walk. Der Government is mad +about dose reborts. I dold der Viceroy so at Simla.’ + +Gisborne chuckled, remembering the many tales that were told of +Muller’s conflicts with the Supreme Government. He was the chartered +libertine of all the offices, for as a Forest Officer he had no equal. + +‘If I find you, Gisborne, sitting in your bungalow und hatching reborts +to me about der blantations instead of riding der blantations, I will +dransfer you to der middle of der Bikaneer Desert to reforest _him_. I +am sick of reborts und chewing paper when we should do our work.’ + +‘There’s not much danger of my wasting time over my annuals. I hate +them as much as you do, sir.’ + +The talk went over at this point to professional matters. Muller had +some questions to ask, and Gisborne orders and hints to receive, till +dinner was ready. It was the most civilised meal Gisborne had eaten +for months. No distance from the base of supplies was allowed to +interfere with the work of Muller’s cook; and that table spread in the +wilderness began with devilled small fresh-water fish, and ended with +coffee and cognac. + +‘Ah!’ said Muller at the end, with a sigh of satisfaction as he lighted +a cheroot and dropped into his much worn camp-chair. ‘When I am making +reborts I am Freethinker und Atheist, but here in der _rukh_ I am +more than Christian. I am Bagan also.’ He rolled the cheroot-butt +luxuriously under his tongue, dropped his hands on his knees, and +stared before him into the dim shifting heart of the _rukh_, full of +stealthy noises; the snapping of twigs like the snapping of the fire +behind him; the sigh and rustle of a heat-bended branch recovering +her straightness in the cool night; the incessant mutter of the Kanye +stream, and the undernote of the many-peopled grass uplands out of +sight beyond a swell of hill. He blew out a thick puff of smoke, and +began to quote Heine to himself. + +‘Yes, it is very goot. Very goot. “Yes, I work miracles, and, by +Gott, dey come off too.” I remember when dere was no _rukh_ more big +than your knee, from here to der plough-lands, und in drought-time +der cattle ate bones of dead cattle up and down. Now der trees haf +come back. Dey were planted by a Freethinker, because he know just de +cause dot made der effect. But der trees dey had der cult of der old +gods--“und der Christian Gods howl loudly.” Dey could not live in der +_rukh_, Gisborne.’ + +A shadow moved in one of the bridle-paths--moved and stepped out into +the starlight. + +‘I haf said true. Hush! Here is Faunus himself come to see der +Insbector-General. Himmel, he is der god! Look!’ + +It was Mowgli, crowned with his wreath of white flowers and walking +with a half-peeled branch--Mowgli, very mistrustful of the firelight +and ready to fly back to the thicket on the least alarm. + +‘That’s a friend of mine,’ said Gisborne. ‘He’s looking for me. Ohé, +Mowgli!’ + +Muller had barely time to gasp before the man was at Gisborne’s side, +crying: ‘I was wrong to go. I was wrong, but I did not know then that +the mate of him that was killed by this river was awake looking for +thee. Else I should not have gone away. She tracked thee from the +back-range, Sahib.’ + +‘He is a little mad,’ said Gisborne, ‘and he speaks of all the beasts +about here as if he was a friend of theirs.’ + +‘Of course--of course. If Faunus does not know, who should know?’ said +Muller gravely. ‘What does he say about tigers--dis god who knows you +so well?’ + +Gisborne relighted his cheroot, and before he had finished the story of +Mowgli and his exploits it was burned down to moustache-edge. Muller +listened without interruption. ‘Dot is not madness,’ he said at last +when Gisborne had described the driving of Abdul Gafur. ‘Dot is not +madness at all.’ + +‘What is it, then? He left me in a temper this morning because I asked +him to tell how he did it. I fancy the chap’s possessed in some way.’ + +‘No, dere is no bossession, but it is most wonderful. Normally they die +young--dese beople. Und you say now dot your thief-servant did not say +what drove der poney, and of course der nilghai he could not speak.’ + +‘No, but, confound it, there wasn’t anything. I listened, and I can +hear most things. The bull and the man simply came headlong--mad with +fright.’ + +For answer Muller looked Mowgli up and down from head to foot, then +beckoned him nearer. He came as a buck treads a tainted trail. + +‘There is no harm,’ said Muller in the vernacular. ‘Hold out an arm.’ + +He ran his hand down to the elbow, felt that, and nodded. ‘So I +thought. Now the knee.’ Gisborne saw him feel the knee-cap and smile. +Two or three white scars just above the ankle caught his eye. + +‘Those came when thou wast very young?’ he said. + +‘Ay,’ Mowgli answered with a smile. ‘They were love-tokens from the +little ones.’ Then to Gisborne over his shoulder. ‘This Sahib knows +everything. Who is he?’ + +‘That comes after, my friend. Now where are _they_?’ said Muller. + +Mowgli swept his hand round his head in a circle. + +‘So! And thou canst drive nilghai? See! There is my mare in her +pickets. Canst thou bring her to me without frightening her?’ + +‘Can I bring the mare to the Sahib without frightening her!’ Mowgli +repeated, raising his voice a little above its normal pitch. ‘What is +more easy, if the heel-ropes are loose?’ + +‘Loosen the head and heel-pegs,’ shouted Muller to the groom. They were +hardly out of the ground before the mare, a huge black Australian, +flung up her head and cocked her ears. + +‘Careful! I do not wish her driven into the _rukh_,’ said Muller. + +Mowgli stood still fronting the blaze of the fire--in the very form and +likeness of that Greek god who is so lavishly described in the novels. +The mare whickered, drew up one hind leg, found that the heel-ropes +were free, and moved swiftly to her master, on whose bosom she dropped +her head, sweating lightly. + +‘She came of her own accord. My horses will do that,’ cried Gisborne. + +‘Feel if she sweats,’ said Mowgli. + +Gisborne laid a hand on the damp flank. + +‘It is enough,’ said Muller. + +‘It is enough,’ Mowgli repeated, and a rock behind him threw back the +word. + +‘That’s uncanny, isn’t it?’ said Gisborne. + +‘No, only wonderful--most wonderful. Still you do not know, Gisborne?’ + +‘I confess I don’t.’ + +‘Well then, I shall not tell. He says dot some day he will show you +what it is. It would be gruel if I told. But why he is not dead I do +not understand. Now listen thou.’ Muller faced Mowgli, and returned to +the vernacular. ‘I am the head of all the _rukhs_ in the country of +India and others across the Black Water. I do not know how many men be +under me--perhaps five thousand, perhaps ten. Thy business is this,--to +wander no more up and down the _rukh_ and drive beasts for sport or for +show, but to take service under me, who am the Government in the matter +of Woods and Forests, and to live in this _rukh_ as a forest-guard; to +drive the villagers’ goats away when there is no order to feed them in +the _rukh_; to admit them when there is an order; to keep down, as thou +canst keep down, the boar and the nilghai when they become too many; +to tell Gisborne Sahib how and where tigers move, and what game there +is in the forests; and to give sure warning of all the fires in the +_rukh_, for thou canst give warning more quickly than any other. For +that work there is a payment each month in silver, and at the end, when +thou hast gathered a wife and cattle and, may be, children, a pension. +What answer?’ + +‘That’s just what I----’ Gisborne began. + +‘My Sahib spoke this morning of such a service. I walked all day alone +considering the matter, and my answer is ready here. I serve, _if_ I +serve in this _rukh_ and no other: _with_ Gisborne Sahib and with no +other.’ + +‘It shall be so. In a week comes the written order that pledges the +honour of the Government for the pension. After that thou wilt take up +thy hut where Gisborne Sahib shall appoint.’ + +‘I was going to speak to you about it,’ said Gisborne. + +‘I did not want to be told when I saw that man. Dere will never be a +forest-guard like him. He is a miracle. I tell you, Gisborne, some day +you will find it so. Listen, he is blood-brother to every beast in der +_rukh_!’ + +‘I should be easier in my mind if I could understand him.’ + +‘Dot will come. Now I tell you dot only once in my service, and dot is +thirty years, haf I met a boy dot began as this man began. Und he died. +Sometimes you hear of dem in der census reports, but dey all die. Dis +man haf lived, and he is an anachronism, for he is before der Iron Age, +and der Stone Age. Look here, he is at der beginnings of der history +of man--Adam in der Garden, und now we want only an Eva! No! He is +older than dot child-tale, shust as der _rukh_ is older dan der gods. +Gisborne, I am a Bagan now, once for all.’ + +Through the rest of the long evening Muller sat smoking and smoking, +and staring and staring into the darkness, his lips moving in +multiplied quotations, and great wonder upon his face. He went to his +tent, but presently came out again in his majestic pink sleeping-suit, +and the last words that Gisborne heard him address to the _rukh_ +through the deep hush of midnight were these, delivered with immense +emphasis:-- + + ‘Dough we shivt und bedeck und bedrape us, + Dou art noble und nude und andeek; + Libidina dy moder, Briapus + Dy fader, a God und a Greek. + +Now I know dot, Bagan _or_ Christian, I shall nefer know der inwardness +of der _rukh_!’ + + * * * * * + +It was midnight in the bungalow a week later when Abdul Gafur, ashy +gray with rage, stood at the foot of Gisborne’s bed and whispering bade +him awake. + +‘Up, Sahib,’ he stammered. ‘Up and bring thy gun. Mine honour is gone. +Up and kill before any see.’ + +The old man’s face had changed, so that Gisborne stared stupidly. + +‘It was for this, then, that that jungle outcaste helped me to polish +the Sahib’s table, and drew water and plucked fowls. They have gone off +together for all my beatings, and now he sits among his devils dragging +her soul to the Pit. Up, Sahib, and come with me!’ + +He thrust a rifle into Gisborne’s half-wakened hand and almost dragged +him from the room on to the verandah. + +‘They are there in the _rukh_; even within gunshot of the house. Come +softly with me.’ + +‘But what is it? What is the trouble, Abdul?’ + +‘Mowgli, and his devils. Also my own daughter,’ said Abdul Gafur. +Gisborne whistled and followed his guide. Not for nothing, he knew, +had Abdul Gafur beaten his daughter of nights, and not for nothing had +Mowgli helped in the housework a man whom his own powers, whatever +those were, had convicted of theft. Also, a forest wooing goes quickly. + +There was the breathing of a flute in the _rukh_, as it might have been +the song of some wandering wood-god, and, as they came nearer, a murmur +of voices. The path ended in a little semicircular glade walled partly +by high grass and partly by trees. In the centre, upon a fallen trunk, +his back to the watchers and his arm round the neck of Abdul Gafur’s +daughter, sat Mowgli, newly crowned with flowers, playing upon a rude +bamboo flute, to whose music four huge wolves danced solemnly on their +hind legs. + +‘Those are his devils,’ Abdul Gafur whispered. He held a bunch of +cartridges in his hand. The beasts dropped to a long-drawn quavering +note and lay still with steady green eyes, glaring at the girl. + +‘Behold,’ said Mowgli, laying aside the flute. ‘Is there anything of +fear in that? I told thee, little Stout-heart, that there was not, and +thou didst believe. Thy father said--and oh, if thou couldst have seen +thy father being driven by the road of the nilghai!--thy father said +that they were devils; and by Allah, who is thy God, I do not wonder +that he so believed.’ + +The girl laughed a little rippling laugh, and Gisborne heard Abdul +grind his few remaining teeth. This was not at all the girl that +Gisborne had seen with a half-eye slinking about the compound veiled +and silent; but another--a woman full blown in a night as the orchid +puts out in an hour’s moist heat. + +‘But they are my playmates and my brothers; children of that mother +that gave me suck, as I told thee behind the cook-house,’ Mowgli went +on. ‘Children of the father that lay between me and the cold at the +mouth of the cave when I was a little naked child. Look’--a wolf raised +his gray jowl, slavering at Mowgli’s knee--‘my brother knows that I +speak of them. Yes, when I was a little child he was a cub rolling with +me on the clay.’ + +‘But thou hast said that thou art human-born, cooed the girl, nestling +closer to the shoulder. ‘Thou art human-born?’ + +‘Said! Nay, I know that I am human born, because my heart is in thy +hold, little one.’ Her head dropped under Mowgli’s chin. Gisborne put +up a warning hand to restrain Abdul Gafur, who was not in the least +impressed by the wonder of the sight. + +‘But I was a wolf among wolves none the less till a time came when +Those of the jungle bade me go because I was a man.’ + +‘Who bade thee go? That is not like a true man’s talk.’ + +‘The very beasts themselves. Little one, thou wouldst never believe +that telling, but so it was. The beasts of the jungle bade me go, but +these four followed me because I was their brother. Then was I a +herder of cattle among men, having learned their language. Ho! ho! The +herds paid toll to my brothers, till a woman, an old woman, beloved, +saw me playing by night with my brethren in the crops. They said that I +was possessed of devils, and drove me from that village with sticks and +stones, and the four came with me by stealth and not openly. That was +when I had learned to eat cooked meat and to talk boldly. From village +to village I went, heart of my heart, a herder of cattle, a tender of +buffaloes, a tracker of game, but there was no man that dared lift a +finger against me twice.’ He stooped down and patted one of the heads. +‘Do thou also like this. There is neither hurt nor magic in them. See, +they know thee.’ + +‘The woods are full of all manner of devils,’ said the girl with a +shudder. + +‘A lie. A child’s lie,’ Mowgli returned confidently. ‘I have lain out +in the dew under the stars and in the dark night, and I know. The +jungle is my house. Shall a man fear his own roof-beams or a woman her +man’s hearth? Stoop down and pat them.’ + +‘They are dogs and unclean,’ she murmured, bending forward with averted +head. + +‘Having eaten the fruit, now we remember the Law!’ said Abdul Gafur +bitterly. ‘What is the need of this waiting, Sahib? Kill!’ + +‘H’sh, thou. Let us learn what has happened,’ said Gisborne. + +‘That is well done,’ said Mowgli, slipping his arm round the girl +again. ‘Dogs or no dogs, they were with me through a thousand villages.’ + +‘Ahi, and where was thy heart then? Through a thousand villages. Thou +hast seen a thousand maids. I--that am--that am a maid no more, have I +thy heart?’ + +‘What shall I swear by? By Allah, of whom thou speakest?’ + +‘Nay, by the life that is in thee, and I am well content. Where was thy +heart in those days?’ + +Mowgli laughed a little. ‘In my belly, because I was young and always +hungry. So I learned to track and to hunt, sending and calling my +brothers back and forth as a king calls his armies. Therefore I drove +the nilghai for the foolish young Sahib, and the big fat mare for the +big fat Sahib, when they questioned my power. It were as easy to have +driven the men themselves. Even now,’ his voiced lifted a little--‘even +now I know that behind me stand thy father and Gisborne Sahib. Nay, do +not run, for no ten men dare move a pace forward. Remembering that thy +father beat thee more than once, shall I give the word and drive him +again in rings through the _rukh_?’ A wolf stood up with bared teeth. + +Gisborne felt Abdul Gafur tremble at his side. Next, his place was +empty, and the fat man was skimming down the glade. + +‘Remains only Gisborne Sahib,’ said Mowgli, still without turning; ‘but +I have eaten Gisborne Sahib’s bread, and presently I shall be in his +service, and my brothers will be his servants to drive game and carry +the news. Hide thou in the grass.’ + +The girl fled, the tall grass closed behind her and the guardian wolf +that followed, and Mowgli turning with his three retainers faced +Gisborne as the Forest Officer came forward. + +‘That is all the magic,’ he said, pointing to the three. ‘The fat Sahib +knew that we who are bred among wolves run on our elbows and our knees +for a season. Feeling my arms and legs, he felt the truth which thou +didst not know. Is it so wonderful, Sahib?’ + +‘Indeed it is all more wonderful than magic. These then drove the +nilghai?’ + +‘Ay, as they would drive Eblis if I gave the order. They are my eyes +and feet to me.’ + +‘Look to it, then, that Eblis does not carry a double rifle. They have +yet something to learn, thy devils, for they stand one behind the +other, so that two shots would kill the three.’ + +‘Ah, but they know they will be thy servants as soon as I am a +forest-guard.’ + +‘Guard or no guard, Mowgli, thou hast done a great shame to Abdul +Gafur. Thou hast dishonoured his house and blackened his face.’ + +‘For that, it was blackened when he took thy money, and made blacker +still when he whispered in thy ear a little while since to kill a +naked man. I myself will talk to Abdul Gafur, for I am a man of the +Government service, with a pension. He shall make the marriage by +whatsoever rite he will, or he shall run once more. I will speak to him +in the dawn. For the rest, the Sahib has his house and this is mine. It +is time to sleep again, Sahib.’ + +Mowgli turned on his heel and disappeared into the grass, leaving +Gisborne alone. The hint of the wood-god was not to be mistaken; and +Gisborne went back to the bungalow, where Abdul Gafur, torn by rage and +fear, was raving in the verandah. + +‘Peace, peace,’ said Gisborne, shaking him, for he looked as though +he were going to have a fit. ‘Muller Sahib has made the man a +forest-guard, and as thou knowest there is a pension at the end of that +business, and it is Government service.’ + +‘He is an outcaste--a _mlech_--a dog among dogs; an eater of carrion! +What pension can pay for that?’ + +‘Allah knows; and thou hast heard that the mischief is done. Wouldst +thou blaze it to all the other servants? Make the _shadi_ swiftly, +and the girl will make him a Mussalman. He is very comely. Canst thou +wonder that after thy beatings she went to him?’ + +‘Did he say that he would chase me with his beasts?’ + +‘So it seemed to me. If he be a wizard, he is at least a very strong +one.’ + +Abdul Gafur thought awhile, and then broke down and howled, forgetting +that he was a Mussalman:-- + +‘Thou art a Brahmin. I am thy cow. Make thou the matter plain, and save +my honour if it can be saved!’ + +A second time then Gisborne plunged into the _rukh_ and called Mowgli. +The answer came from high overhead, and in no submissive tones. + +‘Speak softly,’ said Gisborne, looking up. ‘There is yet time to strip +thee of thy place and hunt thee with thy wolves. The girl must go back +to her father’s house to-night. To-morrow there will be the _shadi_, +by the Mussalman law, and then thou canst take her away. Bring her to +Abdul Gafur.’ + +‘I hear.’ There was a murmur of two voices conferring among the leaves. +‘Also, we will obey--for the last time.’ + + * * * * * + +A year later Muller and Gisborne were riding through the _rukh_ +together, talking of their business. They came out among the rocks near +the Kanye stream; Muller riding a little in advance. Under the shade +of a thorn thicket sprawled a naked brown baby, and from the brake +immediately behind him peered the head of a gray wolf. Gisborne had +just time to strike up Muller’s rifle, and the bullet tore spattering +through the branches above. + +‘Are you mad?’ thundered Muller. ‘Look!’ + +‘I see,’ said Gisborne quietly. ‘The mother’s somewhere near. You’ll +wake the whole pack, by Jove!’ + +The bushes parted once more, and a woman unveiled snatched up the child. + +‘Who fired, Sahib?’ she cried to Gisborne. + +‘This Sahib. He had not remembered thy man’s people.’ + +‘Not remembered? But indeed it may be so, for we who live with them +forget that they are strangers at all. Mowgli is down the stream +catching fish. Does the Sahib wish to see him? Come out, ye lacking +manners. Come out of the bushes, and make your service to the Sahibs.’ + +Muller’s eyes grew rounder and rounder. He swung himself off the +plunging mare and dismounted, while the jungle gave up four wolves who +fawned round Gisborne. The mother stood nursing her child and spurning +them aside as they brushed against her bare feet. + +‘You were quite right about Mowgli,’ said Gisborne. ‘I meant to have +told you, but I’ve got so used to these fellows in the last twelve +months that it slipped my mind.’ + +‘Oh, don’t apologise,’ said Muller. ‘It’s nothing. Gott in Himmel! “Und +I work miracles--und dey come off too!”’ + + + + + ‘BRUGGLESMITH.’ + + + This day the ship went down, and all hands was drowned but me. + + CLARK RUSSELL. + + +The first officer of the _Breslau_ asked me to dinner on board, +before the ship went round to Southampton to pick up her passengers. +The _Breslau_ was lying below London Bridge, her fore-hatches opened +for cargo, and her deck littered with nuts and bolts, and screws and +chains. The Black M‘Phee had been putting some finishing touches to his +adored engines, and M‘Phee is the most tidy of chief engineers. If the +leg of a cockroach gets into one of his slide-valves the whole ship +knows it, and half the ship has to clean up the mess. + +After dinner, which the first officer, M‘Phee, and I ate in one little +corner of the empty saloon, M‘Phee returned to the engine-room to +attend to some brass-fitters. The first officer and I smoked on the +bridge and watched the lights of the crowded shipping till it was time +for me to go home. It seemed, in the pauses of our conversation, that I +could catch an echo of fearful bellowings from the engine-room, and the +voice of M‘Phee singing of home and the domestic affections. + +‘M‘Phee has a friend aboard to-night--a man who was a boiler-maker at +Greenock when M‘Phee was a ’prentice,’ said the first officer. ‘I +didn’t ask him to dine with us because----’ + +‘I see--I mean I hear,’ I answered. We talked on for a few minutes +longer, and M‘Phee came up from the engine-room with his friend on his +arm. + +‘Let me present ye to this gentleman,’ said M‘Phee. ‘He’s a great +admirer o’ your wor-rks. He has just hearrd o’ them.’ + +M‘Phee could never pay a compliment prettily. The friend sat down +suddenly on a bollard, saying that M‘Phee had under-stated the truth. +Personally, he on the bollard considered that Shakespeare was trembling +in the balance solely on my account, and if the first officer wished +to dispute this he was prepared to fight the first officer then or +later, ‘as per invoice.’ ‘Man, if ye only knew,’ said he, wagging his +head, ‘the times I’ve lain in my lonely bunk reading _Vanity Fair_ an’ +sobbin’--ay, weepin’ bitterly, at the pure fascination of it.’ + +He shed a few tears for guarantee of good faith, and the first officer +laughed. M‘Phee resettled the man’s hat, that had tilted over one +eyebrow. + +‘That’ll wear off in a little. It’s just the smell o’ the engine-room,’ +said M‘Phee. + +‘I think I’ll wear off myself,’ I whispered to the first officer. ‘Is +the dinghy ready?’ + +The dinghy was at the gangway, which was down, and the first officer +went forward to find a man to row me to the bank. He returned with a +very sleepy Lascar, who knew the river. + +‘Are you going?’ said the man on the bollard. ‘Well, I’ll just see +ye home. M‘Phee, help me down the gangway. It has as many ends as a +cat-o’-nine-tails, and--losh!--how innumerable are the dinghys!’ + +‘You’d better let him come with you,’ said the first officer. ‘Muhammad +Jan, put the drunk sahib ashore first. Take the sober sahib to the next +stairs.’ + +I had my foot in the bow of the dinghy, the tide was making up-stream, +when the man cannoned against me, pushed the Lascar back on the +gangway, cast loose the painter, and the dinghy began to saw, +stern-first, along the side of the _Breslau_. + +‘We’ll have no exter-r-raneous races here,’ said the man. ‘I’ve known +the Thames for thirty years----’ + +There was no time for argument. We were drifting under the _Breslau’s_ +stern, and I knew that her propeller was half out of water, in the +middle of an inky tangle of buoys, low-lying hawsers, and moored ships, +with the tide ripping through them. + +‘What shall I do?’ I shouted to the first officer. + +‘Find the Police Boat as soon as you can, and for God’s sake get some +way on the dinghy. Steer with the oar. The rudder’s unshipped and----’ + +I could hear no more. The dinghy slid away, bumped on a mooring-buoy, +swung round and jigged off irresponsibly as I hunted for the oar. The +man sat in the bow, his chin on his hands, smiling. + +‘Row, you ruffian,’ I said. ‘Get her out into the middle of the +river----’ + +‘It’s a preevilege to gaze on the face o’ genius. Let me go on +thinking. There was “Little Bar-rnaby Dorrit” and “The Mystery o’ the +Bleak Druid.” I sailed in a ship called the _Druid_ once--badly found +she was. It all comes back to me so sweet. It all comes back to me. +Man, ye steer like a genius.’ + +We bumped round another mooring-buoy and drifted on to the bows of a +Norwegian timber-ship--I could see the great square holes on either +side of the cutwater. Then we dived into a string of barges and scraped +through them by the paint on our planks. It was a consolation to think +that the dinghy was being reduced in value at every bump, but the +question before me was when she would begin to leak. The man looked +ahead into the pitchy darkness and whistled. + +‘Yon’s a Castle liner; her ties are black. She’s swinging across +stream. Keep her port light on our starboard bow, and go large,’ he +said. + +‘How can I keep anything anywhere? You’re sitting on the oars. Row, +man, if you don’t want to drown.’ + +He took the sculls, saying sweetly: ‘No harm comes to a drunken man. +That’s why I wished to come wi’ _you_. Man, ye’re not fit to be alone +in a boat.’ + +He flirted the dinghy round the big ship, and for the next ten minutes +I enjoyed--positively enjoyed--an exhibition of first-class steering. +We threaded in and out of the mercantile marine of Great Britain as a +ferret threads a rabbit-hole, and we, he that is to say, sang joyously +to each ship till men looked over bulwarks and cursed us. When we came +to some moderately clear water he gave the sculls to me, and said: + +‘If ye could row as ye write, I’d respect you for all your vices. Yon’s +London Bridge. Take her through.’ + +We shot under the dark ringing arch, and came out the other side, +going up swiftly with the tide chanting songs of victory. Except that +I wished to get home before morning, I was growing reconciled to the +jaunt. There were one or two stars visible, and by keeping into the +centre of the stream, we could not come to any very serious danger. + +The man began to sing loudly:-- + + ‘The smartest clipper that you could find, + Yo ho! Oho! + Was the _Marg’ret Evans_ of the Black X Line, + A hundred years ago! + +Incorporate that in your next book, which is marvellous.’ Here he stood +up in the bows and declaimed:-- + + ‘Ye Towers o’ Julia, London’s lasting wrong, + By mony a foul an’ midnight murder fed-- + Sweet Thames run softly till I end my song-- + And yon’s the grave as little as my bed. + +I’m a poet mysel an’ I can feel for others.’ + +‘Sit down,’ said I. ‘You’ll have the boat over.’ + +‘Ay, I’m settin’--settin’ like a hen.’ He plumped down heavily, and +added, shaking his forefinger at me:-- + + ‘Lear-rn, prudent, cautious self-control + Is wisdom’s root. + +How did a man o’ your parts come to be so drunk? Oh, it’s a sinfu’ +thing, an’ ye may thank God on all fours that I’m with you. What’s yon +boat?’ + +We had drifted far up the river, and a boat manned by four men, who +rowed with a soothingly regular stroke, was overhauling us. + +‘It’s the River Police,’ I said, at the top of my voice. + +‘Oh ay! If your sin do not find you out on dry land, it will find you +out in the deep waters. Is it like they’ll give us drink?’ + +‘Exceedingly likely. I’ll hail them.’ I hailed. + +‘What are you doing?’ was the answer from the boat. + +‘It’s the _Breslau’s_ dinghy broken loose,’ I began. + +‘It’s a vara drunken man broke loose,’ roared my companion, ‘and I’m +taking him home by water, for he cannot stand on dry land.’ Here he +shouted my name twenty times running, and I could feel the blushes +racing over my body three deep. + +‘You’ll be locked up in ten minutes, my friend,’ I said, ‘and I don’t +think you’ll be bailed either.’ + +‘H’sh, man, h’sh. They think I’m your uncle.’ He caught up a scull and +began splashing the boat as it ranged alongside. + +‘You’re a nice pair,’ said the sergeant at last. + +‘I am anything you please so long as you take this fiend away. Tow us +in to the nearest station, and I’ll make it worth your while,’ I said. + +‘Corruption--corruption,’ roared the man, throwing himself flat in the +bottom of the boat. ‘Like unto the worms that perish, so is man! And +all for the sake of a filthy half-crown to be arrested by the river +police at my time o’ life!’ + +‘For pity’s sake, row,’ I shouted. ‘The man’s drunk.’ + +They rowed us to a flat--a fire or a police-station; it was too dark to +see which. I could feel that they regarded me in no better light than +the other man. I could not explain, for I was holding the far end of +the painter, and feeling cut off from all respectability. + +We got out of the boat, my companion falling flat on his wicked face, +and the sergeant asked us rude questions about the dinghy. My companion +washed his hands of all responsibility. He was an old man; he had been +lured into a stolen boat by a young man--probably a thief--he had saved +the boat from wreck (this was absolutely true), and now he expected +salvage in the shape of hot whisky and water. The sergeant turned to +me. Fortunately I was in evening dress, and had a card to show. More +fortunately still, the sergeant happened to know the _Breslau_ and +M‘Phee. He promised to send the dinghy down next tide, and was not +beyond accepting my thanks, in silver. + +As this was satisfactorily arranged, I heard my companion say angrily +to a constable, ‘If you will not give it to a dry man, ye maun to a +drookit.’ Then he walked deliberately off the edge of the flat into the +water. Somebody stuck a boat-hook into his clothes and hauled him out. + +‘Now,’ said he triumphantly, ‘under the rules o’ the R-royal Humane +Society, ye must give me hot whisky and water. Do not put temptation +before the laddie. He’s my nephew an’ a good boy i’ the main. Tho’ why +he should masquerade as Mister Thackeray on the high seas is beyond my +comprehension. Oh the vanity o’ youth! M‘Phee told me ye were as vain +as a peacock. I mind that now.’ + +‘You had better give him something to drink and wrap him up for the +night. I don’t know who he is,’ I said desperately, and when the man +had settled down to a drink supplied on my representations, I escaped +and found that I was near a bridge. + +I went towards Fleet Street, intending to take a hansom and go home. +After the first feeling of indignation died out, the absurdity of the +experience struck me fully and I began to laugh aloud in the empty +streets, to the scandal of a policeman. The more I reflected the +more heartily I laughed, till my mirth was quenched by a hand on my +shoulder, and turning I saw him who should have been in bed at the +river police-station. He was damp all over; his wet silk hat rode far +at the back of his head, and round his shoulders hung a striped yellow +blanket, evidently the property of the State. + +‘The crackling o’ thorns under a pot,’ said he, solemnly. ‘Laddie, have +ye not thought o’ the sin of idle laughter? My heart misgave me that +ever ye’d get home, an’ I’ve just come to convoy you a piece. They’re +sore uneducate down there by the river. They wouldna listen to me when +I talked o’ your worrks, so I e’en left them. Cast the blanket about +you, laddie. It’s fine and cold.’ + +I groaned inwardly. Providence evidently intended that I should frolic +through eternity with M‘Phee’s infamous acquaintance. + +‘Go away,’ I said; ‘go home, or I’ll give you in charge!’ + +He leaned against a lamp-post and laid his finger to his nose--his +dishonourable, carnelian neb. + +‘I mind now that M‘Phee told me ye were vainer than a peacock, an’ +your castin’ me adrift in a boat shows ye were drunker than an owl. A +good name is as a savoury bakemeat. I ha’ nane.’ He smacked his lips +joyously. + +‘Well, I know that,’ I said. + +‘Ay, but _ye_ have. I mind now that M‘Phee spoke o’ your reputation +that you’re so proud of. Laddie, if ye gie me in charge--I’m old enough +to be your father--I’ll bla-ast your reputation as far as my voice +can carry; for I’ll call you by name till the cows come hame. It’s no +jestin’ matter to be a friend to me. If you discard my friendship, ye +must come to Vine Street wi’ me for stealin’ the _Breslau’s_ dinghy.’ + +Then he sang at the top of his voice:-- + + ‘In the morrnin’ + I’ the morrnin’ by the black van-- + We’ll toodle up to Vine Street i’ the morrnin’! + +Yon’s my own composeetion, but _I’m_ not vain. We’ll go home together, +laddie, we’ll go home together.’ And he sang ‘Auld Lang Syne’ to show +that he meant it. + +A policeman suggested that we had better move on, and we moved on to +the Law Courts near St. Clement Danes. My companion was quieter now, +and his speech, which up till that time had been distinct--it was a +marvel to hear how in his condition he could talk dialect--began to +slur and slide and slummock. He bade me observe the architecture of +the Law Courts and linked himself lovingly to my arm. Then he saw a +policeman, and before I could shake him off, whirled me up to the man +singing:-- + + ‘Every member of the Force, + Has a watch and chain of course--’ + +and threw his dripping blanket over the helmet of the Law. In any +other country in the world we should have run an exceedingly good +chance of being shot, or dirked, or clubbed--and clubbing is worse +than being shot. But I reflected in that wet-cloth tangle that this +was England, where the police are made to be banged and battered and +bruised, that they may the better endure a police-court reprimand next +morning. We three fell in a festoon, he calling on me by name--that was +the tingling horror of it--to sit on the policeman’s head and cut the +traces. I wriggled clear first and shouted to the policeman to kill the +blanket-man. + +Naturally the policeman answered: ‘You’re as bad as ’im,’ and chased +me, as the smaller man, round St. Clement Danes into Holywell Street, +where I ran into the arms of another policeman. That flight could not +have lasted more than a minute and a half, but it seemed to me as +long and as wearisome as the foot-bound flight of a nightmare. I had +leisure to think of a thousand things as I ran; but most I thought of +the great and god-like man who held a sitting in the north gallery of +St. Clement Danes a hundred years ago. I know that he at least would +have felt for me. So occupied was I with these considerations, that +when the other policeman hugged me to his bosom and said: ‘What are you +tryin’ to do?’ I answered with exquisite politeness: ‘Sir, let us take +a walk down Fleet Street.’ ‘Bow Street’ll do _your_ business, I think,’ +was the answer, and for a moment I thought so too, till it seemed I +might scuffle out of it. Then there was a hideous scene, and it was +complicated by my companion hurrying up with the blanket and telling +me--always by name--that he would rescue me or perish in the attempt. + +‘Knock him down,’ I pleaded. ‘Club his head open first and I’ll explain +afterwards.’ + +The first policeman, the one who had been outraged, drew his truncheon +and cut at my companion’s head. The high silk hat crackled and the +owner dropped like a log. + +‘Now you’ve done it,’ I said. ‘You’ve probably killed him.’ + +Holywell Street never goes to bed. A small crowd gathered on the spot, +and some one of German extraction shrieked: ‘You haf killed the man.’ + +Another cried: ‘Take his bloomin’ number. I saw him strook cruel ’ard. +Yah!’ + +Now the street was empty when the trouble began, and, saving the two +policemen and myself, no one had seen the blow. I said, therefore, in a +loud and cheerful voice:-- + +‘The man’s a friend of mine. He’s fallen down in a fit. Bobby, will you +bring the ambulance?’ Under my breath I added: ‘It’s five shillings +apiece, and the man didn’t hit you.’ + +‘No, but ’im and you tried to scrob me,’ said the policeman. + +This was not a thing to argue about. + +‘Is Dempsey on duty at Charing Cross?’ I said. + +‘Wot d’you know of Dempsey, you bloomin’ garrotter?’ said the policeman. + +‘If Dempsey’s there, he knows me. Get the ambulance quick, and I’ll +take him to Charing Cross.’ + +‘You’re coming to Bow Street, _you_ are,’ said the policeman crisply. + +‘The man’s dying’--he lay groaning on the pavement--‘get the +ambulance,’ said I. + +There is an ambulance at the back of St. Clement Danes, whereof I know +more than most people. The policeman seemed to possess the keys of the +box in which it lived. We trundled it out--it was a three-wheeled +affair with a hood--and we bundled the body of the man upon it. + +A body in an ambulance looks very extremely dead. The policemen +softened at the sight of the stiff boot-heels. + +‘Now then,’ said they, and I fancied that they still meant Bow Street. + +‘Let me see Dempsey for three minutes if he’s on duty,’ I answered. + +‘Very good. He is.’ + +Then I knew that all would be well, but before we started I put my +head under the ambulance-hood to see if the man were alive. A guarded +whisper came to my ear. + +‘Laddie, you maun pay me for a new hat. They’ve broken it. Dinna desert +me now, laddie. I’m o’er old to go to Bow Street in my gray hairs for a +fault of yours. Laddie, dinna desert me.’ + +‘You’ll be lucky if you get off under seven years,’ I said to the +policeman. + +Moved by a very lively fear of having exceeded their duty, the two +policemen left their beats, and the mournful procession wound down the +empty Strand. Once west of the Adelphi, I knew I should be in my own +country; and the policemen had reason to know that too, for as I was +pacing proudly a little ahead of the catafalque, another policeman said +‘Good-night, sir,’ to me as he passed. + +‘Now, you see,’ I said, with condescension. ‘I wouldn’t be in your +shoes for something. On my word, I’ve a great mind to march you two +down to Scotland Yard.’ + +‘If the gentleman’s a friend o’ yours, per’aps--’ said the policeman +who had given the blow, and was reflecting on the consequences. + +‘Perhaps you’d like me to go away and say nothing about it,’ I said. +Then there hove into view the figure of Constable Dempsey, glittering +in his oil-skins, and an angel of light to me. I had known him for +months; he was an esteemed friend of mine, and we used to talk together +in the early mornings. The fool seeks to ingratiate himself with +Princes and Ministers; and courts and cabinets leave him to--perish +miserably. The wise man makes allies among the police and the hansoms, +so that his friends spring up from the round-house and the cab-rank, +and even his offences become triumphal processions. + +‘Dempsey,’ said I, ‘have the police been on strike again? They’ve put +some things on duty at St. Clement Danes that want to take me to Bow +Street for garrotting.’ + +‘Lor, sir!’ said Dempsey indignantly. + +‘Tell them I’m not a garrotter, nor a thief. It’s simply disgraceful +that a gentleman can’t walk down the Strand without being man-handled +by these roughs. One of them has done his best to kill my friend here; +and I’m taking the body home. Speak for me, Dempsey.’ + +There was no time for the much misrepresented policemen to say a word. +Dempsey spoke to them in language calculated to frighten. They tried to +explain, but Dempsey launched into a glowing catalogue of my virtues, +as noted by gas in the early hours. ‘And,’ he concluded vehemently, ‘’e +writes for the papers, too. How’d _you_ like to be written for in the +papers--in verse, too, which is ’is ’abit. You leave ’im alone. ’Im +an’ me have been friends for months.’ + +‘What about the dead man?’ said the policeman who had not given the +blow. + +‘I’ll tell you,’ I said relenting, and to the three policemen under +the lights of Charing Cross assembled, I recounted faithfully and at +length the adventures of the night, beginning with the _Breslau_ and +ending at St. Clement Danes. I described the sinful old ruffian in the +ambulance in words that made him wriggle where he lay, and never since +the Metropolitan Police was founded did three policemen laugh as those +three laughed. The Strand echoed to it, and the unclean birds of the +night stood and wondered. + +‘Oh lor’!’ said Dempsey, wiping his eyes, ‘I’d ha’ given anything to +see that old man runnin’ about with a wet blanket an’ all! Excuse me, +sir, but you ought to get took up every night for to make us ’appy.’ He +dissolved into fresh guffaws. + +There was a clinking of silver and the two policemen of St. Clement +Danes hurried back to their beats, laughing as they ran. + +‘Take ’im to Charing Cross,’ said Dempsey between shouts. ‘They’ll send +the ambulance back in the morning.’ + +‘Laddie, ye’ve misca’ed me shameful names, but I’m o’er old to go to a +hospital. Dinna desert me, laddie. Tak me home to my wife,’ said the +voice in the ambulance. + +‘He’s none so bad. ’Is wife’ll comb ’is hair for ’im proper,’ said +Dempsey, who was a married man. + +‘Where d’you live?’ I demanded. + +‘Brugglesmith,’ was the answer. + +‘What’s that?’ I said to Dempsey, more skilled than I in +portmanteau-words. + +‘Brook Green, ’Ammersmith,’ Dempsey translated promptly. + +‘Of course,’ I said. ‘That’s just the sort of place he would choose to +live in. I only wonder that it was not Kew.’ + +‘Are you going to wheel him ’ome, sir,’ said Dempsey. + +‘I’d wheel him home if he lived in ---- Paradise. He’s not going to get +out of this ambulance while I’m here. He’d drag me into a murder for +tuppence.’ + +‘Then strap ’im up an’ make sure,’ said Dempsey, and he deftly buckled +two straps that hung by the side of the ambulance over the man’s body. +Brugglesmith--I know not his other name--was sleeping deeply. He even +smiled in his sleep. + +‘That’s all right,’ said Dempsey, and I moved off, wheeling my devil’s +perambulator before me. Trafalgar Square was empty except for the few +that slept in the open. One of these wretches ranged alongside and +begged for money, asserting that he had been a gentleman once. + +‘So have I,’ I said. ‘That was long ago. I’ll give you a shilling if +you’ll help me to push this thing.’ + +‘Is it a murder?’ said the vagabond, shrinking back. ‘I’ve not got to +_that_ yet.’ + +‘No, it’s going to be one,’ I answered. ‘I have.’ + +The man slunk back into the darkness and I pressed on, through Cockspur +Street, and up to Piccadilly Circus, wondering what I should do with my +treasure. All London was asleep, and I had only this drunken carcass +to bear me company. It was silent--silent as chaste Piccadilly. A young +man of my acquaintance came out of a pink brick club as I passed. A +faded carnation drooped from his button-hole; he had been playing +cards, and was walking home before the dawn, when he overtook me. + +‘What are you doing?’ he said. + +I was far beyond any feeling of shame. ‘It’s for a bet,’ said I. ‘Come +and help.’ + +‘Laddie, who’s yon?’ said the voice beneath the hood. + +‘Good Lord!’ said the young man, leaping across the pavement. Perhaps +card-losses had told on his nerves. Mine were steel that night. + +‘The Lord, The Lord?’ the passionless, incurious voice went on. ‘Dinna +be profane, laddie. He’ll come in His ain good time.’ + +The young man looked at me with horror. + +‘It’s all part of the bet,’ I answered. ‘Do come and push!’ + +‘W--where are you going to?’ said he. + +‘Brugglesmith,’ said the voice within. ‘Laddie, d’ye ken my wife?’ + +‘No,’ said I. + +‘Well, she’s just a tremenjus wumman. Laddie, I want a drink. Knock at +one o’ those braw houses, laddie, an’--an’--ye may kiss the girrl for +your pains.’ + +‘Lie still, or I’ll gag you,’ I said, savagely. + +The young man with the carnation crossed to the other side of +Piccadilly, and hailed the only hansom visible for miles. What he +thought I cannot tell. + +I pressed on--wheeling, eternally wheeling--to Brook Green, +Hammersmith. There I would abandon Brugglesmith to the gods of that +desolate land. We had been through so much together that I could not +leave him bound in the street. Besides, he would call after me, and oh! +it is a shameful thing to hear one’s name ringing down the emptiness of +London in the dawn. + +So I went on, past Apsley House, even to the coffee-stall, but there +was no coffee for Brugglesmith. And into Knightsbridge--respectable +Knightsbridge--I wheeled my burden, the body of Brugglesmith. + +‘Laddie, what are ye going to do wi’ me?’ he said when opposite the +barracks. + +‘Kill you,’ I said briefly, ‘or hand you over to your wife. Be quiet.’ + +He would not obey. He talked incessantly--sliding in one sentence from +clear cut dialect to wild and drunken jumble. At the Albert Hall he +said that I was the ‘Hattle Gardle buggle,’ which I apprehend is the +Hatton Garden burglar. At Kensington High Street he loved me as a son, +but when my weary legs came to the Addison Road Bridge he implored +me with tears to unloose the straps and to fight against the sin +of vanity. No man molested us. It was as though a bar had been set +between myself and all humanity till I had cleared my account with +Brugglesmith. The glimmering of light grew in the sky; the cloudy brown +of the wood pavement turned to heather-purple; I made no doubt that I +should be allowed vengeance on Brugglesmith ere the evening. + +At Hammersmith the heavens were steel-gray, and the day came weeping. +All the tides of the sadness of an unprofitable dawning poured into the +soul of Brugglesmith. He wept bitterly, because the puddles looked +cold and houseless. I entered a half-waked public-house--in evening +dress and an ulster, I marched to the bar--and got him whisky on +condition that he should cease kicking at the canvas of the ambulance. +Then he wept more bitterly, for that he had ever been associated with +me, and so seduced into stealing the _Breslau’s_ dinghy. + +The day was white and wan when I reached my long journey’s end, and, +putting back the hood, bade Brugglesmith declare where he lived. +His eyes wandered disconsolately round the red and gray houses till +they fell on a villa in whose garden stood a staggering board with +the legend ‘To Let.’ It needed only this to break him down utterly, +and with the breakage fled his fine fluency in his guttural northern +tongue; for liquor levels all. + +‘Olely lil while,’ he sobbed. ‘Olely lil while. Home--falmy--besht +of falmies--wife too--_you_ dole know my wife! Left them all a lill +while ago. Now everything’s sold--all sold. Wife--falmy--all sold. +Lemmegellup!’ + +I unbuckled the straps cautiously. Brugglesmith rolled off his +resting-place and staggered to the house. + +‘Wattle I do?’ he said. + +Then I understood the baser depths in the mind of Mephistopheles. + +‘Ring,’ I said; ‘perhaps they are in the attic or the cellar.’ + +‘You do’ know my wife. She shleeps on soful in the dorlin’ room, +waiting meculhome. _You_ do’ know my wife.’ + +He took off his boots, covered them with his tall hat, and craftily +as a Red Indian picked his way up the garden path and smote the bell +marked ‘Visitors’ a severe blow with the clenched fist. + +‘Bell sole too. Sole electick bell! Wassor bell this? I can’t riggle +bell,’ he moaned despairingly. + +‘You pull it--pull it hard,’ I repeated, keeping a wary eye down the +road. Vengeance was coming and I desired no witnesses. + +‘Yes, I’ll pull it hard.’ He slapped his forehead with inspiration. +‘I’ll pull it out.’ + +Leaning back he grasped the knob with both hands and pulled. A wild +ringing in the kitchen was his answer. Spitting on his hands he pulled +with renewed strength, and shouted for his wife. Then he bent his +ear to the knob, shook his head, drew out an enormous yellow and red +handkerchief, tied it round the knob, turned his back to the door, and +pulled over his shoulder. + +Either the handkerchief or the wire, it seemed to me, was bound to give +way. But I had forgotten the bell. Something cracked in the kitchen, +and Brugglesmith moved slowly down the doorsteps, pulling valiantly. +Three feet of wire followed him. + +‘Pull, oh pull!’ I cried. ‘It’s coming now.’ + +‘Qui’ ri’,’ he said. ‘_I’ll_ riggle bell.’ + +He bowed forward, the wire creaking and straining behind him, the +bell-knob clasped to his bosom, and from the noises within I fancied +the bell was taking away with it half the wood-work of the kitchen and +all the basement banisters. + +‘Get a purchase on her,’ I shouted, and he spun round, lapping that +good copper wire about him. I opened the garden gate politely, and he +passed out, spinning his own cocoon. Still the bell came up, hand over +hand, and still the wire held fast. He was in the middle of the road +now, whirling like an impaled cockchafer, and shouting madly for his +wife and family. There he met with the ambulance, the bell within the +house gave one last peal, and bounded from the far end of the hall to +the inner side of the hall-door, where it stayed fast. So did not my +friend Brugglesmith. He fell upon his face, embracing the ambulance +as he did so, and the two turned over together in the toils of the +never-sufficiently-to-be-advertised copper wire. + +‘Laddie,’ he gasped, his speech returning, ‘have I a legal remedy?’ + +‘I will go and look for one,’ I said, and, departing, found two +policemen. These I told that daylight had surprised a burglar in Brook +Green while he was engaged in stealing lead from an empty house. +Perhaps they had better take care of that bootless thief. He seemed to +be in difficulties. + +I led the way to the spot, and behold! in the splendour of the dawning, +the ambulance, wheels uppermost, was walking down the muddy road on +two stockinged feet--was shuffling to and fro in a quarter of a circle +whose radius was copper wire, and whose centre was the bell-plate of +the empty house. + +Next to the amazing ingenuity with which Brugglesmith had contrived to +lash himself under the ambulance, the thing that appeared to impress +the constables most was the fact of the St. Clement Danes ambulance +being at Brook Green, Hammersmith. + +They even asked me, of all people in the world, whether I knew anything +about it! + +They extricated him; not without pain and dirt. He explained that he +was repelling boarding-attacks by a ‘Hattle Gardle buggle’ who had +sold his house, wife, and family. As to the bell-wire, he offered +no explanation, and was borne off shoulder-high between the two +policemen. Though his feet were not within six inches of the ground, +they paddled swiftly, and I saw that in his magnificent mind he was +running--furiously running. + +Sometimes I have wondered whether he wished to find me. + + + + + ‘LOVE-O’-WOMEN.’ + + + ‘A lamentable tale of things + Done long ago, and ill done.’ + + +The horror, the confusion, and the separation of the murderer from +his comrades were all over before I came. There remained only on the +barrack-square the blood of man calling from the ground. The hot sun +had dried it to a dusky goldbeater-skin film, cracked lozenge-wise by +the heat; and as the wind rose, each lozenge, rising a little, curled +up at the edges as if it were a dumb tongue. Then a heavier gust blew +all away down wind in grains of dark coloured dust. It was too hot +to stand in the sunshine before breakfast. The men were in barracks +talking the matter over. A knot of soldiers’ wives stood by one of the +entrances to the married quarters, while inside a woman shrieked and +raved with wicked filthy words. + +A quiet and well-conducted sergeant had shot down, in broad daylight +just after early parade, one of his own corporals, had then returned +to barracks and sat on a cot till the guard came for him. He would, +therefore, in due time be handed over to the High Court for trial. +Further, but this he could hardly have considered in his scheme of +revenge, he would horribly upset my work; for the reporting of that +trial would fall on me without a relief. What that trial would be like +I knew even to weariness. There would be the rifle carefully uncleaned, +with the fouling marks about breech and muzzle, to be sworn to by half +a dozen superfluous privates; there would be heat, reeking heat, till +the wet pencil slipped sideways between the fingers; and the punkah +would swish and the pleaders would jabber in the verandahs, and his +Commanding Officer would put in certificates to the prisoner’s moral +character, while the jury would pant and the summer uniforms of the +witnesses would smell of dye and soaps; and some abject barrack-sweeper +would lose his head in cross-examination, and the young barrister who +always defended soldiers’ cases for the credit that they never brought +him, would say and do wonderful things, and would then quarrel with me +because I had not reported him correctly. At the last, for he surely +would not be hanged, I might meet the prisoner again, ruling blank +account-forms in the Central Jail, and cheer him with the hope of his +being made a warder in the Andamans. + +The Indian Penal Code and its interpreters do not treat murder, under +any provocation whatever, in a spirit of jest. Sergeant Raines would +be very lucky indeed if he got off with seven years, I thought. He had +slept the night upon his wrongs, and killed his man at twenty yards +before any talk was possible. That much I knew. Unless, therefore, +the case was doctored a little, seven years would be his least; and I +fancied it was exceedingly well for Sergeant Raines that he had been +liked by his Company. + +That same evening--no day is so long as the day of a murder--I met +Ortheris with the dogs, and he plunged defiantly into the middle of the +matter. ‘I’ll be one o’ the witnesses,’ said he. ‘I was in the verandah +when Mackie come along. ’E come from Mrs. Raines’s quarters. Quigley, +Parsons, an’ Trot, they was in the inside verandah, so _they_ couldn’t +’ave ’eard nothing. Sergeant Raines was in the verandah talkin’ to me, +an’ Mackie ’e come along acrost the square an’ ’e sez, “Well,” sez ’e, +“’ave they pushed your ’elmet off yet, Sergeant?” ’e sez. An’ at that +Raines ’e catches ’is breath an’ ’e sez, “My Gawd, I can’t stand this!” +sez ’e, an’ ’e picks up my rifle an’ shoots Mackie. See?’ + +‘But what were you doing with your rifle in the outer verandah an hour +after parade?’ + +‘Cleanin’ ’er,’ said Ortheris, with the sullen brassy stare that always +went with his choicer lies. + +He might as well have said that he was dancing naked, for at no time +did his rifle need hand or rag on her twenty minutes after parade. +Still, the High Court would not know his routine. + +‘Are you going to stick to that--on the Book?’ I asked. + +‘Yes. Like a bloomin’ leech.’ + +‘All right, I don’t want to know any more. Only remember that Quigley, +Parsons, and Trot couldn’t have been where you say without hearing +something; and there’s nearly certain to be a barrack-sweeper who was +knocking about the square at the time. There always is.’ + +‘’Twasn’t the sweeper. It was the beastie. ’E’s all right.’ + +Then I knew that there was going to be some spirited doctoring, +and I felt sorry for the Government Advocate who would conduct the +prosecution. + +When the trial came on I pitied him more, for he was always quick to +lose his temper and made a personal matter of each lost cause. Raines’s +young barrister had for once put aside his unslaked and welling passion +for alibis and insanity, had forsworn gymnastics and fireworks, and +worked soberly for his client. Mercifully the hot weather was yet +young, and there had been no flagrant cases of barrack-shootings up to +the time; and the jury was a good one, even for an Indian jury, where +nine men out of every twelve are accustomed to weighing evidence. +Ortheris stood firm and was not shaken by any cross-examination. The +one weak point in his tale--the presence of his rifle in the outer +verandah--went unchallenged by civilian wisdom, though some of the +witnesses could not help smiling. The Government Advocate called for +the rope, contending throughout that the murder had been a deliberate +one. Time had passed, he argued, for that reflection which comes so +naturally to a man whose honour is lost. There was also the Law, +ever ready and anxious to right the wrongs of the common soldier if, +indeed, wrong had been done. But he doubted much whether there had been +any sufficient wrong. Causeless suspicion over-long brooded upon had +led, by his theory, to deliberate crime. But his attempts to minimise +the motive failed. The most disconnected witness knew--had known for +weeks--the causes of offence; and the prisoner, who naturally was the +last of all to know, groaned in the dock while he listened. The one +question that the trial circled round was whether Raines had fired +under sudden and blinding provocation given that very morning; and +in the summing-up it was clear that Ortheris’s evidence told. He had +contrived most artistically to suggest that he personally hated the +Sergeant, who had come into the verandah to give him a talking to for +insubordination. In a weak moment the Government Advocate asked one +question too many. ’Beggin’ _your_ pardon, sir,’ Ortheris replied, +‘’e was callin’ me a dam’ impudent little lawyer.’ The Court shook. +The jury brought it in a killing, but with every provocation and +extenuation known to God or man, and the Judge put his hand to his brow +before giving sentence, and the Adam’s apple in the prisoner’s throat +went up and down like mercury pumping before a cyclone. + +In consideration of all considerations, from his Commanding Officer’s +certificate of good conduct to the sure loss of pension, service, +and honour, the prisoner would get two years, to be served in India, +and--there need be no demonstration in Court. The Government Advocate +scowled and picked up his papers; the guard wheeled with a clash, and +the prisoner was relaxed to the Secular Arm, and driven to the jail in +a broken down _ticca-gharri_. + +His guard and some ten or twelve military witnesses, being less +important, were ordered to wait till what was officially called the +cool of the evening before marching back to cantonments. They gathered +together in one of the deep red brick verandahs of a disused lock-up +and congratulated Ortheris, who bore his honours modestly. I sent my +work into the office and joined them. Ortheris watched the Government +Advocate driving off to lunch. + +‘That’s a nasty little bald-’eaded little butcher, that is,’ he said. +‘’E don’t please me. ’E’s got a colley dog wot do, though. I’m goin’ up +to Murree in a week. That dawg’ll bring fifteen rupees anywheres.’ + +‘You had better spend ut in Masses,’ said Terence, unbuckling his belt; +for he had been on the prisoner’s guard, standing helmeted and bolt +upright for three long hours. + +‘Not me,’ said Ortheris cheerfully. ‘Gawd’ll put it down to B Comp’ny’s +barrick-damages one o’ these days. You look strapped, Terence.’ + +‘Faith, I’m not so young as I was. That guard-mountin’ wears on the +sole av the fut, and this’--he sniffed contemptuously at the brick +verandah--‘is as hard setting as standin’!’ + +‘Wait a minute. I’ll get the cushions out of my cart,’ I said. + +‘’Strewth--sofies. We’re going it gay,’ said Ortheris, as Terence +dropped himself section by section on the leather cushions, saying +prettily, ‘May ye niver want a soft place wheriver you go, an’ power +to share ut wid a frind. Another for yourself? That’s good. It lets me +sit longways. Stanley, pass me a pipe. Augrrh! An’ that’s another man +gone all to pieces bekaze av a woman. I must ha’ been on forty or fifty +prisoners’ gyards, first an’ last; an’ I hate ut new ivry time.’ + +‘Let’s see. You were on Losson’s, Lancey’s, Dugard’s, and Stebbins’s, +that I can remember,’ I said. + +‘Ay, an’ before that an’ before that--scores av thim,’ he answered with +a worn smile. ’Tis better to die than to live for them, though. Whin +Raines comes out--he’ll be changin’ his kit at the jail now--he’ll +think that too. He shud ha’ shot hemself an’ the woman by rights an’ +made a clean bill av all. Now he’s left the woman--she tuk tay wid +Dinah Sunday gone last--an’ he’s left himself. Mackie’s the lucky man.’ + +‘He’s probably getting it hot where he is,’ I ventured, for I knew +something of the dead Corporal’s record. + +‘Be sure av that,’ said Terence, spitting over the edge of the +verandah. ‘But fwhat he’ll get there is light marchin’-ordher to fwhat +he’d ha’ got here if he’d lived.’ + +‘Surely not. He’d have gone on and forgotten--like the others.’ + +‘Did ye know Mackie well, sorr?’ said Terence. + +‘He was on the Pattiala guard of honour last winter, and I went out +shooting with him in an _ekka_ for the day, and I found him rather an +amusing man.’ + +‘Well, he’ll ha’ got shut av amusemints, excipt turnin’ from wan side +to the other, these few years to come. I knew Mackie, an’ I’ve seen +too many to be mistuk in the muster av wan man. He might ha’ gone on +an’ forgot as you say, sorr, but he was a man wid an educashin, an’ +he used ut for his schames; an’ the same educashin, an’ talkin’, an’ +all that made him able to do fwhat he had a mind to wid a woman, that +same wud turn back again in the long-run an’ tear him alive. I can’t +say fwhat that I mane to say bekaze I don’t know how, but Mackie was +the spit an’ livin’ image av a man that I saw march the same march +_all but_; an’ ’twas worse for him that he did not come by Mackie’s +ind. Wait while I remember now. ’Twas whin I was in the Black Tyrone, +an’ he was drafted us from Portsmouth; an’ fwhat was his misbegotten +name? Larry--Larry Tighe ut was; an’ wan of the draft said he was a +gentleman-ranker, an’ Larry tuk an’ three-parts killed him for saying +so. An’ he was a big man, an’ a strong man, an’ a handsome man, an’ +that tells heavy in practice wid some women, but, takin’ them by an’ +large, not wid all. Yet ’twas wid all that Larry dealt--_all_--for he +cud put the comether on any woman that trod the green earth av God, +an’ he knew ut. Like Mackie that’s roastin’ now, he knew ut, an’ niver +did he put the comether on any woman save an’ excipt for the black +shame. ’Tis not me that shud be talkin’, dear knows, dear knows, but +the most av my mis--misallinces was for pure devilry, an’ mighty sorry +I have been whin harm came; an’ time an’ again wid a girl, ay, an’ a +woman too, for the matter av that, whin I have seen by the eyes av +her that I was makin’ more throuble than I talked, I have hild off +an’ let be for the sake av the mother that bore me. But Larry, I’m +thinkin’, he was suckled by a she-divil, for he never let wan go that +came nigh to listen to him. ’Twas his business, as if it might ha’ ben +sinthry-go. He was a good soldier too. Now there was the Colonel’s +governess--an’ he a privit too!--that was never known in barricks; an’ +wan av the Major’s maids, and she was promised to a man; an’ some more +outside; an’ fwhat ut was amongst _us_ we’ll never know till Judgment +Day. ’Twas the nature av the baste to put the comether on the best av +thim--not the prettiest by any manner av manes--but the like av such +women as you cud lay your hand on the Book an’ swear there was niver +thought av foolishness in. An’ for that very reason, mark you, he was +niver caught. He came close to ut wanst or twice, but caught he niver +was, an’ that cost him more at the ind than the beginnin’. He talked +to me more than most, bekaze he tould me, barrin’ the accident av +my educashin, I’d av been the same kind av divil he was. “An’ is ut +like,” he wud say, houldin’ his head high--“is ut like that I’d iver be +thrapped? For fwhat am I when all’s said an’ done?” he sez. “A damned +privit,” sez he. “An’ is ut like, think you, that thim I know wud be +connect wid a privit like me? Number tin thousand four hundred an’ +sivin,” he sez grinnin’. I knew by the turn av his spache when he was +not takin’ care to talk rough-shod that he was a gentleman-ranker. + +‘“I do not undherstan’ ut at all,” I sez; “but I know,” sez I, “that +the divil looks out av your eyes, an’ I’ll have no share wid you. A +little fun by way av amusemint where ’twill do no harm, Larry, is right +and fair, but I am mistook if ’tis any amusemint to you,” I sez. + +‘“You are much mistook,” he sez. “An’ I counsel you not to judge your +betters.” + +‘“My betthers!” I sez. “God help you, Larry. There’s no betther in +this; ’tis all bad, as ye will find for yoursilf.” + +‘“You’re not like me,” he says, tossin’ his head. + +‘“Praise the Saints, I am not,” I sez. “Fwhat I have done I have +done an’ been crool sorry for. Fwhin your time comes,” sez I, “ye’ll +remimber fwhat I say.” + +‘“An’ whin that time comes,” sez he, “I’ll come to you for ghostly +consolation, Father Terence,” an’ at that he wint off afther some +more divil’s business--for to get expayrience, he tould me. He was +wicked--rank wicked--wicked as all Hell! I’m not construct by nature to +go in fear av any man, but, begad, I was afraid av Larry. He’d come in +to barricks wid his cap on three hairs, an’ lie on his cot and stare at +the ceilin’, and now an’ again he’d fetch a little laugh, the like av a +splash in the bottom av a well, an’ by that I knew he was schamin’ new +wickedness, an’ I’d be afraid. All this was long an’ long ago, but ut +hild me straight--for a while. + +‘I tould you, did I not, sorr, that I was caressed an’ pershuaded to +lave the Tyrone on account av a throuble?’ + +‘Something to do with a belt and a man’s head wasn’t it?’ Terence had +never given the tale in full. + +‘It was. Faith, ivry time I go on prisoner’s gyard in coort I wondher +fwhy I was not where the pris’ner is. But the man I struk tuk it in +fair fight an’ he had the good sinse not to die. Considher now, fwhat +wud ha’ come to the Arrmy if he had! I was enthreated to exchange, an’ +my Commandin’ Orf’cer pled wid me. I wint, not to be disobligin’, an’ +Larry tould me he was powerful sorry to lose me, though fwhat I’d done +to make him sorry I do not know. So to the Ould Reg’mint I came, lavin’ +Larry to go to the divil his own way, an’ niver expectin’ to see him +again excipt as a shootin’-case in barracks.... Who’s that quittin’ +the compound?’ Terence’s quick eye had caught sight of a white uniform +skulking behind the hedge. + +‘The Sergeant’s gone visiting,’ said a voice. + +‘Thin I command here, an’ I will have no sneakin’ away to the bazar, +an’ huntin’ for you wid a pathrol at midnight. Nalson, for I know ut’s +you, come back to the verandah.’ + +Nalson, detected, slunk back to his fellows. There was a grumble that +died away in a minute or two, and Terence turning on the other side +went on:-- + +‘That was the last I saw av Larry for a while. Exchange is the same as +death for not thinkin’, an’ by token I married Dinah, an’ that kept me +from remimberin’ ould times. Thin we went up to the Front, an’ ut tore +my heart in tu to lave Dinah at the Depôt in Pindi. Consequint, whin I +was at the Front I fought circumspectuous till I warrmed up, an’ thin I +fought double tides. You remember fwhat I tould you in the gyard-gate +av the fight at Silver’s Theatre?’ + +‘Wot’s that about Silver’s Theayter?’ said Ortheris quickly, over his +shoulder. + +‘Nothin’, little man. A tale that ye know. As I was sayin’, afther that +fight, us av the Ould Rig’mint an’ the Tyrone was all mixed together +takin’ shtock av the dead, an’ av coorse I wint about to find if there +was any man that remembered me. The second man I came acrost--an’ how +I’d missed him in the fight I do not know--was Larry, an’ a fine man he +looked, but oulder, by reason that he had fair call to be. “Larry,” sez +I, “how is ut wid you?” + +‘“Ye’re callin’ the wrong man,” he sez, wid his gentleman’s smile, +“Larry has been dead these three years. They call him ‘Love-o’-Women’ +now,” he sez. By that I knew the ould divil was in him yet, but the ind +av a fight is no time for the beginnin’ av confession, so we sat down +an’ talked av times. + +‘“They tell me you’re a married man,” he sez, puffin’ slow at his +poipe. “Are ye happy?” + +‘“I will be whin I get back to Depôt,” I sez. “’Tis a +reconnaissance-honeymoon now.” + +‘“I’m married too,” he sez, puffin’ slow an’ more slow, an’ stopperin’ +wid his forefinger. + +‘“Send you happiness,” I sez. “That’s the best hearin’ for a long time.” + +‘“Are ye av that opinion?” he sez; an’ thin he began talkin’ av the +campaign. The sweat av Silver’s Theatre was not dhry upon him an’ he +was prayin’ for more work. I was well contint to lie and listen to the +cook-pot lids. + +‘Whin he got up off the ground he shtaggered a little, an’ laned over +all twisted. + +‘“Ye’ve got more than ye bargained for,” I sez. “Take an inventory, +Larry. ’Tis like you’re hurt.” + +‘He turned round stiff as a ramrod an’ damned the eyes av me up an’ +down for an impartinent Irish-faced ape. If that had been in barracks, +I’d ha’ stretched him an’ no more said; but ’twas at the Front, an’ +afther such a fight as Silver’s Theatre I knew there was no callin’ +a man to account for his tempers. He might as well ha’ kissed me. +Aftherwards I was well pleased I kept my fists home. Thin our Captain +Crook--Cruik-na-bulleen--came up. He’d been talkin’ to the little +orf’cer bhoy av the Tyrone. “We’re all cut to windystraws,” he sez, +“but the Tyrone are damned short for noncoms. Go you over there, +Mulvaney, an’ be Deputy-Sergeant, Corp’ral, Lance, an’ everything else +ye can lay hands on till I bid you stop.” + +‘I wint over an’ tuk hould. There was wan sergeant left standin’, an’ +they’d pay no heed to him. The remnint was me, an’ ’twas full time I +came. Some I talked to, an’ some I did not, but before night the bhoys +av the Tyrone stud to attention, by gad, if I sucked on my poipe above +a whishper. Betune you an’ me an’ Bobbs I was commandin’ the company, +an’ that was what Crook had thransferred me for; an’ the little orf’cer +bhoy knew ut, and I knew ut, but the comp’ny did not. And _there_, mark +you, is the vartue that no money an’ no dhrill can buy--the vartue av +the ould soldier that knows his orf’cer’s work an’ does ut for him at +the salute! + +‘Thin the Tyrone, wid the Ould Rig’mint in touch, was sint maraudin’ +an’ prowlin’ acrost the hills promishcuous an’ onsatisfactory. ’Tis my +privit opinion that a gin’ral does not know half his time fwhat to do +wid three-quarthers his command. So he shquats on his hunkers an’ bids +them run round an’ round forninst him while he considhers on it. Whin +by the process av nature they get sejuced into a big fight that was +none av their seekin’, he sez: “Obsarve my shuperior janius. I meant ut +to come so.” We ran round an’ about, an’ all we got was shootin’ into +the camp at night, an’ rushin’ empty _sungars_ wid the long bradawl, +an’ bein’ hit from behind rocks till we was wore out--all excipt +Love-o’-Women. That puppy-dog business was mate an’ dhrink to him. +Begad he cud niver get enough av ut. Me well knowin’ that it is just +this desultorial campaignin’ that kills the best men, an’ suspicionin’ +that if I was cut, the little orf’cer bhoy wud expind all his men in +thryin’ to get out, I wud lie most powerful doggo whin I heard a shot, +an’ curl my long legs behind a bowlder, an’ run like blazes whin the +ground was clear. Faith, if I led the Tyrone in rethreat wanst I led +thim forty times! Love-o’-Women wud stay pottin’ an’ pottin’ from +behind a rock, and wait till the fire was heaviest, an’ thin stand +up an’ fire man-height clear. He wud lie out in camp too at night, +snipin’ at the shadows, for he never tuk a mouthful av slape. My +commandin’ orf’cer--save his little soul!--cud not see the beauty av my +strategims, an’ whin the Ould Rig’mint crossed us, an’ that was wanst +a week, he’d throt off to Crook, wid his big blue eyes as round as +saucers, an’ lay an information against me. I heard thim wanst talkin’ +through the tent-wall, an’ I nearly laughed. + +‘“He runs--runs like a hare,” sez the little orf’cer bhoy. “’Tis +demoralisin’ my men.” + +‘“Ye damned little fool,” sez Crook laughin’. “He’s larnin’ you your +business. Have ye been rushed at night yet?” + +‘“No,” sez that child; wishful he had been. + +‘“Have you any wounded?” sez Crook. + +‘“No,” he sez. “There was no chanst for that. They follow Mulvaney too +quick,” he sez. + +‘“Fwhat more do you want, thin?” sez Crook. “Terence is bloodin’ you +neat an’ handy,” he sez. “He knows fwhat you do not, an’ that’s that +there’s a time for ivrything. He’ll not lead you wrong,” he sez, “but +I’d give a month’s pay to larn fwhat he thinks av you.” + +‘That kept the babe quiet, but Love-o’-Women was pokin’ at me for +ivrything I did, an’ specially my manœuvres. + +‘“Mr. Mulvaney,” he sez wan evenin’, very contempshus, “you’re growin’ +very _jeldy_ on your feet. Among gentlemen,” he sez, “among gentlemen +that’s called no pretty name.” + +‘“Among privits ’tis different,” I sez. “Get back to your tent. I’m +sergeant here,” I sez. + +‘There was just enough in the voice av me to tell him he was playin’ +wid his life betune his teeth. He wint off, an’ I noticed that this man +that was contempshus set off from the halt wid a shunt as tho’ he was +bein’ kicked behind. That same night there was a Paythan picnic in tha +hills about, an’ firin’ into our tents fit to wake the livin’ dead. +“Lie down all,” I sez. “Lie down an’ kape still. They’ll no more than +waste ammunition.” + +‘I heard a man’s feet on the ground, an’ thin a ’Tini joinin’ in the +chorus. I’d been lyin’ warm, thinkin’ av Dinah an’ all, but I crup +out wid the bugle for to look round in case there was a rush; an’ the +’Tini was flashin’ at the fore-ind av the camp, an’ the hill near by +was fair flickerin’ wid long-range fire. Undher the starlight I behild +Love-o’-Women settin’ on a rock wid his belt and helmet off. He shouted +wanst or twice, an’ thin I heard him say: “They shud ha’ got the range +long ago. Maybe they’ll fire at the flash.” Thin he fired again, an’ +that dhrew a fresh volley, and the long slugs that they chew in their +teeth came floppin’ among the rocks like tree-toads av a hot night. +“That’s better,” sez Love-o’-Women. “Oh Lord, how long, how long!” he +sez, an’ at that he lit a match an’ held ut above his head. + +‘“Mad,” thinks I, “mad as a coot,” an’ I tuk wan stip forward, an’ +the nixt I knew was the sole av my boot flappin’ like a cavalry gydon +an’ the funny-bone av my toes tinglin’. ’Twas a clane-cut shot--a +slug--that niver touched sock or hide, but set me bare-fut on the +rocks. At that I tuk Love-o’-Women by the scruff an’ threw him under a +bowlder, an’ whin I sat down I heard the bullets patterin’ on that same +good stone. + +‘“Ye may dhraw your own wicked fire,” I sez, shakin’ him, “but I’m not +goin’ to be kilt too.” + +‘“Ye’ve come too soon,” he sez. “Ye’ve come too soon. In another minute +they cudn’t ha’ missed me. Mother av’ God,” he sez, “fwhy did ye not +lave me be? Now ’tis all to do again,” an’ he hides his face in his +hands. + +‘“So that’s it,” I sez, shakin’ him again. “That’s the manin’ av your +disobeyin’ ordhers.” + +‘“I dare not kill meself,” he sez, rockin’ to and fro. “My own hand wud +not let me die, and there’s not a bullet this month past wud touch me. +I’m to die slow,” he sez. “I’m to die slow. But I’m in hell now,” he +sez, shriekin’ like a woman. “I’m in hell now!” + +‘“God be good to us all,” I sez, for I saw his face. “Will ye tell a +man the throuble? If ’tis not murder, maybe we’ll mend it yet.” + +‘At that he laughed. “D’you remember fwhat I said in the Tyrone +barricks about comin’ to you for ghostly consolation. I have not +forgot,” he sez. “That came back, and the rest av my time is on me now, +Terence. I’ve fought ut off for months an’ months, but the liquor will +not bite any more. Terence,” he sez, “I can’t get dhrunk!” + +‘Thin I knew he spoke the truth about bein’ in hell, for whin liquor +does not take hould the sowl av a man is rotten in him. But me bein’ +such as I was, fwhat could I say to him? + +‘“Di’monds an’ pearls,” he begins again. “Di’monds an’ pearls I have +thrown away wid both hands--an’ fwhat have I left? Oh, fwhat have I +left?” + +‘He was shakin’ an’ thremblin’ up against my shouldher, an’ the slugs +were singin’ overhead, an’ I was wonderin’ whether my little bhoy wud +have sinse enough to kape his men quiet through all this firin’. + +‘“So long as I did not think,” sez Love-o’-Women, “so long I did not +see--I wud not see, but I can now, what I’ve lost. The time an’ the +place,” he sez, “an’ the very words I said whin ut pleased me to go off +alone to hell. But thin, even thin,” he sez, wrigglin’ tremenjous, “I +wud not ha’ been happy. There was too much behind av me. How cud I ha’ +believed her sworn oath--me that have bruk mine again an’ again for the +sport av seein’ thim cry? An’ there are the others,” he sez. “Oh, what +will I do--what will I do?” He rocked back an’ forward again, an’ I +think he was cryin’ like wan av the women he talked av. + +‘The full half of fwhat he said was Brigade Ordhers to me, but from the +rest an’ the remnint I suspicioned somethin’ av his throuble. ’Twas the +judgmint av God had grup the heel av him, as I tould him ’twould in the +Tyrone barricks. The slugs was singin’ over our rock more an’ more, an’ +I sez for to divart him: “Let bad alone,” I sez. “They’ll be tryin’ to +rush the camp in a minut’.” + +‘I had no more than said that whin a Paythan man crep’ up on his belly +wid his knife betune his teeth, not twinty yards from us. Love-o’-Women +jumped up an’ fetched a yell, an’ the man saw him an’ ran at him (he’d +left his rifle under the rock) wid the knife. Love-o’-Women niver +turned a hair, but by the Living Power, for I saw ut, a stone twisted +under the Paythan man’s feet an’ he came down full sprawl, an’ his +knife wint tinkling acrost the rocks! “I tould you I was Cain,” sez +Love-o’-Women. “Fwhat’s the use av killin’ him? He’s an honust man--by +compare.” + +‘I was not dishputin’ about the morils av Paythans that tide, so I +dhropped Love-o’-Women’s butt acrost the man’s face, an’ “Hurry into +camp,” I sez, “for this may be the first av a rush.” + +‘There was no rush after all, though we waited undher arms to give +them a chanst. The Paythan man must ha’ come alone for the mischief, +an’ afther a while Love-o’-Women wint back to his tint wid that quare +lurchin’ sind-off in his walk that I cud niver understand. Begad, I +pitied him, an’ the more bekase he made me think for the rest av the +night av the day whin I was confirmed Corp’ril, not actin’ Lef’tinant, +an’ my thoughts was not good to me.’ + +‘Ye can ondersthand that afther that night we came to talkin’ a dale +together, an’ bit by bit ut came out fwhat I’d suspicioned. The whole +av his carr’in’s on an’ divilments had come back on him hard, as liquor +comes back whin you’ve been on the dhrink for a wake. All he’d said an’ +all he’d done, an’ only he cud tell how much that was, come back, and +there was niver a minut’s peace in his sowl. ’Twas the Horrors widout +any cause to see, an’ yet, an’ yet--fwhat am I talkin’ av? He’d ha’ +taken the Horrors wid thankfulness. Beyon’ the repentince av the man, +an’ that was beyon’ the nature av man--awful, awful, to behould!--there +was more that was worst than any repentince. Av the scores an’ scores +that he called over in his mind (an’ they were drivin’ him mad), there +was, mark you, wan woman av all an’ she was not his wife, that cut him +to the quick av his marrow. ’Twas there he said that he’d thrown away +di’monds an’ pearls past count, an’ thin he’d begin again like a blind +_byle_ in an oil-mill, walkin’ round and round, to considher (him that +was beyond all touch av bein’ happy this side hell!) how happy he wud +ha’ been wid _her_. The more he considhered, the more he’d consate +himself that he’d lost mighty happiness, an’ thin he wud work ut all +backwards, an’ cry that he niver cud ha’ been happy anyway. + +‘Time an’ time an’ again in camp, on p’rade, ay, an’ in action, I’ve +seen that man shut his eyes an’ duck his head as ye wud duck to the +flicker av a bay’nit. For ’twas thin, he tould me, that the thought +av all he’d missed came an’ stud forninst him like red-hot irons. For +what he’d done wid the others he was sorry, but he did not care; but +this wan woman that I’ve tould of, by the Hilts av God, she made him +pay for all the others twice over! Niver did I know that a man cud +enjure such tormint widout his heart crackin’ in his ribs, an’ I have +been’--Terence turned the pipe-stem slowly between his teeth--‘I have +been in some black cells. All I iver suffered tho’ was not to be talked +of alongside av _him_ ... an’ what could I do? Paternosters was no more +than peas on plates for his sorrows. + +‘Evenshually we finished our prom’nade acrost the hills, and, thanks to +me for the same, there was no casualties an’ no glory. The campaign was +comin’ to an ind, an’ all the rig’mints was being drawn together for +to be sint back home. Love-o’-Women was mighty sorry bekaze he had no +work to do, an’ all his time to think in. I’ve heard that man talkin’ +to his belt-plate an’ his side-arms while he was soldierin’ thim, all +to prevent himself from thinkin’, an’ ivry time he got up afther he had +been settin’ down or wint on from the halt, he’d start wid that kick +an’ traverse that I tould you of--his legs sprawlin’ all ways to wanst. +He wud niver go see the docthor, tho’ I tould him to be wise. He’d +curse me up an’ down for my advice; but I knew he was no more a man to +be reckoned wid than the little bhoy was a commandin’ orf’cer, so I let +his tongue run if it aised him. + +‘Wan day--’twas on the way back--I was walkin’ round camp wid him, an’ +he stopped an’ struck ground wid his right fut three or four times +doubtful. “Fwhat is ut?” I sez. “Is that ground?” sez he; an’ while +I was thinkin’ his mind was goin’, up comes the docthor, who’d been +anatomisin’ a dead bullock. Love-o’-Women starts to go on quick, an’ +lands me a kick on the knee while his legs was gettin’ into marchin’ +ordher. + +‘“Hould on there,” sez the docthor; an’ Love-o’-Women’s face, that was +lined like a gridiron, turns red as brick. + +‘“’Tention,” says the docthor; an’ Love-o’-Women stud so. “Now shut +your eyes,” sez the docthor. “No, ye must not hould by your comrade.” + +‘“Tis all up,” sez Love-o’-Women, thrying to smile. “I’d fall, docthor, +an’ you know ut.” + +“Fall?” I sez. “Fall at attention wid your eyes shut! Fwhat do you +mane?” + +‘“The docthor knows,” he sez. “I’ve hild up as long as I can, but +begad I’m glad ’tis all done. But I will die slow,” he sez, “I will die +very slow.” + +‘I cud see by the docthor’s face that he was mortial sorry for the +man, an’ he ordered him to hospital. We wint back together, an’ I was +dumb-struck. Love-o’-Women was cripplin’ and crumblin’ at ivry step. +He walked wid a hand on my shoulder all slued sideways, an’ his right +leg swingin’ like a lame camel. Me not knowin’ more than the dead fwhat +ailed him, ’twas just as though the docthor’s word had done ut all--as +if Love-o’-Women had but been waitin’ for the word to let go. + +‘In hospital he sez somethin’ to the docthor that I could not catch. + +‘“Holy Shmoke!” sez the docthor, “an’ who are you, to be givin’ names +to your diseases? ’Tis agin all the reg’lations.” + +‘“I’ll not be a privit much longer,” sez Love-o’-Women in his +gentleman’s voice, an’ the docthor jumped. + +“Thrate me as a study, Doctor Lowndes,” he sez; an’ that was the first +time I’d iver heard a docthor called his name. + +‘“Good-bye, Terence,” sez Love-o’-Women. “’Tis a dead man I am widout +the pleasure av dyin’. You’ll come an’ set wid me sometimes for the +peace av my sowl.” + +‘Now I had been minded for to ask Crook to take me back to the Ould +Rig’mint; the fightin’ was over, an’ I was wore out wid the ways av the +bhoys in the Tyrone; but I shifted my will, an’ hild on, and wint to +set wid Love-o’-Women in the hospital. As I have said, sorr, the man +bruk all to little pieces under my hand. How long he had hild up an’ +forced himself fit to march I cannot tell, but in hospital but two days +later he was such as I hardly knew. I shuk hands wid him, an’ his grip +was fair strong, but his hands wint all ways to wanst, an’ he cud not +button his tunic. + +‘“I’ll take long an’ long to die yet,” he sez, “for the wages av sin +they’re like interest in the rig’mintal savin’s-bank--sure, but a +damned long time bein’ paid.” + +‘The docthor sez to me, quiet one day, “Has Tighe there anythin’ on his +mind?” he sez. “He’s burnin’ himself out.” + +‘“How shud I know, sorr?” I sez, as innocint as putty. + +‘“They call him Love-o’-Women in the Tyrone, do they not?” he sez. “I +was a fool to ask. Be wid him all you can. He’s houldin’ on to your +strength.” + +‘“But fwhat ails him, docthor?” I sez. + +‘“They call ut Locomotus attacks us,” he sez, “bekaze,” sez he, +“ut attacks us like a locomotive, if ye know fwhat that manes. +An’ ut comes,” sez he, lookin’ at me, “ut comes from bein’ called +Love-o’-Women.” + +‘“You’re jokin’, docthor,” I sez. + +‘“Jokin’!” sez he. “If iver you feel that you’ve got a felt sole in +your boot instid av a Government bull’s-wool, come to me,” he sez, “an’ +I’ll show you whether ’tis a joke.” + +‘You would not belave ut, sorr, but that, an’ seein’ Love-o’-Women +overtuk widout warnin’, put the cowld fear av Attacks us on me so +strong that for a week an’ more I was kickin’ my toes against stones +an’ stumps for the pleasure av feelin’ thim hurt. + +‘An’ Love-o’-Women lay in the cot (he might have gone down wid the +wounded before an’ before, but he asked to stay wid me), and fwhat +there was in his mind had full swing at him night an’ day an’ ivry hour +av the day an’ the night, and he shrivelled like beef-rations in a hot +sun, an’ his eyes was like owls’ eyes, an’ his hands was mut’nous. + +‘They was gettin’ the rig’mints away wan by wan, the campaign bein’ +inded, but as ushuil they was behavin’ as if niver a rig’mint had been +moved before in the mem’ry av man. Now, fwhy is that, sorr? There’s +fightin’, in an’ out, nine months av the twelve somewhere in the army. +There has been--for years an’ years an’ years; an’ I wud ha’ thought +they’d begin to get the hang av providin’ for throops. But no! Ivry +time ’tis like a girls’ school meetin’ a big red bull whin they’re +goin’ to church; an’ “Mother av God,” sez the Commissariat an’ the +Railways an’ the Barrick-masters, “fwhat will we do now?” The ordhers +came to us av the Tyrone an’ the Ould Rig’mint an’ half a dozen more +to go down, an’ there the ordhers stopped dumb. We wint down, by the +special grace av God--down the Khaiber anyways. There was sick wid us, +an’ I’m thinkin’ that some av thim was jolted to death in the doolies, +but they was anxious to be kilt so if they cud get to Peshawur alive +the sooner. I walked by Love-o’-Women--there was no marchin’, an’ +Love-o’-Women was not in a stew to get on. “If I’d only ha’ died up +there,” sez he through the dooli-curtains, an’ thin he’d twist up his +eyes an’ duck his head for the thoughts that come an’ raked him. + +‘Dinah was in Depôt at Pindi, but I wint circumspectuous, for well I +knew ’tis just at the rump-ind av all things that his luck turns on a +man. By token I had seen a dhriver of a batthery goin’ by at a trot +singin’ “Home, swate home” at the top av his shout, and takin’ no heed +to his bridle-hand--I had seen that man dhrop under the gun in the +middle of a word, and come out by the limber like--like a frog on a +pavestone. No. I wud _not_ hurry, though, God knows, my heart was all +in Pindi. Love-o’-Women saw fwhat was in my mind, an’ “Go on, Terence,” +he sez, “I know fwhat’s waitin’ for you.” “I will not,” I sez. “’Twill +kape a little yet.” + +‘Ye know the turn of the pass forninst Jumrood and the nine-mile road +on the flat to Peshawur? All Peshawur was along that road day and +night waitin’ for frinds--men, women, childer, and bands. Some av the +throops was camped round Jumrood, an’ some wint on to Peshawur to get +away down to their cantonmints. We came through in the early mornin’, +havin’ been awake the night through, and we dhruv sheer into the middle +av the mess. Mother av Glory, will I iver forget that comin’ back? The +light was not fair lifted, and the first we heard was “For ’tis my +delight av a shiny night,” frum a band that thought we was the second +four comp’nies av the Lincolnshire. At that we was forced to sind them +a yell to say who we was, an’ thin up wint “The wearin’ av the Green.” +It made me crawl all up my backbone, not havin’ taken my brequist. +Then right smash into our rear came fwhat was left av the Jock +Elliott’s--wid four pipers an’ not half a kilt among thim, playing’ for +the dear life, an’ swingin’ their rumps like buck-rabbits, an’ a native +rig’mint shriekin’ blue murther. Ye niver heard the like! There was +men cryin’ like women that did--an’ faith I do not blame them! Fwhat +bruk me down was the Lancers’ Band--shinin’ an’ spick like angils, wid +the ould dhrum-horse at the head an’ the silver kettle-dhrums an’ all +an’ all, waitin’ for their men that was behind us. They shtruck up the +Cavalry Canter; an’ begad those poor ghosts that had not a sound fut +in a throop they answered to ut; the men rockin’ in their saddles. +We thried to cheer them as they wint by, but ut came out like a big +gruntin’ cough, so there must have been many that was feelin’ like +me. Oh, but I’m forgettin’! The Fly-by-Nights was waitin’ for their +second battalion, an’ whin ut came out, there was the Colonel’s horse +led at the head--saddle-empty. The men fair worshipped him, an’ he’d +died at Ali Musjid on the road down. They waited till the remnint av +the battalion was up, and thin--clane against ordhers, for who wanted +_that_ chune that day?--they wint back to Peshawur slow-time an’ +tearin’ the bowils out av ivry man that heard, wid “The Dead March.” +Right acrost our line they wint, an’ ye know their uniforms are as +black as the Sweeps, crawlin’ past like the dead, an’ the other bands +damnin’ them to let be. + +‘Little they cared. The carpse was wid them, an’ they’d ha taken ut so +through a Coronation. Our ordhers was to go into Peshawur, an’ we wint +hot-fut past The Fly-by-Nights, not singin’, to lave that chune behind +us. That was how we tuk the road of the other corps. + +‘’Twas ringin’ in my ears still whin I felt in the bones of me that +Dinah was comin’, an’ I heard a shout, an’ thin I saw a horse an’ a +tattoo latherin’ down the road, hell-to-shplit, under women. I knew--I +knew! Wan was the Tyrone Colonel’s wife--ould Beeker’s lady--her gray +hair flyin’ an’ her fat round carkiss rowlin’ in the saddle, an’ the +other was Dinah, that shud ha’ been at Pindi. The Colonel’s lady she +charged the head av our column like a stone wall, an’ she all but +knocked Beeker off his horse, throwin’ her arms round his neck an’ +blubberin’, “Me bhoy! me bhoy!” an’ Dinah wheeled left an’ came down +our flank, an’ I let a yell that had suffered inside av me for months +and--Dinah came! Will I iver forget that while I live! She’d come on +pass from Pindi, an’ the Colonel’s lady had lint her the tattoo. They’d +been huggin’ an’ cryin’ in each other’s arms all the long night. + +‘So she walked along wid her hand in mine, asking forty questions to +wanst, an’ beggin’ me on the Virgin to make oath that there was not a +bullet consaled in me, unbeknownst somewhere, an’ thin I remembered +Love-o’-Women. He was watchin’ us, an’ his face was like the face av +a divil that has been cooked too long. I did not wish Dinah to see +ut, for whin a woman’s runnin’ over with happiness she’s like to be +touched, for harm afterwards, by the laste little thing in life. So I +dhrew the curtain, an’ Love-o’-Women lay back and groaned. + +‘Whin we marched into Peshawur Dinah wint to barracks to wait for me, +an’, me feelin’ so rich that tide, I wint on to take Love-o’-Women to +hospital. It was the last I cud do, an’ to save him the dust an’ the +smother I turned the dooli-men down a road well clear av the rest av +the throops, an’ we wint along, me talkin’ through the curtains. Av a +sudden I heard him say: + +‘“Let me look. For the mercy av Hiven, let me look.” I had been so tuk +up wid gettin’ him out av the dust an’ thinkin’ av Dinah that I had not +kept my eyes about me. There was a woman ridin’ a little behind av us; +an’, talkin’ ut over wid Dinah afterwards, that same woman must ha’ rid +out far on the Jumrood road. Dinah said that she had been hoverin’ like +a kite on the left flank av the columns. + +‘I halted the dooli to set the curtains, an’ she rode by, walkin’ pace, +an’ Love-o’-Women’s eyes wint afther her as if he wud fair haul her +down from the saddle. + +‘“Follow there,” was all he sez, but I niver heard a man speak in that +voice before or since; an’ I knew by those two wan words an’ the look +in his face that she was Di’monds-an’-Pearls that he’d talked av in his +disthresses. + +‘We followed till she turned into the gate av a little house that stud +near the Edwardes’ Gate. There was two girls in the verandah, an’ they +ran in whin they saw us. Faith, at long eye-range it did not take me +a wink to see fwhat kind av house ut was. The throops bein’ there an’ +all, there was three or four such; but aftherwards the polis bade thim +go. At the verandah Love-o’-Women sez, catchin’ his breath, “Stop +here,” an’ thin, an’ thin, wid a grunt that must ha’ tore the heart up +from his stomick, he swung himself out av the dooli, an’ my troth he +stud up on his feet wid the sweat pourin’ down his face! If Mackie was +to walk in here now I’d be less tuk back than I was thin. Where he’d +dhrawn his power from, God knows--or the Divil--but ’twas a dead man +walkin’ in the sun, wid the face av a dead man and the breath av a dead +man, hild up by the Power, an’ the legs an’ the arms av the carpse +obeyin’ ordhers. + +‘The woman stud in the verandah. She’d been a beauty too, though her +eyes was sunk in her head, an’ she looked Love-o’-Women up an’ down +terrible. “An’,” she sez, kicking back the tail av her habit,--“An’,” +she sez, “fwhat are you doin’ _here_, married man?” + +‘Love-o’-Women said nothin’, but a little froth came to his lips, an’ +he wiped ut off wid his hand an’ looked at her an’ the paint on her, +an’ looked, an’ looked, an’ looked. + +‘“An’ yet,” she sez, wid a laugh. (Did you hear Raines’ wife laugh whin +Mackie died? Ye did not? Well for you.) “An’ yet,” she sez, “who but +you have betther right,” sez she. “You taught me the road. You showed +me the way,” she sez. “Ay, look,” she sez, “for ’tis your work; you +that tould me--d’you remimber it?--that a woman who was false to wan +man cud be false to two. I have been that,” she sez, “that an’ more, +for you always said I was a quick learner, Ellis. Look well,” she +sez, “for it is me that you called your wife in the sight av God long +since.” An’ she laughed. + +‘Love-o’-Women stud still in the sun widout answerin’. Thin he groaned +an coughed to wanst, an’ I thought ’twas the death-rattle, but he +niver tuk his eyes off her face, not for a blink. Ye cud ha’ put her +eyelashes through the flies av an E.P. tent, they were so long. + +‘“Fwhat do you do here?” she sez, word by word, “that have taken away +my joy in my man this five years gone--that have broken my rest an’ +killed my body an’ damned my soul for the sake av seein’ how ’twas +done. Did your expayrience aftherwards bring you acrost any woman that +give you more than I did? Wud I not ha’ died for you, an’ wid you, +Ellis? Ye know that, man! If iver your lyin’ sowl saw truth in uts life +ye know that.” + +‘An’ Love-o’-Women lifted up his head and said, “I knew,” an’ that was +all. While she was spakin’ the Power hild him up parade-set in the sun, +an’ the sweat dhripped undher his helmet. ’Twas more an’ more throuble +for him to talk, an’ his mouth was running twistways. + +‘“Fwhat do you do _here_?” she sez, an’ her voice wint up. ’Twas +like bells tollin’ before. “Time was whin you were quick enough wid +your words,--you that talked me down to hell. Are ye dumb now?” An’ +Love-o’-Women got his tongue, an’ sez simple, like a little child, “May +I come in?” he sez. + +‘“The house is open day an’ night,” she sez, wid a laugh; an’ +Love-o’-Women ducked his head an’ hild up his hand as tho’ he was +gyardin’. The Power was on him still--it hild him up still, for, by my +sowl, as I’ll never save ut, he walked up the verandah steps that had +been a livin’ carpse in hospital for a month! + +‘“An’ now?” she sez, lookin’ at him; an’ the red paint stud lone on the +white av her face like a bull’s-eye on a target. + +‘He lifted up his eyes, slow an’ very slow, an’ he looked at her long +an’ very long, an’ he tuk his spache betune his teeth wid a wrench that +shuk him. + +‘“I’m dyin’, Aigypt--dyin’,” he sez. Ay, those were his words, for +I remimber the name he called her. He was turnin’ the death-colour, +but his eyes niver rowled. They were set--set on her. Widout word or +warnin’ she opened her arms full stretch, an’ “Here!” she sez. (Oh, +fwhat a golden mericle av a voice ut was!) “Die here!” she sez; an’ +Love-o’-Women dhropped forward, an’ she hild him up, for she was a fine +big woman. + +‘I had no time to turn, bekaze that minut I heard the sowl quit +him--tore out in the death-rattle--an’ she laid him back in a long +chair, an’ she sez to me, “Misther soldier,” she sez, “will ye not wait +an’ talk to wan av the girls? This sun’s too much for him.” + +‘Well I knew there was no sun he’d iver see, but I cud not spake, +so I wint away wid the empty dooli to find the docthor. He’d been +breakfastin’ an’ lunchin’ iver since we’d come in, an’ he was full as a +tick. + +‘“Faith, ye’ve got dhrunk mighty soon,” he sez, whin I’d tould him, +“to see that man walk. Barrin’ a puff or two av life, he was a carpse +before we left Jumrood. I’ve a great mind,” he sez, “to confine you.” + +‘“There’s a dale av liquor runnin’ about, docthor,” I sez, solemn as +a hard-boiled egg. “Maybe ’tis so; but will ye not come an’ see the +carpse at the house?” + +‘“’Tis dishgraceful,” he sez, “that I would be expected to go to a +place like that. Was she a pretty woman?” he sez, an’ at that he set +off double-quick. + +‘I cud see that the two was in the verandah where I’d left them, +an’ I knew by the hang av her head an’ the noise av the crows fwhat +had happened. ’Twas the first and the last time that I’d iver +known woman to use the pistol. They fear the shot as a rule, but +Di’monds-an’-Pearls she did not--she did not. + +‘The docthor touched the long black hair av her head (’twas all +loose upon Love-o’-Women’s tunic), an’ that cleared the liquor out +av him. He stud considherin’ a long time, his hands in his pockets, +an’ at last he sez to me, “Here’s a double death from naturil causes, +most naturil causes; an’ in the present state av affairs the rig’mint +will be thankful for wan grave the less to dig. _Issiwasti_,” he sez. +“_Issiwasti_, Privit Mulvaney, these two will be buried together in the +Civil Cemet’ry at my expinse; an’ may the good God,” he sez, “make it +so much for me whin my time comes. Go you to your wife,” he sez. “Go +an’ be happy. I’ll see to this all.” + +‘I left him still considherin’. They was buried in the Civil Cemet’ry +together, wid a Church av England service. There was too many buryin’s +thin to ask questions, an’ the docthor--he ran away wid Major--Major +Van Dyce’s lady that year--he saw to ut all. Fwhat the right an’ the +wrong av Love-o’-Women an’ Di’monds-an’-Pearls was I niver knew, an’ I +will niver know; but I’ve tould ut as I came acrost ut--here an’ there +in little pieces. _So_, being fwhat I am, an’ knowin’ fwhat I knew, +that’s fwhy I say in this shootin’-case here, Mackie’s that dead an’ in +hell is the lucky man. There are times, sorr, whin ’tis better for the +man to die than to live, an’ by consequince forty million times betther +for the woman.’ + + * * * * * + +‘H’up there!’ said Ortheris. ‘It’s time to go.’ + +The witnesses and guard formed up in the thick white dust of the +parched twilight and swung off, marching easy and whistling. Down +the road to the green by the church I could hear Ortheris, the black +Book-lie still uncleansed on his lips, setting, with a fine sense of +the fitness of things, the shrill quickstep that runs-- + + ‘Oh, do not despise the advice of the wise, + Learn wisdom from those that are older, + And don’t try for things that are out of your reach-- + An’ that’s what the Girl told the Soldier! + Soldier! soldier! + Oh, that’s what the Girl told the Soldier!’ + + + + + THE RECORD OF BADALIA HERODSFOOT. + + + The year’s at the spring + And day’s at the dawn; + Morning’s at seven; + The hill-side’s dew-pearled; + The lark’s on the wing; + The snail’s on the thorn: + God’s in his heaven-- + All’s right with the world!--_Pippa Passes._ + + +This is not that Badalia whose spare names were Joanna, Pugnacious, and +M‘Canna, as the song says, but another and a much nicer lady. + +In the beginning of things she had been unregenerate; had worn the +heavy fluffy fringe which is the ornament of the costermonger’s girl, +and there is a legend in Gunnison Street that on her wedding-day she, +a flare-lamp in either hand, danced dances on a discarded lover’s +winkle-barrow, till a policeman interfered, and then Badalia danced +with the Law amid shoutings. Those were her days of fatness, and they +did not last long, for her husband after two years took to himself +another woman, and passed out of Badalia’s life, over Badalia’s +senseless body; for he stifled protest with blows. While she was +enjoying her widowhood the baby that the husband had not taken away +died of croup, and Badalia was altogether alone. With rare fidelity +she listened to no proposals for a second marriage according to the +customs of Gunnison Street, which do not differ from those of the +Barralong. ‘My man,’ she explained to her suitors, ‘’e’ll come back +one o’ these days, an’ then, like as not, ’e’ll take an’ kill me if I +was livin’ ’long o’ you. You don’t know Tom; I do. Now you go. I can do +for myself--not ’avin’ a kid.’ She did for herself with a mangle, some +tending of babies, and an occasional sale of flowers. This latter trade +is one that needs capital, and takes the vendor very far westward, +insomuch that the return journey from, let us say, the Burlington +Arcade to Gunnison Street, E., is an excuse for drink, and then, as +Badalia pointed out, ‘You come ’ome with your shawl arf off of your +back, ’an your bonnick under your arm, and the price of nothing-at-all +in your pocket, let alone a slop takin’ care o’ you.’ Badalia did +not drink, but she knew her sisterhood, and gave them rude counsel. +Otherwise she kept herself to herself, and meditated a great deal upon +Tom Herodsfoot, her husband, who would come back some day, and the baby +who would never return. In what manner these thoughts wrought upon her +mind will not be known. + +Her entry into society dates from the night when she rose literally +under the feet of the Reverend Eustace Hanna, on the landing of No. 17 +Gunnison Street, and told him that he was a fool without discernment in +the dispensation of his district charities. + +‘You give Lascar Loo custids,’ said she, without the formality of +introduction; ‘give her pork-wine. Garn! Give ’er blankits. Garn ’ome! +’Er mother, she eats ’em all, and drinks the blankits. Gits ’em back +from the shop, she does, before you come visiting again, so as to +’ave ’em all handy an’ proper; an’ Lascar Loo she sez to you, “Oh, my +mother’s that good to me!” she do. Lascar Loo ’ad better talk so, bein’ +sick abed, ’r else ’er mother would kill ’er. Garn! you’re a bloomin’ +gardener--you an’ yer custids! Lascar Loo don’t never smell of ’em +even.’ + +Thereon the curate, instead of being offended, recognised in the +heavy eyes under the fringe the soul of a fellow-worker, and so bade +Badalia mount guard over Lascar Loo, when the next jelly or custard +should arrive, to see that the invalid actually ate it. This Badalia +did, to the disgust of Lascar Loo’s mother, and the sharing of a black +eye between the three; but Lascar Loo got her custard, and coughing +heartily, rather enjoyed the fray. + +Later on, partly through the Reverend Eustace Hanna’s swift recognition +of her uses, and partly through certain tales poured out with moist +eyes and flushed cheeks by Sister Eva, youngest and most impressionable +of the Little Sisters of the Red Diamond, it came to pass that Badalia, +arrogant, fluffy-fringed, and perfectly unlicensed in speech, won a +recognised place among such as labour in Gunnison Street. + +These were a mixed corps, zealous or hysterical, faint-hearted or only +very wearied of battle against misery, according to their lights. The +most part were consumed with small rivalries and personal jealousies, +to be retailed confidentially to their own tiny cliques in the pauses +between wrestling with death for the body of a moribund laundress, +or scheming for further mission-grants to resole a consumptive +compositor’s very consumptive boots. There was a rector that lived +in dread of pauperising the poor, would fain have held bazaars for +fresh altar-cloths, and prayed in secret for a large new brass bird, +with eyes of red glass, fondly believed to be carbuncles. There was +Brother Victor, of the Order of Little Ease, who knew a great deal +about altar-cloths but kept his knowledge in the background while he +strove to propitiate Mrs. Jessel, the Secretary of the Tea Cup Board, +who had money to dispense but hated Rome--even though Rome would, on +its honour, do no more than fill the stomach, leaving the dazed soul to +the mercies of Mrs. Jessel. There were all the Little Sisters of the +Red Diamond, daughters of the horseleech, crying ‘Give’ when their own +charity was exhausted, and pitifully explaining to such as demanded +an account of their disbursements in return for one half-sovereign, +that relief-work in a bad district can hardly be systematised on the +accounts’ side without expensive duplication of staff. There was the +Reverend Eustace Hanna, who worked impartially with Ladies’ Committees, +Androgynous Leagues and Guilds, Brother Victor, and anybody else who +could give him money, boots, or blankets, or that more precious help +that allows itself to be directed by those who know. And all these +people learned, one by one, to consult Badalia on matters of personal +character, right to relief, and hope of eventual reformation in +Gunnison Street. Her answers were seldom cheering, but she possessed +special knowledge and complete confidence in herself. + +‘I’m Gunnison Street,’ she said to the austere Mrs. Jessel. ‘I know +what’s what, _I_ do, an’ they don’t want your religion, Mum, not a +single ----. Excuse me. It’s all right when they comes to die, Mum, but +till they die what they wants is things to eat. The men they’ll shif’ +for themselves. That’s why Nick Lapworth sez to you that ’e wants to be +confirmed an’ all that. ’E won’t never lead no new life, nor ’is wife +won’t get no good out o’ all the money you gives ’im. No more you can’t +pauperise them as ’asn’t things to begin with. They’re bloomin’ well +pauped. The women they can’t shif’ for themselves--’specially bein’ +always confined. ’Ow should they? They wants things if they can get ’em +anyways. If not they dies, and a good job too, for women is cruel put +upon in Gunnison Street.’ + +‘Do you believe that--that Mrs. Herodsfoot is altogether a proper +person to trust funds to?’ said Mrs. Jessel to the curate after this +conversation. ‘She seems to be utterly godless in her speech at least.’ + +The curate agreed. She was godless according to Mrs. Jessel’s views, +but did not Mrs. Jessel think that since Badalia knew Gunnison Street +and its needs, as none other knew it, she might in a humble way be, as +it were, the scullion of charity from purer sources, and that if, say, +the Tea Cup Board could give a few shillings a week, and the Little +Sisters of the Red Diamond a few more, and, yes, he himself could +raise yet a few more, the total, not at all likely to be excessive, +might be handed over to Badalia to dispense among her associates. +Thus Mrs. Jessel herself would be set free to attend more directly +to the spiritual wants of certain large-limbed hulking men who sat +picturesquely on the lower benches of her gatherings and sought for +truth--which is quite as precious as silver, when you know the market +for it. + +‘She’ll favour her own friends,’ said Mrs. Jessel. The curate refrained +from mirth, and, after wise flattery, carried his point. To her +unbounded pride Badalia was appointed the dispenser of a grant--a +weekly trust, to be held for the benefit of Gunnison Street. + +‘I don’t know what we can get together each week,’ said the curate to +her. ‘But here are seventeen shillings to start with. You do what you +like with them among your people, only let me know how it goes so that +we shan’t get muddled in the accounts. D’you see?’ + +‘Ho yuss! ’Taint much though, is it?’ said Badalia, regarding the +white coins in her palm. The sacred fever of the administrator, only +known to those who have tasted power, burned in her veins. ‘Boots is +boots, unless they’re give you, an’ then they ain’t fit to wear unless +they’re mended top an’ bottom; an’ jellies is jellies; an’ I don’t +think anything o’ that cheap pork-wine, but it all comes to something. +It’ll go quicker ’n a quartern of gin--seventeen bob. An’ I’ll keep a +book--same as I used to do before Tom went an’ took up ’long o’ that +pan-faced slut in Hennessy’s Rents. We was the only barrer that kep’ +regular books, me an’--’im.’ + +She bought a large copy-book--her unschooled handwriting demanded +room--and in it she wrote the story of her war; boldly, as befits a +general, and for no other eyes than her own and those of the Reverend +Eustace Hanna. Long ere the pages were full the mottled cover had been +soaked in kerosene--Lascar Loo’s mother, defrauded of her percentage +on her daughter’s custards, invaded Badalia’s room in 17 Gunnison +Street, and fought with her to the damage of the lamp and her own hair. +It was hard, too, to carry the precious ‘pork-wine’ in one hand and the +book in the other through an eternally thirsty land; so red stains were +added to those of the oil. But the Reverend Eustace Hanna, looking at +the matter of the book, never objected. The generous scrawls told their +own tale, Badalia every Saturday night supplying the chorus between the +written statements thus:-- + +_Mrs. Hikkey, very ill brandy 3d. Cab for hospital, she had to go, 1s. +Mrs. Poone confined. In money for tea (she took it I know, sir) 6d. Met +her husband out looking for work._ + +‘I slapped ’is face for a bone-idle beggar! ’E won’t get no work becos +’e’s--excuse me, sir. Won’t you go on?’ The curate continued-- + +_Mrs. Vincent. Confid. No linning for baby. Most untidy. In money 2s. +6d. Some cloths from Miss Evva._ + +‘Did Sister Eva do that?’ said the curate very softly. Now charity was +Sister Eva’s bounden duty, yet to one man’s eyes each act of her daily +toil was a manifestation of angelic grace and goodness--a thing to +perpetually admire. + +‘Yes, sir. She went back to the Sisters’ ’Ome an’ took ’em off ’er own +bed. Most beautiful marked too. Go on, sir. That makes up four and +thruppence.’ + +_Mrs. Junnet to keep good fire coals is up. 7d._ + +_Mrs. Lockhart took a baby to nurse to earn a triffle but mother can’d +pay husband summons over and over. He won’t help. Cash 2s. 2d. Worked +in a ketchin but had to leave. Fire, tea, and shin of beef 1s. 7½d._ + +‘There was a fight there, sir,’ said Badalia, ‘Not me, sir. ’Er +’usband, o’ course ’e come in at the wrong time, was wishful to ’ave +the beef, so I calls up the next floor an’ down comes that mulatter man +wot sells the sword-stick canes, top o’ Ludgate-’ill. “Muley,” sez I, +“you big black beast, you, take an’ kill this big white beast ’ere.” +I knew I couldn’t stop Tom Lockart ’alf drunk, with the beef in ’is +’ands. “I’ll beef ’m,” sez Muley, an’ ’e did it, with that pore woman +a-cryin’ in the next room, an’ the top banisters on that landin’ is +broke out, but she got ’er beef-tea, an’ Tom ’e’s got ’is gruel. Will +you go on, sir?’ + +‘No, I think it will be all right. I’ll sign for the week,’ said +the curate. One gets so used to these things profanely called human +documents. + +‘Mrs. Churner’s baby’s got diptheery,’ said Badalia, turning to go. + +‘Where’s that? The Churners of Painter’s Alley, or the other Churners +in Houghton Street?’ + +‘Houghton Street. The Painter’s Alley people, they’re sold out an’ +left.’ + +‘Sister Eva’s sitting one night a week with old Mrs. Probyn in Houghton +Street--isn’t she?’ said the curate uneasily. + +‘Yes; but she won’t sit no longer. _I’ve_ took up Mrs. Probyn. I can’t +talk ’er no religion, but she don’t want it; an’ Miss Eva she don’t +want no diptheery, tho’ she sez she does. Don’t _you_ be afraid for +Miss Eva.’ + +‘But--but you’ll get it, perhaps.’ + +‘Like as not.’ She looked the curate between the eyes, and her own eyes +flamed under the fringe. ‘Maybe I’d like to get it, for aught you know.’ + +The curate thought upon these words for a little time till he began to +think of Sister Eva in the gray cloak with the white bonnet ribbons +under the chin. Then he thought no more of Badalia. + +What Badalia thought was never expressed in words, but it is known in +Gunnison Street that Lascar Loo’s mother, sitting blind drunk on her +own doorstep, was that night captured and wrapped up in the war-cloud +of Badalia’s wrath, so that she did not know whether she stood on her +head or her heels, and after being soundly bumped on every particular +stair up to her room, was set down on Badalia’s bed, there to whimper +and quiver till the dawn, protesting that all the world was against +her, and calling on the names of children long since slain by dirt and +neglect. Badalia, snorting, went out to war, and since the hosts of the +enemy were many, found enough work to keep her busy till the dawn. + +As she had promised, she took Mrs. Probyn into her own care, and began +by nearly startling the old lady into a fit with the announcement that +‘there ain’t no God like as not, an’ if there _is_ it don’t matter to +you or me, an’ any’ow you take this jelly.’ Sister Eva objected to +being shut off from her pious work in Houghton Street, but Badalia +insisted, and by fair words and the promise of favours to come so +prevailed on three or four of the more sober men of the neighbourhood +that they blockaded the door whenever Sister Eva attempted to force an +entry, and pleaded the diphtheria as an excuse. ‘I’ve got to keep ’er +out o’ ’arm’s way,’ said Badalia, ‘an’ out she keeps. The curick won’t +care a ---- for me, but--he wouldn’t any’ow.’ + +The effect of that quarantine was to shift the sphere of Sister Eva’s +activity to other streets, and notably those most haunted by the +Reverend Eustace Hanna and Brother Victor, of the Order of Little Ease. +There exists, for all their human bickerings, a very close brotherhood +in the ranks of those whose work lies in Gunnison Street. To begin +with, they have seen pain--pain that no word or deed of theirs can +alleviate--life born into Death, and Death crowded down by unhappy +life. Also they understand the full significance of drink, which is a +knowledge hidden from very many well-meaning people, and some of them +have fought with the beasts at Ephesus. They meet at unseemly hours +in unseemly places, exchange a word or two of hasty counsel, advice, +or suggestion, and pass on to their appointed toil, since time is +precious and lives hang in the balance of five minutes. For many, the +gas-lamps are their sun, and the Covent Garden wains the chariots of +the twilight. They have all in their station begged for money, so that +the freemasonry of the mendicant binds them together. + +To all these influences there was added in the case of two workers +that thing which men have agreed to call Love. The chance that Sister +Eva might catch diphtheria did not enter into the curate’s head till +Badalia had spoken. Then it seemed a thing intolerable and monstrous +that she should be exposed not only to this risk, but any accident +whatever of the streets. A wain coming round a corner might kill +her; the rotten staircases on which she trod daily and nightly might +collapse and maim her; there was danger in the tottering coping-stones +of certain crazy houses that he knew well; danger more deadly within +those houses. What if one of a thousand drunken men crushed out that +precious life? A woman had once flung a chair at the curate’s head. +Sister Eva’s arm would not be strong enough to ward off a chair. There +were also knives that were quick to fly. These and other considerations +cast the soul of the Reverend Eustace Hanna into torment that no +leaning upon Providence could relieve. God was indubitably great and +terrible--one had only to walk through Gunnison Street to see that +much--but it would be better, vastly better, that Eva should have the +protection of his own arm. And the world that was not too busy to watch +might have seen a woman, not too young, light-haired and light-eyed, +slightly assertive in her speech, and very limited in such ideas as lay +beyond the immediate sphere of her duty, where the eyes of the Reverend +Eustace Hanna turned to follow the footsteps of a Queen crowned in a +little gray bonnet with white ribbons under the chin. + +If that bonnet appeared for a moment at the bottom of a courtyard, +or nodded at him on a dark staircase, then there was hope yet for +Lascar Loo, living on one lung and the memory of past excesses, hope +even for whining sodden Nick Lapworth, blaspheming, in the hope of +money, over the pangs of a ‘true conversion this time, s’elp me Gawd, +sir.’ If that bonnet did not appear for a day, the mind of the curate +was filled with lively pictures of horror, visions of stretchers, +a crowd at some villainous crossing, and a policeman--he could see +that policeman--jerking out over his shoulder the details of the +accident, and ordering the man who would have set his body against the +wheels--heavy dray wheels, he could see them--to ‘move on.’ Then there +was less hope for the salvation of Gunnison Street and all in it. + +This agony Brother Victor beheld one day when he was coming from +a death-bed. He saw the light in the eye, the relaxing muscles of +the mouth, and heard a new ring in the voice that had told flat all +the forenoon. Sister Eva had turned into Gunnison Street after a +forty-eight hours’ eternity of absence. She had not been run over. +Brother Victor’s heart must have suffered in some human fashion, or +he would never have seen what he saw. But the Law of his Church made +suffering easy. His duty was to go on with his work until he died, +even as Badalia went on. She, magnifying her office, faced the drunken +husband; coaxed the doubly shiftless, thriftless girl-wife into a +little forethought, and begged clothes when and where she could for the +scrofulous babes that multiplied like the green scum on the untopped +water-cisterns. + +The story of her deeds was written in the book that the curate signed +weekly, but she never told him any more of fights and tumults in the +street. ‘Mis’ Eva does ’er work ’er way. I does mine mine. But I do +more than Mis’ Eva ten times over, an’ “Thank yer, Badalia,” sez ’e, +“that’ll do for this week.” I wonder what Tom’s doin’ now long o’ +that--other woman. ’Seems like as if I’d go an’ look at ’im one o’ +these days. But I’d cut ’er liver out--couldn’t ’elp myself. Better not +go, p’raps.’ + +Hennessy’s Rents lay more than two miles from Gunnison Street, and were +inhabited by much the same class of people. Tom had established himself +there with Jenny Wabstow, his new woman, and for weeks lived in great +fear of Badalia’s suddenly descending upon him. The prospect of actual +fighting did not scare him: but he objected to the police-court that +would follow, and the orders for maintenance and other devices of a +law that cannot understand the simple rule that ‘when a man’s tired +of a woman ’e ain’t such a bloomin’ fool as to live with ’er no more, +an’ that’s the long an’ short of it.’ For some months his new wife +wore very well, and kept Tom in a state of decent fear and consequent +orderliness. Also work was plentiful. Then a baby was born, and, +following the law of his kind, Tom, little interested in the children +he helped to produce, sought distraction in drink. He had confined +himself, as a rule, to beer, which is stupefying and comparatively +innocuous: at least, it clogs the legs, and though the heart may +ardently desire to kill, sleep comes swiftly, and the crime often +remains undone. Spirits, being more volatile, allow both the flesh and +the soul to work together--generally to the inconvenience of others. +Tom discovered that there was merit in whisky--if you only took enough +of it--cold. He took as much as he could purchase or get given him, and +by the time that his woman was fit to go abroad again, the two rooms of +their household were stripped of many valuable articles. Then the woman +spoke her mind, not once, but several times, with point, fluency, and +metaphor; and Tom was indignant at being deprived of peace at the end +of his day’s work, which included much whisky. He therefore withdrew +himself from the solace and companionship of Jenny Wabstow, and she +therefore pursued him with more metaphors. At the last, Tom would turn +round and hit her--sometimes across the head, and sometimes across the +breast, and the bruises furnished material for discussion on doorsteps +among such women as had been treated in like manner by their husbands. +They were not few. + +But no very public scandal had occurred till Tom one day saw fit to +open negotiations with a young woman for matrimony according to the +laws of free selection. He was getting very tired of Jenny, and the +young woman was earning enough from flower-selling to keep him in +comfort, whereas Jenny was expecting another baby and most unreasonably +expected consideration on this account. The shapelessness of her figure +revolted him, and he said as much in the language of his breed. Jenny +cried till Mrs. Hart, lineal descendant, and Irish of the ‘mother +to Mike of the donkey-cart,’ stopped her on her own staircase and +whispered: ‘God be good to you, Jenny, my woman, for I see how ’tis +with you.’ Jenny wept more than ever, and gave Mrs. Hart a penny and +some kisses, while Tom was conducting his own wooing at the corner of +the street. + +The young woman, prompted by pride, not by virtue, told Jenny of his +offers, and Jenny spoke to Tom that night. The altercation began in +their own rooms, but Tom tried to escape; and in the end all Hennessy’s +Rents gathered themselves upon the pavement and formed a court to which +Jenny appealed from time to time, her hair loose on her neck, her +raiment in extreme disorder, and her steps astray from drink. ‘When +your man drinks, you’d better drink too! It don’t ’urt so much when ’e +’its you then,’ says the Wisdom of the Women. And surely they ought to +know. + +‘Look at ’im!’ shrieked Jenny. ‘Look at ’im, standin’ there without any +word to say for himself, that ’ud smitch off and leave me an’ never +so much as a shillin’ lef’ be’ind! You call yourself a man--you call +yourself the bleedin’ shadow of a man? I’ve seen better men than you +made outer chewed paper and spat out arterwards. Look at ’im! ’E’s been +drunk since Thursday last, an’ ’e’ll be drunk s’ long’s ’e can get +drink. ’E’s took all I’ve got, an’ me--an’ me--as you see----’ + +A murmur of sympathy from the women. + +‘Took it all, he did, an’ atop of his blasted pickin’ an’ +stealin’--yes, you, you thief--’e goes off an’ tries to take up long +o’ that’--here followed a complete and minute description of the young +woman. Luckily, she was not on the spot to hear. ‘’E’ll serve ’er as ’e +served me! ’E’ll drink every bloomin’ copper she makes an’ then leave +’er alone, same as ’e done me! O women, look you, I’ve bore ’im one an’ +there’s another on the way, an’ ’e’d up an’ leave me as I am now--the +stinkin’ dorg. An’ you _may_ leave me. I don’t want none o’ your +leavin’s. Go away. Get away!’ The hoarseness of passion overpowered the +voice. The crowd attracted a policeman as Tom began to slink away. + +‘Look at ’im,’ said Jenny, grateful for the new listener. ‘Ain’t there +no law for such as ’im? ’E’s took all my money, ’e’s beat me once, +twice an’ over. ’E’s swine drunk when ’e ain’t mad drunk, an’ now, an’ +now ’e’s trying to pick up along o’ another woman. ’Im I give up a four +times better man for. Ain’t there no law?’ + +‘What’s the matter now? You go into your ’ouse. I’ll see to the man. +’As ’e been ’itting you?’ said the policeman. + +‘’Ittin’ me? ’E’s cut my ’eart in two, an’ ’e stands there grinnin’ as +tho’ ’twas all a play to ’im.’ + +‘You go on into your ’ouse an’ lie down a bit.’ + +‘I’m a married woman, I tell you, an’ I’ll ’ave my ’usband!’ + +‘I ain’t done her no bloomin’ ’arm,’ said Tom from the edge of the +crowd. He felt that public opinion was running against him. + +‘You ain’t done me any bloomin’ good, you dorg. I’m a married woman, I +am, an’ I won’t ’ave my ’usband took from me.’ + +‘Well, if you _are_ a married woman, cover your breasts,’ said the +policeman soothingly. He was used to domestic brawls. + +‘Shan’t--thank you for your impidence. Look ’ere!’ She tore open her +dishevelled bodice and showed such crescent-shaped bruises as are made +by a well-applied chair-back. ‘That’s what ’e done to me acause my +heart wouldn’t break quick enough! ’E’s tried to get in an’ break it. +Look at that, Tom, that you gave me last night; an’ I made it up with +you. But that was before I knew what you were tryin’ to do long o’ that +woman----’ + +‘D’you charge ’im?’ said the policeman. ‘’E’ll get a month for it, +per’aps.’ + +‘No’ said Jenny firmly. It was one thing to expose her man to the scorn +of the street, and another to lead him to jail. + +‘Then you go in an’ lie down, and you’--this to the crowd--‘pass along +the pavement, there. Pass along. ’Taint nothing to laugh at.’ To Tom, +who was being sympathised with by his friends, ‘It’s good for you she +didn’t charge you, but mind this now, the next time,’ etc. + +Tom did not at all appreciate Jenny’s forbearance, nor did his friends +help to compose his mind. He had whacked the woman because she was a +nuisance. For precisely the same reason he had cast about for a new +mate. And all his kind acts had ended in a truly painful scene in +the street, a most unjustifiable exposure by and of his woman, and a +certain loss of caste--this he realised dimly--among his associates. +Consequently, all women were nuisances, and consequently whisky was a +good thing. His friends condoled with him. Perhaps he had been more +hard on his woman than she deserved, but her disgraceful conduct under +provocation excused all offence. + +‘I wouldn’t ’ave no more to do with ’er--a woman like that there,’ said +one comforter. + +‘Let ’er go an’ dig for her bloomin’ self. A man wears ’isself out +to ’is bones shovin’ meat down their mouths, while they sit at ’ome +easy all day; an’ the very fust time, mark you, you ’as a bit of a +difference, an’ very proper too for a man as _is_ a man, she ups an’ +’as you out into the street, callin’ you Gawd knows what all. What’s +the good o’ that, I arx you?’ So spoke the second comforter. + +The whisky was the third, and his suggestion struck Tom as the best +of all. He would return to Badalia his wife. Probably she would have +been doing something wrong while he had been away, and he could then +vindicate his authority as a husband. Certainly she would have money. +Single women always seemed to possess the pence that God and the +Government denied to hard-working men. He refreshed himself with more +whisky. It was beyond any doubt that Badalia would have done something +wrong. She might even have married another man. He would wait till the +new husband was out of the way, and, after kicking Badalia, would get +money and a long absent sense of satisfaction. There is much virtue in +a creed or a law, but when all is prayed and suffered, drink is the +only thing that will make clean all a man’s deeds in his own eyes. Pity +it is that the effects are not permanent. + +Tom parted with his friends, bidding them tell Jenny that he was going +to Gunnison Street, and would return to her arms no more. Because +this was the devil’s message, they remembered and severally delivered +it, with drunken distinctness, in Jenny’s ears. Then Tom took more +drink till his drunkenness rolled back and stood off from him as a +wave rolls back and stands off the wreck it will swamp. He reached +the traffic-polished black asphalte of a side-street and trod warily +among the reflections of the shop-lamps that burned in gulfs of pitchy +darkness, fathoms beneath his boot-heels. He was very sober indeed. +Looking down his past, he beheld that he was justified of all his +actions so entirely and perfectly that if Badalia had in his absence +dared to lead a blameless life he would smash her for not having gone +wrong. + +Badalia at that moment was in her own room after the regular nightly +skirmish with Lascar Loo’s mother. To a reproof as stinging as a +Gunnison Street tongue could make it, the old woman, detected for the +hundredth time in the theft of the poor delicacies meant for the +invalid, could only cackle and answer-- + +‘D’you think Loo’s never bilked a man in ’er life? She’s dyin’ +now--on’y she’s so cunning long about it. Me! I’ll live for twenty +years yet.’ + +Badalia shook her, more on principle than in any hope of curing her, +and thrust her into the night, where she collapsed on the pavement and +called upon the devil to slay Badalia. + +He came upon the word in the shape of a man with a very pale face who +asked for her by name. Lascar Loo’s mother remembered. It was Badalia’s +husband--and the return of a husband to Gunnison Street was generally +followed by beatings. + +‘Where’s my wife?’ said Tom. ‘Where’s my slut of a wife?’ + +‘Upstairs an’ be ---- to her,’ said the old woman, falling over on her +side. ‘’Ave you come back for ’er, Tom?’ + +‘Yes. ’Oo’s she took up while I bin gone?’ + +‘All the bloomin’ curicks in the parish. She’s that set up you wouldn’t +know ’er.’ + +‘’Strewth she is!’ + +‘Oh, yuss. Mor’n that, she’s always round an’ about with them +sniffin’ Sisters of Charity an’ the curick. Mor’n that, ’e gives ’er +money--pounds an’ pounds a week. Been keepin’ her that way for months, +’e ’as. No wonder you wouldn’t ’ave nothin’ to do with ’er when you +left. An’ she keeps me outer the food-stuff they gets for me lyin’ +dyin’ out ’ere like a dorg. She’s been a blazin’ bad un has Badalia +since you lef’.’ + +‘Got the same room still, ’as she?’ said Tom, striding over Lascar +Loo’s mother, who was picking at the chinks between the pave-stones. + +‘Yes, but so fine you wouldn’t know it.’ + +Tom went up the stairs and the old lady chuckled. Tom was angry. +Badalia would not be able to bump people for some time to come, or to +interfere with the heaven-appointed distribution of custards. + +Badalia, undressing to go to bed, heard feet on the stair that she knew +well. Ere they stopped to kick at her door she had, in her own fashion, +thought over very many things. + +‘Tom’s back,’ she said to herself. ‘An’ I’m glad ... spite o’ the +curick an’ everythink.’ + +She opened the door, crying his name. + +The man pushed her aside. + +‘I don’t want none o’ your kissin’s an’ slaverin’s. I’m sick of ’em,’ +said he. + +‘You ain’t ’ad so many neither to make you sick these two years past.’ + +‘I’ve ’ad better. Got any money?’ + +‘On’y a little--orful little.’ + +‘That’s a ---- lie, an’ you know it.’ + +‘’Taint--and, oh Tom, what’s the use o’ talkin’ money the minute you +come back? Didn’t you like Jenny? I knowed you wouldn’t.’ + +‘Shut your ’ead. Ain’t you got enough to make a man drunk fair?’ + +‘You don’t want bein’ made more drunk any. You’re drunk a’ready. You +come to bed, Tom.’ + +‘To you?’ + +‘Ay, to me. Ain’t I nothin’--spite o’ Jenny?’ + +She put out her arms as she spoke. But the drink held Tom fast. + +‘Not for me,’ said he, steadying himself against the wall. ‘Don’t I +know ’ow you’ve been goin’ on while I was away, yah!’ + +‘Arsk about!’ said Badalia indignantly, drawing herself together. ‘’Oo +sez anythink agin me ’ere?’ + +‘’Oo sez? W’y, everybody. I ain’t come back more’n a minute fore I +finds you’ve been with the curick Gawd knows where. Wot curick was ’e?’ + +‘The curick that’s ’ere always,’ said Badalia hastily. She was thinking +of anything rather than the Rev. Eustace Hanna at that moment. Tom +sat down gravely in the only chair in the room. Badalia continued her +arrangements for going to bed. + +‘Pretty thing that,’ said Tom, ‘to tell your own lawful married +’usband--an’ I guv five bob for the weddin’-ring. Curick that’s ’ere +always! Cool as brass you are. Ain’t you got no shame? Ain’t ’e under +the bed now?’ + +‘Tom, you’re bleedin’ drunk. I ain’t done nothin’ to be ’shamed of.’ + +‘You! You don’t know wot shame is. But I ain’t come ’ere to mess with +you. Give me wot you’ve got, an’ then I’ll dress you down an’ go to +Jenny.’ + +‘I ain’t got nothin’ ’cept some coppers an’ a shillin’ or so.’ + +‘Wot’s that about the curick keepin’ you on five poun’ a week?’ + +‘’Oo told you that?’ + +‘Lascar Loo’s mother, lyin’ on the pavemint outside, an’ more honest +than you’ll ever be. Give me wot you’ve got!’ + +Badalia passed over to a little shell pin-cushion on the mantelpiece, +drew thence four shillings and threepence--the lawful earnings of her +trade--and held them out to the man who was rocking in his chair and +surveying the room with wide-opened rolling eyes. + +‘That ain’t five poun’,’ said he drowsily. + +‘I ain’t got no more. Take it an’ go--if you won’t stay.’ + +Tom rose slowly, gripping the arms of the chair. ‘Wot about the +curick’s money that ’e guv you?’ said he. ‘Lascar Loo’s mother told me. +You give it over to me now, or I’ll make you.’ + +‘Lascar Loo’s mother don’t know anything about it.’ + +‘She do, an’ more than you want her to know.’ + +‘She don’t. I’ve bumped the ’eart out of ’er, and I can’t give you +the money. Anythin’ else but that, Tom, an’ everythin’ else but that, +Tom, I’ll give willin’ and true. ’Taint my money. Won’t the dollar be +enough? That money’s my trust. There’s a book along of it too.’ + +‘Your trust? Wot are you doin’ with any trust that your ’usband don’t +know of? You an’ your trust! Take you that!’ + +Tom stepped towards her and delivered a blow of the clenched fist +across the mouth. ‘Give me wot you’ve got,’ said he, in the thick +abstracted voice of one talking in dreams. + +‘I won’t,’ said Badalia, staggering to the washstand. With any other +man than her husband she would have fought savagely as a wild cat; but +Tom had been absent two years, and, perhaps, a little timely submission +would win him back to her. None the less, the weekly trust was sacred. + +The wave that had so long held back descended on Tom’s brain. He +caught Badalia by the throat and forced her to her knees. It seemed +just to him in that hour to punish an erring wife for two years of +wilful desertion; and the more, in that she had confessed her guilt by +refusing to give up the wage of sin. + +Lascar Loo’s mother waited on the pavement without for the sounds +of lamentation, but none came. Even if Tom had released her gullet, +Badalia would not have screamed. + +‘Give it up, you slut!’ said Tom. ‘Is that ’ow you pay me back for all +I’ve done?’ + +‘I can’t. ’Tain’t my money. Gawd forgive you, Tom, for wot you’re----,’ +the voice ceased as the grip tightened, and Tom heaved Badalia against +the bed. Her forehead struck the bed-post, and she sank, half kneeling, +on the floor. It was impossible for a self-respecting man to refrain +from kicking her: so Tom kicked with the deadly intelligence born of +whisky. The head drooped to the floor, and Tom kicked at that till the +crisp tingle of hair striking through his nailed boot with the chill of +cold water, warned him that it might be as well to desist. + +‘Where’s the curick’s money, you kep’ woman?’ he whispered in the +blood-stained ear. But there was no answer--only a rattling at the +door, and the voice of Jenny Wabstow crying ferociously, ‘Come out o’ +that, Tom, an’ come ’ome with me! An’ you, Badalia, I’ll tear your face +off its bones!’ + +Tom’s friends had delivered their message, and Jenny, after the first +flood of passionate tears, rose up to follow Tom, and, if possible, to +win him back. She was prepared even to endure an exemplary whacking +for her performances in Hennessy’s Rents. Lascar Loo’s mother guided +her to the chamber of horrors, and chuckled as she retired down the +staircase. If Tom had not banged the soul out of Badalia, there would +at least be a royal fight between that Badalia and Jenny. And Lascar +Loo’s mother knew well that Hell has no fury like a woman fighting +above the life that is quick in her. + +Still there was no sound audible in the street. Jenny swung back the +unbolted door, to discover her man stupidly regarding a heap by the +bed. An eminent murderer has remarked that if people did not die so +untidily, most men, and all women, would commit at least one murder +in their lives. Tom was reflecting on the present untidiness, and the +whisky was fighting with the clear current of his thoughts. + +‘Don’t make that noise,’ he said. ‘Come in quick.’ + +‘My Gawd!’ said Jenny, checking like a startled wild beast. ‘Wot’s all +this ’ere? You ain’t----’ + +‘Dunno. ’Spose I did it.’ + +‘Did it! You done it a sight too well this time.’ + +‘She was aggravatin’,’ said Tom thickly, dropping back into the chair. +‘That aggravatin’ you’d never believe. Livin’ on the fat o’ the land +among these aristocratic parsons an’ all. Look at them white curtings +on the bed. _We_ ain’t got no white curtings. What I want to know +is----’ The voice died as Badalia’s had died, but from a different +cause. The whisky was tightening its grip after the accomplished deed, +and Tom’s eyes were beginning to close. Badalia on the floor breathed +heavily. + +‘No, nor like to ’ave,’ said Jenny. ‘You’ve done for ’er this time. You +go!’ + +‘Not me. She won’t hurt. Do ’er good. I’m goin’ to sleep. Look at those +there clean sheets! Aint you comin’ too?’ + +Jenny bent over Badalia, and there was intelligence in the battered +woman’s eyes--intelligence and much hate. + +‘I never told ’im to do such,’ Jenny whispered. ‘’Twas Tom’s own +doin’--none o’ mine. Shall I get ’im took, dear?’ + +The eyes told their own story. Tom, who was beginning to snore, must +not be taken by the Law. + +‘Go,’ said Jenny. ‘Get out! Get out of ’ere.’ + +‘You--told--me--that--this afternoon,’ said the man very sleepily. +‘Lemme go asleep.’ + +‘That wasn’t nothing. You’d only ’it me. This time it’s +murder--murder--murder! Tom, you’ve killed ’er now.’ She shook the man +from his rest, and understanding with cold terror filled his fuddled +brain. + +‘I done it for your sake, Jenny,’ he whimpered feebly, trying to take +her hand. + +‘You killed ’er for the money, same as you would ha’ killed me. Get out +o’ this. Lay ’er on the bed first, you brute!’ + +They lifted Badalia on to the bed, and crept forth silently. + +‘I can’t be took along o’ you--and if you was took you’d say I made you +do it, an’ try to get me ’anged. Go away--anywhere outer ’ere,’ said +Jenny, and she dragged him down the stairs. + +‘Goin’ to look for the curick?’ said a voice from the pavement. Lascar +Loo’s mother was still waiting patiently to hear Badalia squeal. + +‘Wot curick?’ said Jenny swiftly. There was a chance of salving her +conscience yet in regard to the bundle upstairs. + +‘’Anna--63 Roomer Terrace--close ’ere,’ said the old woman. She had +never been favourably regarded by the curate. Perhaps, since Badalia +had not squealed, Tom preferred smashing the man to the woman. There +was no accounting for tastes. + +Jenny thrust her man before her till they reached the nearest main +road. ‘Go away, now,’ she gasped. ‘Go off anywheres, but don’t come +back to me. I’ll never go with you again; an’, Tom--Tom, d’you ’ear +me?--clean your boots.’ + +Vain counsel. The desperate thrust of disgust which she bestowed upon +him sent him staggering face-down into the kennel, where a policeman +showed interest in his welfare. + +‘Took for a common drunk. Gawd send they don’t look at ’is boots! +’Anna, 63 Roomer Terrace!’ Jenny settled her hat and ran. + +The excellent housekeeper of the Roomer Chambers still remembers how +there arrived a young person, blue-lipped and gasping, who cried only: +‘Badalia, 17 Gunnison Street. Tell the curick to come at once--at +once--at once!’ and vanished into the night. This message was borne to +the Rev. Eustace Hanna, then enjoying his beauty-sleep. He saw there +was urgency in the demand, and unhesitatingly knocked up Brother Victor +across the landing. As a matter of etiquette, Rome and England divided +their cases in the district according to the creeds of the sufferers; +but Badalia was an institution, and not a case, and there was no +district-relief etiquette to be considered. ‘Something has happened to +Badalia,’ the curate said, ‘and it’s your affair as well as mine. Dress +and come along.’ + +‘I am ready,’ was the answer. ‘Is there any hint of what’s wrong?’ + +‘Nothing beyond a runaway-knock and a call.’ + +‘Then it’s a confinement or a murderous assault. Badalia wouldn’t wake +us up for anything less. I’m qualified for both, thank God.’ + +The two men raced to Gunnison Street, for there were no cabs abroad, +and under any circumstances a cab-fare means two days’ good firing +for such as are perishing with cold. Lascar Loo’s mother had gone to +bed, and the door was naturally on the latch. They found considerably +more than they had expected in Badalia’s room, and the Church of Rome +acquitted itself nobly with bandages, while the Church of England could +only pray to be delivered from the sin of envy. The Order of Little +Ease, recognising that the soul is in most cases accessible through the +body, take their measures and train their men accordingly. + +‘She’ll do now,’ said Brother Victor, in a whisper. ‘It’s internal +bleeding, I fear, and a certain amount of injury to the brain. She has +a husband, of course?’ + +‘They all have, more’s the pity.’ + +‘Yes, there’s a domesticity about these injuries that shows their +origin.’ He lowered his voice. ‘It’s a perfectly hopeless business, you +understand. Twelve hours at the most.’ + +Badalia’s right hand began to beat on the counterpane, palm down. + +‘I think you are wrong,’ said the Church of England. ‘She is going.’ + +‘No, that’s not the picking at the counterpane,’ said the Church of +Rome. ‘She wants to say something; you know her better than I.’ + +The curate bent very low. + +‘Send for Miss Eva,’ said Badalia, with a cough. + +‘In the morning. She will come in the morning,’ said the curate, and +Badalia was content. Only the Church of Rome, who knew something of the +human heart, knitted his brows and said nothing. After all, the law of +his order was plain. His duty was to watch till the dawn while the moon +went down. + +It was a little before her sinking that the Rev. Eustace Hanna said, +‘Hadn’t we better send for Sister Eva? She seems to be going fast.’ + +Brother Victor made no answer, but as early as decency admitted there +came one to the door of the house of the Little Sisters of the Red +Diamond and demanded Sister Eva, that she might soothe the pain of +Badalia Herodsfoot. That man, saying very little, led her to Gunnison +Street, No. 17, and into the room where Badalia lay. Then he stood on +the landing, and bit the flesh of his fingers in agony, because he was +a priest trained to know, and knew how the hearts of men and women beat +back at the rebound, so that Love is born out of horror, and passion +declares itself when the soul is quivering with pain. + +Badalia, wise to the last, husbanded her strength till the coming of +Sister Eva. It is generally maintained by the Little Sisters of the Red +Diamond that she died in delirium, but since one Sister at least took +a half of her dying advice, this seems uncharitable. + +She tried to turn feebly on the bed, and the poor broken human +machinery protested according to its nature. + +Sister Eva started forward, thinking that she heard the dread +forerunner of the death-rattle. Badalia lay still conscious, and spoke +with startling distinctness, the irrepressible irreverence of the +street-hawker, the girl who had danced on the winkle-barrow, twinkling +in her one available eye. + +‘Sounds jest like Mrs. Jessel, don’t it? Before she’s ’ad ’er lunch an’ +’as been talkin’ all the mornin’ to her classes.’ + +Neither Sister Eva nor the curate said anything. Brother Victor stood +without the door, and the breath came harshly between his teeth, for he +was in pain. + +‘Put a cloth over my ’ead,’ said Badalia. ‘I’ve got it good, an’ I +don’t want Miss Eva to see. I ain’t pretty this time.’ + +‘Who was it?’ said the curate. + +‘Man from outside. Never seed ’im no more’n Adam. Drunk, I s’pose. +S’elp me Gawd that’s truth! Is Miss Eva ’ere? I can’t see under the +towel. I’ve got it good, Miss Eva. Excuse my not shakin’ ’ands with +you, but I’m not strong, an’ it’s fourpence for Mrs. Imeny’s beef-tea, +an’ wot you can give ’er for baby-linning. Allus ’avin’ kids, these +people. I ’adn’t oughter talk, for _my_ ’usband ’e never come a-nigh +me these two years, or I’d a-bin as bad as the rest; but ’e never come +a-nigh me.... A man come and ’it me over the ’ead, an’ ’e kicked me, +Miss Eva; so it was just the same’s if I had ha’ had a ’usband, ain’t +it? The book’s in the drawer, Mister ’Anna, an’ it’s all right, an’ I +never guv up a copper o’ the trust money--not a copper. You look under +the chist o’ drawers--all wot isn’t spent this week is there.... An’, +Miss Eva, don’t you wear that gray bonnick no more. I kep’ you from the +diptheery, an’--an’ I didn’t want to keep you so, but the curick said +it ’ad to be done. I’d a sooner ha’ took up with ’im than any one, only +Tom ’e come, an’ then--you see, Miss Eva, Tom ’e never come a-nigh me +for two years, nor I ’aven’t seen ’im yet. S’elp me ----, I ’aven’t. Do +you ’ear? But you two go along, and make a match of it. I’ve wished +otherways often, but o’ course it was not for the likes o’ me. If Tom +’ad come back, which ’e never did, I’d ha’ been like the rest--sixpence +for beef-tea for the baby, an’ a shilling for layin’ out the baby. +You’ve seen it in the books, Mister ’Anna. That’s what it is; an’ o’ +course, you couldn’t never ’ave nothing to do with me. But a woman she +wishes as she looks, an’ never you ’ave no doubt about ’im, Miss Eva. +I’ve seen it in ’is face time an’ agin--time an’ agin.... Make it a +four pound ten funeral--with a pall.’ + +It was a seven pound fifteen shilling funeral, and all Gunnison Street +turned out to do it honour. All but two; for Lascar Loo’s mother saw +that a Power had departed, and that her road lay clear to the custards. +Therefore, when the carriages rattled off, the cat on the doorstep +heard the wail of the dying prostitute who could not die-- + +‘Oh, mother, mother, won’t you even let me lick the spoon!’ + + + + + JUDSON AND THE EMPIRE. + + + Gloriana! The Don may attack us + Whenever his stomach be fain; + He must reach us before he can rack us.... + And where are the galleons of Spain? + + DOBSON. + + +One of the many beauties of a democracy is its almost superhuman skill +in developing troubles with other countries and finding its honour +abraded in the process. A true democracy has a large contempt for all +other lands that are governed by Kings and Queens and Emperors; and +knows little and thinks less of their internal affairs. All it regards +is its own dignity, which is its King, Queen, and Knave. So, sooner or +later, its international differences end in the common people, who have +no dignity, shouting the common abuse of the street, which also has no +dignity, across the seas in order to vindicate their new dignity. The +consequences may or may not be war; but the chances do not favour peace. + +One advantage in living in a civilised land which is really governed +lies in the fact that all the Kings and Queens and Emperors of the +Continent are closely related by blood or marriage; are, in fact, +one large family. A wise head among them knows that what appears to +be a studied insult may be no more than some man’s indigestion or +woman’s indisposition, to be treated as such, and explained by quiet +talk. Again, a popular demonstration, headed by King and Court, may +mean nothing more than that so-and-so’s people are out of hand for +the minute. When a horse falls to kicking in a hunt-crowd at a gate, +the rider does not dismount, but puts his open hand behind him, and +the others draw aside. It is so with the rulers of men. In the old +days they cured their own and their people’s bad temper with fire and +slaughter; but now that the fire is so long of range and the slaughter +so large, they do other things; and few among their people guess how +much they owe of mere life and money to what the slang of the minute +calls ‘puppets’ and ‘luxuries.’ + +Once upon a time there was a little Power, the half-bankrupt wreck of a +once great empire, that lost its temper with England, the whipping-boy +of all the world, and behaved, as every one said, most scandalously. +But it is not generally known that that Power fought a pitched battle +with England and won a glorious victory. The trouble began with the +people. Their own misfortunes had been many, and for private rage it +is always refreshing to find a vent in public swearing. Their national +vanity had been deeply injured, and they thought of their ancient +glories and the days when their fleets had first rounded the Cape of +Storms, and their own newspapers called upon Camoens and urged them +to extravagances. It was the gross, smooth, sleek, lying England that +was checking their career of colonial expansion. They assumed at once +that their ruler was in league with England, so they cried with great +heat that they would forthwith become a Republic and colonially expand +themselves as a free people should. This made plain, the people threw +stones at the English Consuls and spat at English ladies, and cut off +drunken sailors of Our fleet in their ports and hammered them with +oars, and made things very unpleasant for tourists at their customs, +and threatened awful deaths to the consumptive invalids of Madeira, +while the junior officers of the Army drank fruit-extracts and entered +into most blood-curdling conspiracies against their monarch; all with +the object of being a Republic. Now the history of the South American +Republics shows that it is not good that Southern Europeans should be +also Republicans. They glide too quickly into military despotism; and +the propping of men against walls and shooting them in detachments +can be arranged much more economically and with less effect on the +death-rate by a hide-bound monarchy. Still the performances of the +Power as represented by its people were extremely inconvenient. It was +the kicking horse in the crowd, and probably the rider explained that +he could not check it. So the people enjoyed all the glory of war with +none of the risks, and the tourists who were stoned in their travels +returned stolidly to England and told the _Times_ that the police +arrangements of foreign towns were defective. + +This, then, was the state of affairs north the Line. South it was +more strained, for there the Powers were at direct issue: England, +unable to go back because of the pressure of adventurous children +behind her, and the actions of far-away adventurers who would not +come to heel, but offering to buy out her rival; and the other Power, +lacking men or money, stiff in the conviction that three hundred +years of slave-holding and intermingling with the nearest natives +gave an inalienable right to hold slaves and issue half-castes to all +eternity. They had built no roads. Their towns were rotting under +their hands; they had no trade worth the freight of a crazy steamer; +and their sovereignty ran almost one musket-shot inland when things +were peaceful. For these very reasons they raged all the more, and the +things that they said and wrote about the manners and customs of the +English would have driven a younger nation to the guns with a long red +bill for wounded honour. + +It was then that Fate sent down in a twin-screw shallow-draft gunboat, +of some 270 tons displacement, designed for the defence of rivers, +Lieutenant Harrison Edward Judson, to be known for the future as +Bai-Jove-Judson. His type of craft looked exactly like a flat-iron with +a match stuck up in the middle; it drew five feet of water or less; +carried a four-inch gun forward, which was trained by the ship; and, on +account of its persistent rolling, was, to live in, three degrees worse +than a torpedo-boat. When Judson was appointed to take charge of the +thing on her little trip of six or seven thousand miles southward, his +first remark as he went to look her over in dock was, ‘Bai Jove, that +topmast wants staying forward!’ The topmast was a stick about as thick +as a clothes-prop; but the flat-iron was Judson’s first command, and he +would not have exchanged his position for second post on the _Anson_ +or the _Howe_. He navigated her, under convoy, tenderly and lovingly +to the Cape (the story of the topmast came with him), and he was so +absurdly in love with his wallowing wash-tub when he reported himself, +that the Admiral of the station thought it would be a pity to kill a +new man on her, and allowed Judson to continue in his unenvied rule. + +The Admiral visited her once in Simon’s Bay, and she was bad, even +for a flat-iron gunboat, strictly designed for river and harbour +defence. She sweated clammy drops of dew between decks in spite of a +preparation of powdered cork that was sprinkled over her inside paint. +She rolled in the long Cape swell like a buoy; her foc’s’le was a +dog-kennel; Judson’s cabin was practically under the water-line; not +one of her dead-lights could ever be opened; and her compasses, thanks +to the influence of the four-inch gun, were a curiosity even among +Admiralty compasses. But Bai-Jove-Judson was radiant and enthusiastic. +He had even contrived to fill Mr. Davies, the second-class engine-room +artificer, who was his chief engineer, with the glow of his passion. +The Admiral, who remembered his own first command, when pride forbade +him to slack off a single rope on a dewy night, and he had racked his +rigging to pieces in consequence, looked at the flat-iron keenly. +Her fenders were done all over with white sennit, which was truly +white; her big gun was varnished with a better composition than the +Admiralty allowed; the spare sights were cased as carefully as the +chronometers; the chocks for spare spars, two of them, were made of +four-inch Burma teak carved with dragons’ heads (that was one result of +Bai-Jove-Judson’s experiences with the naval brigade in the Burmese +war), the bow-anchor was varnished instead of being painted, and there +were charts other than the Admiralty scale supplied. The Admiral was +well pleased, for he loved a ship’s husband--a man who had a little +money of his own and was willing to spend it on his command. Judson +looked at him hopefully. He was only a Junior Navigating Lieutenant +under eight years’ standing. He might be kept in Simon’s Bay for six +months, and his ship at sea was his delight. The dream of his heart +was to enliven her dismal official gray with a line of gold-leaf and, +perhaps, a little scroll-work at her blunt barge-like bows. + +‘There’s nothing like a first command, is there?’ said the Admiral, +reading his thoughts. ‘You seem to have rather queer compasses though. +Better get them adjusted.’ + +‘It’s no use, sir,’ said Judson. ‘The gun would throw out the Pole +itself. But--but I’ve got the hang of most of the weaknesses.’ + +‘Will you be good enough to lay that gun over thirty degrees, please?’ +The gun was put over. Round and round and round went the needle +merrily, and the Admiral whistled. + +‘You must have kept close to your convoy?’ + +‘Saw her twice between here and Madeira, sir,’ said Judson with a +flush, for he resented the slur on his steamship. ‘She’s--she’s a +little out of hand now, but she will settle down after a while.’ + +The Admiral went over the side, according to the rules of the Service, +but the Staff-Captain must have told the other men of the squadron in +Simon’s Bay, for they one and all made light of the flat-iron for many +days. ‘What can you shake out of her, Judson?’ said the Lieutenant of +the _Mongoose_, a real white-painted ram-bow gunboat with quick-firing +guns, as he came into the upper verandah of the little naval Club +overlooking the dockyard one hot afternoon. It is in that club, as the +captains come and go, that you hear all the gossip of all the Seven +Seas. + +‘Ten point four,’ said Bai-Jove-Judson. + +‘Ah! That was on her trial trip. She’s too much by the head now. I told +you staying that topmast would throw her out.’ + +‘You leave my top-hamper alone,’ said Judson, for the joke was +beginning to pall on him. + +‘Oh, my soul! Listen to him. Juddy’s top-hamper. Keate, have you heard +of the flat-iron’s top-hamper? You’re to leave it alone. Commodore +Judson’s feelings are hurt.’ + +Keate was the Torpedo Lieutenant of the big _Vortigern_, and he +despised small things. ‘His top-hamper,’ said he slowly. ‘Oh, ah yes, +of course. Juddy, there’s a shoal of mullet in the bay, and I think +they’re foul of your screws. Better go down, or they’ll carry away +something.’ + +‘I don’t let things carry away as a rule. You see _I’ve_ no Torpedo +Lieutenant aboard, thank God.’ + +Keate within the past week had so managed to bungle the slinging-in of +a small torpedo-boat on the _Vortigern_, that the boat had broken the +crutches on which she rested, and was herself being repaired in the +dockyard under the Club windows. + +‘One for you, Keate. Never mind, Juddy, you’re hereby appointed +dockyard-tender for the next three years, and if you’re very good and +there’s no sea on, you shall take me round the harbour. Waitabeechee, +Commodore. What’ll you take? Vanderhum for the “Cook and the captain +bold, And the mate o’ the _Nancy_ brig, And the bo’sun tight” [Juddy, +put that cue down or I’ll put you under arrest for insulting the +lieutenant of a real ship], “And the midshipmite, And the crew of the +captain’s gig.”’ + +By this time Judson had pinned him in a corner, and was prodding him +with the half-butt. The Admiral’s Secretary entered, and saw the +scuffle from the door. + +‘Ouch! Juddy, I apologise. Take that--er--topmast of yours away! Here’s +the man with the bow-string. I wish I were a Staff-captain instead of a +bloody lootenant. Sperril sleeps below every night. That’s what makes +Sperril tumble home from the waist upwards. Sperril, I defy you to +touch me. I’m under orders for Zanzibar. Probably I shall annex it!’ + +‘Judson, the Admiral wants to see you!’ said the Staff-Captain, +disregarding the scoffer of the _Mongoose_. + +‘I told you you’d be a dockyard-tender yet, Juddy. A side of fresh +beef to-morrow and three dozen snapper on ice. On ice, you understand, +Juddy?’ + +Bai-Jove-Judson and the Staff-Captain went out together. + +‘Now, what does the old man want with Judson?’ said Keate from the bar. + +‘Don’t know. Juddy’s a damned good fellow, though. I wish to goodness +he was on the _Mongoose_ with us.’ + +The Lieutenant of the _Mongoose_ dropped into a chair and read the +mail-papers for an hour. Then he saw Bai-Jove-Judson in the street and +shouted to him. Judson’s eyes were very bright, and his figure was held +very straight, and he moved joyously. Except for the Lieutenant of the +_Mongoose_, the Club was empty. + +‘Juddy, there will be a beautiful row,’ said that young man when he +had heard the news delivered in an undertone. ‘You’ll probably have to +fight, and yet I can’t see what the old man’s thinking of to----’ + +‘My orders are not to row under any circumstances,’ said Judson. + +‘Go-look-see? That all? When do you go?’ + +‘To-night if I can. I must go down and see about things. I say, I may +want a few men for the day.’ + +‘Anything on the _Mongoose_ is at your service. There’s my gig come +over now. I know that coast, dead, drunk, or asleep, and you’ll need +all the knowledge you can get. If it had only been us two together! +Come along with me.’ + +For one whole hour Judson remained closeted in the stern cabin of the +_Mongoose_, listening, poring over chart upon chart and taking notes, +and for an hour the marine at the door heard nothing but things like +these: ‘Now you’ll have to lie in here if there’s any sea on. That +current is ridiculously under-estimated, and it sets _west_ at this +season of the year, remember. Their boats never come south of this, +see? So it’s no good looking out for them.’ And so on and so forth, +while Judson lay at length on the locker by the three-pounder, and +smoked and absorbed it all. + +Next morning there was no flat-iron in Simon’s Bay; only a little +smudge of smoke off Cape Hangklip to show that Mr. Davies, the +second-class engine-room artificer, was giving her all she could carry. +At the Admiral’s house the ancient and retired bo’sun who had seen many +admirals come and go, brought out his paint and brushes and gave a new +coat of pure raw pea-green to the two big cannon balls that stood one +on each side of the Admiral’s entrance-gate. He felt dimly that great +events were stirring. + +And the flat-iron, constructed, as has been before said, solely for +the defence of rivers, met the great roll off Cape Agulhas and was +swept from end to end and sat upon her twin screws and leaped as +gracefully as a cow in a bog from one sea to another, till Mr. Davies +began to fear for the safety of his engines, and the Kroo boys that +made the majority of the crew were deathly sick. She ran along a +very badly-lighted coast, past bays that were no bays, where ugly +flat-topped rocks lay almost level with the water, and very many +extraordinary things happened that have nothing to do with the story, +but they were all duly logged by Bai-Jove-Judson. + +At last the coast changed and grew green and low and exceedingly +muddy, and there were broad rivers whose bars were little islands +standing three or four miles out at sea, and Bai-Jove-Judson hugged +the shore more closely than ever, remembering what the lieutenant of +the _Mongoose_ had told him. Then he found a river full of the smell +of fever and mud, with green stuff growing far into its waters, and a +current that made the flat-iron gasp and grunt. + +‘We will turn up here,’ said Bai-Jove-Judson, and they turned up +accordingly; Mr. Davies wondering what in the world it all meant, +and the Kroo boys grinning merrily. Bai-Jove-Judson went forward to +the bows and meditated, staring through the muddy waters. After two +hours of rooting through this desolation at an average rate of five +miles an hour, his eyes were cheered by the sight of one white buoy in +the coffee-hued mid-stream. The flat-iron crept up to it cautiously, +and a leadsman took soundings all round it from a dinghy, while +Bai-Jove-Judson smoked and thought, with his head on one side. + +‘About seven feet, isn’t there?’ said he. ‘That must be the tail-end +of the shoal. There’s four fathom in the fairway. Knock that buoy +down with axes. I don’t think it’s picturesque, somehow.’ The Kroo +men hacked the wooden sides to pieces in three minutes, and the +mooring-chain sank with the last splinters of wood. Bai-Jove-Judson +laid the flat-iron carefully over the site, while Mr. Davies watched, +biting his nails nervously. + +‘Can you back her against this current?’ said Bai-Jove-Judson. Mr. +Davies could, inch by inch, but only inch by inch, and Bai-Jove-Judson +stood in the bows and gazed at various things on the bank as they came +into line or opened out. The flat-iron dropped down over the tail of +the shoal, exactly where the buoy had been, and backed once more before +Bai-Jove-Judson was satisfied. Then they went up-stream for half an +hour, put into shoal-water by the bank and waited, with a slip-rope on +the anchor. + +‘Seems to me,’ said Mr. Davies deferentially, ‘like as if I heard some +one a-firing off at intervals, so to say.’ + +There was beyond doubt a dull mutter in the air. + +‘Seems to me,’ said Bai-Jove-Judson, ‘as if I heard a screw. Stand by +to slip her moorings.’ + +Another ten minutes passed and the beat of engines grew plainer. +Then round the bend of the river came a remarkably prettily-built +white-painted gunboat with a blue and white flag bearing a red boss in +the centre. + +‘Unshackle abaft the windlass! Stream both buoys! Easy astern. Let go, +all!’ The slip-rope flew out, the two buoys bobbed in the water to mark +where anchor and cable had been left, and the flat-iron waddled out +into mid-stream with the white ensign at her one mast-head. + +‘Give her all you can. That thing has the legs of us,’ said Judson. +‘And down we go.’ + +‘It’s war--bloody war! He’s going to fire,’ said Mr. Davies, looking up +through the engine-room hatch. + +The white gunboat without a word of explanation fired three guns +at the flat-iron, cutting the trees on the banks into green chips. +Bai-Jove-Judson was at the wheel, and Mr. Davies and the current helped +the boat to an almost respectable degree of speed. + +It was an exciting chase, but it did not last for more than five +minutes. The white gunboat fired again, and Mr. Davies in his +engine-room gave a wild shout. + +‘What’s the matter? Hit?’ said Bai-Jove-Judson. + +‘No, I’ve just seized of your roos-de-gare. Beg y’ pardon, sir.’ + +‘Right O! Just the half a fraction of a point more.’ The wheel turned +under the steady hand, as Bai-Jove-Judson watched his marks on the bank +falling in line swiftly as troops anxious to aid. The flat-iron smelt +the shoal-water under her, checked for an instant, and went on. ‘Now +we’re over. Come along, you thieves, there!’ said Judson. + +The white gunboat, too hurried even to fire, was storming in the wake +of the flat-iron, steering as she steered. This was unfortunate, +because the lighter craft was dead over the missing buoy. + +‘What you do here?’ shouted a voice from the bows. + +‘I’m going on. Sit tight. Now you’re arranged for.’ + +There was a crash and a clatter as the white gun-boat’s nose took the +shoal, and the brown mud boiled up in oozy circles under her forefoot. +Then the current caught her stern on the starboard side and drove her +broadside on to the shoal, slowly and gracefully. There she heeled at +an undignified angle, and her crew yelled aloud. + +‘Neat! Oh, damn neat!’ quoth Mr. Davies, dancing on the engine-room +plates, while the Kroo stokers beamed. + +The flat-iron turned up-stream again, and passed under the hove-up +starboard side of the white gunboat, to be received with howls and +imprecations in a strange tongue. The stranded boat, exposed even to +her lower strakes, was as defenceless as a turtle on its back, without +the advantage of the turtle’s plating. And the one big bluff gun in the +bows of the flat-iron was unpleasantly near. + +But the captain was valiant and swore mightily. Bai-Jove-Judson took no +sort of notice. His business was to go up the river. + +‘We will come in a flotilla of boats and ecrazer your vile tricks,’ +said the captain, with language that need not be published. + +Then said Bai-Jove-Judson, who was a linguist: ‘You stayo where you +areo, or I’ll leave a holo in your bottomo that will make you muchos +perforatados.’ + +There was a great deal of mixed language in reply, but Bai-Jove-Judson +was out of hearing in a few minutes, and Mr. Davies, himself a man of +few words, confided to one of his subordinates that Lieutenant Judson +was ‘a most remarkable prompt officer in a way of putting it.’ + +For two hours the flat-iron pawed madly through the muddy water, and +that which had been at first a mutter became a distinct rumble. + +‘Was war declared?’ said Mr. Davies, and Bai-Jove-Judson laughed. +‘Then, damn his eyes, he might have spoilt my pretty little engines. +There’s war up there, though.’ + +The next bend brought them full in sight of a small but lively village, +built round a whitewashed mud house of some pretensions. There were +scores and scores of saddle-coloured soldiery in dirty white uniforms +running to and fro and shouting round a man in a litter, and on a +gentle slope that ran inland for four or five miles something like a +brisk battle was raging round a rude stockade. A smell of unburied +carcasses floated through the air and vexed the sensitive nose of Mr. +Davies, who spat over the side. + +‘I want to get this gun on that house,’ said Bai-Jove-Judson, +indicating the superior dwelling over whose flat roof floated the blue +and white flag. The little twin screws kicked up the water exactly as +a hen’s legs kick in the dust before she settles down to a bath. The +little boat moved uneasily from left to right, backed, yawed again, +went ahead, and at last the gray, blunt gun’s nose was held as straight +as a rifle-barrel on the mark indicated. Then Mr. Davies allowed the +whistle to speak as it is not allowed to speak in Her Majesty’s service +on account of waste of steam. The soldiery of the village gathered into +knots and groups and bunches, and the firing up the hill ceased, and +every one except the crew of the flat-iron yelled aloud. Something like +an English cheer came down wind. + +‘Our chaps in mischief for sure, probably,’ said Mr. Davies. ‘They must +have declared war weeks ago, in a kind of way, seems to me.’ + +‘Hold her steady, you son of a soldier!’ shouted Bai-Jove-Judson, as +the muzzle fell off the white house. + +Something rang as loudly as a ship’s bell on the forward plates of the +flat-iron, something spluttered in the water, and another thing cut a +groove in the deck planking an inch in front of Bai-Jove-Judson’s left +foot. The saddle-coloured soldiery were firing as the mood took them, +and the man in the litter waved a shining sword. The muzzle of the big +gun kicked down a fraction as it was laid on the mud wall at the bottom +of the house garden. Ten pounds of gun-powder shut up in a hundred +pounds of metal was its charge. Three or four yards of the mud wall +jumped up a little, as a man jumps when he is caught in the small of +the back with a knee-cap, and then fell forward, spreading fan-wise in +the fall. The soldiery fired no more that day, and Judson saw an old +black woman climb to the flat roof of the house. She fumbled for a time +with the flag halliards, then, finding that they were jammed, took off +her one garment, which happened to be an Isabella-coloured petticoat, +and waved it impatiently. The man in the litter flourished a white +handkerchief, and Bai-Jove-Judson grinned. ‘Now we’ll give ’em one up +the hill. Round with her, Mr. Davies. Curse the man who invented those +floating gun-platforms! When can I pitch in a notice without slaying +one of those little devils?’ + +The side of the slope was speckled with men returning in a disorderly +fashion to the river-front. Behind them marched a small but very +compact body of men who had filed out of the stockade. These last +dragged quick-firing guns with them. + +‘Bai Jove, it’s a regular army. I wonder whose,’ said Bai-Jove-Judson, +and he waited developments. The descending troops met and mixed with +the troops in the village, and, with the litter in the centre, crowded +down to the river, till the men with the quick-firing guns came up +behind them. Then they divided left and right and the detachment +marched through. + +‘Heave these damned things over!’ said the leader of the party, and one +after another ten little gatlings splashed into the muddy water. The +flat-iron lay close to the bank. + +‘When you’re _quite_ done,’ said Bai-Jove-Judson politely, ‘would you +mind telling me what’s the matter? I’m in charge here.’ + +‘We’re the Pioneers of the General Development Company,’ said the +leader. ‘These little bounders have been hammering us in lager for +twelve hours, and we’re getting rid of their gatlings. Had to climb out +and take them; but they’ve snaffled the lock-actions. Glad to see you.’ + +‘Any one hurt?’ + +‘No one killed exactly; but we’re very dry.’ + +‘Can you hold your men?’ + +The man turned round and looked at his command with a grin. There were +seventy of them, all dusty and unkempt. + +‘We shan’t sack this ash-bin, if that’s what you mean. We’re mostly +gentlemen here, though we don’t look it.’ + +‘All right. Send the head of this post, or fort, or village, or +whatever it is, aboard, and make what arrangements you can for your +men.’ + +‘We’ll find some barrack accommodation somewhere. Hullo! You in the +litter there, go aboard the gunboat.’ The command wheeled round, pushed +through the dislocated soldiery, and began to search through the +village for spare huts. + +The little man in the litter came aboard smiling nervously. He was in +the fullest of full uniform, with many yards of gold lace and dangling +chains. Also he wore very large spurs; the nearest horse being not more +than four hundred miles away. ‘My children,’ said he, facing the silent +soldiery, ‘lay aside your arms.’ + +Most of the men had dropped them already and were sitting down to +smoke. ‘Let nothing,’ he added in his own tongue, ‘tempt you to kill +these who have sought your protection.’ + +‘Now,’ said Bai-Jove-Judson, on whom the last remark was lost, ‘will +you have the goodness to explain what the deuce you mean by all this +nonsense?’ + +‘It was of a necessitate,’ said the little man. ‘The operations of war +are unconformible. I am the Governor and I operate Captain. Be’old my +little sword!’ + +‘Confound your little sword, sir. I don’t want it. You’ve fired on our +flag. You’ve been firing at our people here for a week, and I’ve been +fired at coming up the river.’ + +‘Ah! The _Guadala_. She have misconstrued you for a slaver possibly. +How are the _Guadala_?’ + +‘Mistook a ship of Her Majesty’s navy for a slaver! _You_ mistake _any_ +craft for a slaver. Bai Jove, sir, I’ve a good mind to hang you at the +yard-arm!’ + +There was nothing nearer that terrible spar than the walking-stick in +the rack of Judson’s cabin. The Governor looked at the one mast and +smiled a deprecating smile. + +‘The position is embarrassment,’ he said. ‘Captain, do you think those +illustrious traders burn my capital? My people will give them beer.’ + +‘Never mind the traders, I want an explanation.’ + +‘Hum! There are popular uprising in Europe, Captain--in my country.’ +His eye wandered aimlessly round the horizon. + +‘What has that to do with----’ + +‘Captain, you are very young. There is still uproariment. But I,’--here +he slapped his chest till his epaulets jingled--‘I am loyalist to pits +of _all_ my stomachs.’ + +‘Go on,’ said Judson, and his mouth quivered. + +‘An order arrive to me to establish a custom-houses here, and to +collect of the taximent from the traders when she are come here +necessarily. That was on account of political understandings with your +country and mine. But to that arrangement there was no money also. Not +one damn little cowrie! I desire damnably to extend all commercial +things, and why? I am loyalist and there is rebellion--yes, I tell +you--Republics in my country for to just begin. You do not believe? +See some time how it exist. I cannot make this custom-houses and pay +so the high-paid officials. The people too in my country they say the +King she has no regardance into Honour of her nation. He throw away +everything--Gladstone her all, you say, hey?’ + +‘Yes, that’s what we say,’ said Judson with a grin. + +‘Therefore they say, let us be Republics on hot cakes. But I--I am +loyalist to all my hands’ ends. Captain, once I was attaché at Mexico. +I say the Republics are no good. The peoples have her stomach high. +They desire--they desire--Oh, course for the bills.’ + +‘What on earth is that?’ + +‘The cock-fight for pay at the gate. You give something, pay for see +bloody-row. Do I make my comprehension?’ + +‘A run for their money--is that what you mean? Gad, you’re a sporting +Governor!’ + +‘So I say. I am loyalist too.’ He smiled more easily. ‘Now how can +anything do herself for the customs-houses; but when the Company’s +mens she arrives, _then_ a cock-fight for pay-at-gate that is quite +correct. My army he says it will Republic and shoot me off upon walls +if I have not give her blood. An army, Captain, are terrible in her +angries--especialment when she are not paid. I know too,’ here he +laid his hand on Judson’s shoulder, ‘I know too we are old friends. +Yes! Badajos, Almeida, Fuentes d’Onor--time ever since; and a little, +little cock-fight for pay-at-gate that is good for my King. More sit +her tight on throne behind, you see? Now,’ he waved his free hand round +the decayed village, ‘I say to my armies, Fight! Fight the Company’s +men when she come, but fight not so very strong that you are any dead. +It is all in the raporta that I send. But you understand, Captain, we +are good friends all the time. Ah! Ciudad Rodrigo, you remember? No? +Perhaps your father then? So you see no one are dead, and we fight +a fight, and it is all in the raporta, to please the people in our +country; and my armies they do not put me against the walls, you see?’ + +‘Yes; but the _Guadala_. She fired on us. Was that part of your game, +my joker?’ + +‘The _Guadala_. Ah! No, I think not. Her captain he is too big fool. +But I thought she have gone down the coast. Those your gunboats poke +her nose and shove her oar in every place. How is _Guadala_?’ + +‘On a shoal. Stuck till I take her off.’ + +‘There are any deads?’ + +‘No.’ + +The Governor drew a breath of deep relief. ‘There are no deads here. So +you see none are deads anywhere, and nothing is done. Captain, you talk +to the Company’s mens. I think they are not pleased.’ + +‘Naturally.’ + +‘They have no senses. I thought to go backwards again they would. I +leave her stockade alone all night to let them out, but they stay and +come facewards to me, not backwards. They did not know we must conquer +much in all these battles, or the King, he is kicked off her throne. +Now we have won this battle--this great battle,’ he waved his arms +abroad, ‘and I think you will say so that we have won, Captain. You are +loyalist also? You would not disturb to the peaceful Europe? Captain, I +tell you this. Your Queen she know too. She would not fight her cousin. +It is a--a hand-up thing.’ + +‘What?’ + +‘Hand-up thing. Jobe you put. How you say?’ + +‘Put-up job?’ + +‘Yes. Put-up job. Who is hurt? We win. You lose. All righta!’ + +Bai-Jove-Judson had been exploding at intervals for the last five +minutes. Here he broke down completely and roared aloud. + +‘But look here, Governor,’ he said at last, ‘I’ve got to think of other +things than your riots in Europe. You’ve fired on our flag.’ + +‘Captain, if you are me, you would have done how? And also, and +also,’ he drew himself up to his full height, ‘we are both brave men +of bravest countries. Our honour is the honour of our King,’ here he +uncovered, ‘and of our Queen,’ here he bowed low. ‘Now, Captain, you +shall shell my palace and I will be your prisoner.’ + +‘Skittles!’ said Bai-Jove-Judson. ‘I can’t shell that old hencoop.’ + +‘Then come to dinner. Madeira, she are still to us, and I have of the +best she manufac.’ + +He skipped over the side beaming, and Bai-Jove-Judson went into the +cabin to laugh his laugh out. When he had recovered a little he +sent Mr. Davies to the head of the Pioneers, the dusty man with the +gatlings, and the troops who had abandoned the pursuit of arms watched +the disgraceful spectacle of two men reeling with laughter on the +quarter-deck of a gunboat. + +‘I’ll put my men to build him a custom-house,’ said the head of the +Pioneers gasping. ‘We’ll make him one decent road at least. That +Governor ought to be knighted. I’m glad now that we didn’t fight ’em in +the open, or we’d have killed some of them. So he’s won great battles, +has he? Give him the compliments of the victims, and tell him I’m +coming to dinner. You haven’t such a thing as a dress-suit, have you? I +haven’t seen one for six months.’ + +That evening there was a dinner in the village--a general and +enthusiastic dinner, whose head was in the Governor’s house, and whose +tail threshed at large throughout all the streets. The Madeira was +everything that the Governor had said, and more, and it was tested +against two or three bottles of Bai-Jove-Judson’s best Vanderhum, which +is Cape brandy ten years in the bottle, flavoured with orange-peel and +spices. Before the coffee was removed (by the lady who had made the +flag of truce) the Governor had given the whole of his governorship and +its appurtenances, once to Bai-Jove-Judson for services rendered by +Judson’s grandfather in the Peninsular War, and once to the head of the +Pioneers, in consideration of that gentleman’s good friendship. After +the negotiation he retreated for a while into an inner apartment, and +there evolved a true and complete account of the defeat of the English +arms, which he read with his cocked hat over one eye to Judson and his +companion. It was Judson who suggested the sinking of the flat-iron +with all hands, and the head of the Pioneers who supplied the list of +killed and wounded (not more than two hundred) in his command. + +‘Gentlemen,’ said the Governor from under his cocked hat, ‘the peace +of Europe are saved by this raporta. You shall all be Knights of the +Golden Hide. She shall go by the _Guadala_.’ + +‘Great Heavens!’ said Bai-Jove-Judson, flushed but composed, ‘That +reminds me that I’ve left that boat stuck on her broadside down the +river. I must go down and sooth the commandante. He’ll be blue with +rage. Governor, let us go a sail on the river to cool our heads. A +picnic, you understand.’ + +‘Ya--as: everything I understand. Ho! A picnica! You are all my +prisoner, but I am a good gaoler. We shall picnic on the river, and we +shall take _all_ the girls. Come on, my prisoners.’ + +‘I do hope,’ said the head of the Pioneers, staring from the verandah +into the roaring village, ‘that my chaps won’t set the town alight by +accident. Hullo! Hullo! A guard of honour for His Excellency, the most +illustrious Governor!’ + +Some thirty men answered the call, made a swaying line upon a more +swaying course, and bore the Governor most swayingly of all high in +their arms as they staggered down to the river. And the song that +they sang bade them, ‘Swing, swing together, their body between their +knees’; and they obeyed the words of the song faithfully, except that +they were anything but ‘steady from stroke to bow.’ His Excellency the +Governor slept on his uneasy litter, and did not wake when the chorus +dropped him on the deck of the flat-iron. + +‘Good-night and good-bye,’ said the head of the Pioneers to Judson. +‘I’d give you my card if I had it, but I’m so damned drunk I hardly +know my own Club. Oh yes! It’s the Travellers. If ever we meet in town, +remember me. I must stay here and look after my fellows. We’re all +right in the open, now. I s’pose you’ll return the Governor some time. +This is a political crisis. Good-night.’ + +The flat-iron went down-stream through the dark. The Governor slept on +deck, and Judson took the wheel, but how he steered, and why he did +not run into each bank many times, that officer does not remember. +Mr. Davies did not note anything unusual, for there are two ways of +taking too much, and Judson was only ward-room, not fo’c’s’le drunk. +As the night grew colder the Governor woke up, and expressed a desire +for whisky and soda. When that came they were nearly abreast of the +stranded _Guadala_, and His Excellency saluted the flag that he could +not see with loyal and patriotic strains. + +‘They do not see. They do not hear,’ he cried. ‘Ten thousand saints! +They sleep, and I have won battles! Ha!’ + +He started forward to the gun, which, very naturally, was loaded, +pulled the lanyard, and woke the dead night with the roar of the full +charge behind a common shell. That shell, mercifully, just missed the +stern of the _Guadala_, and burst on the bank. ‘Now you shall salute +your Governor,’ said he, as he heard feet running in all directions +within the iron skin. ‘Why you demand so base a quarter? I am here +with all my prisoners.’ + +In the hurly-burly and the general shriek for mercy his reassurances +were not heard. + +‘Captain,’ said a grave voice from the ship, ‘we have surrendered. Is +it the custom of the English to fire on a helpless ship?’ + +‘Surrendered! Holy Virgin! I go to cut off all their heads. You shall +be ate by wild ants--flog and drowned! Throw me a balcony. It is I, +the Governor! You shall never surrender. Judson of my soul, ascend her +inside, and send me a bed, for I am sleepy; but, oh, I will multiple +time kill that captain!’ + +‘Oh!’ said the voice in the darkness, ‘I begin to comprehend.’ And a +rope-ladder was thrown, up which the Governor scrambled, with Judson at +his heels. + +‘Now we will enjoy executions,’ said the Governor on the deck. ‘All +these Republicans shall be shot. Little Judson, if I am _not_ drunk, +why are so sloping the boards which do not support?’ + +The deck, as I have said, was at a very stiff cant. His Excellency sat +down, slid to leeward, and fell asleep again. + +The captain of the _Guadala_ bit his moustache furiously, and muttered +in his own tongue: ‘“This land is the father of great villains and the +step-father of honest men.” You see our material, Captain. It is so +everywhere with us. You have killed some of the rats, I hope?’ + +‘Not a rat,’ said Judson genially. + +‘That is a pity. If they were dead, our country might send us men, but +our country is dead too, and I am dishonoured on a mud-bank through +your English treachery.’ + +‘Well, it seems to me that firing on a little tub of our size without +a word of warning when you knew that the countries were at peace is +treachery enough in a small way.’ + +‘If one of my guns had touched you, you would have gone to the bottom, +all of you. I would have taken the risk with my Government. By that +time it would have been----’ + +‘A Republic. So you really _did_ mean fighting on your own hook! You’re +rather a dangerous officer to cut loose in a navy like yours. Well, +what are you going to do now?’ + +‘Stay here. Go away in boats. What does it matter? That drunken +cat’--he pointed to the shadow in which the Governor slept--‘is here. I +must take him back to his hole.’ + +‘Very good. I’ll tow you off at daylight if you get steam up.’ + +‘Captain, I warn you that as soon as she floats again I will fight you.’ + +‘Humbug! You’ll have lunch with me, and then you’ll take the Governor +up the river.’ + +The captain was silent for some time. Then he said: ‘Let us drink. What +must be, must be, and after all we have not forgotten the Peninsular. +You will admit, Captain, that it is bad to be run upon a shoal like a +mud-dredger?’ + +‘Oh, we’ll pull you off before you can say knife. Take care of His +Excellency. I shall try to get a little sleep now.’ + +They slept on both ships till the morning, and then the work of towing +off the _Guadala_ began. With the help of her own engines, and the +tugging and puffing of the flat-iron, she slid off the mud-bank +sideways into deep water, the flat-iron immediately under her stern, +and the big eye of the four-inch gun almost peering through the window +of the captain’s cabin. + +Remorse in the shape of a violent headache had overtaken the Governor. +He was uneasily conscious that he might perhaps have exceeded his +powers, and the captain of the _Guadala_, in spite of all his patriotic +sentiments, remembered distinctly that no war had been declared between +the two countries. He did not need the Governor’s repeated reminders +that war, serious war, meant a Republic at home, possible supersession +in his command, and much shooting of living men against dead walls. + +‘We have satisfied our honour,’ said the Governor in confidence. ‘Our +army is appeased, and the raporta that you take home will show that +we were loyal and brave. That other captain? Bah! He is a boy. He +will call this a--a--Judson of my soul, how you say this is--all this +affairs which have transpirated between us?’ + +Judson was watching the last hawser slipping through the fairlead. +‘Call it? Oh, I should call it rather a lark. Now your boat’s all +right, captain. When will you come to lunch?’ + +‘I told you,’ said the Governor, ‘it would be a larque to him.’ + +‘Mother of the Saints! then what is his seriousness?’ said the captain. +‘We shall be happy to come when you will. Indeed, we have no other +choice,’ he added bitterly. + +‘Not at all,’ said Judson, and as he looked at the three or four shot +blisters on the bows of his boat a brilliant idea took him. ‘It is we +who are at your mercy. See how His Excellency’s guns knocked us about.’ + +‘Senor Capitan,’ said the Governor pityingly, ‘that is very sad. You +are most injured, and your deck too, it is all shot over. We shall not +be too severe on a beat man, shall we, captain?’ + +‘You couldn’t spare us a little paint, could you? I’d like to patch up +a little after the--action,’ said Judson meditatively, fingering his +upper lip to hide a smile. + +‘Our storeroom is at your disposition,’ said the captain of the +_Guadala_, and his eye brightened; for a few lead splashes on gray +paint make a big show. + +‘Mr. Davies, go aboard and see what they have to spare--to spare, +remember. Their spar-colour with a little working up should be just our +free-board tint.’ + +‘Oh yes. I’ll spare them,’ said Mr. Davies savagely. ‘I don’t +understand this how-d’you-do and damn-your-eyes business coming one +atop of the other, in a manner o’ speaking! By all rights, they’re our +lawful prize, after a manner o’ sayin’.’ + +The Governor and the captain came to lunch in the absence of Mr. +Davies. Bai-Jove-Judson had not much to offer them, but what he had was +given as by a beaten foeman to a generous conqueror. When they were a +little warmed--the Governor genial and the captain almost effusive--he +explained quite casually over the opening of a bottle that it would not +be to his interest to report the affair seriously, and it was in the +highest degree improbable that the Admiral would treat it in any grave +fashion. + +‘When my decks are cut up’ (there was one groove across four planks), +‘and my plates buckled’ (there were five lead patches on three plates), +‘and I meet such a boat as the _Guadala_, and a mere accident saves me +from being blown out of the water----’ + +‘Yes. A mere accident, Captain. The shoal-buoy has been lost,’ said the +captain of the _Guadala_. + +‘Ah? I do not know this river. That was very sad. But as I was +saying, when an accident saves me from being sunk, what can I do but +go away--if that is possible? But I fear that I have no coal for the +sea-voyage. It is very sad.’ Judson had compromised on what he knew of +the French tongue as a medium of communication. + +‘It is enough,’ said the Governor, waving a generous hand. ‘Judson of +my soul, the coal is yours and you shall be repaired--yes, repaired +all over, of your battle’s wounds. You shall go with all the honours +of all the wars. Your flag shall fly. Your drum shall beat. Your, +ah!--jolly-boys shall spoke their bayonets! Is it not so, captain?’ + +‘As you say, Excellency. But those traders in the town. What of them?’ + +The Governor looked puzzled for an instant. He could not quite remember +what had happened to those jovial men who had cheered him overnight. +Judson interrupted swiftly: ‘His Excellency has set them to forced +works on barracks and magazines, and, I think, a custom-house. When +that is done they will be released, I hope, Excellency.’ + +‘Yes, they shall be released for your sake, little Judson of my heart.’ +Then they drank the health of their respective sovereigns, while +Mr. Davies superintended the removal of the scarred plank and the +shot-marks on the deck and the bow-plates. + +‘Oh, this is too bad,’ said Judson when they went on deck. ‘That idiot +has exceeded his instructions, but--but you must let me pay for this!’ + +Mr. Davies, his legs in the water as he sat on a staging slung over +the bows, was acutely conscious that he was being blamed in a foreign +tongue. He twisted uneasily, and went on with his work. + +‘What is it?’ said the Governor. + +‘That thick-head has thought that we needed some gold-leaf, and he has +borrowed that from your storeroom, but I must make it good.’ Then in +English, ‘Stand up, Mr. Davies! What the Furnace in Tophet do you mean +by taking their gold-leaf? My ----, are we a set of hairy pirates to +scoff the storeroom out of a painted Levantine bumboat. Look contrite, +you butt-ended, broad-breeched, bottle-bellied, swivel-eyed son of a +tinker, you! My Soul alive, can’t I maintain discipline in my own ship +without a hired blacksmith of a boiler-rivetter putting me to shame +before a yellow-nosed picaroon! Get off the staging, Mr. Davies, and +go to the engine-room! Put down that leaf first, though, and leave the +books where they are. I’ll send for you in a minute. Go aft!’ + +Now, only the upper half of Mr. Davies’s round face was above the +bulwarks when this torrent of abuse descended upon him; and it rose +inch by inch as the shower continued, blank amazement, bewilderment, +rage, and injured pride chasing each other across it till he saw +his superior officer’s left eyelid flutter on the cheek twice. Then +he fled to the engine-room, and wiping his brow with a handful of +cotton-waste, sat down to overtake circumstances. + +‘I am desolated,’ said Judson to his companions, ‘but you see the +material that they give us. This leaves me more in your debt than +before. The stuff I can replace’ [gold-leaf is never carried on +floating gun-platforms], ‘but for the insolence of that man how shall I +apologise?’ + +Mr. Davies’s mind moved slowly, but after a while he transferred the +cotton-waste from his forehead to his mouth and bit on it to prevent +laughter. He began a second dance on the engine-room plates. ‘Neat! +Oh, damned neat!’ he chuckled. ‘I’ve served with a good few, but there +never was one so neat as him. And I thought he was the new kind that +don’t know how to throw a few words, as it were.’ + +‘Mr. Davies, you can continue your work,’ said Judson down the +engine-room hatch. ‘These officers have been good enough to speak in +your favour. Make a thorough job of it while you are about it. Slap on +every man you have. Where did you get hold of it?’ + +‘Their storeroom is a regular theatre, sir. You couldn’t miss it. +There’s enough for two first-rates, and I’ve scoffed the best half of +it.’ + +‘Look sharp then. We shall be coaling from her this afternoon. You’ll +have to cover it all up.’ + +‘Neat! Oh, damned neat!’ said Mr. Davies under his breath, as he +gathered his subordinates together, and set about accomplishing the +long-deferred wish of Judson’s heart. + + * * * * * + +It was the _Martin Frobisher_, the flagship, a great war-boat when she +was new, in the days when men built for sail as well as for steam. She +could turn twelve knots under full sail, and it was under that that +she stood up the mouth of the river, a pyramid of silver beneath the +moon. The Admiral, fearing that he had given Judson a task beyond his +strength, was coming to look for him, and incidentally to do a little +diplomatic work along the coast. There was hardly wind enough to move +the _Frobisher_ a couple of knots an hour, and the silence of the land +closed about her as she entered the fairway. Her yards sighed a little +from time to time, and the ripple under her bows answered the sigh. The +full moon rose over the steaming swamps, and the Admiral gazing upon it +thought less of Judson and more of the softer emotions. In answer to +the very mood of his mind there floated across the silver levels of the +water, mellowed by distance to a most poignant sweetness, the throb of +a mandolin, and the voice of one who called upon a genteel Julia--upon +Julia, and upon Love. The song ceased, and the sighing of the yards was +all that broke the silence of the big ship. + +Again the mandolin began, and the commander on the lee side of the +quarter-deck grinned a grin that was reflected in the face of the +signal-midshipman. Not a word of the song was lost, and the voice of +the singer was the voice of Judson. + + ‘Last week down our alley came a toff, + Nice old geyser with a nasty cough, + Sees my missus, takes his topper off, + Quite in a gentlemanly way’-- + +and so on to the end of the verse. The chorus was borne by several +voices, and the signal-midshipman’s foot began to tap the deck +furtively. + + ‘“What cheer!” all the neighbours cried. + “Oo are you goin’ to meet, Bill? + ’Ave you bought the street, Bill?” + Laugh?--I thought I should ha’ died + When I knocked ’em in the Old Kent Road.’ + +It was the Admiral’s gig, rowing softly, that came into the midst of +that merry little smoking-concert. It was Judson, with the beribboned +mandolin round his neck, who received the Admiral as he came up the +side of the _Guadala_, and it may or may not have been the Admiral +who stayed till three in the morning and delighted the hearts of the +Captain and the Governor. He had come as an unbidden guest, and he +departed as an honoured one, but strictly unofficial throughout. Judson +told his tale next day in the Admiral’s cabin as well as he could in +the face of the Admiral’s gales of laughter; but the most amazing tale +was that told by Mr. Davies to his friends in the dockyard at Simon’s +Town from the point of view of a second-class engine-room artificer, +all unversed in diplomacy. + +And if there be no truth either in my tale, which is Judson’s tale, +or the tales of Mr. Davies, you will _not_ find in harbour at Simon’s +Town to-day a flat-bottomed, twin-screw gunboat, designed solely for +the defence of rivers, about two hundred and seventy tons displacement +and five feet draught, wearing in open defiance of the rules of the +Service a gold line on her gray paint. It follows also that you will +be compelled to credit that version of the fray which, signed by His +Excellency the Governor and despatched in the _Guadala_, satisfied the +self-love of a great and glorious people, and saved a monarchy from the +ill-considered despotism which is called a Republic. + + + + + THE CHILDREN OF THE ZODIAC. + + + Though thou love her as thyself, + As a self of purer clay, + Though her parting dim the day, + Stealing grace from all alive, + Heartily know + When half Gods go + The Gods arrive. EMERSON. + + +Thousands of years ago, when men were greater than they are to-day, +the Children of the Zodiac lived in the world. There were six Children +of the Zodiac--the Ram, the Bull, Leo, the Twins, and the Girl; and +they were afraid of the Six Houses which belonged to the Scorpion, +the Balance, the Crab, the Fishes, the Archer, and the Waterman. Even +when they first stepped down upon the earth and knew that they were +immortal Gods, they carried this fear with them; and the fear grew as +they became better acquainted with mankind and heard stories of the Six +Houses. Men treated the Children as Gods and came to them with prayers +and long stories of wrong, while the Children of the Zodiac listened +and could not understand. + +A mother would fling herself before the feet of the Twins, or the Bull, +crying: ‘My husband was at work in the fields and the Archer shot him +and he died; and my son will also be killed by the Archer. Help me!’ +The Bull would lower his huge head and answer: ‘What is that to me?’ +Or the Twins would smile and continue their play, for they could not +understand why the water ran out of people’s eyes. At other times a man +and a woman would come to Leo or the Girl crying: ‘We two are newly +married and we are very happy. Take these flowers.’ As they threw the +flowers they would make mysterious sounds to show that they were happy, +and Leo and the Girl wondered even more than the Twins why people +shouted ‘Ha! ha! ha!’ for no cause. + +This continued for thousands of years by human reckoning, till on a +day, Leo met the Girl walking across the hills and saw that she had +changed entirely since he had last seen her. The Girl, looking at Leo, +saw that he too had changed altogether. Then they decided that it would +be well never to separate again, in case even more startling changes +should occur when the one was not at hand to help the other. Leo kissed +the Girl and all Earth felt that kiss, and the Girl sat down on a hill +and the water ran out of her eyes; and this had never happened before +in the memory of the Children of the Zodiac. + +As they sat together a man and a woman came by, and the man said to the +woman: + +‘What is the use of wasting flowers on those dull Gods? They will never +understand, darling.’ + +The Girl jumped up and put her arms round the woman, crying, ‘I +understand. Give me the flowers and I will give you a kiss.’ + +Leo said beneath his breath to the man: ‘What was the new name that I +heard you give to your woman just now?’ + +The man answered, ‘Darling, of course.’ + +‘Why “of course”?’ said Leo; ‘and if of course, what does it mean?’ + +‘It means “very dear,” and you have only to look at your wife to see +why.’ + +‘I see,’ said Leo; ‘you are quite right’; and when the man and the +woman had gone on he called the Girl ‘darling wife’; and the Girl wept +again from sheer happiness. + +‘I think,’ she said at last, wiping her eyes, ‘I think that we two have +neglected men and women too much. What did you do with the sacrifices +they made to you, Leo?’ + +‘I let them burn,’ said Leo; ‘I could not eat them. What did you do +with the flowers?’ + +‘I let them wither. I could not wear them, I had so many of my own,’ +said the Girl, ‘and now I am sorry.’ + +‘There is nothing to grieve for,’ said Leo; ‘we belong to each other.’ + +As they were talking the years of men’s life slipped by unnoticed, and +presently the man and the woman came back, both white-headed, the man +carrying the woman. + +‘We have come to the end of things,’ said the man quietly. ‘This that +was my wife--’ + +‘As I am Leo’s wife,’ said the Girl quickly, her eyes staring. + +‘--was my wife, has been killed by one of your Houses.’ The man set +down his burden, and laughed. + +‘Which House?’ said Leo angrily, for he hated all the Houses equally. + +‘You are Gods, you should know,’ said the man. ‘We have lived together +and loved one another, and I have left a good farm for my son. What +have I to complain of except that I still live?’ + +As he was bending over his wife’s body there came a whistling through +the air, and he started and tried to run away, crying, ‘It is the arrow +of the Archer. Let me live a little longer--only a little longer!’ The +arrow struck him and he died. Leo looked at the Girl and she looked at +him, and both were puzzled. + +‘He wished to die,’ said Leo. ‘He said that he wished to die, and when +Death came he tried to run away. He is a coward.’ + +‘No, he is not,’ said the Girl; ‘I think I feel what he felt. Leo, we +must learn more about this for their sakes.’ + +‘For _their_ sakes,’ said Leo, very loudly. + +‘Because _we_ are never going to die,’ said the Girl and Leo together, +still more loudly. + +‘Now sit you still here, darling wife,’ said Leo, ‘while I go to the +Houses whom we hate, and learn how to make these men and women live as +we do.’ + +‘And love as we do,’ said the Girl. + +‘I do not think they need to be taught that,’ said Leo, and he strode +away very angry, with his lion-skin swinging from his shoulder, till he +came to the House where the Scorpion lives in the darkness, brandishing +his tail over his back. + +‘Why do you trouble the children of men?’ said Leo, with his heart +between his teeth. + +‘Are you so sure that I trouble the children of men alone?’ said the +Scorpion. ‘Speak to your brother the Bull, and see what he says.’ + +‘I come on behalf of the children of men,’ said Leo. ‘I have learned to +love as they do, and I wish them to live as I--as we do.’ + +‘Your wish was granted long ago. Speak to the Bull. He is under my +special care,’ said the Scorpion. + +Leo dropped back to the earth again, and saw the great star Aldebaran, +that is set in the forehead of the Bull, blazing very near to the +earth. When he came up to it he saw that his brother the Bull, yoked to +a countryman’s plough, was toiling through a wet rice-field with his +head bent down, and the sweat streaming from his flanks. The countryman +was urging him forward with a goad. + +‘Gore that insolent to death,’ cried Leo, ‘and for the sake of our +honour come out of the mire.’ + +‘I cannot,’ said the Bull, ‘the Scorpion has told me that some day, of +which I cannot be sure, he will sting me where my neck is set on my +shoulders, and that I shall die bellowing.’ + +‘What has that to do with this disgraceful work?’ said Leo, standing on +the dyke that bounded the wet field. + +‘Everything. This man could not plough without my help. He thinks that +I am a stray beast.’ + +‘But he is a mud-crusted cottar with matted hair,’ insisted Leo. ‘We +are not meant for his use.’ + +‘You may not be; I am. I cannot tell when the Scorpion may choose to +sting me to death--perhaps before I have turned this furrow.’ The Bull +flung his bulk into the yoke, and the plough tore through the wet +ground behind him, and the countryman goaded him till his flanks were +red. + +‘Do you like this?’ Leo called down the dripping furrows. + +‘No,’ said the Bull over his shoulder as he lifted his hind legs from +the clinging mud and cleared his nostrils. + +Leo left him scornfully and passed to another country, where he found +his brother the Ram in the centre of a crowd of country-people who were +hanging wreaths round his neck and feeding him on freshly-plucked green +corn. + +‘This is terrible,’ said Leo. ‘Break up that crowd and come away, my +brother. Their hands are spoiling your fleece.’ + +‘I cannot,’ said the Ram. ‘The Archer told me that on some day of which +I had no knowledge, he would send a dart through me, and that I should +die in very great pain.’ + +‘What has that to do with this disgraceful show?’ said Leo, but he did +not speak as confidently as before. + +‘Everything in the world,’ said the Ram. ‘These people never saw a +perfect sheep before. They think that I am a stray, and they will carry +me from place to place as a model to all their flocks.’ + +‘But they are greasy shepherds; we are not intended to amuse them,’ +said Leo. + +‘You may not be, I am,’ said the Ram. ‘I cannot tell when the Archer +may choose to send his arrow at me--perhaps before the people a mile +down the road have seen me.’ The Ram lowered his head that a yokel +newly arrived might throw a wreath of wild garlic-leaves over it, and +waited patiently while the farmers tugged his fleece. + +‘Do you like this?’ cried Leo over the shoulders of the crowd. + +‘No,’ said the Ram, as the dust of the trampling feet made him sneeze, +and he snuffed at the fodder piled before him. + +Leo turned back intending to retrace his steps to the Houses, but as +he was passing down a street he saw two small children, very dusty, +rolling outside a cottage door, and playing with a cat. They were the +Twins. + +‘What are you doing here?’ said Leo, indignant. + +‘Playing,’ said the Twins calmly. + +‘Cannot you play on the banks of the Milky Way?’ said Leo. + +‘We did,’ said they, ‘till the Fishes swam down and told us that some +day they would come for us and not hurt us at all and carry us away. So +now we are playing at being babies down here. The people like it.’ + +‘Do you like it?’ said Leo. + +‘No,’ said the Twins, ‘but there are no cats in the Milky Way,’ and +they pulled the cat’s tail thoughtfully. A woman came out of the +doorway and stood behind them, and Leo saw in her face a look that he +had sometimes seen in the Girl’s. + +‘She thinks that we are foundlings,’ said the Twins, and they trotted +indoors to the evening meal. + +Then Leo hurried as swiftly as possible to all the Houses one after +another; for he could not understand the new trouble that had come +to his brethren. He spoke to the Archer, and the Archer assured him +that so far as that House was concerned Leo had nothing to fear. The +Waterman, the Fishes, and the Scorpion gave the same answer. They knew +nothing of Leo, and cared less. They were the Houses, and they were +busied in killing men. + +At last he came to that very dark House where Cancer the Crab lies +so still that you might think he was asleep if you did not see the +ceaseless play and winnowing motion of the feathery branches round his +mouth. That movement never ceases. It is like the eating of a smothered +fire into rotten timber in that it is noiseless and without haste. + +Leo stood in front of the Crab, and the half darkness allowed him a +glimpse of that vast blue-black back, and the motionless eyes. Now and +again he thought that he heard some one sobbing, but the noise was very +faint. + +‘Why do you trouble the children of men?’ said Leo. There was no +answer, and against his will Leo cried, ‘Why do you trouble us? What +have we done that you should trouble us?’ + +This time Cancer replied, ‘What do I know or care? You were born into +my House, and at the appointed time I shall come for you.’ + +‘When is the appointed time?’ said Leo, stepping back from the restless +movement of the mouth. + +‘When the full moon fails to call the full tide,’ said the Crab, ‘I +shall come for the one. When the other has taken the earth by the +shoulders, I shall take that other by the throat.’ + +Leo lifted his hand to the apple of his throat, moistened his lips, and +recovering himself, said: + +‘Must I be afraid for two, then?’ + +‘For two,’ said the Crab, ‘and as many more as may come after.’ + +‘My brother, the Bull, had a better fate,’ said Leo, sullenly; ‘he is +alone.’ + +A hand covered his mouth before he could finish the sentence, and he +found the Girl in his arms. Womanlike, she had not stayed where Leo had +left her, but had hastened off at once to know the worst, and passing +all the other Houses, had come straight to Cancer. + +‘That is foolish,’ said the Girl, whispering. ‘I have been waiting in +the dark for long and long before you came. _Then_ I was afraid. But +now----’ She put her head down on his shoulder and sighed a sigh of +contentment. + +‘I am afraid now,’ said Leo. + +‘That is on my account,’ said the Girl. ‘I know it is, because I am +afraid for your sake. Let us go, husband.’ + +They went out of the darkness together and came back to the Earth, Leo +very silent, and the Girl striving to cheer him. ‘My brother’s fate is +the better one,’ Leo would repeat from time to time, and at last he +said: ‘Let us each go our own way and live alone till we die. We were +born into the House of Cancer, and he will come for us.’ + +‘I know; I know. But where shall I go? And where will you sleep in the +evening? But let us try. I will stay here. Do you go on?’ + +Leo took six steps forward very slowly, and three long steps backward +very quickly, and the third step set him again at the Girl’s side. This +time it was she who was begging him to go away and leave her, and he +was forced to comfort her all through the night. That night decided +them both never to leave each other for an instant, and when they had +come to this decision they looked back at the darkness of the House of +Cancer high above their heads, and with their arms round each other’s +necks laughed, ‘Ha! ha! ha!’ exactly as the children of men laughed. +And that was the first time in their lives that they had ever laughed. + +Next morning they returned to their proper home, and saw the flowers +and the sacrifices that had been laid before their doors by the +villagers of the hills. Leo stamped down the fire with his heel and +the Girl flung the flower-wreaths out of sight, shuddering as she did +so. When the villagers returned, as of custom, to see what had become +of their offerings, they found neither roses nor burned flesh on the +altars, but only a man and a woman, with frightened white faces, +sitting hand-in-hand on the altar-steps. + +‘Are you not Virgo?’ said a woman to the Girl. ‘I sent you flowers +yesterday.’ + +‘Little sister,’ said the Girl, flushing to her forehead, ‘do not send +any more flowers, for I am only a woman like yourself.’ The man and the +woman went away doubtfully. + +‘Now, what shall we do?’ said Leo. + +‘We must try to be cheerful, I think,’ said the Girl. ‘We know the very +worst that can happen to us, but we do not know the best that love can +bring us. We have a great deal to be glad of.’ + +‘The certainty of death,’ said Leo. + +‘All the children of men have that certainty also; yet they laughed +long before we ever knew how to laugh. We must learn to laugh, Leo. We +have laughed once already.’ + +People who consider themselves Gods, as the Children of the Zodiac +did, find it hard to laugh, because the Immortals know nothing worth +laughter or tears. Leo rose up with a very heavy heart, and he and the +girl together went to and fro among men; their new fear of death behind +them. First they laughed at a naked baby attempting to thrust its fat +toes into its foolish pink mouth; next they laughed at a kitten chasing +her own tail; and then they laughed at a boy trying to steal a kiss +from a girl, and getting his ears boxed. Lastly, they laughed because +the wind blew in their faces as they ran down a hill-side together, and +broke panting and breathless into a knot of villagers at the bottom. +The villagers laughed too at their flying clothes and wind-reddened +faces; and in the evening gave them food and invited them to a dance on +the grass, where everybody laughed through the mere joy of being able +to dance. + +That night Leo jumped up from the Girl’s side crying: ‘Every one of +those people we met just now will die----’ + +‘So shall we,’ said the Girl sleepily. ‘Lie down again, dear.’ Leo +could not see that her face was wet with tears. + +But Leo was up and far across the fields, driven forward by the fear of +death for himself and for the Girl, who was dearer to him than himself. +Presently he came across the Bull drowsing in the moonlight after a +hard day’s work, and looking through half-shut eyes at the beautiful +straight furrows that he had made. + +‘Ho!’ said the Bull, ‘so you have been told these things too. Which of +the Houses holds your death?’ + +Leo pointed upwards to the dark House of the Crab and groaned. ‘And he +will come for the Girl too,’ he said. + +‘Well,’ said the Bull, ‘what will you do?’ + +Leo sat down on the dyke and said that he did not know. + +‘You cannot pull a plough,’ said the Bull, with a little touch of +contempt. ‘I can, and that prevents me from thinking of the Scorpion.’ + +Leo was angry and said nothing till the dawn broke, and the cultivator +came to yoke the Bull to his work. + +‘Sing,’ said the Bull, as the stiff muddy ox-bow creaked and strained. +‘My shoulder is galled. Sing one of the songs that we sang when we +thought we were all Gods together.’ + +Leo stepped back into the cane-brake and lifted up his voice in a song +of the Children of the Zodiac--the war-whoop of the young Gods who are +afraid of nothing. At first he dragged the song along unwillingly, and +then the song dragged him, and his voice rolled across the fields, and +the Bull stepped to the tune and the cultivator banged his flanks out +of sheer light-heartedness, and the furrows rolled away behind the +plough more and more swiftly. Then the Girl came across the fields +looking for Leo and found him singing in the cane. She joined her voice +to his, and the cultivator’s wife brought her spinning into the open +and listened with all her children round her. When it was time for the +nooning, Leo and the Girl had sung themselves both thirsty and hungry, +but the cultivator and his wife gave them rye-bread and milk, and many +thanks, and the Bull found occasion to say: ‘You have helped me to do a +full half-field more than I should have done. But the hardest part of +the day is to come, brother.’ + +Leo wished to lie down and brood over the words of the Crab. The Girl +went away to talk to the cultivator’s wife and baby, and the afternoon +ploughing began. + +‘Help us now,’ said the Bull. ‘The tides of the day are running down. +My legs are very stiff. Sing if you never sang before.’ + +‘To a mud-spattered villager?’ said Leo. + +‘He is under the same doom as ourselves. Are you a coward?’ said the +Bull. Leo flushed and began again with a sore throat and a bad temper. +Little by little he dropped away from the songs of the Children and +made up a song as he went along; and this was a thing he could never +have done had he not met the Crab face to face. He remembered facts +concerning cultivators, and bullocks, and rice-fields, that he had +not particularly noticed before the interview, and he strung them +all together, growing more interested as he sang, and he told the +cultivator much more about himself and his work than the cultivator +knew. The Bull grunted approval as he toiled down the furrows for the +last time that day, and the song ended, leaving the cultivator with a +very good opinion of himself in his aching bones. The Girl came out +of the hut where she had been keeping the children quiet, and talking +woman-talk to the wife, and they all ate the evening meal together. + +‘Now yours must be a very pleasant life,’ said the cultivator, ‘sitting +as you do on a dyke all day and singing just what comes into your head. +Have you been at it long, you two--gipsies?’ + +‘Ah!’ lowed the Bull from his byre. ‘That’s all the thanks you will +ever get from men, brother.’ + +‘No. We have only just begun it,’ said the Girl; ‘but we are going to +keep to it as long as we live. Are we not, Leo?’ + +‘Yes,’ said he, and they went away hand-in-hand. + +‘You can sing beautifully, Leo,’ said she, as a wife will to her +husband. + +‘What were you doing?’ said he. + +‘I was talking to the mother and the babies,’ she said. ‘You would not +understand the little things that make us women laugh.’ + +‘And--and I am to go on with this--this gipsy-work?’ said Leo. + +‘Yes, dear, and I will help you.’ + +There is no written record of the life of Leo and of the Girl, so we +cannot tell how Leo took to his new employment which he detested. We +are only sure that the Girl loved him when and wherever he sang; even +when, after the song was done, she went round with the equivalent of +a tambourine, and collected the pence for the daily bread. There were +times too when it was Leo’s very hard task to console the Girl for the +indignity of horrible praise that people gave him and her--for the +silly wagging peacock feathers that they stuck in his cap, and the +buttons and pieces of cloth that they sewed on his coat. Womanlike, +she could advise and help to the end, but the meanness of the means +revolted. + +‘What does it matter,’ Leo would say, ‘so long as the songs make them +a little happier?’ And they would go down the road and begin again on +the old old refrain: that whatever came or did not come the children +of men must not be afraid. It was heavy teaching at first, but in +process of years Leo discovered that he could make men laugh and hold +them listening to him even when the rain fell. Yet there were people +who would sit down and cry softly, though the crowd was yelling with +delight, and there were people who maintained that Leo made them do +this; and the Girl would talk to them in the pauses of the performance +and do her best to comfort them. People would die too, while Leo was +talking, and singing, and laughing, for the Archer, and the Scorpion, +and the Crab, and the other Houses were as busy as ever. Sometimes the +crowd broke, and were frightened, and Leo strove to keep them steady +by telling them that this was cowardly; and sometimes they mocked at +the Houses that were killing them, and Leo explained that this was even +more cowardly than running away. + +In their wanderings they came across the Bull, or the Ram, or the +Twins, but all were too busy to do more than nod to each other across +the crowd, and go on with their work. As the years rolled on even that +recognition ceased, for the Children of the Zodiac had forgotten that +they had ever been Gods working for the sake of men. The Star Aldebaran +was crusted with caked dirt on the Bull’s forehead, the Ram’s fleece +was dusty and torn, and the Twins were only babies fighting over the +cat on the doorstep. It was then that Leo said: ‘Let us stop singing +and making jokes.’ And it was then that the girl said: ‘No--’ but she +did not know why she said ‘No’ so energetically. Leo maintained that +it was perversity, till she herself, at the end of a dusty day, made +the same suggestion to him, and he said ‘most certainly not,’ and they +quarrelled miserably between the hedgerows, forgetting the meaning of +the stars above them. Other singers and other talkers sprang up in the +course of the years, and Leo, forgetting that there could never be too +many of these, hated them for dividing the applause of the children of +men, which he thought should be all his own. The Girl would grow angry +too, and then the songs would be broken, and the jests fall flat for +weeks to come, and the children of men would shout: ‘Go home, you two +gipsies. Go home and learn something worth singing!’ + +After one of these sorrowful shameful days, the Girl, walking by Leo’s +side through the fields, saw the full moon coming up over the trees, +and she clutched Leo’s arm, crying: ‘The time has come now. Oh, Leo, +forgive me!’ + +‘What is it?’ said Leo. He was thinking of the other singers. + +‘My husband!’ she answered, and she laid his hand upon her breast, +and the breast that he knew so well was hard as stone. Leo groaned, +remembering what the Crab had said. + +‘Surely we were Gods once,’ he cried. + +‘Surely we are Gods still,’ said the Girl. ‘Do you not remember when +you and I went to the house of the Crab and--were not very much afraid? +And since then ... we have forgotten what we were singing for--we sang +for the pence, and, oh, we fought for them!--We, who are the Children +of the Zodiac.’ + +‘It was my fault,’ said Leo. + +‘How can there be any fault of yours that is not mine too?’ said the +Girl. ‘My time has come, but you will live longer, and....’ The look in +her eyes said all she could not say. + +‘Yes, I will remember that we are Gods,’ said Leo. + +It is very hard, even for a child of the Zodiac, who has forgotten his +Godhead, to see his wife dying slowly and to know that he cannot help +her. The Girl told Leo in those last months of all that she had said +and done among the wives and the babies at the back of the roadside +performances, and Leo was astonished that he knew so little of her who +had been so much to him. When she was dying she told him never to fight +for pence or quarrel with the other singers; and, above all, to go on +with his singing immediately after she was dead. + +Then she died, and after he had buried her he went down the road to +a village that he knew, and the people hoped that he would begin +quarrelling with a new singer that had sprung up while he had been +away. But Leo called him ‘my brother.’ The new singer was newly +married--and Leo knew it--and when he had finished singing, Leo +straightened himself and sang the ‘Song of the Girl,’ which he had made +coming down the road. Every man who was married or hoped to be married, +whatever his rank or colour, understood that song--even the bride +leaning on the new husband’s arm understood it too--and presently when +the song ended, and Leo’s heart was bursting in him, the men sobbed. +‘That was a sad tale,’ they said at last, ‘now make us laugh.’ Because +Leo had known all the sorrow that a man could know, including the full +knowledge of his own fall who had once been a God--he, changing his +song quickly, made the people laugh till they could laugh no more. They +went away feeling ready for any trouble in reason, and they gave Leo +more peacock feathers and pence than he could count. Knowing that pence +led to quarrels and that peacock feathers were hateful to the Girl, he +put them aside and went away to look for his brothers, to remind them +that they too were Gods. + +He found the Bull goring the undergrowth in a ditch, for the Scorpion +had stung him, and he was dying, not slowly, as the Girl had died, but +quickly. + +‘I know all,’ the Bull groaned, as Leo came up. ‘I had forgotten +too, but I remember now. Go and look at the fields I ploughed. The +furrows are straight. I forgot that I was a God, but I drew the plough +perfectly straight, for all that. And you, brother?’ + +‘I am not at the end of the ploughing,’ said Leo. ‘Does Death hurt?’ + +‘No, but dying does,’ said the Bull, and he died. The cultivator who +then owned him was much annoyed, for there was a field still unploughed. + +It was after this that Leo made the Song of the Bull who had been a God +and forgotten the fact, and he sang it in such a manner that half the +young men in the world conceived that they too might be Gods without +knowing it. A half of that half grew impossibly conceited, and died +early. A half of the remainder strove to be Gods and failed, but the +other half accomplished four times more work than they would have done +under any other delusion. + +Later, years later, always wandering up and down and making the +children of men laugh, he found the Twins sitting on the bank of a +stream waiting for the Fishes to come and carry them away. They were +not in the least afraid, and they told Leo that the woman of the House +had a real baby of her own, and that when that baby grew old enough to +be mischievous he would find a well-educated cat waiting to have its +tail pulled. Then the Fishes came for them, but all that the people saw +was two children drowned in a brook; and though their foster-mother was +very sorry, she hugged her own real baby to her breast and was grateful +that it was only the foundlings. + +Then Leo made the Song of the Twins, who had forgotten that they were +Gods and had played in the dust to amuse a foster-mother. That song was +sung far and wide among the women. It caused them to laugh and cry and +hug their babies closer to their hearts all in one breath; and some of +the women who remembered the Girl said: ‘Surely that is the voice of +Virgo. Only she could know so much about ourselves.’ + +After those three songs were made, Leo sang them over and over again +till he was in danger of looking upon them as so many mere words, and +the people who listened grew tired, and there came back to Leo the old +temptation to stop singing once and for all. But he remembered the +Girl’s dying words and persisted. + +One of his listeners interrupted him as he was singing. ‘Leo,’ said he, +‘I have heard you telling us not to be afraid for the past forty years. +Can you not sing something new now?’ + +‘No,’ said Leo, ‘it is the only song that I am allowed to sing. You +must not be afraid of the Houses, even when they kill you.’ The man +turned to go, wearily, but there came a whistling through the air, and +the arrow of the Archer was seen skimming low above the earth, pointing +to the man’s heart. He drew himself up, and stood still waiting till +the arrow struck home. + +‘I die,’ he said quietly. ‘It is well for me, Leo, that you sang for +forty years.’ + +‘Are you afraid?’ said Leo, bending over him. + +‘I am a man, not a God,’ said the man. ‘I should have run away but for +your songs. My work is done, and I die without making a show of my +fear.’ + +‘I am very well paid,’ said Leo to himself. ‘Now that I see what my +songs are doing, I will sing better ones.’ + +He went down the road, collected his little knot of listeners, and +began the Song of the Girl. In the middle of his singing he felt the +cold touch of the Crab’s claw on the apple of his throat. He lifted his +hand, choked, and stopped for an instant. + +‘Sing on, Leo,’ said the crowd. ‘The old song runs as well as ever it +did.’ + +Leo went on steadily till the end with the cold fear at his heart. When +his song was ended, he felt the grip on his throat tighten. He was old, +he had lost the Girl, he knew that he was losing more than half his +power to sing, he could scarcely walk to the diminishing crowds that +waited for him, and could not see their faces when they stood about +him. None the less, he cried angrily to the Crab: + +‘Why have you come for me _now_?’ + +‘You were born under my care. How can I help coming for you?’ said the +Crab wearily. Every human being whom the Crab killed had asked that +same question. + +‘But I was just beginning to know what my songs were doing,’ said Leo. + +‘Perhaps that is why,’ said the Crab, and the grip tightened. + +‘You said you would not come till I had taken the world by the +shoulders,’ gasped Leo, falling back. + +‘I always keep my word. You have done that three times with three +songs. What more do you desire?’ + +‘Let me live to see the world know it,’ pleaded Leo. ‘Let me be sure +that my songs----’ + +‘Make men brave?’ said the Crab. ‘Even then there would be one man who +was afraid. The Girl was braver than you are. Come.’ + +Leo was standing close to the restless insatiable mouth. + +‘I forgot,’ said he simply. ‘The Girl was braver. But I am a God too, +and I am not afraid.’ + +‘What is that to me?’ said the Crab. + +Then Leo’s speech was taken from him and he lay still and dumb, +watching Death till he died. + +Leo was the last of the Children of the Zodiac. After his death there +sprang up a breed of little mean men, whimpering and flinching and +howling because the Houses killed them and theirs, who wished to live +for ever without any pain. They did not increase their lives but they +increased their own torments miserably, and there were no Children of +the Zodiac to guide them; and the greater part of Leo’s songs were lost. + +Only he had carved on the Girl’s tombstone the last verse of the Song +of the Girl, which stands at the head of this story. + +One of the children of men, coming thousands of years later, rubbed +away the lichen, read the lines, and applied them to a trouble other +than the one Leo meant. Being a man, men believed that he had made the +verses himself; but they belong to Leo, the Child of the Zodiac, and +teach, as he taught, that whatever comes or does not come we men must +not be afraid. + + + + + ENVOY. + + + Heh! Walk her round. Heave, ah heave her short again! + Over, snatch her over, there, and hold her on the pawl. + Loose all sail, and brace your yards aback and full-- + Ready jib to pay her off and heave short all! + Well, ah fare you well; we can stay no more with you, my love-- + Down, set down your liquor and your girl from off your knee; + For the wind has come to say: + ‘You must take me while you may, + If you’d go to Mother Carey where she feeds her chicks at sea!’ + + Heh! Walk her round. Break, ah break it out o’ that! + Break our starboard bower out, apeak, awash, aclear! + Port--port she casts, with the harbour-roil beneath her foot, + And that’s the last o’ bottom we shall see this year! + Well, ah fare you well, for we’ve got to take her out again-- + Take her out in ballast, riding light and cargo-free. + And it’s time to clear and quit + When the hawser grips the bitt, + So we’ll pay you with the foresheet and a promise from the sea! + + Heh! Tally on. Aft and walk away with her! + Handsome to the cathead, now; O tally on the fall! + Stop, seize and fish, and easy on the davit-guy. + Up, well up the fluke of her, and inboard haul! + Well, ah fare you well, for the Channel wind’s took hold of us, + Choking down our voices as we snatch the gaskets free. + And it’s blowing up for night, + And she’s dropping Light on Light, + And she’s snorting under bonnets for a breath of open sea. + + Wheel, full and by; but she’ll smell her road alone to-night. + Sick she is and harbour-sick--O sick to clear the land! + Roll down to Brest with the old Red Ensign over us-- + Carry on and thrash her out with all she’ll stand! + Well, ah fare you well, and it’s Ushant gives the door to us, + Whirling like a windmill on the dirty sand to lea: + Till the last, last flicker goes + From the tumbling water-rows, + And we’re off to Mother Carey + (Walk her down to Mother Carey!) + Oh, we’re bound for Mother Carey where she feeds her chicks at + sea! + + + THE END + + + _Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, _Edinburgh_ + + + + + MESSRS. MACMILLAN AND CO.’S POPULAR NOVELS. + + _BY THE SAME AUTHOR._ + + Crown 8vo. 6s. each. + + +THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. Re-written and considerably enlarged. + + _ACADEMY._--“Whatever else be true of Mr. Kipling; it is the first + truth about him that he has power, real intrinsic power.... Mr. + Kipling’s work has innumerable good qualities.” + + _GLASGOW HERALD._--“The power and interest are sustained throughout, + and there is nowhere any indication of flagging or of a second + breath.... It carries on the tradition of the author’s picturesque + freshness and inexhaustible resources.” + + _MANCHESTER COURIER._--“The story is a brilliant one and full of + vivid interest.” + + +PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. + + _SATURDAY REVIEW._--“Mr. Kipling knows and appreciates the English + in India, and is a born story-teller and a man of humour into the + bargain.... It would be hard to find better reading.” + + _DUBLIN EVENING MAIL._--“This is a delightful book.... Mr. Kipling is + a man of genius, and prefers quality to quantity. Many of his stories + are profoundly pathetic. We think the dominant note of his genius is + pathos, but there is humour, rich and racy humour, in all of them.” + + _GLASGOW HERALD._--“That the book will at least be as popular here + as it has been and is in India we have no doubt. Possibly even a + greater success is in store for it, seeing that for us it possesses + rare qualities of freshness, of strange and brilliant colouring, + of curious characterisation, and of unusual incident, which to the + Anglo-Indian were probably familiar enough, though even in that case + the genius of the writer must have lifted them out of the region + of everyday life. One of the first things that strikes the reader + is the exceptional excellence of the tales.... The man who wrote + these tales has manifestly numberless others to tell.... Character, + situation, incident, humour, pathos, tragic force, are all in + abundance; words alone are at a minimum. Of course these are ‘plain’ + tales,--lightning-flash tales. A gleam, and there the whole tragedy + or comedy is before you--elaborate it for yourself afterwards.” + + _SCOTTISH REVIEW._--“... Whatever may be Mr. Kipling’s ability in + the higher walks of fiction, his ability as a story-teller or for + narrating such incidents, whether real or fictitious, as are here + put together is beyond question. They are told with ease, force, + and directness. The humorous stories are probably the best, but + whether humorous or grave--and there are both in the volume--they + throw considerable light upon certain phases of European society in + India and on numerous aspects of native Indian life. There is not an + uninteresting story in the volume, and one closes the book with the + desire to read the ‘other stories’ Mr. Kipling so often alludes to, + and somewhat tantalisingly passes over.” + + _BROAD ARROW._--“Mr. Kipling is accomplished beyond all recent + standards of comparison, and his forty stories are all readable + and clever. There is a freshness about them rare in such delicious + morsels of satire and sentiment ... and there is not a dull page in + the three hundred and ten.” + + +LIFE’S HANDICAP. Stories of Mine own People. + + _BLACK AND WHITE._--“‘Life’s Handicap’ contains much of the best + work hitherto accomplished by the author, and taken as a whole is a + complete advance upon its predecessors....” + + _OBSERVER._--“The stories are as good as ever, and are quite as well + told.... ‘Life’s Handicap’ is a volume that can be read with pleasure + and interest under almost any circumstances.” + + + BY ROLF BOLDREWOOD. + + New and Uniform Edition. Crown 8vo. Cloth. 3s. 6d. each. + + +ROBBERY UNDER ARMS. + + A STORY OF LIFE AND ADVENTURE IN THE BUSH + AND IN THE GOLD-FIELDS OF AUSTRALIA. + + _GUARDIAN._--“A singularly spirited and stirring tale of Australian + life, chiefly in the remoter settlements.... Altogether it is a + capital story, full of wild adventure, and startling incidents, and + told with a genuine simplicity and quiet appearance of truth, as + if the writer were really drawing upon his memory rather than his + imagination.” + + _SPECTATOR._--“We have nothing but praise for this story. Of + adventure of the most stirring kind there is, as we have said, + abundance. But there is more than this. The characters are drawn + with great skill. Every one of the gang of bush-rangers is strongly + individualised. This is a book of no common literary force.” + + _WORLD._--“An uncommonly good thing.... The book, in short, has the + natural touch, both of place and person, on every page.” + + _MORNING POST._--“As a picture of the earlier days of our Australian + Colonies and as an absorbing story ‘Robbery at Arms’ has few equals.” + + _GRAPHIC._--“That Mr. Boldrewood knows his subject through and + through is as certain as his picture of the breaking-out of the first + gold fever in Australia is the best ever written.” + + +THE SQUATTER’S DREAM. + + +THE MINER’S RIGHT. + + A TALE OF THE AUSTRALIAN GOLD-FIELDS. + + _WORLD._--“Full of good passages, passages abounding in vivacity, + in the colour and play of life.... The pith of the book lies in + its singularly fresh and vivid pictures of the humours of the + gold-fields,--tragic humours enough they are, too, here and again....” + + _MANCHESTER EXAMINER._--“The characters are sketched with real life + and picturesqueness. The book is lively and readable from first to + last.” + + +A COLONIAL REFORMER. + + _ATHENÆUM._--“A series of natural and entertaining pictures of + Australian life, which are, above all things, readable.” + + _GLASGOW HERALD._--“One of the most interesting books about Australia + we have ever read.” + + _SATURDAY REVIEW._--“Mr. Boldrewood can tell what he knows with great + point and vigour, and there is no better reading than the adventurous + parts of his books.” + + +A SYDNEY-SIDE SAXON. + + _GLASGOW HERALD._--“The interest never flags, and altogether ‘A + Sydney-Side Saxon’ is a really refreshing book.” + + _ANTI-JACOBIN._--“Thoroughly well worth reading.... A clever book, + admirably written.... Brisk in incident, truthful and life-like in + character.... Beyond and above all it has that stimulating hygienic + quality, that cheerful, unconscious healthfulness, which makes + a story like ‘Robinson Crusoe,’ or ‘The Vicar of Wakefield,’ so + unspeakably refreshing after a course of even good contemporary + fiction.” + + +NEVERMORE. + + _ACADEMY._--“Is perhaps the best story of the Rolf Boldrewood Series. + Must be allowed to be one of the best works of the period.” + + + BY MRS. OLIPHANT. + + Crown 8vo. Cloth. 3s. 6d. each. + + +NEIGHBOURS ON THE GREEN. + +KIRSTEEN. + + _SCOTSMAN._--“One of the most powerful stories Mrs. Oliphant has ever + written.” + + _MURRAY’S MAGAZINE._--“One of the best books which Mrs. Oliphant’s + fertile pen has within recent years produced.” + + _WORLD._--“Mrs. Oliphant has written many novels, and many good ones; + but if she has hitherto written one so good as _Kirsteen_, we have + not read it.... It is the highest praise we can give, when we say + that there are passages in it which, as pictures of Scottish life and + character, it would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to match out of + Sir Walter’s pages.” + + _NATIONAL OBSERVER._--“Seldom, if ever, has Mrs. Oliphant done better + than in _Kirsteen_.... There is humour, there is pathos, there is + tragedy, there is even crime--in short, there is human life.” + + +JOYCE. + + _GUARDIAN._--“It has seldom been our lot to fall in with so + engrossing a story.” + + +A BELEAGUERED CITY. + + _TIMES._--“The story is a powerful one and very original to boot.” + + +HESTER. + + _ACADEMY._--“At her best, she is, with one or two exceptions, the + best of living English novelists. She is at her best in _Hester_.” + + +HE THAT WILL NOT WHEN HE MAY. + + _SCOTSMAN._--“The workmanship of the book is simply admirable.” + + +THE RAILWAY MAN AND HIS CHILDREN. + + _ANTI-JACOBIN._--“An extremely interesting story, and a perfectly + satisfactory achievement of literary art.” + + _MORNING POST._--“Mrs. Oliphant has never written a simpler, and at + the same time a better conceived story. An excellent example of pure + and simple fiction, which is also of the deepest interest.” + + +THE MARRIAGE OF ELINOR. + + _NATIONAL OBSERVER._--“In spite of yourself and of them, you become + interested in uninteresting people, annoyed at their follies, and + sympathetic with their trifling sorrows and joys. This is Mrs. + Oliphant’s secret.” + + +SIR TOM. + + _SATURDAY REVIEW._--“Has the charm of style, the literary quality and + flavour that never fail to please.” + + + Globe 8vo. 2s. each. + +A SON OF THE SOIL. + +THE CURATE IN CHARGE. + +YOUNG MUSGRAVE. + +THE WIZARD’S SON. + + _SPECTATOR._--“We have read it twice, once in snippets, and once as a + whole, and our interest has never flagged.” + + +A COUNTRY GENTLEMAN AND HIS FAMILY. + + _ACADEMY._--“Never has her workmanship been surer, steadier, or more + masterly.” + + +THE SECOND SON. + + _MORNING POST._--“Mrs. Oliphant has never shown herself more + completely mistress of her art.... The entire story is clever and + powerful.” + + + Crown 8vo. Cloth. 3s. 6d. each. + +BY J. H. SHORTHOUSE. + + _ANTI-JACOBIN._--“Powerful, striking, and fascinating romances.” + + JOHN INGLESANT. + + SIR PERCIVAL. + + THE LITTLE SCHOOLMASTER MARK. + + A TEACHER OF THE VIOLIN. + + THE COUNTESS EVE. + + +BY MRS. CRAIK. + + (The Author of “JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN.”) + + OLIVE. With Illustrations by G. BOWERS. + + THE OGILVIES. With Illustrations by J. MCL. RALSTON. + + AGATHA’S HUSBAND. With Illustrations by WALTER CRANE. + + HEAD OF THE FAMILY. With Illustrations by WALTER CRANE. + + TWO MARRIAGES. + + THE LAUREL BUSH. + + MY MOTHER AND I. With Illustrations by J. MCL. RALSTON. + + MISS TOMMY: A Mediæval Romance. With Illustrations by FREDERICK NOEL + PATON. + + KING ARTHUR: Not a Love Story. + + +BY CHARLES KINGSLEY. + + WESTWARD HO! + + HYPATIA; or, New Foes with an Old Face. + + YEAST. A Problem. + + ALTON LOCKE; Tailor and Poet. + + TWO YEARS AGO. + + HEREWARD THE WAKE. + + + =By HUGH CONWAY.= + + _MORNING POST._--“Life-like and full of individuality.” + + _DAILY NEWS._--“Throughout written with spirit, good feeling, and + ability and a certain dash of humour.” + + LIVING OR DEAD? + A FAMILY AFFAIR. + + + =By SIR HENRY CUNNINGHAM, K.C.I.E.= + + _ST. JAMES’S GAZETTE._--“Interesting as specimens of romance, the + style of writing is so excellent--scholarly and at the same time + easy and natural--that the volumes are worth reading on that account + alone. But there is also a masterly description of persons, places, + and things; skilful analysis of character; a constant play of wit and + humour; and a happy gift of instantaneous portraiture.” + + THE CŒRULEANS. + THE HERIOTS. + WHEAT AND TARES. + + + =By THOMAS HARDY.= + + _TIMES._--“There is hardly a novelist, dead or living, who so + skilfully harmonises the poetry of rural life with its penury. Just + as Millet could in the figure of a solitary peasant toiling on a + plain, convey a world of pathetic meaning, so Mr. Hardy with his + yeomen and villagers. Their occupations in his hands wear a pathetic + dignity, which not even the encomiums of a Ruskin could heighten.” + + THE WOODLANDERS. + WESSEX TALES. + + + =By W. CLARK RUSSELL.= + + _TIMES._--“Mr. Clark Russell is one of those writers who have set + themselves to revive the British sea story in all its glorious + excitement. Mr. Russell has made a considerable reputation in this + line. His plots are well conceived, and that of _Marooned_ is no + exception to this rule.” + + MAROONED. + A STRANGE ELOPEMENT. + + + =By VARIOUS WRITERS.= + + LOUISIANA; and THAT LASS O’ LOWRIE’S. By FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT. + + CECILIA DE NOEL. By LANOE FALCONER. + + FAITHFUL AND UNFAITHFUL. By MARGARET LEE. + + REUBEN SACHS. By AMY LEVY. + + THE RING OF AMASIS. By Lord LYTTON. + + MRS. LORIMER. By LUCAS MALET. + + MISS BRETHERTON. By Mrs. HUMPHRY WARD. + + MUCKLE JOCK AND OTHER STORIES. By M. M‘LENNAN. + + + Crown 8vo. Cloth. 3s. 6d. each. + + =By CHARLES DICKENS.= + + THE PICKWICK PAPERS. With 50 Illustrations. + + OLIVER TWIST. 27 Illustrations. + + NICHOLAS NICKELBY. 44 Illustrations. + + MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT. 41 Illustrations. + + THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 97 Illustrations. + + BARNABY RUDGE. 76 Illustrations. + + DOMBEY AND SON. 40 Illustrations. + + CHRISTMAS BOOKS. 65 Illustrations. + + SKETCHES BY BOZ. 44 Illustrations. + + DAVID COPPERFIELD. 41 Illustrations. + + AMERICAN NOTES AND PICTURES FROM ITALY. 4 Illustrations. + + THE LETTERS OF CHARLES DICKENS. + + + =By BRET HARTE.= + + _SPEAKER._--“The best work of Mr. Bret Harte stands entirely alone + ... marked on every page by distinction and quality.... Strength and + delicacy, spirit and tenderness, go together in his best work.” + + CRESSY. + THE HERITAGE OF DEDLOW MARSH. + A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. + + + =By HENRY JAMES.= + + _SATURDAY REVIEW._--“He has the power of seeing with the artistic + perception of the few, and of writing about what he has seen, so that + the many can understand and feel with him.” + + _WORLD._--“His touch is so light, and his humour, while shrewd and + keen, so free from bitterness.” + + A LONDON LIFE. + THE ASPERN PAPERS. + THE TRAGIC MUSE. + + + =By ANNIE KEARY.= + + _SPECTATOR._--“In our opinion there have not been many novels + published better worth reading. The literary workmanship is + excellent, and all the windings of the stories are worked with + patient fulness and a skill not often found.” + + CASTLE DALY. + A YORK AND A LANCASTER ROSE. + JANET’S HOME. + OLDBURY. + A DOUBTING HEART. + + + =By D. CHRISTIE MURRAY.= + + _SPECTATOR._--“Mr. Christie Murray has more power and genius for + the delineation of English rustic life than any half-dozen of our + surviving novelists put together.” + + _SATURDAY REVIEW._--“Few modern novelists can tell a story of English + country life better than Mr. D. Christie Murray.” + + AUNT RACHEL. + JOHN VALE’S GUARDIAN. + SCHWARTZ. + THE WEAKER VESSEL. + HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. By D. C. MURRAY and H. HERMAN. + + + MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON. + + + + +Transcriber’s Note: + + + Obvious errors in spelling, hyphenation and punctuation have been +silently corrected in this version, but minor inconsistencies and +archaic forms have been retained as printed. + + The footnotes have been relocated to the end of their respective +stories and renumbered to better fit the ebook format. + + In addition, the following changes have been made: + + On page 43: harnassed _to_ harnessed, in the phrase: Three elephants +harnessed tandem go to each gun. + + On page 250: Welling _to_ welling, in the phrase: Raines’s young +barrister had for once put aside his unslaked and welling passion for +alibis and insanity,(...) + + On page 315: _Mungoose_ _to_ _Mongoose_, in the phrase: (...)said the +Lieutenant of the _Mongoose_, a real white-painted ram-bow gunboat(...) + + On page 348: come _to_ came, in the phrase: A woman came out of the +doorway (...) + + On page 365: sand to lea _to_ scud to lee, in the line[4]: +Whirling like a windmill on the dirty scud to lee + +[4] This change is found in most other editions of this poem. + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78240 *** diff --git a/78240-h/78240-h.htm b/78240-h/78240-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2e5aad7 --- /dev/null +++ b/78240-h/78240-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,15340 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> + <title> + Many Inventions | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .51em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .49em; +} + +.p2 {margin-top: 2em;} +.p6 {margin-top: 6em;} +.p6b {margin-bottom: 6em;} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: 33.5%; + margin-right: 33.5%; + clear: both; +} + +hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} +hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} +@media print { hr.chap {display: none; visibility: hidden;} } + + + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} +table.autotable { border-collapse: collapse; } +table.autotable td, +table.autotable th { padding: 0.25em; } + +.tdl {text-align: left;} +.tdr {text-align: right;} + + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; 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justify-content: center;} +.poetry-container {text-align: center;} +.poetry {text-align: left; margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%;} +.poetry .stanza {margin: 1em auto;} +.poetry .verse {text-indent: -3em; padding-left: 3em;} + +/* Transcriber's notes */ +.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; + color: black; + font-size:small; + padding:0.5em; + margin-bottom:5em; + font-family:sans-serif, serif; +} + + +/* Poetry indents */ +.poetry .indent0 {text-indent: -3.0em;} +.poetry .indent1 {text-indent: -2.5em;} +.poetry .indent2 {text-indent: -2.0em;} +.poetry .indent3 {text-indent: -1.5em;} +.poetry .indent4 {text-indent: -1.0em;} +.poetry .indent6 {text-indent: 0.0em;} +.poetry .indent8 {text-indent: 1.0em;} +.poetry .indent12 {text-indent: 3.0em;} +.poetry .indent14 {text-indent: 4.0em;} +.poetry .indent18 {text-indent: 6.0em;} + +.f07 {font-size: 0.7em;} +.f08 {font-size: 0.8em;} +.f12 {font-size: 1.2em;} + +img.w15 {width: 15em;} +.ornate { +font-family: "Old English Text MT", cursive, serif +} + +.hanging2 { padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em; } + +/* Illustration classes */ +.illowe12_5000 {width: 12.5000em;} + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78240 ***</div> + + +<h1> +MANY INVENTIONS +</h1> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"></div> + +<figure class="figcenter illowe12_5000" id="i_decor"> + <img class="w15" src="images/i_decor.jpg" alt=""> +</figure> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="MANY_INVENTIONS"> + MANY INVENTIONS + </h2> +</div> + +<p class="center f08 p6">BY</p> + +<p class="center f12 p6b">RUDYARD KIPLING</p> + + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent2">‘Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but</div> + <div class="verse indent0">they have sought out many inventions.’—<span class="smcap">Ecclesiastes</span> vii. 29.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center ornate p6"> +London<br> +</p> +<p class="center"> +MACMILLAN AND CO.<br> +</p> +<p class="center f08"> +AND NEW YORK</p> +<p class="center"> +1893 +</p> + +<p class="center f07 p2"> +<i>All rights reserved</i> +</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS"> + CONTENTS + </h2> +</div> + +<table class="autotable"> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdr">PAGE</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdl"><a href="#TO_THE_TRUE_ROMANCE"><span class="smcap">To the True Romance</span></a></td> +<td class="tdr">vii</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdl"><a href="#THE_DISTURBER_OF_TRAFFIC"><span class="smcap">The Disturber of Traffic</span></a></td> +<td class="tdr">1</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdl"><a href="#A_CONFERENCE_OF_THE_POWERS"><span class="smcap">A Conference of the Powers</span></a></td> +<td class="tdr">22</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"><a href="#MY_LORD_THE_ELEPHANT"><span class="smcap">My Lord the Elephant</span></a></td> +<td class="tdr">41</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"><a href="#ONE_VIEW_OF_THE_QUESTION"><span class="smcap">One View of the Question</span></a></td> +<td class="tdr">67</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"><a href="#THE_FINEST_STORY_IN_THE_WORLD">‘<span class="smcap">The Finest Story in the World</span>’</a></td> +<td class="tdr">90</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"><a href="#HIS_PRIVATE_HONOUR"><span class="smcap">His Private Honour</span></a></td> +<td class="tdr">129</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"><a href="#A_MATTER_OF_FACT"><span class="smcap">A Matter of Fact</span></a></td> +<td class="tdr">154</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"><a href="#THE_LOST_LEGION"><span class="smcap">The Lost Legion</span></a></td> +<td class="tdr">172</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdl"><a href="#IN_THE_RUKH"><span class="smcap">In the Rukh</span></a></td> +<td class="tdr">189</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"><a href="#BRUGGLESMITH">‘<span class="smcap">Brugglesmith</span>’</a></td> +<td class="tdr">226</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdl"><a href="#LOVE-O-WOMEN">‘<span class="smcap">Love-o’-Women</span>’</a></td> +<td class="tdr">247</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdl"><a href="#THE_RECORD_OF_BADALIA_HERODSFOOT"><span class="smcap">The Record of Badalia Herodsfoot</span></a></td> +<td class="tdr">279</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdl"><a href="#JUDSON_AND_THE_EMPIRE"><span class="smcap">Judson and the Empire</span></a></td> +<td class="tdr">309</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdl"><a href="#THE_CHILDREN_OF_THE_ZODIAC"><span class="smcap">The Children of the Zodiac</span></a></td> +<td class="tdr">342</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdl"><a href="#ENVOY"><span class="smcap">Envoy</span></a></td> +<td class="tdr">364</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdl"><a href="#MESSRS_MACMILLAN_AND_COS_POPULAR_NOVELS"><span class="smcap">MacMillan & Co’s. Popular Novels</span></a></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdl"><a href="#TRANSNOTE"><span class="smcap">Transcriber’s Note</span></a></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +</tr> + +</table> + + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="TO_THE_TRUE_ROMANCE"> + TO THE TRUE ROMANCE. + </h2> +</div> + + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Thy face is far from this our war,</i></div> + <div class="verse indent2"><i>Our call and counter-cry,</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>I shall not find Thee quick and kind,</i></div> + <div class="verse indent2"><i>Nor know Thee till I die.</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Enough for me in dreams to see</i></div> + <div class="verse indent2"><i>And touch Thy garments’ hem:</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Thy feet have trod so near to God</i></div> + <div class="verse indent2"><i>I may not follow them.</i></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Through wantonness if men profess</div> + <div class="verse indent2">They weary of Thy parts,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">E’en let them die at blasphemy</div> + <div class="verse indent2">And perish with their arts;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">But we that love, but we that prove</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Thine excellence august,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">While we adore discover more</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Thee perfect, wise, and just.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Since spoken word Man’s spirit stirred</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Beyond his belly-need,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">What is is Thine of fair design</div> + <div class="verse indent2">In thought and craft and deed;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Each stroke aright of toil and fight,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">That was and that shall be,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And hope too high wherefore we die,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Has birth and worth in Thee.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Who holds by Thee hath Heaven in fee</div> + <div class="verse indent2">To gild his dross thereby,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And knowledge sure that he endure</div> + <div class="verse indent2">A child until he die—</div> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</span> <div class="verse indent0">For to make plain that man’s disdain</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Is but new Beauty’s birth—</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For to possess in loneliness</div> + <div class="verse indent2">The joy of all the earth.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">As Thou didst teach all lovers speech</div> + <div class="verse indent2">And Life her mystery,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">So shalt Thou rule by every school</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Till love and longing die,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Who wast or yet the lights were set,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">A whisper in the Void,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Who shalt be sung through planets young</div> + <div class="verse indent2">When this is clean destroyed.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Beyond the bounds our staring rounds,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Across the pressing dark,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The children wise of outer skies</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Look hitherward and mark</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A light that shifts, a glare that drifts,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Rekindling thus and thus,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Not all forlorn, for Thou hast borne</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Strange tales to them of us.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Time hath no tide but must abide</div> + <div class="verse indent2">The servant of Thy will;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Tide hath no time, for to Thy rhyme</div> + <div class="verse indent2">The ranging stars stand still—</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Regent of spheres that lock our fears</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Our hopes invisible,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Oh ’twas certes at Thy decrees</div> + <div class="verse indent2">We fashioned Heaven and Hell!</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Pure Wisdom hath no certain path</div> + <div class="verse indent2">That lacks thy morning-eyne,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And captains bold by Thee controlled</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Most like to Gods design;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Thou art the Voice to kingly boys</div> + <div class="verse indent2">To lift them through the fight,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And Comfortress of Unsuccess,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">To give the dead good-night—</div> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</span> </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">A veil to draw ’twixt God His Law</div> + <div class="verse indent2">And Man’s infirmity,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A shadow kind to dumb and blind</div> + <div class="verse indent2">The shambles where we die;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A sum to trick th’ arithmetic</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Too base of leaguing odds,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The spur of trust, the curb of lust,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Thou handmaid of the Gods!</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Oh Charity, all patiently</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Abiding wrack and scaith!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Oh Faith, that meets ten thousand cheats</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Yet drops no jot of faith!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Devil and brute Thou dost transmute</div> + <div class="verse indent2">To higher, lordlier show,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Who art in sooth that utter Truth</div> + <div class="verse indent2">The careless angels know!</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Thy face is far from this our war,</i></div> + <div class="verse indent2"><i>Our call and counter-cry,</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>I may not find Thee quick and kind,</i></div> + <div class="verse indent2"><i>Nor know Thee till I die.</i></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Yet may I look with heart unshook</i></div> + <div class="verse indent2"><i>On blow brought home or missed—</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Yet may I hear with equal ear</i></div> + <div class="verse indent2"><i>The clarions down the List;</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Yet set my lance above mischance</i></div> + <div class="verse indent2"><i>And ride the barriere—</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Oh, hit or miss, how little ’tis,</i></div> + <div class="verse indent2"><i>My Lady is not there!</i></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_DISTURBER_OF_TRAFFIC"> + THE DISTURBER OF TRAFFIC. + </h2> +</div> + + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">From the wheel and the drift of Things</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Deliver us, good Lord;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And we will meet the wrath of kings,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">The faggot, and the sword.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Lay not Thy toil before our eyes,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Nor vex us with Thy wars,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Lest we should feel the straining skies</div> + <div class="verse indent2">O’ertrod by trampling stars.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">A veil ’twixt us and Thee, dread Lord,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">A veil ’twixt us and Thee:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Lest we should hear too clear, too clear,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">And unto madness see!</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="right"> + <span class="smcap">Miriam Cohen.</span> +</p> + + +<p class="p2">The Brothers of the Trinity order that none unconnected +with their service shall be found in or on +one of their Lights during the hours of darkness; but +their servants can be made to think otherwise. If +you are fair-spoken and take an interest in their duties, +they will allow you to sit with them through the long +night and help to scare the ships into mid-channel.</p> + +<p>Of the English south-coast Lights, that of St. +Cecilia-under-the-Cliff is the most powerful, for it +guards a very foggy coast. When the sea-mist veils +all, St. Cecilia turns a hooded head to the sea and +sings a song of two words once every minute. From +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</span>the land that song resembles the bellowing of a brazen +bull; but off-shore they understand, and the steamers +grunt gratefully in answer.</p> + +<p>Fenwick, who was on duty one night, lent me a +pair of black glass spectacles, without which no man +can look at the Light unblinded, and busied himself +in last touches to the lenses before twilight fell. +The width of the English Channel beneath us lay +as smooth and as many-coloured as the inside of an +oyster-shell. A little Sunderland cargo-boat had made +her signal to Lloyd’s Agency, half a mile up the coast, +and was lumbering down to the sunset, her wake lying +white behind her. One star came out over the cliffs, +the waters turned to lead colour, and St. Cecilia’s +Light shot out across the sea in eight long pencils +that wheeled slowly from right to left, melted into +one beam of solid light laid down directly in front of +the tower, dissolved again into eight, and passed away. +The light-frame of the thousand lenses circled on its +rollers, and the compressed-air engine that drove it +hummed like a bluebottle under a glass. The hand +of the indicator on the wall pulsed from mark to mark. +Eight pulse-beats timed one half-revolution of the +Light; neither more nor less.</p> + +<p>Fenwick checked the first few revolutions carefully; +he opened the engine’s feed-pipe a trifle, looked at the +racing governor, and again at the indicator, and said: +‘She’ll do for the next few hours. We’ve just sent +our regular engine to London, and this spare one’s +not by any manner so accurate.’</p> + +<p>‘And what would happen if the compressed air +gave out?’ I asked.</p> + +<p>‘We’d have to turn the flash by hand, keeping an +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</span>eye on the indicator. There’s a regular crank for that. +But it hasn’t happened yet. We’ll need all our compressed +air to-night.’</p> + +<p>‘Why?’ said I. I had been watching him for not +more than a minute.</p> + +<p>‘Look,’ he answered, and I saw that the dead sea-mist +had risen out of the lifeless sea and wrapped us +while my back had been turned. The pencils of the +Light marched staggeringly across tilted floors of white +cloud. From the balcony round the light-room the +white walls of the lighthouse ran down into swirling, +smoking space. The noise of the tide coming in very +lazily over the rocks was choked down to a thick +drawl.</p> + +<p>‘That’s the way our sea-fogs come,’ said Fenwick, +with an air of ownership. ‘Hark, now, to that +little fool calling out ’fore he’s hurt.’</p> + +<p>Something in the mist was bleating like an indignant +calf; it might have been half a mile or half a +hundred miles away.</p> + +<p>‘Does he suppose we’ve gone to bed?’ continued +Fenwick. ‘You’ll hear us talk to him in a minute. +He knows puffickly where he is, and he’s carrying +on to be told like if he was insured.’</p> + +<p>‘Who is “he”?’</p> + +<p>‘That Sunderland boat, o’ course. Ah!’</p> + +<p>I could hear a steam-engine hiss down below in +the mist where the dynamos that fed the Light were +clacking together. Then there came a roar that split +the fog and shook the lighthouse.</p> + +<p>‘<span class="smcap">Git</span>-<i>toot</i>!’ blared the fog-horn of St. Cecilia. The +bleating ceased.</p> + +<p>‘Little fool!’ Fenwick repeated. Then, listening: +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</span>‘Blest if that aren’t another of them! Well, well, +they always say that a fog do draw the ships of the +sea together. They’ll be calling all night, and so’ll +the siren. We’re expecting some tea-ships up-Channel.... +If you put my coat on that chair, you’ll feel more +so-fash, sir.’</p> + +<p>It is no pleasant thing to thrust your company +upon a man for the night. I looked at Fenwick, and +Fenwick looked at me; each gauging the other’s capacities +for boring and being bored. Fenwick was an +old, clean-shaven, gray-haired man who had followed +the sea for thirty years, and knew nothing of the land +except the lighthouse in which he served. He fenced +cautiously to find out the little that I knew, and talked +down to my level till it came out that I had met a +captain in the merchant service who had once commanded +a ship in which Fenwick’s son had served; and +further, that I had seen some places that Fenwick had +touched at. He began with a dissertation on pilotage +in the Hugli. I had been privileged to know a Hugli +pilot intimately. Fenwick had only seen the imposing +and masterful breed from a ship’s chains, and his intercourse +had been cut down to ‘Quarter less five,’ and +remarks of a strictly business-like nature. Hereupon +he ceased to talk down to me, and became so amazingly +technical that I was forced to beg him to explain +every other sentence. This set him fully at his ease; +and then we spoke as men together, each too interested +to think of anything except the subject in hand. And +that subject was wrecks, and voyages, and old-time +trading, and ships cast away in desolate seas, steamers +we both had known, their merits and demerits, lading, +Lloyd’s, and, above all, Lights. The talk always came +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</span>back to Lights: Lights of the Channel; Lights on forgotten +islands, and men forgotten on them; Light-ships—two +months’ duty and one month’s leave—tossing on +kinked cables in ever-troubled tideways; and Lights +that men had seen where never lighthouse was marked +on the charts.</p> + +<p>Omitting all those stories, and omitting also the +wonderful ways by which he arrived at them, I tell +here, from Fenwick’s mouth, one that was not the least +amazing. It was delivered in pieces between the +roller-skate rattle of the revolving lenses, the bellowing +of the fog-horn below, the answering calls from the +sea, and the sharp tap of reckless night-birds that +flung themselves at the glasses. It concerned a man +called Dowse, once an intimate friend of Fenwick, now +a waterman at Portsmouth, believing that the guilt of +blood is on his head, and finding no rest either at +Portsmouth or Gosport Hard.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>... ‘And if anybody was to come to you and +say, “I know the Javva currents,” don’t you listen to +him; for those currents is never yet known to mortal +man. Sometimes they’re here, sometimes they’re there, +but they never runs less than five knots an hour through +and among those islands of the Eastern Archipelagus. +There’s reverse currents in the Gulf of Boni—and +that’s up north in Celebes—that no man can explain; +and through all those Javva passages from the Bali +Narrows, Dutch Gut, and Ombay, which I take it is +the safest, they chop and they change, and they banks +the tides fust on one shore and then on another, till +your ship’s tore in two. I’ve come through the Bali +Narrows, stern first, in the heart o’ the south-east monsoon,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</span> +with a sou’-sou’-west wind blowing atop of the +northerly flood, and our skipper said he wouldn’t do +it again, not for all Jamrach’s. You’ve heard o’ +Jamrach’s, sir?’</p> + +<p>‘Yes; and was Dowse stationed in the Bali Narrows?’ +I said.</p> + +<p>‘No; he was not at Bali, but much more east o’ +them passages, and that’s Flores Strait, at the east end +o’ Flores. It’s all on the way south to Australia when +you’re running through that Eastern Archipelagus. +Sometimes you go through Bali Narrows if you’re +full-powered, and sometimes through Flores Strait, so +as to stand south at once, and fetch round Timor, +keeping well clear o’ the Sahul Bank. Elseways, if +you aren’t full-powered, why it stands to reason you +go round by the Ombay Passage, keeping careful to +the north side. You understand that, sir?’</p> + +<p>I was not full-powered, and judged it safer to keep +to the north side—of Silence.</p> + +<p>‘And on Flores Strait, in the fairway between +Adonare Island and the mainland, they put Dowse in +charge of a screw-pile Light called the Wurlee Light. +It’s less than a mile across the head of Flores Strait. +Then it opens out to ten or twelve mile for Solor Strait, +and then it narrows again to a three-mile gut, with a +topplin’ flamin’ volcano by it. That’s old Loby Toby +by Loby Toby Strait, and if you keep his Light and +the Wurlee Light in a line you won’t take much harm, +not on the darkest night. That’s what Dowse told +me, and I can well believe him, knowing these seas +myself; but you must ever be mindful of the currents. +And there they put Dowse, since he was the only man +that that Dutch government which owns Flores could +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</span>find that would go to Wurlee and tend a fixed Light. +Mostly they uses Dutch and Italians; Englishmen +being said to drink when alone. I never could rightly +find out what made Dowse accept of that position, but +accept he did, and used to sit for to watch the tigers +come out of the forests to hunt for crabs and such +like round about the lighthouse at low tide. The +water was always warm in those parts, as I know well, +and uncommon sticky, and it ran with the tides as +thick and smooth as hogwash in a trough. There was +another man along with Dowse in the Light, but he +wasn’t rightly a man. He was a Kling. No, nor +yet a Kling he wasn’t, but his skin was in little flakes +and cracks all over, from living so much in the salt +water as was his usual custom. His hands was all +webby-foot, too. He was called, I remember Dowse +saying now, an Orange-Lord, on account of his habits. +You’ve heard of an Orange-Lord, sir?’</p> + +<p>‘Orang-Laut?’ I suggested.</p> + +<p>‘That’s the name,’ said Fenwick, smacking his knee. +‘An Orang-Laut, of course, and his name was Challong; +what they call a sea-gypsy. Dowse told me that that +man, long hair and all, would go swimming up and +down the straits just for something to do; running +down on one tide and back again with the other, +swimming side-stroke, and the tides going tremenjus +strong. Elseways he’d be skipping about the beach +along with the tigers at low tide, for he was most +part a beast; or he’d sit in a little boat praying to +old Loby Toby of an evening when the volcano was +spitting red at the south end of the strait. Dowse +told me that he wasn’t a companionable man, like you +and me might have been to Dowse.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</span></p> + +<p>‘Now I can never rightly come at what it was +that began to ail Dowse after he had been there a +year or something less. He was saving of all his +pay and tending to his Light, and now and again he’d +have a fight with Challong and tip him off the Light +into the sea. Then, he told me, his head began to +feel streaky from looking at the tide so long. He +said there was long streaks of white running inside it; +like wall-paper that hadn’t been properly pasted up, +he said. The streaks, they would run with the tides, +north and south, twice a day, accordin’ to them +currents, and he’d lie down on the planking—it was a +screw-pile Light—with his eye to a crack and watch +the water streaking through the piles just so quiet as +hogwash. He said the only comfort he got was at +slack water. Then the streaks in his head went +round and round like a sampan in a tide-rip; but that +was heaven, he said, to the other kind of streaks,—the +straight ones that looked like arrows on a +wind-chart, but much more regular, and that was the +trouble of it. No more he couldn’t ever keep his +eyes off the tides that ran up and down so strong, +but as soon as ever he looked at the high hills standing +all along Flores Strait for rest and comfort his +eyes would be pulled down like to the nesty streaky +water; and when they once got there he couldn’t +pull them away again till the tide changed. He told +me all this himself, speaking just as though he was +talking of somebody else.’</p> + +<p>‘Where did you meet him?’ I asked.</p> + +<p>‘In Portsmouth harbour, a-cleaning the brasses of +a Ryde boat, but I’d known him off and on through +following the sea for many years. Yes, he spoke +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</span>about himself very curious, and all as if he was in +the next room laying there dead. Those streaks, they +preyed upon his intellecks, he said; and he made up +his mind, every time that the Dutch gunboat that +attends to the Lights in those parts come along, that +he’d ask to be took off. But as soon as she did come +something went click in his throat, and he was so took +up with watching her masts, because they ran longways, +in the contrary direction to his streaks, that he could +never say a word until she was gone away and her +masts was under sea again. Then, he said, he’d cry +by the hour; and Challong swum round and round +the Light, laughin’ at him and splashin’ water with +his webby-foot hands. At last he took it into his +pore sick head that the ships, and particularly the +steamers that came by,—there wasn’t many of them,—made +the streaks, instead of the tides as was +natural. He used to sit, he told me, cursing every +boat that come along,—sometimes a junk, sometimes +a Dutch brig, and now and again a steamer rounding +Flores Head and poking about in the mouth of the +strait. Or there’d come a boat from Australia running +north past old Loby Toby hunting for a fair current, +but never throwing out any papers that Challong +might pick up for Dowse to read. Generally speaking, +the steamers kept more westerly, but now and again +they came looking for Timor and the west coast of +Australia. Dowse used to shout to them to go round +by the Ombay Passage, and not to come streaking +past him, making the water all streaky, but it wasn’t +likely they’d hear. He says to himself after a month, +“I’ll give them one more chance,” he says. “If the +next boat don’t attend to my just representations,”—he +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</span>says he remembers using those very words to +Challong,—“I’ll stop the fairway.”</p> + +<p>‘The next boat was a Two-streak cargo-boat very +anxious to make her northing. She waddled through +under old Loby Toby at the south end of the strait, +and she passed within a quarter of a mile of the +Wurlee Light at the north end, in seventeen fathom +o’ water, the tide against her. Dowse took the +trouble to come out with Challong in a little prow +that they had,—all bamboos and leakage,—and he +lay in the fairway waving a palm branch, and, so he +told me, wondering why and what for he was making +this fool of himself. Up come the Two-streak boat, +and Dowse shouts: “Don’t you come this way again, +making my head all streaky! Go round by Ombay, +and leave me alone.” Some one looks over the port +bulwarks and shies a banana at Dowse, and that’s all. +Dowse sits down in the bottom of the boat and cries +fit to break his heart. Then he says, “Challong, what +am I a-crying for?” and they fetches up by the Wurlee +Light on the half-flood.</p> + +<p>‘“Challong,” he says, “there’s too much traffic here, +and that’s why the water’s so streaky as it is. It’s +the junks and the brigs and the steamers that do it,” +he says; and all the time he was speaking he was +thinking, “Lord, Lord, what a crazy fool I am!” +Challong said nothing, because he couldn’t speak a +word of English except say “dam,” and he said that +where you or me would say “yes.” Dowse lay down +on the planking of the Light with his eye to the +crack, and he saw the muddy water streaking below, +and he never said a word till slack water, because the +streaks kept him tongue-tied at such times. At slack +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</span>water he says, “Challong, we must buoy this fairway +for wrecks,” and he holds up his hands several times, +showing that dozens of wrecks had come about in the +fairway; and Challong says, “Dam.”</p> + +<p>‘That very afternoon he and Challong rows to +Wurlee, the village in the woods that the Light was +named after, and buys canes,—stacks and stacks of +canes, and coir rope thick and fine, all sorts,—and +they sets to work making square floats by lashing of +the canes together. Dowse said he took longer over +those floats than might have been needed, because he +rejoiced in the corners, they being square, and the +streaks in his head all running longways. He lashed +the canes together, criss-cross and thwartways,—any +way but longways,—and they made up twelve-foot-square +floats, like rafts. Then he stepped a twelve-foot +bamboo or a bundle of canes in the centre, and +to the head of that he lashed a big six-foot W letter, +all made of canes, and painted the float dark green +and the W white, as a wreck-buoy should be painted. +Between them two they makes a round dozen of these +new kind of wreck-buoys, and it was a two months’ +job. There was no big traffic, owing to it being on +the turn of the monsoon, but what there was Dowse +cursed at, and the streaks in his head, they ran with +the tides, as usual.</p> + +<p>‘Day after day, so soon as a buoy was ready, +Challong would take it out, with a big rock that half +sunk the prow and a bamboo grapnel, and drop it +dead in the fairway. He did this day or night, and +Dowse could see him of a clear night, when the sea +brimed, climbing about the buoys with the sea-fire +dripping off him. They was all put into place, twelve +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</span>of them, in seventeen-fathom water; not in a straight +line, on account of a well-known shoal there, but +slantways, and two, one behind the other, mostly in +the centre of the fairway. You must keep the centre +of those Javva currents, for currents at the side is +different, and in narrow water, before you can turn a +spoke, you get your nose took round and rubbed upon +the rocks and the woods. Dowse knew that just as +well as any skipper. Likeways he knew that no +skipper daren’t run through uncharted wrecks in a +six-knot current. He told me he used to lie outside +the Light watching his buoys ducking and dipping so +friendly with the tide; and the motion was comforting +to him on account of its being different from the run +of the streaks in his head.</p> + +<p>‘Three weeks after he’d done his business up +comes a steamer through Loby Toby Straits, thinking +she’d run into Flores Sea before night. He saw her +slow down; then she backed. Then one man and +another come up on the bridge, and he could see +there was a regular powwow, and the flood was driving +her right on to Dowse’s wreck-buoys. After that she +spun round and went back south, and Dowse nearly +killed himself with laughing. But a few weeks after +that a couple of junks came shouldering through from +the north, arm in arm, like junks go. It takes a good +deal to make a Chinaman understand danger. They +junks set well in the current, and went down the +fairway, right among the buoys, ten knots an hour, +blowing horns and banging tin pots all the time. +That made Dowse very angry; he having taken so +much trouble to stop the fairway. No boats run +Flores Straits by night, but it seemed to Dowse that if +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</span>junks’d do that in the day, the Lord knew but what +a steamer might trip over his buoys at night; and he +sent Challong to run a coir rope between three of the +buoys in the middle of the fairway, and he fixed naked +lights of coir steeped in oil to that rope. The tides +was the only things that moved in those seas, for the +airs was dead still till they began to blow, and <i>then</i> +they would blow your hair off. Challong tended +those lights every night after the junks had been so +impident,—four lights in about a quarter of a mile +hung up in iron skillets on the rope; and when they +was alight,—and coir burns well, very like a lamp +wick,—the fairway seemed more madder than anything +else in the world. First there was the Wurlee +Light, then these four queer lights, that couldn’t be +riding-lights, almost flush with the water, and behind +them, twenty mile off, but the biggest light of all, +there was the red top of old Loby Toby volcano. +Dowse told me that he used to go out in the prow +and look at his handiwork, and it made him scared, +being like no lights that ever was fixed.</p> + +<p>‘By and by some more steamers came along, +snorting and snifting at the buoys, but never going +through, and Dowse says to himself: “Thank goodness +I’ve taught them not to come streaking through my +water. Ombay Passage is good enough for them and +the like of them.” But he didn’t remember how quick +that sort of news spreads among the shipping. Every +steamer that fetched up by those buoys told another +steamer and all the port officers concerned in those +seas that there was something wrong with Flores +Straits that hadn’t been charted yet. It was block-buoyed +for wrecks in the fairway, they said, and no +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</span>sort of passage to use. Well, the Dutch, of course +they didn’t know anything about it. They thought +our Admiralty Survey had been there, and they +thought it very queer but neighbourly. You understand +us English are always looking up marks and +lighting sea-ways all the world over, never asking with +your leave or by your leave, seeing that the sea concerns +us more than any one else. So the news went +to and back from Flores to Bali, and Bali to Probolingo, +where the railway is that runs to Batavia. All +through the Javva seas everybody got the word to +keep clear o’ Flores Straits, and Dowse, he was left +alone except for such steamers and small craft as +didn’t know. They’d come up and look at the +straits like a bull over a gate, but those nodding +wreck-buoys scared them away. By and by the +Admiralty Survey ship—the <i>Britomarte</i> I think she +was—lay in Macassar Roads off Fort Rotterdam, +alongside of the <i>Amboina</i>, a dirty little Dutch gunboat +that used to clean there; and the Dutch captain says +to our captain, “What’s wrong with Flores Straits?” +he says.</p> + +<p>‘“Blowed if I know,” says our captain, who’d just +come up from the Angelica Shoal.</p> + +<p>‘“Then why did you go and buoy it?” says the +Dutchman.</p> + +<p>‘“Blowed if I have,” says our captain. “That’s +your lookout.”</p> + +<p>‘“Buoyed it is,” says the Dutch captain, “according +to what they tell me; and a whole fleet of wreck-buoys, +too.”</p> + +<p>‘“Gummy!” says our captain. “It’s a dorg’s life at +sea, any way. I must have a look at this. You come +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</span>along after me as soon as you can;” and down he +skimmed that very night, round the heel of Celebes, +three days’ steam to Flores Head, and he met a Two-streak +liner, very angry, backing out of the head of +the strait; and the merchant captain gave our Survey +ship something of his mind for leaving wrecks +uncharted in those narrow waters and wasting his +company’s coal.</p> + +<p>‘“It’s no fault o’ mine,” says our captain.</p> + +<p>‘“I don’t care whose fault it is,” says the merchant +captain, who had come aboard to speak to him just at +dusk. “The fairway’s choked with wreck enough to +knock a hole through a dock-gate. I saw their big +ugly masts sticking up just under my forefoot. Lord +ha’ mercy on us!” he says, spinning round. “The +place is like Regent Street of a hot summer night.”</p> + +<p>‘And so it was. They two looked at Flores Straits, +and they saw lights one after the other stringing across +the fairway. Dowse, he had seen the steamers hanging +there before dark, and he said to Challong: “We’ll +give ’em something to remember. Get all the skillets +and iron pots you can and hang them up alongside o’ +the regular four lights. We must teach ’em to go +round by the Ombay Passage, or they’ll be streaking +up our water again!” Challong took a header off the +lighthouse, got aboard the little leaking prow, with his +coir soaked in oil and all the skillets he could muster, +and he began to show his lights, four regulation ones +and half-a-dozen new lights hung on that rope which +was a little above the water. Then he went to all +the spare buoys with all his spare coir, and hung a +skillet-flare on every pole that he could get at,—about +seven poles. So you see, taking one with another, there +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</span>was the Wurlee Light, four lights on the rope between +the three centre fairway wreck-buoys that was hung +out as a usual custom, six or eight extry ones that +Challong had hung up on the same rope, and seven +dancing flares that belonged to seven wreck-buoys,—eighteen +or twenty lights in all crowded into a mile +of seventeen-fathom water, where no tide ’d ever let a +wreck rest for three weeks, let alone ten or twelve +wrecks, as the flares showed.</p> + +<p>‘The Admiralty captain, he saw the lights come +out one after another, same as the merchant skipper +did who was standing at his side, and he said:—</p> + +<p>‘“There’s been an international cata-strophe here or +elseways,” and then he whistled. “I’m going to stand +on and off all night till the Dutchman comes,” he +says.</p> + +<p>‘“I’m off,” says the merchant skipper. “My owners +don’t wish for me to watch illuminations. That +strait’s choked with wreck, and I shouldn’t wonder if +a typhoon hadn’t driven half the junks o’ China there.” +With that he went away; but the Survey ship, she +stayed all night at the head o’ Flores Strait, and the +men admired of the lights till the lights was burning +out, and then they admired more than ever.</p> + +<p>‘A little bit before morning the Dutch gunboat +come flustering up, and the two ships stood together +watching the lights burn out and out, till there was +nothing left ’cept Flores Straits, all green and wet, and +a dozen wreck-buoys, and Wurlee Light.</p> + +<p>‘Dowse had slept very quiet that night, and got +rid of his streaks by means of thinking of the angry +steamers outside. Challong was busy, and didn’t come +back to his bunk till late. In the gray early morning +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</span>Dowse looked out to sea, being, as he said, in torment, +and saw all the navies of the world riding outside +Flores Strait fairway in a half-moon, seven miles from +wing to wing, most wonderful to behold. Those were +the words he used to me time and again in telling the +tale.</p> + +<p>‘Then, he says, he heard a gun fired with a most +tremenjus explosion, and all them great navies crumbled +to little pieces of clouds, and there was only two ships +remaining, and a man-o’-war’s boat rowing to the +Light, with the oars going sideways instead o’ longways +as the morning tides, ebb or flow, would continually +run.</p> + +<p>‘“What the devil’s wrong with this strait?” says a +man in the boat as soon as they was in hailing distance. +“Has the whole English Navy sunk here, or +what?”</p> + +<p>‘“There’s nothing wrong,” says Dowse, sitting on the +platform outside the Light, and keeping one eye very +watchful on the streakiness of the tide, which he +always hated, ’specially in the mornings. “You leave +me alone and I’ll leave you alone. Go round by the +Ombay Passage, and don’t cut up my water. You’re +making it streaky.” All the time he was saying +that he kept on thinking to himself, “Now that’s +foolishness,—now that’s nothing but foolishness;” and +all the time he was holding tight to the edge of the +platform in case the streakiness of the tide should +carry him away.</p> + +<p>‘Somebody answers from the boat, very soft and +quiet, “We’re going round by Ombay in a minute, if +you’ll just come and speak to our captain and give +him his bearings.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</span></p> + +<p>‘Dowse, he felt very highly flattered, and he slipped +into the boat, not paying any attention to Challong. +But Challong swum along to the ship after the boat. +When Dowse was in the boat, he found, so he says, +he couldn’t speak to the sailors ’cept to call them +“white mice with chains about their neck,” and Lord +knows he hadn’t seen or thought o’ white mice since +he was a little bit of a boy with them in his +hankerchief. So he kept himself quiet, and so they +come to the Survey ship; and the man in the boat +hails the quarter-deck with something that Dowse +could not rightly understand, but there was one word +he spelt out again and again,—m-a-d, mad,—and he +heard some one behind him saying of it backwards. +So he had two words,—m-a-d, mad, d-a-m, dam; and +he put they two words together as he come on the +quarter-deck, and he says to the captain very slowly, +“I be damned if I am mad,” but all the time his eye +was held like by the coils of rope on the belaying +pins, and he followed those ropes up and up with his +eye till he was quite lost and comfortable among the +rigging, which ran criss-cross, and slopeways, and up +and down, and any way but straight along under his +feet north and south. The deck-seams, they ran <i>that</i> +way, and Dowse daresn’t look at them. They was +the same as the streaks of the water under the planking +of the lighthouse.</p> + +<p>‘Then he heard the captain talking to him very +kind, and for the life of him he couldn’t tell why; +and what he wanted to tell the captain was that +Flores Strait was too streaky, like bacon, and the +steamers only made it worse; but all he could do was +to keep his eye very careful on the rigging and sing:—</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</span></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“I saw a ship a-sailing,</div> + <div class="verse indent1">A-sailing on the sea;</div> + <div class="verse indent1">And oh, it was all lading</div> + <div class="verse indent1">With pretty things for me!”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Then he remembered that was foolishness, and he +started off to say about the Ombay Passage, but all he +said was: “The captain was a duck,—meaning no +offence to you, sir,—but there was something on his +back that I’ve forgotten.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“And when the ship began to move</div> + <div class="verse indent1">The captain says, ‘Quack-quack!’”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>‘He notices the captain turns very red and angry, +and he says to himself, “My foolish tongue’s run away +with me again. I’ll go forward;” and he went forward, +and catched the reflection of himself in the +binnacle brasses; and he saw that he was standing +there and talking mother-naked in front of all them +sailors, and he ran into the fo’c’s’le howling most +grievous. He must ha’ gone naked for weeks on the +Light, and Challong o’ course never noticed it. Challong +was swimmin’ round and round the ship, sayin’ “dam” +for to please the men and to be took aboard, because +he didn’t know any better.</p> + +<p>‘Dowse didn’t tell what happened after this, but +seemingly our Survey ship lowered two boats and went +over to Dowse’s buoys. They took one sounding, and +then finding it was all correct they cut the buoys that +Dowse and Challong had made, and let the tide carry +’em out through the Loby Toby end of the strait; and +the Dutch gunboat, she sent two men ashore to take +care o’ the Wurlee Light, and the <i>Britomarte</i>, she +went away with Dowse, leaving Challong to try to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</span>follow them, a-calling “dam—dam” all among the +wake of the screw, and half heaving himself out of +water and joining his webby-foot hands together. He +dropped astern in five minutes, and I suppose he went +back to the Wurlee Light. You can’t drown an +Orange-Lord, not even in Flores Strait on flood-tide.</p> + +<p>‘Dowse come across me when he came to England +with the Survey ship, after being more than six months +in her, and cured of his streaks by working hard and +not looking over the side more than he could help. +He told me what I’ve told you, sir, and he was very +much ashamed of himself; but the trouble on his +mind was to know whether he hadn’t sent something +or other to the bottom with his buoyings and his +lightings and such like. He put it to me many times, +and each time more and more sure he was that something +had happened in the straits because of him. I +think that distructed him, because I found him up at +Fratton one day, in a red jersey, a-praying before the +Salvation Army, which had produced him in their +papers as a Reformed Pirate. They knew from his +mouth that he had committed evil on the deep waters,—that +was what he told them,—and piracy, which no +one does now except Chineses, was all they knew of. +I says to him: “Dowse, don’t be a fool. Take off that +jersey and come along with me.” He says: “Fenwick, +I’m a-saving of my soul; for I do believe that I have +killed more men in Flores Strait than Trafalgar.” I +says: “A man that thought he’d seen all the navies of +the earth standing round in a ring to watch his foolish +false wreck-buoys” (those was my very words I used) +“ain’t fit to have a soul, and if he did he couldn’t kill +a louse with it. John Dowse, you was mad then, but +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</span>you are a damn sight madder now. Take off that +there jersey!”</p> + +<p>‘He took it off and come along with me, but he +never got rid o’ that suspicion that he’d sunk some +ships a-cause of his foolishnesses at Flores Straits; and +now he’s a wherryman from Portsmouth to Gosport, +where the tides run crossways and you can’t row +straight for ten strokes together.... So late as all +this! Look!’</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Fenwick left his chair, passed to the Light, touched +something that clicked, and the glare ceased with a +suddenness that was pain. Day had come, and the +Channel needed St. Cecilia no longer. The sea-fog +rolled back from the cliffs in trailed wreaths and +dragged patches, as the sun rose and made the dead +sea alive and splendid. The stillness of the morning +held us both silent as we stepped on the balcony. A +lark went up from the cliffs behind St. Cecilia, and we +smelt a smell of cows in the lighthouse pastures +below.</p> + +<p>Then we were both at liberty to thank the Lord +for another day of clean and wholesome life.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="A_CONFERENCE_OF_THE_POWERS"> + A CONFERENCE OF THE POWERS. + </h2> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Life liveth but in life, and doth not roam</div> + <div class="verse indent0">To other lands if all be well at home:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">‘Solid as ocean foam,’ quoth ocean foam.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + + +<p class="p2">The room was blue with the smoke of three pipes and +a cigar. The leave-season had opened in India, and +the firstfruits on this side of the water were ‘Tick’ +Boileau, of the 45th Bengal Cavalry, who called on +me, after three years’ absence, to discuss old things +which had happened. Fate, who always does her +work handsomely, sent up the same staircase within +the same hour The Infant, fresh from Upper Burma, +and he and Boileau looking out of my window saw +walking in the street one Nevin, late in a Gurkha +regiment which had been through the Black Mountain +Expedition. They yelled to him to come up, and the +whole street was aware that they desired him to come +up, and he came up, and there followed Pandemonium +in my room because we had foregathered from the ends +of the earth, and three of us were on a holiday, and +none of us were twenty-five, and all the delights of all +London lay waiting our pleasure.</p> + +<p>Boileau took the only other chair, The Infant, by +right of his bulk, the sofa; and Nevin, being a little +man, sat cross-legged on the top of the revolving bookcase,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</span> +and we all said, ‘Who’d ha’ thought it!’ and +‘What are you doing here?’ till speculation was +exhausted and the talk went over to inevitable ‘shop.’ +Boileau was full of a great scheme for winning a +military <i>attaché</i>-ship at St. Petersburg; Nevin had +hopes of the Staff College, and The Infant had been +moving heaven and earth and the Horse Guards for a +commission in the Egyptian army.</p> + +<p>‘What’s the use o’ that?’ said Nevin, twirling +round on the bookcase.</p> + +<p>‘Oh, heaps! ’Course, if you get stuck with a +Fellaheen regiment, you’re sold; but if you are +appointed to a Soudanese lot, you’re in clover. They +are first-class fighting-men—and just think of the +eligible central position of Egypt in the next row.’</p> + +<p>This was putting the match to a magazine. We all +began to explain the Central Asian question off-hand, +flinging army corps from the Helmund to Kashmir +with more than Russian recklessness. Each of the boys +made for himself a war to his own liking, and when we +had settled all the details of Armageddon, killed all +our senior officers, handled a division apiece, and nearly +torn the atlas in two in attempts to explain our theories, +Boileau needs must lift up his voice above the clamour, +and cry, ‘Anyhow it’ll be the Hell of a row!’ in tones +that carried conviction far down the staircase.</p> + +<p>Entered, unperceived in the smoke, William the Silent. +‘Gen’elman to see you, sir,’ said he, and disappeared, +leaving in his stead none other than Mr. Eustace +Cleever. William would have introduced the Dragon +of Wantley with equal disregard of present company.</p> + +<p>‘I—I beg your pardon. I didn’t know that there +was anybody—with you. I——’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</span></p> + +<p>But it was not seemly to allow Mr. Cleever to +depart: he was a great man. The boys remained +where they were, for any movement would have choked +up the little room. Only when they saw his gray +hairs they stood on their feet, and when The Infant +caught the name, he said:</p> + +<p>‘Are you—did you write that book called <i>As it +was in the Beginning</i>?’</p> + +<p>Mr. Cleever admitted that he had written the book.</p> + +<p>‘Then—then I don’t know how to thank you, sir,’ +said The Infant, flushing pink. ‘I was brought up in +the country you wrote about—all my people live +there; and I read the book in camp on the Hlinedatalone, +and I knew every stick and stone, and +the dialect too; and, by Jove! it was just like +being at home and hearing the country-people talk. +Nevin, you know <i>As it was in the Beginning</i>? So +does Ti—Boileau.’</p> + +<p>Mr. Cleever has tasted as much praise, public and +private, as one man may safely swallow; but it seemed +to me that the out-spoken admiration in The Infant’s +eyes and the little stir in the little company came +home to him very nearly indeed.</p> + +<p>‘Won’t you take the sofa?’ said The Infant. ‘I’ll +sit on Boileau’s chair, and——’ here he looked at me +to spur me to my duties as a host; but I was watching +the novelist’s face. Cleever had not the least intention +of going away, but settled himself on the sofa.</p> + +<p>Following the first great law of the Army, which +says ‘all property is common except money, and you’ve +only got to ask the next man for that,’ The Infant +offered tobacco and drink. It was the least he could +do; but not the most lavish praise in the world held +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</span>half as much appreciation and reverence as The +Infant’s simple ‘Say when, sir,’ above the long glass.</p> + +<p>Cleever said ‘when,’ and more thereto, for he was +a golden talker, and he sat in the midst of hero-worship +devoid of all taint of self-interest. The boys asked +him of the birth of his book and whether it was hard +to write, and how his notions came to him; and he +answered with the same absolute simplicity as he was +questioned. His big eyes twinkled, he dug his long +thin hands into his gray beard and tugged it as he +grew animated. He dropped little by little from the +peculiar pinching of the broader vowels—the indefinable +‘Euh,’ that runs through the speech of the pundit +caste—and the elaborate choice of words, to freely-mouthed +‘ows’ and ‘ois,’ and, for him at least, unfettered +colloquialisms. He could not altogether +understand the boys, who hung upon his words so +reverently. The line of the chin-strap, that still +showed white and untanned on cheek-bone and jaw, +the steadfast young eyes puckered at the corners of +the lids with much staring through red-hot sunshine, +the slow, untroubled breathing, and the curious, crisp, +curt speech seemed to puzzle him equally. He could +create men and women, and send them to the uttermost +ends of the earth, to help delight and comfort; +he knew every mood of the fields, and could interpret +them to the cities, and he knew the hearts of many in +city and the country, but he had hardly, in forty years, +come into contact with the thing which is called a +Subaltern of the Line. He told the boys this in his +own way.</p> + +<p>‘Well, how should you?’ said The Infant. ‘You—you’re +quite different, y’ see, sir.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</span></p> + +<p>The Infant expressed his ideas in his tone rather +than his words, but Cleever understood the compliment.</p> + +<p>‘We’re only Subs,’ said Nevin, ‘and we aren’t +exactly the sort of men you’d meet much in your life, +I s’pose.’</p> + +<p>‘That’s true,’ said Cleever. ‘I live chiefly among +men who write, and paint, and sculp, and so forth. +We have our own talk and our own interests, and the +outer world doesn’t trouble us much.’</p> + +<p>‘That must be awfully jolly,’ said Boileau, at a +venture. ‘We have our own shop, too, but ’tisn’t +half as interesting as yours, of course. You know +all the men who’ve ever done anything; and we only +knock about from place to place, and we do nothing.’</p> + +<p>‘The Army’s a very lazy profession if you choose +to make it so,’ said Nevin. ‘When there’s nothing +going on, there is nothing going on, and you lie up.’</p> + +<p>‘Or try to get a billet somewhere, to be ready for +the next show,’ said The Infant with a chuckle.</p> + +<p>‘To me,’ said Cleever softly, ‘the whole idea of +warfare seems so foreign and unnatural, so essentially +vulgar, if I may say so, that I can hardly appreciate +your sensations. Of course, though, any change from +life in garrison towns must be a godsend to you.’</p> + +<p>Like many home-staying Englishmen, Cleever +believed that the newspaper phrase he quoted covered +the whole duty of the Army whose toils enabled him +to enjoy his many-sided life in peace. The remark +was not a happy one, for Boileau had just come off +the Frontier, The Infant had been on the warpath for +nearly eighteen months, and the little red man Nevin +two months before had been sleeping under the stars +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</span>at the peril of his life. But none of them tried to +explain, till I ventured to point out that they had all +seen service and were not used to idling. Cleever +took in the idea slowly.</p> + +<p>‘Seen service?’ said he. Then, as a child might +ask, ‘Tell me. Tell me everything about everything.’</p> + +<p>‘How do you mean?’ said The Infant, delighted at +being directly appealed to by the great man.</p> + +<p>‘Good Heavens! How am I to make you understand, +if you can’t see. In the first place, what is +your age?’</p> + +<p>‘Twenty-three next July,’ said The Infant promptly.</p> + +<p>Cleever questioned the others with his eyes.</p> + +<p>‘I’m twenty-four,’ said Nevin.</p> + +<p>‘And I’m twenty-two,’ said Boileau.</p> + +<p>‘And you’ve all seen service?’</p> + +<p>‘We’ve all knocked about a little bit, sir, but The +Infant’s the war-worn veteran. He’s had two years’ +work in Upper Burma,’ said Nevin.</p> + +<p>‘When you say work, what do you mean, you +extraordinary creatures?’</p> + +<p>‘Explain it, Infant,’ said Nevin.</p> + +<p>‘Oh, keeping things in order generally, and running +about after little <i>dakus</i>—that’s dacoits—and so on. +There’s nothing to explain.’</p> + +<p>‘Make that young Leviathan speak,’ said Cleever +impatiently, above his glass.</p> + +<p>‘How can he speak?’ said I. ‘He’s done the +work. The two don’t go together. But, Infant, +you’re ordered to <i>bukh</i>.’</p> + +<p>‘What about? I’ll try.’</p> + +<p>‘<i>Bukh</i> about a <i>daur</i>. You’ve been on heaps of +’em,’ said Nevin.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</span></p> + +<p>‘What in the world does that mean? Has the +Army a language of its own?’</p> + +<p>The Infant turned very red. He was afraid he +was being laughed at, and he detested talking before +outsiders; but it was the author of <i>As it was in the +Beginning</i> who waited.</p> + +<p>‘It’s all so new to me,’ pleaded Cleever; ‘and—and +you said you liked my book.’</p> + +<p>This was a direct appeal that The Infant could +understand, and he began rather flurriedly, with much +slang bred of nervousness—</p> + +<p>‘Pull me up, sir, if I say anything you don’t follow. +About six months before I took my leave out of Burma, +I was on the Hlinedatalone, up near the Shan States, +with sixty Tommies—private soldiers, that is—and +another subaltern, a year senior to me. The Burmese +business was a subaltern’s war, and our forces were +split up into little detachments, all running about the +country and trying to keep the dacoits quiet. The +dacoits were having a first-class time, y’ know—filling +women up with kerosine and setting ’em alight, and +burning villages, and crucifying people.’</p> + +<p>The wonder in Eustace Cleever’s eyes deepened. +He could not quite realise that the cross still existed +in any form.</p> + +<p>‘Have you ever seen a crucifixion?’ said he.</p> + +<p>‘Of course not. ’Shouldn’t have allowed it if I +had; but I’ve seen the corpses. The dacoits had a +trick of sending a crucified corpse down the river on a +raft, just to show they were keeping their tail up and +enjoying themselves. Well, that was the kind of +people I had to deal with.’</p> + +<p>‘Alone?’ said Cleever. Solitude of the soul he +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</span>could understand—none better—but he had never in +the body moved ten miles from his fellows.</p> + +<p>‘I had my men, but the rest of it was pretty much +alone. The nearest post that could give me orders +was fifteen miles away, and we used to heliograph to +them, and they used to give us orders same way—too +many orders.’</p> + +<p>‘Who was your C. O.?’ said Boileau.</p> + +<p>‘Bounderby—Major. <i>Pukka</i> Bounderby; more +Bounder than <i>pukka</i>. He went out up Bhamo way. +Shot, or cut down, last year,’ said The Infant.</p> + +<p>‘What are these interludes in a strange tongue?’ +said Cleever to me.</p> + +<p>‘Professional information—like the Mississippi pilots’ +talk,’ said I. ‘He did not approve of his major, who +died a violent death. Go on, Infant.’</p> + +<p>‘Far too many orders. You couldn’t take the +Tommies out for a two days’ <i>daur</i>—that’s expedition—without +being blown up for not asking leave. And +the whole country was humming with dacoits. I used +to send out spies, and act on their information. As +soon as a man came in and told me of a gang in +hiding, I’d take thirty men with some grub, and go +out and look for them, while the other subaltern lay +doggo in camp.’</p> + +<p>‘Lay! Pardon me, but <i>how</i> did he lie?’ said +Cleever.</p> + +<p>‘Lay doggo—lay quiet, with the other thirty men. +When I came back, he’d take out his half of the men, +and have a good time of his own.’</p> + +<p>‘Who was he?’ said Boileau.</p> + +<p>‘Carter-Deecey, of the Aurungabadis. Good chap, +but too <i>zubberdusty</i>, and went <i>bokhar</i> four days out +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</span>of seven. He’s gone out, too. Don’t interrupt a +man.’</p> + +<p>Cleever looked helplessly at me.</p> + +<p>‘The other subaltern,’ I translated swiftly, ‘came +from a native regiment, and was overbearing in his +demeanour. He suffered much from the fever of the +country, and is now dead. Go on, Infant.’</p> + +<p>‘After a bit, we got into trouble for using the men +on frivolous occasions, and so I used to put my signaller +under arrest to prevent him reading the helio-orders. +Then I’d go out and leave a message to be sent an +hour after I got clear of the camp, something like this: +“Received important information; start in an hour +unless countermanded.” If I was ordered back, it +didn’t much matter. I swore the C. O.’s watch was +wrong, or something, when I came back. The Tommies +enjoyed the fun, and—Oh, yes, there was one Tommy +who was the bard of the detachment. He used to +make up verses on everything that happened.’</p> + +<p>‘What sort of verses?’ said Cleever.</p> + +<p>‘Lovely verses; and the Tommies used to sing ’em. +There was one song with a chorus, and it said something +like this.’ The Infant dropped into the true +barrack-room twang:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘Theebaw, the Burma king, did a very foolish thing,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">When ’e mustered ’ostile forces in ar-rai,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">’E little thought that <i>we</i>, from far across the sea,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Would send our armies up to Mandalai!’</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>‘O gorgeous!’ said Cleever. ‘And how magnificently +direct! The notion of a regimental bard is new to me, +but of course it must be so.’</p> + +<p>‘He was awf’ly popular with the men,’ said The +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</span>Infant. ‘He had them all down in rhyme as soon as +ever they had done anything. He was a great bard. +He was always ready with an elegy when we picked +up a Boh—that’s a leader of dacoits.’</p> + +<p>‘How did you pick him up?’ said Cleever.</p> + +<p>‘Oh! shot him if he wouldn’t surrender.’</p> + +<p>‘You! Have you shot a man?’</p> + +<p>There was a subdued chuckle from all three boys, +and it dawned on the questioner that one experience +in life which was denied to himself, and he weighed +the souls of men in a balance, had been shared by +three very young gentlemen of engaging appearance. +He turned round on Nevin, who had climbed to the +top of the bookcase, and was sitting cross-legged as +before.</p> + +<p>‘And have <i>you</i>, too?’</p> + +<p>‘’Think so,’ said Nevin sweetly. ‘In the Black +Mountain. He was rolling cliffs on to my half-company, +and spoiling our formation. I took a rifle +from a man, and brought him down at the second +shot.’</p> + +<p>‘Good heavens! And how did you feel afterwards?’</p> + +<p>‘Thirsty. I wanted a smoke, too.’</p> + +<p>Cleever looked at Boileau—the youngest. Surely +his hands were guiltless of blood.</p> + +<p>Boileau shook his head and laughed. ‘Go on, +Infant,’ said he.</p> + +<p>‘And you too?’ said Cleever.</p> + +<p>‘Fancy so. It was a case of cut, cut or be cut, +with me; so I cut—One. I couldn’t do any more, +sir.’</p> + +<p>Cleever looked as though he would like to ask +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</span>many questions, but The Infant swept on, in the full +tide of his tale.</p> + +<p>‘Well, we were called insubordinate young whelps +at last, and strictly forbidden to take the Tommies out +any more without orders. I wasn’t sorry, because +Tommy is such an exacting sort of creature. He +wants to live as though he were in barracks all the +time. I was grubbing on fowls and boiled corn, but +my Tommies wanted their pound of fresh meat, and +their half ounce of this, and their two ounces of t’other +thing, and they used to come to me and badger me +for plug-tobacco when we were four days in jungle. I +said: “I can get you Burma tobacco, but I don’t keep +a canteen up my sleeve.” They couldn’t see it. They +wanted all the luxuries of the season, confound ’em.’</p> + +<p>‘You were alone when you were dealing with these +men?’ said Cleever, watching The Infant’s face under +the palm of his hand. He was getting new ideas, +and they seemed to trouble him.</p> + +<p>‘Of course, unless you count the mosquitoes. They +were nearly as big as the men. After I had to lie +doggo I began to look for something to do; and I was +great pals with a man called Hicksey in the Police, the +best man that ever stepped on earth; a first-class man.’</p> + +<p>Cleever nodded applause. He knew how to appreciate +enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>‘Hicksey and I were as thick as thieves. He had +some Burma mounted police—rummy chaps, armed +with sword and snider carbine. They rode punchy +Burma ponies, with string stirrups, red cloth saddles, +and red bell-rope headstalls. Hicksey used to lend +me six or eight of them when I asked him—nippy +little devils, keen as mustard. But they told their +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</span>wives too much, and all my plans got known, till I +learned to give false marching orders over-night, and +take the men to quite a different village in the +morning. Then we used to catch the simple <i>daku</i> +before breakfast, and make him very sick. It’s a +ghastly country on the Hlinedatalone; all bamboo +jungle, with paths about four feet wide winding +through it. The <i>dakus</i> knew all the paths, and potted +at us as we came round a corner; but the mounted +police knew the paths as well as the <i>dakus</i>, and we +used to go stalking ’em in and out. Once we flushed +’em, the men on the ponies had the advantage of the +men on foot. We held all the country absolutely +quiet, for ten miles round, in about a month. Then +we took Boh Na-ghee, Hicksey and I and the Civil +officer. That was a lark!’</p> + +<p>‘I think I am beginning to understand a little,’ +said Cleever. ‘It was a pleasure to you to administer +and fight?’</p> + +<p>‘Rather! There’s nothing nicer than a satisfactory +little expedition, when you find your plans fit together, +and your conformation’s <i>teek</i>—correct, you know, and +the whole <i>sub-chiz</i>—I mean, when everything works +out like formulæ on a blackboard. Hicksey had all +the information about the Boh. He had been burning +villages and murdering people right and left, and +cutting up Government convoys and all that. He was +lying doggo in a village about fifteen miles off, waiting +to get a fresh gang together. So we arranged to take +thirty mounted police, and turn him out before he +could plunder into our newly-settled villages. At the +last minute, the Civil officer in our part of the world +thought he’d assist at the performance.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</span></p> + +<p>‘Who was he?’ said Nevin.</p> + +<p>‘His name was Dennis,’ said The Infant slowly. +‘And we’ll let it stay so. He’s a better man now +than he was then.’</p> + +<p>‘But how old was the Civil power?’ said Cleever. +‘The situation is developing itself.’</p> + +<p>‘He was about six-and-twenty, and he was awf’ly +clever. He knew a lot of things, but I don’t think +he was quite steady enough for dacoit-hunting. We +started overnight for Boh Na-ghee’s village, and we got +there just before morning, without raising an alarm. +Dennis had turned out armed to his teeth—two +revolvers, a carbine, and all sorts of things. I was +talking to Hicksey about posting the men, and Dennis +edged his pony in between us, and said, “What shall I +do? What shall I do? Tell me what to do, you +fellows.” We didn’t take much notice; but his pony +tried to bite me in the leg, and I said, “Pull out a +bit, old man, till we’ve settled the attack.” He kept +edging in, and fiddling with his reins and his revolvers, +and saying, “Dear me! Dear me! Oh, dear +me! What do you think I’d better do?” The man +was in a deadly funk, and his teeth were chattering.’</p> + +<p>‘I sympathise with the Civil power,’ said Cleever. +‘Continue, young Clive.’</p> + +<p>‘The fun of it was, that he was supposed to be our +superior officer. Hicksey took a good look at him, +and told him to attach himself to my party. ’Beastly +mean of Hicksey, that. The chap kept on edging in +and bothering, instead of asking for some men and +taking up his own position, till I got angry, and the +carbines began popping on the other side of the village. +Then I said, “For God’s sake be quiet, and sit down +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</span>where you are! If you see anybody come out of the +village, shoot at him.” I knew he couldn’t hit a hay-rick +at a yard. Then I took my men over the garden +wall—over the palisades, y’ know—somehow or other, +and the fun began. Hicksey had found the Boh in +bed under a mosquito-curtain, and he had taken a flying +jump on to him.’</p> + +<p>‘A flying jump!’ said Cleever. ‘Is <i>that</i> also +war?’</p> + +<p>‘Yes,’ said The Infant, now thoroughly warmed. +‘Don’t you know how you take a flying jump on to a +fellow’s head at school, when he snores in the dormitory? +The Boh was sleeping in a bedful of swords +and pistols, and Hicksey came down like Zazel through +the netting, and the net got mixed up with the pistols +and the Boh and Hicksey, and they all rolled on the +floor together. I laughed till I couldn’t stand, and +Hicksey was cursing me for not helping him; so I left +him to fight it out and went into the village. Our +men were slashing about and firing, and so were the +dacoits, and in the thick of the mess, some ass set fire +to a house, and we all had to clear out. I froze on to +the nearest <i>daku</i> and ran to the palisade, shoving him +in front of me. He wriggled loose, and bounded over +the other side. I came after him; but when I had +one leg one side and one leg the other of the palisade, +I saw that the <i>daku</i> had fallen flat on Dennis’s head. +That man had never moved from where I left him. +They rolled on the ground together, and Dennis’s carbine +went off and nearly shot me. The <i>daku</i> picked +himself up and ran, and Dennis buzzed his carbine +after him, and it caught him on the back of his head, +and knocked him silly. You never saw anything so +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</span>funny in your life. I doubled up on the top of the +palisade and hung there, yelling with laughter. But +Dennis began to weep like anything. “Oh, I’ve killed +a man,” he said. “I’ve killed a man, and I shall never +know another peaceful hour in my life! Is he dead? +Oh, <i>is</i> he dead? Good Lord, I’ve killed a man!” I +came down and said, “Don’t be a fool;” but he kept +on shouting, “Is he dead?” till I could have kicked +him. The <i>daku</i> was only knocked out of time with +the carbine. He came to after a bit, and I said, “Are +you hurt much?” He groaned and said “No.” His +chest was all cut with scrambling over the palisade. +“The white man’s gun didn’t do that,” he said, “I did +that, and <i>I</i> knocked the white man over.” Just like +a Burman, wasn’t it? But Dennis wouldn’t be happy +at any price. He said: “Tie up his wounds. He’ll +bleed to death. Oh, he’ll bleed to death!” “Tie ’em +up yourself,” I said, “if you’re so anxious.” “I can’t +touch him,” said Dennis, “but here’s my shirt.” He +took off his shirt, and fixed the braces again over his +bare shoulders. I ripped the shirt up, and bandaged +the dacoit quite professionally. He was grinning at +Dennis all the time; and Dennis’s haversack was lying +on the ground, bursting full of sandwiches. Greedy +hog! I took some, and offered some to Dennis. +“How can I eat?” he said. “How can you ask me to +eat? His very blood is on your hands now, and +you’re eating <i>my</i> sandwiches!” “All right,” I said; +“I’ll give ’em to the <i>daku</i>.” So I did, and the little +chap was quite pleased, and wolfed ’em down like one +o’clock.’</p> + +<p>Cleever brought his hand down on the table with a +thump that made the empty glasses dance. ‘That’s +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</span>Art!’ he said. ‘Flat, flagrant mechanism! Don’t +tell me that happened on the spot!’</p> + +<p>The pupils of The Infant’s eyes contracted to two +pin-points. ‘I beg your pardon,’ he said, slowly and +stiffly, ‘but I am telling this thing <i>as</i> it happened.’</p> + +<p>Cleever looked at him a moment. ‘My fault entirely,’ +said he; ‘I should have known. Please go on.’</p> + +<p>‘Hicksey came out of what was left of the village +with his prisoners and captives, all neatly tied up. +Boh Na-ghee was first, and one of the villagers, as +soon as he found the old ruffian helpless, began kicking +him quietly. The Boh stood it as long as he +could, and then groaned, and we saw what was going +on. Hicksey tied the villager up, and gave him a +half-a-dozen, good, with a bamboo, to remind him to +leave a prisoner alone. You should have seen the +old Boh grin. Oh! but Hicksey was in a furious +rage with everybody. He’d got a wipe over the elbow +that had tickled up his funny-bone, and he was rabid +with me for not having helped him with the Boh and +the mosquito-net. I had to explain that I couldn’t +do anything. If you’d seen ’em both tangled up +together on the floor in one kicking cocoon, you’d have +laughed for a week. Hicksey swore that the only +decent man of his acquaintance was the Boh, and all the +way to camp Hicksey was talking to the Boh, and the +Boh was complaining about the soreness of his bones. +When we got back, and had had a bath, the Boh +wanted to know when he was going to be hanged. +Hicksey said he couldn’t oblige him on the spot, but +had to send him to Rangoon. The Boh went down +on his knees, and reeled off a catalogue of his crimes—he +ought to have been hanged seventeen times over, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</span>by his own confession—and implored Hicksey to settle +the business out of hand. “If I’m sent to Rangoon,” +said he, “they’ll keep me in jail all my life, and that +is a death every time the sun gets up or the wind +blows.” But we had to send him to Rangoon, and, +of course, he was let off down there, and given penal +servitude for life. When I came to Rangoon I went +over the jail—I had helped to fill it, y’ know—and +the old Boh was there, and he spotted me at once. +He begged for some opium first, and I tried to get +him some, but that was against the rules. Then he +asked me to have his sentence changed to death, +because he was afraid of being sent to the Andamans. +I couldn’t do that either, but I tried to cheer him, and +told him how things were going up-country, and the +last thing he said was—“Give my compliments to the +fat white man who jumped on me. If I’d been awake +I’d have killed him.” I wrote that to Hicksey next +mail, and—and that’s all. I’m ’fraid I’ve been gassing +awf’ly, sir.’</p> + +<p>Cleever said nothing for a long time. The Infant +looked uncomfortable. He feared that, misled by enthusiasm, +he had filled up the novelist’s time with +unprofitable recital of trivial anecdotes.</p> + +<p>Then said Cleever, ‘I can’t understand. Why +should you have seen and done all these things before +you have cut your wisdom-teeth?’</p> + +<p>‘Don’t know,’ said The Infant apologetically. ‘I +haven’t seen much—only Burmese jungle.’</p> + +<p>‘And dead men, and war, and power, and responsibility,’ +said Cleever, under his breath. ‘You won’t +have any sensations left at thirty, if you go on as you +have done. But I want to hear more tales—more +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</span>tales!’ He seemed to forget that even subalterns +might have engagements of their own.</p> + +<p>‘We’re thinking of dining out somewhere—the lot +of us—and going on to the Empire afterwards,’ said +Nevin, with hesitation. He did not like to ask Cleever +to come too. The invitation might be regarded as +perilously near to ‘cheek.’ And Cleever, anxious not +to wag a gray beard unbidden among boys at large, +said nothing on his side.</p> + +<p>Boileau solved the little difficulty by blurting out: +‘Won’t you come too, sir?’</p> + +<p>Cleever almost shouted ‘Yes,’ and while he was +being helped into his coat, continued to murmur ‘Good +heavens!’ at intervals in a way that the boys could +not understand.</p> + +<p>‘I don’t think I’ve been to the Empire in my life,’ +said he; ‘but—what <i>is</i> my life after all? Let us go.’</p> + +<p>They went out with Eustace Cleever, and I sulked +at home because they had come to see me but had +gone over to the better man; which was humiliating. +They packed him into a cab with utmost reverence, +for was he not the author of <i>As it was in the Beginning</i>, +and a person in whose company it was an honour to +go abroad? From all I gathered later, he had taken +less interest in the performance before him than in +their conversations, and they protested with emphasis +that he was ‘as good a man as they make. ’Knew +what a man was driving at almost before he said it; +and yet he’s so damned simple about things any man +knows.’ That was one of many comments.</p> + +<p>At midnight they returned, announcing that they +were ‘highly respectable gondoliers,’ and that oysters +and stout were what they chiefly needed. The +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</span>eminent novelist was still with them, and I think he +was calling them by their shorter names. I am +certain that he said he had been moving in worlds not +realised, and that they had shown him the Empire in +a new light.</p> + +<p>Still sore at recent neglect, I answered shortly, +‘Thank heaven we have within the land ten thousand +as good as they,’ and when he departed, asked him +what he thought of things generally.</p> + +<p>He replied with another quotation, to the effect +that though singing was a remarkably fine performance, +I was to be quite sure that few lips would be moved +to song if they could find a sufficiency of kissing.</p> + +<p>Whereby I understood that Eustace Cleever, +decorator and colourman in words, was blaspheming +his own Art, and would be sorry for this in the +morning.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="MY_LORD_THE_ELEPHANT"> + MY LORD THE ELEPHANT. + </h2> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">’Less you want your toes trod off you’d better get back at once,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">For the bullocks are walkin’ two by two,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">The <i>byles</i> are walkin’ two by two,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">The bullocks are walkin’ two by two,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">An’ the elephants bring the guns!</div> + <div class="verse indent12">Ho! Yuss!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Great—big—long—black forty-pounder guns:</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Jiggery-jolty to and fro,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Each as big as a launch in tow—</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Blind—dumb—broad-breeched beggars o’ batterin’ guns!</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="right"> + <i>Barrack-room Ballad.</i> +</p> + + +<p class="p2">Touching the truth of this tale there need be no doubt +at all, for it was told to me by Mulvaney at the back +of the elephant-lines, one warm evening when we were +taking the dogs out for exercise. The twelve Government +elephants rocked at their pickets outside the big +mud-walled stables (one arch, as wide as a bridge-arch, +to each restless beast), and the <i>mahouts</i> were +preparing the evening meal. Now and again some +impatient youngster would smell the cooking flour-cakes +and squeal; and the naked little children of +the elephant-lines would strut down the row shouting +and commanding silence, or, reaching up, would slap +at the eager trunks. Then the elephants feigned to +be deeply interested in pouring dust upon their heads, +but, so soon as the children passed, the rocking, fidgeting, +and muttering broke out again.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</span></p> + +<p>The sunset was dying, and the elephants heaved and +swayed dead black against the one sheet of rose-red +low down in the dusty gray sky. It was at the +beginning of the hot weather, just after the troops had +changed into their white clothes, so Mulvaney and +Ortheris looked like ghosts walking through the dusk. +Learoyd had gone off to another barrack to buy sulphur +ointment for his last dog under suspicion of mange, +and with delicacy had put his kennel into quarantine +at the back of the furnace where they cremate the +anthrax cases.</p> + +<p>‘<i>You</i> wouldn’t like mange, little woman?’ said +Ortheris, turning my terrier over on her fat white back +with his foot. ‘You’re no end bloomin’ partic’lar, you +are. ’Oo wouldn’t take no notice o’ me t’other day +’cause she was goin’ ’ome all alone in ’er dorg-cart, +eh? Settin’ on the box-seat like a bloomin’ little +tart, you was, Vicy. Now you run along an’ make +them ’uttees ’oller. Sick ’em, Vicy, loo!’</p> + +<p>Elephants loathe little dogs. Vixen barked herself +down the pickets, and in a minute all the elephants +were kicking and squealing and clucking together.</p> + +<p>‘Oh, you soldier-men,’ said a mahout angrily, ‘call +off your she-dog. She is frightening our elephant-folk.’</p> + +<p>‘Rummy beggars!’ said Ortheris meditatively. +‘’Call ’em people, same as if they was. An’ they are +too. Not so bloomin’ rummy when you come to think +of it, neither.’</p> + +<p>Vixen returned yapping to show that she could +do it again if she liked, and established herself between +Ortheris’s knees, smiling a large smile at his lawful +dogs who dared not fly at her.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</span></p> + +<p>‘’Seed the battery this mornin’?’ said Ortheris. +He meant the newly-arrived elephant-battery; otherwise +he would have said simply ‘guns.’ Three +elephants <ins id='cor_043' title='Original: harnassed'>harnessed</ins> tandem go to each gun, and those +who have not seen the big forty-pounders of position +trundling along in the wake of their gigantic team +have yet something to behold. The lead-elephant +had behaved very badly on parade; had been cut +loose, sent back to the lines in disgrace, and was at +that hour squealing and lashing out with his trunk at +the end of the line; a picture of blind, bound, bad +temper. His mahout, standing clear of the flail-like +blows, was trying to soothe him.</p> + +<p>‘That’s the beggar that cut up on p’rade. ’E’s +<i>must</i>,’ said Ortheris pointing. ‘There’ll be murder in +the lines soon, and then, per’aps, ’e’ll get loose an’ +we’ll ’ave to be turned out to shoot ’im, same as when +one o’ they native king’s elephants <i>musted</i> last June. +’Ope ’e will.’</p> + +<p>‘<i>Must</i> be sugared!’ said Mulvaney contemptuously +from his resting-place on a pile of dried bedding. +‘He’s no more than in a powerful bad timper wid +bein’ put upon. I’d lay my kit he’s new to the gun-team, +an’ by natur’ he hates haulin’. Ask the mahout, +sorr.’</p> + +<p>I hailed the old white-bearded mahout who was +lavishing pet words on his sulky red-eyed charge.</p> + +<p>‘He is not <i>musth</i>,’ the man replied indignantly; +‘only his honour has been touched. Is an elephant +an ox or a mule that he should tug at a trace? His +strength is in his head—Peace, peace, my Lord! It +was not <i>my</i> fault that they yoked thee this morning!—Only +a low-caste elephant will pull a gun, and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</span><i>he</i> is a Kumeria of the Doon. It cost a year and the +life of a man to break him to burden. They of the +Artillery put him in the gun-team because one of +their base-born brutes had gone lame. No wonder +that he was, and is wrath.’</p> + +<p>‘Rummy! Most unusual rum,’ said Ortheris. +‘Gawd, ’e is in a temper, though! S’pose ’e got +loose!’</p> + +<p>Mulvaney began to speak but checked himself, and +I asked the mahout what would happen if the heel-chains +broke.</p> + +<p>‘God knows, who made elephants,’ he said simply. +‘In his now state peradventure he might kill you +three, or run at large till his rage abated. He would +not kill me, except he were <i>musth</i>. <i>Then</i> would he +kill me before any one in the world, because he loves +me. Such is the custom of the elephant-folk; and +the custom of us mahout-people matches it for foolishness. +We trust each our own elephant, till our own +elephant kills us. Other castes trust women, but we +the elephant-folk. I have seen men deal with enraged +elephants and live; but never was man yet born of +woman that met my lord the elephant in his <i>musth</i> +and lived to tell of the taming. They are enough +bold who meet him angry.’</p> + +<p>I translated. Then said Terence: ‘Ask the heathen +if he iver saw a man tame an elephint,—anyways—a +white man.’</p> + +<p>‘Once,’ said the mahout, ‘I saw a man astride of +such a beast in the town of Cawnpore; a bare-headed +man, a white man, beating it upon the head with +a gun. It was said he was possessed of devils or +drunk.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</span></p> + +<p>‘Is ut like, think you, he’d be doin’ it sober?’ said +Mulvaney after interpretation, and the chained elephant +roared.</p> + +<p>‘There’s only one man top of earth that would be +the partic’lar kind o’ sorter bloomin’ fool to do it!’ +said Ortheris. ‘When was that, Mulvaney?’</p> + +<p>‘As the naygur sez, in Cawnpore; an’ I was that +fool—in the days av my youth. But it came about +as naturil as wan thing leads to another,—me an’ the +elephint, and the elephint and me; an’ the fight betune +us was the most naturil av all.’</p> + +<p>‘That’s just wot it would ha’ been,’ said Ortheris. +‘Only you must ha’ been more than usual full. You +done one queer trick with an elephant that I know of, +why didn’t you never tell us the other one?’</p> + +<p>‘Bekase, onless you had heard the naygur here say +what he has said spontaneous, you’d ha’ called me for +a liar, Stanley, my son, an’ it would ha’ bin my duty +an’ my delight to give you the father an’ mother av +a beltin’! There’s only wan fault about you, little +man, an’ that’s thinking you know all there is in the +world, an’ a little more. ’Tis a fault that has made +away wid a few orf’cers I’ve served undher, not to +spake av ivry man but two that I iver thried to make +into a privit.’</p> + +<p>‘Ho!’ said Ortheris with ruffled plumes, ‘an’ ’oo +was your two bloomin’ little Sir Garnets, eh?’</p> + +<p>‘Wan was mesilf,’ said Mulvaney with a grin that +darkness could not hide; ‘an’—seein’ that he’s not +here there’s no harm speakin’ av him—t’other was +Jock.’</p> + +<p>‘Jock’s no more than a ’ayrick in trousies. ’E +be’aves <i>like</i> one; an’ ’e can’t <i>’it</i> one at a ’undred; ’e +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</span>was born <i>on</i> one, an’ s’welp me ’e’ll die <i>under</i> one for +not bein’ able to say wot ’e wants in a Christian lingo,’ +said Ortheris, jumping up from the piled fodder only +to be swept off his legs. Vixen leaped upon his +stomach, and the other dogs followed and sat down there.</p> + +<p>‘I know what Jock is like,’ I said. ‘I want to +hear about the elephant, though.’</p> + +<p>‘It’s another o’ Mulvaney’s bloomin’ panoramas,’ +said Ortheris, gasping under the dogs. ‘’Im an’ Jock +for the ’ole bloomin’ British Army! You’ll be sayin’ +you won Waterloo next,—you an’ Jock. Garn!’</p> + +<p>Neither of us thought it worth while to notice +Ortheris. The big gun-elephant threshed and muttered +in his chains, giving tongue now and again in crashing +trumpet-peals, and to this accompaniment Terence +went on: ‘In the beginnin’,’ said he, ‘me bein’ what +I was, there was a misunderstandin’ wid my sergeant +that was then. He put his spite on me for various +reasons,’—</p> + +<p>The deep-set eyes twinkled above the glow of the +pipe-bowl, and Ortheris grunted, ‘Another petticoat!’</p> + +<p>‘For various an’ promiscuous reasons; an’ the +upshot av it was that he come into barricks wan +afternoon whin’ I was settlin’ my cowlick before goin’ +walkin’, called me a big baboon (which I was not), an’ +a demoralisin’ beggar (which I was), an’ bid me go on +fatigue thin an’ there, helpin’ shift E. P. tents, fourteen +av thim from the rest-camps. At that, me bein’ set +on my walk—’</p> + +<p>‘Ah!’ from under the dogs, ‘’e’s a Mormon, Vic. +Don’t you ’ave nothin’ to do with ’im, little dorg.’</p> + +<p>‘Set on my walk, I tould him a few things that +came up in my mind, an’ wan thing led on to another, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</span>an’ betune talkin’ I made time for to hit the nose av +him so that he’d be no Venus to any woman for a +week to come. ’Twas a fine big nose, and well it paid +for a little groomin’. Afther that I was so well pleased +wid my handicraftfulness that I niver raised fist on +the gyard that came to take me to Clink. A child +might ha’ led me along, for I knew old Kearney’s nose +was ruined. That summer the Ould Rig’ment did not +use their own Clink, bekase the cholera was hangin’ +about there like mildew on wet boots, an’ ’twas +murdher to confine in ut. We borrowed the Clink +that belonged to the Holy Christians (the rig’ment +that has never seen service yet), and that lay a +matther av a mile away, acrost two p’rade-grounds +an’ the main road, an’ all the ladies av Cawnpore goin’ +out for their afternoon dhrive. So I moved in the best +av society, my shadow dancin’ along forninst me, an’ +the gyard as solemn as putty, the bracelets on my +wrists, an’ my heart full contint wid the notion av +Kearney’s pro—pro—probosculum in a shling.</p> + +<p>‘In the middle av ut all I perceived a gunner-orf’cer +in full rig’mentals perusin’ down the road, +hell-for-leather, wid his mouth open. He fetched +wan woild despairin’ look on the dog-kyarts an’ the +polite society av Cawnpore, an’ thin he dived like a +rabbut into a dhrain by the side av the road.</p> + +<p>‘“Bhoys,” sez I, “that orf’cer’s dhrunk. ’Tis +scand’lus. Let’s take him to Clink too.”</p> + +<p>‘The corp’ril of the gyard made a jump for me, +unlocked my stringers, an’ he sez: “If it comes to +runnin’, run for your life. If it doesn’t, I’ll trust your +honour. Anyways,” sez he, “come to Clink whin you +can.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</span></p> + +<p>‘Then I behild him runnin’ wan way, stuffin’ the +bracelets in his pocket, they bein’ Gov’ment property, +and the gyard runnin’ another, an’ all the dog-kyarts +runnin’ all ways to wanst, an’ me alone lookin’ down +the red bag av a mouth av an elephint forty-two feet +high at the shoulder, tin feet wide, wid tusks as long +as the Ochterlony Monumint. That was my first +reconnaissance. Maybe he was not quite so contagious, +nor quite so tall, but I didn’t stop to throw +out pickets. Mother av Hiven, how I ran down the +road! The baste began to inveshtigate the dhrain wid +the gunner-orf’cer in ut; an’ that was the makin’ av +me. I tripped over wan of the rifles that my gyard +had discarded (onsoldierly blackguards they was!), an’ +whin I got up I was facin’ t’other way about an’ the +elephint was huntin’ for the gunner-orf’cer. I can see +his big fat back yet. Excipt that he didn’t dig, he +car’ied on for all the world like little Vixen here at a +rat-hole. He put his head down (by my sowl he +nearly stood on ut!) to shquint down the dhrain; +thin he’d grunt, and run round to the other ind in +case the orf’cer was gone out by the backdoor; an’ +he’d shtuff his trunk down the flue an’ get ut filled +wid mud, an’ blow ut out, an’ grunt, an’ swear! My +troth, he swore all hiven down upon that orf’cer; an’ +what a commissariat elephint had to do wid a gunner-orf’cer +passed me. Me havin’ nowhere to go except to +Clink, I stud in the road wid the rifle, a Snider an’ no +amm’nition, philosophisin’ upon the rear ind av the +animal. All round me, miles and miles, there was +howlin’ desolation, for ivry human sowl wid two legs, +or four for the matther av that, was ambuscadin’, an’ +this ould rapparee stud on his head tuggin’ an’ gruntin’ +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</span>above the dhrain, his tail stickin’ up to the sky, an’ +he thryin’ to thrumpet through three feet av road-sweepin’s +up his thrunk. Begad, ’twas wickud to +behold!</p> + +<p>‘Subsequint he caught sight av me standin’ alone +in the wide, wide world lanin’ on the rifle. That +dishcomposed him, bekase he thought I was the +gunner-orf’cer got out unbeknownst. He looked betune +his feet at the dhrain, an’ he looked at me, an’ I sez +to myself: “Terence, my son, you’ve been watchin’ +this Noah’s ark too long. Run for your life!” Dear +knows I wanted to tell him I was only a poor privit +on my way to Clink, an’ no orf’cer at all, at all; but +he put his ears forward av his thick head, an’ I rethreated +down the road grippin’ the rifle, my back as +cowld as a tombstone, an’ the slack av my trousies, +where I made sure he’d take hould, crawlin’ wid,—wid +invidjus apprehension.</p> + +<p>‘I might ha’ run till I dhropped, bekase I was +betune the two straight lines av the road, an’ a man, +or a thousand men for the matther av that, are the +like av sheep in keepin’ betune right an’ left marks.’</p> + +<p>‘Same as canaries,’ said Ortheris from the darkness. +‘Draw a line on a bloomin’ little board, put their +bloomin’ little beakses there; stay so for hever an’ +hever, amen, they will. ’Seed a ’ole reg’ment, I ’ave, +walk crabways along the edge of a two-foot water-cut +’stid o’ thinkin’ to cross it. Men <i>is</i> sheep—bloomin’ +sheep. Go on.’</p> + +<p>‘But I saw his shadow wid the tail av my eye,’ +continued the man of experiences, ‘an’ “Wheel,” I sez, +“Terence, wheel!” an’ I wheeled. ’Tis truth that I +cud hear the shparks flyin’ from my heels; an’ I shpun +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</span>into the nearest compound, fetched wan jump from +the gate to the verandah av the house, an’ fell over a +tribe of naygurs wid a half-caste boy at a desk, all +manufacturin’ harness. ’Twas Antonio’s Carriage +Emporium at Cawnpore. You know ut, sorr?</p> + +<p>‘Ould Grambags must ha’ wheeled abreast wid me, +for his trunk came lickin’ into the verandah like a +belt in a barrick-room row, before I was in the shop. +The naygurs an’ the half-caste boy howled an’ wint +out at the backdoor, an’ I stud lone as Lot’s wife +among the harness. A powerful thirsty thing is +harness, by reason av the smell to ut.</p> + +<p>‘I wint into the backroom, nobody bein’ there to +invite, an’ I found a bottle av whisky and a goglet av +wather. The first an’ the second dhrink I never +noticed bein’ dhry, but the fourth an’ the fifth tuk +good hould av me an’ I begun to think scornful av +elephints. “Take the upper ground in manœ’vrin’, +Terence,” I sez; “an’ you’ll be a gen’ral yet,” sez I. +An’ wid that I wint up to the flat mud roof av the +house an’ looked over the edge av the parapit, threadin’ +delicate. Ould Barrel-belly was in the compound, +walkin’ to an’ fro, pluckin’ a piece av grass here an’ +a weed there, for all the world like our colonel that is +now whin his wife’s given him a talkin’ down an’ he’s +prom’nadin’ to ease his timper. His back was to me, +an’ by the same token I hiccupped. He checked in +his walk, wan ear forward like a deaf ould lady wid +an ear-thrumpet, an’ his thrunk hild out in a kind av +fore-reaching hook. Thin he wagged his ear sayin’, +“Do my sinses deceive me?” as plain as print, an’ he +recomminst promenadin’. You know Antonio’s compound? +’Twas as full thin as ’tis now av new kyarts +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</span>and ould kyarts, an’ second-hand kyarts an’ kyarts for +hire,—landos, an’ b’rooshes, an’ brooms, an’ wag’nettes +av ivry description. Thin I hiccupped again, an’ he +began to study the ground beneath him, his tail +whistlin’ wid emotion. Thin he lapped his thrunk +round the shaft av a wag’nette an’ dhrew it out +circumspectuous an’ thoughtful. “He’s not there,” he +sez, fumblin’ in the cushions wid his thrunk. Thin I +hiccupped again, an’ wid that he lost his patience +good an’ all, same as this wan in the lines here.’</p> + +<p>The gun-elephant was breaking into peal after peal +of indignant trumpetings, to the disgust of the other +animals who had finished their food and wished to +drowse. Between the outcries we could hear him +picking restlessly at his ankle ring.</p> + +<p>‘As I was sayin’,’ Mulvaney went on, ‘he behaved +dishgraceful. He let out wid his fore-fut like a steam-hammer, +bein’ convinced that I was in ambuscade +adjacent; an’ that wag’nette ran back among the +other carriages like a field-gun in charge. Thin he +hauled ut out again an’ shuk ut, an’ by nature it came +all to little pieces. Afther that he went sheer damn, +slam, dancin’, lunatic, double-shuffle demented wid the +whole of Antonio’s shtock for the season. He kicked, +an’ he straddled, and he stamped, an’ he pounded all +at wanst, his big bald head bobbin’ up an’ down, +solemn as a rigadoon. He tuk a new shiny broom an’ +kicked ut on wan corner, an’ ut opened out like a +blossomin’ lily; an’ he shtuck wan fool-foot through +the flure av ut an’ a wheel was shpinnin’ on his tusk. +At that he got scared, an’ by this an’ that he fair sat +down plump among the carriages, an’ they pricked ’im +wid splinters till he was a boundin’ pincushin. In the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</span>middle av the mess, whin the kyarts was climbin’ +wan on top av the other, an’ rickochettin’ off the mud +walls, an’ showin’ their agility, wid him tearin’ their +wheels off, I heard the sound av distrestful wailin’ on +the housetops, an’ the whole Antonio firm an’ fam’ly was +cursin’ me an’ him from the roof next door; me bekase +I’d taken refuge wid them, and he bekase he was playin’ +shtep-dances wid the carriages av the aristocracy.</p> + +<p>‘“Divart his attention,” sez Antonio, dancin’ on the +roof in his big white waistcoat. “Divart his attention,” +he sez, “or I’ll prosecute you.” An’ the whole fam’ly +shouts, “Hit him a kick, mister soldier.”</p> + +<p>‘“He’s divartin’ himself,” I sez, for it was just the +worth av a man’s life to go down into the compound. +But by way av makin’ show I threw the whisky-bottle +(’twas not full whin I came there) at him. He +shpun round from what was left av the last kyart, an’ +shtuck his head into the verandah not three feet +below me. Maybe ’twas the temptin’ness av his back +or the whisky. Anyways, the next thing I knew was +me, wid my hands full av mud an’ mortar, all fours on +his back, an’ the Snider just slidin’ off the slope av +his head. I grabbed that an’ scuffled on his neck, +dhruv my knees undher his big flappin’ ears, an’ we +wint to glory out av that compound wid a shqueal +that crawled up my back an’ down my belly. Thin I +remimbered the Snider, an’ I grup ut by the muzzle +an’ hit him on the head. ’Twas most forlorn—like +tappin’ the deck av a throopship wid a cane to +stop the engines whin you’re sea-sick. But I parsevered +till I sweated, an’ at last from takin’ no notice +at all he began to grunt. I hit wid the full strength +that was in me in those days, an’ it might ha’ +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</span>discommoded him. We came back to the p’rade-groun’ +forty miles an hour, trumpetin’ vainglorious. I never +stopped hammerin’ him for a minut’; ’twas by way av +divartin’ him from runnin’ undher the trees an’ scrapin’ +me off like a poultice. The p’rade-groun’ an’ the road +was all empty, but the throops was on the roofs av +the barricks, an’ betune Ould Thrajectory’s gruntin’ +an’ mine (for I was winded wid my stone-breakin’), I +heard them clappin’ an’ cheerin’. He was growin’ +more confused an’ tuk to runnin’ in circles.</p> + +<p>‘“Begad,” sez I to mysilf, “there’s dacincy in all +things, Terence. ’Tis like you’ve shplit his head, and +whin you come out av Clink you’ll be put under +stoppages for killin’ a Gov’ment elephint.” At that I +caressed him.’</p> + +<p>‘’Ow the devil did you do that? Might as well +pat a barrick,’ said Ortheris.</p> + +<p>‘Thried all manner av endearin’ epitaphs, but bein’ +more than a little shuk up I disremimbered what the +divil would answer to. So, “Good dog,” I sez; “Pretty +puss,” sez I; “Whoa mare,” I sez; an’ at that I fetched +him a shtroke av the butt for to conciliate him, an’ he +stud still among the barricks.</p> + +<p>‘“Will no one take me off the top av this murderin’ +volcano?” I sez at the top av my shout; an’ I heard a +man yellin’, “Hould on, faith an’ patience, the other +elephints are comin’.” “Mother av Glory,” I sez, “will +I rough-ride the whole stud? Come an’ take me +down, ye cowards!”</p> + +<p>‘Thin a brace av fat she-elephints wid mahouts an’ +a commissariat sergint came shuffling round the corner +av the barricks; an’ the mahouts was abusin’ ould +Potiphar’s mother an’ blood-kin.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</span></p> + +<p>‘“Obsarve my reinforcemints,” I sez. “The’re +goin’ to take you to Clink, my son;” an’ the child av +calamity put his ears forward an’ swung head on +to those females. The pluck av him, afther my +oratorio on his brain-pan, wint to the heart av me. +“I’m in dishgrace mesilf,” I sez, “but I’ll do what I can +for ye. Will ye go to Clink like a man, or fight like +a fool whin there’s no chanst?” Wid that I fetched +him wan last lick on the head, an’ he fetched a +tremenjus groan an’ dhropped his thrunk. “Think,” +sez I to him, an’ “Halt!” I sez to the mahouts. +They was anxious so to do. I could feel the ould +reprobit meditating undher me. At last he put his +thrunk straight out an’ gave a most melancholious toot +(the like av a sigh wid an elephint); an’ by that I +knew the white flag was up an’ the rest was no more +than considherin’ his feelin’s.</p> + +<p>‘“He’s done,” I sez. “Kape open ordher left an’ +right alongside. We’ll go to Clink quiet.”</p> + +<p>‘Sez the commissariat sergeant to me from his +elephant, “Are you a man or a mericle?” sez he.</p> + +<p>‘“I’m betwixt an’ betune,” I sez, thryin’ to set up +stiff-back. “An’ what,” sez I, “may ha’ set this +animal off in this opprobrious shtyle?” I sez, the +gun-butt light an’ easy on my hip an’ my left hand +dhropped, such as throopers behave. We was bowlin’ +on to the elephint-lines under escort all this time.</p> + +<p>‘“I was not in the lines whin the throuble began,” +sez the sergeant. “They tuk him off carryin’ tents an’ +such like, an’ put him to the gun-team. I knew he +would not like ut, but by token it fair tore his heart +out.”</p> + +<p>‘“Faith, wan man’s meat is another’s poison,” I sez. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</span>“’Twas bein’ put on to carry tents that was the ruin av +me.” An’ my heart warrumed to Ould Double Ends +bekase he had been put upon.</p> + +<p>‘“We’ll close on him here,” sez the sergeant, whin +we got to the elephint-lines. All the mahouts an’ +their childher was round the pickets cursin’ my poney +from a mile to hear. “You skip off on to my elephint’s +back,” he sez. “There’ll be throuble.”</p> + +<p>‘“Sind that howlin’ crowd away,” I sez, “or he’ll +thrample the life out av thim.” I cud feel his ears +beginnin’ to twitch. “An’ do you an’ your immoril +she-elephints go well clear away. I will get down +here. He’s an Irishman,” I sez, “for all his long Jew’s +nose, an’ he shall be threated like an Irishman.”</p> + +<p>‘“Are ye tired av life?” sez the sergeant.</p> + +<p>‘“Divil a bit,” I sez; “but wan av us has to win, +an’ I’m av opinion ’tis me. Get back,” I sez.</p> + +<p>‘The two elephints wint off, an’ Smith O’Brine came +to a halt dead above his own pickuts. “Down,” sez I, +whackin’ him on the head, an’ down he wint, shouldher +over shouldher like a hill-side slippin’ afther rain. +“Now,” sez I, slidin down his nose an’ runnin’ to the +front av him, “you will see the man that’s betther +than you.”</p> + +<p>‘His big head was down betune his big forefeet, +an’ they was twisted in sideways like a kitten’s. He +looked the picture av innocince an’ forlornsomeness, +an’ by this an’ that his big hairy undherlip was +thremblin’, an’ he winked his eyes together to kape +from cryin’. “For the love av God,” I sez, clean +forgettin’ he was a dumb baste; “don’t take ut to heart +so! Aisy, be aisy,” I sez; an’ wid that I rubbed his +cheek an’ betune his eyes an’ the top av his thrunk, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</span>talkin’ all the time. “Now,” sez I, “I’ll make you +comfortable for the night. Send wan or two childher +here,” I sez to the sergeant who was watchin’ for to +see me killed. “He’ll rouse at the sight av a man.”’</p> + +<p>‘You got bloomin’ clever all of a sudden,’ said +Ortheris. ‘’Ow did you come to know ’is funny little +ways that soon?’</p> + +<p>‘Bekase,’ said Terence with emphasis, ‘bekase I +had conquered the beggar, my son.’</p> + +<p>‘Ho!’ said Ortheris between doubt and derision. +‘G’on.’</p> + +<p>‘His mahout’s child an’ wan or two other line-babies +came runnin’ up, not bein’ afraid av anything, an’ some +got wather, an’ I washed the top av his poor sore head +(begad, I had done him to a turn!), an’ some picked the +pieces av carts out av his hide, an’ we scraped him, an’ +handled him all over, an’ we put a thunderin’ big +poultice av neem-leaves (the same that ye stick on a +pony’s gall) on his head, an’ it looked like a smokin’-cap, +an’ we put a pile av young sugar-cane forninst +him, an’ he began to pick at ut. “Now,” sez I, settin’ +down on his fore-foot, “we’ll have a dhrink, an’ let +bygones be.” I sent a naygur-child for a quart av +arrack, an’ the sergeant’s wife she sint me out four +fingers av whisky, an’ whin the liquor came I cud see +by the twinkle in Ould Typhoon’s eye that he was no +more a stranger to ut than me,—worse luck, than me! +So he tuk his quart like a Christian, an’ <i>thin</i> I put his +shackles on, chained him fore an’ aft to the pickets, +an’ gave him my blessin’, an wint back to barricks.’</p> + +<p>‘And after?’ I said in the pause.</p> + +<p>‘Ye can guess,’ said Mulvaney. ‘There was confusion, +an’ the colonel gave me ten rupees, an’ the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</span>adj’tant gave me five, an’ my comp’ny captain gave +me five, an’ the men carried me round the barricks +shoutin’.’</p> + +<p>‘Did you go to Clink?’ said Ortheris.</p> + +<p>‘I niver heard a word more about the misundherstandin’ +wid Kearney’s beak, if that’s what you mane; +but sev’ril av the bhoys was tuk off sudden to the +Holy Christians’ Hotel that night. Small blame to +thim,—they had twenty rupees in dhrinks. I wint +to lie down an’ sleep ut off, for I was as done an’ +double done as him there in the lines. ’Tis no small +thing to go ride elephants.</p> + +<p>‘Subsequint, me an’ the Venerable Father av Sin +became mighty friendly. I wud go down to the lines, +whin I was in dishgrace, an’ spend an afthernoon +collogin’ wid him; he chewin’ wan stick av sugar-cane +an’ me another, as thick as thieves. He’d take all I +had out av my pockets an’ put ut back again, an’ now +an’ thin I’d bring him beer for his dijistin’, an’ I’d +give him advice about bein’ well behaved an’ keepin’ off +the books. Afther that he wint the way av the Army, +an’ that’s bein’ thransferred as soon as you’ve made a +good friend.’</p> + +<p>‘So you never saw him again?’ I demanded.</p> + +<p>‘Do you belave the first half av the affair?’ said +Terence.</p> + +<p>‘I’ll wait till Learoyd comes,’ I said evasively. +Except when he was carefully tutored by the other +two and the immediate money-benefit explained, the +Yorkshireman did not tell lies; and Terence, I knew, +had a profligate imagination.</p> + +<p>‘There’s another part still,’ said Mulvaney. ‘Ortheris +was in that.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</span></p> + +<p>‘Then I’ll believe it all,’ I answered, not from any +special belief in Ortheris’s word, but from desire to +learn the rest. Ortheris stole a pup from me when +our acquaintance was new, and with the little beast +stifling under his overcoat, denied not only the theft, +but that he ever was interested in dogs.</p> + +<p>‘That was at the beginnin’ av the Afghan business,’ +said Mulvaney; ‘years afther the men that had seen +me do the thrick was dead or gone home. I came not +to speak av ut at the last bekase,—bekase I do <i>not</i> +care to knock the face av ivry man that calls me a +liar. At the very beginnin’ av the marchin’ I wint +sick like a fool. I had a boot-gall, but I was all for +keepin’ up wid the rig’mint and such like foolishness. +So I finished up wid a hole in my heel that you cud +ha’ dhruv a tent-peg into. Faith, how often have I +preached that to recruities since, for a warnin’ to thim +to look afther their feet! Our docthor, who knew our +business as well as his own, he sez to me, in the middle +av the Tangi Pass it was: “That’s sheer damned carelessness,” +sez he. “How often have I tould you that +a marchin’ man is no stronger than his feet,—his feet,—his +feet!” he sez. “Now to hospital you go,” he +sez, “for three weeks, an expense to your Quane an’ +a nuisince to your counthry. Next time,” sez he, +“perhaps you’ll put some av the whisky you pour +down your throat, an’ some av the tallow you put into +your hair, into your socks,” sez he. Faith he was a +just man. So soon as we come to the head av the +Tangi I wint to hospital, hoppin’ on wan fut, woild wid +disappointment. ’Twas a field-hospital (all flies an’ +native apothecaries an’ liniment) dhropped, in a way +av speakin’, close by the head av the Tangi. The +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</span>hospital guard was ravin’ mad wid us sick for keepin’ +thim there, an’ we was ravin’ mad at bein’ kept; an’ +through the Tangi, day an’ night an’ night an’ day, the +fut an’ horse an’ guns an’ commissariat an’ tents an’ +followers av the brigades was pourin’ like a coffee-mill. +The doolies came dancin’ through, scores an’ scores av +thim, an’ they’d turn up the hill to hospital wid their +sick, an’ I lay in bed nursin’ my heel, an’ hearin’ the +men bein’ tuk out. I remimber wan night (the time +I was tuk wid fever) a man came rowlin’ through the +tents an’, “Is there any room to die here?” he sez; +“there’s none wid the columns”; an’ at that he dhropped +dead acrost a cot, an’ thin the man in ut began to +complain against dyin’ all alone in the dust undher +dead men. Thin I must ha’ turned mad wid the +fever, an’ for a week I was prayin’ the saints to stop +the noise av the columns movin’ through the Tangi. +Gun-wheels it was that wore my head thin. Ye know +how ’tis wid fever?’</p> + +<p>We nodded; there was no need to explain.</p> + +<p>‘Gun-wheels an’ feet an’ people shoutin’, but mostly +gun-wheels. ’Twas neither night nor day to me for a +week. In the mornin’ they’d rowl up the tent-flies, +an’ we sick cud look at the Pass an’ considher what was +comin’ next. Horse, fut, or guns, they’d be sure to +dhrop wan or two sick wid us an’ we’d get news. +Wan mornin’, whin the fever hild off of me, I was +watchin’ the Tangi, an’ ’twas just like the picture on the +backside av the Afghan medal,—men an’ elephints an’ +guns comin’ wan at a time crawlin’ out of a dhrain.’</p> + +<p>‘It were a dhrain,’ said Ortheris with feeling. +‘I’ve fell out an’ been sick in the Tangi twice; an’ wot +turns my innards ain’t no bloomin’ vi’lets neither.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</span></p> + +<p>‘The Pass give a twist at the ind, so everything +shot out suddint an’ they’d built a throop-bridge (mud +an’ dead mules) over a nullah at the head av ut. I +lay an’ counted the elephints (gun-elephints) thryin’ +the bridge wid their thrunks an’ rolling out sagacious. +The fifth elephint’s head came round the corner, an’ he +threw up his thrunk, an’ he fetched a toot, an’ there he +shtuck at the head of the Tangi like a cork in a bottle. +“Faith,” thinks I to mysilf, “he will not thrust the +bridge; there will be throuble.”’</p> + +<p>‘Trouble! My Gawd!’ said Ortheris. ‘Terence, <i>I</i> +was be’ind that blooming ’uttee up to my stock in dust. +Trouble!’</p> + +<p>‘Tell on then, little man; I only saw the hospital +ind av ut.’ Mulvaney knocked the ashes out of his +pipe, as Ortheris heaved the dogs aside and went on.</p> + +<p>‘We was escort to them guns, three comp’nies of +us,’ he said. ‘Dewcy was our major, an’ our orders +was to roll up anything we come across in the Tangi +an’ shove it out t’other end. Sort o’ pop-gun picnic, +see? We’d rolled up a lot o’ lazy beggars o’ native +followers, an’ some commissariat supplies that was +bivoo-whackin’ for ever seemin’ly, an’ all the sweepin’s +of ’arf a dozen things what ought to ’ave bin at the +front weeks ago, an’ Dewcy, he sez to us: “You’re +most ’eart-breakin’ sweeps,” ’e sez. “For ’eving’s sake,” +sez ’e, “do a little sweepin’ now.” So we swep’,—s’welp +me, ’ow we did sweep ’em along! There was a +full reg’ment be’ind us; most anxious to get on they +was; an’ they kep’ on sendin’ to us with the colonel’s +compliments, an’ what in ’ell was we stoppin’ the way +for, please? Oh, they was partic’lar polite! So was +Dewcy! ’E sent ’em back wot-for, an’ ’e give us wot-for,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</span> +an’ we give the guns wot-for, an’ they give the +commissariat wot-for, an’ the commissariat give first-class +extry wot-for to the native followers, an’ on we’d +go again till we was stuck, an’ the ’ole Pass ’ud be +swimmin’ Allelujah for a mile an’ a ’arf. We ’adn’t +no tempers, nor no seats to our trousies, an’ our coats +an’ our rifles was chucked in the carts, so as we might +ha’ been cut up any minute, an’ we was doin’ drover-work. +That was wot it was; drovin’ on the Islin’ton +road!</p> + +<p>‘I was close up at the ’ead of the column when we +saw the end of the Tangi openin’ out ahead of us, an’ I +sez: “The door’s open, boys. ’Oo’ll git to the gall’ry +fust?” I sez. Then I saw Dewcy screwin’ ’is bloomin’ +eyeglass in ’is eye an’ lookin’ straight on. “Propped,—<i>ther</i> +beggar!” he sez; an’ the be’ind end o’ that +bloomin’ old ’uttee was shinin’ through the dust like a +bloomin’ old moon made ’o tarpaulin. Then we ’alted, +all chock-a-block, one atop o’ the other, an’ right at +the back o’ the guns there sails in a lot o’ silly grinnin’ +camels, what the commissariat was in charge of—sailin’ +away as if they was at the Zoological Gardens +an’ squeezin’ our men most awful. The dust was that +up you couldn’t see your ’and; an’ the more we ’it ’em +on the ’ead the more their drivers sez, “Accha! +Accha!” an’ by Gawd it was “at yer” before you +knew where you was. An’ that ’uttee’s be’ind end +stuck in the Pass good an’ tight, an’ no one knew wot +for.</p> + +<p>‘Fust thing we ’ad to do was to fight they bloomin’ +camels. I wasn’t goin’ to be eat by no bull-<i>oont</i>; so +I ’eld up my trousies with one ’and, standin’ on a +rock, an’ ’it away with my belt at every nose I saw +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</span>bobbin’ above me. Then the camels fell back, an’ +they ’ad to fight to keep the rear-guard an’ the native +followers from crushin’ into them; an’ the rear-guard +’ad to send down the Tangi to warn the other reg’ment +that we was blocked. I ’eard the mahouts shoutin’ in +front that the ’uttee wouldn’t cross the bridge; an’ I +saw Dewcy skippin’ about through the dust like a +musquito worm in a tank. Then our comp’nies got +tired o’ waitin’ an’ begun to mark time, an’ some goat +struck up <i>Tommy, make room for your Uncle</i>. After +<i>that</i>, you couldn’t neither see nor breathe nor ’ear; an’ +there we was, singin’ bloomin’ serenades to the end of +a’ elephant that don’t care for tunes! I sung too; I +couldn’t do nothin’ else. They was strengthenin’ the +bridge in front, all for the sake of the ’uttee. By an’ +by a’ orf’cer caught me by the throat an’ choked the +sing out of me. So I caught the next man I could +see by the throat an’ choked the sing out of <i>’im</i>.’</p> + +<p>‘What’s the difference between being choked by an +officer and being hit?’ I asked, remembering a little +affair in which Ortheris’s honour had been injured by +his lieutenant.</p> + +<p>‘One’s a bloomin’ lark, an’ one’s a bloomin’ insult!’ +said Ortheris. ‘Besides, we was on service, an’ no +one cares what an orf’cer does then, s’long as ’e gets +our rations an’ don’t get us unusual cut up. After +that we got quiet, an’ I ’eard Dewcy say that ’e’d +court-martial the lot of us soon as we was out of the +Tangi. Then we give three cheers for Dewcy an’ +three more for the Tangi; an’ the ’uttee’s be’ind end +was stickin’ in the Pass, so we cheered <i>that</i>. Then +they said the bridge had been strengthened, an’ we +give three cheers for the bridge; but the ’uttee wouldn’t +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</span>move a bloomin’ hinch. Not ’im! Then we cheered +’im again, an’ Kite Dawson, that was corner-man at all +the sing-songs (’e died on the way down) began to give +a nigger lecture on the be’ind ends of elephants, an’ +Dewcy, ’e tried to keep ’is face for a minute, but, Lord, +you couldn’t do such when Kite was playin’ the fool +an’ askin’ whether ’e mightn’t ’ave leave to rent a villa +an’ raise ’is orphan children in the Tangi, ’cos ’e +couldn’t get ’ome no more. Then up come a orf’cer +(mounted, like a fool, too) from the reg’mint at the +back with some more of his colonel’s pretty little compliments, +an’ what was this delay, please. We sung +’im <i>There’s another bloomin’ row downstairs</i> till ’is ’orse +bolted, an’ then we give ’im three cheers; an’ Kite +Dawson sez ’e was goin’ to write to <i>The Times</i> about +the awful state of the streets in Afghanistan. The +’uttee’s be’ind end was stickin’ in the Pass all the time. +At last one o’ the mahouts came to Dewcy an’ sez +something. “Oh Lord!” sez Dewcy, “<i>I</i> don’t know +the beggar’s visiting-list! I’ll give ’im another ten +minutes an’ then I’ll shoot ’im.” Things was gettin’ +pretty dusty in the Tangi, so we all listened. “’E +wants to see a friend,” sez Dewcy out loud to the men, +an’ ’e mopped ’is forehead an’ sat down on a gun-tail.</p> + +<p>‘I leave it to you to judge ’ow the reg’ment +shouted. “That’s all right,” we sez. “Three cheers +for Mister Winterbottom’s friend,” sez we. “Why +didn’t you say so at first? Pass the word for old +Swizzletail’s wife,”—and such like. Some o’ the men +they didn’t laugh. They took it same as if it might +have been a’ introduction like, ’cos they knew about +’uttees. Then we all run forward over the guns an’ in +an’ out among the elephants’ legs,—Lord, I wonder ’arf +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</span>the comp’nies wasn’t squashed—an’ the next thing I +saw was Terence ’ere, lookin’ like a sheet o’ wet paper, +comin’ down the ’illside wid a sergeant. “’Strewth,” +I sez. “I might ha’ knowed ’e’d be at the bottom of +any cat’s trick,” sez I. Now you tell wot ’appened +your end?’</p> + +<p>‘I lay be the same as you did, little man, listenin’ +to the noises an’ the bhoys singin’. Presintly I heard +whisperin’ an’ the doctor sayin’, “Get out av this, +wakin’ my sick wid your jokes about elephints.” An’ +another man sez, all angry: “’Tis a joke that is stoppin’ +two thousand men in the Tangi. That son av sin av +a haybag av an elephint sez, or the mahouts sez for +him, that he wants to see a friend, an’ he’ll not lift +hand or fut till he finds him. I’m wore out wid +inthrojucin’ sweepers an’ coolies to him, an’ his hide’s +as full o’ bay’net pricks as a musquito-net av holes, an’ +I’m here undher ordhers, docther dear, to ask if any +one, sick or well, or alive or dead, knows an elephint. +I’m not mad,” he sez, settin’ on a box av medical +comforts. “’Tis my ordhers, an’ ’tis my mother,” he +sez, “that would laugh at me for the father av all fools +to-day. Does any wan here know an elephint?” We +sick was all quiet.</p> + +<p>‘“Now you’ve had your answer,” sez the doctor. +“Go away.”</p> + +<p>‘“Hould on,” I sez, thinkin’ mistiways in my cot, +an’ I did not know my own voice. “I’m by way av +bein’ acquainted wid an elephant, myself,” I sez.</p> + +<p>‘“That’s delirium,” sez the doctor. “See what +you’ve done, sergeant. Lie down, man,” he sez, seein’ +me thryin’ to get up.</p> + +<p>‘“’Tis not,” I sez. “I rode him round Cawnpore +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</span>barricks. He will not ha’ forgotten. I bruk his head +wid a rifle.”</p> + +<p>‘“Mad as a coot,” sez the doctor, an’ thin he felt +my head. “It’s quare,” sez he. “Man,” he sez, “if +you go, d’you know ’twill either kill or cure?”</p> + +<p>‘“What do I care?” sez I. “If I’m mad, ’tis +better dead.”</p> + +<p>‘“Faith, that’s sound enough,” sez the doctor. +“You’ve no fever on you now.”</p> + +<p>‘“Come on,” sez the sergeant. “We’re all mad +to-day, an’ the throops are wantin’ their dinner.” He +put his arm round av me an’ I came into the sun, +the hills an’ the rocks skippin’ big giddy-go-rounds. +“Seventeen years have I been in the army,” sez the +sergeant, “an’ the days av mericles are not done. +They’ll be givin’ us more pay next. Begad,” he sez, +“the brute knows you!”</p> + +<p>‘Ould Obstructionist was screamin’ like all possist +whin I came up, an’ I heard forty million men up the +Tangi shoutin’, “He knows him!” Thin the big +thrunk came round me an’ I was nigh fainting wid +weakness. “Are you well, Malachi?” I sez, givin’ +him the name he answered to in the lines. “Malachi, +my son, are you well?” sez I, “for I am not.” At +that he thrumpeted again till the Pass rang to ut, an’ +the other elephints tuk it up. Thin I got a little +strength back. “Down, Malachi,” I sez, “an’ put me +up, but touch me tendher for I am not good.” He +was on his knees in a minut an’ he slung me up as +gentle as a girl. “Go on now, my son,” I sez. “You’re +blockin’ the road.” He fetched wan more joyous toot, +an’ swung grand out av the head av the Tangi, his +gun-gear clankin’ on his back; an’ at the back av him +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</span>there wint the most amazin’ shout I iver heard. An’ +thin I felt my head shpin, an’ a mighty sweat bruk +out on me, an’ Malachi was growin’ taller an’ taller +to me settin’ on his back, an’ I sez, foolish like an’ +weak, smilin’ all round an’ about, “Take me down,” +I sez, “or I’ll fall.”</p> + +<p>‘The next I remimber was lyin’ in my cot again, +limp as a chewed rag but cured av the fever, an’ the +Tangi as empty as the back av my hand. They’d all +gone up to the front, an’ ten days later I wint up too, +havin’ blocked an’ unblocked an entire army corps. +What do you think av ut, sorr?’</p> + +<p>‘I’ll wait till I see Learoyd,’ I repeated.</p> + +<p>‘Ah’m here,’ said a shadow from among the shadows. +‘Ah’ve heard t’ tale too.’</p> + +<p>‘Is it true, Jock?’</p> + +<p>‘Ay; true as t’owd bitch has getten t’mange. +Orth’ris, yo’ maun’t let t’dawgs hev owt to do wi’ +her.’</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="ONE_VIEW_OF_THE_QUESTION"> + ONE VIEW OF THE QUESTION. + </h2> +</div> + + +<blockquote> +<p class="hanging2"><i>From Shafiz Ullah Khan, son of Hyat Ullah Khan, in +the honoured service of His Highness the Rao Sahib +of Jagesur, which is in the northern borders of +Hindustan, and Orderly to his Highness, this to +Kazi Jamal-ud-Din, son of Kazi Ferisht-ud-Din +Khan, in the service of the Rao Sahib, a minister +much honoured. From that place which they call +the Northbrook Club, in the town of London, under +the shadow of the Empress, it is written:</i></p> + +<p class="hanging2">Between brother and chosen brother be no long +protestations of Love and Sincerity. Heart speaks +naked to Heart, and the Head answers for all. +Glory and Honour on thy house till the ending of +the years and a tent in the borders of Paradise.</p> +</blockquote> + + +<p class="p2"><span class="smcap">My Brother</span>,—In regard to that for which I was +despatched follows the account. I have purchased for +the Rao Sahib, and paid sixty pounds in every hundred, +the things he most desired. Thus; two of the great +fawn-coloured tiger-dogs, male and female, their pedigree +being written upon paper, and silver collars adorning +their necks. For the Rao Sahib’s greater pleasure I +send them at once by the steamer, in charge of a man +who will render account of them at Bombay to the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</span>bankers there. They are the best of all dogs in this +place. Of guns I have bought five—two silver-sprigged +in the stock, with gold scroll-work about the hammer, +both double-barrelled, hard-striking, cased in velvet +and red leather; three of unequalled workmanship, +but lacking adornment; a pump-gun that fires fourteen +times—this when the Rao Sahib drives pig; a +double-barrelled shell-gun for tiger, and that is a miracle +of workmanship; and a fowling-piece no lighter than a +feather, with green and blue cartridges by the thousand. +Also a very small rifle for blackbuck, that yet would +slay a man at four hundred paces. The harness with +the golden crests for the Rao Sahib’s coach is not yet +complete, by reason of the difficulty of lining the red +velvet into leather; but the two-horse harness and +the great saddle with the golden holsters that is for +state use have been put with camphor into a tin box, +and I have signed it with my ring. Of the grained +leather case of women’s tools and tweezers for the hair +and beard, of the perfumes and the silks, and all that +was wanted by the women behind the curtains, I have +no knowledge. They are matters of long coming, and +the hawk-bells, hoods, and jesses with the golden +lettering are as much delayed as they. Read this in +the Rao Sahib’s ear, and speak of my diligence and +zeal, that favour may not be abated by absence, and +keep the eye of constraint upon that jesting dog without +teeth—Bahadur Shah—for by thy aid and voice, +and what I have done in regard to the guns, I look, +as thou knowest, for the headship of the army of +Jagesur. That conscienceless one desires it also, and +I have heard that the Rao Sahib leans thatward. +Have ye done, then, with the drinking of wine in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</span>your house, my brother, or has Bahadur Shah become +a forswearer of brandy? I would not that drink +should end him; but the well-mixed draught leads to +madness. Consider.</p> + +<p>And now in regard to this land of the Sahibs, +follows that thou hast demanded. God is my witness +that I have striven to understand all that I saw and a +little of what I heard. My words and intention are those +of truth, yet it may be that I write of nothing but lies.</p> + +<p>Since the first wonder and bewilderment of my +beholding is gone—we note the jewels in the ceiling-dome, +but later the filth on the floor—I see clearly +that this town, London, which is as large as all +Jagesur, is accursed, being dark and unclean, devoid of +sun, and full of low-born, who are perpetually drunk, +and howl in the streets like jackals, men and women +together. At nightfall it is the custom of countless +thousands of women to descend into the streets and +sweep them, roaring, making jests, and demanding +liquor. At the hour of this attack it is the custom of +the householders to take their wives and children to +the playhouses and the places of entertainment; evil +and good thus returning home together as do kine +from the pools at sundown. I have never seen any +sight like this sight in all the world, and I doubt that +a double is to be found on the hither side of the gates +of Hell. Touching the mystery of their craft, it is an +ancient one, but the householders assemble in herds, +being men and women, and cry aloud to their God +that it is not there; the said women pounding at the +doors without. Moreover, upon the day when they +go to prayer the drink-places are only opened when +the mosques are shut; as who should dam the Jumna +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</span>river for Friday only. Therefore the men and women, +being forced to accomplish their desires in the shorter +space, become the more furiously drunk, and roll in the +gutter together. They are there regarded by those going +to pray. Further, and for visible sign that the place is +forgotten of God, there falls upon certain days, without +warning, a cold darkness, whereby the sun’s light is +altogether cut off from all the city, and the people, male +and female, and the drivers of the vehicles grope and +howl in this Pit at high noon, none seeing the other. +The air being filled with the smoke of Hell—sulphur +and pitch as it is written—they die speedily with +gaspings, and so are buried in the dark. This is a +terror beyond the pen, but, by my head, I write of +what I have seen!</p> + +<p>It is not true that the Sahibs worship one God, as +do we of the Faith, or that the differences in their +creed be like those now running between Shiah and +Sunni. I am but a fighting man, and no darvesh, +caring, as thou knowest, as much for Shiah as Sunni. +But I have spoken to many people of the nature of +their Gods. One there is who is the head of the +Mukht-i-Fauj,⁠<a id="FNanchor_1_1" href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> and he is worshipped by men in blood-red +clothes, who shout and become without sense. +Another is an image, before whom they burn candles +and incense in just such a place as I have seen when +I went to Rangoon to buy Burma ponies for the Rao. +Yet a third has naked altars facing a great assembly +of dead. To him they sing chiefly; and for others +there is a woman who was the mother of the great +prophet that was before Mahommed. The common +folk have no God, but worship those who may speak +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</span>to them hanging from the lamps in the street. The +most wise people worship themselves and such things +as they have made with their mouths and their hands, +and this is to be found notably among the barren +women, of whom there are many. It is the custom +of men and women to make for themselves such God +as they desire; pinching and patting the very soft +clay of their thought into the acceptable mould of +their lusts. So each is furnished with a Godling after +his own heart; and this Godling is changed in a little, +as the stomach turns or the health is altered. Thou +wilt not believe this tale, my brother. Nor did I +when I was first told, but now it is nothing to me; so +greatly has the foot of travel let out the stirrup-holes +of belief.</p> + +<p>But thou wilt say, ‘What matter to us whether +Ahmed’s beard or Mahmud’s be the longer! Speak +what thou canst of the Accomplishment of Desire.’ +Would that thou wert here to talk face to face and +walk abroad with me and learn.</p> + +<p>To this people it is a matter of Heaven and Hell +whether Ahmed’s beard and Mahmud’s tally or differ +but by a hair. Thou knowest the system of their +statecraft? It is this. Certain men, appointing themselves, +go about and speak to the low-born, the +peasants, the leather-workers, and the cloth-dealers, +and the women, saying: ‘Give us leave by your +favour to speak for you in the council.’ Securing that +permission by large promises, they return to the +council-place, and, sitting unarmed, some six hundred +together, speak at random each for himself and his +own ball of low-born. The viziers and dewans of the +Empress must ever beg money at their hands, for +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</span>unless more than a half of the six hundred be of one +heart towards the spending of the revenues, neither +horse can be shod, rifle loaded, nor man clothed throughout +the land. Remember this very continually. The +six hundred are above the Empress, above the Viceroy +of India, above the Head of the Army and every other +power that thou hast ever known. <i>Because they hold +the revenues.</i></p> + +<p>They are divided into two hordes—the one perpetually +hurling abuse at the other, and bidding the +low-born hamper and rebel against all that the other +may devise for government. Except that they are +unarmed, and so call each other liar, dog, and bastard +without fear, even under the shadow of the Empress’s +throne, they are at bitter war which is without any +end. They pit lie against lie, till the low-born and +common folk grow drunk with lies, and in their turn +begin to lie and refuse to pay the revenues. Further, +they divide their women into bands, and send them +into this fight with yellow flowers in their hands, and +since the belief of a woman is but her lover’s belief +stripped of judgment, very many wild words are added. +Well said the slave-girl to Mámún in the delectable +pages of the Son of Abdullah:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘Oppression and the sword slay fast—</div> + <div class="verse indent1">Thy breath kills slowly but at last.’</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>If they desire a thing they declare that it is true. If +they desire it not, though that were Death itself, +they cry aloud, ‘It has never been.’ Thus their talk +is the talk of children, and like children they snatch at +what they covet, not considering whether it is their +own or another’s. And in their councils, when the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</span>army of unreason has come to the defile of dispute, and +there is no more talk left on either side, they, dividing, +count heads, and the will of that side which has the +larger number of heads makes that law. But the +outnumbered side run speedily among the common +people and bid them trample on that law, and slay the +officers thereof. Follows slaughter by night of men +unarmed, and the slaughter of cattle and insults to +women. They do not cut off the noses of women, but +they crop their hair and scrape the flesh with pins. +Then those shameless ones of the council stand up +before the judges wiping their mouths and making oath. +They say: ‘Before God we are free from blame. +Did we say “Heave that stone out of that road and +kill that one and no other”?’ So they are not made +shorter by the head because they said only: ‘Here +are stones and yonder is such a fellow obeying the +Law which is no law because we do not desire it.’</p> + +<p>Read this in the Rao Sahib’s ear, and ask him if he +remembers that season when the Manglôt headmen +refused revenue, not because they could not pay, but +because they judged the cess extreme. I and thou +went out with the troopers all one day and the black +lances raised the thatch, so that there was hardly any +need of firing; and no man was slain. But this land +is at secret war and veiled killing. In five years of +peace they have slain within their own borders and of +their own kin more men than would have fallen had +the ball of dissension been left to the mallet of the +army. And yet there is no hope of peace, for soon the +sides again divide, and then they will cause to be slain +more men unarmed and in the fields. And so much +for that matter, which is to our advantage. There is +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</span>a better thing to be told, and one tending to the +Accomplishment of Desire. Read here with a fresh +mind after sleep. I write as I understand.</p> + +<p>Above all this war without honour lies that which +I find hard to put into writing, and thou knowest I +am unhandy of the pen. I will ride the steed of +Inability sideways at the wall of Expression. The +earth under foot is sick and sour with the much handling +of man, as a grazing ground sours under cattle; +and the air is sick too. Upon the ground they have +laid in this town, as it were, the stinking boards of a +stable, and through these boards, between a thousand +thousand houses, the rank humours of the earth +sweat through to the overburdened air that returns +them to their breeding-place; for the smoke of their +cooking fires keeps all in as the cover the juices +of the sheep. And in like manner there is a green-sickness +among the people, and especially among the +six hundred men who talk. Neither winter nor autumn +abates that malady of the soul. I have seen it among +women in our own country, and in boys not yet +blooded to the sword; but I have never seen so much +thereof before. Through the peculiar operation of this +thing the people, abandoning honour and steadfastness, +question all authority, not as men question, but as +girls, whimperingly, with pinching in the back when +the back is turned and mowing. If one cries in the +streets, ‘There has been an injustice,’ they take him +not to make complaint to those appointed, but all +who pass, drinking his words, fly clamorously to the +house of the accused and write evil things of him, his +wives and his daughters; for they take no thought to +the weighing of evidence, but are as women. And +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</span>with one hand they beat their constables who guard +the streets, and with the other beat the constables for +resenting that beating, and fine them. When they +have in all things made light of the State they cry to +the State for help, and it is given, so that the next +time they will cry more. Such as are oppressed riot +through the streets, bearing banners that hold four +days’ labour and a week’s bread in cost and toil; and +when neither horse nor foot can pass by they are +satisfied. Others, receiving wages, refuse to work till +they get more, and the priests help them, and also men +of the six hundred—for where rebellion is, one of those +men will come as a kite to a dead bullock—and +priests, talker, and men together declare that it is +right because these will not work that no others may +attempt. In this manner they have so confused the +loading and the unloading of the ships that come to +this town that, in sending the Rao Sahib’s guns and +harness, I saw fit to send the cases by the train to +another ship that sailed from another place. There is +now no certainty in any sending. But who injures +the merchants shuts the door of well-being on the city +and the army. And ye know what Sa’adi saith:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘How may the merchant westward fare</div> + <div class="verse indent1">When he hears the tale of the tumults there?’</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>No man can keep faith because he cannot tell how his +underlings will go. They have made the servant +greater than the master, for that he is the servant; not +reckoning that each is equal under God to the +appointed task. That is a thing to be put aside in the +cupboard of the mind.</p> + +<p>Further, the misery and outcry of the common folk +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</span>of whom the earth’s bosom is weary, has so wrought +upon the minds of certain people who have never +slept under fear nor seen the flat edge of the sword on +the heads of a mob, that they cry out: ‘Let us abate +everything that is, and altogether labour with our bare +hands.’ Their hands in that employ would fester at +the second stroke; and I have seen, for all their +unrest at the agonies of others, they abandon no whit +of soft living. Unknowing the common folk, or indeed +the minds of men, they offer strong drink of words, +such as they themselves use, to empty bellies; and +that wine breeds drunkenness of soul. The distressful +persons stand all day long at the door of the drink-places +to the number of very many thousands. The +well-wishing people of small discernment give them +words or pitifully attempt in schools to turn them into +craftsmen, weavers, or builders, of whom there be more +than enough. Yet they have not the wisdom to look +at the hands of the taught, whereon a man’s craft and +that of his father is written by God and Necessity. +They believe that the son of a drunkard shall drive a +straight chisel and the charioteer do plaster-work. +They take no thought in the dispensation of generosity, +which is as the closed fingers of a water-scooping palm. +Therefore the rough timber of a very great army drifts +unhewn through the slime of their streets. If the +Government, which is to-day and to-morrow changes, +spent on these hopeless ones some money to clothe and +equip, I should not write what I write. But these +people despise the trade of arms, and rest content with +the memory of old battles; the women and the +talking men aiding them.</p> + +<p>Thou wilt say: ‘Why speak continually of women +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</span>and fools?’ I answer by God, the Fashioner of the +Heart, the fools sit among the six hundred, and the +women sway their councils. Hast thou forgotten when +the order came across the seas that rotted out the +armies of the English with us, so that soldiers fell sick +by the hundred where but ten had sickened before? +That was the work of not more than twenty of the +men and some fifty of the barren women. I have seen +three or four of them, male and female, and they +triumph openly, in the name of their God, because +three regiments of the white troops are not. This is to +our advantage; because the sword with the rust-spot +breaks over the turban of the enemy. But if they thus +tear their own flesh and blood ere their madness be risen +to its height, what will they do when the moon is full?</p> + +<p>Seeing that power lay in the hands of the six +hundred, and not in the Viceroy or elsewhere, I have +throughout my stay sought the shadow of those among +them who talk most and most extravagantly. They +lead the common folk, and receive permission from +their good will. It is the desire of some of these men—indeed, +of almost as many as caused the rotting of +the English army—that our lands and peoples should +accurately resemble those of the English upon this very +day. May God, the Contemner of Folly, forbid! I +myself am accounted a show among them, and of us +and ours they know naught, some calling me Hindu +and others Rajput, and using towards me, in ignorance, +slave-talk and expressions of great disrespect. Some +of them are well-born, but the greater part are low-born, +coarse-skinned, waving their arms, high-voiced, +without dignity, slack in the mouth, shifty-eyed, and, +as I have said, swayed by the wind of a woman’s cloak.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</span></p> + +<p>Now this is a tale but two days old. There was +a company at meat, and a high-voiced woman spoke +to me, in the face of the men, of the affairs of our +womankind. It was her ignorance that made +each word an edged insult. Remembering this I +held my peace till she had spoken a new law as to +the control of our zenanas, and all who are behind +the curtains.</p> + +<p>Then I—‘Hast thou ever felt the life stir under +thy heart or laid a little son between thy breasts, O +most unhappy?’ Thereto she hotly, with a haggard +eye—‘No, for I am a free woman, and no servant of +babes.’ Then I softly—‘God deal lightly with thee, +my sister, for thou art in heavier bondage than any +slave, and the fuller half of the earth is hidden from +thee. The first ten years of the life of a man are his +mother’s, and from the dusk to the dawn surely the +wife may command the husband. Is it a great thing +to stand back in the waking hours while the men go +abroad unhampered by thy hands on the bridle-rein?’ +Then she wondered that a heathen should speak thus: +yet she is a woman honoured among these men, and +openly professes that she hath no profession of faith in +her mouth. Read this in the ear of the Rao Sahib, +and demand how it would fare with me if I brought +such a woman for his use. It were worse than that +yellow desert-bred girl from Cutch, who set the girls to +fighting for her own pleasure, and slippered the young +prince across the mouth. Rememberest thou?</p> + +<p>In truth the fountain-head of power is putrid with +long standing still. These men and women would +make of all India a dung-cake, and would fain leave +the mark of the fingers upon it. And they have +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</span>power and the control of the revenues, and that is +why I am so particular in description. <i>They have +power over all India.</i> Of what they speak they understand +nothing, for the low-born’s soul is bounded by +his field, and he grasps not the connection of affairs +from pole to pole. They boast openly that the Viceroy +and the others are their servants. When the masters +are mad, what shall the servants do?</p> + +<p>Some hold that all war is sin, and Death the +greatest fear under God. Others declare with the +Prophet that it is evil to drink, to which teaching +their streets bear evident witness; and others there are, +specially the low-born, who aver that all dominion is +wicked and sovereignty of the sword accursed. These +protested to me, making, as it were, an excuse that +their kin should hold Hindustan, and hoping that upon +a day they will depart. Knowing well the breed +of white man in our borders I would have laughed, +but forbore, remembering that these speakers had power +in the counting of heads. Yet others cry aloud against +the taxation of Hindustan under the Sahibs’ rule. To +this I assent, remembering the yearly mercy of the +Rao Sahib when the turbans of the troopers come +through the blighted corn, and the women’s anklets go +into the melting-pot. But I am no good speaker. +<i>That</i> is the duty of the boys from Bengal—hill asses +with an eastern bray—Mahrattas from Poona, and the +like. These, moving among fools, represent themselves +as the sons of some one, being beggar-taught, offspring +of grain-dealers, curriers, sellers of bottles, and money-lenders, +as thou knowest. Now, we of Jagesur owe +naught save friendship to the English who took us by +the sword, and having taken us let us go, assuring the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</span>Rao Sahib’s succession for all time. But <i>these</i> base-born, +having won their learning through the mercy of +the Government, attired in English clothes, forswearing +the faith of their fathers for gain, spread rumour and +debate against the Government, and are, therefore, very +dear to certain of the six hundred. I have heard these +cattle speak as princes and rulers of men, and I have +laughed; but not altogether.</p> + +<p>Once it happened that a son of some grain-bag sat +with me at meat, who was arrayed and speaking after +the manner of the English. At each mouthful he +committed perjury against the Salt that he had eaten; +the men and women applauding. When, craftily +falsifying, he had magnified oppression and invented +untold wrong, together with the desecration of his tun-bellied +gods, he demanded in the name of his people +the government of all our land, and turning, laid +palm to my shoulder, saying—‘Here is one who is +with us, albeit he professes another faith; he will bear +out my words.’ This he delivered in English, and, as +it were, exhibited me to that company. Preserving a +smiling countenance, I answered in our own tongue—‘Take +away that hand, man without a father, or the +folly of these folk shall not save thee, nor my silence +guard thy reputation. Sit off, herd.’ And in their +speech I said—‘He speaks truth. When the favour +and wisdom of the English allows us yet a little larger +share in the burden and the reward, the Mussalman will +deal with the Hindu.’ He alone saw what was in +my heart. I was merciful towards him because he +was accomplishing our desires; but remember that his +father is one Durga Charan Laha, in Calcutta. Lay +thy hand upon <i>his</i> shoulder if ever chance sends. It +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</span>is not good that bottle-dealers and auctioneers should +paw the sons of princes. I walk abroad sometimes +with the man that all this world may know the Hindu +and Mussalman are one, but when we come to the +unfrequented streets I bid him walk behind me and +that is sufficient honour.</p> + +<p>And why did I eat dirt?</p> + +<p>Thus, my brother, it seems to my heart, which has +almost burst in the consideration of these matters. +The Bengalis and the beggar-taught boys know well +that the Sahibs’ power to govern comes neither from +the Viceroy nor the head of the army, but from the +hands of the six hundred in this town, and peculiarly +those who talk most. They will therefore yearly address +themselves more and more to that protection, +and working on the green-sickness of the land, as has +ever been their custom, will in time cause, through the +perpetually-instigated interference of the six hundred, +the hand of the Indian Government to become inoperative, +so that no measure nor order may be carried +through without clamour and argument on their part; +for that is the delight of the English at this hour. +Have I overset the bounds of possibility? No. Even +thou must have heard that one of the six hundred, +having neither knowledge, fear, nor reverence before his +eyes, has made in sport a new and a written scheme for +the government of Bengal, and openly shows it abroad +as a king might read his crowning proclamation. And +this man, meddling in affairs of State, speaks in the +council for an assemblage of leather-dressers, makers +of boots and harness, and openly glories in that he has +no God. Has either minister of the Empress, Empress, +Viceroy, or any other raised a voice against this +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</span>leather-man? Is not his power therefore to be +sought, and that of his like-thinkers with it? Thou +seest.</p> + +<p>The telegraph is the servant of the six hundred, +and all the Sahibs in India, omitting not one, are the +servants of the telegraph. Yearly, too, thou knowest, +the beggar-taught will hold that which they call their +Congress, first at one place and then at another, +leavening Hindustan with rumour, echoing the talk +among the low-born people here, and demanding that +they, like the six hundred, control the revenues. And +they will bring every point and letter over the heads +of the Governors and the Lieutenant-Governors, and +whoever hold authority, and cast it clamorously at the +feet of the six hundred here; and certain of those +word-confounders and the barren women will assent to +their demands, and others will weary of disagreement. +Thus fresh confusion will be thrown into the councils +of the Empress even as the island near by is helped +and comforted into the smothered war of which I have +written. Then yearly, as they have begun and we +have seen, the low-born men of the six hundred +anxious for honour will embark for our land, and, +staying a little while, will gather round them and +fawn before the beggar-taught, and these departing +from their side will assuredly inform the peasants, and +the fighting men for whom there is no employ, that +there is a change toward and a coming of help from +over the seas. That rumour will not grow smaller in +the spreading. And, most of all, the Congress, when +it is not under the eye of the six hundred—who, +though they foment dissension and death, pretend +great reverence for the law which is no law—will, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</span>stepping aside, deliver uneasy words to the peasants, +speaking, as it has done already, of the remission of +taxation, and promising a new rule. That is to our +advantage, but the flower of danger is in the seed of it. +Thou knowest what evil a rumour may do; though in +the Black Year when thou and I were young our +standing to the English brought gain to Jagesur and +enlarged our borders, for the Government gave us land +on both sides. Of the Congress itself nothing is to be +feared that ten troopers could not remove; but if its +words too soon perturb the minds of those waiting or +<i>of princes in idleness</i>, a flame may come before the +time, and since there are now many white hands to +quench it, all will return to the former condition. If +the flame be kept under we need have no fear, because, +sweating and panting, the one trampling on the other, +the white people here are digging their own graves. +The hand of the Viceroy will be tied, the hearts of the +Sahibs will be downcast, and all eyes will turn to +England disregarding any orders. Meantime, keeping +tally on the sword-hilt against the hour when the +score must be made smooth by the blade, it is well for +us to assist and greatly befriend the Bengali that he +may get control of the revenues and the posts. We +must even write to England that we be of one blood +with the school-men. It is not long to wait; by my +head it is not long! This people are like the great +king Ferisht, who, eaten with the scabs of long idleness, +plucked off his crown and danced naked among the +dung-hills. But I have not forgotten the profitable +end of that tale. The vizier set him upon a horse and +led him into battle. Presently his health returned, +and he caused to be engraven on the crown:—</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</span></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘Though I was cast away by the king</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Yet, through God, I returned and he added to my brilliance</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Two great rubies (Balkh and Iran).’</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>If this people be purged and bled out by battle, +their sickness may go and their eyes be cleared to the +necessities of things. But they are now far gone in +rottenness. Even the stallion, too long heel-roped, +forgets how to fight: and these men are mules. I +do not lie when I say that unless they are bled and +taught with the whip, they will hear and obey all +that is said by the Congress and the black men here, +hoping to turn our land into their own orderless +Jehannum. For the men of the six hundred, being +chiefly low-born and unused to authority, desire much +to exercise rule, extending their arms to the sun and +moon, and shouting very greatly in order to hear the +echo of their voices, each one saying some new strange +thing and parting the goods and honour of others among +the rapacious, that he may obtain the favour of the +common folk. And all this is to our advantage.</p> + +<p>Therefore write, that they may read, of gratitude +and of love and the law. I myself, when I return, +will show how the dish should be dressed to take the +taste here; for it is here that we must come. Cause +to be established in Jagesur a newspaper, and fill it +with translations of their papers. A beggar-taught +may be brought from Calcutta for thirty rupees a +month, and if he writes in Gurmukhi our people cannot +read. Create, further, councils other than the +panchayats of headmen, village by village and district +by district, instructing them beforehand what to say +according to the order of the Rao. Print all these +things in a book in English, and send it to this place, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</span>and to every man of the six hundred. Bid the beggar-taught +write in front of all that Jagesur follows fast +on the English plan. If thou squeezest the Hindu +shrine at Theegkot, and it is ripe, remit the head-tax, +and perhaps the marriage-tax, with great publicity. +But above all things keep the troops ready, and in +good pay, even though we glean the stubble with the +wheat and stint the Rao Sahib’s women. All must +go softly. Protest thou thy love for the voice of the +common people in all things, and affect to despise the +troops. That shall be taken for a witness in this +land. The headship of the troops must be mine. +See that Bahadur Shah’s wits go wandering over the +wine, but do not send him to God. I am an old man, +but I may yet live to lead.</p> + +<p>If this people be not bled out and regain strength, +we, watching how the tide runs, when we see that the +shadow of their hand is all but lifted from Hindustan, +must bid the Bengali demand the removal of the +residue or set going an uneasiness to that end. We +must have a care neither to hurt the life of the Englishmen +nor the honour of their women, for in that case +six times the six hundred here could not hold those +who remain from making the land swim. We must +care that they are not mobbed by the Bengalis, but +honourably escorted, while the land is held down with +the threat of the sword if a hair of their heads fall. +Thus we shall gain a good name, and when rebellion +is unaccompanied by bloodshed, as has lately befallen +in a far country, the English, disregarding honour, call +it by a new name: even one who has been a minister +of the Empress, but is now at war against the law, +praises it openly before the common folk. So greatly +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</span>are they changed since the days of Nikhal Seyn!⁠<a id="FNanchor_2_2" href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> +And then, if all go well and the Sahibs, who through +continual checking and browbeating will have grown +sick at heart, see themselves abandoned by their kin—for +this people have allowed their greatest to die on +dry sand through delay and fear of expense—we may +go forward. This people are swayed by names. A +new name therefore must be given to the rule of +Hindustan (and that the Bengalis may settle among +themselves), and there will be many writings and oaths +of love, such as the little island over seas makes when +it would fight more bitterly; and after that the residue +are diminished the hour comes, and we must strike so +that the sword is never any more questioned.</p> + +<p>By the favour of God and the conservation of the +Sahibs these many years, Hindustan contains very +much plunder, which we can in no way eat hurriedly. +There will be to our hand the scaffolding of the house +of state, for the Bengali shall continue to do our work, +and must account to us for the revenue, and learn his +seat in the order of things. Whether the Hindu +kings of the west will break in to share that spoil +before we have swept it altogether, thou knowest +better than I; but be certain that, then, strong hands +will seek their own thrones, and it may be that the +days of the king of Delhi will return if we only, +curbing our desires, pay due obedience to the outward +appearances and the names. Thou rememberest the +old song:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘Hadst thou not called it Love, I had said it were a drawn sword,</div> + <div class="verse indent1">But since thou hast spoken, I believe and—I die.’</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</span></p> + +<p>It is in my heart that there will remain in our +land a few Sahibs undesirous of returning to England. +These we must cherish and protect, that by their skill +and cunning we may hold together and preserve unity +in time of war. The Hindu kings will never trust a +Sahib in the core of their counsels. I say again that +if we of the Faith confide in them, we shall trample +upon our enemies.</p> + +<p>Is all this a dream to thee, gray fox of my mother’s +bearing? I have written of what I have seen and +heard, but from the same clay two men will never +fashion platters alike, nor from the same facts draw +equal conclusions. Once more, there is a green-sickness +upon all the people of this country. They eat dirt +even now to stay their cravings. Honour and stability +have departed from their councils, and the knife of +dissension has brought down upon their heads the +flapping tent-flies of confusion. The Empress is old. +They speak disrespectfully of her and hers in the +street. They despise the sword, and believe that the +tongue and the pen sway all. The measure of their +ignorance and their soft belief is greater than the +measure of the wisdom of Solomon, the son of David. +All these things I have seen whom they regard as a +wild beast and a spectacle. By God the Enlightener +of Intelligence, if the Sahibs in India could breed sons +who lived so that their houses might be established, +I would almost fling my sword at the Viceroy’s feet, +saying: ‘Let us here fight for a kingdom together, +thine and mine, disregarding the babble across the +water. Write a letter to England, saying that we +love them but would depart from their camps and +make all clean under a new crown.’ But the Sahibs +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</span>die out at the third generation in our land, and it +may be that I dream dreams. Yet not altogether. +Until a white calamity of steel and bloodshed, the +bearing of burdens, the trembling for life, and the hot +rage of insult—<i>for pestilence would unman them if +eyes not unused to men see clear</i>—befall this people, +our path is safe. They are sick. The Fountain of +Power is a gutter which all may defile; and the +voices of the men are overborne by the squealings +of mules and the whinnying of barren mares. If +through adversity they become wise, then, my brother, +strike with and for them, and later, when thou and +I are dead, and the disease grows up again (the +young men bred in the school of fear and trembling +and word-confounding have yet to live out their +appointed span), those who have fought on the side +of the English may ask and receive what they choose. +At present seek quietly to confuse, and delay, and +evade, and make of no effect. In this business four +score of the six hundred are our true helpers.</p> + +<p>Now the pen, and the ink, and the hand weary +together, as thy eyes will weary in this reading. Be +it known to my house that I return soon, but do not +speak of the hour. Letters without name have come +to me touching my honour. The honour of my +house is thine. If they be, as I believe, the work of a +dismissed groom, Futteh Lal, that ran at the tail of +my wine-coloured Katthiawar stallion, his village is +beyond Manglôt; look to it that his tongue no longer +lengthens itself on the names of those who are mine. +If it be otherwise, put a guard upon my house till I +come, and especially see that no sellers of jewellery, +astrologers, or midwives have entrance to the women’s +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</span>rooms. We rise by our slaves, and by our slaves we +fall, as it was said. To all who are of my remembrance +I bring gifts according to their worth. +I have written twice of the gift that I would cause +to be given to Bahadur Shah.</p> + +<p>The blessing of God and his Prophet on thee and +thine till the end which is appointed. Give me felicity +by informing me of the state of thy health. My head +is at the Rao Sahib’s feet; my sword is at his left +side, a little above my heart. Follows my seal.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"> +<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_1_1" href="#FNanchor_1_1" class="label">[1]</a> Salvation Army.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_2_2" href="#FNanchor_2_2" class="label">[2]</a> Nicholson, a gentleman once of some notoriety in India.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_FINEST_STORY_IN_THE_WORLD"> + ‘THE FINEST STORY IN THE WORLD.’ + </h2> +</div> + + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘Or ever the knightly years were gone</div> + <div class="verse indent2">With the old world to the grave,</div> + <div class="verse indent1">I was a king in Babylon</div> + <div class="verse indent2">And you were a Christian slave.’</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="right"> + <span class="smcap">W. E. Henley.</span> +</p> + + +<p class="p2">His name was Charlie Mears; he was the only son of +his mother who was a widow, and he lived in the north +of London, coming into the City every day to work in +a bank. He was twenty years old and was full of +aspirations. I met him in a public billiard-saloon +where the marker called him by his first name, and he +called the marker ‘Bullseye.’ Charlie explained, a little +nervously, that he had only come to the place to look on, +and since looking on at games of skill is not a cheap +amusement for the young, I suggested that Charlie +should go back to his mother.</p> + +<p>That was our first step towards better acquaintance. +He would call on me sometimes in the evenings +instead of running about London with his fellow-clerks; +and before long, speaking of himself as a young +man must, he told me of his aspirations, which were +all literary. He desired to make himself an undying +name chiefly through verse, though he was not above +sending stories of love and death to the penny-in-the-slot +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</span>journals. It was my fate to sit still while +Charlie read me poems of many hundred lines, and +bulky fragments of plays that would surely shake the +world. My reward was his unreserved confidence, +and the self-revelations and troubles of a young man +are almost as holy as those of a maiden. Charlie had +never fallen in love, but was anxious to do so on the +first opportunity; he believed in all things good and +all things honourable, but at the same time, was curiously +careful to let me see that he knew his way about +the world as befitted a bank-clerk on twenty-five +shillings a week. He rhymed ‘dove’ with ‘love’ and +‘moon’ with ‘June,’ and devoutly believed that they +had never so been rhymed before. The long lame +gaps in his plays he filled up with hasty words of +apology and description and swept on, seeing all that +he intended to do so clearly that he esteemed it +already done, and turned to me for applause.</p> + +<p>I fancy that his mother did not encourage his +aspirations; and I know that his writing-table at home +was the edge of his washstand. This he told me almost +at the outset of our acquaintance—when he was +ravaging my bookshelves, and a little before I was +implored to speak the truth as to his chances of +‘writing something really great, you know.’ Maybe I +encouraged him too much, for, one night, he called +on me, his eyes flaming with excitement, and said +breathlessly:—</p> + +<p>‘Do you mind—can you let me stay here and write +all this evening? I won’t interrupt you, I won’t really. +There’s no place for me to write in at my mother’s.’</p> + +<p>‘What’s the trouble?’ I said, knowing well what +that trouble was.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</span></p> + +<p>‘I’ve a notion in my head that would make the most +splendid story that was ever written. Do let me write +it out here. It’s <i>such</i> a notion!’</p> + +<p>There was no resisting the appeal. I set him a table; +he hardly thanked me, but plunged into his work at +once. For half an hour the pen scratched without +stopping. Then Charlie sighed and tugged his hair. +The scratching grew slower, there were more erasures, +and at last ceased. The finest story in the world +would not come forth.</p> + +<p>‘It looks such awful rot now,’ he said mournfully. +‘And yet it seemed so good when I was thinking about +it. What’s wrong?’</p> + +<p>I could not dishearten him by saying the truth. +So I answered: ‘Perhaps you don’t feel in the mood +for writing.’</p> + +<p>‘Yes I do—except when I look at this stuff. Ugh!’</p> + +<p>‘Read me what you’ve done,’ I said.</p> + +<p>He read, and it was wondrous bad, and he paused +at all the specially turgid sentences, expecting a little +approval; for he was proud of those sentences, as I +knew he would be.</p> + +<p>‘It needs compression,’ I suggested cautiously.</p> + +<p>‘I hate cutting my things down. I don’t think you +could alter a word here without spoiling the sense. +It reads better aloud than when I was writing it.’</p> + +<p>‘Charlie, you’re suffering from an alarming disease +afflicting a numerous class. Put the thing by, and +tackle it again in a week.’</p> + +<p>‘I want to do it at once. What do you think of it?’</p> + +<p>‘How can I judge from a half-written tale? Tell +me the story as it lies in your head.’</p> + +<p>Charlie told, and in the telling there was everything +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</span>that his ignorance had so carefully prevented from +escaping into the written word. I looked at him, +wondering whether it were possible that he did not +know the originality, the power of the notion that had +come in his way? It was distinctly a Notion among +notions. Men had been puffed up with pride by ideas +not a tithe as excellent and practicable. But Charlie +babbled on serenely, interrupting the current of pure +fancy with samples of horrible sentences that he purposed +to use. I heard him out to the end. It would +be folly to allow his thought to remain in his own +inept hands, when I could do so much with it. Not +all that could be done indeed; but, oh so much!</p> + +<p>‘What do you think?’ he said at last. ‘I fancy +I shall call it “The Story of a Ship.”’</p> + +<p>‘I think the idea’s pretty good; but you won’t be +able to handle it for ever so long. Now I——’</p> + +<p>‘Would it be of any use to you? Would you +care to take it? I should be proud,’ said Charlie +promptly.</p> + +<p>There are few things sweeter in this world than +the guileless, hot-headed, intemperate, open admiration +of a junior. Even a woman in her blindest devotion +does not fall into the gait of the man she adores, tilt +her bonnet to the angle at which he wears his hat, or +interlard her speech with his pet oaths. And Charlie +did all these things. Still it was necessary to salve +my conscience before I possessed myself of Charlie’s +thoughts.</p> + +<p>‘Let’s make a bargain. I’ll give you a fiver for the +notion,’ I said.</p> + +<p>Charlie became a bank-clerk at once.</p> + +<p>‘Oh, that’s impossible. Between two pals, you +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</span>know, if I may call you so, and speaking as a man of +the world, I couldn’t. Take the notion if it’s any use +to you. I’ve heaps more.’</p> + +<p>He had—none knew this better than I—but they +were the notions of other men.</p> + +<p>‘Look at it as a matter of business—between men +of the world,’ I returned. ‘Five pounds will buy you +any number of poetry-books. Business is business, +and you may be sure I shouldn’t give that price +unless——’</p> + +<p>‘Oh, if you put it <i>that</i> way,’ said Charlie, visibly +moved by the thought of the books. The bargain was +clinched with an agreement that he should at unstated +intervals come to me with all the notions that he +possessed, should have a table of his own to write at, +and unquestioned right to inflict upon me all his +poems and fragments of poems. Then I said, ‘Now +tell me how you came by this idea.’</p> + +<p>‘It came by itself.’ Charlie’s eyes opened a little.</p> + +<p>‘Yes, but you told me a great deal about the hero +that you must have read before somewhere.’</p> + +<p>‘I haven’t any time for reading, except when you +let me sit here, and on Sundays I’m on my bicycle or +down the river all day. There’s nothing wrong about +the hero, is there?’</p> + +<p>‘Tell me again and I shall understand clearly. +You say that your hero went pirating. How did he +live?’</p> + +<p>‘He was on the lower deck of this ship-thing that +I was telling you about.’</p> + +<p>‘What sort of ship?’</p> + +<p>‘It was the kind rowed with oars, and the sea +spurts through the oar-holes and the men row sitting +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</span>up to their knees in water. Then there’s a bench +running down between the two lines of oars and an +overseer with a whip walks up and down the bench to +make the men work.’</p> + +<p>‘How do you know that?’</p> + +<p>‘It’s in the tale. There’s a rope running overhead, +looped to the upper deck, for the overseer to catch hold +of when the ship rolls. When the overseer misses +the rope once and falls among the rowers, remember +the hero laughs at him and gets licked for it. He’s +chained to his oar of course—the hero.’</p> + +<p>‘How is he chained?’</p> + +<p>‘With an iron band round his waist fixed to the +bench he sits on, and a sort of handcuff on his left +wrist chaining him to the oar. He’s on the lower +deck where the worst men are sent, and the only light +comes from the hatchways and through the oar-holes. +Can’t you imagine the sunlight just squeezing through +between the handle and the hole and wobbling about +as the ship moves?’</p> + +<p>‘I can, but I can’t imagine your imagining it.’</p> + +<p>‘How could it be any other way? Now you listen +to me. The long oars on the upper deck are managed +by four men to each bench, the lower ones by three, +and the lowest of all by two. Remember it’s quite +dark on the lowest deck and all the men there go +mad. When a man dies at his oar on that deck he +isn’t thrown overboard, but cut up in his chains and +stuffed through the oar-hole in little pieces.’</p> + +<p>‘Why?’ I demanded amazed, not so much at the +information as the tone of command in which it was +flung out.</p> + +<p>‘To save trouble and to frighten the others. It +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</span>needs two overseers to drag a man’s body up to the +top deck; and if the men at the lower deck oars were +left alone, of course they’d stop rowing and try to pull +up the benches by all standing up together in their +chains.’</p> + +<p>‘You’ve a most provident imagination. Where +have you been reading about galleys and galley-slaves?’</p> + +<p>‘Nowhere that I remember. I row a little when +I get the chance. But, perhaps, if you say so, I may +have read something.’</p> + +<p>He went away shortly afterwards to deal with +booksellers, and I wondered how a bank-clerk aged +twenty could put into my hands with a profligate +abundance of detail, all given with absolute assurance, +the story of extravagant and bloodthirsty adventure, +riot, piracy, and death in unnamed seas. He had led +his hero a desperate dance through revolt against the +overseers, to command of a ship of his own, and at +last to the establishment of a kingdom on an island +‘somewhere in the sea, you know;’ and, delighted +with my paltry five pounds, had gone out to buy the +notions of other men, that these might teach him how +to write. I had the consolation of knowing that this +notion was mine by right of purchase, and I thought +that I could make something of it.</p> + +<p>When next he came to me he was drunk—royally +drunk on many poets for the first time revealed to him. +His pupils were dilated, his words tumbled over each +other, and he wrapped himself in quotations—as a +beggar would enfold himself in the purple of Emperors. +Most of all was he drunk with Longfellow.</p> + +<p>‘Isn’t it splendid? Isn’t it superb?’ he cried, +after hasty greetings. ‘Listen to this—</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</span></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘“Wouldst thou,”—so the helmsman answered,</div> + <div class="verse indent3">“Know the secret of the sea?</div> + <div class="verse indent1">Only those who brave its dangers</div> + <div class="verse indent3">Comprehend its mystery.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>By gum!</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘“Only those who brave its dangers</div> + <div class="verse indent3">Comprehend its mystery,”’</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>he repeated twenty times, walking up and down the +room and forgetting me. ‘But <i>I</i> can understand it +too,’ he said to himself. ‘I don’t know how to thank +you for that fiver. And this; listen—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘“I remember the black wharves and the slips</div> + <div class="verse indent4">And the sea-tides tossing free;</div> + <div class="verse indent2">And the Spanish sailors with bearded lips,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">And the beauty and mystery of the ships,</div> + <div class="verse indent4">And the magic of the sea.”’</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>I haven’t braved any dangers, but I feel as if I knew +all about it.’</p> + +<p>‘You certainly seem to have a grip of the sea. +Have you ever seen it?’</p> + +<p>‘When I was a little chap I went to Brighton once; +we used to live in Coventry, though, before we came +to London. I never saw it,</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘“When descends on the Atlantic</div> + <div class="verse indent8">The gigantic</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Storm-wind of the Equinox.”’</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>He shook me by the shoulder to make me understand +the passion that was shaking himself.</p> + +<p>‘When that storm comes,’ he continued, ‘I think +that all the oars in the ship that I was talking about +get broken, and the rowers have their chests smashed +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</span>in by the oar-heads bucking. By the way, have you +done anything with that notion of mine yet?’</p> + +<p>‘No. I was waiting to hear more of it from you. +Tell me how in the world you’re so certain about the +fittings of the ship. You know nothing of ships.’</p> + +<p>‘I don’t know. It’s as real as anything to me +until I try to write it down. I was thinking about +it only last night in bed, after you had lent me +<i>Treasure Island</i>; and I made up a whole lot of new +things to go into the story.’</p> + +<p>‘What sort of things?’</p> + +<p>‘About the food the men ate; rotten figs and black +beans and wine in a skin bag, passed from bench to +bench.’</p> + +<p>‘Was the ship built so long ago as <i>that</i>?’</p> + +<p>‘As what? I don’t know whether it was long ago +or not. It’s only a notion, but sometimes it seems +just as real as if it was true. Do I bother you with +talking about it?’</p> + +<p>‘Not in the least. Did you make up anything +else?’</p> + +<p>‘Yes, but it’s nonsense.’ Charlie flushed a little.</p> + +<p>‘Never mind; let’s hear about it.’</p> + +<p>‘Well, I was thinking over the story, and after +awhile I got out of bed and wrote down on a piece of +paper the sort of stuff the men might be supposed to +scratch on their oars with the edges of their handcuffs. +It seemed to make the thing more life-like. It <i>is</i> so +real to me, y’know.’</p> + +<p>‘Have you the paper on you?’</p> + +<p>‘Ye—es, but what’s the use of showing it? It’s +only a lot of scratches. All the same, we might have +’em reproduced in the book on the front page.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</span></p> + +<p>‘I’ll attend to those details. Show me what your +men wrote.’</p> + +<p>He pulled out of his pocket a sheet of notepaper, +with a single line of scratches upon it, and I put this +carefully away.</p> + +<p>‘What is it supposed to mean in English?’ I said.</p> + +<p>‘Oh, I don’t know. I mean it to mean “I’m +beastly tired.” It’s great nonsense,’ he repeated, ‘but +all those men in the ship seem as real as real people +to me. Do do something to the notion soon; I should +like to see it written and printed.’</p> + +<p>‘But all you’ve told me would make a long book.’</p> + +<p>‘Make it then. You’ve only to sit down and +write it out.’</p> + +<p>‘Give me a little time. Have you any more +notions?’</p> + +<p>‘Not just now. I’m reading all the books I’ve +bought. They’re splendid.’</p> + +<p>When he had left I looked at the sheet of notepaper +with the inscription upon it. Then I took my +head tenderly between both hands, to make certain +that it was not coming off or turning round. Then +... but there seemed to be no interval between +quitting my rooms and finding myself arguing with a +policeman outside a door marked <i>Private</i> in a corridor +of the British Museum. All I demanded, as politely +as possible, was ‘the Greek antiquity man.’ The +policeman knew nothing except the rules of the +Museum, and it became necessary to forage through +all the houses and offices inside the gates. An elderly +gentleman called away from his lunch put an end to +my search by holding the notepaper between finger +and thumb and sniffing at it scornfully.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</span></p> + +<p>‘What does this mean? H’mm,’ said he. ‘So far +as I can ascertain it is an attempt to write extremely +corrupt Greek on the part’—here he glared at me +with intention—‘of an extremely illiterate—ah—person.’ +He read slowly from the paper, ‘<i>Pollock</i>, +<i>Erckmann</i>, <i>Tauchnitz</i>, <i>Henniker</i>’—four names familiar +to me.</p> + +<p>‘Can you tell me what the corruption is supposed +to mean—the gist of the thing?’ I asked.</p> + +<p>‘I have been—many times—overcome with weariness +in this particular employment. That is the +meaning.’ He returned me the paper, and I fled +without a word of thanks, explanation, or apology.</p> + +<p>I might have been excused for forgetting much. +To me of all men had been given the chance to write +the most marvellous tale in the world, nothing less +than the story of a Greek galley-slave, as told by +himself. Small wonder that his dreaming had seemed +real to Charlie. The Fates that are so careful to shut +the doors of each successive life behind us had, in this +case, been neglectful, and Charlie was looking, though +that he did not know, where never man had been +permitted to look with full knowledge since Time +began. Above all, he was absolutely ignorant of the +knowledge sold to me for five pounds; and he would +retain that ignorance, for bank-clerks do not understand +metempsychosis, and a sound commercial +education does not include Greek. He would supply +me—here I capered among the dumb gods of Egypt +and laughed in their battered faces—with material to +make my tale sure—so sure that the world would hail +it as an impudent and vamped fiction. And I—I +alone would know that it was absolutely and literally +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</span>true. I—I alone held this jewel to my hand for the +cutting and polishing! Therefore I danced again +among the gods of the Egyptian court till a policeman +saw me and took steps in my direction.</p> + +<p>It remained now only to encourage Charlie to talk, +and here there was no difficulty. But I had forgotten +those accursed books of poetry. He came to me time +after time, as useless as a surcharged phonograph—drunk +on Byron, Shelley, or Keats. Knowing now what the +boy had been in his past lives, and desperately anxious +not to lose one word of his babble, I could not hide +from him my respect and interest. He misconstrued +both into respect for the present soul of Charlie Mears, +to whom life was as new as it was to Adam, and +interest in his readings; and stretched my patience +to breaking point by reciting poetry—not his own +now, but that of others. I wished every English poet +blotted out of the memory of mankind. I blasphemed +the mightiest names of song because they had drawn +Charlie from the path of direct narrative, and would, +later, spur him to imitate them; but I choked down +my impatience until the first flood of enthusiasm should +have spent itself and the boy returned to his dreams.</p> + +<p>‘What’s the use of my telling you what <i>I</i> think, when +these chaps wrote things for the angels to read?’ he +growled, one evening. ‘Why don’t you write something +like theirs?’</p> + +<p>‘I don’t think you’re treating me quite fairly,’ I +said, speaking under strong restraint.</p> + +<p>‘I’ve given you the story,’ he said shortly, replunging +into ‘Lara.’</p> + +<p>‘But I want the details.’</p> + +<p>‘The things I make up about that damned ship +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</span>that you call a galley? They’re quite easy. You +can just make ’em up for yourself. Turn up the gas +a little, I want to go on reading.’</p> + +<p>I could have broken the gas globe over his head +for his amazing stupidity. I could indeed make up +things for myself did I only know what Charlie did +not know that he knew. But since the doors were +shut behind me I could only wait his youthful pleasure +and strive to keep him in good temper. One minute’s +want of guard might spoil a priceless revelation: now +and again he would toss his books aside—he kept +them in my rooms, for his mother would have been +shocked at the waste of good money had she seen +them—and launched into his sea-dreams. Again I +cursed all the poets of England. The plastic mind of +the bank-clerk had been overlaid, coloured, and distorted +by that which he had read, and the result as +delivered was a confused tangle of other voices most +like the mutter and hum through a City telephone in +the busiest part of the day.</p> + +<p>He talked of the galley—his own galley had he +but known it—with illustrations borrowed from the +‘Bride of Abydos.’ He pointed the experiences of +his hero with quotations from ‘The Corsair,’ and threw +in deep and desperate moral reflections from ‘Cain’ +and ‘Manfred,’ expecting me to use them all. Only +when the talk turned on Longfellow were the jarring +cross-currents dumb, and I knew that Charlie was +speaking the truth as he remembered it.</p> + +<p>‘What do you think of this?’ I said one evening, +as soon as I understood the medium in which his +memory worked best, and, before he could expostulate, +read him nearly the whole of ‘The Saga of King Olaf!’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</span></p> + +<p>He listened open-mouthed, flushed, his hands drumming +on the back of the sofa where he lay, till I came +to the Song of Einar Tamberskelver and the verse:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘Einar then, the arrow taking</div> + <div class="verse indent3">From the loosened string,</div> + <div class="verse indent1">Answered, “That was Norway breaking</div> + <div class="verse indent2">’Neath thy hand, O King.”’</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>He gasped with pure delight of sound.</p> + +<p>‘That’s better than Byron, a little?’ I ventured.</p> + +<p>‘Better! Why it’s <i>true</i>! How could he have +known?’</p> + +<p>I went back and repeated:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘“What was that?” said Olaf, standing</div> + <div class="verse indent3">On the quarter-deck,</div> + <div class="verse indent1">“Something heard I like the stranding</div> + <div class="verse indent3">Of a shattered wreck.”’</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>‘How could he have known how the ships crash +and the oars rip out and go <i>z-zzp</i> all along the line? +Why only the other night.... But go back please +and read “The Skerry of Shrieks” again.’</p> + +<p>‘No, I’m tired. Let’s talk. What happened the +other night?’</p> + +<p>‘I had an awful dream about that galley of ours. +I dreamed I was drowned in a fight. You see we ran +alongside another ship in harbour. The water was +dead still except where our oars whipped it up. You +know where I always sit in the galley?’ He spoke +haltingly at first, under a fine English fear of being +laughed at.</p> + +<p>‘No. That’s news to me,’ I answered meekly, my +heart beginning to beat.</p> + +<p>‘On the fourth oar from the bow on the right side +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</span>on the upper deck. There were four of us at that oar, +all chained. I remember watching the water and +trying to get my handcuffs off before the row began. +Then we closed up on the other ship, and all their +fighting men jumped over our bulwarks, and my bench +broke and I was pinned down with the three other +fellows on top of me, and the big oar jammed across +our backs.’</p> + +<p>‘Well?’ Charlie’s eyes were alive and alight. He +was looking at the wall behind my chair.</p> + +<p>‘I don’t know how we fought. The men were +trampling all over my back, and I lay low. Then our +rowers on the left side—tied to their oars, you know—began +to yell and back water. I could hear the +water sizzle, and we spun round like a cockchafer and +I knew, lying where I was, that there was a galley +coming up bow-on, to ram us on the left side. I could +just lift up my head and see her sail over the bulwarks. +We wanted to meet her bow to bow, but it was too +late. We could only turn a little bit because the +galley on our right had hooked herself on to us and +stopped our moving. Then, by gum! there was a +crash! Our left oars began to break as the other +galley, the moving one y’know, stuck her nose into +them. Then the lower-deck oars shot up through the +deck planking, butt first, and one of them jumped clear +up into the air and came down again close at my +head.’</p> + +<p>‘How was that managed?’</p> + +<p>‘The moving galley’s bow was plunking them back +through their own oar-holes, and I could hear no end +of a shindy in the decks below. Then her nose caught +us nearly in the middle, and we tilted sideways, and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</span>the fellows in the right-hand galley unhitched their +hooks and ropes, and threw things on to our +upper deck—arrows, and hot pitch or something that +stung, and we went up and up and up on the left side, +and the right side dipped, and I twisted my head +round and saw the water stand still as it topped the +right bulwarks, and then it curled over and crashed +down on the whole lot of us on the right side, and I +felt it hit my back, and I woke.’</p> + +<p>‘One minute, Charlie. When the sea topped the +bulwarks, what did it look like?’ I had my reasons +for asking. A man of my acquaintance had once gone +down with a leaking ship in a still sea, and had seen +the water-level pause for an instant ere it fell on the +deck.</p> + +<p>‘It looked just like a banjo-string drawn tight, and +it seemed to stay there for years,’ said Charlie.</p> + +<p>Exactly! The other man had said: ‘It looked like a +silver wire laid down along the bulwarks, and I thought +it was never going to break.’ He had paid everything +except the bare life for this little valueless piece of +knowledge, and I had travelled ten thousand weary +miles to meet him and take his knowledge at second +hand. But Charlie, the bank-clerk on twenty-five +shillings a week, who had never been out of sight of a +made road, knew it all. It was no consolation to me +that once in his lives he had been forced to die for his +gains. I also must have died scores of times, but +behind me, because I could have used my knowledge, +the doors were shut.</p> + +<p>‘And then?’ I said, trying to put away the devil +of envy.</p> + +<p>‘The funny thing was, though, in all the row I +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</span>didn’t feel a bit astonished or frightened. It seemed +as if I’d been in a good many fights, because I told my +next man so when the row began. But that cad of an +overseer on my deck wouldn’t unloose our chains and +give us a chance. He always said that we’d all be set +free after a battle, but we never were; we never +were.’ Charlie shook his head mournfully.</p> + +<p>‘What a scoundrel!’</p> + +<p>‘I should say he was. He never gave us enough +to eat, and sometimes we were so thirsty that we used +to drink salt-water. I can taste that salt-water still.’</p> + +<p>‘Now tell me something about the harbour where +the fight was fought.’</p> + +<p>‘I didn’t dream about that. I know it was a +harbour, though; because we were tied up to a ring on +a white wall and all the face of the stone under water +was covered with wood to prevent our ram getting +chipped when the tide made us rock.’</p> + +<p>‘That’s curious. Our hero commanded the galley, +didn’t he?’</p> + +<p>‘Didn’t he just! He stood by the bows and +shouted like a good ’un. He was the man who killed +the overseer.’</p> + +<p>‘But you were all drowned together, Charlie, +weren’t you?’</p> + +<p>‘I can’t make that fit quite,’ he said, with a puzzled +look. ‘The galley must have gone down with all +hands, and yet I fancy that the hero went on living +afterwards. Perhaps he climbed into the attacking +ship. I wouldn’t see that, of course. I was dead, you +know.’</p> + +<p>He shivered slightly and protested that he could +remember no more.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</span></p> + +<p>I did not press him further, but to satisfy myself +that he lay in ignorance of the workings of his own +mind, deliberately introduced him to Mortimer Collins’s +<i>Transmigration</i>, and gave him a sketch of the plot +before he opened the pages.</p> + +<p>‘What rot it all is!’ he said frankly, at the end of +an hour. ‘I don’t understand his nonsense about the +Red Planet Mars and the King, and the rest of it. +Chuck me the Longfellow again.’</p> + +<p>I handed him the book and wrote out as much as +I could remember of his description of the sea-fight, +appealing to him from time to time for confirmation of +fact or detail. He would answer without raising his +eyes from the book, as assuredly as though all his +knowledge lay before him on the printed page. I +spoke under the normal key of my voice that the +current might not be broken, and I knew that he was +not aware of what he was saying, for his thoughts +were out on the sea with Longfellow.</p> + +<p>‘Charlie,’ I asked, ‘when the rowers on the galleys +mutinied how did they kill their overseers?’</p> + +<p>‘Tore up the benches and brained ’em. That +happened when a heavy sea was running. An overseer +on the lower deck slipped from the centre plank +and fell among the rowers. They choked him to death +against the side of the ship with their chained hands +quite quietly, and it was too dark for the other overseer +to see what had happened. When he asked, he +was pulled down too and choked, and the lower deck +fought their way up deck by deck, with the pieces of +the broken benches banging behind ’em. How they +howled!’</p> + +<p>‘And what happened after that?’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</span></p> + +<p>‘I don’t know. The hero went away—red hair and +red beard and all. That was after he had captured our +galley, I think.’</p> + +<p>The sound of my voice irritated him, and he +motioned slightly with his left hand as a man does +when interruption jars.</p> + +<p>‘You never told me he was red-headed before, or +that he captured your galley,’ I said, after a discreet +interval.</p> + +<p>Charlie did not raise his eyes.</p> + +<p>‘He was as red as a red bear,’ said he abstractedly. +‘He came from the north; they said so in the galley +when he looked for rowers—not slaves, but free men. +Afterwards—years and years afterwards—news came +from another ship, or else he came back——’</p> + +<p>His lips moved in silence. He was rapturously +retasting some poem before him.</p> + +<p>‘Where had he been, then?’ I was almost +whispering that the sentence might come gently to +whichever section of Charlie’s brain was working on +my behalf.</p> + +<p>‘To the Beaches—the Long and Wonderful +Beaches!’ was the reply after a minute of silence.</p> + +<p>‘To Furdurstrandi?’ I asked, tingling from head +to foot.</p> + +<p>‘Yes, to Furdurstrandi,’ he pronounced the word +in a new fashion. ‘And I too saw——’ The voice +failed.</p> + +<p>‘Do you know what you have said?’ I shouted +incautiously.</p> + +<p>He lifted his eyes, fully roused now. ‘No!’ he +snapped. ‘I wish you’d let a chap go on reading. +Hark to this:—</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</span></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘“But Othere, the old sea captain,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">He neither paused nor stirred</div> + <div class="verse indent4">Till the king listened, and then</div> + <div class="verse indent4">Once more took up his pen</div> + <div class="verse indent2">And wrote down every word.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘“And to the King of the Saxons</div> + <div class="verse indent2">In witness of the truth,</div> + <div class="verse indent4">Raising his noble head,</div> + <div class="verse indent4">He stretched his brown hand and said,</div> + <div class="verse indent1">‘Behold this walrus tooth.’”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>By Jove, what chaps those must have been, to go +sailing all over the shop never knowing where they’d +fetch the land! Hah!’</p> + +<p>‘Charlie,’ I pleaded, ‘if you’ll only be sensible for +a minute or two I’ll make our hero in our tale every +inch as good as Othere.’</p> + +<p>‘Umph! Longfellow wrote that poem. I don’t +care about writing things any more. I want to read.’ +He was thoroughly out of tune now, and raging over +my own ill-luck, I left him.</p> + +<p>Conceive yourself at the door of the world’s treasure-house +guarded by a child—an idle irresponsible child +playing knuckle-bones—on whose favour depends the +gift of the key, and you will imagine one-half my +torment. Till that evening Charlie had spoken nothing +that might not lie within the experiences of a Greek +galley-slave. But now, or there was no virtue in +books, he had talked of some desperate adventure of +the Vikings, of Thorfin Karlsefne’s sailing to Wineland, +which is America, in the ninth or tenth century. The +battle in the harbour he had seen; and his own death +he had described. But this was a much more startling +plunge into the past. Was it possible that he +had skipped half a dozen lives and was then dimly +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</span>remembering some episode of a thousand years later? +It was a maddening jumble, and the worst of it was +that Charlie Mears in his normal condition was the +last person in the world to clear it up. I could only +wait and watch, but I went to bed that night full of +the wildest imaginings. There was nothing that was not +possible if Charlie’s detestable memory only held good.</p> + +<p>I might rewrite the Saga of Thorfin Karlsefne as it +had never been written before, might tell the story of +the first discovery of America, myself the discoverer. +But I was entirely at Charlie’s mercy, and so long as +there was a three-and-sixpenny Bohn volume within +his reach Charlie would not tell. I dared not curse +him openly; I hardly dared jog his memory, for I was +dealing with the experiences of a thousand years ago, +told through the mouth of a boy of to-day; and a boy +of to-day is affected by every change of tone and gust +of opinion, so that he must lie even when he most +desires to speak the truth.</p> + +<p>I saw no more of Charlie for nearly a week. When +next I met him it was in Gracechurch Street with a +bill-book chained to his waist. Business took him +over London Bridge, and I accompanied him. He was +very full of the importance of that book and magnified +it. As we passed over the Thames we paused to look +at a steamer unloading great slabs of white and brown +marble. A barge drifted under the steamer’s stern +and a lonely ship’s cow in that barge bellowed. +Charlie’s face changed from the face of the bank-clerk +to that of an unknown and—though he would not +have believed this—a much shrewder man. He flung +out his arm across the parapet of the bridge and laughing +very loudly, said:—</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</span></p> + +<p>‘When they heard <i>our</i> bulls bellow the Skrœlings +ran away!’</p> + +<p>I waited only for an instant, but the barge and the +cow had disappeared under the bows of the steamer +before I answered.</p> + +<p>‘Charlie, what do you suppose are Skrœlings?’</p> + +<p>‘Never heard of ’em before. They sound like a +new kind of sea-gull. What a chap you are for asking +questions!’ he replied. ‘I have to go to the +cashier of the Omnibus Company yonder. Will you +wait for me and we can lunch somewhere together? +I’ve a notion for a poem.’</p> + +<p>‘No, thanks. I’m off. You’re sure you know +nothing about Skrœlings?’</p> + +<p>‘Not unless he’s been entered for the Liverpool +Handicap.’ He nodded and disappeared in the crowd.</p> + +<p>Now it is written in the Saga of Eric the Red or +that of Thorfin Karlsefne, that nine hundred years ago +when Karlsefne’s galleys came to Leif’s booths, which +Leif had erected in the unknown land called Markland, +which may or may not have been Rhode Island, the +Skrœlings—and the Lord He knows who these may +or may not have been—came to trade with the Vikings, +and ran away because they were frightened at the +bellowing of the cattle which Thorfin had brought +with him in the ships. But what in the world could +a Greek slave know of that affair? I wandered up and +down among the streets trying to unravel the mystery, +and the more I considered it, the more baffling it grew. +One thing only seemed certain, and that certainty took +away my breath for the moment. If I came to full +knowledge of anything at all, it would not be one +life of the soul in Charlie Mears’s body, but half a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</span>dozen—half a dozen several and separate existences +spent on blue water in the morning of the world!</p> + +<p>Then I reviewed the situation.</p> + +<p>Obviously if I used my knowledge I should stand +alone and unapproachable until all men were as wise +as myself. That would be something, but manlike +I was ungrateful. It seemed bitterly unfair that +Charlie’s memory should fail me when I needed it +most. Great Powers Above—I looked up at them +through the fog-smoke—did the Lords of Life and +Death know what this meant to me? Nothing less +than eternal fame of the best kind, that comes from +One, and is shared by one alone. I would be content—remembering +Clive, I stood astounded at my own +moderation—with the mere right to tell one story, to +work out one little contribution to the light literature +of the day. If Charlie were permitted full recollection +for one hour—for sixty short minutes—of existences +that had extended over a thousand years—I would +forego all profit and honour from all that I should +make of his speech. I would take no share in the +commotion that would follow throughout the particular +corner of the earth that calls itself ‘the world.’ The +thing should be put forth anonymously. Nay, I +would make other men believe that they had written +it. They would hire bull-hided self-advertising +Englishmen to bellow it abroad. Preachers would +found a fresh conduct of life upon it, swearing that +it was new and that they had lifted the fear of death +from all mankind. Every Orientalist in Europe would +patronise it discursively with Sanskrit and Pali texts. +Terrible women would invent unclean variants of the +men’s belief for the elevation of their sisters. Churches +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</span>and religions would war over it. Between the hailing +and re-starting of an omnibus I foresaw the scuffles +that would arise among half a dozen denominations all +professing ‘the doctrine of the True Metempsychosis +as applied to the world and the New Era’; and +saw, too, the respectable English newspapers shying, +like frightened kine, over the beautiful simplicity of +the tale. The mind leaped forward a hundred—two +hundred—a thousand years. I saw with sorrow that +men would mutilate and garble the story; that rival +creeds would turn it upside down till, at last, the +western world which clings to the dread of death more +closely than the hope of life, would set it aside as an +interesting superstition and stampede after some faith +so long forgotten that it seemed altogether new. Upon +this I changed the terms of the bargain that I would +make with the Lords of Life and Death. Only let +me know, let me write, the story with sure knowledge +that I wrote the truth, and I would burn the manuscript +as a solemn sacrifice. Five minutes after the +last line was written I would destroy it all. But I +must be allowed to write it with absolute certainty.</p> + +<p>There was no answer. The flaming colours of an +Aquarium poster caught my eye, and I wondered +whether it would be wise or prudent to lure Charlie +into the hands of the professional mesmerist then, +and whether, if he were under his power, he would +speak of his past lives. If he did, and if people +believed him ... but Charlie would be frightened +and flustered, or made conceited by the interviews. +In either case he would begin to lie, through fear or +vanity. He was safest in my own hands.</p> + +<p>‘They are very funny fools, your English,’ said a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</span>voice at my elbow, and turning round I recognised a +casual acquaintance, a young Bengali law student, +called Grish Chunder, whose father had sent him to +England to become civilised. The old man was a +retired native official, and on an income of five pounds +a month contrived to allow his son two hundred pounds +a year, and the run of his teeth in a city where he +could pretend to be the cadet of a royal house, and +tell stories of the brutal Indian bureaucrats who ground +the faces of the poor.</p> + +<p>Grish Chunder was a young, fat, full-bodied Bengali, +dressed with scrupulous care in frock coat, tall hat, +light trousers, and tan gloves. But I had known him +in the days when the brutal Indian Government paid +for his university education, and he contributed cheap +sedition to the <i>Sachi Durpan</i>, and intrigued with the +wives of his fourteen-year-old schoolmates.</p> + +<p>‘That is very funny and very foolish,’ he said, +nodding at the poster. ‘I am going down to the +Northbrook Club. Will you come too?’</p> + +<p>I walked with him for some time. ‘You are not +well,’ he said. ‘What is there on your mind? You +do not talk.’</p> + +<p>‘Grish Chunder, you’ve been too well educated to +believe in a God, haven’t you?’</p> + +<p>‘Oah, yes, <i>here</i>! But when I go home I must +conciliate popular superstition, and make ceremonies +of purification, and my women will anoint idols.’</p> + +<p>‘And hang up <i>tulsi</i> and feast the <i>purohit</i>, and take +you back into caste again and make a good <i>khuttri</i> of +you again, you advanced Freethinker. And you’ll +eat <i>desi</i> food, and like it all, from the smell in the +courtyard to the mustard oil over you.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</span></p> + +<p>‘I shall very much like it,’ said Grish Chunder +unguardedly. ‘Once a Hindu—always a Hindu. But +I like to know what the English think they know.’</p> + +<p>‘I’ll tell you something that one Englishman knows. +It’s an old tale to you.’</p> + +<p>I began to tell the story of Charlie in English, but +Grish Chunder put a question in the vernacular, and +the history went forward naturally in the tongue best +suited for its telling. After all, it could never have +been told in English. Grish Chunder heard me, +nodding from time to time, and then came up to my +rooms, where I finished the tale.</p> + +<p>‘<i>Beshak</i>,’ he said philosophically. ‘<i>Lekin darwaza +band hai</i>. (Without doubt; but the door is shut.) I +have heard of this remembering of previous existences +among my people. It is of course an old tale with us, +but, to happen to an Englishman—a cow-fed <i>Mlechh</i>—an +outcast. By Jove, that is <i>most</i> peculiar!’</p> + +<p>‘Outcast yourself, Grish Chunder! You eat cow-beef +every day. Let’s think the thing over. The boy +remembers his incarnations.’</p> + +<p>‘Does he know that?’ said Grish Chunder quietly, +swinging his legs as he sat on my table. He was +speaking in his English now.</p> + +<p>‘He does not know anything. Would I speak to +you if he did? Go on!’</p> + +<p>‘There is no going on at all. If you tell that to +your friends they will say you are mad and put it in +the papers. Suppose, now, you prosecute for libel.’</p> + +<p>‘Let’s leave that out of the question entirely. Is +there any chance of his being made to speak?’</p> + +<p>‘There is a chance. Oah, yess! But <i>if</i> he spoke +it would mean that all this world would end +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</span>now—<i>instanto</i>—fall down on your head. These things are +not allowed, you know. As I said, the door is shut.’</p> + +<p>‘Not a ghost of a chance?’</p> + +<p>‘How can there be? You are a Christi-án, and it is +forbidden to eat, in your books, of the Tree of Life, or +else you would never die. How shall you all fear +death if you all know what your friend does not know +that he knows? I am afraid to be kicked, but I am +not afraid to die, because I know what I know. You +are not afraid to be kicked, but you are afraid to die. +If you were not, by God! you English would be all +over the shop in an hour, upsetting the balances of +power, and making commotions. It would not be +good. But no fear. He will remember a little and a +little less, and he will call it dreams. Then he will +forget altogether. When I passed my First Arts +Examination in Calcutta that was all in the cram-book +on Wordsworth. “Trailing clouds of glory,” you +know.’</p> + +<p>‘This seems to be an exception to the rule.’</p> + +<p>‘There are no exceptions to rules. Some are not +so hard-looking as others, but they are all the same +when you touch. If this friend of yours said so-and-so +and so-and-so, indicating that he remembered all +his lost lives, or one piece of a lost life, he would not +be in the bank another hour. He would be what you +called sack because he was mad, and they would send +him to an asylum for lunatics. You can see that, my +friend.’</p> + +<p>‘Of course I can, but I wasn’t thinking of him. +His name need never appear in the story.’</p> + +<p>‘Ah! I see. That story will never be written. +You can try.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</span></p> + +<p>‘I am going to.’</p> + +<p>‘For your own credit and for the sake of money, +<i>of</i> course?’</p> + +<p>‘No. For the sake of writing the story. On my +honour that will be all.’</p> + +<p>‘Even then there is no chance. You cannot play +with the gods. It is a very pretty story now. As +they say, Let it go on that—I mean at that. Be +quick; he will not last long.’</p> + +<p>‘How do you mean?’</p> + +<p>‘What I say. He has never, so far, thought about +a woman.’</p> + +<p>‘Hasn’t he, though!’ I remembered some of +Charlie’s confidences.</p> + +<p>‘I mean no woman has thought about him. When +that comes; <i>bus</i>—<i>hogya</i>—all up! I know. There +are millions of women here. Housemaids, for instance. +They kiss you behind doors.’</p> + +<p>I winced at the thought of my story being ruined +by a housemaid. And yet nothing was more probable.</p> + +<p>Grish Chunder grinned.</p> + +<p>‘Yes—also pretty girls—cousins of his house, and +perhaps <i>not</i> of his house. One kiss that he gives +back again and remembers will cure all this nonsense, +or else——’</p> + +<p>‘Or else what? Remember he does not know that +he knows.’</p> + +<p>‘I know that. Or else, if nothing happens he will +become immersed in the trade and the financial +speculation like the rest. It must be so. You can +see that it must be so. But the woman will come +first, <i>I</i> think.’</p> + +<p>There was a rap at the door, and Charlie charged in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</span>impetuously. He had been released from office, and +by the look in his eyes I could see that he had come +over for a long talk; most probably with poems in his +pockets. Charlie’s poems were very wearying, but +sometimes they led him to speak about the galley.</p> + +<p>Grish Chunder looked at him keenly for a minute.</p> + +<p>‘I beg your pardon,’ Charlie said uneasily; ‘I +didn’t know you had any one with you.’</p> + +<p>‘I am going,’ said Grish Chunder.</p> + +<p>He drew me into the lobby as he departed.</p> + +<p>‘That is your man,’ he said quickly. ‘I tell you he +will never speak all you wish. That is rot—bosh. +But he would be most good to make to see things. +Suppose now we pretend that it was only play’—I +had never seen Grish Chunder so excited—‘and pour +the ink-pool into his hand. Eh, what do you think? +I tell you that he could see <i>anything</i> that a man could +see. Let me get the ink and the camphor. He is a +seer and he will tell us very many things.’</p> + +<p>‘He may be all you say, but I’m not going to trust +him to your gods and devils.’</p> + +<p>‘It will not hurt him. He will only feel a little +stupid and dull when he wakes up. You have seen +boys look into the ink-pool before.’</p> + +<p>‘That is the reason why I am not going to see it +any more. You’d better go, Grish Chunder.’</p> + +<p>He went, insisting far down the staircase that it +was throwing away my only chance of looking into +the future.</p> + +<p>This left me unmoved, for I was concerned for the +past, and no peering of hypnotised boys into mirrors +and ink-pools would help me to that. But I recognised +Grish Chunder’s point of view and sympathised with it.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</span></p> + +<p>‘What a big black brute that was!’ said Charlie, +when I returned to him. ‘Well, look here, I’ve just +done a poem; did it instead of playing dominoes after +lunch. May I read it?’</p> + +<p>‘Let me read it to myself.’</p> + +<p>‘Then you miss the proper expression. Besides, +you always make my things sound as if the rhymes +were all wrong.’</p> + +<p>‘Read it aloud, then. You’re like the rest of ’em.’</p> + +<p>Charlie mouthed me his poem, and it was not much +worse than the average of his verses. He had been +reading his books faithfully, but he was not pleased +when I told him that I preferred my Longfellow undiluted +with Charlie.</p> + +<p>Then we began to go through the MS. line by line; +Charlie parrying every objection and correction with:</p> + +<p>‘Yes, that may be better, but you don’t catch what +I’m driving at.’</p> + +<p>Charlie was, in one way at least, very like one +kind of poet.</p> + +<p>There was a pencil scrawl at the back of the paper +and ‘What’s that?’ I said.</p> + +<p>‘Oh that’s not poetry at all. It’s some rot I wrote +last night before I went to bed, and it was too much +bother to hunt for rhymes; so I made it a sort of +blank verse instead.</p> + +<p>Here is Charlie’s ‘blank verse’:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>‘We pulled for you when the wind was against us and the sails were +low.</p> + +<p><i>Will you never let us go?</i></p> + +<p>We ate bread and onions when you took towns, or ran aboard quickly +when you were beaten back by the foe,</p> + +<p>The captains walked up and down the deck in fair weather singing +songs, but we were below,</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</span></p> + +<p>We fainted with our chins on the oars and you did not see that we +were idle for we still swung to and fro.</p> + +<p><i>Will you never let us go?</i></p> + +<p>The salt made the oar-handles like shark-skin; our knees were cut to +the bone with salt cracks; our hair was stuck to our foreheads; and +our lips were cut to our gums and you whipped us because we could not +row.</p> + +<p><i>Will you never let us go?</i></p> + +<p>But in a little time we shall run out of the portholes as the water +runs along the oar-blade, and though you tell the others to row after +us you will never catch us till you catch the oar-thresh and tie up +the winds in the belly of the sail. Aho!</p> + +<p><i>Will you never let us go?</i>’</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>‘H’m. What’s oar-thresh, Charlie?’</p> + +<p>‘The water washed up by the oars. That’s the +sort of song they might sing in the galley y’ know. +Aren’t you ever going to finish that story and give me +some of the profits?’</p> + +<p>‘It depends on yourself. If you had only told +me more about your hero in the first instance it might +have been finished by now. You’re so hazy in your +notions.’</p> + +<p>‘I only want to give you the general notion of it—the +knocking about from place to place and the fighting +and all that. Can’t you fill in the rest yourself? +Make the hero save a girl on a pirate-galley and +marry her or do something.’</p> + +<p>‘You’re a really helpful collaborator. I suppose +the hero went through some few adventures before he +married.’</p> + +<p>‘Well then, make him a very artful card—a low +sort of man—a sort of political man who went about +making treaties and breaking them—a black-haired +chap who hid behind the mast when the fighting began.’</p> + +<p>‘But you said the other day that he was red-haired.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</span></p> + +<p>‘I couldn’t have. Make him black-haired of +course. You’ve no imagination.’</p> + +<p>Seeing that I had just discovered the entire principles +upon which the half-memory falsely called +imagination is based, I felt entitled to laugh, but forbore, +for the sake of the tale.</p> + +<p>‘You’re right. <i>You’re</i> the man with imagination. +A black-haired chap in a decked ship,’ I said.</p> + +<p>‘No, an open ship—like a big boat.’</p> + +<p>This was maddening.</p> + +<p>‘Your ship has been built and designed, closed and +decked in; you said so yourself,’ I protested.</p> + +<p>‘No, no, not that ship. That was open or half-decked +because—— By Jove, you’re right. You made +me think of the hero as a red-haired chap. Of course +if he were red, the ship would be an open one with +painted sails.’</p> + +<p>Surely, I thought, he would remember now that he +had served in two galleys at least—in a three-decked +Greek one under the black-haired ‘political man,’ and +again in a Viking’s open sea-serpent under the man +‘red as a red bear’ who went to Markland. The +devil prompted me to speak.</p> + +<p>‘Why, “of course,” Charlie?’ said I.</p> + +<p>‘I don’t know. Are you making fun of me?’</p> + +<p>The current was broken for the time being. I +took up a note-book and pretended to make many +entries in it.</p> + +<p>‘It’s a pleasure to work with an imaginative chap +like yourself,’ I said, after a pause. ‘The way that +you’ve brought out the character of the hero is simply +wonderful.’</p> + +<p>‘Do you think so?’ he answered, with a pleased +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</span>flush. ‘I often tell myself that there’s more in me +than my mo——than people think.’</p> + +<p>‘There’s an enormous amount in you.’</p> + +<p>‘Then, won’t you let me send an essay on The +Ways of Bank-Clerks to <i>Tit-Bits</i>, and get the guinea +prize?’</p> + +<p>‘That wasn’t exactly what I meant, old fellow: +perhaps it would be better to wait a little and go +ahead with the galley-story.’</p> + +<p>‘Ah, but I sha’n’t get the credit of that. <i>Tit-Bits</i> +would publish my name and address if I win. What +are you grinning at? They <i>would</i>.’</p> + +<p>‘I know it. Suppose you go for a walk. I want +to look through my notes about our story.’</p> + +<p>Now this reprehensible youth who left me, a little +hurt and put back, might for aught he or I knew +have been one of the crew of the Argo—had been +certainly slave or comrade to Thorfin Karlsefne. +Therefore he was deeply interested in guinea competitions. +Remembering what Grish Chunder had said I +laughed aloud. The Lords of Life and Death would +never allow Charlie Mears to speak with full knowledge +of his pasts, and I must even piece out what he +had told me with my own poor inventions while +Charlie wrote of the ways of bank-clerks.</p> + +<p>I got together and placed on one file all my notes; +and the net result was not cheering. I read them a +second time. There was nothing that might not have +been compiled at second-hand from other people’s +books—except, perhaps, the story of the fight in the +harbour. The adventures of a Viking had been written +many times before; the history of a Greek galley-slave +was no new thing, and though I wrote both, who +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</span>could challenge or confirm the accuracy of my details? +I might as well tell a tale of two thousand years +hence. The Lords of Life and Death were as cunning +as Grish Chunder had hinted. They would allow +nothing to escape that might trouble or make easy +the minds of men. Though I was convinced of this, yet +I could not leave the tale alone. Exaltation followed +reaction, not once, but twenty times in the next few +weeks. My moods varied with the March sunlight +and flying clouds. By night or in the beauty of a +spring morning I perceived that I could write that +tale and shift continents thereby. In the wet windy +afternoons, I saw that the tale might indeed be written, +but would be nothing more than a faked, false-varnished, +sham-rusted piece of Wardour Street work in the end. +Then I blessed Charlie in many ways—though it was +no fault of his. He seemed to be busy with prize +competitions, and I saw less and less of him as the +weeks went by and the earth cracked and grew ripe +to spring, and the buds swelled in their sheaths. He +did not care to read or talk of what he had read, and +there was a new ring of self-assertion in his voice. +I hardly cared to remind him of the galley when we +met; but Charlie alluded to it on every occasion, +always as a story from which money was to be made.</p> + +<p>‘I think I deserve twenty-five per cent, don’t I, +at least?’ he said, with beautiful frankness. ‘I supplied +all the ideas, didn’t I?’</p> + +<p>This greediness for silver was a new side in his +nature. I assumed that it had been developed in the +City, where Charlie was picking up the curious nasal +drawl of the underbred City man.</p> + +<p>‘When the thing’s done we’ll talk about it. I +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</span>can’t make anything of it at present. Red-haired or +black-haired hero are equally difficult.’</p> + +<p>He was sitting by the fire staring at the red coals. +‘<i>I</i> can’t understand what you find so difficult. It’s +all as clear as mud to me,’ he replied. A jet of gas +puffed out between the bars, took light, and whistled +softly. ‘Suppose we take the red-haired hero’s adventures +first, from the time that he came south to my +galley and captured it and sailed to the Beaches.’</p> + +<p>I knew better now than to interrupt Charlie. I +was out of reach of pen and paper, and dared not +move to get them lest I should break the current. +The gas-jet puffed and whinnied, Charlie’s voice +dropped almost to a whisper, and he told a tale of the +sailing of an open galley to Furdurstrandi, of sunsets +on the open sea, seen under the curve of the one sail +evening after evening when the galley’s beak was +notched into the centre of the sinking disc, and ‘we +sailed by that for we had no other guide,’ quoth +Charlie. He spoke of a landing on an island and +explorations in its woods, where the crew killed three +men whom they found asleep under the pines. Their +ghosts, Charlie said, followed the galley, swimming +and choking in the water, and the crew cast lots and +threw one of their number overboard as a sacrifice to +the strange gods whom they had offended. Then they +ate sea-weed when their provisions failed, and their +legs swelled, and their leader, the red-haired man, +killed two rowers who mutinied, and after a year spent +among the woods they set sail for their own country, +and a wind that never failed carried them back so +safely that they all slept at night. This, and much +more Charlie told. Sometimes the voice fell so low +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</span>that I could not catch the words, though every nerve +was on the strain. He spoke of their leader, the red-haired +man, as a pagan speaks of his God; for it was +he who cheered them and slew them impartially as he +thought best for their needs; and it was he who +steered them for three days among floating ice, each +floe crowded with strange beasts that ‘tried to sail with +us,’ said Charlie, ‘and we beat them back with the +handles of the oars.’</p> + +<p>The gas-jet went out, a burnt coal gave way, and +the fire settled with a tiny crash to the bottom of the +grate. Charlie ceased speaking, and I said no word.</p> + +<p>‘By Jove!’ he said at last, shaking his head. ‘I’ve +been staring at the fire till I’m dizzy. What was I +going to say?’</p> + +<p>‘Something about the galley-book.’</p> + +<p>‘I remember now. It’s twenty-five per cent of the +profits, isn’t it?’</p> + +<p>‘It’s anything you like when I’ve done the tale.’</p> + +<p>‘I wanted to be sure of that. I must go now. +I’ve—I’ve an appointment.’ And he left me.</p> + +<p>Had not my eyes been held I might have known +that that broken muttering over the fire was the swan-song +of Charlie Mears. But I thought it the prelude +to fuller revelation. At last and at last I should +cheat the Lords of Life and Death!</p> + +<p>When next Charlie came to me I received him +with rapture. He was nervous and embarrassed, but +his eyes were very full of light, and his lips a little +parted.</p> + +<p>‘I’ve done a poem,’ he said; and then, quickly: +‘It’s the best I’ve ever done. Read it.’ He thrust it +into my hand and retreated to the window.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</span></p> + +<p>I groaned inwardly. It would be the work of +half an hour to criticise—that is to say, praise—the +poem sufficiently to please Charlie. Then I had good +reason to groan, for Charlie, discarding his favourite +centipede metres, had launched into shorter and +choppier verse, and verse with a motive at the back of +it. This is what I read:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘The day is most fair, the cheery wind</div> + <div class="verse indent3">Halloos behind the hill,</div> + <div class="verse indent1">Where he bends the wood as seemeth good,</div> + <div class="verse indent3">And the sapling to his will!</div> + <div class="verse indent1">Riot, O wind; there is that in my blood</div> + <div class="verse indent3">That would not have thee still!</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘She gave me herself, O Earth, O Sky;</div> + <div class="verse indent3">Gray sea, she is mine alone!</div> + <div class="verse indent1">Let the sullen boulders hear my cry,</div> + <div class="verse indent3">And rejoice tho’ they be but stone!</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘Mine! I have won her, O good brown earth,</div> + <div class="verse indent3">Make merry! ’Tis hard on Spring;</div> + <div class="verse indent1">Make merry; my love is doubly worth</div> + <div class="verse indent3">All worship your fields can bring!</div> + <div class="verse indent1">Let the hind that tills you feel my mirth</div> + <div class="verse indent3">At the early harrowing!’</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>‘Yes, it’s the early harrowing, past a doubt,’ I said, +with a dread at my heart. Charlie smiled, but did not +answer.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘Red cloud of the sunset, tell it abroad;</div> + <div class="verse indent3">I am victor. Greet me, O Sun,</div> + <div class="verse indent1">Dominant master and absolute lord</div> + <div class="verse indent3">Over the soul of one!’</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>‘Well?’ said Charlie, looking over my shoulder.</p> + +<p>I thought it far from well, and very evil indeed, +when he silently laid a photograph on the paper—the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</span>photograph of a girl with a curly head, and a foolish +slack mouth.</p> + +<p>‘Isn’t it—isn’t it wonderful?’ he whispered, pink +to the tips of his ears, wrapped in the rosy mystery of +first love. ‘I didn’t know; I didn’t think—it came +like a thunderclap.’</p> + +<p>‘Yes. It comes like a thunderclap. Are you very +happy, Charlie?’</p> + +<p>‘My God—she—she loves me!’ He sat down +repeating the last words to himself. I looked at the +hairless face, the narrow shoulders already bowed by +desk-work, and wondered when, where, and how he had +loved in his past lives.</p> + +<p>‘What will your mother say?’ I asked cheerfully.</p> + +<p>‘I don’t care a damn what she says!’</p> + +<p>At twenty the things for which one does not care +a damn should, properly, be many, but one must not +include mothers in the list. I told him this gently; +and he described Her, even as Adam must have described +to the newly-named beasts the glory and tenderness +and beauty of Eve. Incidentally I learned that She +was a tobacconist’s assistant with a weakness for pretty +dress, and had told him four or five times already that +She had never been kissed by a man before.</p> + +<p>Charlie spoke on and on, and on; while I, separated +from him by thousands of years, was considering the +beginnings of things. Now I understood why the +Lords of Life and Death shut the doors so carefully +behind us. It is that we may not remember our first +and most beautiful wooings. Were this not so, our +world would be without inhabitants in a hundred years.</p> + +<p>‘Now, about that galley-story,’ I said still more +cheerfully, in a pause in the rush of the speech.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</span></p> + +<p>Charlie looked up as though he had been hit. +‘The galley—what galley? Good heavens, don’t joke, +man! This is serious! You don’t know how serious +it is!’</p> + +<p>Grish Chunder was right. Charlie had tasted the +love of woman that kills remembrance, and the finest +story in the world would never be written.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="HIS_PRIVATE_HONOUR"> + HIS PRIVATE HONOUR. + </h2> +</div> + + +<p class="p2">The autumn batch of recruits for the Old Regiment +had just been uncarted. As usual they were said to +be the worst draft that had ever come from the Depôt. +Mulvaney looked them over, grunted scornfully, and +immediately reported himself very sick.</p> + +<p>‘Is it the regular autumn fever?’ said the doctor, +who knew something of Terence’s ways. ‘Your temperature’s +normal.’</p> + +<p>‘’Tis wan hundred and thirty-seven rookies to the +bad, sorr. I’m not very sick now, but I will be dead if +these boys are thrown at me in my rejuced condition. +Doctor, dear, supposin’ you was in charge of three +cholera camps an’——’</p> + +<p>‘Go to hospital then, you old contriver,’ said the +doctor, laughing.</p> + +<p>Terence bundled himself into a blue bedgown,—Dinah +Shadd was away attending to a major’s lady, +who preferred Dinah without a diploma to anybody +else with a hundred,—put a pipe in his teeth, and +paraded the hospital balcony, exhorting Ortheris to be +a father to the new recruits.</p> + +<p>‘They’re mostly your own sort, little man,’ he said, +with a grin; ‘the top-spit av Whitechapel. I’ll +interogue them whin they’re more like something +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</span>they never will be,—an’ that’s a good honest soldier +like me.’</p> + +<p>Ortheris yapped indignantly. He knew as well as +Terence what the coming work meant, and he thought +Terence’s conduct mean. Then he strolled off to look +at the new cattle, who were staring at the unfamiliar +landscape with large eyes, and asking if the kites were +eagles and the pariah-dogs jackals.</p> + +<p>‘Well, you are a holy set of bean-faced beggars, +<i>you</i> are,’ he said genially to a knot in the barrack-square. +Then, running his eye over them,—‘Fried +fish an’ whelks is about your sort. Blimy if they +haven’t sent some pink-eyed Jews too. You chap +with the greasy ’ed, which o’ the Solomons was your +father, Moses?’</p> + +<p>‘My name’s Anderson,’ said a voice sullenly.</p> + +<p>‘Oh, Samuelson! All right, Samuelson! An’ ’ow +many o’ the likes o’ you Sheenies are comin’ to spoil +B Company?’</p> + +<p>There is no scorn so complete as that of the old +soldier for the new. It is right that this should be so. +A recruit must learn first that he is not a man but a +thing, which in time, and by the mercy of Heaven, may +develop into a soldier of the Queen if it takes care +and attends to good advice. Ortheris’s tunic was +open, his cap overlopped one eye, and his hands were +behind his back as he walked round, growing more +contemptuous at each step. The recruits did not dare +to answer, for they were new boys in a strange school, +who had called themselves soldiers at the Depôt in +comfortable England.</p> + +<p>‘Not a single pair o’ shoulders in the whole lot. +I’ve seen some bad drafts in my time,—some bloomin’ +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</span>bad drafts; but this ’ere draft beats any draft I’ve +ever known. Jock, come an’ look at these squidgy, +ham-shanked beggars.’</p> + +<p>Learoyd was walking across the square. He +arrived slowly, circled round the knot as a whale +circles round a shoal of small fry, said nothing, and +went away whistling.</p> + +<p>‘Yes, you may well look sheepy,’ Ortheris squeaked +to the boys. ‘It’s the likes of you breaks the ’earts of +the likes of us. We’ve got to lick you into shape, and +never a ha’penny extry do we get for so doin’, and you +ain’t never grateful neither. Don’t you go thinkin’ it’s +the Colonel nor yet the company orf’cer that makes +you. It’s <i>us</i>, you Johnnie Raws—you Johnnie +<i>bloomin’</i> Raws!’</p> + +<p>A company officer had come up unperceived behind +Ortheris at the end of this oration. ‘You may be right, +Ortheris,’ he said quietly, ‘but I shouldn’t shout it.’ The +recruits grinned as Ortheris saluted and collapsed.</p> + +<p>Some days afterwards I was privileged to look over +the new batch, and they were everything that Ortheris +had said, and more. B Company had been devastated +by forty or fifty of them; and B Company’s drill on +parade was a sight to shudder at. Ortheris asked them +lovingly whether they had not been sent out by mistake, +and whether they had not better post themselves +back to their friends. Learoyd thrashed them methodically +one by one, without haste but without slovenliness; +and the older soldiers took the remnants from Learoyd +and went over them in their own fashion. Mulvaney +stayed in hospital, and grinned from the balcony when +Ortheris called him a shirker and other worse names.</p> + +<p>‘By the grace av God we’ll brew men av them +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</span>yet,’ Terence said one day. ‘Be vartuous an’ parsevere, +me son. There’s the makin’s av colonels in that mob +if we only go deep enough—wid a belt.’</p> + +<p>‘We!’ Ortheris replied, dancing with rage. ‘I +just love you and your “we’s.” ’Ere’s B Company +drillin’ like a drunk Militia reg’ment.’</p> + +<p>‘So I’ve been officially acquent,’ was the answer +from on high; ‘but I’m too sick this tide to make +certain.’</p> + +<p>‘An’ you, you fat H’irishman, shiftin’ an’ shirkin’ +up there among the arrerroot an’ the sago!’</p> + +<p>‘<i>An’</i> the port wine,—you’ve forgot the port wine, +Orth’ris: ’tis none so bad.’ Terence smacked his lips +provokingly.</p> + +<p>‘And we’re wore off our feet with these ’ere—kangaroos. +Come out o’ that, an’ earn your pay. +Come on down outer that, an’ <i>do</i> something ’stead o’ +grinnin’ up there like a Jew monkey, you frowsy-’eaded +Fenian!’</p> + +<p>‘When I’m better av my various complaints I’ll +have a little private talkin’ wid you. In the meanwhile,—duck!’</p> + +<p>Terence flung an empty medicine bottle at Ortheris’s +head and dropped into a long chair, and Ortheris came +to tell me his opinion of Mulvaney three times over,—each +time entirely varying all the words.</p> + +<p>‘There’ll be a smash one o’ these days,’ he concluded. +‘Well, it’s none o’ my fault, but it’s ’ard on B +Company.’</p> + +<p>It was very hard on B Company, for twenty +seasoned men cannot push twice that number of fools +into their places and keep their own places at the same +time. The recruits should have been more evenly +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</span>distributed through the regiment, but it seemed good +to the Colonel to mass them in a company where +there was a fair proportion of old soldiers. He found +his reward early one morning when the battalion was +advancing by companies in echelon from the right. +The order was given to form company squares, which +are compact little bricks of men very unpleasant for +a line of charging cavalry to deal with. B Company +was on the left flank, and had ample time to know +what was going on. For that reason presumably it +gathered itself into a thing like a decayed aloe-clump, +the bayonets pointing anywhere in general and nowhere +in particular; and in that clump, roundel, or +mob, it stayed till the dust had gone down and the +Colonel could see and speak. He did both, and the +speaking part was admitted by the regiment to be the +finest thing that the ‘old man’ had ever risen to since +one delightful day at a sham-fight, when a cavalry +division had occasion to walk over his line of skirmishers. +He said, almost weeping, that he had given no order +for rallying groups, and that he preferred to see a little +dressing among the men occasionally. He then +apologised for having mistaken B Company for men. +He said that they were but weak little children, and +that since he could not offer them each a perambulator +and a nursemaid (this may sound comic to read, but +B Company heard it by word of mouth and winced) +perhaps the best thing for them to do would be to +go back to squad-drill. To that end he proposed +sending them, out of their turn, to garrison duty in +Fort Amara, five miles away,—D Company were next +for this detestable duty and nearly cheered the +Colonel. There he devoutly hoped that their own +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</span>subalterns would drill them to death, as they were of +no use in their present life.</p> + +<p>It was an exceedingly painful scene, and I made +haste to be near B Company barracks when parade +was dismissed and the men were free to talk. There +was no talking at first, because each old soldier took +a new draft and kicked him very severely. The non-commissioned +officers had neither eyes nor ears for +these accidents. They left the barracks to themselves, +and Ortheris improved the occasion by a speech. I +did not hear that speech, but fragments of it were +quoted for weeks afterwards. It covered the birth, +parentage, and education of every man in the company +by name: it gave a complete account of Fort Amara +from a sanitary and social point of view; and it wound +up with an abstract of the whole duty of a soldier, +each recruit his use in life, and Ortheris’s views on +the use and fate of the recruits of B Company.</p> + +<p>‘You can’t drill, you can’t walk, you can’t shoot,—you,—you +awful rookies! Wot’s the good of you? +You eats and you sleeps, and you eats, and you goes +to the doctor for medicine when your innards is out +o’ order for all the world as if you was bloomin’ generals. +An’ now you’ve topped it all, you bats’-eyed beggars, +with getting us druv out to that stinkin’ Fort ’Ammerer. +We’ll fort you when we get out there; yes, an’ we’ll +’ammer you too. Don’t you think you’ve come into +the H’army to drink Heno, an’ club your comp’ny, an’ +lie on your cots an’ scratch your fat heads. You can +do that at ’ome sellin’ matches, which is all you’re fit +for, you keb-huntin’, penny-toy, bootlace, baggage-tout, +’orse-’oldin’, sandwich-backed se-werss, you.⁠<a id="FNanchor_3_3" href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> I’ve spoke +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</span>you as fair as I know ’ow, and you give good ’eed, +’cause if Mulvaney stops skrimshanking—gets out +o’ ’orspital—when we’re in the Fort, I lay your lives +will be trouble to you.’</p> + +<p>That was Ortheris’s peroration, and it caused B +Company to be christened the Boot-black Brigade. +With this disgrace on their slack shoulders they went +to garrison duty at Fort Amara with their officers, +who were under instructions to twist their little tails. +The army, unlike every other profession, cannot be +taught through shilling books. First a man must +suffer, then he must learn his work, and the self-respect +that that knowledge brings. The learning is hard, in +a land where the army is not a red thing that walks +down the street to be looked at, but a living tramping +reality that may be needed at the shortest notice, when +there is no time to say, ‘Hadn’t you better?’ and +‘Won’t you please?’</p> + +<p>The company officers divided themselves into three. +When Brander the captain was wearied, he gave over +to Maydew, and when Maydew was hoarse he ordered +the junior subaltern Ouless to bucket the men through +squad and company drill, till Brander could go on +again. Out of parade hours the old soldiers spoke to +the recruits as old soldiers will, and between the four +forces at work on them, the new draft began to stand +on their feet and feel that they belonged to a good +and honourable service. This was proved by their +once or twice resenting Ortheris’s technical lectures.</p> + +<p>‘Drop it now, lad,’ said Learoyd, coming to the +rescue. ‘Th’ pups are biting back. They’re none so +rotten as we looked for.’</p> + +<p>‘Ho! Yes. You think yourself soldiers now, ’cause +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</span>you don’t fall over each other on p’rade, don’t you? +You think ’cause the dirt don’t cake off you week’s end +to week’s end that you’re clean men. You think ’cause +you can fire your rifle without more nor shuttin’ both +eyes, you’re something to fight, don’t you? You’ll +know later on,’ said Ortheris to the barrack-room +generally. ‘Not but what you’re a little better +than you was,’ he added, with a gracious wave of his +cutty.</p> + +<p>It was in this transition-stage that I came across +the new draft once more. Their officers, in the zeal +of youth forgetting that the old soldiers who stiffened +the sections must suffer equally with the raw material +under hammering, had made all a little stale and unhandy +with continuous drill in the square, instead of +marching the men into the open and supplying them +with skirmishing drill. The month of garrison-duty in +the Fort was nearly at an end, and B Company were +quite fit for a self-respecting regiment to drill with. +They had no style or spring,—that would come in +time,—but so far as they went they were passable. I +met Maydew one day and inquired after their health. +He told me that young Ouless was putting a polish on +a half-company of them in the great square by the east +bastion of the Fort that afternoon. Because the day +was Saturday I went off to taste the full beauty of +leisure in watching another man hard at work.</p> + +<p>The fat forty-pound muzzle-loaders on the east +bastion made a very comfortable resting-place. You +could sprawl full length on the iron warmed by the +afternoon sun to blood heat, and command an easy +view of the parade-ground which lay between the +powder-magazine and the curtain of the bastion.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</span></p> + +<p>I saw a half-company called over and told off for +drill, saw Ouless come from his quarters, tugging at his +gloves, and heard the first <i>’Shun!</i> that locks the ranks +and shows that work has begun. Then I went off on +my own thoughts; the squeaking of the boots and the +rattle of the rifles making a good accompaniment, and +the line of red coats and black trousers a suitable background +to them all. They concerned the formation of +a territorial army for India,—an army of specially paid +men enlisted for twelve years’ service in Her Majesty’s +Indian possessions, with the option of extending on +medical certificates for another five and the certainty +of a pension at the end. They would be such an army +as the world had never seen,—one hundred thousand +trained men drawing annually five, no, fifteen thousand +men from England, making India their home, and +allowed to marry in reason. Yes, I thought, watching +the line shift to and fro, break and re-form, we would +buy back Cashmere from the drunken imbecile who +was turning it into a hell, and there we would plant +our much-married regiments,—the men who had +served ten years of their time,—and there they should +breed us white soldiers, and perhaps a second fighting-line +of Eurasians. At all events Cashmere was the only +place in India that the Englishman could colonise, and +if we had foot-hold there we could.... Oh, it was a +beautiful dream! I left that territorial army swelled to +a quarter of a million men far behind, swept on as far +as an independent India, hiring war-ships from the +mother-country, guarding Aden on the one side and +Singapore on the other, paying interest on her loans +with beautiful regularity, but borrowing no men from +beyond her own borders—a colonised, manufacturing +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</span>India with a permanent surplus and her own flag. I +had just installed myself as Viceroy, and by virtue of +my office had shipped four million sturdy thrifty +natives to the Malayan Archipelago, where labour is +always wanted and the Chinese pour in too quickly, +when I became aware that things were not going +smoothly with the half-company. There was a great +deal too much shuffling and shifting and ‘as you were-ing.’ +The non-commissioned officers were snapping at +the men, and I fancied Ouless backed one of his orders +with an oath. He was in no position to do this, because +he was a junior who had not yet learned to pitch his +word of command in the same key twice running. +Sometimes he squeaked, and sometimes he grunted; +and a clear full voice with a ring in it has more +to do with drill than people think. He was nervous +both on parade and in mess, because he was unproven +and knew it. One of his majors had said in his +hearing, ‘Ouless has a skin or two to slough yet, and +he hasn’t the sense to be aware of it.’ That remark +had stayed in Ouless’s mind and caused him to think +about himself in little things, which is not the best +training for a young man. He tried to be cordial at +mess, and became over-effusive. Then he tried to +stand on his dignity, and appeared sulky and boorish. +He was only hunting for the just medium and the +proper note, and had found neither because he had +never faced himself in a big thing. With his men he +was as ill at ease as he was with his mess, and his +voice betrayed him. I heard two orders and then:—‘Sergeant, +what <i>is</i> that rear-rank man doing, +damn him?’ That was sufficiently bad. A company +officer ought not to ask sergeants for information. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</span>He commands, and commands are not held by +syndicates.</p> + +<p>It was too dusty to see the drill accurately, but I +could hear the excited little voice pitching from octave +to octave, and the uneasy ripple of badgered or bad-tempered +files running down the ranks. Ouless had +come on parade as sick of his duty as were the men of +theirs. The hot sun had told on everybody’s temper, +but most of all on the youngest man’s. He had +evidently lost his self-control, and not possessing the +nerve or the knowledge to break off till he had recovered +it again, was making bad worse by ill-language.</p> + +<p>The men shifted their ground and came close under +the gun I was lying on. They were wheeling quarter-right +and they did it very badly, in the natural hope +of hearing Ouless swear again. He could have taught +them nothing new, but they enjoyed the exhibition. +Instead of swearing Ouless lost his head completely, +and struck out nervously at the wheeling flank-man +with a little Malacca riding-cane that he held in his +hand for a pointer. The cane was topped with thin +silver over lacquer, and the silver had worn through in +one place, leaving a triangular flap sticking up. I had +just time to see that Ouless had thrown away his commission +by striking a soldier, when I heard the rip of +cloth and a piece of gray shirt showed under the torn +scarlet on the man’s shoulder. It had been the merest +nervous flick of an exasperated boy, but quite enough +to forfeit his commission, since it had been dealt in +anger to a volunteer and no pressed man, who could +not under the rules of the service reply. The effect +of it, thanks to the natural depravity of things, was as +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</span>though Ouless had cut the man’s coat off his back. +Knowing the new draft by reputation, I was fairly +certain that every one of them would swear with many +oaths that Ouless had actually thrashed the man. In +that case Ouless would do well to pack his trunk. His +career as a servant of the Queen in any capacity was +ended. The wheel continued, and the men halted and +dressed immediately opposite my resting-place. Ouless’s +face was perfectly bloodless. The flanking man was +a dark red, and I could see his lips moving in wicked +words. He was Ortheris! After seven years’ service +and three medals, he had been struck by a boy younger +than himself! Further, he was my friend and a good +man, a proved man, and an Englishman. The shame +of the thing made me as hot as it made Ouless cold, +and if Ortheris had slipped in a cartridge and cleared +the account at once I should have rejoiced. The fact +that Ortheris, of all men, had been struck, proved that +the boy could not have known whom he was hitting; +but he should have remembered that he was no longer +a boy. And then I was sorry for him, and then I was +angry again, and Ortheris stared in front of him and +grew redder and redder.</p> + +<p>The drill halted for a moment. No one knew +why, for not three men could have seen the insult, the +wheel being end-on to Ouless at the time. Then, led, +I conceived, by the hand of Fate, Brander, the captain, +crossed the drill-ground, and his eye was caught by +not more than a square foot of gray shirt over a +shoulder-blade that should have been covered by well-fitting +tunic.</p> + +<p>‘Heavens and earth!’ he said, crossing in three +strides. ‘Do you let your men come on parade in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</span>rags, sir? What’s that scare-crow doing here? Fall +out, that flank-man. What do you mean by——<i>You</i>, +Ortheris! of all men. What the deuce do you mean?’</p> + +<p>‘Beg y’ pardon, sir,’ said Ortheris. ‘I scratched it +against the guard-gate running up to parade.’</p> + +<p>‘Scratched it! Ripped it up, you mean. It’s half +off your back.’</p> + +<p>‘It was a little tear at first, sir, but in portin’ arms +it got stretched, sir, an’—an’ I can’t look be’ind me. +I felt it givin’, sir.’</p> + +<p>‘Hm!’ said Brander. ‘I should think you did +feel it give. I thought it was one of the new draft. +You’ve a good pair of shoulders. Go on!’</p> + +<p>He turned to go. Ouless stepped after him, very +white, and said something in a low voice.</p> + +<p>‘Hey, what? What? Ortheris,’ the voice dropped. +I saw Ortheris salute, say something, and stand at +attention.</p> + +<p>‘Dismiss,’ said Brander curtly. The men were +dismissed. ‘I can’t make this out. You say——?’ +he nodded at Ouless, who said something again. +Ortheris stood still, the torn flap of his tunic falling +nearly to his waist-belt. He had, as Brander said, a +good pair of shoulders, and prided himself on the fit +of his tunic.</p> + +<p>‘Beg y’ pardon, sir,’ I heard him say, ‘but I think +Lieutenant Ouless has been in the sun too long. He +don’t quite remember things, sir. I come on p’rade +with a bit of a rip, and it spread, sir, through portin’ +arms, as I ’ave said, sir.’</p> + +<p>Brander looked from one face to the other and I +suppose drew his own conclusions, for he told Ortheris +to go with the other men who were flocking back to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</span>barracks. Then he spoke to Ouless and went away, +leaving the boy in the middle of the parade-ground +fumbling with his sword-knot.</p> + +<p>He looked up, saw me lying on the gun, and came +to me biting the back of his gloved forefinger, so completely +thrown off his balance that he had not sense +enough to keep his trouble to himself.</p> + +<p>‘I say, you saw that, I suppose?’ He jerked his +head back to the square, where the dust left by the +departing men was settling down in white circles.</p> + +<p>‘I did,’ I answered, for I was not feeling polite.</p> + +<p>‘What the devil ought I to do?’ He bit his finger +again. ‘I told Brander what I had done. I hit him.’</p> + +<p>‘I’m perfectly aware of that,’ I said, ‘and I don’t +suppose Ortheris has forgotten it already.’</p> + +<p>‘Ye—es; but I’m dashed if I know what I ought +to do. Exchange into another company, I suppose. +I can’t ask the man to exchange, I suppose. Hey?’</p> + +<p>The suggestion showed the glimmerings of proper +sense, but he should not have come to me or any one +else for help. It was his own affair, and I told him +so. He seemed unconvinced, and began to talk of the +possibilities of being cashiered. At this point the +spirit moved me, on behalf of the unavenged Ortheris, +to paint him a beautiful picture of his insignificance in +the scheme of creation. He had a papa and a mamma +seven thousand miles away, and perhaps some friends. +They would feel his disgrace, but no one else would +care a penny. He would be only Lieutenant Ouless +of the Old Regiment dismissed the Queen’s service for +conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. The +Commander-in-Chief, who would confirm the orders of +the court-martial, would not know who he was; his mess +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</span>would not speak of him; he would return to Bombay, +if he had money enough to go home, more alone than +when he had come out. Finally,—I rounded the +sketch with precision,—he was only one tiny dab of red +in the vast gray field of the Indian Empire. He must +work this crisis out alone, and no one could help him, +and no one cared—(this was untrue, because I cared +immensely; he had spoken the truth to Brander on the +spot)—whether he pulled through it or did not pull +through it. At last his face set and his figure stiffened.</p> + +<p>‘Thanks, that’s quite enough. I don’t want to +hear any more,’ he said in a dry grating voice, and +went to his own quarters.</p> + +<p>Brander spoke to me afterwards and asked me +some absurd question—whether I had seen Ouless +cut the coat off Ortheris’s back. I knew that jagged +sliver of silver would do its work well, but I contrived +to impress on Brander the completeness, the wonderful +completeness, of my disassociation from that drill. I +began to tell him all about my dreams for the new +territorial army in India, and he left me.</p> + +<p>I could not see Ortheris for some days, but I +learnt that when he returned to his fellows he had told +the story of the blow in vivid language. Samuelson, +the Jew, then asserted that it was not good enough to +live in a regiment where you were drilled off your feet +and knocked about like a dog. The remark was a +perfectly innocent one, and exactly tallied with +Ortheris’s expressed opinions. Yet Ortheris had +called Samuelson an unmentionable Jew, had accused +him of kicking women on the head in London, and +howling under the cat, had hustled him, as a bantam +hustles a barn-door cock, from one end of the barrack-room +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</span>to the other, and finally had heaved every single +article of Samuelson’s valise and bedding-roll into the +verandah and the outer dirt, kicking Samuelson every +time that the bewildered creature stooped to pick anything +up. My informant could not account for this +inconsistency, but it seemed to me that Ortheris was +working off his temper.</p> + +<p>Mulvaney had heard the story in hospital. First +his face clouded, then he spat, and then laughed. I +suggested that he had better return to active duty, but +he saw it in another light, and told me that Ortheris +was quite capable of looking after himself and his own +affairs. ‘An’ if I did come out,’ said Terence, ‘like +as not I would be catchin’ young Ouless by the scruff +av his trousies an’ makin’ an example av him before +the men. Whin Dinah came back I would be under +court-martial, an’ all for the sake av a little bit av a +bhoy that’ll make an orf’cer yet. What’s he goin’ to +do, sorr, do ye know?’</p> + +<p>‘Which?’ said I.</p> + +<p>‘Ouless, av course. I’ve no fear for the <i>man</i>. +Begad, tho’, if ut had come to me—but ut could not +have so come—I’d ha’ made him cut his wisdom-teeth +on his own sword-hilt.’</p> + +<p>‘I don’t think he knows himself what he means to +do,’ I said.</p> + +<p>‘I should not wonder,’ said Terence. ‘There’s a +dale av thinkin’ before a young man whin he’s done +wrong an’ knows ut, an’ is studyin’ how to put ut right. +Give the word from me to our little man there, that +if he had ha’ told on his shuperior orf’cer I’d ha’ come +out to Fort Amara to kick him into the Fort ditch, +an’ that’s a forty-fut drop.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</span></p> + +<p>Ortheris was not in good condition to talk to. He +wandered up and down with Learoyd brooding, so far +as I could see, over his lost honour, and using, as I +could hear, incendiary language. Learoyd would nod +and spit and smoke and nod again, and he must have +been a great comfort to Ortheris—almost as great a +comfort as Samuelson, whom Ortheris bullied disgracefully. +If the Jew opened his mouth in the most +casual remark Ortheris would plunge down it with all +arms and accoutrements, while the barrack-room stared +and wondered.</p> + +<p>Ouless had retired into himself to meditate. I saw +him now and again, and he avoided me because I had +witnessed his shame and spoken my mind on it. He +seemed dull and moody, and found his half-company +anything but pleasant to drill. The men did their +work and gave him very little trouble, but just when +they should have been feeling their feet, and showing +that they felt them by spring and swing and snap, the +elasticity died out, and it was only drilling with war-game +blocks. There is a beautiful little ripple in a +well-made line of men, exactly like the play of a perfectly-tempered +sword. Ouless’s half-company moved +as a broomstick moves, and would have broken as easily.</p> + +<p>I was speculating whether Ouless had sent money to +Ortheris, which would have been bad, or had apologised +to him in private, which would have been worse, or +had decided to let the whole affair slide, which would +have been worst of all, when orders came to me to +leave the station for a while. I had not spoken directly +to Ortheris, for his honour was not my honour, and he +was its only guardian, and he would not say anything +except bad words.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</span></p> + +<p>I went away, and from time to time thought a great +deal of that subaltern and that private in Fort Amara, +and wondered what would be the upshot of everything.</p> + +<p>When I returned it was early spring. B Company +had been shifted from the Fort to regular duty in +cantonments, the roses were getting ready to bud on +the Mall, and the regiment, which had been at a camp +of exercise among other things, was going through its +spring musketry-course under an adjutant who had a +notion that its shooting average was low. He had +stirred up the company officers and they had bought +extra ammunition for their men—the Government +allowance is just sufficient to foul the rifling—and +E Company, which counted many marksmen, was +vapouring and offering to challenge all the other +companies, and the third-class shots were very sorry +that they had ever been born, and all the subalterns +were a rich ripe saddle-colour from sitting at the butts +six and eight hours a day.</p> + +<p>I went off to the butts after breakfast very full of +curiosity to see how the new draft had come forward. +Ouless was there with his men by the bald hillock that +marks the six hundred yards’ range, and the men were +in gray-green <i>khaki</i>, that shows the best points of a +soldier and shades off into every background he may +stand against. Before I was in hearing distance I +could see, as they sprawled on the dusty grass, or stood +up and shook themselves, that they were men made +over again—wearing their helmets with the cock of +self-possession, swinging easily, and jumping to the +word of command. Coming nearer, I heard Ouless +whistling <i>Ballyhooley</i> between his teeth as he looked +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</span>down the range with his binoculars, and the back of +Lieutenant Ouless was the back of a free man and an +officer. He nodded as I came up, and I heard him +fling an order to a non-commissioned officer in a sure +and certain voice. The flag ran up from the target, +and Ortheris threw himself down on his stomach to put +in his ten shots. He winked at me over the breechblock +as he settled himself, with the air of a man who +has to go through tricks for the benefit of children.</p> + +<p>‘Watch, you men,’ said Ouless to the squad behind. +‘He’s half your weight, Brannigan, but he isn’t afraid of +his rifle.’</p> + +<p>Ortheris had his little affectations and pet ways as +the rest of us have. He weighed his rifle, gave it a +little kick-up, cuddled down again, and fired across the +ground that was beginning to dance in the sun-heat.</p> + +<p>‘Miss!’ said a man behind.</p> + +<p>‘Too much bloomin’ background in front,’ Ortheris +muttered.</p> + +<p>‘I should allow two feet for refraction,’ said +Ouless.</p> + +<p>Ortheris fired again, made his outer, crept in, found +the bull and stayed there; the non-commissioned officer +pricking off the shots.</p> + +<p>‘Can’t make out ’ow I missed that first,’ he said, +rising, and stepping back to my side, as Learoyd took +his place.</p> + +<p>‘Is it company practice?’ I asked.</p> + +<p>‘No. Only just knockin’ about. Ouless, ’e’s +givin’ ten rupees for second-class shots. I’m outer it, +of course, but I come on to show ’em the proper +style o’ doin’ things. Jock looks like a sea-lion at the +Brighton Aquarium sprawlin’ an’ crawlin’ down there, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</span>don’t ’e? Gawd, what a butt this end of ’im would +make.’</p> + +<p>‘B Company has come up very well,’ I said.</p> + +<p>‘They ’ad to. They’re none so dusty now, are they? +Samuelson even, ’e can shoot sometimes. We’re +gettin’ on as well as can be expected, thank you.’</p> + +<p>‘How do you get on with——?’</p> + +<p>‘Oh, <i>’im</i>! First-rate! There’s nothin’ wrong +with ’im.’</p> + +<p>‘Was it all settled then?’</p> + +<p>‘’Asn’t Terence told you? I should say it was. +’E’s a gentleman, ’e is.’</p> + +<p>‘Let’s hear,’ I said.</p> + +<p>Ortheris twinkled all over, tucked his rifle across +his knees and repeated, ‘’E’s a gentleman. ’E’s an +officer too. You saw all that mess in Fort ’Ammerer. +’Twasn’t none o’ <i>my</i> fault, as you can guess. Only +some goat in the drill judged it was be’aviour or +something to play the fool on p’rade. That’s why we +drilled so bad. When ’e ’it me, I was so took aback +I couldn’t do nothing, an’ when I wished for to knock +’im down the wheel ’ad gone on, an’ I was facin’ you +there lyin’ on the guns. After the captain had come +up an’ was raggin’ me about my tunic bein’ tore, I saw +the young beggar’s eye, an’ ’fore I could ’elp myself I +begun to lie like a good ’un. You ’eard that? It +was quite instinkive, but, my! I was in a lather. +Then <i>he</i> said to the captain, “I struck ’im!” sez ’e, an’ +I ’eard Brander whistle, an’ then I come out with a +new set o’ lies all about portin’ arms an’ ’ow the rip +growed, same as you ’eard. I done that too before I +knew where I was. Then I give Samuelson what-for +in barricks when he was dismissed. You should +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</span>ha’ seen ’is kit by the time I’d finished with it. It was +all over the bloomin’ Fort! Then me an’ Jock went +off to Mulvaney in ’orspital, five-mile walk, an’ I was +hoppin’ mad. Ouless, ’e knowed it was court-martial +for me if I ’it ’im back—’e <i>must</i> ha’ knowed. Well, +I sez to Terence, whisperin’ under the ’orspital balcony—“Terence,” +sez I, “what in ’ell am I to do?” I told +’im all about the row same as you saw. Terence ’e +whistles like a bloomin’ old bullfinch up there in +’orspital, an’ ’e sez, “You ain’t to blame,” sez ’e. +“’Strewth,” sez I, “d’you suppose I’ve come ’ere five +mile in the sun to take blame?” I sez. “I want +that young beggar’s hide took off. I ain’t a bloomin’ +conscrip’,” I sez. “I’m a private servin’ of the +Queen, an’ as good a man as ’e is,” I sez, “for all ’is +commission an’ ’is airs an’ ’is money,” sez I.’</p> + +<p>‘What a fool you were,’ I interrupted. Ortheris, +being neither a menial nor an American, but a free +man, had no excuse for yelping.</p> + +<p>‘That’s exactly what Terence said. I wonder you +set it the same way so pat if ’e ’asn’t been talkin’ to +you. ’E sez to me—“You ought to ’ave more sense,” +’e sez, “at your time of life. What differ do it make +to you,” ’e sez, “whether ’e ’as a commission or no commission? +That’s none o’ your affair. It’s between +man an’ man,” ’e sez, “if ’e ’eld a general’s commission. +Moreover,” ’e sez, “you don’t look ’andsome ’oppin’ +about on your ’ind legs like that. Take him away, +Jock.” Then ’e went inside, an’ that’s all I got outer +Terence. Jock, ’e sez as slow as a march in slow +time,—“Stanley,” ’e sez, “that young beggar didn’t <i>go</i> +for to ’it you.” “I don’t give a damn whether ’e did +or ’e didn’t. ’It me ’e did,” I sez. “Then you’ve +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</span>only got to report to Brander,” sez Jock. “What +d’yer take me for?” I sez, as I was so mad I nearly +’it Jock. An’ he got me by the neck an’ shoved my +’ead into a bucket o’ water in the cook-’ouse an’ then +we went back to the Fort, an’ I give Samuelson a +little more trouble with ’is kit. ’E sez to me, “<i>I</i> +haven’t been strook without ’ittin’ back.” “Well, +you’re goin’ to be now,” I sez, an’ I give ’im one or +two for ’isself, an’ arxed ’im very polite to ’it back, +but he didn’t. I’d ha’ killed ’im if ’e ’ad. That done +me a lot o’ good.</p> + +<p>‘Ouless ’e didn’t make no show for some days,—not +till after you was gone; an’ I was feelin’ sick an’ +miserable, an’ didn’t know what I wanted, ’cept to +black his little eyes good. I ’oped ’e might send me +some money for my tunic. Then I’d ha’ had it out +with him on p’rade and took my chance. Terence was +in ’orspital still, you see, an’ ’e wouldn’t give me no +advice.</p> + +<p>‘The day after you left, Ouless come across me +carrying a bucket on fatigue, an’ e’ sez to me very +quietly, “Ortheris, you’ve got to come out shootin’ +with me,” ’e sez. I felt like to bunging the bucket in +’is eye, but I didn’t. I got ready to go instead. Oh, +’e’s a gentleman! We went out together, neither +sayin’ nothin’ to the other till we was well out into +the jungle beyond the river with ’igh grass all round,—pretty +near that place where I went off my ’ead with +you. Then ’e puts his gun down an’ sez very quietly: +“Ortheris, I strook you on p’rade,” ’e sez. “Yes, sir,” +sez I, “you did.” “I’ve been studying it out by +myself,” ’e sez. “Oh, you ’ave, ’ave you?” sez I to +myself, “an’ a nice time you’ve been about it, you +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</span>bun-faced little beggar.” “Yes, sir,” sez I. “What +made you screen me?” ’e sez. “I don’t know,” I sez, +an’ no more I did, nor do. “I can’t ask you to +exchange,” ’e sez. “An’ I don’t want to exchange +myself,” sez ’e. “What’s comin’ now?” I thinks to +myself. “Yes, sir,” sez I. He looks round at the +’igh grass all about, an’ ’e sez to himself more than to +me,—“I’ve got to go through it alone, by myself!” +’E looked so queer for a minute that, s’elp me, I +thought the little beggar was going to pray. Then he +turned round again an’ ’e sez, “What do you think +yourself?” ’e sez. “I don’t quite see what you mean, +sir,” I sez. “What would you like?” ’e sez. An’ I +thought for a minute ’e was goin’ to give me money, +but ’e run ’is ’and up to the top-button of ’is shootin’ +coat an’ loosed it. “Thank you, sir,” I sez. “I’d +like that very well,” I sez, an’ both our coats was off +an’ put down.’</p> + +<p>‘Hooray!’ I shouted incautiously.</p> + +<p>‘Don’t make a noise on the butts,’ said Ouless from +the shooting-place. ‘It puts the men off.’</p> + +<p>I apologised, and Ortheris went on.</p> + +<p>‘Our coats was off, an’ ’e sez, “Are you ready?” +sez ’e. “Come on then.” I come on, a bit uncertain +at first, but he took me one under the chin that +warmed me up. I wanted to mark the little beggar +an’ I hit high, but he went an’ jabbed me over the +heart like a good one. He wasn’t so strong as me, +but he knew more, an’ in about two minutes I calls +“Time.” ’E steps back,—it was in-fightin’ then: +“Come on when you’re ready,” ’e sez; and when I +had my wind I come on again, an’ I got ’im one on +the nose that painted ’is little aristocratic white shirt +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</span>for ’im. That fetched ’im, an’ I knew it quicker nor +light. He come all round me, close-fightin’, goin’ +steady for my heart. I held on all I could an’ split +’is ear, but then I began to hiccup, an’ the game was +up. I come in to feel if I could throw ’im, an’ ’e got +me one on the mouth that downed me an’—look +’ere!’</p> + +<p>Ortheris raised the left corner of his upper lip. +An eye-tooth was wanting.</p> + +<p>‘’E stood over me an’ ’e sez, “Have you ’ad +enough?” ’e sez. “Thank you, I ’ave,” sez I. He +took my ’and an’ pulled me up, an’ I was pretty shook. +“Now,” ’e sez, “I’ll apologise for ’ittin’ you. It was +all my fault,” ’e sez, “an’ it wasn’t meant for you.” +“I knowed that, sir,” I sez, “an’ there’s no need for +no apology.” “Then it’s an accident,” ’e sez; “an’ +you must let me pay for the coat. Else it’ll be stopped +out o’ your pay.” I wouldn’t ha’ took the money +before, but I did then. ’E give me ten rupees,—enough +to pay for a coat twice over, an’ we went down +to the river to wash our faces, which was well marked. +His was special. Then he sez to himself, sputterin’ +the water out of ’is mouth, “I wonder if I done right,” +’e sez. “Yes, sir,” sez I. “There’s no fear about that.” +“It’s all well for <i>you</i>,” ’e sez, “but what about the +comp’ny?” “Beggin’ your pardon, sir,” I sez, “I +don’t think the comp’ny will give no trouble.” Then +we went shootin’, an’ when we come back I was feelin’ +as chirpy as a cricket, an’ I took an’ rolled Samuelson +up an’ down the verandah, an’ give out to the comp’ny +that the difficulty between me an’ Lieutenant Ouless +was satisfactory put a stop to. I told Jock, o’ course, +an’ Terence. Jock didn’t say nothing, but Terence ’e +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</span>sez: “You’re a pair, you two. An’, begad, I don’t +know which was the better man.” There ain’t nothin’ +wrong with Ouless. ’E’s a gentleman all over, an’ ’e’s +come on as much as B Comp’ny. I lay ’e’d lose ’is +commission, tho’, if it come out that ’e’d been fightin’ +with a private. Ho! ho! Fightin’ all an afternoon +with a bloomin’ private like me! What do you think?’ +he added, brushing the breech of his rifle.</p> + +<p>‘I think what the umpires said at the sham-fight; +both sides deserve great credit. But I wish you’d +tell me what made you save him in the first place.’</p> + +<p>‘I was pretty sure that ’e ’adn’t meant it for me, +though that wouldn’t ha’ made no difference if ’e’d +been copped for it. An’ ’e was that young too that it +wouldn’t ha’ been fair. Besides, if I had ha’ done +that I’d ha’ missed the fight, and I’d ha’ felt bad all +my time. Don’t you see it that way, sir?’</p> + +<p>‘It was your right to get him cashiered if you +chose,’ I insisted.</p> + +<p>‘My right!’ Ortheris answered with deep scorn. +‘My right! I ain’t a recruity to go whinin’ about my +rights to this an’ my rights to that, just as if I couldn’t +look after myself. My rights! ’Strewth A’mighty! +I’m a man.’</p> + +<p>The last squad were finishing their shots in a storm +of low-voiced chaff. Ouless withdrew to a little +distance in order to leave the men at ease, and I saw +his face in the full sunlight for a moment, before he +hitched up his sword, got his men together, and +marched them back to barracks. It was all right. +The boy was proven.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"> +<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_3_3" href="#FNanchor_3_3" class="label">[3]</a> Ortheris meant <i>soors</i>—which means pigs.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="A_MATTER_OF_FACT"> + A MATTER OF FACT. + </h2> +</div> + + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">And if ye doubt the tale I tell,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Steer through the South Pacific swell;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Go where the branching coral hives</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Unending strife of endless lives,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Where, leagued about the ’wildered boat,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The rainbow jellies fill and float;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And, lilting where the laver lingers,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The starfish trips on all her fingers;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Where, ’neath his myriad spines ashock,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The sea-egg ripples down the rock;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">An orange wonder dimly guessed,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">From darkness where the cuttles rest,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Moored o’er the darker deeps that hide</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The blind white Sea-snake and his bride</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Who, drowsing, nose the long-lost ships</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Let down through darkness to their lips.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="right"> + —<i>The Palms.</i> +</p> + + +<p class="p2">Once a priest, always a priest; once a mason, always a +mason; but once a journalist, always and for ever a +journalist.</p> + +<p>There were three of us, all newspaper men, the only +passengers on a little tramp steamer that ran where +her owners told her to go. She had once been in the +Bilbao iron ore business, had been lent to the Spanish +Government for service at Manilla; and was ending +her days in the Cape Town coolie-trade, with occasional +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</span>trips to Madagascar and even as far as England. We +found her going to Southampton in ballast, and shipped +in her because the fares were nominal. There was +Keller, of an American paper, on his way back to the +States from palace executions in Madagascar; there +was a burly half-Dutchman, called Zuyland, who +owned and edited a paper up-country near Johannesberg; +and there was myself, who had solemnly put +away all journalism, vowing to forget that I had ever +known the difference between an imprint and a stereo +advertisement.</p> + +<p>Ten minutes after Keller spoke to me, as the +<i>Rathmines</i> cleared Cape Town, I had forgotten the +aloofness I desired to feign, and was in heated discussion +on the immorality of expanding telegrams +beyond a certain fixed point. Then Zuyland came +out of his cabin, and we were all at home instantly, +because we were men of the same profession +needing no introduction. We annexed the boat formally, +broke open the passengers’ bath-room door—on +the Manilla lines the Dons do not wash—cleaned out +the orange-peel and cigar-ends at the bottom of the +bath, hired a Lascar to shave us throughout the voyage, +and then asked each other’s names.</p> + +<p>Three ordinary men would have quarrelled through +sheer boredom before they reached Southampton. We, +by virtue of our craft, were anything but ordinary men. +A large percentage of the tales of the world, the thirty-nine +that cannot be told to ladies and the one that +can, are common property coming of a common stock. +We told them all, as a matter of form, with all their +local and specific variants which are surprising. Then +came, in the intervals of steady card-play, more +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</span>personal histories of adventure and things seen and +suffered: panics among white folk, when the blind +terror ran from man to man on the Brooklyn Bridge, +and the people crushed each other to death they knew +not why; fires, and faces that opened and shut their +mouths horribly at red-hot window frames; wrecks in +frost and snow, reported from the sleet-sheathed rescue-tug +at the risk of frost-bite; long rides after diamond +thieves; skirmishes on the veldt and in municipal +committees with the Boers; glimpses of lazy tangled +Cape politics and the mule-rule in the Transvaal; +card-tales, horse-tales, woman-tales, by the score and +the half hundred; till the first mate, who had seen +more than us all put together, but lacked words to +clothe his tales with, sat open-mouthed far into the +dawn.</p> + +<p>When the tales were done we picked up cards till +a curious hand or a chance remark made one or other +of us say, ‘That reminds me of a man who—or a +business which—’ and the anecdotes would continue +while the <i>Rathmines</i> kicked her way northward through +the warm water.</p> + +<p>In the morning of one specially warm night we +three were sitting immediately in front of the wheel-house, +where an old Swedish boatswain whom we called +‘Frithiof the Dane’ was at the wheel, pretending that +he could not hear our stories. Once or twice Frithiof +spun the spokes curiously, and Keller lifted his head +from a long chair to ask, ‘What is it? Can’t you get +any steerage-way on her?’</p> + +<p>‘There is a feel in the water,’ said Frithiof, ‘that I +cannot understand. I think that we run downhills or +somethings. She steers bad this morning.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</span></p> + +<p>Nobody seems to know the laws that govern the +pulse of the big waters. Sometimes even a landsman +can tell that the solid ocean is atilt, and that the ship +is working herself up a long unseen slope; and sometimes +the captain says, when neither full steam nor +fair wind justifies the length of a day’s run, that the +ship is sagging downhill; but how these ups and +downs come about has not yet been settled authoritatively.</p> + +<p>‘No, it is a following sea,’ said Frithiof; ‘and with +a following sea you shall not get good steerage-way.’</p> + +<p>The sea was as smooth as a duck-pond, except for a +regular oily swell. As I looked over the side to see +where it might be following us from, the sun rose in a +perfectly clear sky and struck the water with its light so +sharply that it seemed as though the sea should clang +like a burnished gong. The wake of the screw and the +little white streak cut by the log-line hanging over the +stern were the only marks on the water as far as eye +could reach.</p> + +<p>Keller rolled out of his chair and went aft to get a +pine-apple from the ripening stock that was hung +inside the after awning.</p> + +<p>‘Frithiof, the log-line has got tired of swimming. +It’s coming home,’ he drawled.</p> + +<p>‘What?’ said Frithiof, his voice jumping several +octaves.</p> + +<p>‘Coming home,’ Keller repeated, leaning over the +stern. I ran to his side and saw the log-line, which +till then had been drawn tense over the stern railing, +slacken, loop, and come up off the port quarter. +Frithiof called up the speaking-tube to the bridge, and +the bridge answered, ‘Yes, nine knots.’ Then Frithiof +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</span>spoke again, and the answer was, ‘What do you want +of the skipper?’ and Frithiof bellowed, ‘Call him up.’</p> + +<p>By this time Zuyland, Keller, and myself had +caught something of Frithiof’s excitement, for any +emotion on shipboard is most contagious. The captain +ran out of his cabin, spoke to Frithiof, looked at the +log-line, jumped on the bridge, and in a minute we +felt the steamer swing round as Frithiof turned her.</p> + +<p>‘Going back to Cape Town?’ said Keller.</p> + +<p>Frithiof did not answer, but tore away at the +wheel. Then he beckoned us three to help, and we +held the wheel down till the <i>Rathmines</i> answered it, +and we found ourselves looking into the white of our +own wake, with the still oily sea tearing past our bows, +though we were not going more than half steam +ahead.</p> + +<p>The captain stretched out his arm from the bridge +and shouted. A minute later I would have given a +great deal to have shouted too, for one-half of the +sea seemed to shoulder itself above the other half, and +came on in the shape of a hill. There was neither +crest, comb, nor curl-over to it; nothing but black +water with little waves chasing each other about the +flanks. I saw it stream past and on a level with the +<i>Rathmines’</i> bow-plates before the steamer hove up her +bulk to rise, and I argued that this would be the last +of all earthly voyages for me. Then we lifted for ever +and ever and ever, till I heard Keller saying in my +ear, ‘The bowels of the deep, good Lord!’ and the +<i>Rathmines</i> stood poised, her screw racing and drumming +on the slope of a hollow that stretched downwards for +a good half-mile.</p> + +<p>We went down that hollow, nose under for the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</span>most part, and the air smelt wet and muddy, like that +of an emptied aquarium. There was a second hill to +climb; I saw that much: but the water came aboard +and carried me aft till it jammed me against the +wheel-house door, and before I could catch breath or +clear my eyes again we were rolling to and fro in torn +water, with the scuppers pouring like eaves in a +thunderstorm.</p> + +<p>‘There were three waves,’ said Keller; ‘and the +stoke-hold’s flooded.’</p> + +<p>The firemen were on deck waiting, apparently, to be +drowned. The engineer came and dragged them +below, and the crew, gasping, began to work the +clumsy Board of Trade pump. That showed nothing +serious, and when I understood that the <i>Rathmines</i> +was really on the water, and not beneath it, I asked +what had happened.</p> + +<p>‘The captain says it was a blow-up under the sea—a +volcano,’ said Keller.</p> + +<p>‘It hasn’t warmed anything,’ I said. I was feeling +bitterly cold, and cold was almost unknown in those +waters. I went below to change my clothes, and when +I came up everything was wiped out in clinging white +fog.</p> + +<p>‘Are there going to be any more surprises?’ said +Keller to the captain.</p> + +<p>‘I don’t know. Be thankful you’re alive, gentlemen. +That’s a tidal wave thrown up by a volcano. +Probably the bottom of the sea has been lifted a few +feet somewhere or other. I can’t quite understand +this cold spell. Our sea-thermometer says the surface +water is 44°, and it should be 68° at least.’</p> + +<p>‘It’s abominable,’ said Keller, shivering. ‘But +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</span>hadn’t you better attend to the fog-horn? It seems +to me that I heard something.’</p> + +<p>‘Heard! Good heavens!’ said the captain from +the bridge, ‘I should think you did.’ He pulled the +string of our fog-horn, which was a weak one. It +sputtered and choked, because the stoke-hold was full +of water and the fires were half-drowned, and at last +gave out a moan. It was answered from the fog by +one of the most appalling steam-sirens I have ever +heard. Keller turned as white as I did, for the fog, +the cold fog, was upon us, and any man may be forgiven +for fearing a death he cannot see.</p> + +<p>‘Give her steam there!’ said the captain to the +engine-room. ‘Steam for the whistle, if we have to +go dead slow.’</p> + +<p>We bellowed again, and the damp dripped off the +awnings on to the deck as we listened for the reply. +It seemed to be astern this time, but much nearer +than before.</p> + +<p>‘The <i>Pembroke Castle</i> on us!’ said Keller; and +then, viciously, ‘Well, thank God, we shall sink her too.’</p> + +<p>‘It’s a side-wheel steamer,’ I whispered. ‘Can’t +you hear the paddles?’</p> + +<p>This time we whistled and roared till the steam +gave out, and the answer nearly deafened us. There +was a sound of frantic threshing in the water, apparently +about fifty yards away, and something shot past +in the whiteness that looked as though it were gray +and red.</p> + +<p>‘The <i>Pembroke Castle</i> bottom up,’ said Keller, who, +being a journalist, always sought for explanations. +‘That’s the colours of a Castle liner. We’re in for a +big thing.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</span></p> + +<p>‘The sea is bewitched,’ said Frithiof from the +wheel-house. ‘There are <i>two</i> steamers!’</p> + +<p>Another siren sounded on our bow, and the little +steamer rolled in the wash of something that had +passed unseen.</p> + +<p>‘We’re evidently in the middle of a fleet,’ said +Keller quietly. ‘If one doesn’t run us down, the +other will. Phew! What in creation is that?’</p> + +<p>I sniffed, for there was a poisonous rank smell in +the cold air—a smell that I had smelt before.</p> + +<p>‘If I was on land I should say that it was an +alligator. It smells like musk,’ I answered.</p> + +<p>‘Not ten thousand alligators could make that smell,’ +said Zuyland; ‘I have smelt them.’</p> + +<p>‘Bewitched! Bewitched!’ said Frithiof. ‘The sea +she is turned upside down, and we are walking along +the bottom.’</p> + +<p>Again the <i>Rathmines</i> rolled in the wash of some +unseen ship, and a silver-gray wave broke over the +bow, leaving on the deck a sheet of sediment—the +gray broth that has its place in the fathomless deeps +of the sea. A sprinkling of the wave fell on my face, +and it was so cold that it stung as boiling water stings. +The dead and most untouched deep water of the sea +had been heaved to the top by the submarine volcano—the +chill still water that kills all life and smells of +desolation and emptiness. We did not need either +the blinding fog or that indescribable smell of musk to +make us unhappy—we were shivering with cold and +wretchedness where we stood.</p> + +<p>‘The hot air on the cold water makes this fog,’ +said the captain; ‘it ought to clear in a little +time.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</span></p> + +<p>‘Whistle, oh! whistle, and let’s get out of it,’ said +Keller.</p> + +<p>The captain whistled again, and far and far astern +the invisible twin steam-sirens answered us. Their +blasting shriek grew louder, till at last it seemed to +tear out of the fog just above our quarter, and I +cowered while the <i>Rathmines</i> plunged bows under on +a double swell that crossed.</p> + +<p>‘No more,’ said Frithiof, ‘it is not good any more. +Let us get away, in the name of God.’</p> + +<p>‘Now if a torpedo-boat with a <i>City of Paris</i> siren +went mad and broke her moorings and hired a friend to +help her, it’s just conceivable that we might be carried +as we are now. Otherwise this thing is——’</p> + +<p>The last words died on Keller’s lips, his eyes began +to start from his head, and his jaw fell. Some six or +seven feet above the port bulwarks, framed in fog, and +as utterly unsupported as the full moon, hung a Face. +It was not human, and it certainly was not animal, for +it did not belong to this earth as known to man. The +mouth was open, revealing a ridiculously tiny tongue—as +absurd as the tongue of an elephant; there were +tense wrinkles of white skin at the angles of the drawn +lips, white feelers like those of a barbel sprung from +the lower jaw, and there was no sign of teeth within +the mouth. But the horror of the face lay in the eyes, +for those were sightless—white, in sockets as white as +scraped bone, and blind. Yet for all this the face, +wrinkled as the mask of a lion is drawn in Assyrian +sculpture, was alive with rage and terror. One long +white feeler touched our bulwarks. Then the face +disappeared with the swiftness of a blindworm popping +into its burrow, and the next thing that I remember is +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</span>my own voice in my own ears, saying gravely to the +mainmast, ‘But the air-bladder ought to have been +forced out of its mouth, you know.’</p> + +<p>Keller came up to me, ashy white. He put his +hand into his pocket, took a cigar, bit it, dropped it, +thrust his shaking thumb into his mouth and mumbled, +‘The giant gooseberry and the raining frogs! Gimme +a light—gimme a light! Say, gimme a light.’ A +little bead of blood dropped from his thumb-joint.</p> + +<p>I respected the motive, though the manifestation +was absurd. ‘Stop, you’ll bite your thumb off,’ I said, +and Keller laughed brokenly as he picked up his cigar. +Only Zuyland, leaning over the port bulwarks, seemed +self-possessed. He declared later that he was very +sick.</p> + +<p>‘We’ve seen it,’ he said, turning round. ‘That +is it.’</p> + +<p>‘What?’ said Keller, chewing the unlighted cigar.</p> + +<p>As he spoke the fog was blown into shreds, and we +saw the sea, gray with mud, rolling on every side of +us and empty of all life. Then in one spot it bubbled +and became like the pot of ointment that the Bible +speaks of. From that wide-ringed trouble a Thing +came up—a gray and red Thing with a neck—a Thing +that bellowed and writhed in pain. Frithiof drew in +his breath and held it till the red letters of the ship’s +name, woven across his jersey, straggled and opened +out as though they had been type badly set. Then he +said with a little cluck in his throat, ‘Ah me! It is +blind. <i>Hur illa!</i> That thing is blind,’ and a murmur +of pity went through us all, for we could see that the +thing on the water was blind and in pain. Something +had gashed and cut the great sides cruelly and the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</span>blood was spurting out. The gray ooze of the undermost +sea lay in the monstrous wrinkles of the back, +and poured away in sluices. The blind white head +flung back and battered the wounds, and the body in +its torment rose clear of the red and gray waves till +we saw a pair of quivering shoulders streaked with +weed and rough with shells, but as white in the clear +spaces as the hairless, maneless, blind, toothless head. +Afterwards, came a dot on the horizon and the sound +of a shrill scream, and it was as though a shuttle shot +all across the sea in one breath, and a second head +and neck tore through the levels, driving a whispering +wall of water to right and left. The two Things met—the +one untouched and the other in its death-throe—male +and female, we said, the female coming to the +male. She circled round him bellowing, and laid her +neck across the curve of his great turtle-back, and he +disappeared under water for an instant, but flung up +again, grunting in agony while the blood ran. Once +the entire head and neck shot clear of the water and +stiffened, and I heard Keller saying, as though he was +watching a street accident, ‘Give him air. For God’s +sake, give him air.’ Then the death-struggle began, +with crampings and twistings and jerkings of the white +bulk to and fro, till our little steamer rolled again, +and each gray wave coated her plates with the gray +slime. The sun was clear, there was no wind, and we +watched, the whole crew, stokers and all, in wonder +and pity, but chiefly pity. The Thing was so helpless, +and, save for his mate, so alone. No human eye +should have beheld him; it was monstrous and +indecent to exhibit him there in trade waters between +atlas degrees of latitude. He had been spewed up, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</span>mangled and dying from his rest on the sea-floor, +where he might have lived till the Judgment Day, +and we saw the tides of his life go from him as an +angry tide goes out across rocks in the teeth of a +landward gale. His mate lay rocking on the water a +little distance off, bellowing continually, and the smell +of musk came down upon the ship making us cough.</p> + +<p>At last the battle for life ended, in a batter of +coloured seas. We saw the writhing neck fall like a +flail, the carcase turn sideways, showing the glint of +a white belly and the inset of a gigantic hind leg +or flipper. Then all sank, and sea boiled over it, +while the mate swam round and round, darting her +head in every direction. Though we might have +feared that she would attack the steamer, no power on +earth could have drawn any one of us from our places +that hour. We watched, holding our breaths. The +mate paused in her search; we could hear the wash +beating along her sides; reared her neck as high as she +could reach, blind and lonely in all that loneliness of +the sea, and sent one desperate bellow booming across +the swells as an oyster-shell skips across a pond. +Then she made off to the westward, the sun shining +on the white head and the wake behind it, till nothing +was left to see but a little pin point of silver on the +horizon. We stood on our course again; and the +<i>Rathmines</i>, coated with the sea-sediment, from bow to +stern, looked like a ship made gray with terror.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>‘We must pool our notes,’ was the first coherent +remark from Keller. ‘We’re three trained journalists—we +hold absolutely the biggest scoop on record. +Start fair.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</span></p> + +<p>I objected to this. Nothing is gained by collaboration +in journalism when all deal with the same facts, +so we went to work each according to his own lights. +Keller triple-headed his account, talked about our +‘gallant captain,’ and wound up with an allusion to +American enterprise in that it was a citizen of Dayton, +Ohio, that had seen the sea-serpent. This sort of +thing would have discredited the Creation, much +more a mere sea tale, but as a specimen of the picture-writing +of a half-civilised people it was very interesting. +Zuyland took a heavy column and a half, giving +approximate lengths and breadths and the whole list +of the crew whom he had sworn on oath to testify to +his facts. There was nothing fantastic or flamboyant +in Zuyland. I wrote three-quarters of a leaded +bourgeois column, roughly speaking, and refrained from +putting any journalese into it for reasons that had +begun to appear to me.</p> + +<p>Keller was insolent with joy. He was going to +cable from Southampton to the New York <i>World</i>, +mail his account to America on the same day, paralyse +London with his three columns of loosely knitted headlines, +and generally efface the earth. ‘You’ll see how +I work a big scoop when I get it,’ he said.</p> + +<p>‘Is this your first visit to England?’ I asked.</p> + +<p>‘Yes,’ said he. ‘You don’t seem to appreciate the +beauty of our scoop. It’s pyramidal—the death of +the sea-serpent! Good heavens alive, man, it’s the +biggest thing ever vouchsafed to a paper!’</p> + +<p>‘Curious to think that it will never appear in any +paper, isn’t it?’ I said.</p> + +<p>Zuyland was near me, and he nodded quickly.</p> + +<p>‘What do you mean?’ said Keller. ‘If you’re +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</span>enough of a Britisher to throw this thing away, I +shan’t. I thought you were a newspaper-man.’</p> + +<p>‘I am. That’s why I know. Don’t be an ass, +Keller. Remember, I’m seven hundred years your +senior, and what your grandchildren may learn five +hundred years hence, I learned from my grandfathers +about five hundred years ago. You won’t do it, because +you can’t.’</p> + +<p>This conversation was held in open sea, where +everything seems possible, some hundred miles from +Southampton. We passed the Needles Light at dawn, +and the lifting day showed the stucco villas on the +green and the awful orderliness of England—line +upon line, wall upon wall, solid stone dock and monolithic +pier. We waited an hour in the Customs shed, +and there was ample time for the effect to soak in.</p> + +<p>‘Now, Keller, you face the music. The <i>Havel</i> +goes out to-day. Mail by her, and I’ll take you to +the telegraph-office,’ I said.</p> + +<p>I heard Keller gasp as the influence of the land +closed about him, cowing him as they say Newmarket +Heath cows a young horse unused to open courses.</p> + +<p>‘I want to retouch my stuff. Suppose we wait +till we get to London?’ he said.</p> + +<p>Zuyland, by the way, had torn up his account and +thrown it overboard that morning early. His reasons +were my reasons.</p> + +<p>In the train Keller began to revise his copy, and +every time that he looked at the trim little fields, the +red villas, and the embankments of the line, the blue +pencil plunged remorselessly through the slips. He +appeared to have dredged the dictionary for adjectives. +I could think of none that he had not used. Yet he +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</span>was a perfectly sound poker-player and never showed +more cards than were sufficient to take the pool.</p> + +<p>‘Aren’t you going to leave him a single bellow?’ I +asked sympathetically. ‘Remember, everything goes +in the States, from a trouser-button to a double-eagle.’</p> + +<p>‘That’s just the curse of it,’ said Keller below his +breath. ‘We’ve played ’em for suckers so often that +when it comes to the golden truth—I’d like to try +this on a London paper. You have first call there, +though.’</p> + +<p>‘Not in the least. I’m not touching the thing in +our papers. I shall be happy to leave ’em all to you; +but surely you’ll cable it home?’</p> + +<p>‘No. Not if I can make the scoop here and see +the Britishers sit up.’</p> + +<p>‘You won’t do it with three columns of slushy +headline, believe me. They don’t sit up as quickly +as some people.’</p> + +<p>‘I’m beginning to think that too. Does <i>nothing</i> +make any difference in this country?’ he said, looking +out of the window. ‘How old is that farmhouse?’</p> + +<p>‘New. It can’t be more than two hundred years +at the most.’</p> + +<p>‘Um. Fields, too?’</p> + +<p>‘That hedge there must have been clipped for +about eighty years.’</p> + +<p>‘Labour cheap—eh?’</p> + +<p>‘Pretty much. Well, I suppose you’d like to try +the <i>Times</i>, wouldn’t you?’</p> + +<p>‘No,’ said Keller, looking at Winchester Cathedral. +‘Might as well try to electrify a hay-stack. And to +think that the <i>World</i> would take three columns and +ask for more—with illustrations too! It’s sickening.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</span></p> + +<p>‘But the <i>Times</i> might,’ I began.</p> + +<p>Keller flung his paper across the carriage, and it +opened in its austere majesty of solid type—opened +with the crackle of an encyclopædia.</p> + +<p>‘Might! You <i>might</i> work your way through the +bow-plates of a cruiser. Look at that first page!’</p> + +<p>‘It strikes you that way, does it?’ I said. ‘Then +I’d recommend you to try a light and frivolous +journal.’</p> + +<p>‘With a thing like this of mine—of ours? It’s +sacred history!’</p> + +<p>I showed him a paper which I conceived would be +after his own heart, in that it was modelled on American +lines.</p> + +<p>‘That’s homey,’ he said, ‘but it’s not the real +thing. Now, I should like one of these fat old <i>Times</i> +columns. Probably there’d be a bishop in the office, +though.’</p> + +<p>When we reached London Keller disappeared in +the direction of the Strand. What his experiences +may have been I cannot tell, but it seems that he +invaded the office of an evening paper at 11.45 a.m. +(I told him English editors were most idle at that +hour), and mentioned my name as that of a witness +to the truth of his story.</p> + +<p>‘I was nearly fired out,’ he said furiously at lunch. +‘As soon as I mentioned you, the old man said that +I was to tell you that they didn’t want any more of +your practical jokes, and that you knew the hours to +call if you had anything to sell, and that they’d see +you condemned before they helped to puff one of your +infernal yarns in advance. Say, what record do you +hold for truth in this country, anyway?’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</span></p> + +<p>‘A beauty. You ran up against it, that’s all. +Why don’t you leave the English papers alone and +cable to New York? Everything goes over there.’</p> + +<p>‘Can’t you see that’s just why?’ he repeated.</p> + +<p>‘I saw it a long time ago. You don’t intend to +cable, then?’</p> + +<p>‘Yes I do,’ he answered, in the over-emphatic voice +of one who does not know his own mind.</p> + +<p>That afternoon I walked him abroad and about, +over the streets that run between the pavements like +channels of grooved and tongued lava, over the bridges +that are made of enduring stone, through subways +floored and sided with yard-thick concrete, between +houses that are never rebuilt, and by river-steps hewn, +to the eye, from the living rock. A black fog chased +us into Westminster Abbey, and, standing there in the +darkness, I could hear the wings of the dead centuries +circling round the head of Litchfield A. Keller, journalist, +of Dayton, Ohio, U.S.A., whose mission it was to make +the Britishers sit up.</p> + +<p>He stumbled gasping into the thick gloom, and the +roar of the traffic came to his bewildered ears.</p> + +<p>‘Let’s go to the telegraph-office and cable,’ I said. +‘Can’t you hear the New York <i>World</i> crying for news of +the great sea-serpent, blind, white, and smelling of musk, +stricken to death by a submarine volcano, and assisted +by his loving wife to die in mid-ocean, as visualised by +an American citizen, the breezy, newsy, brainy newspaper-man +of Dayton, Ohio? ’Rah for the Buckeye +State. Step lively! Both gates! Szz! Boom! +Aah!’ Keller was a Princeton man, and he seemed +to need encouragement.</p> + +<p>‘You’ve got me on your own ground,’ said he, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</span>tugging at his overcoat pocket. He pulled out his +copy, with the cable forms—for he had written out his +telegram—and put them all into my hand, groaning, +‘I pass. If I hadn’t come to your cursed country—If +I’d sent it off at Southampton—If I ever get you +west of the Alleghannies, if——’</p> + +<p>‘Never mind, Keller. It isn’t your fault. It’s the +fault of your country. If you had been seven hundred +years older you’d have done what I am going to do.’</p> + +<p>‘What are you going to do?’</p> + +<p>‘Tell it as a lie.’</p> + +<p>‘Fiction?’ This with the full-blooded disgust of +a journalist for the illegitimate branch of the profession.</p> + +<p>‘You can call it that if you like. I shall call it a +lie.’</p> + +<p>And a lie it has become; for Truth is a naked lady, +and if by accident she is drawn up from the bottom of +the sea, it behoves a gentleman either to give her a +print petticoat or to turn his face to the wall and vow +that he did not see.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_LOST_LEGION"> + THE LOST LEGION. + </h2> +</div> + + +<p class="p2">When the Indian Mutiny broke out, and a little time +before the siege of Delhi, a regiment of Native Irregular +Horse was stationed at Peshawur on the frontier of +India. That regiment caught what John Lawrence +called at the time ‘the prevalent mania,’ and would +have thrown in its lot with the mutineers, had it been +allowed to do so. The chance never came, for, as the +regiment swept off down south, it was headed up by a +remnant of an English corps into the hills of Afghanistan, +and there the newly-conquered tribesmen turned +against it as wolves turn against buck. It was hunted +for the sake of its arms and accoutrements from hill to +hill, from ravine to ravine, up and down the dried beds +of rivers and round the shoulders of bluffs, till it disappeared +as water sinks in the sand—this officerless, +rebel regiment. The only trace left of its existence +to-day is a nominal roll drawn up in neat round hand +and counter-signed by an officer who called himself +‘Adjutant, late —— Irregular Cavalry.’ The paper is +yellow with years and dirt, but on the back of it you +can still read a pencil note by John Lawrence; to this +effect: ‘See that the two native officers who remained +loyal are not deprived of their estates.—J. L.’ Of six +hundred and fifty sabres only two stood strain, and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</span>John Lawrence in the midst of all the agony of the +first months of the Mutiny found time to think about +their merits.</p> + +<p>That was more than thirty years ago, and the +tribesmen across the Afghan border who helped to +annihilate the regiment are now old men. Sometimes +a graybeard speaks of his share in the massacre. ‘They +came,’ he will say, ‘across the border, very proud, +calling upon us to rise and kill the English, and go +down to the sack of Delhi. But we who had just +been conquered by the same English knew that they +were over bold, and that the Government could account +easily for those down-country dogs. This Hindustani +regiment, therefore, we treated with fair words, and +kept standing in one place till the redcoats came after +them very hot and angry. Then this regiment ran +forward a little more into our hills to avoid the wrath +of the English, and we lay upon their flanks watching +from the sides of the hills till we were well assured +that their path was lost behind them. Then we came +down, for we desired their clothes, and their bridles, +and their rifles, and their boots—more especially their +boots. That was a great killing—done slowly.’ Here +the old man will rub his nose, and shake his long +snaky locks, and lick his bearded lips, and grin till the +yellow tooth-stumps show. ‘Yes, we killed them +because we needed their gear, and we knew that their +lives had been forfeited to God on account of their sin—the +sin of treachery to the salt which they had +eaten. They rode up and down the valleys, stumbling +and rocking in their saddles, and howling for mercy. +We drove them slowly like cattle till they were all +assembled in one place, the flat wide valley of Sheor +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</span>Kôt. Many had died from want of water, but there +still were many left, and they could not make any +stand. We went among them pulling them down with +our hands two at a time, and our boys killed them +who were new to the sword. My share of the plunder +was such and such—so many guns, and so many +saddles. The guns were good in those days. Now we +steal the Government rifles, and despise smooth barrels. +Yes, beyond doubt we wiped that regiment from off the +face of the earth, and even the memory of the deed is +now dying. But men say——’</p> + +<p>At this point the tale would stop abruptly, and it +was impossible to find out what men said across the +border. The Afghans were always a secretive race, and +vastly preferred doing something wicked to saying +anything at all. They would be quiet and well-behaved +for months, till one night without word or +warning, they would rush a police-post, cut the throats +of a constable or two, dash through a village, carry +away three or four women, and withdraw, in the red +glare of burning thatch, driving the cattle and goats +before them to their own desolate hills. The Indian +Government would become almost tearful on these +occasions. First it would say, ‘Please be good and +we’ll forgive you.’ The tribe concerned in the latest +depredation would collectively put its thumb to its nose +and answer rudely. Then the Government would say: +‘Hadn’t you better pay up a little money for those +few corpses you left behind you the other night?’ +Here the tribe would temporise, and lie and bully, +and some of the younger men, merely to show contempt +of authority, would raid another police-post and fire +into some frontier mud fort, and, if lucky, kill a real +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</span>English officer. Then the Government would say: +‘Observe; if you really persist in this line of conduct, +you will be hurt.’ If the tribe knew exactly what +was going on in India, it would apologise or be rude, +according as it learned whether the Government was +busy with other things or able to devote its full +attention to their performances. Some of the tribes +knew to one corpse how far to go. Others became +excited, lost their heads, and told the Government to +come on. With sorrow and tears, and one eye on the +British taxpayer at home, who insisted on regarding +these exercises as brutal wars of annexation, the +Government would prepare an expensive little field-brigade +and some guns, and send all up into the hills +to chase the wicked tribe out of the valleys, where the +corn grew, into the hill-tops where there was nothing +to eat. The tribe would turn out in full strength and +enjoy the campaign, for they knew that their women +would never be touched, that their wounded would be +nursed, not mutilated, and that as soon as each man’s +bag of corn was spent they could surrender and palaver +with the English General as though they had been a +real enemy. Afterwards, years afterwards, they would +pay the blood-money, driblet by driblet, to the Government +and tell their children how they had slain the +redcoats by thousands. The only drawback to this +kind of picnic-war was the weakness of the redcoats +for solemnly blowing up with powder their fortified +towers and keeps. This the tribes always considered +mean.</p> + +<p>Chief among the leaders of the smaller tribes—the +little clans who knew to a penny the expense of moving +white troops against them—was a priest-bandit-chief +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</span>whom we will call the Gulla Kutta Mullah. His +enthusiasm for border murder as an art was almost +dignified. He would cut down a mail-runner from +pure wantonness, or bombard a mud fort with rifle +fire when he knew that our men needed to sleep. In +his leisure moments he would go on circuit among his +neighbours, and try to incite other tribes to devilry. +Also, he kept a kind of hotel for fellow-outlaws in his +own village, which lay in a valley called Bersund. +Any respectable murderer on that section of the frontier +was sure to lie up at Bersund, for it was reckoned an +exceedingly safe place. The sole entry to it ran through +a narrow gorge which could be converted into a death-trap +in five minutes. It was surrounded by high hills, +reckoned inaccessible to all save born mountaineers, +and here the Gulla Kutta Mullah lived in great state, +the head of a colony of mud and stone huts, and in +each mud hut hung some portion of a red uniform and +the plunder of dead men. The Government particularly +wished for his capture, and once invited him formally +to come out and be hanged on account of a few of +the murders in which he had taken a direct part. +He replied:—</p> + +<p>‘I am only twenty miles, as the crow flies, from +your border. Come and fetch me.’</p> + +<p>‘Some day we will come,’ said the Government, +‘and hanged you will be.’</p> + +<p>The Gulla Kutta Mullah let the matter from his +mind. He knew that the patience of the Government +was as long as a summer day; but he did not realise +that its arm was as long as a winter night. Months +afterwards, when there was peace on the border, and +all India was quiet, the Indian Government turned in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</span>its sleep and remembered the Gulla Kutta Mullah at +Bersund, with his thirteen outlaws. The movement +against him of one single regiment—which the telegrams +would have translated as war—would have been highly +impolitic. This was a time for silence and speed, and, +above all, absence of bloodshed.</p> + +<p>You must know that all along the north-west frontier +of India there is spread a force of some thirty thousand +foot and horse, whose duty it is quietly and unostentatiously +to shepherd the tribes in front of them. +They move up and down, and down and up, from one +desolate little post to another; they are ready to take +the field at ten minutes’ notice; they are always half +in and half out of a difficulty somewhere along the +monotonous line; their lives are as hard as their own +muscles, and the papers never say anything about +them. It was from this force that the Government +picked its men.</p> + +<p>One night at a station where the mounted Night +Patrol fire as they challenge, and the wheat rolls in +great blue-green waves under our cold northern moon, +the officers were playing billiards in the mud-walled +club-house, when orders came to them that they were +to go on parade at once for a night-drill. They grumbled, +and went to turn out their men—a hundred English +troops, let us say, two hundred Goorkhas, and about +a hundred cavalry of the finest native cavalry in the +world.</p> + +<p>When they were on the parade-ground, it was +explained to them in whispers that they must set off +at once across the hills to Bersund. The English +troops were to post themselves round the hills at the +side of the valley; the Goorkhas would command the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</span>gorge and the death-trap, and the cavalry would fetch +a long march round and get to the back of the circle +of hills, whence, if there were any difficulty, they +could charge down on the Mullah’s men. But orders +were very strict that there should be no fighting and +no noise. They were to return in the morning with +every round of ammunition intact, and the Mullah +and the thirteen outlaws bound in their midst. If +they were successful, no one would know or care anything +about their work; but failure meant probably +a small border war, in which the Gulla Kutta Mullah +would pose as a popular leader against a big bullying +power, instead of a common border murderer.</p> + +<p>Then there was silence, broken only by the clicking +of the compass needles and snapping of watch-cases, +as the heads of columns compared bearings and +made appointments for the rendezvous. Five minutes +later the parade-ground was empty; the green coats +of the Goorkhas and the overcoats of the English troops +had faded into the darkness, and the cavalry were +cantering away in the face of a blinding drizzle.</p> + +<p>What the Goorkhas and the English did will be +seen later on. The heavy work lay with the horses, +for they had to go far and pick their way clear of +habitations. Many of the troopers were natives of +that part of the world, ready and anxious to fight +against their kin, and some of the officers had made +private and unofficial excursions into those hills before. +They crossed the border, found a dried river bed, +cantered up that, walked through a stony gorge, risked +crossing a low hill under cover of the darkness, skirted +another hill, leaving their hoof-marks deep in some +ploughed ground, felt their way along another watercourse, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</span>ran over the neck of a spur praying that no +one would hear their horses grunting, and so worked +on in the rain and the darkness, till they had left Bersund +and its crater of hills a little behind them, and to the +left, and it was time to swing round. The ascent +commanding the back of Bersund was steep, and they +halted to draw breath in a broad level valley below +the height. That is to say, the men reined up, but +the horses, blown as they were, refused to halt. There +was unchristian language, the worse for being delivered +in a whisper, and you heard the saddles +squeaking in the darkness as the horses plunged.</p> + +<p>The subaltern at the rear of one troop turned in +his saddle and said very softly:—</p> + +<p>‘Carter, what the blessed heavens are you doing at +the rear? Bring your men up, man.’</p> + +<p>There was no answer, till a trooper replied:—</p> + +<p>‘Carter Sahib is forward—not there. There is +nothing behind us.’</p> + +<p>‘There is,’ said the subaltern. ‘The squadron’s +walking on its own tail.’</p> + +<p>Then the Major in command moved down to the +rear swearing softly and asking for the blood of +Lieutenant Halley—the subaltern who had just spoken.</p> + +<p>‘Look after your rearguard,’ said the Major. +‘Some of your infernal thieves have got lost. They’re +at the head of the squadron, and you’re a several kinds +of idiot.’</p> + +<p>‘Shall I tell off my men, sir?’ said the subaltern +sulkily, for he was feeling wet and cold.</p> + +<p>‘Tell ’em off!’ said the Major. ‘<i>Whip</i> ’em off, by +Gad! You’re squandering them all over the place. +There’s a troop behind you <i>now</i>!’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</span></p> + +<p>‘So I was thinking,’ said the subaltern calmly. +‘I have all my men here, sir. Better speak to +Carter.’</p> + +<p>‘Carter Sahib sends salaam and wants to know +why the regiment is stopping,’ said a trooper to +Lieutenant Halley.</p> + +<p>‘Where under heaven <i>is</i> Carter?’ said the Major.</p> + +<p>‘Forward with his troop,’ was the answer.</p> + +<p>‘Are we walking in a ring, then, or are we the +centre of a blessed brigade?’ said the Major.</p> + +<p>By this time there was silence all along the column. +The horses were still; but, through the drive of the +fine rain, men could hear the feet of many horses +moving over stony ground.</p> + +<p>‘We’re being stalked,’ said Lieutenant Halley.</p> + +<p>‘They’ve no horses here. Besides they’d have +fired before this,’ said the Major. ‘It’s—it’s villagers’ +ponies.’</p> + +<p>‘Then our horses would have neighed and spoilt +the attack long ago. They must have been near us for +half an hour,’ said the subaltern.</p> + +<p>‘Queer that we can’t smell the horses,’ said the +Major, damping his finger and rubbing it on his nose +as he sniffed up wind.</p> + +<p>‘Well, it’s a bad start,’ said the subaltern, shaking +the wet from his overcoat. ‘What shall we do, sir?’</p> + +<p>‘Get on,’ said the Major. ‘We shall catch it to-night.’</p> + +<p>The column moved forward very gingerly for a few +paces. Then there was an oath, a shower of blue +sparks as shod hooves crashed on small stones, and a +man rolled over with a jangle of accoutrements that +would have waked the dead.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</span></p> + +<p>‘Now we’ve gone and done it,’ said Lieutenant +Halley. ‘All the hillside awake, and all the hillside +to climb in the face of musketry-fire. This comes of +trying to do night-hawk work.’</p> + +<p>The trembling trooper picked himself up and tried +to explain that his horse had fallen over one of the +little cairns that are built of loose stones on the spot +where a man has been murdered. There was no need +for reasons. The Major’s big Australian charger +blundered next, and the column came to a halt in +what seemed to be a very graveyard of little cairns all +about two feet high. The manœuvres of the squadron +are not reported. Men said that it felt like mounted +quadrilles without training and without the music; but +at last the horses, breaking rank and choosing their +own way, walked clear of the cairns, till every man of +the squadron re-formed and drew rein a few yards up +the slope of the hill. Then, according to Lieutenant +Halley, there was another scene very like the one +which has been described. The Major and Carter +insisted that all the men had not joined rank, and that +there were more of them in the rear clicking and +blundering among the dead men’s cairns. Lieutenant +Halley told off his own troopers again and resigned +himself to wait. Later on he told me:—</p> + +<p>‘I didn’t much know, and I didn’t much care what +was going on. The row of that trooper falling ought +to have scared half the country, and I would take my +oath that we were being stalked by a full regiment in +the rear, and <i>they</i> were making row enough to rouse all +Afghanistan. I sat tight, but nothing happened.’</p> + +<p>The mysterious part of the night’s work was the +silence on the hillside. Everybody knew that the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</span>Gulla Kutta Mullah had his outpost huts on the reverse +side of the hill, and everybody expected by the time +that the Major had sworn himself into a state of quiet +that the watchmen there would open fire. When +nothing occurred, they said that the gusts of the rain +had deadened the sound of the horses, and thanked +Providence. At last the Major satisfied himself (<i>a</i>) +that he had left no one behind among the cairns, and +(<i>b</i>) that he was not being taken in the rear by a large +and powerful body of cavalry. The men’s tempers +were thoroughly spoiled, the horses were lathered and +unquiet, and one and all prayed for the daylight.</p> + +<p>They set themselves to climb up the hill, each man +leading his mount carefully. Before they had covered +the lower slopes or the breast-plates had begun to +tighten, a thunderstorm came up behind, rolling across +the low hills and drowning any noise less than that of +cannon. The first flash of the lightning showed the +bare ribs of the ascent, the hill-crest standing steely +blue against the black sky, the little falling lines of +the rain, and, a few yards to their left flank, an Afghan +watch-tower, two-storied, built of stone, and entered by +a ladder from the upper story. The ladder was up, +and a man with a rifle was leaning from the window. +The darkness and the thunder rolled down in an +instant, and, when the lull followed, a voice from the +watch-tower cried, ‘Who goes there?’</p> + +<p>The cavalry were very quiet, but each man gripped +his carbine and stood beside his horse. Again the +voice called, ‘Who goes there?’ and in a louder key, +‘O, brothers, give the alarm!’ Now, every man in +the cavalry would have died in his long boots sooner +than have asked for quarter; but it is a fact that the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</span>answer to the second call was a long wail of ‘Marf +karo! Marf karo!’ which means, ‘Have mercy! Have +mercy!’ It came from the climbing regiment.</p> + +<p>The cavalry stood dumbfoundered, till the big +troopers had time to whisper one to another: ‘Mir +Khan, was that thy voice? Abdullah, didst <i>thou</i> call?’ +Lieutenant Halley stood beside his charger and waited. +So long as no firing was going on he was content. +Another flash of lightning showed the horses with +heaving flanks and nodding heads, the men, white +eye-balled, glaring beside them, and the stone watch-tower +to the left. This time there was no head at the +window, and the rude iron-clamped shutter that could +turn a rifle bullet was closed.</p> + +<p>‘Go on, men,’ said the Major. ‘Get up to the top +at any rate.’ The squadron toiled forward, the horses +wagging their tails and the men pulling at the bridles, +the stones rolling down the hillside and the sparks +flying. Lieutenant Halley declares that he never +heard a squadron make so much noise in his life. +They scrambled up, he said, as though each horse had +eight legs and a spare horse to follow him. Even then +there was no sound from the watch-tower, and the men +stopped exhausted on the ridge that overlooked the pit +of darkness in which the village of Bersund lay. +Girths were loosed, curb-chains shifted, and saddles +adjusted, and the men dropped down among the +stones. Whatever might happen now, they had the +upper ground of any attack.</p> + +<p>The thunder ceased, and with it the rain, and the +soft thick darkness of a winter night before the dawn +covered them all. Except for the sound of falling +water among the ravines below, everything was still. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</span>They heard the shutter of the watch-tower below them +thrown back with a clang, and the voice of the watcher +calling: ‘Oh, Hafiz Ullah!’</p> + +<p>The echoes took up the call, ‘La-la-la!’ And an +answer came from the watch-tower hidden round the +curve of the hill, ‘What is it, Shahbaz Khan?’</p> + +<p>Shahbaz Khan replied in the high-pitched voice of +the mountaineer: ‘Hast thou seen?’</p> + +<p>The answer came back: ‘Yes. God deliver us from +all evil spirits!’</p> + +<p>There was a pause, and then: ‘Hafiz Ullah, I am +alone! Come to me!’</p> + +<p>‘Shahbaz Khan, I am alone also; but I dare not +leave my post!’</p> + +<p>‘That is a lie; thou art afraid.’</p> + +<p>A longer pause followed, and then: ‘I am afraid. +Be silent! They are below us still. Pray to God and +sleep.’</p> + +<p>The troopers listened and wondered, for they could +not understand what save earth and stone could lie +below the watch-towers.</p> + +<p>Shahbaz Khan began to call again: ‘They are +below us. I can see them. For the pity of God come +over to me, Hafiz Ullah! My father slew ten of them. +Come over!’</p> + +<p>Hafiz Ullah answered in a very loud voice, ‘Mine +was guiltless. Hear, ye Men of the Night, neither my +father nor my blood had any part in that sin. Bear +thou they own punishment, Shahbaz Khan.’</p> + +<p>‘Oh, some one ought to stop those two chaps crowing +away like cocks there,’ said Lieutenant Halley, +shivering under his rock.</p> + +<p>He had hardly turned round to expose a new side +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</span>of him to the rain before a bearded, long-locked, evil-smelling +Afghan rushed up the hill, and tumbled into +his arms. Halley sat upon him, and thrust as much +of a sword-hilt as could be spared down the man’s +gullet. ‘If you cry out, I kill you,’ he said cheerfully.</p> + +<p>The man was beyond any expression of terror. He +lay and quaked, grunting. When Halley took the +sword-hilt from between his teeth, he was still inarticulate, +but clung to Halley’s arm, feeling it from elbow +to wrist.</p> + +<p>‘The Rissala! The dead Rissala!’ he gasped. ‘It +is down there!’</p> + +<p>‘No; the Rissala, the very much alive Rissala. It +is up here,’ said Halley, unshipping his watering-bridle, +and fastening the man’s hands. ‘Why were you in the +towers so foolish as to let us pass?’</p> + +<p>‘The valley is full of the dead,’ said the Afghan. +‘It is better to fall into the hands of the English than +the hands of the dead. They march to and fro below +there. I saw them in the lightning.’</p> + +<p>He recovered his composure after a little, and whispering, +because Halley’s pistol was at his stomach, said: +‘What is this? There is no war between us now, +and the Mullah will kill me for not seeing you pass!’</p> + +<p>‘Rest easy,’ said Halley; ‘we are coming to kill the +Mullah, if God please. His teeth have grown too long. +No harm will come to thee unless the daylight shows thee +as a face which is desired by the gallows for crime +done. But what of the dead regiment?’</p> + +<p>‘I only kill within my own border,’ said the man, +immensely relieved. ‘The Dead Regiment is below. +The men must have passed through it on their journey—four +hundred dead on horses, stumbling among their +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</span>own graves, among the little heaps—dead men all, whom +we slew.’</p> + +<p>‘Whew!’ said Halley. ‘That accounts for my +cursing Carter and the Major cursing me. Four +hundred sabres, eh? No wonder we thought there +were a few extra men in the troop. Kurruk Shah,’ +he whispered to a grizzled native officer that lay +within a few feet of him, ‘hast thou heard anything +of a dead Rissala in these hills?’</p> + +<p>‘Assuredly,’ said Kurruk Shah with a grim chuckle. +‘Otherwise, why did I, who have served the Queen for +seven-and-twenty years, and killed many hill-dogs, +shout aloud for quarter when the lightning revealed +us to the watch-towers? When I was a young man I +saw the killing in the valley of Sheor-Kôt there at +our feet, and I know the tale that grew up therefrom. +But how can the ghosts of unbelievers prevail against +us who are of the Faith? Strap that dog’s hands a +little tighter, Sahib. An Afghan is like an eel.’</p> + +<p>‘But a dead Rissala,’ said Halley, jerking his +captive’s wrist. ‘That is foolish talk, Kurruk Shah. +The dead are dead. Hold still, <i>sag</i>.’ The Afghan +wriggled.</p> + +<p>‘The dead are dead, and for that reason they walk +at night. What need to talk? We be men; we +have our eyes and ears. Thou canst both see and +hear them, down the hillside,’ said Kurruk Shah +composedly.</p> + +<p>Halley stared and listened long and intently. The +valley was full of stifled noises, as every valley must +be at night; but whether he saw or heard more than +was natural Halley alone knows, and he does not +choose to speak on the subject.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</span></p> + +<p>At last, and just before the dawn, a green rocket +shot up from the far side of the valley of Bersund, at +the head of the gorge, to show that the Goorkhas were +in position. A red light from the infantry at left and +right answered it, and the cavalry burnt a white flare. +Afghans in winter are late sleepers, and it was not till +full day that the Gulla Kutta Mullah’s men began to +straggle from their huts, rubbing their eyes. They saw +men in green, and red, and brown uniforms, leaning +on their arms, neatly arranged all round the crater of +the village of Bersund, in a cordon that not even a +wolf could have broken. They rubbed their eyes the +more when a pink-faced young man, who was not even +in the Army, but represented the Political Department, +tripped down the hillside with two orderlies, rapped at +the door of the Gulla Kutta Mullah’s house, and told +him quietly to step out and be tied up for safe transport. +That same young man passed on through the +huts, tapping here one cateran, and there another +lightly with his cane; and as each was pointed out, +so he was tied up, staring hopelessly at the crowned +heights around where the English soldiers looked down +with incurious eyes. Only the Mullah tried to carry it +off with curses and high words, till a soldier who was +tying his hands said:—</p> + +<p>‘None o’ your lip! Why didn’t you come out +when you was ordered, instead o’ keepin’ us awake all +night? You’re no better than my own barrack-sweeper, +you white-’eaded old polyanthus! Kim up!’</p> + +<p>Half an hour later the troops had gone away with +the Mullah and his thirteen friends. The dazed +villagers were looking ruefully at a pile of broken +muskets and snapped swords, and wondering how in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</span>the world they had come so to miscalculate the +forbearance of the Indian Government.</p> + +<p>It was a very neat little affair, neatly carried out, +and the men concerned were unofficially thanked for +their services.</p> + +<p>Yet it seems to me that much credit is also due to +another regiment whose name did not appear in the +brigade orders, and whose very existence is in danger +of being forgotten.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="IN_THE_RUKH"> + IN THE RUKH. + </h2> +</div> + + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The Only Son lay down again and dreamed that he dreamed a dream.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The last ash dropped from the dying fire with the click of a falling spark,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And the Only Son woke up again and called across the dark:—</div> + <div class="verse indent0">‘Now, was I born of womankind and laid in a mother’s breast?</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For I have dreamed of a shaggy hide whereon I went to rest.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And was I born of womankind and laid on a father’s arm?</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For I have dreamed of long white teeth that guarded me from harm.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Oh, was I born of womankind and did I play alone?</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For I have dreamed of playmates twain that bit me to the bone.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And did I break the barley bread and steep it in the tyre?</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For I have dreamed of a youngling kid new riven from the byre.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">An hour it lacks and an hour it lacks to the rising of the moon—</div> + <div class="verse indent0">But I can see the black roof-beams as plain as it were noon!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">’Tis a league and a league to the Lena Falls where the trooping sambhur go,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">But I can hear the little fawn that bleats behind the doe!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">’Tis a league and a league to the Lena Falls where the crop and the upland meet,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">But I can smell the warm wet wind that whispers through the wheat!’</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="right"> + <i>The Only Son.</i> +</p> + + +<p class="p2">Of the wheels of public service that turn under the +Indian Government, there is none more important +than the Department of Woods and Forests. The reboisement +of all India is in its hands: or will be when +Government has the money to spend. Its servants +wrestle with wandering sand-torrents and shifting +dunes: wattling them at the sides, damming them in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</span>front, and pegging them down atop with coarse grass +and spindling pine after the rules of Nancy. They are +responsible for all the timber in the State forests of +the Himalayas, as well as for the denuded hillsides +that the monsoons wash into dry gullies and aching +ravines; each cut a mouth crying aloud what carelessness +can do. They experiment with battalions of foreign +trees, and coax the blue gum to take root and, perhaps, +dry up the Canal fever. In the plains the chief part +of their duty is to see that the belt fire-lines in the +forest reserves are kept clean, so that when drought +comes and the cattle starve, they may throw the +reserve open to the villager’s herds and allow the man +himself to gather sticks. They poll and lop for the +stacked railway-fuel along the lines that burn no coal; +they calculate the profit of their plantations to five +points of decimals; they are the doctors and midwives +of the huge teak forests of Upper Burma, the rubber +of the Eastern Jungles, and the gall-nuts of the South; +and they are always hampered by lack of funds. +But since a Forest Officer’s business takes him far +from the beaten roads and the regular stations, he +learns to grow wise in more than wood-lore alone; to +know the people and the polity of the jungle; meeting +tiger, bear, leopard, wild-dog, and all the deer, not once +or twice after days of beating, but again and again in +the execution of his duty. He spends much time in +saddle or under canvas—the friend of newly planted +trees, the associate of uncouth rangers and hairy +trackers—till the woods, that show his care, in turn +set their mark upon him and he ceases to sing the +naughty French songs he learned at Nancy, and grows +silent with the silent things of the underbrush.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</span></p> + +<p>Gisborne of the Woods and Forests had spent four +years in the service. At first he loved it without +comprehension, because it led him into the open on +horseback and gave him authority. Then he hated it +furiously, and would have given a year’s pay for one +month of such society as India affords. That crisis +over, the forests took him back again, and he was +content to serve them, to deepen and widen his fire-lines, +to watch the green mist of his new plantation +against the older foliage, to dredge out the choked +stream, and to follow and strengthen the last struggle +of the forest where it broke down and died among the +long pig-grass. On some still day that grass would +be burned off, and a hundred beasts that had their +homes there would rush out before the pale flames at +high noon. Later, the forest would creep forward +over the blackened ground in orderly lines of saplings, +and Gisborne, watching, would be well pleased. His +bungalow, a thatched white-walled cottage of two +rooms, was set at one end of the great <i>rukh</i> and overlooking +it. He made no pretence at keeping a garden, +for the <i>rukh</i> swept up to his door, curled over in +a thicket of bamboo, and he rode from his verandah +into its heart without the need of any carriage-drive.</p> + +<p>Abdul Gafur, his fat Mohammedan butler, fed him +when he was at home, and spent the rest of the time +gossiping with the little band of native servants whose +huts lay behind the bungalow. There were two +grooms, a cook, a water-carrier, and a sweeper, and that +was all. Gisborne cleaned his own guns and kept no +dog. Dogs scared the game, and it pleased the man +to be able to say where the subjects of his kingdom +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</span>would drink at moonrise, eat before dawn, and lie up +in the day’s heat. The rangers and forest-guards +lived in little huts far away in the <i>rukh</i>, only appearing +when one of them had been injured by a falling +tree or a wild beast. There Gisborne was alone.</p> + +<p>In spring the <i>rukh</i> put out few new leaves, but lay +dry and still untouched by the finger of the year, +waiting for rain. Only there was then more calling +and roaring in the dark on a quiet night; the tumult +of a battle-royal among the tigers, the bellowing of +arrogant buck, or the steady wood-chopping of an old +boar sharpening his tushes against a bole. Then +Gisborne laid aside his little-used gun altogether, for +it was to him a sin to kill. In summer, through the +furious May heats, the <i>rukh</i> reeled in the haze, and +Gisborne watched for the first sign of curling smoke +that should betray a forest fire. Then came the Rains +with a roar, and the <i>rukh</i> was blotted out in fetch +after fetch of warm mist, and the broad leaves +drummed the night through under the big drops; and +there was a noise of running water, and of juicy green +stuff crackling where the wind struck it, and the +lightning wove patterns behind the dense matting of +the foliage, till the sun broke loose again and the +<i>rukh</i> stood with hot flanks smoking to the newly +washed sky. Then the heat and the dry cold subdued +everything to tiger-colour again. So Gisborne learned +to know his <i>rukh</i> and was very happy. His pay came +month by month, but he had very little need for money. +The currency notes accumulated in the drawer where +he kept his home-letters and the recapping-machine. +If he drew anything, it was to make a purchase from +the Calcutta Botanical Gardens, or to pay a ranger’s +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</span>widow a sum that the Government of India would +never have sanctioned for her man’s death.</p> + +<p>Payment was good, but vengeance was also necessary, +and he took that when he could. One night of many +nights a runner, breathless and gasping, came to him +with the news that a forest-guard lay dead by the +Kanye stream, the side of his head smashed in as +though it had been an egg-shell. Gisborne went out +at dawn to look for the murderer. It is only +travellers and now and then young soldiers who are +known to the world as great hunters. The Forest +Officers take their <i>shikar</i> as part of the day’s work, +and no one hears of it. Gisborne went on foot to +the place of the kill: the widow was wailing over the +corpse as it lay on a bedstead, while two or three +men were looking at footprints on the moist ground. +‘That is the Red One,’ said a man. ‘I knew he would +turn to man in time, but surely there is game enough +even for him. This must have been done for devilry.’</p> + +<p>‘The Red One lies up in the rocks at the back of +the <i>sal</i> trees,’ said Gisborne. He knew the tiger +under suspicion.</p> + +<p>‘Not now, Sahib, not now. He will be raging and +ranging to and fro. Remember that the first kill is a +triple kill always. Our blood makes them mad. He +may be behind us even as we speak.’</p> + +<p>‘He may have gone to the next hut,’ said another. +‘It is only four <i>koss</i>. Wallah, who is this!’</p> + +<p>Gisborne turned with the others. A man was +walking down the dried bed of the stream, naked +except for the loin-cloth, but crowned with a wreath +of the tasselled blossoms of the white convolvulus +creeper. So noiselessly did he move over the little +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</span>pebbles, that even Gisborne, used to the soft-footedness +of trackers, started.</p> + +<p>‘The tiger that killed,’ he began, without any salute, +‘has gone to drink, and now he is asleep under a +rock beyond that hill.’ His voice was clear and bell-like, +utterly different from the usual whine of the +native, and his face as he lifted it in the sunshine +might have been that of an angel strayed among the +woods. The widow ceased wailing above the corpse +and looked round-eyed at the stranger, returning to +her duty with double strength.</p> + +<p>‘Shall I show the Sahib?’ he said simply.</p> + +<p>‘If thou art sure—’ Gisborne began.</p> + +<p>‘Sure indeed. I saw him only an hour ago—the +dog. It is before his time to eat man’s flesh. He +has yet a dozen sound teeth in his evil head.’</p> + +<p>The men kneeling above the footprints slunk off +quietly, for fear that Gisborne should ask them to go with +him, and the young man laughed a little to himself.</p> + +<p>‘Come, Sahib,’ he cried, and turned on his heel, +walking before his companion.</p> + +<p>‘Not so fast. I cannot keep that pace,’ said the +white man. ‘Halt there. Thy face is new to me.’</p> + +<p>‘That may be. I am but newly come into this +forest.’</p> + +<p>‘From what village?’</p> + +<p>‘I am without a village. I came from over +there.’ He flung out his arm towards the north.</p> + +<p>‘A gipsy then?’</p> + +<p>‘No, Sahib. I am a man without caste, and for +matter of that without a father.’</p> + +<p>‘What do men call thee?’</p> + +<p>‘Mowgli, Sahib. And what is the Sahib’s name?’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</span></p> + +<p>‘I am the warden of this <i>rukh</i>—Gisborne is my +name.’</p> + +<p>‘How? Do they number the trees and the blades +of grass here?’</p> + +<p>‘Even so; lest such gipsy fellows as thou set +them afire.’</p> + +<p>‘I! I would not hurt the jungle for any gift. +That is my home.’</p> + +<p>He turned to Gisborne with a smile that was +irresistible, and held up a warning hand.</p> + +<p>‘Now, Sahib, we must go a little quietly. There +is no need to wake the dog, though he sleeps heavily +enough. Perhaps it were better if I went forward +alone and drove him down wind to the Sahib.’</p> + +<p>‘Allah! Since when have tigers been driven to +and fro like cattle by naked men?’ said Gisborne, +aghast at the man’s audacity.</p> + +<p>He laughed again softly. ‘Nay, then, come along +with me and shoot him in thy own way with the big +English rifle.’</p> + +<p>Gisborne stepped in his guide’s track, twisted, +crawled, and clomb and stooped and suffered through +all the many agonies of a jungle-stalk. He was +purple and dripping with sweat when Mowgli at the +last bade him raise his head and peer over a blue +baked rock near a tiny hill pool. By the water-side +lay the tiger extended and at ease, lazily licking +clean again an enormous elbow and fore paw. He +was old, yellow-toothed, and not a little mangy, but in +that setting and sunshine, imposing enough.</p> + +<p>Gisborne had no false ideas of sport where the man-eater +was concerned. This thing was vermin, to be +killed as speedily as possible. He waited to recover +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</span>his breath, rested the rifle on the rock and whistled. +The brute’s head turned slowly not twenty feet from +the rifle-mouth, and Gisborne planted his shots, +business-like, one behind the shoulder and the other +a little below the eye. At that range the heavy +bones were no guard against the rending bullets.</p> + +<p>‘Well, the skin was not worth keeping at any +rate,’ said he as the smoke cleared away and the +beast lay kicking and gasping in the last agony.</p> + +<p>‘A dog’s death for a dog,’ said Mowgli quietly. +‘Indeed there is nothing in that carrion worth taking +away.’</p> + +<p>‘The whiskers. Dost thou not take the whiskers?’ +said Gisborne, who knew how the rangers valued such +things.</p> + +<p>‘I? Am I a lousy <i>shikarri</i> of the jungle to +paddle with a tiger’s muzzle? Let him lie. Here +come his friends already.’</p> + +<p>A dropping kite whistled shrilly overhead, as +Gisborne snapped out the empty shells, and wiped +his face.</p> + +<p>‘And if thou art not a <i>shikarri</i>, where didst thou +learn thy knowledge of the tiger-folk?’ said he. ‘No +tracker could have done better.’</p> + +<p>‘I hate all tigers,’ said Mowgli curtly. ‘Let the +Sahib give me his gun to carry. Arré, it is a very +fine one. And where does the Sahib go now?’</p> + +<p>‘To my house.’</p> + +<p>‘May I come? I have never yet looked within a +white man’s house.’</p> + +<p>Gisborne returned to his bungalow, Mowgli striding +noiselessly before him, his brown skin glistening +in the sunlight.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</span></p> + +<p>He stared curiously at the verandah and the two +chairs there, fingered the split bamboo shade curtains +with suspicion, and entered, looking always behind +him. Gisborne loosed a curtain to keep out the +sun. It dropped with a clatter, but almost before it +touched the flagging of the verandah Mowgli had +leaped clear and was standing with heaving chest in +the open.</p> + +<p>‘It is a trap,’ he said quickly.</p> + +<p>Gisborne laughed. ‘White men do not trap men. +Indeed thou art altogether of the jungle.’</p> + +<p>‘I see,’ said Mowgli, ‘it has neither catch nor fall. +I—I never beheld these things till to-day.’</p> + +<p>He came in on tiptoe and stared with large eyes +at the furniture of the two rooms. Abdul Gafur, +who was laying lunch, looked at him with deep +disgust.</p> + +<p>‘So much trouble to eat, and so much trouble to +lie down after you have eaten!’ said Mowgli with a +grin. ‘We do better in the jungle. It is very wonderful. +There are very many rich things here. Is the +Sahib not afraid that he may be robbed? I have +never seen such wonderful things.’ He was staring +at a dusty Benares brass plate on a ricketty bracket.</p> + +<p>‘Only a thief from the jungle would rob here,’ +said Abdul Gafur, setting down a plate with a clatter. +Mowgli opened his eyes wide and stared at the white-bearded +Mohammedan.</p> + +<p>‘In my country when goats bleat very loud we +cut their throats,’ he returned cheerfully. ‘But have +no fear, thou, I am going.’</p> + +<p>He turned and disappeared into the <i>rukh</i>. Gisborne +looked after him with a laugh that ended in a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</span>little sigh. There was not much outside his regular +work to interest the Forest Officer, and this son of the +forest, who seemed to know tigers as other people +know dogs, would have been a diversion.</p> + +<p>‘He’s a most wonderful chap,’ thought Gisborne; +‘he’s like the illustrations in the Classical Dictionary. +I wish I could have made him a gun-boy. There’s no +fun in shikarring alone, and this fellow would have +been a perfect <i>shikarri</i>. I wonder what in the world +he is.’</p> + +<p>That evening he sat on the verandah under the +stairs smoking as he wondered. A puff of smoke +curled from the pipe-bowl. As it cleared he was +aware of Mowgli sitting with arms crossed on the +verandah edge. A ghost could not have drifted up +more noiselessly. Gisborne started and let the pipe +drop.</p> + +<p>‘There is no man to talk to out there in the <i>rukh</i>,’ +said Mowgli; ‘I came here, therefore.’ He picked up +the pipe and returned it to Gisborne.</p> + +<p>‘Oh,’ said Gisborne, and after a long pause, ‘What +news is there in the <i>rukh</i>? Hast thou found +another tiger?’</p> + +<p>‘The nilghai are changing their feeding-ground +against the new moon, as is their custom. The pig +are feeding near the Kanye river now, because they +will not feed with the nilghai, and one of their sows +has been killed by a leopard in the long grass at the +water-head. I do not know any more.’</p> + +<p>‘And how didst thou know all these things?’ said +Gisborne, leaning forward and looking at the eyes that +glittered in the starlight.</p> + +<p>‘How should I not know? The nilghai has his +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</span>custom and his use, and a child knows that pig will +not feed with him.’</p> + +<p>‘I do not know this,’ said Gisborne.</p> + +<p>‘Tck! Tck! And thou art in charge—so the men +of the huts tell me—in charge of all this <i>rukh</i>.’ He +laughed to himself.</p> + +<p>‘It is well enough to talk and to tell child’s tales,’ +Gisborne retorted, nettled at the chuckle. ‘To say +that this and that goes on in the <i>rukh</i>. No man can +deny thee.’</p> + +<p>‘As for the sow’s carcass, I will show thee her +bones to-morrow,’ Mowgli returned, absolutely unmoved. +‘Touching the matter of the nilghai, if the +Sahib will sit here very still I will drive one nilghai +up to this place, and by listening to the sounds carefully, +the Sahib can tell whence that nilghai has been +driven.’</p> + +<p>‘Mowgli, the jungle has made thee mad,’ said +Gisborne. ‘Who can drive nilghai?’</p> + +<p>‘Still—sit still, then. I go.’</p> + +<p>‘Gad, the man’s a ghost!’ said Gisborne; for +Mowgli had faded out into the darkness and there +was no sound of feet. The <i>rukh</i> lay out in great +velvety folds in the uncertain shimmer of the star-dust—so +still that the least little wandering wind +among the tree-tops came up as the sigh of a child +sleeping equably. Abdul Gafur in the cook-house +was clicking plates together.</p> + +<p>‘Be still there!’ shouted Gisborne, and composed +himself to listen as a man can who is used to the +stillness of the <i>rukh</i>. It had been his custom, to +preserve his self-respect in his isolation, to dress for +dinner each night, and the stiff white shirt-front +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</span>creaked with his regular breathing till he shifted +a little sideways. Then the tobacco of a somewhat +foul pipe began to purr, and he threw the pipe from +him. Now, except for the night-breath in the <i>rukh</i>, +everything was dumb.</p> + +<p>From an inconceivable distance, and drawled +through immeasurable darkness, came the faint, faint +echo of a wolf’s howl. Then silence again for, it +seemed, long hours. At last, when his legs below +the knees had lost all feeling, Gisborne heard something +that might have been a crash far off through +the undergrowth. He doubted till it was repeated +again and yet again.</p> + +<p>‘That’s from the west,’ he muttered; ‘there’s +something on foot there.’ The noise increased—crash +on crash, plunge on plunge—with the thick +grunting of a hotly pressed nilghai, flying in panic +terror and taking no heed to his course.</p> + +<p>A shadow blundered out from between the tree-trunks, +wheeled back, turned again grunting, and +with a clatter on the bare ground dashed up almost +within reach of his hand. It was a bull nilghai, +dripping with dew—his withers hung with a torn +trail of creeper, his eyes shining in the light from the +house. The creature checked at sight of the man, +and fled along the edge of the <i>rukh</i> till he melted in +the darkness. The first idea in Gisborne’s bewildered +mind was the indecency of thus dragging out +for inspection the big blue bull of the <i>rukh</i>—the +putting him through his paces in the night which +should have been his own.</p> + +<p>Then said a smooth voice at his ear as he stood +staring:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</span></p> + +<p>‘He came from the water-head where he was +leading the herd. From the west he came. Does +the Sahib believe now, or shall I bring up the herd +to be counted? The Sahib is in charge of this <i>rukh</i>.’</p> + +<p>Mowgli had reseated himself on the verandah, +breathing a little quickly. Gisborne looked at him +with open mouth. ‘How was that accomplished?’ +he said.</p> + +<p>‘The Sahib saw. The bull was driven—driven as +a buffalo is. Ho! ho! He will have a fine tale to +tell when he returns to the herd.’</p> + +<p>‘That is a new trick to me. Canst thou run as +swiftly as the nilghai, then?’</p> + +<p>‘The Sahib has seen. If the Sahib needs more +knowledge at any time of the movings of the game, I, +Mowgli, am here. This is a good <i>rukh</i>, and I shall +stay.’</p> + +<p>‘Stay then, and if thou hast need of a meal at +any time my servants shall give thee one.’</p> + +<p>‘Yes, indeed, I am fond of cooked food,’ Mowgli +answered quickly. ‘No man may say that I do not +eat boiled and roast as much as any other man. I +will come for that meal. Now, on my part, I +promise that the Sahib shall sleep safely in his +house by night, and no thief shall break in to carry +away his so rich treasures.’</p> + +<p>The conversation ended itself on Mowgli’s abrupt +departure. Gisborne sat long smoking, and the upshot +of his thoughts was that in Mowgli he had found at +last that ideal ranger and forest-guard for whom he +and the Department were always looking.</p> + +<p>‘I must get him into the Government service +somehow. A man who can drive nilghai would +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</span>know more about the <i>rukh</i> than fifty men. He’s a +miracle—a <i>lusus naturæ</i>—but a forest-guard he must +be if he’ll only settle down in one place,’ said +Gisborne.</p> + +<p>Abdul Gafur’s opinion was less favourable. He +confided to Gisborne at bedtime that strangers from +God-knew-where were more than likely to be professional +thieves, and that he personally did not +approve of naked outcastes who had not the proper +manner of addressing white people. Gisborne laughed +and bade him go to his quarters, and Abdul Gafur +retreated growling. Later in the night he found +occasion to rise up and beat his thirteen-year-old +daughter. Nobody knew the cause of dispute, but +Gisborne heard the cry.</p> + +<p>Through the days that followed Mowgli came and +went like a shadow. He had established himself and +his wild house-keeping close to the bungalow, but on +the edge of the <i>rukh</i>, where Gisborne, going out on to +the verandah for a breath of cool air, would see him +sometimes sitting in the moonlight, his forehead on his +knees, or lying out along the fling of a branch, closely +pressed to it as some beast of the night. Thence +Mowgli would throw him a salutation and bid him +sleep at ease, or descending would weave prodigious +stories of the manners of the beasts in the <i>rukh</i>. +Once he wandered into the stables and was found +looking at the horses with deep interest.</p> + +<p>‘That,’ said Abdul Gafur pointedly, ‘is sure sign +that some day he will steal one. Why, if he lives +about this house, does he not take an honest employment? +But no, he must wander up and down like a +loose camel, turning the heads of fools and opening +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</span>the jaws of the unwise to folly.’ So Abdul Gafur +would give harsh orders to Mowgli when they met, +would bid him fetch water and pluck fowls, and +Mowgli, laughing unconcernedly, would obey.</p> + +<p>‘He has no caste,’ said Abdul Gafur. ‘He will +do anything. Look to it, Sahib, that he does not do +too much. A snake is a snake, and a jungle-gipsy is +a thief till the death.’</p> + +<p>‘Be silent, then,’ said Gisborne. ‘I allow thee to +correct thy own household if there is not too much +noise, because I know thy customs and use. My +custom thou dost not know. The man is without +doubt a little mad.’</p> + +<p>‘Very little mad indeed,’ said Abdul Gafur. ‘But +we shall see what comes thereof.’</p> + +<p>A few days later on his business took Gisborne +into the <i>rukh</i> for three days. Abdul Gafur being old +and fat was left at home. He did not approve of +lying up in rangers’ huts, and was inclined to levy +contributions in his master’s name of grain and oil +and milk from those who could ill afford such +benevolences. Gisborne rode off early one dawn a +little vexed that his man of the woods was not at +the verandah to accompany him. He liked him—liked +his strength, fleetness, and silence of foot, and +his ever-ready open smile; his ignorance of all forms +of ceremony and salutations, and the child-like tales +that he would tell (and Gisborne would credit now) +of what the game was doing in the <i>rukh</i>. After an +hour’s riding through the greenery, he heard a rustle +behind him, and Mowgli trotted at his stirrup.</p> + +<p>‘We have a three days’ work toward,’ said +Gisborne, ‘among the new trees.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</span></p> + +<p>‘Good,’ said Mowgli. ‘It is always good to cherish +young trees. They make cover if the beasts leave +them alone. We must shift the pig again.’</p> + +<p>‘Again? How?’ Gisborne smiled.</p> + +<p>‘Oh, they were rooting and tusking among the +young <i>sal</i> last night, and I drove them off. Therefore +I did not come to the verandah this morning. The +pig should not be on this side of the <i>rukh</i> at all. +We must keep them below the head of the Kanye river.’</p> + +<p>‘If a man could herd clouds he might do that +thing; but, Mowgli, if as thou sayest, thou art herder +in the <i>rukh</i> for no gain and for no pay——’</p> + +<p>‘It is the Sahib’s <i>rukh</i>,’ said Mowgli, quickly +looking up. Gisborne nodded thanks and went on: +‘Would it not be better to work for pay from the +Government? There is a pension at the end of long +service.’</p> + +<p>‘Of that I have thought,’ said Mowgli, ‘but the +rangers live in huts with shut doors, and all that is +all too much a trap to me. Yet I think——’</p> + +<p>‘Think well then and tell me later. Here we +will stay for breakfast.’</p> + +<p>Gisborne dismounted, took his morning meal from +his home-made saddle-bags, and saw the day open +hot above the <i>rukh</i>. Mowgli lay in the grass at his +side staring up to the sky.</p> + +<p>Presently he said in a lazy whisper: ‘Sahib, is +there any order at the bungalow to take out the +white mare to-day?’</p> + +<p>‘No, she is fat and old and a little lame beside. +Why?’</p> + +<p>‘She is being ridden now and <i>not</i> slowly on the +road that runs to the railway line.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</span></p> + +<p>‘Bah, that is two <i>koss</i> away. It is a wood-pecker.’</p> + +<p>Mowgli put up his forearm to keep the sun out +of his eyes.</p> + +<p>‘The road curves in with a big curve from the +bungalow. It is not more than a <i>koss</i>, at the farthest, +as the kite goes; and sound flies with the birds. +Shall we see?’</p> + +<p>‘What folly! To run a <i>koss</i> in this sun to see a +noise in the forest.’</p> + +<p>‘Nay, the pony is the Sahib’s pony. I meant +only to bring her here. If she is not the Sahib’s pony, +no matter. If she is, the Sahib can do what he wills. +She is certainly being ridden hard.’</p> + +<p>‘And how wilt thou bring her here, madman?’</p> + +<p>‘Has the Sahib forgotten? By the road of the +nilghai and no other.’</p> + +<p>‘Up then and run if thou art so full of zeal.’</p> + +<p>‘Oh, I do not run!’ He put out his hand to sign +for silence, and still lying on his back called aloud +thrice—with a deep gurgling cry that was new to +Gisborne.</p> + +<p>‘She will come,’ he said at the end. ‘Let us wait +in the shade.’ The long eyelashes drooped over the +wild eyes as Mowgli began to doze in the morning +hush. Gisborne waited patiently: Mowgli was surely +mad, but as entertaining a companion as a lonely +Forest Officer could desire.</p> + +<p>‘Ho! ho!’ said Mowgli lazily, with shut eyes. +‘He has dropped off. Well, first the mare will come +and then the man.’ Then he yawned as Gisborne’s +pony stallion neighed. Three minutes later Gisborne’s +white mare, saddled, bridled, but riderless, tore +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</span>into the glade where they were sitting, and hurried to +her companion.</p> + +<p>‘She is not very warm,’ said Mowgli, ‘but in this +heat the sweat comes easily. Presently we shall see +her rider, for a man goes more slowly than a horse—especially +if he chance to be a fat man and old.’</p> + +<p>‘Allah! This is the devil’s work,’ cried Gisborne +leaping to his feet, for he heard a yell in the jungle.</p> + +<p>‘Have no care, Sahib. He will not be hurt. He +also will say that it is devil’s work. Ah! Listen! +Who is that?’</p> + +<p>It was the voice of Abdul Gafur in an agony of +terror, crying out upon unknown things to spare him +and his gray hairs.</p> + +<p>‘Nay, I cannot move another step,’ he howled. ‘I +am old and my turban is lost. Arré! Arré! But I +will move. Indeed I will hasten. I will run! Oh, +Devils of the Pit, I am a Mussalman!’</p> + +<p>The undergrowth parted and gave up Abdul Gafur, +turbanless, shoeless, with his waist-cloth unbound, +mud and grass in his clutched hands, and his face +purple. He saw Gisborne, yelled anew, and pitched +forward, exhausted and quivering, at his feet. Mowgli +watched him with a sweet smile.</p> + +<p>‘This is no joke,’ said Gisborne sternly. ‘The +man is like to die, Mowgli.’</p> + +<p>‘He will not die. He is only afraid. There was +no need that he should have come out of a walk.’</p> + +<p>Abdul Gafur groaned and rose up, shaking in +every limb.</p> + +<p>‘It was witchcraft—witchcraft and devildom!’ +he sobbed, fumbling with his hand in his breast. +‘Because of my sin I have been whipped through the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</span>woods by devils. It is all finished. I repent. Take +them, Sahib!’ He held out a roll of dirty paper.</p> + +<p>‘What is the meaning of this, Abdul Gafur?’ +said Gisborne, already knowing what would come.</p> + +<p>‘Put me in the jail-khana—the notes are all +here—but lock me up safely that no devils may +follow. I have sinned against the Sahib and his salt +which I have eaten; and but for those accursed wood-demons, +I might have bought land afar off and lived +in peace all my days.’ He beat his head upon +the ground in an agony of despair and mortification. +Gisborne turned the roll of notes over and over. It +was his accumulated back-pay for the last nine +months—the roll that lay in the drawer with the +home-letters and the recapping-machine. Mowgli +watched Abdul Gafur, laughing noiselessly to himself. +‘There is no need to put me on the horse again. I +will walk home slowly with the Sahib, and then he +can send me under guard to the jail-khana. The +Government gives many years for this offence,’ said +the butler sullenly.</p> + +<p>Loneliness in the <i>rukh</i> affects very many ideas +about very many things. Gisborne stared at Abdul +Gafur, remembering that he was a very good servant, +and that a new butler must be broken into the ways +of the house from the beginning, and at the best +would be a new face and a new tongue.</p> + +<p>‘Listen, Abdul Gafur,’ he said. ‘Thou hast done +great wrong, and altogether lost thy <i>izzat</i> and thy +reputation. But I think that this came upon thee +suddenly.’</p> + +<p>‘Allah! I had never desired the notes before. +The Evil took me by the throat while I looked.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</span></p> + +<p>‘That also I can believe. Go then back to my +house, and when I return I will send the notes by a +runner to the Bank, and there shall be no more said. +Thou art too old for the jail-khana. Also thy household +is guiltless.’</p> + +<p>For answer Abdul Gafur sobbed between Gisborne’s +cowhide riding-boots.</p> + +<p>‘Is there no dismissal then?’ he gulped.</p> + +<p>‘That we shall see. It hangs upon thy conduct +when we return. Get upon the mare and ride slowly +back.’</p> + +<p>‘But the devils! The <i>rukh</i> is full of devils.’</p> + +<p>‘No matter, my father. They will do thee no +more harm unless, indeed, the Sahib’s orders be not +obeyed,’ said Mowgli. ‘Then, perchance, they may +drive thee home—by the road of the nilghai.’</p> + +<p>Abdul Gafur’s lower jaw dropped as he twisted up +his waist-cloth, staring at Mowgli.</p> + +<p>‘Are they <i>his</i> devils? His devils! And I had +thought to return and lay the blame upon this +warlock!’</p> + +<p>‘That was well thought of, Huzrut; but before +we make a trap we see first how big the game +is that may fall into it. Now I thought no +more than that a man had taken one of the Sahib’s +horses. I did not know that the design was to +make me a thief before the Sahib, or my devils +had haled thee here by the leg. It is not too +late now.’</p> + +<p>Mowgli looked inquiringly at Gisborne, but Abdul +Gafur waddled hastily to the white mare, scrambled +on her back and fled; the woodways crashing and +echoing behind him.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</span></p> + +<p>‘That was well done,’ said Mowgli. ‘But he will +fall again unless he holds by the mane.’</p> + +<p>‘Now it is time to tell me what these things mean,’ +said Gisborne a little sternly. ‘What is this talk of +thy devils? How can men be driven up and down +the <i>rukh</i> like cattle? Give answer.’</p> + +<p>‘Is the Sahib angry because I have saved him his +money?’</p> + +<p>‘No, but there is trick-work in this that does not +please me.’</p> + +<p>‘Very good. Now if I rose and stepped three +paces into the <i>rukh</i> there is no one, not even the +Sahib, could find me till I choose. As I would not +willingly do this, so I would not willingly tell. Have +patience a little, Sahib, and some day I will show thee +everything, for, if thou wilt, some day we will drive +the buck together. There is no devil-work in the +matter at all. Only ... I know the <i>rukh</i> as a man +knows the cooking-place in his house.’</p> + +<p>Mowgli was speaking as he would speak to an +impatient child. Gisborne, puzzled, baffled, and a great +deal annoyed, said nothing, but stared on the ground +and thought. When he looked up the man of the +woods had gone.</p> + +<p>‘It is not good,’ said a level voice from the thicket, +‘for friends to be angry. Wait till the evening, Sahib, +when the air cools.’</p> + +<p>Left to himself thus, dropped as it were in the +heart of the <i>rukh</i>, Gisborne swore, then laughed, +remounted his pony, and rode on. He visited a +ranger’s hut, overlooked a couple of new plantations, +left some orders as to the burning of a patch of dry +grass, and set out for a camping-ground of his own +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</span>choice, a pile of splintered rocks roughly roofed over +with branches and leaves, not far from the banks of +the Kanye stream. It was twilight when he came in +sight of his resting-place, and the <i>rukh</i> was waking to +the hushed ravenous life of the night.</p> + +<p>A camp-fire flickered on the knoll, and there was the +smell of a very good dinner in the wind.</p> + +<p>‘Um,’ said Gisborne, ‘that’s better than cold meat +at any rate. Now the only man who’d be likely to +be here’d be Muller, and, officially, he ought to be +looking over the Changamanga <i>rukh</i>. I suppose that’s +why he’s on my ground.’</p> + +<p>The gigantic German who was the head of the Woods +and Forests of all India, Head Ranger from Burma +to Bombay, had a habit of flitting bat-like without +warning from one place to another, and turning up +exactly where he was least looked for. His theory was +that sudden visitations, the discovery of shortcomings +and a word-of-mouth upbraiding of a subordinate +were infinitely better than the slow processes of +correspondence, which might end in a written and +official reprimand—a thing in after years to be counted +against a Forest Officer’s record. As he explained it: +‘If I only talk to my boys like a Dutch uncle, dey +say, “It was only dot damned old Muller,” and dey +do better next dime. But if my fat-head clerk he +write and say dot Muller der Inspecdor-General fail to +onderstand and is much annoyed, first dot does no +goot because I am not dere, and, second, der fool dot +comes after me he may say to my best boys: “Look +here, you haf been wigged by my bredecessor.” I +tell you der big brass-hat pizness does not make der +trees grow.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</span></p> + +<p>Muller’s deep voice was coming out of the darkness +behind the firelight as he bent over the shoulders +of his pet cook. ‘Not so much sauce, you son of +Belial! Worcester sauce he is a gondiment and not +a fluid. Ah, Gisborne, you haf come to a very bad +dinner. Where is your camp?’ and he walked up to +shake hands.</p> + +<p>‘I’m the camp, sir,’ said Gisborne. ‘I didn’t know +you were about here.’</p> + +<p>Muller looked at the young man’s trim figure. +‘Goot! That is very goot! One horse and some +cold things to eat. When I was young I did my +camp so. Now you shall dine with me. I went into +Headquarters to make up my rebort last month. I +haf written half—ho! ho!—and der rest I haf leaved to +my glerks and come out for a walk. Der Government +is mad about dose reborts. I dold der Viceroy so at +Simla.’</p> + +<p>Gisborne chuckled, remembering the many tales +that were told of Muller’s conflicts with the Supreme +Government. He was the chartered libertine of all +the offices, for as a Forest Officer he had no equal.</p> + +<p>‘If I find you, Gisborne, sitting in your bungalow +und hatching reborts to me about der blantations +instead of riding der blantations, I will dransfer you +to der middle of der Bikaneer Desert to reforest <i>him</i>. +I am sick of reborts und chewing paper when we +should do our work.’</p> + +<p>‘There’s not much danger of my wasting time over +my annuals. I hate them as much as you do, sir.’</p> + +<p>The talk went over at this point to professional +matters. Muller had some questions to ask, and +Gisborne orders and hints to receive, till dinner was +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</span>ready. It was the most civilised meal Gisborne had +eaten for months. No distance from the base of +supplies was allowed to interfere with the work of +Muller’s cook; and that table spread in the wilderness +began with devilled small fresh-water fish, and ended +with coffee and cognac.</p> + +<p>‘Ah!’ said Muller at the end, with a sigh of satisfaction +as he lighted a cheroot and dropped into his +much worn camp-chair. ‘When I am making reborts +I am Freethinker und Atheist, but here in der <i>rukh</i> I +am more than Christian. I am Bagan also.’ He +rolled the cheroot-butt luxuriously under his tongue, +dropped his hands on his knees, and stared before him +into the dim shifting heart of the <i>rukh</i>, full of stealthy +noises; the snapping of twigs like the snapping of the +fire behind him; the sigh and rustle of a heat-bended +branch recovering her straightness in the cool night; +the incessant mutter of the Kanye stream, and the +undernote of the many-peopled grass uplands out of +sight beyond a swell of hill. He blew out a thick +puff of smoke, and began to quote Heine to himself.</p> + +<p>‘Yes, it is very goot. Very goot. “Yes, I work +miracles, and, by Gott, dey come off too.” I remember +when dere was no <i>rukh</i> more big than your knee, from +here to der plough-lands, und in drought-time der cattle +ate bones of dead cattle up and down. Now der trees +haf come back. Dey were planted by a Freethinker, +because he know just de cause dot made der effect. +But der trees dey had der cult of der old gods—“und +der Christian Gods howl loudly.” Dey could not live +in der <i>rukh</i>, Gisborne.’</p> + +<p>A shadow moved in one of the bridle-paths—moved +and stepped out into the starlight.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</span></p> + +<p>‘I haf said true. Hush! Here is Faunus himself +come to see der Insbector-General. Himmel, he is +der god! Look!’</p> + +<p>It was Mowgli, crowned with his wreath of white +flowers and walking with a half-peeled branch—Mowgli, +very mistrustful of the firelight and ready to fly back +to the thicket on the least alarm.</p> + +<p>‘That’s a friend of mine,’ said Gisborne. ‘He’s +looking for me. Ohé, Mowgli!’</p> + +<p>Muller had barely time to gasp before the man was +at Gisborne’s side, crying: ‘I was wrong to go. I was +wrong, but I did not know then that the mate of him +that was killed by this river was awake looking for +thee. Else I should not have gone away. She +tracked thee from the back-range, Sahib.’</p> + +<p>‘He is a little mad,’ said Gisborne, ‘and he speaks of +all the beasts about here as if he was a friend of theirs.’</p> + +<p>‘Of course—of course. If Faunus does not know, +who should know?’ said Muller gravely. ‘What does +he say about tigers—dis god who knows you so well?’</p> + +<p>Gisborne relighted his cheroot, and before he had +finished the story of Mowgli and his exploits it was +burned down to moustache-edge. Muller listened +without interruption. ‘Dot is not madness,’ he said +at last when Gisborne had described the driving of +Abdul Gafur. ‘Dot is not madness at all.’</p> + +<p>‘What is it, then? He left me in a temper this +morning because I asked him to tell how he did it. +I fancy the chap’s possessed in some way.’</p> + +<p>‘No, dere is no bossession, but it is most wonderful. +Normally they die young—dese beople. Und you say +now dot your thief-servant did not say what drove der +poney, and of course der nilghai he could not speak.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</span></p> + +<p>‘No, but, confound it, there wasn’t anything. I +listened, and I can hear most things. The bull and +the man simply came headlong—mad with fright.’</p> + +<p>For answer Muller looked Mowgli up and down +from head to foot, then beckoned him nearer. He +came as a buck treads a tainted trail.</p> + +<p>‘There is no harm,’ said Muller in the vernacular. +‘Hold out an arm.’</p> + +<p>He ran his hand down to the elbow, felt that, and +nodded. ‘So I thought. Now the knee.’ Gisborne +saw him feel the knee-cap and smile. Two or three +white scars just above the ankle caught his eye.</p> + +<p>‘Those came when thou wast very young?’ he said.</p> + +<p>‘Ay,’ Mowgli answered with a smile. ‘They were +love-tokens from the little ones.’ Then to Gisborne +over his shoulder. ‘This Sahib knows everything. +Who is he?’</p> + +<p>‘That comes after, my friend. Now where are +<i>they</i>?’ said Muller.</p> + +<p>Mowgli swept his hand round his head in a circle.</p> + +<p>‘So! And thou canst drive nilghai? See! +There is my mare in her pickets. Canst thou bring +her to me without frightening her?’</p> + +<p>‘Can I bring the mare to the Sahib without frightening +her!’ Mowgli repeated, raising his voice a little +above its normal pitch. ‘What is more easy, if the +heel-ropes are loose?’</p> + +<p>‘Loosen the head and heel-pegs,’ shouted Muller to +the groom. They were hardly out of the ground +before the mare, a huge black Australian, flung up +her head and cocked her ears.</p> + +<p>‘Careful! I do not wish her driven into the <i>rukh</i>,’ +said Muller.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</span></p> + +<p>Mowgli stood still fronting the blaze of the fire—in +the very form and likeness of that Greek god who +is so lavishly described in the novels. The mare +whickered, drew up one hind leg, found that the heel-ropes +were free, and moved swiftly to her master, on +whose bosom she dropped her head, sweating lightly.</p> + +<p>‘She came of her own accord. My horses will do +that,’ cried Gisborne.</p> + +<p>‘Feel if she sweats,’ said Mowgli.</p> + +<p>Gisborne laid a hand on the damp flank.</p> + +<p>‘It is enough,’ said Muller.</p> + +<p>‘It is enough,’ Mowgli repeated, and a rock behind +him threw back the word.</p> + +<p>‘That’s uncanny, isn’t it?’ said Gisborne.</p> + +<p>‘No, only wonderful—most wonderful. Still you +do not know, Gisborne?’</p> + +<p>‘I confess I don’t.’</p> + +<p>‘Well then, I shall not tell. He says dot some +day he will show you what it is. It would be gruel +if I told. But why he is not dead I do not understand. +Now listen thou.’ Muller faced Mowgli, and +returned to the vernacular. ‘I am the head of all the +<i>rukhs</i> in the country of India and others across the +Black Water. I do not know how many men be +under me—perhaps five thousand, perhaps ten. Thy +business is this,—to wander no more up and down +the <i>rukh</i> and drive beasts for sport or for show, but to +take service under me, who am the Government in the +matter of Woods and Forests, and to live in this <i>rukh</i> +as a forest-guard; to drive the villagers’ goats away +when there is no order to feed them in the <i>rukh</i>; to +admit them when there is an order; to keep down, as +thou canst keep down, the boar and the nilghai when +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</span>they become too many; to tell Gisborne Sahib how +and where tigers move, and what game there is in the +forests; and to give sure warning of all the fires in the +<i>rukh</i>, for thou canst give warning more quickly than +any other. For that work there is a payment each +month in silver, and at the end, when thou hast +gathered a wife and cattle and, may be, children, a +pension. What answer?’</p> + +<p>‘That’s just what I——’ Gisborne began.</p> + +<p>‘My Sahib spoke this morning of such a service. +I walked all day alone considering the matter, and my +answer is ready here. I serve, <i>if</i> I serve in this <i>rukh</i> +and no other: <i>with</i> Gisborne Sahib and with no other.’</p> + +<p>‘It shall be so. In a week comes the written +order that pledges the honour of the Government for +the pension. After that thou wilt take up thy hut +where Gisborne Sahib shall appoint.’</p> + +<p>‘I was going to speak to you about it,’ said Gisborne.</p> + +<p>‘I did not want to be told when I saw that man. +Dere will never be a forest-guard like him. He is a +miracle. I tell you, Gisborne, some day you will find +it so. Listen, he is blood-brother to every beast in +der <i>rukh</i>!’</p> + +<p>‘I should be easier in my mind if I could understand +him.’</p> + +<p>‘Dot will come. Now I tell you dot only once in +my service, and dot is thirty years, haf I met a boy +dot began as this man began. Und he died. Sometimes +you hear of dem in der census reports, but dey +all die. Dis man haf lived, and he is an anachronism, +for he is before der Iron Age, and der Stone Age. Look +here, he is at der beginnings of der history of man—Adam +in der Garden, und now we want only an Eva! +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</span>No! He is older than dot child-tale, shust as der +<i>rukh</i> is older dan der gods. Gisborne, I am a Bagan +now, once for all.’</p> + +<p>Through the rest of the long evening Muller sat +smoking and smoking, and staring and staring into +the darkness, his lips moving in multiplied quotations, +and great wonder upon his face. He went to his tent, +but presently came out again in his majestic pink sleeping-suit, +and the last words that Gisborne heard him +address to the <i>rukh</i> through the deep hush of midnight +were these, delivered with immense emphasis:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘Dough we shivt und bedeck und bedrape us,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Dou art noble und nude und andeek;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Libidina dy moder, Briapus</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Dy fader, a God und a Greek.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Now I know dot, Bagan <i>or</i> Christian, I shall nefer +know der inwardness of der <i>rukh</i>!’</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>It was midnight in the bungalow a week later +when Abdul Gafur, ashy gray with rage, stood at the +foot of Gisborne’s bed and whispering bade him awake.</p> + +<p>‘Up, Sahib,’ he stammered. ‘Up and bring thy +gun. Mine honour is gone. Up and kill before +any see.’</p> + +<p>The old man’s face had changed, so that Gisborne +stared stupidly.</p> + +<p>‘It was for this, then, that that jungle outcaste +helped me to polish the Sahib’s table, and drew water +and plucked fowls. They have gone off together for +all my beatings, and now he sits among his devils +dragging her soul to the Pit. Up, Sahib, and come +with me!’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</span></p> + +<p>He thrust a rifle into Gisborne’s half-wakened +hand and almost dragged him from the room on to the +verandah.</p> + +<p>‘They are there in the <i>rukh</i>; even within gunshot +of the house. Come softly with me.’</p> + +<p>‘But what is it? What is the trouble, Abdul?’</p> + +<p>‘Mowgli, and his devils. Also my own daughter,’ +said Abdul Gafur. Gisborne whistled and followed +his guide. Not for nothing, he knew, had Abdul Gafur +beaten his daughter of nights, and not for nothing +had Mowgli helped in the housework a man whom his +own powers, whatever those were, had convicted of +theft. Also, a forest wooing goes quickly.</p> + +<p>There was the breathing of a flute in the <i>rukh</i>, as +it might have been the song of some wandering wood-god, +and, as they came nearer, a murmur of voices. +The path ended in a little semicircular glade walled +partly by high grass and partly by trees. In the +centre, upon a fallen trunk, his back to the watchers +and his arm round the neck of Abdul Gafur’s daughter, +sat Mowgli, newly crowned with flowers, playing upon +a rude bamboo flute, to whose music four huge wolves +danced solemnly on their hind legs.</p> + +<p>‘Those are his devils,’ Abdul Gafur whispered. +He held a bunch of cartridges in his hand. The +beasts dropped to a long-drawn quavering note and lay +still with steady green eyes, glaring at the girl.</p> + +<p>‘Behold,’ said Mowgli, laying aside the flute. ‘Is +there anything of fear in that? I told thee, little +Stout-heart, that there was not, and thou didst believe. +Thy father said—and oh, if thou couldst have seen +thy father being driven by the road of the nilghai!—thy +father said that they were devils; and by Allah, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</span>who is thy God, I do not wonder that he so believed.’</p> + +<p>The girl laughed a little rippling laugh, and Gisborne +heard Abdul grind his few remaining teeth. This was +not at all the girl that Gisborne had seen with a half-eye +slinking about the compound veiled and silent; +but another—a woman full blown in a night as the +orchid puts out in an hour’s moist heat.</p> + +<p>‘But they are my playmates and my brothers; +children of that mother that gave me suck, as I told +thee behind the cook-house,’ Mowgli went on. ‘Children +of the father that lay between me and the cold at the +mouth of the cave when I was a little naked child. +Look’—a wolf raised his gray jowl, slavering at +Mowgli’s knee—‘my brother knows that I speak of +them. Yes, when I was a little child he was a cub +rolling with me on the clay.’</p> + +<p>‘But thou hast said that thou art human-born, +cooed the girl, nestling closer to the shoulder. ‘Thou +art human-born?’</p> + +<p>‘Said! Nay, I know that I am human born, because +my heart is in thy hold, little one.’ Her head +dropped under Mowgli’s chin. Gisborne put up a +warning hand to restrain Abdul Gafur, who was not in +the least impressed by the wonder of the sight.</p> + +<p>‘But I was a wolf among wolves none the less till +a time came when Those of the jungle bade me go +because I was a man.’</p> + +<p>‘Who bade thee go? That is not like a true man’s +talk.’</p> + +<p>‘The very beasts themselves. Little one, thou +wouldst never believe that telling, but so it was. The +beasts of the jungle bade me go, but these four +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</span>followed me because I was their brother. Then was +I a herder of cattle among men, having learned their +language. Ho! ho! The herds paid toll to my +brothers, till a woman, an old woman, beloved, saw me +playing by night with my brethren in the crops. +They said that I was possessed of devils, and drove +me from that village with sticks and stones, and the +four came with me by stealth and not openly. That was +when I had learned to eat cooked meat and to talk +boldly. From village to village I went, heart of my heart, +a herder of cattle, a tender of buffaloes, a tracker of +game, but there was no man that dared lift a finger +against me twice.’ He stooped down and patted one +of the heads. ‘Do thou also like this. There is +neither hurt nor magic in them. See, they know thee.’</p> + +<p>‘The woods are full of all manner of devils,’ said +the girl with a shudder.</p> + +<p>‘A lie. A child’s lie,’ Mowgli returned confidently. +‘I have lain out in the dew under the stars and in +the dark night, and I know. The jungle is my house. +Shall a man fear his own roof-beams or a woman her +man’s hearth? Stoop down and pat them.’</p> + +<p>‘They are dogs and unclean,’ she murmured, bending +forward with averted head.</p> + +<p>‘Having eaten the fruit, now we remember the +Law!’ said Abdul Gafur bitterly. ‘What is the need +of this waiting, Sahib? Kill!’</p> + +<p>‘H’sh, thou. Let us learn what has happened,’ +said Gisborne.</p> + +<p>‘That is well done,’ said Mowgli, slipping his arm +round the girl again. ‘Dogs or no dogs, they were +with me through a thousand villages.’</p> + +<p>‘Ahi, and where was thy heart then? Through a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</span>thousand villages. Thou hast seen a thousand maids. +I—that am—that am a maid no more, have I thy +heart?’</p> + +<p>‘What shall I swear by? By Allah, of whom +thou speakest?’</p> + +<p>‘Nay, by the life that is in thee, and I am well +content. Where was thy heart in those days?’</p> + +<p>Mowgli laughed a little. ‘In my belly, because I +was young and always hungry. So I learned to +track and to hunt, sending and calling my brothers +back and forth as a king calls his armies. Therefore I +drove the nilghai for the foolish young Sahib, and the +big fat mare for the big fat Sahib, when they questioned +my power. It were as easy to have driven the men +themselves. Even now,’ his voiced lifted a little—‘even +now I know that behind me stand thy father +and Gisborne Sahib. Nay, do not run, for no ten +men dare move a pace forward. Remembering that +thy father beat thee more than once, shall I give the +word and drive him again in rings through the <i>rukh</i>?’ +A wolf stood up with bared teeth.</p> + +<p>Gisborne felt Abdul Gafur tremble at his side. +Next, his place was empty, and the fat man was +skimming down the glade.</p> + +<p>‘Remains only Gisborne Sahib,’ said Mowgli, still +without turning; ‘but I have eaten Gisborne Sahib’s +bread, and presently I shall be in his service, and my +brothers will be his servants to drive game and carry +the news. Hide thou in the grass.’</p> + +<p>The girl fled, the tall grass closed behind her and +the guardian wolf that followed, and Mowgli turning +with his three retainers faced Gisborne as the Forest +Officer came forward.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</span></p> + +<p>‘That is all the magic,’ he said, pointing to the +three. ‘The fat Sahib knew that we who are bred +among wolves run on our elbows and our knees for a +season. Feeling my arms and legs, he felt the truth +which thou didst not know. Is it so wonderful, +Sahib?’</p> + +<p>‘Indeed it is all more wonderful than magic. +These then drove the nilghai?’</p> + +<p>‘Ay, as they would drive Eblis if I gave the +order. They are my eyes and feet to me.’</p> + +<p>‘Look to it, then, that Eblis does not carry a double +rifle. They have yet something to learn, thy devils, +for they stand one behind the other, so that two shots +would kill the three.’</p> + +<p>‘Ah, but they know they will be thy servants as +soon as I am a forest-guard.’</p> + +<p>‘Guard or no guard, Mowgli, thou hast done a great +shame to Abdul Gafur. Thou hast dishonoured his +house and blackened his face.’</p> + +<p>‘For that, it was blackened when he took thy +money, and made blacker still when he whispered in +thy ear a little while since to kill a naked man. I +myself will talk to Abdul Gafur, for I am a man of the +Government service, with a pension. He shall make +the marriage by whatsoever rite he will, or he shall +run once more. I will speak to him in the dawn. +For the rest, the Sahib has his house and this is mine. +It is time to sleep again, Sahib.’</p> + +<p>Mowgli turned on his heel and disappeared into +the grass, leaving Gisborne alone. The hint of the +wood-god was not to be mistaken; and Gisborne went +back to the bungalow, where Abdul Gafur, torn by +rage and fear, was raving in the verandah.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</span></p> + +<p>‘Peace, peace,’ said Gisborne, shaking him, for he +looked as though he were going to have a fit. ‘Muller +Sahib has made the man a forest-guard, and as thou +knowest there is a pension at the end of that business, +and it is Government service.’</p> + +<p>‘He is an outcaste—a <i>mlech</i>—a dog among dogs; +an eater of carrion! What pension can pay for that?’</p> + +<p>‘Allah knows; and thou hast heard that the mischief +is done. Wouldst thou blaze it to all the other +servants? Make the <i>shadi</i> swiftly, and the girl will +make him a Mussalman. He is very comely. Canst +thou wonder that after thy beatings she went to him?’</p> + +<p>‘Did he say that he would chase me with his +beasts?’</p> + +<p>‘So it seemed to me. If he be a wizard, he is at +least a very strong one.’</p> + +<p>Abdul Gafur thought awhile, and then broke down +and howled, forgetting that he was a Mussalman:—</p> + +<p>‘Thou art a Brahmin. I am thy cow. Make thou +the matter plain, and save my honour if it can be +saved!’</p> + +<p>A second time then Gisborne plunged into the +<i>rukh</i> and called Mowgli. The answer came from +high overhead, and in no submissive tones.</p> + +<p>‘Speak softly,’ said Gisborne, looking up. ‘There +is yet time to strip thee of thy place and hunt thee +with thy wolves. The girl must go back to her father’s +house to-night. To-morrow there will be the <i>shadi</i>, +by the Mussalman law, and then thou canst take her +away. Bring her to Abdul Gafur.’</p> + +<p>‘I hear.’ There was a murmur of two voices +conferring among the leaves. ‘Also, we will obey—for +the last time.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</span></p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>A year later Muller and Gisborne were riding +through the <i>rukh</i> together, talking of their business. +They came out among the rocks near the Kanye +stream; Muller riding a little in advance. Under the +shade of a thorn thicket sprawled a naked brown baby, +and from the brake immediately behind him peered +the head of a gray wolf. Gisborne had just time to +strike up Muller’s rifle, and the bullet tore spattering +through the branches above.</p> + +<p>‘Are you mad?’ thundered Muller. ‘Look!’</p> + +<p>‘I see,’ said Gisborne quietly. ‘The mother’s +somewhere near. You’ll wake the whole pack, by +Jove!’</p> + +<p>The bushes parted once more, and a woman unveiled +snatched up the child.</p> + +<p>‘Who fired, Sahib?’ she cried to Gisborne.</p> + +<p>‘This Sahib. He had not remembered thy man’s +people.’</p> + +<p>‘Not remembered? But indeed it may be so, for +we who live with them forget that they are strangers +at all. Mowgli is down the stream catching fish. Does +the Sahib wish to see him? Come out, ye lacking +manners. Come out of the bushes, and make your +service to the Sahibs.’</p> + +<p>Muller’s eyes grew rounder and rounder. He +swung himself off the plunging mare and dismounted, +while the jungle gave up four wolves who fawned +round Gisborne. The mother stood nursing her +child and spurning them aside as they brushed against +her bare feet.</p> + +<p>‘You were quite right about Mowgli,’ said Gisborne. +‘I meant to have told you, but I’ve got so used to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</span>these fellows in the last twelve months that it slipped +my mind.’</p> + +<p>‘Oh, don’t apologise,’ said Muller. ‘It’s nothing. +Gott in Himmel! “Und I work miracles—und dey +come off too!”’</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="BRUGGLESMITH"> + ‘BRUGGLESMITH.’ + </h2> +</div> + + +<blockquote> +<p>This day the ship went down, and all hands was drowned but me.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p class="right"> + <span class="smcap">Clark Russell.</span> +</p> + + +<p class="p2">The first officer of the <i>Breslau</i> asked me to dinner on +board, before the ship went round to Southampton to +pick up her passengers. The <i>Breslau</i> was lying below +London Bridge, her fore-hatches opened for cargo, and +her deck littered with nuts and bolts, and screws and +chains. The Black M‘Phee had been putting some +finishing touches to his adored engines, and M‘Phee is +the most tidy of chief engineers. If the leg of a cockroach +gets into one of his slide-valves the whole ship +knows it, and half the ship has to clean up the mess.</p> + +<p>After dinner, which the first officer, M‘Phee, and I +ate in one little corner of the empty saloon, M‘Phee +returned to the engine-room to attend to some brass-fitters. +The first officer and I smoked on the bridge +and watched the lights of the crowded shipping till it +was time for me to go home. It seemed, in the pauses +of our conversation, that I could catch an echo of +fearful bellowings from the engine-room, and the voice +of M‘Phee singing of home and the domestic affections.</p> + +<p>‘M‘Phee has a friend aboard to-night—a man who +was a boiler-maker at Greenock when M‘Phee was a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</span>’prentice,’ said the first officer. ‘I didn’t ask him to +dine with us because——’</p> + +<p>‘I see—I mean I hear,’ I answered. We talked +on for a few minutes longer, and M‘Phee came up +from the engine-room with his friend on his arm.</p> + +<p>‘Let me present ye to this gentleman,’ said M‘Phee. +‘He’s a great admirer o’ your wor-rks. He has just +hearrd o’ them.’</p> + +<p>M‘Phee could never pay a compliment prettily. +The friend sat down suddenly on a bollard, saying +that M‘Phee had under-stated the truth. Personally, +he on the bollard considered that Shakespeare was +trembling in the balance solely on my account, and if +the first officer wished to dispute this he was prepared +to fight the first officer then or later, ‘as per invoice.’ +‘Man, if ye only knew,’ said he, wagging his head, +‘the times I’ve lain in my lonely bunk reading <i>Vanity +Fair</i> an’ sobbin’—ay, weepin’ bitterly, at the pure +fascination of it.’</p> + +<p>He shed a few tears for guarantee of good faith, +and the first officer laughed. M‘Phee resettled the +man’s hat, that had tilted over one eyebrow.</p> + +<p>‘That’ll wear off in a little. It’s just the smell o’ +the engine-room,’ said M‘Phee.</p> + +<p>‘I think I’ll wear off myself,’ I whispered to the +first officer. ‘Is the dinghy ready?’</p> + +<p>The dinghy was at the gangway, which was down, +and the first officer went forward to find a man to row +me to the bank. He returned with a very sleepy +Lascar, who knew the river.</p> + +<p>‘Are you going?’ said the man on the bollard. +‘Well, I’ll just see ye home. M‘Phee, help me down +the gangway. It has as many ends as a cat-o’-nine-tails, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</span>and—losh!—how innumerable are the +dinghys!’</p> + +<p>‘You’d better let him come with you,’ said the +first officer. ‘Muhammad Jan, put the drunk sahib +ashore first. Take the sober sahib to the next stairs.’</p> + +<p>I had my foot in the bow of the dinghy, the tide +was making up-stream, when the man cannoned against +me, pushed the Lascar back on the gangway, cast loose +the painter, and the dinghy began to saw, stern-first, +along the side of the <i>Breslau</i>.</p> + +<p>‘We’ll have no exter-r-raneous races here,’ said the +man. ‘I’ve known the Thames for thirty years——’</p> + +<p>There was no time for argument. We were drifting +under the <i>Breslau’s</i> stern, and I knew that her +propeller was half out of water, in the middle of an +inky tangle of buoys, low-lying hawsers, and moored +ships, with the tide ripping through them.</p> + +<p>‘What shall I do?’ I shouted to the first officer.</p> + +<p>‘Find the Police Boat as soon as you can, and for +God’s sake get some way on the dinghy. Steer with +the oar. The rudder’s unshipped and——’</p> + +<p>I could hear no more. The dinghy slid away, +bumped on a mooring-buoy, swung round and jigged +off irresponsibly as I hunted for the oar. The man +sat in the bow, his chin on his hands, smiling.</p> + +<p>‘Row, you ruffian,’ I said. ‘Get her out into the +middle of the river——’</p> + +<p>‘It’s a preevilege to gaze on the face o’ genius. +Let me go on thinking. There was “Little Bar-rnaby +Dorrit” and “The Mystery o’ the Bleak Druid.” I +sailed in a ship called the <i>Druid</i> once—badly found +she was. It all comes back to me so sweet. It all +comes back to me. Man, ye steer like a genius.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</span></p> + +<p>We bumped round another mooring-buoy and drifted +on to the bows of a Norwegian timber-ship—I could +see the great square holes on either side of the cutwater. +Then we dived into a string of barges and +scraped through them by the paint on our planks. It +was a consolation to think that the dinghy was being +reduced in value at every bump, but the question +before me was when she would begin to leak. The +man looked ahead into the pitchy darkness and +whistled.</p> + +<p>‘Yon’s a Castle liner; her ties are black. She’s +swinging across stream. Keep her port light on our +starboard bow, and go large,’ he said.</p> + +<p>‘How can I keep anything anywhere? You’re +sitting on the oars. Row, man, if you don’t want to +drown.’</p> + +<p>He took the sculls, saying sweetly: ‘No harm +comes to a drunken man. That’s why I wished to +come wi’ <i>you</i>. Man, ye’re not fit to be alone in a +boat.’</p> + +<p>He flirted the dinghy round the big ship, and for +the next ten minutes I enjoyed—positively enjoyed—an +exhibition of first-class steering. We threaded in +and out of the mercantile marine of Great Britain as a +ferret threads a rabbit-hole, and we, he that is to say, +sang joyously to each ship till men looked over +bulwarks and cursed us. When we came to some +moderately clear water he gave the sculls to me, and +said:</p> + +<p>‘If ye could row as ye write, I’d respect you for +all your vices. Yon’s London Bridge. Take her +through.’</p> + +<p>We shot under the dark ringing arch, and came out +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</span>the other side, going up swiftly with the tide chanting +songs of victory. Except that I wished to get home +before morning, I was growing reconciled to the jaunt. +There were one or two stars visible, and by keeping +into the centre of the stream, we could not come to any +very serious danger.</p> + +<p>The man began to sing loudly:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘The smartest clipper that you could find,</div> + <div class="verse indent4">Yo ho! Oho!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Was the <i>Marg’ret Evans</i> of the Black X Line,</div> + <div class="verse indent4">A hundred years ago!</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Incorporate that in your next book, which is marvellous.’ +Here he stood up in the bows and declaimed:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘Ye Towers o’ Julia, London’s lasting wrong,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">By mony a foul an’ midnight murder fed—</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Sweet Thames run softly till I end my song—</div> + <div class="verse indent2">And yon’s the grave as little as my bed.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>I’m a poet mysel an’ I can feel for others.’</p> + +<p>‘Sit down,’ said I. ‘You’ll have the boat over.’</p> + +<p>‘Ay, I’m settin’—settin’ like a hen.’ He plumped +down heavily, and added, shaking his forefinger at +me:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘Lear-rn, prudent, cautious self-control</div> + <div class="verse indent4">Is wisdom’s root.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>How did a man o’ your parts come to be so drunk? +Oh, it’s a sinfu’ thing, an’ ye may thank God on all +fours that I’m with you. What’s yon boat?’</p> + +<p>We had drifted far up the river, and a boat manned +by four men, who rowed with a soothingly regular +stroke, was overhauling us.</p> + +<p>‘It’s the River Police,’ I said, at the top of my voice.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</span></p> + +<p>‘Oh ay! If your sin do not find you out on dry +land, it will find you out in the deep waters. Is it +like they’ll give us drink?’</p> + +<p>‘Exceedingly likely. I’ll hail them.’ I hailed.</p> + +<p>‘What are you doing?’ was the answer from the +boat.</p> + +<p>‘It’s the <i>Breslau’s</i> dinghy broken loose,’ I began.</p> + +<p>‘It’s a vara drunken man broke loose,’ roared my +companion, ‘and I’m taking him home by water, for +he cannot stand on dry land.’ Here he shouted my +name twenty times running, and I could feel the +blushes racing over my body three deep.</p> + +<p>‘You’ll be locked up in ten minutes, my friend,’ I +said, ‘and I don’t think you’ll be bailed either.’</p> + +<p>‘H’sh, man, h’sh. They think I’m your uncle.’ +He caught up a scull and began splashing the boat as +it ranged alongside.</p> + +<p>‘You’re a nice pair,’ said the sergeant at last.</p> + +<p>‘I am anything you please so long as you take this +fiend away. Tow us in to the nearest station, and I’ll +make it worth your while,’ I said.</p> + +<p>‘Corruption—corruption,’ roared the man, throwing +himself flat in the bottom of the boat. ‘Like unto +the worms that perish, so is man! And all for the +sake of a filthy half-crown to be arrested by the river +police at my time o’ life!’</p> + +<p>‘For pity’s sake, row,’ I shouted. ‘The man’s drunk.’</p> + +<p>They rowed us to a flat—a fire or a police-station; +it was too dark to see which. I could feel that they +regarded me in no better light than the other man. +I could not explain, for I was holding the far end of +the painter, and feeling cut off from all respectability.</p> + +<p>We got out of the boat, my companion falling flat +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</span>on his wicked face, and the sergeant asked us rude +questions about the dinghy. My companion washed +his hands of all responsibility. He was an old man; +he had been lured into a stolen boat by a young man—probably +a thief—he had saved the boat from +wreck (this was absolutely true), and now he expected +salvage in the shape of hot whisky and water. The +sergeant turned to me. Fortunately I was in evening +dress, and had a card to show. More fortunately +still, the sergeant happened to know the <i>Breslau</i> and +M‘Phee. He promised to send the dinghy down next +tide, and was not beyond accepting my thanks, in +silver.</p> + +<p>As this was satisfactorily arranged, I heard my +companion say angrily to a constable, ‘If you will not +give it to a dry man, ye maun to a drookit.’ Then he +walked deliberately off the edge of the flat into the +water. Somebody stuck a boat-hook into his clothes +and hauled him out.</p> + +<p>‘Now,’ said he triumphantly, ‘under the rules o’ +the R-royal Humane Society, ye must give me hot +whisky and water. Do not put temptation before the +laddie. He’s my nephew an’ a good boy i’ the main. +Tho’ why he should masquerade as Mister Thackeray +on the high seas is beyond my comprehension. Oh +the vanity o’ youth! M‘Phee told me ye were as +vain as a peacock. I mind that now.’</p> + +<p>‘You had better give him something to drink and +wrap him up for the night. I don’t know who he is,’ +I said desperately, and when the man had settled +down to a drink supplied on my representations, I +escaped and found that I was near a bridge.</p> + +<p>I went towards Fleet Street, intending to take a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</span>hansom and go home. After the first feeling of +indignation died out, the absurdity of the experience +struck me fully and I began to laugh aloud in the +empty streets, to the scandal of a policeman. The +more I reflected the more heartily I laughed, till +my mirth was quenched by a hand on my shoulder, +and turning I saw him who should have been in +bed at the river police-station. He was damp all +over; his wet silk hat rode far at the back of his +head, and round his shoulders hung a striped yellow +blanket, evidently the property of the State.</p> + +<p>‘The crackling o’ thorns under a pot,’ said he, +solemnly. ‘Laddie, have ye not thought o’ the sin +of idle laughter? My heart misgave me that ever +ye’d get home, an’ I’ve just come to convoy you a +piece. They’re sore uneducate down there by the +river. They wouldna listen to me when I talked +o’ your worrks, so I e’en left them. Cast the blanket +about you, laddie. It’s fine and cold.’</p> + +<p>I groaned inwardly. Providence evidently intended +that I should frolic through eternity with M‘Phee’s +infamous acquaintance.</p> + +<p>‘Go away,’ I said; ‘go home, or I’ll give you in +charge!’</p> + +<p>He leaned against a lamp-post and laid his finger +to his nose—his dishonourable, carnelian neb.</p> + +<p>‘I mind now that M‘Phee told me ye were vainer +than a peacock, an’ your castin’ me adrift in a boat +shows ye were drunker than an owl. A good name is +as a savoury bakemeat. I ha’ nane.’ He smacked his +lips joyously.</p> + +<p>‘Well, I know that,’ I said.</p> + +<p>‘Ay, but <i>ye</i> have. I mind now that M‘Phee spoke +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</span>o’ your reputation that you’re so proud of. Laddie, if +ye gie me in charge—I’m old enough to be your father—I’ll +bla-ast your reputation as far as my voice can +carry; for I’ll call you by name till the cows come +hame. It’s no jestin’ matter to be a friend to me. +If you discard my friendship, ye must come to Vine +Street wi’ me for stealin’ the <i>Breslau’s</i> dinghy.’</p> + +<p>Then he sang at the top of his voice:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent18">‘In the morrnin’</div> + <div class="verse indent0">I’ the morrnin’ by the black van—</div> + <div class="verse indent0">We’ll toodle up to Vine Street i’ the morrnin’!</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Yon’s my own composeetion, but <i>I’m</i> not vain. We’ll +go home together, laddie, we’ll go home together.’ +And he sang ‘Auld Lang Syne’ to show that he +meant it.</p> + +<p>A policeman suggested that we had better move +on, and we moved on to the Law Courts near St. +Clement Danes. My companion was quieter now, +and his speech, which up till that time had been +distinct—it was a marvel to hear how in his condition +he could talk dialect—began to slur and slide and +slummock. He bade me observe the architecture of +the Law Courts and linked himself lovingly to my +arm. Then he saw a policeman, and before I could +shake him off, whirled me up to the man singing:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘Every member of the Force,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Has a watch and chain of course—’</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>and threw his dripping blanket over the helmet of the +Law. In any other country in the world we should +have run an exceedingly good chance of being shot, or +dirked, or clubbed—and clubbing is worse than being +shot. But I reflected in that wet-cloth tangle that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</span>this was England, where the police are made to be +banged and battered and bruised, that they may the +better endure a police-court reprimand next morning. +We three fell in a festoon, he calling on me by name—that +was the tingling horror of it—to sit on the +policeman’s head and cut the traces. I wriggled clear +first and shouted to the policeman to kill the blanket-man.</p> + +<p>Naturally the policeman answered: ‘You’re as +bad as ’im,’ and chased me, as the smaller man, round +St. Clement Danes into Holywell Street, where I ran +into the arms of another policeman. That flight could +not have lasted more than a minute and a half, but it +seemed to me as long and as wearisome as the foot-bound +flight of a nightmare. I had leisure to think +of a thousand things as I ran; but most I thought of +the great and god-like man who held a sitting in the +north gallery of St. Clement Danes a hundred years +ago. I know that he at least would have felt for me. +So occupied was I with these considerations, that when +the other policeman hugged me to his bosom and said: +‘What are you tryin’ to do?’ I answered with exquisite +politeness: ‘Sir, let us take a walk down Fleet Street.’ +‘Bow Street’ll do <i>your</i> business, I think,’ was the +answer, and for a moment I thought so too, till it +seemed I might scuffle out of it. Then there was +a hideous scene, and it was complicated by my companion +hurrying up with the blanket and telling me—always +by name—that he would rescue me or perish +in the attempt.</p> + +<p>‘Knock him down,’ I pleaded. ‘Club his head +open first and I’ll explain afterwards.’</p> + +<p>The first policeman, the one who had been +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</span>outraged, drew his truncheon and cut at my companion’s +head. The high silk hat crackled and the owner +dropped like a log.</p> + +<p>‘Now you’ve done it,’ I said. ‘You’ve probably +killed him.’</p> + +<p>Holywell Street never goes to bed. A small crowd +gathered on the spot, and some one of German extraction +shrieked: ‘You haf killed the man.’</p> + +<p>Another cried: ‘Take his bloomin’ number. I +saw him strook cruel ’ard. Yah!’</p> + +<p>Now the street was empty when the trouble began, +and, saving the two policemen and myself, no one had +seen the blow. I said, therefore, in a loud and cheerful +voice:—</p> + +<p>‘The man’s a friend of mine. He’s fallen down in +a fit. Bobby, will you bring the ambulance?’ Under +my breath I added: ‘It’s five shillings apiece, and the +man didn’t hit you.’</p> + +<p>‘No, but ’im and you tried to scrob me,’ said the +policeman.</p> + +<p>This was not a thing to argue about.</p> + +<p>‘Is Dempsey on duty at Charing Cross?’ I said.</p> + +<p>‘Wot d’you know of Dempsey, you bloomin’ garrotter?’ +said the policeman.</p> + +<p>‘If Dempsey’s there, he knows me. Get the ambulance +quick, and I’ll take him to Charing Cross.’</p> + +<p>‘You’re coming to Bow Street, <i>you</i> are,’ said the +policeman crisply.</p> + +<p>‘The man’s dying’—he lay groaning on the pavement—‘get +the ambulance,’ said I.</p> + +<p>There is an ambulance at the back of St. Clement +Danes, whereof I know more than most people. The +policeman seemed to possess the keys of the box in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</span>which it lived. We trundled it out—it was a three-wheeled +affair with a hood—and we bundled the body +of the man upon it.</p> + +<p>A body in an ambulance looks very extremely dead. +The policemen softened at the sight of the stiff boot-heels.</p> + +<p>‘Now then,’ said they, and I fancied that they still +meant Bow Street.</p> + +<p>‘Let me see Dempsey for three minutes if he’s on +duty,’ I answered.</p> + +<p>‘Very good. He is.’</p> + +<p>Then I knew that all would be well, but before we +started I put my head under the ambulance-hood to +see if the man were alive. A guarded whisper came +to my ear.</p> + +<p>‘Laddie, you maun pay me for a new hat. They’ve +broken it. Dinna desert me now, laddie. I’m o’er +old to go to Bow Street in my gray hairs for a fault of +yours. Laddie, dinna desert me.’</p> + +<p>‘You’ll be lucky if you get off under seven years,’ +I said to the policeman.</p> + +<p>Moved by a very lively fear of having exceeded +their duty, the two policemen left their beats, and the +mournful procession wound down the empty Strand. +Once west of the Adelphi, I knew I should be in my +own country; and the policemen had reason to know +that too, for as I was pacing proudly a little ahead of +the catafalque, another policeman said ‘Good-night, sir,’ +to me as he passed.</p> + +<p>‘Now, you see,’ I said, with condescension. ‘I +wouldn’t be in your shoes for something. On my +word, I’ve a great mind to march you two down to +Scotland Yard.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</span></p> + +<p>‘If the gentleman’s a friend o’ yours, per’aps—’ +said the policeman who had given the blow, and was +reflecting on the consequences.</p> + +<p>‘Perhaps you’d like me to go away and say nothing +about it,’ I said. Then there hove into view the figure +of Constable Dempsey, glittering in his oil-skins, and +an angel of light to me. I had known him for months; +he was an esteemed friend of mine, and we used to +talk together in the early mornings. The fool seeks +to ingratiate himself with Princes and Ministers; and +courts and cabinets leave him to—perish miserably. +The wise man makes allies among the police and the +hansoms, so that his friends spring up from the round-house +and the cab-rank, and even his offences become +triumphal processions.</p> + +<p>‘Dempsey,’ said I, ‘have the police been on strike +again? They’ve put some things on duty at St. +Clement Danes that want to take me to Bow Street +for garrotting.’</p> + +<p>‘Lor, sir!’ said Dempsey indignantly.</p> + +<p>‘Tell them I’m not a garrotter, nor a thief. It’s +simply disgraceful that a gentleman can’t walk down +the Strand without being man-handled by these roughs. +One of them has done his best to kill my friend here; +and I’m taking the body home. Speak for me, +Dempsey.’</p> + +<p>There was no time for the much misrepresented +policemen to say a word. Dempsey spoke to them in +language calculated to frighten. They tried to explain, +but Dempsey launched into a glowing catalogue of my +virtues, as noted by gas in the early hours. ‘And,’ +he concluded vehemently, ‘’e writes for the papers, too. +How’d <i>you</i> like to be written for in the papers—in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</span>verse, too, which is ’is ’abit. You leave ’im alone. +’Im an’ me have been friends for months.’</p> + +<p>‘What about the dead man?’ said the policeman +who had not given the blow.</p> + +<p>‘I’ll tell you,’ I said relenting, and to the three +policemen under the lights of Charing Cross assembled, +I recounted faithfully and at length the adventures of +the night, beginning with the <i>Breslau</i> and ending at +St. Clement Danes. I described the sinful old ruffian +in the ambulance in words that made him wriggle +where he lay, and never since the Metropolitan Police +was founded did three policemen laugh as those three +laughed. The Strand echoed to it, and the unclean +birds of the night stood and wondered.</p> + +<p>‘Oh lor’!’ said Dempsey, wiping his eyes, ‘I’d ha’ +given anything to see that old man runnin’ about with +a wet blanket an’ all! Excuse me, sir, but you ought +to get took up every night for to make us ’appy.’ He +dissolved into fresh guffaws.</p> + +<p>There was a clinking of silver and the two policemen +of St. Clement Danes hurried back to their beats, +laughing as they ran.</p> + +<p>‘Take ’im to Charing Cross,’ said Dempsey between +shouts. ‘They’ll send the ambulance back in the +morning.’</p> + +<p>‘Laddie, ye’ve misca’ed me shameful names, but +I’m o’er old to go to a hospital. Dinna desert me, +laddie. Tak me home to my wife,’ said the voice in the +ambulance.</p> + +<p>‘He’s none so bad. ’Is wife’ll comb ’is hair for ’im +proper,’ said Dempsey, who was a married man.</p> + +<p>‘Where d’you live?’ I demanded.</p> + +<p>‘Brugglesmith,’ was the answer.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</span></p> + +<p>‘What’s that?’ I said to Dempsey, more skilled +than I in portmanteau-words.</p> + +<p>‘Brook Green, ’Ammersmith,’ Dempsey translated +promptly.</p> + +<p>‘Of course,’ I said. ‘That’s just the sort of place +he would choose to live in. I only wonder that it was +not Kew.’</p> + +<p>‘Are you going to wheel him ’ome, sir,’ said +Dempsey.</p> + +<p>‘I’d wheel him home if he lived in —— Paradise. +He’s not going to get out of this ambulance while I’m +here. He’d drag me into a murder for tuppence.’</p> + +<p>‘Then strap ’im up an’ make sure,’ said Dempsey, +and he deftly buckled two straps that hung by the +side of the ambulance over the man’s body. Brugglesmith—I +know not his other name—was sleeping +deeply. He even smiled in his sleep.</p> + +<p>‘That’s all right,’ said Dempsey, and I moved off, +wheeling my devil’s perambulator before me. Trafalgar +Square was empty except for the few that slept in the +open. One of these wretches ranged alongside and +begged for money, asserting that he had been a gentleman +once.</p> + +<p>‘So have I,’ I said. ‘That was long ago. I’ll +give you a shilling if you’ll help me to push this +thing.’</p> + +<p>‘Is it a murder?’ said the vagabond, shrinking +back. ‘I’ve not got to <i>that</i> yet.’</p> + +<p>‘No, it’s going to be one,’ I answered. ‘I have.’</p> + +<p>The man slunk back into the darkness and I +pressed on, through Cockspur Street, and up to +Piccadilly Circus, wondering what I should do with +my treasure. All London was asleep, and I had only +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</span>this drunken carcass to bear me company. It was +silent—silent as chaste Piccadilly. A young man of +my acquaintance came out of a pink brick club as I +passed. A faded carnation drooped from his button-hole; +he had been playing cards, and was walking +home before the dawn, when he overtook me.</p> + +<p>‘What are you doing?’ he said.</p> + +<p>I was far beyond any feeling of shame. ‘It’s for a +bet,’ said I. ‘Come and help.’</p> + +<p>‘Laddie, who’s yon?’ said the voice beneath the +hood.</p> + +<p>‘Good Lord!’ said the young man, leaping across +the pavement. Perhaps card-losses had told on his +nerves. Mine were steel that night.</p> + +<p>‘The Lord, The Lord?’ the passionless, incurious +voice went on. ‘Dinna be profane, laddie. He’ll come +in His ain good time.’</p> + +<p>The young man looked at me with horror.</p> + +<p>‘It’s all part of the bet,’ I answered. ‘Do come +and push!’</p> + +<p>‘W—where are you going to?’ said he.</p> + +<p>‘Brugglesmith,’ said the voice within. ‘Laddie, +d’ye ken my wife?’</p> + +<p>‘No,’ said I.</p> + +<p>‘Well, she’s just a tremenjus wumman. Laddie, I +want a drink. Knock at one o’ those braw houses, +laddie, an’—an’—ye may kiss the girrl for your +pains.’</p> + +<p>‘Lie still, or I’ll gag you,’ I said, savagely.</p> + +<p>The young man with the carnation crossed to the +other side of Piccadilly, and hailed the only hansom +visible for miles. What he thought I cannot tell.</p> + +<p>I pressed on—wheeling, eternally wheeling—to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</span>Brook Green, Hammersmith. There I would abandon +Brugglesmith to the gods of that desolate land. We +had been through so much together that I could not +leave him bound in the street. Besides, he would call +after me, and oh! it is a shameful thing to hear one’s +name ringing down the emptiness of London in the +dawn.</p> + +<p>So I went on, past Apsley House, even to the +coffee-stall, but there was no coffee for Brugglesmith. +And into Knightsbridge—respectable Knightsbridge—I +wheeled my burden, the body of Brugglesmith.</p> + +<p>‘Laddie, what are ye going to do wi’ me?’ he said +when opposite the barracks.</p> + +<p>‘Kill you,’ I said briefly, ‘or hand you over to your +wife. Be quiet.’</p> + +<p>He would not obey. He talked incessantly—sliding +in one sentence from clear cut dialect to wild +and drunken jumble. At the Albert Hall he said +that I was the ‘Hattle Gardle buggle,’ which I apprehend +is the Hatton Garden burglar. At Kensington +High Street he loved me as a son, but when my weary +legs came to the Addison Road Bridge he implored me +with tears to unloose the straps and to fight against +the sin of vanity. No man molested us. It was as +though a bar had been set between myself and all +humanity till I had cleared my account with Brugglesmith. +The glimmering of light grew in the sky; the +cloudy brown of the wood pavement turned to heather-purple; +I made no doubt that I should be allowed +vengeance on Brugglesmith ere the evening.</p> + +<p>At Hammersmith the heavens were steel-gray, and +the day came weeping. All the tides of the sadness +of an unprofitable dawning poured into the soul of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</span>Brugglesmith. He wept bitterly, because the puddles +looked cold and houseless. I entered a half-waked +public-house—in evening dress and an ulster, I marched +to the bar—and got him whisky on condition that he +should cease kicking at the canvas of the ambulance. +Then he wept more bitterly, for that he had ever been +associated with me, and so seduced into stealing the +<i>Breslau’s</i> dinghy.</p> + +<p>The day was white and wan when I reached my +long journey’s end, and, putting back the hood, bade +Brugglesmith declare where he lived. His eyes +wandered disconsolately round the red and gray +houses till they fell on a villa in whose garden +stood a staggering board with the legend ‘To Let.’ +It needed only this to break him down utterly, and +with the breakage fled his fine fluency in his guttural +northern tongue; for liquor levels all.</p> + +<p>‘Olely lil while,’ he sobbed. ‘Olely lil while. +Home—falmy—besht of falmies—wife too—<i>you</i> dole +know my wife! Left them all a lill while ago. Now +everything’s sold—all sold. Wife—falmy—all sold. +Lemmegellup!’</p> + +<p>I unbuckled the straps cautiously. Brugglesmith +rolled off his resting-place and staggered to the house.</p> + +<p>‘Wattle I do?’ he said.</p> + +<p>Then I understood the baser depths in the mind of +Mephistopheles.</p> + +<p>‘Ring,’ I said; ‘perhaps they are in the attic or +the cellar.’</p> + +<p>‘You do’ know my wife. She shleeps on soful in +the dorlin’ room, waiting meculhome. <i>You</i> do’ know +my wife.’</p> + +<p>He took off his boots, covered them with his tall +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</span>hat, and craftily as a Red Indian picked his way up +the garden path and smote the bell marked ‘Visitors’ +a severe blow with the clenched fist.</p> + +<p>‘Bell sole too. Sole electick bell! Wassor bell +this? I can’t riggle bell,’ he moaned despairingly.</p> + +<p>‘You pull it—pull it hard,’ I repeated, keeping a +wary eye down the road. Vengeance was coming and +I desired no witnesses.</p> + +<p>‘Yes, I’ll pull it hard.’ He slapped his forehead +with inspiration. ‘I’ll pull it out.’</p> + +<p>Leaning back he grasped the knob with both hands +and pulled. A wild ringing in the kitchen was his +answer. Spitting on his hands he pulled with renewed +strength, and shouted for his wife. Then he bent his +ear to the knob, shook his head, drew out an enormous +yellow and red handkerchief, tied it round the knob, +turned his back to the door, and pulled over his +shoulder.</p> + +<p>Either the handkerchief or the wire, it seemed to +me, was bound to give way. But I had forgotten the +bell. Something cracked in the kitchen, and Brugglesmith +moved slowly down the doorsteps, pulling +valiantly. Three feet of wire followed him.</p> + +<p>‘Pull, oh pull!’ I cried. ‘It’s coming now.’</p> + +<p>‘Qui’ ri’,’ he said. ‘<i>I’ll</i> riggle bell.’</p> + +<p>He bowed forward, the wire creaking and straining +behind him, the bell-knob clasped to his bosom, and +from the noises within I fancied the bell was taking +away with it half the wood-work of the kitchen and +all the basement banisters.</p> + +<p>‘Get a purchase on her,’ I shouted, and he spun +round, lapping that good copper wire about him. I +opened the garden gate politely, and he passed out, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</span>spinning his own cocoon. Still the bell came up, hand +over hand, and still the wire held fast. He was in +the middle of the road now, whirling like an impaled +cockchafer, and shouting madly for his wife and family. +There he met with the ambulance, the bell within the +house gave one last peal, and bounded from the far +end of the hall to the inner side of the hall-door, where +it stayed fast. So did not my friend Brugglesmith. +He fell upon his face, embracing the ambulance as he +did so, and the two turned over together in the toils of +the never-sufficiently-to-be-advertised copper wire.</p> + +<p>‘Laddie,’ he gasped, his speech returning, ‘have I a +legal remedy?’</p> + +<p>‘I will go and look for one,’ I said, and, departing, +found two policemen. These I told that daylight had +surprised a burglar in Brook Green while he was +engaged in stealing lead from an empty house. +Perhaps they had better take care of that bootless +thief. He seemed to be in difficulties.</p> + +<p>I led the way to the spot, and behold! in the +splendour of the dawning, the ambulance, wheels uppermost, +was walking down the muddy road on two +stockinged feet—was shuffling to and fro in a quarter +of a circle whose radius was copper wire, and whose +centre was the bell-plate of the empty house.</p> + +<p>Next to the amazing ingenuity with which Brugglesmith +had contrived to lash himself under the ambulance, +the thing that appeared to impress the constables +most was the fact of the St. Clement Danes ambulance +being at Brook Green, Hammersmith.</p> + +<p>They even asked me, of all people in the world, +whether I knew anything about it!</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</span></p> + +<p>They extricated him; not without pain and dirt. +He explained that he was repelling boarding-attacks +by a ‘Hattle Gardle buggle’ who had sold his house, +wife, and family. As to the bell-wire, he offered no +explanation, and was borne off shoulder-high between +the two policemen. Though his feet were not within +six inches of the ground, they paddled swiftly, and I +saw that in his magnificent mind he was running—furiously +running.</p> + +<p>Sometimes I have wondered whether he wished to +find me.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="LOVE-O-WOMEN"> + ‘LOVE-O’-WOMEN.’ + </h2> +</div> + + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent8">‘A lamentable tale of things</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Done long ago, and ill done.’</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + + +<p class="p2">The horror, the confusion, and the separation of the +murderer from his comrades were all over before I +came. There remained only on the barrack-square +the blood of man calling from the ground. The hot +sun had dried it to a dusky goldbeater-skin film, +cracked lozenge-wise by the heat; and as the wind +rose, each lozenge, rising a little, curled up at the +edges as if it were a dumb tongue. Then a heavier +gust blew all away down wind in grains of dark +coloured dust. It was too hot to stand in the sunshine +before breakfast. The men were in barracks +talking the matter over. A knot of soldiers’ wives +stood by one of the entrances to the married quarters, +while inside a woman shrieked and raved with wicked +filthy words.</p> + +<p>A quiet and well-conducted sergeant had shot down, +in broad daylight just after early parade, one of his +own corporals, had then returned to barracks and sat +on a cot till the guard came for him. He would, +therefore, in due time be handed over to the High +Court for trial. Further, but this he could hardly +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</span>have considered in his scheme of revenge, he would +horribly upset my work; for the reporting of that trial +would fall on me without a relief. What that trial +would be like I knew even to weariness. There +would be the rifle carefully uncleaned, with the fouling +marks about breech and muzzle, to be sworn to by +half a dozen superfluous privates; there would be heat, +reeking heat, till the wet pencil slipped sideways +between the fingers; and the punkah would swish and +the pleaders would jabber in the verandahs, and his +Commanding Officer would put in certificates to the +prisoner’s moral character, while the jury would pant +and the summer uniforms of the witnesses would smell +of dye and soaps; and some abject barrack-sweeper +would lose his head in cross-examination, and the +young barrister who always defended soldiers’ cases +for the credit that they never brought him, would say +and do wonderful things, and would then quarrel with +me because I had not reported him correctly. At the +last, for he surely would not be hanged, I might meet +the prisoner again, ruling blank account-forms in the +Central Jail, and cheer him with the hope of his being +made a warder in the Andamans.</p> + +<p>The Indian Penal Code and its interpreters do not +treat murder, under any provocation whatever, in a +spirit of jest. Sergeant Raines would be very lucky +indeed if he got off with seven years, I thought. He +had slept the night upon his wrongs, and killed his +man at twenty yards before any talk was possible. +That much I knew. Unless, therefore, the case was +doctored a little, seven years would be his least; and I +fancied it was exceedingly well for Sergeant Raines +that he had been liked by his Company.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</span></p> + +<p>That same evening—no day is so long as the day +of a murder—I met Ortheris with the dogs, and he +plunged defiantly into the middle of the matter. ‘I’ll +be one o’ the witnesses,’ said he. ‘I was in the +verandah when Mackie come along. ’E come from +Mrs. Raines’s quarters. Quigley, Parsons, an’ Trot, +they was in the inside verandah, so <i>they</i> couldn’t +’ave ’eard nothing. Sergeant Raines was in the +verandah talkin’ to me, an’ Mackie ’e come along +acrost the square an’ ’e sez, “Well,” sez ’e, “’ave +they pushed your ’elmet off yet, Sergeant?” ’e sez. +An’ at that Raines ’e catches ’is breath an’ ’e sez, +“My Gawd, I can’t stand this!” sez ’e, an’ ’e picks +up my rifle an’ shoots Mackie. See?’</p> + +<p>‘But what were you doing with your rifle in the +outer verandah an hour after parade?’</p> + +<p>‘Cleanin’ ’er,’ said Ortheris, with the sullen brassy +stare that always went with his choicer lies.</p> + +<p>He might as well have said that he was dancing +naked, for at no time did his rifle need hand or rag +on her twenty minutes after parade. Still, the High +Court would not know his routine.</p> + +<p>‘Are you going to stick to that—on the Book?’ I +asked.</p> + +<p>‘Yes. Like a bloomin’ leech.’</p> + +<p>‘All right, I don’t want to know any more. Only +remember that Quigley, Parsons, and Trot couldn’t +have been where you say without hearing something; +and there’s nearly certain to be a barrack-sweeper who +was knocking about the square at the time. There +always is.’</p> + +<p>‘’Twasn’t the sweeper. It was the beastie. ’E’s +all right.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</span></p> + +<p>Then I knew that there was going to be some +spirited doctoring, and I felt sorry for the Government +Advocate who would conduct the prosecution.</p> + +<p>When the trial came on I pitied him more, for he +was always quick to lose his temper and made a +personal matter of each lost cause. Raines’s young +barrister had for once put aside his unslaked and +<ins id='cor_250' title='Original: Welling'>welling</ins> passion for alibis and insanity, had forsworn +gymnastics and fireworks, and worked soberly for his +client. Mercifully the hot weather was yet young, +and there had been no flagrant cases of barrack-shootings +up to the time; and the jury was a good +one, even for an Indian jury, where nine men out of +every twelve are accustomed to weighing evidence. +Ortheris stood firm and was not shaken by any cross-examination. +The one weak point in his tale—the +presence of his rifle in the outer verandah—went +unchallenged by civilian wisdom, though some of the +witnesses could not help smiling. The Government +Advocate called for the rope, contending throughout +that the murder had been a deliberate one. Time had +passed, he argued, for that reflection which comes so +naturally to a man whose honour is lost. There was +also the Law, ever ready and anxious to right the +wrongs of the common soldier if, indeed, wrong had +been done. But he doubted much whether there had +been any sufficient wrong. Causeless suspicion over-long +brooded upon had led, by his theory, to deliberate +crime. But his attempts to minimise the motive +failed. The most disconnected witness knew—had +known for weeks—the causes of offence; and the +prisoner, who naturally was the last of all to know, +groaned in the dock while he listened. The one +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</span>question that the trial circled round was whether +Raines had fired under sudden and blinding provocation +given that very morning; and in the summing-up +it was clear that Ortheris’s evidence told. He had +contrived most artistically to suggest that he personally +hated the Sergeant, who had come into the +verandah to give him a talking to for insubordination. +In a weak moment the Government Advocate asked +one question too many. ’Beggin’ <i>your</i> pardon, sir,’ +Ortheris replied, ‘’e was callin’ me a dam’ impudent +little lawyer.’ The Court shook. The jury brought +it in a killing, but with every provocation and +extenuation known to God or man, and the Judge +put his hand to his brow before giving sentence, +and the Adam’s apple in the prisoner’s throat +went up and down like mercury pumping before a +cyclone.</p> + +<p>In consideration of all considerations, from his +Commanding Officer’s certificate of good conduct to +the sure loss of pension, service, and honour, the +prisoner would get two years, to be served in India, +and—there need be no demonstration in Court. The +Government Advocate scowled and picked up his +papers; the guard wheeled with a clash, and the +prisoner was relaxed to the Secular Arm, and driven +to the jail in a broken down <i>ticca-gharri</i>.</p> + +<p>His guard and some ten or twelve military witnesses, +being less important, were ordered to wait till +what was officially called the cool of the evening before +marching back to cantonments. They gathered together +in one of the deep red brick verandahs of a disused +lock-up and congratulated Ortheris, who bore his honours +modestly. I sent my work into the office and joined +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</span>them. Ortheris watched the Government Advocate +driving off to lunch.</p> + +<p>‘That’s a nasty little bald-’eaded little butcher, that +is,’ he said. ‘’E don’t please me. ’E’s got a colley +dog wot do, though. I’m goin’ up to Murree in a +week. That dawg’ll bring fifteen rupees anywheres.’</p> + +<p>‘You had better spend ut in Masses,’ said Terence, +unbuckling his belt; for he had been on the prisoner’s +guard, standing helmeted and bolt upright for three +long hours.</p> + +<p>‘Not me,’ said Ortheris cheerfully. ‘Gawd’ll put +it down to B Comp’ny’s barrick-damages one o’ these +days. You look strapped, Terence.’</p> + +<p>‘Faith, I’m not so young as I was. That guard-mountin’ +wears on the sole av the fut, and this’—he +sniffed contemptuously at the brick verandah—‘is as +hard setting as standin’!’</p> + +<p>‘Wait a minute. I’ll get the cushions out of my +cart,’ I said.</p> + +<p>‘’Strewth—sofies. We’re going it gay,’ said Ortheris, +as Terence dropped himself section by section on the +leather cushions, saying prettily, ‘May ye niver +want a soft place wheriver you go, an’ power to share +ut wid a frind. Another for yourself? That’s good. +It lets me sit longways. Stanley, pass me a pipe. +Augrrh! An’ that’s another man gone all to pieces +bekaze av a woman. I must ha’ been on forty or +fifty prisoners’ gyards, first an’ last; an’ I hate ut new +ivry time.’</p> + +<p>‘Let’s see. You were on Losson’s, Lancey’s, Dugard’s, +and Stebbins’s, that I can remember,’ I said.</p> + +<p>‘Ay, an’ before that an’ before that—scores av +thim,’ he answered with a worn smile. ’Tis better to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</span>die than to live for them, though. Whin Raines comes +out—he’ll be changin’ his kit at the jail now—he’ll +think that too. He shud ha’ shot hemself an’ the +woman by rights an’ made a clean bill av all. Now +he’s left the woman—she tuk tay wid Dinah Sunday +gone last—an’ he’s left himself. Mackie’s the lucky +man.’</p> + +<p>‘He’s probably getting it hot where he is,’ I ventured, +for I knew something of the dead Corporal’s +record.</p> + +<p>‘Be sure av that,’ said Terence, spitting over the +edge of the verandah. ‘But fwhat he’ll get there is +light marchin’-ordher to fwhat he’d ha’ got here if he’d +lived.’</p> + +<p>‘Surely not. He’d have gone on and forgotten—like +the others.’</p> + +<p>‘Did ye know Mackie well, sorr?’ said Terence.</p> + +<p>‘He was on the Pattiala guard of honour last winter, +and I went out shooting with him in an <i>ekka</i> for the +day, and I found him rather an amusing man.’</p> + +<p>‘Well, he’ll ha’ got shut av amusemints, excipt +turnin’ from wan side to the other, these few years to +come. I knew Mackie, an’ I’ve seen too many to be +mistuk in the muster av wan man. He might ha’ +gone on an’ forgot as you say, sorr, but he was a man +wid an educashin, an’ he used ut for his schames; an’ +the same educashin, an’ talkin’, an’ all that made him +able to do fwhat he had a mind to wid a woman, that +same wud turn back again in the long-run an’ tear him +alive. I can’t say fwhat that I mane to say bekaze I +don’t know how, but Mackie was the spit an’ livin’ +image av a man that I saw march the same march <i>all +but</i>; an’ ’twas worse for him that he did not come by +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</span>Mackie’s ind. Wait while I remember now. ’Twas +whin I was in the Black Tyrone, an’ he was drafted +us from Portsmouth; an’ fwhat was his misbegotten +name? Larry—Larry Tighe ut was; an’ wan of the +draft said he was a gentleman-ranker, an’ Larry tuk +an’ three-parts killed him for saying so. An’ he was a +big man, an’ a strong man, an’ a handsome man, an’ +that tells heavy in practice wid some women, but, +takin’ them by an’ large, not wid all. Yet ’twas wid +all that Larry dealt—<i>all</i>—for he cud put the comether +on any woman that trod the green earth av God, an’ +he knew ut. Like Mackie that’s roastin’ now, he +knew ut, an’ niver did he put the comether on any +woman save an’ excipt for the black shame. ’Tis not +me that shud be talkin’, dear knows, dear knows, but +the most av my mis—misallinces was for pure devilry, +an’ mighty sorry I have been whin harm came; an’ +time an’ again wid a girl, ay, an’ a woman too, for the +matter av that, whin I have seen by the eyes av her +that I was makin’ more throuble than I talked, I have +hild off an’ let be for the sake av the mother that bore +me. But Larry, I’m thinkin’, he was suckled by a she-divil, +for he never let wan go that came nigh to listen +to him. ’Twas his business, as if it might ha’ ben +sinthry-go. He was a good soldier too. Now there was +the Colonel’s governess—an’ he a privit too!—that +was never known in barricks; an’ wan av the Major’s +maids, and she was promised to a man; an’ some more +outside; an’ fwhat ut was amongst <i>us</i> we’ll never know +till Judgment Day. ’Twas the nature av the baste to +put the comether on the best av thim—not the prettiest +by any manner av manes—but the like av such women +as you cud lay your hand on the Book an’ swear there +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</span>was niver thought av foolishness in. An’ for that +very reason, mark you, he was niver caught. He came +close to ut wanst or twice, but caught he niver was, +an’ that cost him more at the ind than the beginnin’. +He talked to me more than most, bekaze he tould me, +barrin’ the accident av my educashin, I’d av been the +same kind av divil he was. “An’ is ut like,” he wud +say, houldin’ his head high—“is ut like that I’d iver +be thrapped? For fwhat am I when all’s said an’ +done?” he sez. “A damned privit,” sez he. “An’ is +ut like, think you, that thim I know wud be connect wid +a privit like me? Number tin thousand four hundred +an’ sivin,” he sez grinnin’. I knew by the turn av his +spache when he was not takin’ care to talk rough-shod +that he was a gentleman-ranker.</p> + +<p>‘“I do not undherstan’ ut at all,” I sez; “but I +know,” sez I, “that the divil looks out av your eyes, +an’ I’ll have no share wid you. A little fun by way +av amusemint where ’twill do no harm, Larry, is right +and fair, but I am mistook if ’tis any amusemint to +you,” I sez.</p> + +<p>‘“You are much mistook,” he sez. “An’ I counsel +you not to judge your betters.”</p> + +<p>‘“My betthers!” I sez. “God help you, Larry. +There’s no betther in this; ’tis all bad, as ye will +find for yoursilf.”</p> + +<p>‘“You’re not like me,” he says, tossin’ his head.</p> + +<p>‘“Praise the Saints, I am not,” I sez. “Fwhat I +have done I have done an’ been crool sorry for. Fwhin +your time comes,” sez I, “ye’ll remimber fwhat I +say.”</p> + +<p>‘“An’ whin that time comes,” sez he, “I’ll come to +you for ghostly consolation, Father Terence,” an’ at that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</span>he wint off afther some more divil’s business—for to +get expayrience, he tould me. He was wicked—rank +wicked—wicked as all Hell! I’m not construct by +nature to go in fear av any man, but, begad, I was +afraid av Larry. He’d come in to barricks wid his +cap on three hairs, an’ lie on his cot and stare at the +ceilin’, and now an’ again he’d fetch a little laugh, the +like av a splash in the bottom av a well, an’ by that I +knew he was schamin’ new wickedness, an’ I’d be +afraid. All this was long an’ long ago, but ut hild +me straight—for a while.</p> + +<p>‘I tould you, did I not, sorr, that I was caressed +an’ pershuaded to lave the Tyrone on account av a +throuble?’</p> + +<p>‘Something to do with a belt and a man’s head +wasn’t it?’ Terence had never given the tale in full.</p> + +<p>‘It was. Faith, ivry time I go on prisoner’s gyard +in coort I wondher fwhy I was not where the pris’ner +is. But the man I struk tuk it in fair fight an’ he +had the good sinse not to die. Considher now, fwhat +wud ha’ come to the Arrmy if he had! I was enthreated +to exchange, an’ my Commandin’ Orf’cer pled wid me. +I wint, not to be disobligin’, an’ Larry tould me he was +powerful sorry to lose me, though fwhat I’d done to +make him sorry I do not know. So to the Ould +Reg’mint I came, lavin’ Larry to go to the divil his +own way, an’ niver expectin’ to see him again excipt +as a shootin’-case in barracks.... Who’s that quittin’ +the compound?’ Terence’s quick eye had caught sight +of a white uniform skulking behind the hedge.</p> + +<p>‘The Sergeant’s gone visiting,’ said a voice.</p> + +<p>‘Thin I command here, an’ I will have no sneakin’ +away to the bazar, an’ huntin’ for you wid a pathrol +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</span>at midnight. Nalson, for I know ut’s you, come back +to the verandah.’</p> + +<p>Nalson, detected, slunk back to his fellows. There +was a grumble that died away in a minute or two, and +Terence turning on the other side went on:—</p> + +<p>‘That was the last I saw av Larry for a while. +Exchange is the same as death for not thinkin’, an’ by +token I married Dinah, an’ that kept me from remimberin’ +ould times. Thin we went up to the Front, an’ +ut tore my heart in tu to lave Dinah at the Depôt in +Pindi. Consequint, whin I was at the Front I fought +circumspectuous till I warrmed up, an’ thin I fought +double tides. You remember fwhat I tould you in the +gyard-gate av the fight at Silver’s Theatre?’</p> + +<p>‘Wot’s that about Silver’s Theayter?’ said Ortheris +quickly, over his shoulder.</p> + +<p>‘Nothin’, little man. A tale that ye know. As I +was sayin’, afther that fight, us av the Ould Rig’mint +an’ the Tyrone was all mixed together takin’ shtock av +the dead, an’ av coorse I wint about to find if there +was any man that remembered me. The second man +I came acrost—an’ how I’d missed him in the fight I +do not know—was Larry, an’ a fine man he looked, but +oulder, by reason that he had fair call to be. “Larry,” +sez I, “how is ut wid you?”</p> + +<p>‘“Ye’re callin’ the wrong man,” he sez, wid his +gentleman’s smile, “Larry has been dead these three +years. They call him ‘Love-o’-Women’ now,” he sez. +By that I knew the ould divil was in him yet, but the +ind av a fight is no time for the beginnin’ av confession, +so we sat down an’ talked av times.</p> + +<p>‘“They tell me you’re a married man,” he sez, +puffin’ slow at his poipe. “Are ye happy?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</span></p> + +<p>‘“I will be whin I get back to Depôt,” I sez. “’Tis +a reconnaissance-honeymoon now.”</p> + +<p>‘“I’m married too,” he sez, puffin’ slow an’ more +slow, an’ stopperin’ wid his forefinger.</p> + +<p>‘“Send you happiness,” I sez. “That’s the best +hearin’ for a long time.”</p> + +<p>‘“Are ye av that opinion?” he sez; an’ thin he +began talkin’ av the campaign. The sweat av Silver’s +Theatre was not dhry upon him an’ he was prayin’ for +more work. I was well contint to lie and listen to +the cook-pot lids.</p> + +<p>‘Whin he got up off the ground he shtaggered a +little, an’ laned over all twisted.</p> + +<p>‘“Ye’ve got more than ye bargained for,” I sez. +“Take an inventory, Larry. ’Tis like you’re hurt.”</p> + +<p>‘He turned round stiff as a ramrod an’ damned the +eyes av me up an’ down for an impartinent Irish-faced +ape. If that had been in barracks, I’d ha’ stretched +him an’ no more said; but ’twas at the Front, an’ +afther such a fight as Silver’s Theatre I knew there +was no callin’ a man to account for his tempers. He +might as well ha’ kissed me. Aftherwards I was well +pleased I kept my fists home. Thin our Captain +Crook—Cruik-na-bulleen—came up. He’d been +talkin’ to the little orf’cer bhoy av the Tyrone. “We’re +all cut to windystraws,” he sez, “but the Tyrone +are damned short for noncoms. Go you over there, +Mulvaney, an’ be Deputy-Sergeant, Corp’ral, Lance, +an’ everything else ye can lay hands on till I bid +you stop.”</p> + +<p>‘I wint over an’ tuk hould. There was wan +sergeant left standin’, an’ they’d pay no heed to him. +The remnint was me, an’ ’twas full time I came. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</span>Some I talked to, an’ some I did not, but before night +the bhoys av the Tyrone stud to attention, by gad, if I +sucked on my poipe above a whishper. Betune you +an’ me an’ Bobbs I was commandin’ the company, an’ +that was what Crook had thransferred me for; an’ the +little orf’cer bhoy knew ut, and I knew ut, but the +comp’ny did not. And <i>there</i>, mark you, is the vartue +that no money an’ no dhrill can buy—the vartue av +the ould soldier that knows his orf’cer’s work an’ does +ut for him at the salute!</p> + +<p>‘Thin the Tyrone, wid the Ould Rig’mint in touch, +was sint maraudin’ an’ prowlin’ acrost the hills promishcuous +an’ onsatisfactory. ’Tis my privit opinion that a +gin’ral does not know half his time fwhat to do wid +three-quarthers his command. So he shquats on his +hunkers an’ bids them run round an’ round forninst +him while he considhers on it. Whin by the process +av nature they get sejuced into a big fight that was +none av their seekin’, he sez: “Obsarve my shuperior +janius. I meant ut to come so.” We ran round an’ +about, an’ all we got was shootin’ into the camp at +night, an’ rushin’ empty <i>sungars</i> wid the long bradawl, +an’ bein’ hit from behind rocks till we was wore out—all +excipt Love-o’-Women. That puppy-dog business +was mate an’ dhrink to him. Begad he cud niver get +enough av ut. Me well knowin’ that it is just this +desultorial campaignin’ that kills the best men, an’ +suspicionin’ that if I was cut, the little orf’cer bhoy +wud expind all his men in thryin’ to get out, I wud +lie most powerful doggo whin I heard a shot, an’ curl +my long legs behind a bowlder, an’ run like blazes +whin the ground was clear. Faith, if I led the Tyrone +in rethreat wanst I led thim forty times! Love-o’-Women +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</span>wud stay pottin’ an’ pottin’ from behind a +rock, and wait till the fire was heaviest, an’ thin stand +up an’ fire man-height clear. He wud lie out in camp +too at night, snipin’ at the shadows, for he never tuk a +mouthful av slape. My commandin’ orf’cer—save his +little soul!—cud not see the beauty av my strategims, +an’ whin the Ould Rig’mint crossed us, an’ that was +wanst a week, he’d throt off to Crook, wid his big blue +eyes as round as saucers, an’ lay an information against +me. I heard thim wanst talkin’ through the tent-wall, +an’ I nearly laughed.</p> + +<p>‘“He runs—runs like a hare,” sez the little orf’cer +bhoy. “’Tis demoralisin’ my men.”</p> + +<p>‘“Ye damned little fool,” sez Crook laughin’. +“He’s larnin’ you your business. Have ye been +rushed at night yet?”</p> + +<p>‘“No,” sez that child; wishful he had been.</p> + +<p>‘“Have you any wounded?” sez Crook.</p> + +<p>‘“No,” he sez. “There was no chanst for that. +They follow Mulvaney too quick,” he sez.</p> + +<p>‘“Fwhat more do you want, thin?” sez Crook. +“Terence is bloodin’ you neat an’ handy,” he sez. +“He knows fwhat you do not, an’ that’s that there’s a +time for ivrything. He’ll not lead you wrong,” he +sez, “but I’d give a month’s pay to larn fwhat he +thinks av you.”</p> + +<p>‘That kept the babe quiet, but Love-o’-Women was +pokin’ at me for ivrything I did, an’ specially my +manœuvres.</p> + +<p>‘“Mr. Mulvaney,” he sez wan evenin’, very contempshus, +“you’re growin’ very <i>jeldy</i> on your feet. +Among gentlemen,” he sez, “among gentlemen that’s +called no pretty name.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</span></p> + +<p>‘“Among privits ’tis different,” I sez. “Get back +to your tent. I’m sergeant here,” I sez.</p> + +<p>‘There was just enough in the voice av me to tell +him he was playin’ wid his life betune his teeth. He +wint off, an’ I noticed that this man that was contempshus +set off from the halt wid a shunt as tho’ +he was bein’ kicked behind. That same night there +was a Paythan picnic in tha hills about, an’ firin’ into +our tents fit to wake the livin’ dead. “Lie down all,” +I sez. “Lie down an’ kape still. They’ll no more +than waste ammunition.”</p> + +<p>‘I heard a man’s feet on the ground, an’ thin a +’Tini joinin’ in the chorus. I’d been lyin’ warm, thinkin’ +av Dinah an’ all, but I crup out wid the bugle for to +look round in case there was a rush; an’ the ’Tini was +flashin’ at the fore-ind av the camp, an’ the hill near +by was fair flickerin’ wid long-range fire. Undher +the starlight I behild Love-o’-Women settin’ on a rock +wid his belt and helmet off. He shouted wanst or +twice, an’ thin I heard him say: “They shud ha’ got +the range long ago. Maybe they’ll fire at the flash.” +Thin he fired again, an’ that dhrew a fresh volley, and +the long slugs that they chew in their teeth came +floppin’ among the rocks like tree-toads av a hot night. +“That’s better,” sez Love-o’-Women. “Oh Lord, how +long, how long!” he sez, an’ at that he lit a match an’ +held ut above his head.</p> + +<p>‘“Mad,” thinks I, “mad as a coot,” an’ I tuk wan +stip forward, an’ the nixt I knew was the sole av my +boot flappin’ like a cavalry gydon an’ the funny-bone +av my toes tinglin’. ’Twas a clane-cut shot—a slug—that +niver touched sock or hide, but set me bare-fut +on the rocks. At that I tuk Love-o’-Women by the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</span>scruff an’ threw him under a bowlder, an’ whin I sat +down I heard the bullets patterin’ on that same good +stone.</p> + +<p>‘“Ye may dhraw your own wicked fire,” I sez, +shakin’ him, “but I’m not goin’ to be kilt too.”</p> + +<p>‘“Ye’ve come too soon,” he sez. “Ye’ve come too +soon. In another minute they cudn’t ha’ missed me. +Mother av’ God,” he sez, “fwhy did ye not lave me +be? Now ’tis all to do again,” an’ he hides his face +in his hands.</p> + +<p>‘“So that’s it,” I sez, shakin’ him again. “That’s +the manin’ av your disobeyin’ ordhers.”</p> + +<p>‘“I dare not kill meself,” he sez, rockin’ to and fro. +“My own hand wud not let me die, and there’s not a +bullet this month past wud touch me. I’m to die +slow,” he sez. “I’m to die slow. But I’m in hell +now,” he sez, shriekin’ like a woman. “I’m in hell +now!”</p> + +<p>‘“God be good to us all,” I sez, for I saw his face. +“Will ye tell a man the throuble? If ’tis not murder, +maybe we’ll mend it yet.”</p> + +<p>‘At that he laughed. “D’you remember fwhat I +said in the Tyrone barricks about comin’ to you for +ghostly consolation. I have not forgot,” he sez. +“That came back, and the rest av my time is on me +now, Terence. I’ve fought ut off for months an’ +months, but the liquor will not bite any more. +Terence,” he sez, “I can’t get dhrunk!”</p> + +<p>‘Thin I knew he spoke the truth about bein’ in +hell, for whin liquor does not take hould the sowl +av a man is rotten in him. But me bein’ such as I +was, fwhat could I say to him?</p> + +<p>‘“Di’monds an’ pearls,” he begins again. “Di’monds +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</span>an’ pearls I have thrown away wid both hands—an’ +fwhat have I left? Oh, fwhat have I left?”</p> + +<p>‘He was shakin’ an’ thremblin’ up against my +shouldher, an’ the slugs were singin’ overhead, an’ I +was wonderin’ whether my little bhoy wud have +sinse enough to kape his men quiet through all this +firin’.</p> + +<p>‘“So long as I did not think,” sez Love-o’-Women, +“so long I did not see—I wud not see, but I can +now, what I’ve lost. The time an’ the place,” he +sez, “an’ the very words I said whin ut pleased me +to go off alone to hell. But thin, even thin,” he sez, +wrigglin’ tremenjous, “I wud not ha’ been happy. +There was too much behind av me. How cud I ha’ +believed her sworn oath—me that have bruk mine +again an’ again for the sport av seein’ thim cry? An’ +there are the others,” he sez. “Oh, what will I do—what +will I do?” He rocked back an’ forward again, +an’ I think he was cryin’ like wan av the women he +talked av.</p> + +<p>‘The full half of fwhat he said was Brigade Ordhers +to me, but from the rest an’ the remnint I suspicioned +somethin’ av his throuble. ’Twas the judgmint av +God had grup the heel av him, as I tould him ’twould +in the Tyrone barricks. The slugs was singin’ over +our rock more an’ more, an’ I sez for to divart him: +“Let bad alone,” I sez. “They’ll be tryin’ to rush the +camp in a minut’.”</p> + +<p>‘I had no more than said that whin a Paythan +man crep’ up on his belly wid his knife betune his +teeth, not twinty yards from us. Love-o’-Women +jumped up an’ fetched a yell, an’ the man saw him +an’ ran at him (he’d left his rifle under the rock) wid +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</span>the knife. Love-o’-Women niver turned a hair, but +by the Living Power, for I saw ut, a stone twisted +under the Paythan man’s feet an’ he came down full +sprawl, an’ his knife wint tinkling acrost the rocks! +“I tould you I was Cain,” sez Love-o’-Women. +“Fwhat’s the use av killin’ him? He’s an honust man—by +compare.”</p> + +<p>‘I was not dishputin’ about the morils av Paythans +that tide, so I dhropped Love-o’-Women’s butt acrost +the man’s face, an’ “Hurry into camp,” I sez, “for this +may be the first av a rush.”</p> + +<p>‘There was no rush after all, though we waited +undher arms to give them a chanst. The Paythan +man must ha’ come alone for the mischief, an’ afther +a while Love-o’-Women wint back to his tint wid that +quare lurchin’ sind-off in his walk that I cud niver +understand. Begad, I pitied him, an’ the more +bekase he made me think for the rest av the night +av the day whin I was confirmed Corp’ril, not actin’ +Lef’tinant, an’ my thoughts was not good to me.’</p> + +<p>‘Ye can ondersthand that afther that night we +came to talkin’ a dale together, an’ bit by bit ut +came out fwhat I’d suspicioned. The whole av his +carr’in’s on an’ divilments had come back on him +hard, as liquor comes back whin you’ve been on the +dhrink for a wake. All he’d said an’ all he’d done, +an’ only he cud tell how much that was, come back, +and there was niver a minut’s peace in his sowl. +’Twas the Horrors widout any cause to see, an’ yet, +an’ yet—fwhat am I talkin’ av? He’d ha’ taken the +Horrors wid thankfulness. Beyon’ the repentince av +the man, an’ that was beyon’ the nature av man—awful, +awful, to behould!—there was more that was +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</span>worst than any repentince. Av the scores an’ scores +that he called over in his mind (an’ they were drivin’ +him mad), there was, mark you, wan woman av all +an’ she was not his wife, that cut him to the quick av +his marrow. ’Twas there he said that he’d thrown +away di’monds an’ pearls past count, an’ thin he’d +begin again like a blind <i>byle</i> in an oil-mill, walkin’ +round and round, to considher (him that was beyond +all touch av bein’ happy this side hell!) how happy +he wud ha’ been wid <i>her</i>. The more he considhered, +the more he’d consate himself that he’d lost mighty +happiness, an’ thin he wud work ut all backwards, an’ +cry that he niver cud ha’ been happy anyway.</p> + +<p>‘Time an’ time an’ again in camp, on p’rade, ay, an’ +in action, I’ve seen that man shut his eyes an’ duck +his head as ye wud duck to the flicker av a bay’nit. +For ’twas thin, he tould me, that the thought av all +he’d missed came an’ stud forninst him like red-hot +irons. For what he’d done wid the others he was +sorry, but he did not care; but this wan woman that +I’ve tould of, by the Hilts av God, she made him pay +for all the others twice over! Niver did I know that +a man cud enjure such tormint widout his heart +crackin’ in his ribs, an’ I have been’—Terence turned +the pipe-stem slowly between his teeth—‘I have +been in some black cells. All I iver suffered tho’ +was not to be talked of alongside av <i>him</i> ... an’ +what could I do? Paternosters was no more than +peas on plates for his sorrows.</p> + +<p>‘Evenshually we finished our prom’nade acrost +the hills, and, thanks to me for the same, there was no +casualties an’ no glory. The campaign was comin’ to +an ind, an’ all the rig’mints was being drawn together +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</span>for to be sint back home. Love-o’-Women was mighty +sorry bekaze he had no work to do, an’ all his time +to think in. I’ve heard that man talkin’ to his belt-plate +an’ his side-arms while he was soldierin’ thim, all +to prevent himself from thinkin’, an’ ivry time he +got up afther he had been settin’ down or wint on +from the halt, he’d start wid that kick an’ traverse that +I tould you of—his legs sprawlin’ all ways to wanst. +He wud niver go see the docthor, tho’ I tould him to +be wise. He’d curse me up an’ down for my advice; +but I knew he was no more a man to be reckoned +wid than the little bhoy was a commandin’ orf’cer, so +I let his tongue run if it aised him.</p> + +<p>‘Wan day—’twas on the way back—I was walkin’ +round camp wid him, an’ he stopped an’ struck +ground wid his right fut three or four times doubtful. +“Fwhat is ut?” I sez. “Is that ground?” sez he; an’ +while I was thinkin’ his mind was goin’, up comes +the docthor, who’d been anatomisin’ a dead bullock. +Love-o’-Women starts to go on quick, an’ lands me a +kick on the knee while his legs was gettin’ into +marchin’ ordher.</p> + +<p>‘“Hould on there,” sez the docthor; an’ Love-o’-Women’s +face, that was lined like a gridiron, turns red +as brick.</p> + +<p>‘“’Tention,” says the docthor; an’ Love-o’-Women +stud so. “Now shut your eyes,” sez the docthor. +“No, ye must not hould by your comrade.”</p> + +<p>‘“Tis all up,” sez Love-o’-Women, thrying to smile. +“I’d fall, docthor, an’ you know ut.”</p> + +<p>“Fall?” I sez. “Fall at attention wid your eyes +shut! Fwhat do you mane?”</p> + +<p>‘“The docthor knows,” he sez. “I’ve hild up as +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</span>long as I can, but begad I’m glad ’tis all done. But +I will die slow,” he sez, “I will die very slow.”</p> + +<p>‘I cud see by the docthor’s face that he was +mortial sorry for the man, an’ he ordered him to +hospital. We wint back together, an’ I was dumb-struck. +Love-o’-Women was cripplin’ and crumblin’ at +ivry step. He walked wid a hand on my shoulder all +slued sideways, an’ his right leg swingin’ like a lame +camel. Me not knowin’ more than the dead fwhat +ailed him, ’twas just as though the docthor’s word had +done ut all—as if Love-o’-Women had but been +waitin’ for the word to let go.</p> + +<p>‘In hospital he sez somethin’ to the docthor that +I could not catch.</p> + +<p>‘“Holy Shmoke!” sez the docthor, “an’ who are +you, to be givin’ names to your diseases? ’Tis agin +all the reg’lations.”</p> + +<p>‘“I’ll not be a privit much longer,” sez Love-o’-Women +in his gentleman’s voice, an’ the docthor +jumped.</p> + +<p>“Thrate me as a study, Doctor Lowndes,” he sez; +an’ that was the first time I’d iver heard a docthor +called his name.</p> + +<p>‘“Good-bye, Terence,” sez Love-o’-Women. “’Tis +a dead man I am widout the pleasure av dyin’. +You’ll come an’ set wid me sometimes for the peace +av my sowl.”</p> + +<p>‘Now I had been minded for to ask Crook to +take me back to the Ould Rig’mint; the fightin’ was +over, an’ I was wore out wid the ways av the bhoys +in the Tyrone; but I shifted my will, an’ hild on, and +wint to set wid Love-o’-Women in the hospital. As +I have said, sorr, the man bruk all to little pieces +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</span>under my hand. How long he had hild up an’ forced +himself fit to march I cannot tell, but in hospital but +two days later he was such as I hardly knew. I +shuk hands wid him, an’ his grip was fair strong, but +his hands wint all ways to wanst, an’ he cud not +button his tunic.</p> + +<p>‘“I’ll take long an’ long to die yet,” he sez, “for +the wages av sin they’re like interest in the rig’mintal +savin’s-bank—sure, but a damned long time bein’ paid.”</p> + +<p>‘The docthor sez to me, quiet one day, “Has +Tighe there anythin’ on his mind?” he sez. “He’s +burnin’ himself out.”</p> + +<p>‘“How shud I know, sorr?” I sez, as innocint as +putty.</p> + +<p>‘“They call him Love-o’-Women in the Tyrone, do +they not?” he sez. “I was a fool to ask. Be wid +him all you can. He’s houldin’ on to your strength.”</p> + +<p>‘“But fwhat ails him, docthor?” I sez.</p> + +<p>‘“They call ut Locomotus attacks us,” he sez, +“bekaze,” sez he, “ut attacks us like a locomotive, if ye +know fwhat that manes. An’ ut comes,” sez he, +lookin’ at me, “ut comes from bein’ called Love-o’-Women.”</p> + +<p>‘“You’re jokin’, docthor,” I sez.</p> + +<p>‘“Jokin’!” sez he. “If iver you feel that you’ve +got a felt sole in your boot instid av a Government +bull’s-wool, come to me,” he sez, “an’ I’ll show you +whether ’tis a joke.”</p> + +<p>‘You would not belave ut, sorr, but that, an’ seein’ +Love-o’-Women overtuk widout warnin’, put the cowld +fear av Attacks us on me so strong that for a week an’ +more I was kickin’ my toes against stones an’ stumps +for the pleasure av feelin’ thim hurt.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</span></p> + +<p>‘An’ Love-o’-Women lay in the cot (he might +have gone down wid the wounded before an’ before, +but he asked to stay wid me), and fwhat there was in +his mind had full swing at him night an’ day an’ +ivry hour av the day an’ the night, and he shrivelled +like beef-rations in a hot sun, an’ his eyes was like +owls’ eyes, an’ his hands was mut’nous.</p> + +<p>‘They was gettin’ the rig’mints away wan by wan, +the campaign bein’ inded, but as ushuil they was +behavin’ as if niver a rig’mint had been moved before +in the mem’ry av man. Now, fwhy is that, sorr? +There’s fightin’, in an’ out, nine months av the twelve +somewhere in the army. There has been—for years +an’ years an’ years; an’ I wud ha’ thought they’d begin +to get the hang av providin’ for throops. But no! +Ivry time ’tis like a girls’ school meetin’ a big red +bull whin they’re goin’ to church; an’ “Mother av +God,” sez the Commissariat an’ the Railways an’ the +Barrick-masters, “fwhat will we do now?” The +ordhers came to us av the Tyrone an’ the Ould +Rig’mint an’ half a dozen more to go down, an’ there +the ordhers stopped dumb. We wint down, by the +special grace av God—down the Khaiber anyways. +There was sick wid us, an’ I’m thinkin’ that some av +thim was jolted to death in the doolies, but they was +anxious to be kilt so if they cud get to Peshawur +alive the sooner. I walked by Love-o’-Women—there +was no marchin’, an’ Love-o’-Women was not in +a stew to get on. “If I’d only ha’ died up there,” +sez he through the dooli-curtains, an’ thin he’d twist +up his eyes an’ duck his head for the thoughts that +come an’ raked him.</p> + +<p>‘Dinah was in Depôt at Pindi, but I wint +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</span>circumspectuous, for well I knew ’tis just at the rump-ind av +all things that his luck turns on a man. By token I +had seen a dhriver of a batthery goin’ by at a trot +singin’ “Home, swate home” at the top av his shout, +and takin’ no heed to his bridle-hand—I had seen +that man dhrop under the gun in the middle of a +word, and come out by the limber like—like a frog +on a pavestone. No. I wud <i>not</i> hurry, though, God +knows, my heart was all in Pindi. Love-o’-Women +saw fwhat was in my mind, an’ “Go on, Terence,” he sez, +“I know fwhat’s waitin’ for you.” “I will not,” I sez. +“’Twill kape a little yet.”</p> + +<p>‘Ye know the turn of the pass forninst Jumrood +and the nine-mile road on the flat to Peshawur? All +Peshawur was along that road day and night waitin’ +for frinds—men, women, childer, and bands. Some +av the throops was camped round Jumrood, an’ some +wint on to Peshawur to get away down to their cantonmints. +We came through in the early mornin’, havin’ +been awake the night through, and we dhruv sheer +into the middle av the mess. Mother av Glory, will I +iver forget that comin’ back? The light was not fair +lifted, and the first we heard was “For ’tis my delight +av a shiny night,” frum a band that thought we was +the second four comp’nies av the Lincolnshire. At +that we was forced to sind them a yell to say who +we was, an’ thin up wint “The wearin’ av the Green.” +It made me crawl all up my backbone, not havin’ +taken my brequist. Then right smash into our rear +came fwhat was left av the Jock Elliott’s—wid four +pipers an’ not half a kilt among thim, playing’ for the +dear life, an’ swingin’ their rumps like buck-rabbits, +an’ a native rig’mint shriekin’ blue murther. Ye +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</span>niver heard the like! There was men cryin’ like +women that did—an’ faith I do not blame them! +Fwhat bruk me down was the Lancers’ Band—shinin’ +an’ spick like angils, wid the ould dhrum-horse at the +head an’ the silver kettle-dhrums an’ all an’ all, waitin’ +for their men that was behind us. They shtruck up +the Cavalry Canter; an’ begad those poor ghosts that +had not a sound fut in a throop they answered to ut; +the men rockin’ in their saddles. We thried to cheer +them as they wint by, but ut came out like a big +gruntin’ cough, so there must have been many that was +feelin’ like me. Oh, but I’m forgettin’! The Fly-by-Nights +was waitin’ for their second battalion, an’ whin +ut came out, there was the Colonel’s horse led at the +head—saddle-empty. The men fair worshipped him, +an’ he’d died at Ali Musjid on the road down. They +waited till the remnint av the battalion was up, and +thin—clane against ordhers, for who wanted <i>that</i> +chune that day?—they wint back to Peshawur slow-time +an’ tearin’ the bowils out av ivry man that +heard, wid “The Dead March.” Right acrost our line +they wint, an’ ye know their uniforms are as black as +the Sweeps, crawlin’ past like the dead, an’ the other +bands damnin’ them to let be.</p> + +<p>‘Little they cared. The carpse was wid them, an’ +they’d ha taken ut so through a Coronation. Our +ordhers was to go into Peshawur, an’ we wint hot-fut +past The Fly-by-Nights, not singin’, to lave that chune +behind us. That was how we tuk the road of the +other corps.</p> + +<p>‘’Twas ringin’ in my ears still whin I felt in the +bones of me that Dinah was comin’, an’ I heard a +shout, an’ thin I saw a horse an’ a tattoo latherin’ +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</span>down the road, hell-to-shplit, under women. I knew—I +knew! Wan was the Tyrone Colonel’s wife—ould +Beeker’s lady—her gray hair flyin’ an’ her fat +round carkiss rowlin’ in the saddle, an’ the other was +Dinah, that shud ha’ been at Pindi. The Colonel’s +lady she charged the head av our column like a +stone wall, an’ she all but knocked Beeker off his +horse, throwin’ her arms round his neck an’ blubberin’, +“Me bhoy! me bhoy!” an’ Dinah wheeled left an’ came +down our flank, an’ I let a yell that had suffered +inside av me for months and—Dinah came! Will I +iver forget that while I live! She’d come on pass from +Pindi, an’ the Colonel’s lady had lint her the tattoo. +They’d been huggin’ an’ cryin’ in each other’s arms all +the long night.</p> + +<p>‘So she walked along wid her hand in mine, asking +forty questions to wanst, an’ beggin’ me on the Virgin +to make oath that there was not a bullet consaled in +me, unbeknownst somewhere, an’ thin I remembered +Love-o’-Women. He was watchin’ us, an’ his face was +like the face av a divil that has been cooked too long. +I did not wish Dinah to see ut, for whin a woman’s +runnin’ over with happiness she’s like to be touched, +for harm afterwards, by the laste little thing in life. +So I dhrew the curtain, an’ Love-o’-Women lay back +and groaned.</p> + +<p>‘Whin we marched into Peshawur Dinah wint to +barracks to wait for me, an’, me feelin’ so rich that tide, +I wint on to take Love-o’-Women to hospital. It was the +last I cud do, an’ to save him the dust an’ the smother +I turned the dooli-men down a road well clear av the +rest av the throops, an’ we wint along, me talkin’ through +the curtains. Av a sudden I heard him say:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</span></p> + +<p>‘“Let me look. For the mercy av Hiven, let me +look.” I had been so tuk up wid gettin’ him out av +the dust an’ thinkin’ av Dinah that I had not kept +my eyes about me. There was a woman ridin’ a little +behind av us; an’, talkin’ ut over wid Dinah afterwards, +that same woman must ha’ rid out far on the Jumrood +road. Dinah said that she had been hoverin’ like a +kite on the left flank av the columns.</p> + +<p>‘I halted the dooli to set the curtains, an’ she rode +by, walkin’ pace, an’ Love-o’-Women’s eyes wint afther +her as if he wud fair haul her down from the saddle.</p> + +<p>‘“Follow there,” was all he sez, but I niver heard a +man speak in that voice before or since; an’ I knew by +those two wan words an’ the look in his face that she +was Di’monds-an’-Pearls that he’d talked av in his +disthresses.</p> + +<p>‘We followed till she turned into the gate av a +little house that stud near the Edwardes’ Gate. There +was two girls in the verandah, an’ they ran in whin +they saw us. Faith, at long eye-range it did not take +me a wink to see fwhat kind av house ut was. The +throops bein’ there an’ all, there was three or four +such; but aftherwards the polis bade thim go. At the +verandah Love-o’-Women sez, catchin’ his breath, +“Stop here,” an’ thin, an’ thin, wid a grunt that +must ha’ tore the heart up from his stomick, he +swung himself out av the dooli, an’ my troth he stud +up on his feet wid the sweat pourin’ down his face! +If Mackie was to walk in here now I’d be less tuk +back than I was thin. Where he’d dhrawn his power +from, God knows—or the Divil—but ’twas a dead +man walkin’ in the sun, wid the face av a dead man +and the breath av a dead man, hild up by the Power, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</span>an’ the legs an’ the arms av the carpse obeyin’ +ordhers.</p> + +<p>‘The woman stud in the verandah. She’d been a +beauty too, though her eyes was sunk in her head, an’ +she looked Love-o’-Women up an’ down terrible. +“An’,” she sez, kicking back the tail av her habit,—“An’,” +she sez, “fwhat are you doin’ <i>here</i>, married +man?”</p> + +<p>‘Love-o’-Women said nothin’, but a little froth came +to his lips, an’ he wiped ut off wid his hand an’ +looked at her an’ the paint on her, an’ looked, an’ +looked, an’ looked.</p> + +<p>‘“An’ yet,” she sez, wid a laugh. (Did you hear +Raines’ wife laugh whin Mackie died? Ye did not? +Well for you.) “An’ yet,” she sez, “who but you have +betther right,” sez she. “You taught me the road. +You showed me the way,” she sez. “Ay, look,” she +sez, “for ’tis your work; you that tould me—d’you +remimber it?—that a woman who was false to wan +man cud be false to two. I have been that,” she sez, +“that an’ more, for you always said I was a quick +learner, Ellis. Look well,” she sez, “for it is me that +you called your wife in the sight av God long since.” +An’ she laughed.</p> + +<p>‘Love-o’-Women stud still in the sun widout +answerin’. Thin he groaned an coughed to wanst, an’ +I thought ’twas the death-rattle, but he niver tuk his +eyes off her face, not for a blink. Ye cud ha’ put her +eyelashes through the flies av an E.P. tent, they were +so long.</p> + +<p>‘“Fwhat do you do here?” she sez, word by word, +“that have taken away my joy in my man this five +years gone—that have broken my rest an’ killed my +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</span>body an’ damned my soul for the sake av seein’ how +’twas done. Did your expayrience aftherwards bring +you acrost any woman that give you more than I +did? Wud I not ha’ died for you, an’ wid you, +Ellis? Ye know that, man! If iver your lyin’ sowl +saw truth in uts life ye know that.”</p> + +<p>‘An’ Love-o’-Women lifted up his head and said, +“I knew,” an’ that was all. While she was spakin’ +the Power hild him up parade-set in the sun, an’ the +sweat dhripped undher his helmet. ’Twas more an’ +more throuble for him to talk, an’ his mouth was +running twistways.</p> + +<p>‘“Fwhat do you do <i>here</i>?” she sez, an’ her voice +wint up. ’Twas like bells tollin’ before. “Time was +whin you were quick enough wid your words,—you +that talked me down to hell. Are ye dumb now?” +An’ Love-o’-Women got his tongue, an’ sez simple, like +a little child, “May I come in?” he sez.</p> + +<p>‘“The house is open day an’ night,” she sez, wid a +laugh; an’ Love-o’-Women ducked his head an’ hild +up his hand as tho’ he was gyardin’. The Power was +on him still—it hild him up still, for, by my sowl, as +I’ll never save ut, he walked up the verandah steps +that had been a livin’ carpse in hospital for a month!</p> + +<p>‘“An’ now?” she sez, lookin’ at him; an’ the red +paint stud lone on the white av her face like a bull’s-eye +on a target.</p> + +<p>‘He lifted up his eyes, slow an’ very slow, an’ he +looked at her long an’ very long, an’ he tuk his spache +betune his teeth wid a wrench that shuk him.</p> + +<p>‘“I’m dyin’, Aigypt—dyin’,” he sez. Ay, those were +his words, for I remimber the name he called her. +He was turnin’ the death-colour, but his eyes niver +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</span>rowled. They were set—set on her. Widout word +or warnin’ she opened her arms full stretch, an’ +“Here!” she sez. (Oh, fwhat a golden mericle av a +voice ut was!) “Die here!” she sez; an’ Love-o’-Women +dhropped forward, an’ she hild him up, for she was a +fine big woman.</p> + +<p>‘I had no time to turn, bekaze that minut I heard +the sowl quit him—tore out in the death-rattle—an’ +she laid him back in a long chair, an’ she sez to me, +“Misther soldier,” she sez, “will ye not wait an’ talk +to wan av the girls? This sun’s too much for him.”</p> + +<p>‘Well I knew there was no sun he’d iver see, but I +cud not spake, so I wint away wid the empty dooli to +find the docthor. He’d been breakfastin’ an’ lunchin’ +iver since we’d come in, an’ he was full as a tick.</p> + +<p>‘“Faith, ye’ve got dhrunk mighty soon,” he sez, whin +I’d tould him, “to see that man walk. Barrin’ a puff +or two av life, he was a carpse before we left Jumrood. +I’ve a great mind,” he sez, “to confine you.”</p> + +<p>‘“There’s a dale av liquor runnin’ about, docthor,” I +sez, solemn as a hard-boiled egg. “Maybe ’tis so; but +will ye not come an’ see the carpse at the house?”</p> + +<p>‘“’Tis dishgraceful,” he sez, “that I would be +expected to go to a place like that. Was she a +pretty woman?” he sez, an’ at that he set off double-quick.</p> + +<p>‘I cud see that the two was in the verandah where +I’d left them, an’ I knew by the hang av her head an’ +the noise av the crows fwhat had happened. ’Twas +the first and the last time that I’d iver known woman +to use the pistol. They fear the shot as a rule, but +Di’monds-an’-Pearls she did not—she did not.</p> + +<p>‘The docthor touched the long black hair av her +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</span>head (’twas all loose upon Love-o’-Women’s tunic), an’ +that cleared the liquor out av him. He stud considherin’ +a long time, his hands in his pockets, an’ at +last he sez to me, “Here’s a double death from naturil +causes, most naturil causes; an’ in the present state +av affairs the rig’mint will be thankful for wan grave +the less to dig. <i>Issiwasti</i>,” he sez. “<i>Issiwasti</i>, Privit +Mulvaney, these two will be buried together in the +Civil Cemet’ry at my expinse; an’ may the good God,” +he sez, “make it so much for me whin my time comes. +Go you to your wife,” he sez. “Go an’ be happy. I’ll +see to this all.”</p> + +<p>‘I left him still considherin’. They was buried in +the Civil Cemet’ry together, wid a Church av England +service. There was too many buryin’s thin to ask +questions, an’ the docthor—he ran away wid Major—Major +Van Dyce’s lady that year—he saw to ut all. +Fwhat the right an’ the wrong av Love-o’-Women an’ +Di’monds-an’-Pearls was I niver knew, an’ I will niver +know; but I’ve tould ut as I came acrost ut—here an’ +there in little pieces. <i>So</i>, being fwhat I am, an’ +knowin’ fwhat I knew, that’s fwhy I say in this +shootin’-case here, Mackie’s that dead an’ in hell is the +lucky man. There are times, sorr, whin ’tis better for +the man to die than to live, an’ by consequince forty +million times betther for the woman.’</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>‘H’up there!’ said Ortheris. ‘It’s time to go.’</p> + +<p>The witnesses and guard formed up in the thick +white dust of the parched twilight and swung off, +marching easy and whistling. Down the road to the +green by the church I could hear Ortheris, the black +Book-lie still uncleansed on his lips, setting, with a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</span>fine sense of the fitness of things, the shrill quickstep +that runs—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘Oh, do not despise the advice of the wise,</div> + <div class="verse indent3">Learn wisdom from those that are older,</div> + <div class="verse indent1">And don’t try for things that are out of your reach—</div> + <div class="verse indent3">An’ that’s what the Girl told the Soldier!</div> + <div class="verse indent14">Soldier! soldier!</div> + <div class="verse indent3">Oh, that’s what the Girl told the Soldier!’</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_RECORD_OF_BADALIA_HERODSFOOT"> + THE RECORD OF BADALIA HERODSFOOT. + </h2> +</div> + + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The year’s at the spring</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And day’s at the dawn;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Morning’s at seven;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The hill-side’s dew-pearled;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The lark’s on the wing;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The snail’s on the thorn:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">God’s in his heaven—</div> + <div class="verse indent0">All’s right with the world!—<i>Pippa Passes.</i></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + + +<p class="p2">This is not that Badalia whose spare names were +Joanna, Pugnacious, and M‘Canna, as the song says, +but another and a much nicer lady.</p> + +<p>In the beginning of things she had been unregenerate; +had worn the heavy fluffy fringe which is +the ornament of the costermonger’s girl, and there is +a legend in Gunnison Street that on her wedding-day +she, a flare-lamp in either hand, danced dances on a +discarded lover’s winkle-barrow, till a policeman interfered, +and then Badalia danced with the Law amid +shoutings. Those were her days of fatness, and they +did not last long, for her husband after two years +took to himself another woman, and passed out of +Badalia’s life, over Badalia’s senseless body; for he +stifled protest with blows. While she was enjoying +her widowhood the baby that the husband had not +taken away died of croup, and Badalia was altogether +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</span>alone. With rare fidelity she listened to no proposals +for a second marriage according to the customs of +Gunnison Street, which do not differ from those of +the Barralong. ‘My man,’ she explained to her +suitors, ‘’e’ll come back one o’ these days, an’ then, +like as not, ’e’ll take an’ kill me if I was livin’ ’long +o’ you. You don’t know Tom; I do. Now you go. +I can do for myself—not ’avin’ a kid.’ She did for +herself with a mangle, some tending of babies, and an +occasional sale of flowers. This latter trade is one +that needs capital, and takes the vendor very far +westward, insomuch that the return journey from, let +us say, the Burlington Arcade to Gunnison Street, E., +is an excuse for drink, and then, as Badalia pointed +out, ‘You come ’ome with your shawl arf off of your +back, ’an your bonnick under your arm, and the price +of nothing-at-all in your pocket, let alone a slop +takin’ care o’ you.’ Badalia did not drink, but she +knew her sisterhood, and gave them rude counsel. +Otherwise she kept herself to herself, and meditated a +great deal upon Tom Herodsfoot, her husband, who +would come back some day, and the baby who would +never return. In what manner these thoughts +wrought upon her mind will not be known.</p> + +<p>Her entry into society dates from the night when +she rose literally under the feet of the Reverend +Eustace Hanna, on the landing of No. 17 Gunnison +Street, and told him that he was a fool without discernment +in the dispensation of his district charities.</p> + +<p>‘You give Lascar Loo custids,’ said she, without +the formality of introduction; ‘give her pork-wine. +Garn! Give ’er blankits. Garn ’ome! ’Er mother, +she eats ’em all, and drinks the blankits. Gits ’em +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</span>back from the shop, she does, before you come visiting +again, so as to ’ave ’em all handy an’ proper; an’ +Lascar Loo she sez to you, “Oh, my mother’s that +good to me!” she do. Lascar Loo ’ad better talk so, +bein’ sick abed, ’r else ’er mother would kill ’er. +Garn! you’re a bloomin’ gardener—you an’ yer +custids! Lascar Loo don’t never smell of ’em even.’</p> + +<p>Thereon the curate, instead of being offended, +recognised in the heavy eyes under the fringe the +soul of a fellow-worker, and so bade Badalia mount +guard over Lascar Loo, when the next jelly or custard +should arrive, to see that the invalid actually ate it. +This Badalia did, to the disgust of Lascar Loo’s mother, +and the sharing of a black eye between the three; +but Lascar Loo got her custard, and coughing heartily, +rather enjoyed the fray.</p> + +<p>Later on, partly through the Reverend Eustace +Hanna’s swift recognition of her uses, and partly +through certain tales poured out with moist eyes and +flushed cheeks by Sister Eva, youngest and most +impressionable of the Little Sisters of the Red +Diamond, it came to pass that Badalia, arrogant, +fluffy-fringed, and perfectly unlicensed in speech, won +a recognised place among such as labour in Gunnison +Street.</p> + +<p>These were a mixed corps, zealous or hysterical, +faint-hearted or only very wearied of battle against +misery, according to their lights. The most part +were consumed with small rivalries and personal +jealousies, to be retailed confidentially to their own +tiny cliques in the pauses between wrestling with +death for the body of a moribund laundress, or +scheming for further mission-grants to resole a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</span>consumptive compositor’s very consumptive boots. There +was a rector that lived in dread of pauperising the +poor, would fain have held bazaars for fresh altar-cloths, +and prayed in secret for a large new brass +bird, with eyes of red glass, fondly believed to be +carbuncles. There was Brother Victor, of the Order +of Little Ease, who knew a great deal about altar-cloths +but kept his knowledge in the background +while he strove to propitiate Mrs. Jessel, the Secretary +of the Tea Cup Board, who had money to dispense +but hated Rome—even though Rome would, on its +honour, do no more than fill the stomach, leaving the +dazed soul to the mercies of Mrs. Jessel. There were +all the Little Sisters of the Red Diamond, daughters +of the horseleech, crying ‘Give’ when their own +charity was exhausted, and pitifully explaining to +such as demanded an account of their disbursements +in return for one half-sovereign, that relief-work in +a bad district can hardly be systematised on the +accounts’ side without expensive duplication of staff. +There was the Reverend Eustace Hanna, who worked +impartially with Ladies’ Committees, Androgynous +Leagues and Guilds, Brother Victor, and anybody else +who could give him money, boots, or blankets, or that +more precious help that allows itself to be directed by +those who know. And all these people learned, one +by one, to consult Badalia on matters of personal +character, right to relief, and hope of eventual reformation +in Gunnison Street. Her answers were +seldom cheering, but she possessed special knowledge +and complete confidence in herself.</p> + +<p>‘I’m Gunnison Street,’ she said to the austere Mrs. +Jessel. ‘I know what’s what, <i>I</i> do, an’ they don’t +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</span>want your religion, Mum, not a single ——. Excuse +me. It’s all right when they comes to die, Mum, but +till they die what they wants is things to eat. The +men they’ll shif’ for themselves. That’s why Nick +Lapworth sez to you that ’e wants to be confirmed +an’ all that. ’E won’t never lead no new life, nor ’is +wife won’t get no good out o’ all the money you gives +’im. No more you can’t pauperise them as ’asn’t +things to begin with. They’re bloomin’ well pauped. +The women they can’t shif’ for themselves—’specially +bein’ always confined. ’Ow should they? They +wants things if they can get ’em anyways. If not +they dies, and a good job too, for women is cruel put +upon in Gunnison Street.’</p> + +<p>‘Do you believe that—that Mrs. Herodsfoot is +altogether a proper person to trust funds to?’ said +Mrs. Jessel to the curate after this conversation. +‘She seems to be utterly godless in her speech at +least.’</p> + +<p>The curate agreed. She was godless according to +Mrs. Jessel’s views, but did not Mrs. Jessel think +that since Badalia knew Gunnison Street and its +needs, as none other knew it, she might in a humble +way be, as it were, the scullion of charity from purer +sources, and that if, say, the Tea Cup Board could +give a few shillings a week, and the Little Sisters of +the Red Diamond a few more, and, yes, he himself +could raise yet a few more, the total, not at all likely +to be excessive, might be handed over to Badalia to +dispense among her associates. Thus Mrs. Jessel herself +would be set free to attend more directly to the +spiritual wants of certain large-limbed hulking men +who sat picturesquely on the lower benches of her +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</span>gatherings and sought for truth—which is quite as +precious as silver, when you know the market for it.</p> + +<p>‘She’ll favour her own friends,’ said Mrs. Jessel. +The curate refrained from mirth, and, after wise +flattery, carried his point. To her unbounded pride +Badalia was appointed the dispenser of a grant—a +weekly trust, to be held for the benefit of Gunnison +Street.</p> + +<p>‘I don’t know what we can get together each +week,’ said the curate to her. ‘But here are seventeen +shillings to start with. You do what you like +with them among your people, only let me know how +it goes so that we shan’t get muddled in the accounts. +D’you see?’</p> + +<p>‘Ho yuss! ’Taint much though, is it?’ said +Badalia, regarding the white coins in her palm. The +sacred fever of the administrator, only known to those +who have tasted power, burned in her veins. ‘Boots +is boots, unless they’re give you, an’ then they ain’t +fit to wear unless they’re mended top an’ bottom; an’ +jellies is jellies; an’ I don’t think anything o’ that +cheap pork-wine, but it all comes to something. It’ll +go quicker ’n a quartern of gin—seventeen bob. An’ +I’ll keep a book—same as I used to do before Tom +went an’ took up ’long o’ that pan-faced slut in +Hennessy’s Rents. We was the only barrer that kep’ +regular books, me an’—’im.’</p> + +<p>She bought a large copy-book—her unschooled +handwriting demanded room—and in it she wrote the +story of her war; boldly, as befits a general, and for +no other eyes than her own and those of the Reverend +Eustace Hanna. Long ere the pages were full the +mottled cover had been soaked in kerosene—Lascar +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</span>Loo’s mother, defrauded of her percentage on her +daughter’s custards, invaded Badalia’s room in 17 +Gunnison Street, and fought with her to the damage +of the lamp and her own hair. It was hard, too, to +carry the precious ‘pork-wine’ in one hand and the +book in the other through an eternally thirsty land; +so red stains were added to those of the oil. But the +Reverend Eustace Hanna, looking at the matter of +the book, never objected. The generous scrawls told +their own tale, Badalia every Saturday night supplying +the chorus between the written statements thus:—</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Hikkey, very ill brandy 3d. Cab for hospital, +she had to go, 1s. Mrs. Poone confined. In money for +tea (she took it I know, sir) 6d. Met her husband out +looking for work.</i></p> + +<p>‘I slapped ’is face for a bone-idle beggar! ’E +won’t get no work becos ’e’s—excuse me, sir. +Won’t you go on?’ The curate continued—</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Vincent. Confid. No linning for baby. Most +untidy. In money 2s. 6d. Some cloths from Miss Evva.</i></p> + +<p>‘Did Sister Eva do that?’ said the curate very +softly. Now charity was Sister Eva’s bounden duty, +yet to one man’s eyes each act of her daily toil was a +manifestation of angelic grace and goodness—a thing +to perpetually admire.</p> + +<p>‘Yes, sir. She went back to the Sisters’ ’Ome an’ +took ’em off ’er own bed. Most beautiful marked too. +Go on, sir. That makes up four and thruppence.’</p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Junnet to keep good fire coals is up. 7d.</i></p> + +<p><i>Mrs. Lockhart took a baby to nurse to earn a triffle but +mother can’d pay husband summons over and over. He +won’t help. Cash 2s. 2d. Worked in a ketchin but had +to leave. Fire, tea, and shin of beef 1s. 7½d.</i></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</span></p> + +<p>‘There was a fight there, sir,’ said Badalia, ‘Not +me, sir. ’Er ’usband, o’ course ’e come in at the +wrong time, was wishful to ’ave the beef, so I calls up +the next floor an’ down comes that mulatter man wot +sells the sword-stick canes, top o’ Ludgate-’ill. +“Muley,” sez I, “you big black beast, you, take an’ +kill this big white beast ’ere.” I knew I couldn’t +stop Tom Lockart ’alf drunk, with the beef in ’is ’ands. +“I’ll beef ’m,” sez Muley, an’ ’e did it, with that pore +woman a-cryin’ in the next room, an’ the top banisters +on that landin’ is broke out, but she got ’er beef-tea, +an’ Tom ’e’s got ’is gruel. Will you go on, sir?’</p> + +<p>‘No, I think it will be all right. I’ll sign for the +week,’ said the curate. One gets so used to these +things profanely called human documents.</p> + +<p>‘Mrs. Churner’s baby’s got diptheery,’ said Badalia, +turning to go.</p> + +<p>‘Where’s that? The Churners of Painter’s Alley, +or the other Churners in Houghton Street?’</p> + +<p>‘Houghton Street. The Painter’s Alley people, +they’re sold out an’ left.’</p> + +<p>‘Sister Eva’s sitting one night a week with old +Mrs. Probyn in Houghton Street—isn’t she?’ said the +curate uneasily.</p> + +<p>‘Yes; but she won’t sit no longer. <i>I’ve</i> took up +Mrs. Probyn. I can’t talk ’er no religion, but she +don’t want it; an’ Miss Eva she don’t want no +diptheery, tho’ she sez she does. Don’t <i>you</i> be afraid +for Miss Eva.’</p> + +<p>‘But—but you’ll get it, perhaps.’</p> + +<p>‘Like as not.’ She looked the curate between the +eyes, and her own eyes flamed under the fringe. +‘Maybe I’d like to get it, for aught you know.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</span></p> + +<p>The curate thought upon these words for a little +time till he began to think of Sister Eva in the gray +cloak with the white bonnet ribbons under the chin. +Then he thought no more of Badalia.</p> + +<p>What Badalia thought was never expressed in +words, but it is known in Gunnison Street that Lascar +Loo’s mother, sitting blind drunk on her own doorstep, +was that night captured and wrapped up in the war-cloud +of Badalia’s wrath, so that she did not know +whether she stood on her head or her heels, and after +being soundly bumped on every particular stair up to +her room, was set down on Badalia’s bed, there to +whimper and quiver till the dawn, protesting that all +the world was against her, and calling on the names of +children long since slain by dirt and neglect. Badalia, +snorting, went out to war, and since the hosts of the +enemy were many, found enough work to keep her +busy till the dawn.</p> + +<p>As she had promised, she took Mrs. Probyn into +her own care, and began by nearly startling the old +lady into a fit with the announcement that ‘there ain’t +no God like as not, an’ if there <i>is</i> it don’t matter to +you or me, an’ any’ow you take this jelly.’ Sister Eva +objected to being shut off from her pious work in +Houghton Street, but Badalia insisted, and by fair +words and the promise of favours to come so prevailed +on three or four of the more sober men of the neighbourhood +that they blockaded the door whenever Sister +Eva attempted to force an entry, and pleaded the +diphtheria as an excuse. ‘I’ve got to keep ’er out o’ +’arm’s way,’ said Badalia, ‘an’ out she keeps. The +curick won’t care a —— for me, but—he wouldn’t +any’ow.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</span></p> + +<p>The effect of that quarantine was to shift the +sphere of Sister Eva’s activity to other streets, and +notably those most haunted by the Reverend Eustace +Hanna and Brother Victor, of the Order of Little Ease. +There exists, for all their human bickerings, a very +close brotherhood in the ranks of those whose work +lies in Gunnison Street. To begin with, they have +seen pain—pain that no word or deed of theirs can +alleviate—life born into Death, and Death crowded +down by unhappy life. Also they understand the +full significance of drink, which is a knowledge hidden +from very many well-meaning people, and some of +them have fought with the beasts at Ephesus. They +meet at unseemly hours in unseemly places, exchange +a word or two of hasty counsel, advice, or suggestion, +and pass on to their appointed toil, since time is +precious and lives hang in the balance of five minutes. +For many, the gas-lamps are their sun, and the +Covent Garden wains the chariots of the twilight. +They have all in their station begged for money, so +that the freemasonry of the mendicant binds them +together.</p> + +<p>To all these influences there was added in the case +of two workers that thing which men have agreed to +call Love. The chance that Sister Eva might catch +diphtheria did not enter into the curate’s head till +Badalia had spoken. Then it seemed a thing intolerable +and monstrous that she should be exposed not +only to this risk, but any accident whatever of the +streets. A wain coming round a corner might kill +her; the rotten staircases on which she trod daily and +nightly might collapse and maim her; there was +danger in the tottering coping-stones of certain crazy +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</span>houses that he knew well; danger more deadly within +those houses. What if one of a thousand drunken +men crushed out that precious life? A woman had +once flung a chair at the curate’s head. Sister Eva’s +arm would not be strong enough to ward off a chair. +There were also knives that were quick to fly. These +and other considerations cast the soul of the Reverend +Eustace Hanna into torment that no leaning upon +Providence could relieve. God was indubitably great +and terrible—one had only to walk through Gunnison +Street to see that much—but it would be better, +vastly better, that Eva should have the protection of +his own arm. And the world that was not too busy +to watch might have seen a woman, not too young, +light-haired and light-eyed, slightly assertive in her +speech, and very limited in such ideas as lay beyond +the immediate sphere of her duty, where the eyes of +the Reverend Eustace Hanna turned to follow the +footsteps of a Queen crowned in a little gray bonnet +with white ribbons under the chin.</p> + +<p>If that bonnet appeared for a moment at the bottom +of a courtyard, or nodded at him on a dark staircase, +then there was hope yet for Lascar Loo, living on one +lung and the memory of past excesses, hope even for +whining sodden Nick Lapworth, blaspheming, in the +hope of money, over the pangs of a ‘true conversion +this time, s’elp me Gawd, sir.’ If that bonnet did not +appear for a day, the mind of the curate was filled +with lively pictures of horror, visions of stretchers, a +crowd at some villainous crossing, and a policeman—he +could see that policeman—jerking out over his +shoulder the details of the accident, and ordering the +man who would have set his body against the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</span>wheels—heavy dray wheels, he could see them—to ‘move +on.’ Then there was less hope for the salvation of +Gunnison Street and all in it.</p> + +<p>This agony Brother Victor beheld one day when he +was coming from a death-bed. He saw the light in +the eye, the relaxing muscles of the mouth, and heard +a new ring in the voice that had told flat all the forenoon. +Sister Eva had turned into Gunnison Street +after a forty-eight hours’ eternity of absence. She +had not been run over. Brother Victor’s heart must +have suffered in some human fashion, or he would never +have seen what he saw. But the Law of his Church +made suffering easy. His duty was to go on with his +work until he died, even as Badalia went on. She, +magnifying her office, faced the drunken husband; +coaxed the doubly shiftless, thriftless girl-wife into a +little forethought, and begged clothes when and where +she could for the scrofulous babes that multiplied like +the green scum on the untopped water-cisterns.</p> + +<p>The story of her deeds was written in the book +that the curate signed weekly, but she never told him +any more of fights and tumults in the street. ‘Mis’ +Eva does ’er work ’er way. I does mine mine. But +I do more than Mis’ Eva ten times over, an’ “Thank +yer, Badalia,” sez ’e, “that’ll do for this week.” I +wonder what Tom’s doin’ now long o’ that—other +woman. ’Seems like as if I’d go an’ look at ’im one +o’ these days. But I’d cut ’er liver out—couldn’t ’elp +myself. Better not go, p’raps.’</p> + +<p>Hennessy’s Rents lay more than two miles from +Gunnison Street, and were inhabited by much the +same class of people. Tom had established himself +there with Jenny Wabstow, his new woman, and for +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</span>weeks lived in great fear of Badalia’s suddenly descending +upon him. The prospect of actual fighting +did not scare him: but he objected to the police-court +that would follow, and the orders for maintenance and +other devices of a law that cannot understand the +simple rule that ‘when a man’s tired of a woman ’e +ain’t such a bloomin’ fool as to live with ’er no more, +an’ that’s the long an’ short of it.’ For some months +his new wife wore very well, and kept Tom in a state +of decent fear and consequent orderliness. Also work +was plentiful. Then a baby was born, and, following +the law of his kind, Tom, little interested in the +children he helped to produce, sought distraction in +drink. He had confined himself, as a rule, to beer, +which is stupefying and comparatively innocuous: at +least, it clogs the legs, and though the heart may +ardently desire to kill, sleep comes swiftly, and the +crime often remains undone. Spirits, being more +volatile, allow both the flesh and the soul to work +together—generally to the inconvenience of others. +Tom discovered that there was merit in whisky—if +you only took enough of it—cold. He took as much +as he could purchase or get given him, and by the +time that his woman was fit to go abroad again, the +two rooms of their household were stripped of many +valuable articles. Then the woman spoke her mind, +not once, but several times, with point, fluency, and +metaphor; and Tom was indignant at being deprived +of peace at the end of his day’s work, which included +much whisky. He therefore withdrew himself from +the solace and companionship of Jenny Wabstow, and +she therefore pursued him with more metaphors. At +the last, Tom would turn round and hit her—sometimes +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</span>across the head, and sometimes across the breast, +and the bruises furnished material for discussion on +doorsteps among such women as had been treated in +like manner by their husbands. They were not few.</p> + +<p>But no very public scandal had occurred till Tom +one day saw fit to open negotiations with a young +woman for matrimony according to the laws of free +selection. He was getting very tired of Jenny, and +the young woman was earning enough from flower-selling +to keep him in comfort, whereas Jenny was +expecting another baby and most unreasonably expected +consideration on this account. The shapelessness +of her figure revolted him, and he said as much +in the language of his breed. Jenny cried till Mrs. +Hart, lineal descendant, and Irish of the ‘mother to +Mike of the donkey-cart,’ stopped her on her own +staircase and whispered: ‘God be good to you, Jenny, +my woman, for I see how ’tis with you.’ Jenny wept +more than ever, and gave Mrs. Hart a penny and +some kisses, while Tom was conducting his own wooing +at the corner of the street.</p> + +<p>The young woman, prompted by pride, not by +virtue, told Jenny of his offers, and Jenny spoke to +Tom that night. The altercation began in their own +rooms, but Tom tried to escape; and in the end all +Hennessy’s Rents gathered themselves upon the pavement +and formed a court to which Jenny appealed +from time to time, her hair loose on her neck, her +raiment in extreme disorder, and her steps astray from +drink. ‘When your man drinks, you’d better drink +too! It don’t ’urt so much when ’e ’its you then,’ +says the Wisdom of the Women. And surely they +ought to know.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</span></p> + +<p>‘Look at ’im!’ shrieked Jenny. ‘Look at ’im, +standin’ there without any word to say for himself, +that ’ud smitch off and leave me an’ never so much as +a shillin’ lef’ be’ind! You call yourself a man—you +call yourself the bleedin’ shadow of a man? I’ve seen +better men than you made outer chewed paper and +spat out arterwards. Look at ’im! ’E’s been drunk +since Thursday last, an’ ’e’ll be drunk s’ long’s ’e can +get drink. ’E’s took all I’ve got, an’ me—an’ me—as +you see——’</p> + +<p>A murmur of sympathy from the women.</p> + +<p>‘Took it all, he did, an’ atop of his blasted pickin’ +an’ stealin’—yes, you, you thief—’e goes off an’ tries +to take up long o’ that’—here followed a complete and +minute description of the young woman. Luckily, she +was not on the spot to hear. ‘’E’ll serve ’er as ’e +served me! ’E’ll drink every bloomin’ copper she +makes an’ then leave ’er alone, same as ’e done me! +O women, look you, I’ve bore ’im one an’ there’s +another on the way, an’ ’e’d up an’ leave me as I am +now—the stinkin’ dorg. An’ you <i>may</i> leave me. I +don’t want none o’ your leavin’s. Go away. Get +away!’ The hoarseness of passion overpowered the +voice. The crowd attracted a policeman as Tom +began to slink away.</p> + +<p>‘Look at ’im,’ said Jenny, grateful for the new +listener. ‘Ain’t there no law for such as ’im? ’E’s +took all my money, ’e’s beat me once, twice an’ over. +’E’s swine drunk when ’e ain’t mad drunk, an’ now, an’ +now ’e’s trying to pick up along o’ another woman. +’Im I give up a four times better man for. Ain’t there +no law?’</p> + +<p>‘What’s the matter now? You go into your ’ouse. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</span>I’ll see to the man. ’As ’e been ’itting you?’ said the +policeman.</p> + +<p>‘’Ittin’ me? ’E’s cut my ’eart in two, an’ ’e stands +there grinnin’ as tho’ ’twas all a play to ’im.’</p> + +<p>‘You go on into your ’ouse an’ lie down a bit.’</p> + +<p>‘I’m a married woman, I tell you, an’ I’ll ’ave my +’usband!’</p> + +<p>‘I ain’t done her no bloomin’ ’arm,’ said Tom from +the edge of the crowd. He felt that public opinion +was running against him.</p> + +<p>‘You ain’t done me any bloomin’ good, you dorg. +I’m a married woman, I am, an’ I won’t ’ave my +’usband took from me.’</p> + +<p>‘Well, if you <i>are</i> a married woman, cover your +breasts,’ said the policeman soothingly. He was used +to domestic brawls.</p> + +<p>‘Shan’t—thank you for your impidence. Look +’ere!’ She tore open her dishevelled bodice and +showed such crescent-shaped bruises as are made by a +well-applied chair-back. ‘That’s what ’e done to me +acause my heart wouldn’t break quick enough! ’E’s +tried to get in an’ break it. Look at that, Tom, that +you gave me last night; an’ I made it up with you. +But that was before I knew what you were tryin’ to +do long o’ that woman——’</p> + +<p>‘D’you charge ’im?’ said the policeman. ‘’E’ll get +a month for it, per’aps.’</p> + +<p>‘No’ said Jenny firmly. It was one thing to +expose her man to the scorn of the street, and another +to lead him to jail.</p> + +<p>‘Then you go in an’ lie down, and you’—this to +the crowd—‘pass along the pavement, there. Pass +along. ’Taint nothing to laugh at.’ To Tom, who +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</span>was being sympathised with by his friends, ‘It’s good +for you she didn’t charge you, but mind this now, the +next time,’ etc.</p> + +<p>Tom did not at all appreciate Jenny’s forbearance, +nor did his friends help to compose his mind. He had +whacked the woman because she was a nuisance. For +precisely the same reason he had cast about for a new +mate. And all his kind acts had ended in a truly +painful scene in the street, a most unjustifiable exposure +by and of his woman, and a certain loss of caste—this +he realised dimly—among his associates. Consequently, +all women were nuisances, and consequently whisky +was a good thing. His friends condoled with him. +Perhaps he had been more hard on his woman than +she deserved, but her disgraceful conduct under provocation +excused all offence.</p> + +<p>‘I wouldn’t ’ave no more to do with ’er—a woman +like that there,’ said one comforter.</p> + +<p>‘Let ’er go an’ dig for her bloomin’ self. A man +wears ’isself out to ’is bones shovin’ meat down their +mouths, while they sit at ’ome easy all day; an’ the +very fust time, mark you, you ’as a bit of a difference, +an’ very proper too for a man as <i>is</i> a man, she ups an’ +’as you out into the street, callin’ you Gawd knows +what all. What’s the good o’ that, I arx you?’ So +spoke the second comforter.</p> + +<p>The whisky was the third, and his suggestion +struck Tom as the best of all. He would return to +Badalia his wife. Probably she would have been +doing something wrong while he had been away, and +he could then vindicate his authority as a husband. +Certainly she would have money. Single women +always seemed to possess the pence that God and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</span>the Government denied to hard-working men. He +refreshed himself with more whisky. It was beyond +any doubt that Badalia would have done something +wrong. She might even have married another man. +He would wait till the new husband was out of the +way, and, after kicking Badalia, would get money and +a long absent sense of satisfaction. There is much +virtue in a creed or a law, but when all is prayed +and suffered, drink is the only thing that will make +clean all a man’s deeds in his own eyes. Pity it is +that the effects are not permanent.</p> + +<p>Tom parted with his friends, bidding them tell +Jenny that he was going to Gunnison Street, and +would return to her arms no more. Because this +was the devil’s message, they remembered and +severally delivered it, with drunken distinctness, in +Jenny’s ears. Then Tom took more drink till his +drunkenness rolled back and stood off from him as +a wave rolls back and stands off the wreck it will +swamp. He reached the traffic-polished black +asphalte of a side-street and trod warily among the +reflections of the shop-lamps that burned in gulfs of +pitchy darkness, fathoms beneath his boot-heels. He +was very sober indeed. Looking down his past, he +beheld that he was justified of all his actions so +entirely and perfectly that if Badalia had in his +absence dared to lead a blameless life he would smash +her for not having gone wrong.</p> + +<p>Badalia at that moment was in her own room +after the regular nightly skirmish with Lascar Loo’s +mother. To a reproof as stinging as a Gunnison +Street tongue could make it, the old woman, detected +for the hundredth time in the theft of the poor +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</span>delicacies meant for the invalid, could only cackle and +answer—</p> + +<p>‘D’you think Loo’s never bilked a man in ’er life? +She’s dyin’ now—on’y she’s so cunning long about it. +Me! I’ll live for twenty years yet.’</p> + +<p>Badalia shook her, more on principle than in any +hope of curing her, and thrust her into the night, +where she collapsed on the pavement and called upon +the devil to slay Badalia.</p> + +<p>He came upon the word in the shape of a man +with a very pale face who asked for her by name. +Lascar Loo’s mother remembered. It was Badalia’s +husband—and the return of a husband to Gunnison +Street was generally followed by beatings.</p> + +<p>‘Where’s my wife?’ said Tom. ‘Where’s my +slut of a wife?’</p> + +<p>‘Upstairs an’ be —— to her,’ said the old +woman, falling over on her side. ‘’Ave you come +back for ’er, Tom?’</p> + +<p>‘Yes. ’Oo’s she took up while I bin gone?’</p> + +<p>‘All the bloomin’ curicks in the parish. She’s +that set up you wouldn’t know ’er.’</p> + +<p>‘’Strewth she is!’</p> + +<p>‘Oh, yuss. Mor’n that, she’s always round an’ +about with them sniffin’ Sisters of Charity an’ the +curick. Mor’n that, ’e gives ’er money—pounds an’ +pounds a week. Been keepin’ her that way for +months, ’e ’as. No wonder you wouldn’t ’ave nothin’ +to do with ’er when you left. An’ she keeps me +outer the food-stuff they gets for me lyin’ dyin’ out +’ere like a dorg. She’s been a blazin’ bad un has +Badalia since you lef’.’</p> + +<p>‘Got the same room still, ’as she?’ said Tom, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</span>striding over Lascar Loo’s mother, who was picking +at the chinks between the pave-stones.</p> + +<p>‘Yes, but so fine you wouldn’t know it.’</p> + +<p>Tom went up the stairs and the old lady chuckled. +Tom was angry. Badalia would not be able to bump +people for some time to come, or to interfere with +the heaven-appointed distribution of custards.</p> + +<p>Badalia, undressing to go to bed, heard feet on +the stair that she knew well. Ere they stopped to +kick at her door she had, in her own fashion, thought +over very many things.</p> + +<p>‘Tom’s back,’ she said to herself. ‘An’ I’m glad +... spite o’ the curick an’ everythink.’</p> + +<p>She opened the door, crying his name.</p> + +<p>The man pushed her aside.</p> + +<p>‘I don’t want none o’ your kissin’s an’ slaverin’s. +I’m sick of ’em,’ said he.</p> + +<p>‘You ain’t ’ad so many neither to make you sick +these two years past.’</p> + +<p>‘I’ve ’ad better. Got any money?’</p> + +<p>‘On’y a little—orful little.’</p> + +<p>‘That’s a —— lie, an’ you know it.’</p> + +<p>‘’Taint—and, oh Tom, what’s the use o’ talkin’ +money the minute you come back? Didn’t you like +Jenny? I knowed you wouldn’t.’</p> + +<p>‘Shut your ’ead. Ain’t you got enough to make +a man drunk fair?’</p> + +<p>‘You don’t want bein’ made more drunk any. +You’re drunk a’ready. You come to bed, Tom.’</p> + +<p>‘To you?’</p> + +<p>‘Ay, to me. Ain’t I nothin’—spite o’ Jenny?’</p> + +<p>She put out her arms as she spoke. But the +drink held Tom fast.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</span></p> + +<p>‘Not for me,’ said he, steadying himself against +the wall. ‘Don’t I know ’ow you’ve been goin’ on +while I was away, yah!’</p> + +<p>‘Arsk about!’ said Badalia indignantly, drawing +herself together. ‘’Oo sez anythink agin me ’ere?’</p> + +<p>‘’Oo sez? W’y, everybody. I ain’t come back +more’n a minute fore I finds you’ve been with the +curick Gawd knows where. Wot curick was ’e?’</p> + +<p>‘The curick that’s ’ere always,’ said Badalia +hastily. She was thinking of anything rather than +the Rev. Eustace Hanna at that moment. Tom sat +down gravely in the only chair in the room. Badalia +continued her arrangements for going to bed.</p> + +<p>‘Pretty thing that,’ said Tom, ‘to tell your own +lawful married ’usband—an’ I guv five bob for the +weddin’-ring. Curick that’s ’ere always! Cool as +brass you are. Ain’t you got no shame? Ain’t ’e +under the bed now?’</p> + +<p>‘Tom, you’re bleedin’ drunk. I ain’t done nothin’ +to be ’shamed of.’</p> + +<p>‘You! You don’t know wot shame is. But I +ain’t come ’ere to mess with you. Give me wot +you’ve got, an’ then I’ll dress you down an’ go to +Jenny.’</p> + +<p>‘I ain’t got nothin’ ’cept some coppers an’ a +shillin’ or so.’</p> + +<p>‘Wot’s that about the curick keepin’ you on five +poun’ a week?’</p> + +<p>‘’Oo told you that?’</p> + +<p>‘Lascar Loo’s mother, lyin’ on the pavemint outside, +an’ more honest than you’ll ever be. Give me +wot you’ve got!’</p> + +<p>Badalia passed over to a little shell pin-cushion +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</span>on the mantelpiece, drew thence four shillings and +threepence—the lawful earnings of her trade—and +held them out to the man who was rocking in his +chair and surveying the room with wide-opened +rolling eyes.</p> + +<p>‘That ain’t five poun’,’ said he drowsily.</p> + +<p>‘I ain’t got no more. Take it an’ go—if you +won’t stay.’</p> + +<p>Tom rose slowly, gripping the arms of the chair. +‘Wot about the curick’s money that ’e guv you?’ +said he. ‘Lascar Loo’s mother told me. You give +it over to me now, or I’ll make you.’</p> + +<p>‘Lascar Loo’s mother don’t know anything about it.’</p> + +<p>‘She do, an’ more than you want her to know.’</p> + +<p>‘She don’t. I’ve bumped the ’eart out of ’er, and +I can’t give you the money. Anythin’ else but that, +Tom, an’ everythin’ else but that, Tom, I’ll give +willin’ and true. ’Taint my money. Won’t the +dollar be enough? That money’s my trust. There’s +a book along of it too.’</p> + +<p>‘Your trust? Wot are you doin’ with any trust +that your ’usband don’t know of? You an’ your +trust! Take you that!’</p> + +<p>Tom stepped towards her and delivered a blow +of the clenched fist across the mouth. ‘Give me wot +you’ve got,’ said he, in the thick abstracted voice of +one talking in dreams.</p> + +<p>‘I won’t,’ said Badalia, staggering to the washstand. +With any other man than her husband she +would have fought savagely as a wild cat; but Tom +had been absent two years, and, perhaps, a little +timely submission would win him back to her. None +the less, the weekly trust was sacred.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</span></p> + +<p>The wave that had so long held back descended +on Tom’s brain. He caught Badalia by the throat +and forced her to her knees. It seemed just to him +in that hour to punish an erring wife for two years of +wilful desertion; and the more, in that she had confessed +her guilt by refusing to give up the wage +of sin.</p> + +<p>Lascar Loo’s mother waited on the pavement +without for the sounds of lamentation, but none came. +Even if Tom had released her gullet, Badalia would +not have screamed.</p> + +<p>‘Give it up, you slut!’ said Tom. ‘Is that ’ow +you pay me back for all I’ve done?’</p> + +<p>‘I can’t. ’Tain’t my money. Gawd forgive you, +Tom, for wot you’re——,’ the voice ceased as the +grip tightened, and Tom heaved Badalia against the +bed. Her forehead struck the bed-post, and she sank, +half kneeling, on the floor. It was impossible for a +self-respecting man to refrain from kicking her: so +Tom kicked with the deadly intelligence born of +whisky. The head drooped to the floor, and Tom +kicked at that till the crisp tingle of hair striking +through his nailed boot with the chill of cold water, +warned him that it might be as well to desist.</p> + +<p>‘Where’s the curick’s money, you kep’ woman?’ +he whispered in the blood-stained ear. But there was +no answer—only a rattling at the door, and the voice +of Jenny Wabstow crying ferociously, ‘Come out +o’ that, Tom, an’ come ’ome with me! An’ you, +Badalia, I’ll tear your face off its bones!’</p> + +<p>Tom’s friends had delivered their message, and +Jenny, after the first flood of passionate tears, rose +up to follow Tom, and, if possible, to win him back. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</span>She was prepared even to endure an exemplary +whacking for her performances in Hennessy’s Rents. +Lascar Loo’s mother guided her to the chamber of +horrors, and chuckled as she retired down the staircase. +If Tom had not banged the soul out of +Badalia, there would at least be a royal fight between +that Badalia and Jenny. And Lascar Loo’s mother +knew well that Hell has no fury like a woman +fighting above the life that is quick in her.</p> + +<p>Still there was no sound audible in the street. +Jenny swung back the unbolted door, to discover her +man stupidly regarding a heap by the bed. An +eminent murderer has remarked that if people did +not die so untidily, most men, and all women, would +commit at least one murder in their lives. Tom was +reflecting on the present untidiness, and the whisky +was fighting with the clear current of his thoughts.</p> + +<p>‘Don’t make that noise,’ he said. ‘Come in +quick.’</p> + +<p>‘My Gawd!’ said Jenny, checking like a startled +wild beast. ‘Wot’s all this ’ere? You ain’t——’</p> + +<p>‘Dunno. ’Spose I did it.’</p> + +<p>‘Did it! You done it a sight too well this time.’</p> + +<p>‘She was aggravatin’,’ said Tom thickly, dropping +back into the chair. ‘That aggravatin’ you’d never +believe. Livin’ on the fat o’ the land among these +aristocratic parsons an’ all. Look at them white +curtings on the bed. <i>We</i> ain’t got no white curtings. +What I want to know is——’ The voice died as +Badalia’s had died, but from a different cause. The +whisky was tightening its grip after the accomplished +deed, and Tom’s eyes were beginning to close. +Badalia on the floor breathed heavily.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</span></p> + +<p>‘No, nor like to ’ave,’ said Jenny. ‘You’ve done +for ’er this time. You go!’</p> + +<p>‘Not me. She won’t hurt. Do ’er good. I’m +goin’ to sleep. Look at those there clean sheets! +Aint you comin’ too?’</p> + +<p>Jenny bent over Badalia, and there was intelligence +in the battered woman’s eyes—intelligence and +much hate.</p> + +<p>‘I never told ’im to do such,’ Jenny whispered. +‘’Twas Tom’s own doin’—none o’ mine. Shall I get +’im took, dear?’</p> + +<p>The eyes told their own story. Tom, who was +beginning to snore, must not be taken by the Law.</p> + +<p>‘Go,’ said Jenny. ‘Get out! Get out of ’ere.’</p> + +<p>‘You—told—me—that—this afternoon,’ said the +man very sleepily. ‘Lemme go asleep.’</p> + +<p>‘That wasn’t nothing. You’d only ’it me. This +time it’s murder—murder—murder! Tom, you’ve +killed ’er now.’ She shook the man from his rest, +and understanding with cold terror filled his fuddled +brain.</p> + +<p>‘I done it for your sake, Jenny,’ he whimpered +feebly, trying to take her hand.</p> + +<p>‘You killed ’er for the money, same as you would +ha’ killed me. Get out o’ this. Lay ’er on the bed +first, you brute!’</p> + +<p>They lifted Badalia on to the bed, and crept forth +silently.</p> + +<p>‘I can’t be took along o’ you—and if you was +took you’d say I made you do it, an’ try to get me +’anged. Go away—anywhere outer ’ere,’ said Jenny, +and she dragged him down the stairs.</p> + +<p>‘Goin’ to look for the curick?’ said a voice from +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</span>the pavement. Lascar Loo’s mother was still waiting +patiently to hear Badalia squeal.</p> + +<p>‘Wot curick?’ said Jenny swiftly. There was a +chance of salving her conscience yet in regard to the +bundle upstairs.</p> + +<p>‘’Anna—63 Roomer Terrace—close ’ere,’ said the +old woman. She had never been favourably regarded +by the curate. Perhaps, since Badalia had not +squealed, Tom preferred smashing the man to the +woman. There was no accounting for tastes.</p> + +<p>Jenny thrust her man before her till they reached +the nearest main road. ‘Go away, now,’ she gasped. +‘Go off anywheres, but don’t come back to me. I’ll +never go with you again; an’, Tom—Tom, d’you ’ear +me?—clean your boots.’</p> + +<p>Vain counsel. The desperate thrust of disgust +which she bestowed upon him sent him staggering face-down +into the kennel, where a policeman showed +interest in his welfare.</p> + +<p>‘Took for a common drunk. Gawd send they +don’t look at ’is boots! ’Anna, 63 Roomer Terrace!’ +Jenny settled her hat and ran.</p> + +<p>The excellent housekeeper of the Roomer Chambers +still remembers how there arrived a young person, +blue-lipped and gasping, who cried only: ‘Badalia, +17 Gunnison Street. Tell the curick to come at +once—at once—at once!’ and vanished into the +night. This message was borne to the Rev. Eustace +Hanna, then enjoying his beauty-sleep. He saw there +was urgency in the demand, and unhesitatingly +knocked up Brother Victor across the landing. As a +matter of etiquette, Rome and England divided their +cases in the district according to the creeds of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</span>sufferers; but Badalia was an institution, and not a +case, and there was no district-relief etiquette to be +considered. ‘Something has happened to Badalia,’ +the curate said, ‘and it’s your affair as well as mine. +Dress and come along.’</p> + +<p>‘I am ready,’ was the answer. ‘Is there any hint +of what’s wrong?’</p> + +<p>‘Nothing beyond a runaway-knock and a call.’</p> + +<p>‘Then it’s a confinement or a murderous assault. +Badalia wouldn’t wake us up for anything less. I’m +qualified for both, thank God.’</p> + +<p>The two men raced to Gunnison Street, for there +were no cabs abroad, and under any circumstances a +cab-fare means two days’ good firing for such as are +perishing with cold. Lascar Loo’s mother had gone +to bed, and the door was naturally on the latch. +They found considerably more than they had expected +in Badalia’s room, and the Church of Rome acquitted +itself nobly with bandages, while the Church of +England could only pray to be delivered from the sin +of envy. The Order of Little Ease, recognising that +the soul is in most cases accessible through the body, +take their measures and train their men accordingly.</p> + +<p>‘She’ll do now,’ said Brother Victor, in a whisper. +‘It’s internal bleeding, I fear, and a certain amount of +injury to the brain. She has a husband, of course?’</p> + +<p>‘They all have, more’s the pity.’</p> + +<p>‘Yes, there’s a domesticity about these injuries +that shows their origin.’ He lowered his voice. ‘It’s +a perfectly hopeless business, you understand. Twelve +hours at the most.’</p> + +<p>Badalia’s right hand began to beat on the counterpane, +palm down.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</span></p> + +<p>‘I think you are wrong,’ said the Church of +England. ‘She is going.’</p> + +<p>‘No, that’s not the picking at the counterpane,’ said +the Church of Rome. ‘She wants to say something; +you know her better than I.’</p> + +<p>The curate bent very low.</p> + +<p>‘Send for Miss Eva,’ said Badalia, with a cough.</p> + +<p>‘In the morning. She will come in the morning,’ +said the curate, and Badalia was content. Only +the Church of Rome, who knew something of the +human heart, knitted his brows and said nothing. +After all, the law of his order was plain. His duty +was to watch till the dawn while the moon went +down.</p> + +<p>It was a little before her sinking that the Rev. +Eustace Hanna said, ‘Hadn’t we better send for Sister +Eva? She seems to be going fast.’</p> + +<p>Brother Victor made no answer, but as early as +decency admitted there came one to the door of the +house of the Little Sisters of the Red Diamond and +demanded Sister Eva, that she might soothe the pain +of Badalia Herodsfoot. That man, saying very little, +led her to Gunnison Street, No. 17, and into the room +where Badalia lay. Then he stood on the landing, +and bit the flesh of his fingers in agony, because he +was a priest trained to know, and knew how the +hearts of men and women beat back at the rebound, +so that Love is born out of horror, and passion declares +itself when the soul is quivering with pain.</p> + +<p>Badalia, wise to the last, husbanded her strength +till the coming of Sister Eva. It is generally +maintained by the Little Sisters of the Red Diamond +that she died in delirium, but since one Sister at +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</span>least took a half of her dying advice, this seems +uncharitable.</p> + +<p>She tried to turn feebly on the bed, and the poor +broken human machinery protested according to its +nature.</p> + +<p>Sister Eva started forward, thinking that she +heard the dread forerunner of the death-rattle. +Badalia lay still conscious, and spoke with startling +distinctness, the irrepressible irreverence of the street-hawker, +the girl who had danced on the winkle-barrow, +twinkling in her one available eye.</p> + +<p>‘Sounds jest like Mrs. Jessel, don’t it? Before +she’s ’ad ’er lunch an’ ’as been talkin’ all the mornin’ +to her classes.’</p> + +<p>Neither Sister Eva nor the curate said anything. +Brother Victor stood without the door, and the +breath came harshly between his teeth, for he was +in pain.</p> + +<p>‘Put a cloth over my ’ead,’ said Badalia. ‘I’ve +got it good, an’ I don’t want Miss Eva to see. I ain’t +pretty this time.’</p> + +<p>‘Who was it?’ said the curate.</p> + +<p>‘Man from outside. Never seed ’im no more’n +Adam. Drunk, I s’pose. S’elp me Gawd that’s +truth! Is Miss Eva ’ere? I can’t see under the +towel. I’ve got it good, Miss Eva. Excuse my not +shakin’ ’ands with you, but I’m not strong, an’ it’s +fourpence for Mrs. Imeny’s beef-tea, an’ wot you can +give ’er for baby-linning. Allus ’avin’ kids, these +people. I ’adn’t oughter talk, for <i>my</i> ’usband ’e never +come a-nigh me these two years, or I’d a-bin as bad as +the rest; but ’e never come a-nigh me.... A man +come and ’it me over the ’ead, an’ ’e kicked me, Miss +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</span>Eva; so it was just the same’s if I had ha’ had a +’usband, ain’t it? The book’s in the drawer, Mister +’Anna, an’ it’s all right, an’ I never guv up a copper +o’ the trust money—not a copper. You look under +the chist o’ drawers—all wot isn’t spent this week is +there.... An’, Miss Eva, don’t you wear that gray +bonnick no more. I kep’ you from the diptheery, an’—an’ +I didn’t want to keep you so, but the curick +said it ’ad to be done. I’d a sooner ha’ took up with +’im than any one, only Tom ’e come, an’ then—you +see, Miss Eva, Tom ’e never come a-nigh me for two +years, nor I ’aven’t seen ’im yet. S’elp me ——, I +’aven’t. Do you ’ear? But you two go along, and +make a match of it. I’ve wished otherways often, +but o’ course it was not for the likes o’ me. If Tom +’ad come back, which ’e never did, I’d ha’ been like +the rest—sixpence for beef-tea for the baby, an’ a +shilling for layin’ out the baby. You’ve seen it in +the books, Mister ’Anna. That’s what it is; an’ o’ +course, you couldn’t never ’ave nothing to do with me. +But a woman she wishes as she looks, an’ never you +’ave no doubt about ’im, Miss Eva. I’ve seen it in ’is +face time an’ agin—time an’ agin.... Make it a +four pound ten funeral—with a pall.’</p> + +<p>It was a seven pound fifteen shilling funeral, and +all Gunnison Street turned out to do it honour. All +but two; for Lascar Loo’s mother saw that a Power +had departed, and that her road lay clear to the +custards. Therefore, when the carriages rattled off, +the cat on the doorstep heard the wail of the dying +prostitute who could not die—</p> + +<p>‘Oh, mother, mother, won’t you even let me lick +the spoon!’</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="JUDSON_AND_THE_EMPIRE"> + JUDSON AND THE EMPIRE. + </h2> +</div> + + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Gloriana! The Don may attack us</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Whenever his stomach be fain;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He must reach us before he can rack us....</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And where are the galleons of Spain?</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="right"> + <span class="smcap">Dobson.</span> +</p> + + +<p class="p2">One of the many beauties of a democracy is its almost +superhuman skill in developing troubles with other +countries and finding its honour abraded in the process. +A true democracy has a large contempt for all +other lands that are governed by Kings and Queens +and Emperors; and knows little and thinks less of +their internal affairs. All it regards is its own dignity, +which is its King, Queen, and Knave. So, sooner or +later, its international differences end in the common +people, who have no dignity, shouting the common +abuse of the street, which also has no dignity, across +the seas in order to vindicate their new dignity. The +consequences may or may not be war; but the chances +do not favour peace.</p> + +<p>One advantage in living in a civilised land which is +really governed lies in the fact that all the Kings and +Queens and Emperors of the Continent are closely related +by blood or marriage; are, in fact, one large +family. A wise head among them knows that what +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</span>appears to be a studied insult may be no more than +some man’s indigestion or woman’s indisposition, to be +treated as such, and explained by quiet talk. Again, a +popular demonstration, headed by King and Court, may +mean nothing more than that so-and-so’s people are +out of hand for the minute. When a horse falls to +kicking in a hunt-crowd at a gate, the rider does not +dismount, but puts his open hand behind him, and the +others draw aside. It is so with the rulers of men. +In the old days they cured their own and their +people’s bad temper with fire and slaughter; but now +that the fire is so long of range and the slaughter so +large, they do other things; and few among their +people guess how much they owe of mere life and +money to what the slang of the minute calls ‘puppets’ +and ‘luxuries.’</p> + +<p>Once upon a time there was a little Power, the +half-bankrupt wreck of a once great empire, that lost +its temper with England, the whipping-boy of all the +world, and behaved, as every one said, most scandalously. +But it is not generally known that that Power +fought a pitched battle with England and won a +glorious victory. The trouble began with the people. +Their own misfortunes had been many, and for private +rage it is always refreshing to find a vent in public +swearing. Their national vanity had been deeply +injured, and they thought of their ancient glories and +the days when their fleets had first rounded the Cape +of Storms, and their own newspapers called upon +Camoens and urged them to extravagances. It was +the gross, smooth, sleek, lying England that was +checking their career of colonial expansion. They +assumed at once that their ruler was in league with +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</span>England, so they cried with great heat that they +would forthwith become a Republic and colonially +expand themselves as a free people should. This +made plain, the people threw stones at the English +Consuls and spat at English ladies, and cut off drunken +sailors of Our fleet in their ports and hammered them +with oars, and made things very unpleasant for tourists +at their customs, and threatened awful deaths to the +consumptive invalids of Madeira, while the junior +officers of the Army drank fruit-extracts and entered +into most blood-curdling conspiracies against their +monarch; all with the object of being a Republic. +Now the history of the South American Republics +shows that it is not good that Southern Europeans +should be also Republicans. They glide too quickly +into military despotism; and the propping of men +against walls and shooting them in detachments can +be arranged much more economically and with less +effect on the death-rate by a hide-bound monarchy. +Still the performances of the Power as represented by +its people were extremely inconvenient. It was the +kicking horse in the crowd, and probably the rider +explained that he could not check it. So the people +enjoyed all the glory of war with none of the risks, +and the tourists who were stoned in their travels +returned stolidly to England and told the <i>Times</i> that +the police arrangements of foreign towns were defective.</p> + +<p>This, then, was the state of affairs north the +Line. South it was more strained, for there the Powers +were at direct issue: England, unable to go back +because of the pressure of adventurous children behind +her, and the actions of far-away adventurers who +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</span>would not come to heel, but offering to buy out her +rival; and the other Power, lacking men or money, +stiff in the conviction that three hundred years of +slave-holding and intermingling with the nearest +natives gave an inalienable right to hold slaves and +issue half-castes to all eternity. They had built no +roads. Their towns were rotting under their hands; +they had no trade worth the freight of a crazy steamer; +and their sovereignty ran almost one musket-shot +inland when things were peaceful. For these very +reasons they raged all the more, and the things that +they said and wrote about the manners and customs +of the English would have driven a younger nation +to the guns with a long red bill for wounded +honour.</p> + +<p>It was then that Fate sent down in a twin-screw +shallow-draft gunboat, of some 270 tons displacement, +designed for the defence of rivers, Lieutenant +Harrison Edward Judson, to be known for the future +as Bai-Jove-Judson. His type of craft looked exactly +like a flat-iron with a match stuck up in the middle; +it drew five feet of water or less; carried a four-inch +gun forward, which was trained by the ship; and, on +account of its persistent rolling, was, to live in, three +degrees worse than a torpedo-boat. When Judson +was appointed to take charge of the thing on her little +trip of six or seven thousand miles southward, his first +remark as he went to look her over in dock was, +‘Bai Jove, that topmast wants staying forward!’ +The topmast was a stick about as thick as a clothes-prop; +but the flat-iron was Judson’s first command, and +he would not have exchanged his position for second +post on the <i>Anson</i> or the <i>Howe</i>. He navigated her, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</span>under convoy, tenderly and lovingly to the Cape (the +story of the topmast came with him), and he was so +absurdly in love with his wallowing wash-tub when +he reported himself, that the Admiral of the station +thought it would be a pity to kill a new man on +her, and allowed Judson to continue in his unenvied +rule.</p> + +<p>The Admiral visited her once in Simon’s Bay, and +she was bad, even for a flat-iron gunboat, strictly +designed for river and harbour defence. She sweated +clammy drops of dew between decks in spite of a +preparation of powdered cork that was sprinkled over +her inside paint. She rolled in the long Cape swell +like a buoy; her foc’s’le was a dog-kennel; Judson’s +cabin was practically under the water-line; not one of +her dead-lights could ever be opened; and her compasses, +thanks to the influence of the four-inch gun, +were a curiosity even among Admiralty compasses. +But Bai-Jove-Judson was radiant and enthusiastic. +He had even contrived to fill Mr. Davies, the second-class +engine-room artificer, who was his chief engineer, +with the glow of his passion. The Admiral, who +remembered his own first command, when pride +forbade him to slack off a single rope on a dewy +night, and he had racked his rigging to pieces in +consequence, looked at the flat-iron keenly. Her +fenders were done all over with white sennit, which +was truly white; her big gun was varnished with +a better composition than the Admiralty allowed; +the spare sights were cased as carefully as the +chronometers; the chocks for spare spars, two of +them, were made of four-inch Burma teak carved +with dragons’ heads (that was one result of Bai-Jove-Judson’s +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</span>experiences with the naval brigade in the +Burmese war), the bow-anchor was varnished instead +of being painted, and there were charts other than the +Admiralty scale supplied. The Admiral was well +pleased, for he loved a ship’s husband—a man who +had a little money of his own and was willing to +spend it on his command. Judson looked at him +hopefully. He was only a Junior Navigating Lieutenant +under eight years’ standing. He might be +kept in Simon’s Bay for six months, and his ship +at sea was his delight. The dream of his heart +was to enliven her dismal official gray with a line +of gold-leaf and, perhaps, a little scroll-work at her +blunt barge-like bows.</p> + +<p>‘There’s nothing like a first command, is there?’ +said the Admiral, reading his thoughts. ‘You seem to +have rather queer compasses though. Better get them +adjusted.’</p> + +<p>‘It’s no use, sir,’ said Judson. ‘The gun would +throw out the Pole itself. But—but I’ve got the hang +of most of the weaknesses.’</p> + +<p>‘Will you be good enough to lay that gun over +thirty degrees, please?’ The gun was put over. +Round and round and round went the needle merrily, +and the Admiral whistled.</p> + +<p>‘You must have kept close to your convoy?’</p> + +<p>‘Saw her twice between here and Madeira, sir,’ +said Judson with a flush, for he resented the slur on +his steamship. ‘She’s—she’s a little out of hand now, +but she will settle down after a while.’</p> + +<p>The Admiral went over the side, according to the +rules of the Service, but the Staff-Captain must have +told the other men of the squadron in Simon’s Bay, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</span>for they one and all made light of the flat-iron for +many days. ‘What can you shake out of her, Judson?’ +said the Lieutenant of the <ins id='cor_315' title='Original: <i>Mungoose</i>'><i>Mongoose</i></ins>, a real +white-painted ram-bow gunboat with quick-firing +guns, as he came into the upper verandah of the +little naval Club overlooking the dockyard one hot +afternoon. It is in that club, as the captains come +and go, that you hear all the gossip of all the Seven +Seas.</p> + +<p>‘Ten point four,’ said Bai-Jove-Judson.</p> + +<p>‘Ah! That was on her trial trip. She’s too much +by the head now. I told you staying that topmast +would throw her out.’</p> + +<p>‘You leave my top-hamper alone,’ said Judson, for +the joke was beginning to pall on him.</p> + +<p>‘Oh, my soul! Listen to him. Juddy’s top-hamper. +Keate, have you heard of the flat-iron’s +top-hamper? You’re to leave it alone. Commodore +Judson’s feelings are hurt.’</p> + +<p>Keate was the Torpedo Lieutenant of the big +<i>Vortigern</i>, and he despised small things. ‘His top-hamper,’ +said he slowly. ‘Oh, ah yes, of course. +Juddy, there’s a shoal of mullet in the bay, and I +think they’re foul of your screws. Better go down, +or they’ll carry away something.’</p> + +<p>‘I don’t let things carry away as a rule. You see +<i>I’ve</i> no Torpedo Lieutenant aboard, thank God.’</p> + +<p>Keate within the past week had so managed to +bungle the slinging-in of a small torpedo-boat on the +<i>Vortigern</i>, that the boat had broken the crutches on +which she rested, and was herself being repaired in the +dockyard under the Club windows.</p> + +<p>‘One for you, Keate. Never mind, Juddy, you’re +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</span>hereby appointed dockyard-tender for the next three +years, and if you’re very good and there’s no sea on, +you shall take me round the harbour. Waitabeechee, +Commodore. What’ll you take? Vanderhum for the +“Cook and the captain bold, And the mate o’ the <i>Nancy</i> +brig, And the bo’sun tight” [Juddy, put that cue down +or I’ll put you under arrest for insulting the lieutenant +of a real ship], “And the midshipmite, And the crew +of the captain’s gig.”’</p> + +<p>By this time Judson had pinned him in a corner, +and was prodding him with the half-butt. The Admiral’s +Secretary entered, and saw the scuffle from +the door.</p> + +<p>‘Ouch! Juddy, I apologise. Take that—er—topmast +of yours away! Here’s the man with the bow-string. +I wish I were a Staff-captain instead of a +bloody lootenant. Sperril sleeps below every night. +That’s what makes Sperril tumble home from the +waist upwards. Sperril, I defy you to touch me. +I’m under orders for Zanzibar. Probably I shall +annex it!’</p> + +<p>‘Judson, the Admiral wants to see you!’ said +the Staff-Captain, disregarding the scoffer of the +<i>Mongoose</i>.</p> + +<p>‘I told you you’d be a dockyard-tender yet, +Juddy. A side of fresh beef to-morrow and three +dozen snapper on ice. On ice, you understand, +Juddy?’</p> + +<p>Bai-Jove-Judson and the Staff-Captain went out +together.</p> + +<p>‘Now, what does the old man want with Judson?’ +said Keate from the bar.</p> + +<p>‘Don’t know. Juddy’s a damned good fellow, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</span>though. I wish to goodness he was on the <i>Mongoose</i> +with us.’</p> + +<p>The Lieutenant of the <i>Mongoose</i> dropped into a chair +and read the mail-papers for an hour. Then he saw +Bai-Jove-Judson in the street and shouted to him. +Judson’s eyes were very bright, and his figure was +held very straight, and he moved joyously. Except +for the Lieutenant of the <i>Mongoose</i>, the Club was +empty.</p> + +<p>‘Juddy, there will be a beautiful row,’ said that +young man when he had heard the news delivered +in an undertone. ‘You’ll probably have to fight, +and yet I can’t see what the old man’s thinking of +to——’</p> + +<p>‘My orders are not to row under any circumstances,’ +said Judson.</p> + +<p>‘Go-look-see? That all? When do you go?’</p> + +<p>‘To-night if I can. I must go down and see +about things. I say, I may want a few men for the +day.’</p> + +<p>‘Anything on the <i>Mongoose</i> is at your service. +There’s my gig come over now. I know that coast, +dead, drunk, or asleep, and you’ll need all the knowledge +you can get. If it had only been us two +together! Come along with me.’</p> + +<p>For one whole hour Judson remained closeted in +the stern cabin of the <i>Mongoose</i>, listening, poring over +chart upon chart and taking notes, and for an hour +the marine at the door heard nothing but things like +these: ‘Now you’ll have to lie in here if there’s any +sea on. That current is ridiculously under-estimated, +and it sets <i>west</i> at this season of the year, remember. +Their boats never come south of this, see? So it’s no +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</span>good looking out for them.’ And so on and so forth, +while Judson lay at length on the locker by the three-pounder, +and smoked and absorbed it all.</p> + +<p>Next morning there was no flat-iron in Simon’s Bay; +only a little smudge of smoke off Cape Hangklip to show +that Mr. Davies, the second-class engine-room artificer, +was giving her all she could carry. At the Admiral’s +house the ancient and retired bo’sun who had seen +many admirals come and go, brought out his paint and +brushes and gave a new coat of pure raw pea-green to +the two big cannon balls that stood one on each side +of the Admiral’s entrance-gate. He felt dimly that +great events were stirring.</p> + +<p>And the flat-iron, constructed, as has been before +said, solely for the defence of rivers, met the great roll +off Cape Agulhas and was swept from end to end and +sat upon her twin screws and leaped as gracefully as a +cow in a bog from one sea to another, till Mr. Davies +began to fear for the safety of his engines, and the +Kroo boys that made the majority of the crew were +deathly sick. She ran along a very badly-lighted +coast, past bays that were no bays, where ugly flat-topped +rocks lay almost level with the water, and very +many extraordinary things happened that have nothing +to do with the story, but they were all duly logged by +Bai-Jove-Judson.</p> + +<p>At last the coast changed and grew green and low +and exceedingly muddy, and there were broad rivers +whose bars were little islands standing three or four +miles out at sea, and Bai-Jove-Judson hugged the shore +more closely than ever, remembering what the lieutenant +of the <i>Mongoose</i> had told him. Then he found a river +full of the smell of fever and mud, with green stuff +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</span>growing far into its waters, and a current that made +the flat-iron gasp and grunt.</p> + +<p>‘We will turn up here,’ said Bai-Jove-Judson, and +they turned up accordingly; Mr. Davies wondering +what in the world it all meant, and the Kroo boys +grinning merrily. Bai-Jove-Judson went forward to +the bows and meditated, staring through the muddy +waters. After two hours of rooting through this +desolation at an average rate of five miles an hour, his +eyes were cheered by the sight of one white buoy in +the coffee-hued mid-stream. The flat-iron crept up to +it cautiously, and a leadsman took soundings all round +it from a dinghy, while Bai-Jove-Judson smoked and +thought, with his head on one side.</p> + +<p>‘About seven feet, isn’t there?’ said he. ‘That +must be the tail-end of the shoal. There’s four +fathom in the fairway. Knock that buoy down with +axes. I don’t think it’s picturesque, somehow.’ The +Kroo men hacked the wooden sides to pieces in three +minutes, and the mooring-chain sank with the last +splinters of wood. Bai-Jove-Judson laid the flat-iron +carefully over the site, while Mr. Davies watched, biting +his nails nervously.</p> + +<p>‘Can you back her against this current?’ said Bai-Jove-Judson. +Mr. Davies could, inch by inch, but +only inch by inch, and Bai-Jove-Judson stood in the +bows and gazed at various things on the bank as they +came into line or opened out. The flat-iron dropped +down over the tail of the shoal, exactly where the +buoy had been, and backed once more before Bai-Jove-Judson +was satisfied. Then they went up-stream for +half an hour, put into shoal-water by the bank and +waited, with a slip-rope on the anchor.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</span></p> + +<p>‘Seems to me,’ said Mr. Davies deferentially, ‘like +as if I heard some one a-firing off at intervals, so to +say.’</p> + +<p>There was beyond doubt a dull mutter in the air.</p> + +<p>‘Seems to me,’ said Bai-Jove-Judson, ‘as if I heard +a screw. Stand by to slip her moorings.’</p> + +<p>Another ten minutes passed and the beat of engines +grew plainer. Then round the bend of the river came +a remarkably prettily-built white-painted gunboat +with a blue and white flag bearing a red boss in the +centre.</p> + +<p>‘Unshackle abaft the windlass! Stream both +buoys! Easy astern. Let go, all!’ The slip-rope +flew out, the two buoys bobbed in the water to mark +where anchor and cable had been left, and the flat-iron +waddled out into mid-stream with the white ensign at +her one mast-head.</p> + +<p>‘Give her all you can. That thing has the legs of +us,’ said Judson. ‘And down we go.’</p> + +<p>‘It’s war—bloody war! He’s going to fire,’ said +Mr. Davies, looking up through the engine-room hatch.</p> + +<p>The white gunboat without a word of explanation +fired three guns at the flat-iron, cutting the trees on +the banks into green chips. Bai-Jove-Judson was at +the wheel, and Mr. Davies and the current helped +the boat to an almost respectable degree of speed.</p> + +<p>It was an exciting chase, but it did not last for +more than five minutes. The white gunboat fired again, +and Mr. Davies in his engine-room gave a wild shout.</p> + +<p>‘What’s the matter? Hit?’ said Bai-Jove-Judson.</p> + +<p>‘No, I’ve just seized of your roos-de-gare. Beg y’ +pardon, sir.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</span></p> + +<p>‘Right O! Just the half a fraction of a point +more.’ The wheel turned under the steady hand, as +Bai-Jove-Judson watched his marks on the bank +falling in line swiftly as troops anxious to aid. The +flat-iron smelt the shoal-water under her, checked for +an instant, and went on. ‘Now we’re over. Come +along, you thieves, there!’ said Judson.</p> + +<p>The white gunboat, too hurried even to fire, was +storming in the wake of the flat-iron, steering as she +steered. This was unfortunate, because the lighter +craft was dead over the missing buoy.</p> + +<p>‘What you do here?’ shouted a voice from the +bows.</p> + +<p>‘I’m going on. Sit tight. Now you’re arranged +for.’</p> + +<p>There was a crash and a clatter as the white gun-boat’s +nose took the shoal, and the brown mud boiled +up in oozy circles under her forefoot. Then the +current caught her stern on the starboard side and +drove her broadside on to the shoal, slowly and gracefully. +There she heeled at an undignified angle, and +her crew yelled aloud.</p> + +<p>‘Neat! Oh, damn neat!’ quoth Mr. Davies, dancing +on the engine-room plates, while the Kroo stokers +beamed.</p> + +<p>The flat-iron turned up-stream again, and passed +under the hove-up starboard side of the white gunboat, +to be received with howls and imprecations in a +strange tongue. The stranded boat, exposed even to +her lower strakes, was as defenceless as a turtle on its +back, without the advantage of the turtle’s plating. +And the one big bluff gun in the bows of the flat-iron +was unpleasantly near.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</span></p> + +<p>But the captain was valiant and swore mightily. +Bai-Jove-Judson took no sort of notice. His business +was to go up the river.</p> + +<p>‘We will come in a flotilla of boats and ecrazer +your vile tricks,’ said the captain, with language that +need not be published.</p> + +<p>Then said Bai-Jove-Judson, who was a linguist: ‘You +stayo where you areo, or I’ll leave a holo in your +bottomo that will make you muchos perforatados.’</p> + +<p>There was a great deal of mixed language in reply, +but Bai-Jove-Judson was out of hearing in a few +minutes, and Mr. Davies, himself a man of few words, +confided to one of his subordinates that Lieutenant +Judson was ‘a most remarkable prompt officer in a +way of putting it.’</p> + +<p>For two hours the flat-iron pawed madly through +the muddy water, and that which had been at first a +mutter became a distinct rumble.</p> + +<p>‘Was war declared?’ said Mr. Davies, and Bai-Jove-Judson +laughed. ‘Then, damn his eyes, he might have +spoilt my pretty little engines. There’s war up there, +though.’</p> + +<p>The next bend brought them full in sight of a +small but lively village, built round a whitewashed +mud house of some pretensions. There were scores +and scores of saddle-coloured soldiery in dirty white +uniforms running to and fro and shouting round a +man in a litter, and on a gentle slope that ran inland +for four or five miles something like a brisk battle +was raging round a rude stockade. A smell of unburied +carcasses floated through the air and vexed the +sensitive nose of Mr. Davies, who spat over the side.</p> + +<p>‘I want to get this gun on that house,’ said Bai-Jove-Judson, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</span>indicating the superior dwelling over whose +flat roof floated the blue and white flag. The little +twin screws kicked up the water exactly as a hen’s +legs kick in the dust before she settles down to a +bath. The little boat moved uneasily from left to +right, backed, yawed again, went ahead, and at last +the gray, blunt gun’s nose was held as straight as a rifle-barrel +on the mark indicated. Then Mr. Davies +allowed the whistle to speak as it is not allowed to +speak in Her Majesty’s service on account of waste of +steam. The soldiery of the village gathered into +knots and groups and bunches, and the firing up +the hill ceased, and every one except the crew of the +flat-iron yelled aloud. Something like an English +cheer came down wind.</p> + +<p>‘Our chaps in mischief for sure, probably,’ said Mr. +Davies. ‘They must have declared war weeks ago, in +a kind of way, seems to me.’</p> + +<p>‘Hold her steady, you son of a soldier!’ shouted +Bai-Jove-Judson, as the muzzle fell off the white +house.</p> + +<p>Something rang as loudly as a ship’s bell on the +forward plates of the flat-iron, something spluttered in +the water, and another thing cut a groove in the deck +planking an inch in front of Bai-Jove-Judson’s left +foot. The saddle-coloured soldiery were firing as the +mood took them, and the man in the litter waved a +shining sword. The muzzle of the big gun kicked +down a fraction as it was laid on the mud wall at the +bottom of the house garden. Ten pounds of gun-powder +shut up in a hundred pounds of metal was its +charge. Three or four yards of the mud wall jumped +up a little, as a man jumps when he is caught in the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</span>small of the back with a knee-cap, and then fell forward, +spreading fan-wise in the fall. The soldiery fired no +more that day, and Judson saw an old black woman +climb to the flat roof of the house. She fumbled for +a time with the flag halliards, then, finding that they +were jammed, took off her one garment, which happened +to be an Isabella-coloured petticoat, and waved it impatiently. +The man in the litter flourished a white +handkerchief, and Bai-Jove-Judson grinned. ‘Now +we’ll give ’em one up the hill. Round with her, Mr. +Davies. Curse the man who invented those floating +gun-platforms! When can I pitch in a notice without +slaying one of those little devils?’</p> + +<p>The side of the slope was speckled with men +returning in a disorderly fashion to the river-front. +Behind them marched a small but very compact body of +men who had filed out of the stockade. These last +dragged quick-firing guns with them.</p> + +<p>‘Bai Jove, it’s a regular army. I wonder whose,’ said +Bai-Jove-Judson, and he waited developments. The +descending troops met and mixed with the troops in +the village, and, with the litter in the centre, crowded +down to the river, till the men with the quick-firing +guns came up behind them. Then they divided left +and right and the detachment marched through.</p> + +<p>‘Heave these damned things over!’ said the leader +of the party, and one after another ten little gatlings +splashed into the muddy water. The flat-iron lay +close to the bank.</p> + +<p>‘When you’re <i>quite</i> done,’ said Bai-Jove-Judson +politely, ‘would you mind telling me what’s the +matter? I’m in charge here.’</p> + +<p>‘We’re the Pioneers of the General Development +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</span>Company,’ said the leader. ‘These little bounders have +been hammering us in lager for twelve hours, and +we’re getting rid of their gatlings. Had to climb out +and take them; but they’ve snaffled the lock-actions. +Glad to see you.’</p> + +<p>‘Any one hurt?’</p> + +<p>‘No one killed exactly; but we’re very dry.’</p> + +<p>‘Can you hold your men?’</p> + +<p>The man turned round and looked at his command +with a grin. There were seventy of them, all dusty +and unkempt.</p> + +<p>‘We shan’t sack this ash-bin, if that’s what you +mean. We’re mostly gentlemen here, though we don’t +look it.’</p> + +<p>‘All right. Send the head of this post, or fort, or +village, or whatever it is, aboard, and make what +arrangements you can for your men.’</p> + +<p>‘We’ll find some barrack accommodation somewhere. +Hullo! You in the litter there, go aboard the gunboat.’ +The command wheeled round, pushed through +the dislocated soldiery, and began to search through +the village for spare huts.</p> + +<p>The little man in the litter came aboard smiling +nervously. He was in the fullest of full uniform, +with many yards of gold lace and dangling chains. +Also he wore very large spurs; the nearest horse +being not more than four hundred miles away. ‘My +children,’ said he, facing the silent soldiery, ‘lay +aside your arms.’</p> + +<p>Most of the men had dropped them already and +were sitting down to smoke. ‘Let nothing,’ he added +in his own tongue, ‘tempt you to kill these who have +sought your protection.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</span></p> + +<p>‘Now,’ said Bai-Jove-Judson, on whom the last +remark was lost, ‘will you have the goodness to explain +what the deuce you mean by all this nonsense?’</p> + +<p>‘It was of a necessitate,’ said the little man. ‘The +operations of war are unconformible. I am the +Governor and I operate Captain. Be’old my little +sword!’</p> + +<p>‘Confound your little sword, sir. I don’t want it. +You’ve fired on our flag. You’ve been firing at our +people here for a week, and I’ve been fired at coming +up the river.’</p> + +<p>‘Ah! The <i>Guadala</i>. She have misconstrued you +for a slaver possibly. How are the <i>Guadala</i>?’</p> + +<p>‘Mistook a ship of Her Majesty’s navy for a slaver! +<i>You</i> mistake <i>any</i> craft for a slaver. Bai Jove, sir, +I’ve a good mind to hang you at the yard-arm!’</p> + +<p>There was nothing nearer that terrible spar than +the walking-stick in the rack of Judson’s cabin. The +Governor looked at the one mast and smiled a deprecating +smile.</p> + +<p>‘The position is embarrassment,’ he said. ‘Captain, +do you think those illustrious traders burn my capital? +My people will give them beer.’</p> + +<p>‘Never mind the traders, I want an explanation.’</p> + +<p>‘Hum! There are popular uprising in Europe, +Captain—in my country.’ His eye wandered aimlessly +round the horizon.</p> + +<p>‘What has that to do with——’</p> + +<p>‘Captain, you are very young. There is still uproariment. +But I,’—here he slapped his chest till his +epaulets jingled—‘I am loyalist to pits of <i>all</i> my +stomachs.’</p> + +<p>‘Go on,’ said Judson, and his mouth quivered.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</span></p> + +<p>‘An order arrive to me to establish a custom-houses +here, and to collect of the taximent from the traders +when she are come here necessarily. That was on +account of political understandings with your country +and mine. But to that arrangement there was no +money also. Not one damn little cowrie! I desire +damnably to extend all commercial things, and why? +I am loyalist and there is rebellion—yes, I tell you—Republics +in my country for to just begin. You do +not believe? See some time how it exist. I cannot +make this custom-houses and pay so the high-paid +officials. The people too in my country they say the +King she has no regardance into Honour of her nation. +He throw away everything—Gladstone her all, you say, +hey?’</p> + +<p>‘Yes, that’s what we say,’ said Judson with a +grin.</p> + +<p>‘Therefore they say, let us be Republics on hot +cakes. But I—I am loyalist to all my hands’ ends. +Captain, once I was attaché at Mexico. I say the +Republics are no good. The peoples have her stomach +high. They desire—they desire—Oh, course for the +bills.’</p> + +<p>‘What on earth is that?’</p> + +<p>‘The cock-fight for pay at the gate. You give +something, pay for see bloody-row. Do I make my +comprehension?’</p> + +<p>‘A run for their money—is that what you mean? +Gad, you’re a sporting Governor!’</p> + +<p>‘So I say. I am loyalist too.’ He smiled more +easily. ‘Now how can anything do herself for the +customs-houses; but when the Company’s mens she +arrives, <i>then</i> a cock-fight for pay-at-gate that is quite +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</span>correct. My army he says it will Republic and shoot +me off upon walls if I have not give her blood. An +army, Captain, are terrible in her angries—especialment +when she are not paid. I know too,’ here he laid his +hand on Judson’s shoulder, ‘I know too we are old +friends. Yes! Badajos, Almeida, Fuentes d’Onor—time +ever since; and a little, little cock-fight for pay-at-gate +that is good for my King. More sit her tight on throne +behind, you see? Now,’ he waved his free hand round +the decayed village, ‘I say to my armies, Fight! +Fight the Company’s men when she come, but fight not +so very strong that you are any dead. It is all in the +raporta that I send. But you understand, Captain, +we are good friends all the time. Ah! Ciudad +Rodrigo, you remember? No? Perhaps your father +then? So you see no one are dead, and we fight a +fight, and it is all in the raporta, to please the people in +our country; and my armies they do not put me against +the walls, you see?’</p> + +<p>‘Yes; but the <i>Guadala</i>. She fired on us. Was +that part of your game, my joker?’</p> + +<p>‘The <i>Guadala</i>. Ah! No, I think not. Her captain +he is too big fool. But I thought she have gone down +the coast. Those your gunboats poke her nose and +shove her oar in every place. How is <i>Guadala</i>?’</p> + +<p>‘On a shoal. Stuck till I take her off.’</p> + +<p>‘There are any deads?’</p> + +<p>‘No.’</p> + +<p>The Governor drew a breath of deep relief. ‘There +are no deads here. So you see none are deads anywhere, +and nothing is done. Captain, you talk to the Company’s +mens. I think they are not pleased.’</p> + +<p>‘Naturally.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</span></p> + +<p>‘They have no senses. I thought to go backwards +again they would. I leave her stockade alone all night +to let them out, but they stay and come facewards to +me, not backwards. They did not know we must +conquer much in all these battles, or the King, he is +kicked off her throne. Now we have won this battle—this +great battle,’ he waved his arms abroad, ‘and I +think you will say so that we have won, Captain. +You are loyalist also? You would not disturb to the +peaceful Europe? Captain, I tell you this. Your +Queen she know too. She would not fight her cousin. +It is a—a hand-up thing.’</p> + +<p>‘What?’</p> + +<p>‘Hand-up thing. Jobe you put. How you say?’</p> + +<p>‘Put-up job?’</p> + +<p>‘Yes. Put-up job. Who is hurt? We win. You +lose. All righta!’</p> + +<p>Bai-Jove-Judson had been exploding at intervals +for the last five minutes. Here he broke down completely +and roared aloud.</p> + +<p>‘But look here, Governor,’ he said at last, ‘I’ve +got to think of other things than your riots in Europe. +You’ve fired on our flag.’</p> + +<p>‘Captain, if you are me, you would have done how? +And also, and also,’ he drew himself up to his full height, +‘we are both brave men of bravest countries. Our +honour is the honour of our King,’ here he uncovered, +‘and of our Queen,’ here he bowed low. ‘Now, Captain, +you shall shell my palace and I will be your prisoner.’</p> + +<p>‘Skittles!’ said Bai-Jove-Judson. ‘I can’t shell +that old hencoop.’</p> + +<p>‘Then come to dinner. Madeira, she are still to us, +and I have of the best she manufac.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</span></p> + +<p>He skipped over the side beaming, and Bai-Jove-Judson +went into the cabin to laugh his laugh out. +When he had recovered a little he sent Mr. Davies to +the head of the Pioneers, the dusty man with the +gatlings, and the troops who had abandoned the pursuit +of arms watched the disgraceful spectacle of two +men reeling with laughter on the quarter-deck of a +gunboat.</p> + +<p>‘I’ll put my men to build him a custom-house,’ said +the head of the Pioneers gasping. ‘We’ll make him +one decent road at least. That Governor ought to be +knighted. I’m glad now that we didn’t fight ’em in +the open, or we’d have killed some of them. So he’s +won great battles, has he? Give him the compliments +of the victims, and tell him I’m coming to dinner. +You haven’t such a thing as a dress-suit, have you? +I haven’t seen one for six months.’</p> + +<p>That evening there was a dinner in the village—a +general and enthusiastic dinner, whose head was in the +Governor’s house, and whose tail threshed at large +throughout all the streets. The Madeira was everything +that the Governor had said, and more, and it was +tested against two or three bottles of Bai-Jove-Judson’s +best Vanderhum, which is Cape brandy ten years in the +bottle, flavoured with orange-peel and spices. Before +the coffee was removed (by the lady who had made +the flag of truce) the Governor had given the whole of +his governorship and its appurtenances, once to Bai-Jove-Judson +for services rendered by Judson’s grandfather +in the Peninsular War, and once to the head +of the Pioneers, in consideration of that gentleman’s +good friendship. After the negotiation he retreated +for a while into an inner apartment, and there evolved +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</span>a true and complete account of the defeat of the English +arms, which he read with his cocked hat over one eye +to Judson and his companion. It was Judson who +suggested the sinking of the flat-iron with all hands, +and the head of the Pioneers who supplied the list of +killed and wounded (not more than two hundred) in +his command.</p> + +<p>‘Gentlemen,’ said the Governor from under his +cocked hat, ‘the peace of Europe are saved by this +raporta. You shall all be Knights of the Golden Hide. +She shall go by the <i>Guadala</i>.’</p> + +<p>‘Great Heavens!’ said Bai-Jove-Judson, flushed +but composed, ‘That reminds me that I’ve left that boat +stuck on her broadside down the river. I must go +down and sooth the commandante. He’ll be blue with +rage. Governor, let us go a sail on the river to cool our +heads. A picnic, you understand.’</p> + +<p>‘Ya—as: everything I understand. Ho! A picnica! +You are all my prisoner, but I am a good gaoler. We +shall picnic on the river, and we shall take <i>all</i> the girls. +Come on, my prisoners.’</p> + +<p>‘I do hope,’ said the head of the Pioneers, staring +from the verandah into the roaring village, ‘that my +chaps won’t set the town alight by accident. Hullo! +Hullo! A guard of honour for His Excellency, the most +illustrious Governor!’</p> + +<p>Some thirty men answered the call, made a swaying +line upon a more swaying course, and bore the Governor +most swayingly of all high in their arms as they staggered +down to the river. And the song that they sang bade +them, ‘Swing, swing together, their body between their +knees’; and they obeyed the words of the song faithfully, +except that they were anything but ‘steady from stroke +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</span>to bow.’ His Excellency the Governor slept on his +uneasy litter, and did not wake when the chorus +dropped him on the deck of the flat-iron.</p> + +<p>‘Good-night and good-bye,’ said the head of the +Pioneers to Judson. ‘I’d give you my card if I had it, +but I’m so damned drunk I hardly know my own Club. +Oh yes! It’s the Travellers. If ever we meet in town, +remember me. I must stay here and look after my +fellows. We’re all right in the open, now. I s’pose +you’ll return the Governor some time. This is a +political crisis. Good-night.’</p> + +<p>The flat-iron went down-stream through the dark. +The Governor slept on deck, and Judson took the wheel, +but how he steered, and why he did not run into each +bank many times, that officer does not remember. Mr. +Davies did not note anything unusual, for there are +two ways of taking too much, and Judson was only +ward-room, not fo’c’s’le drunk. As the night grew +colder the Governor woke up, and expressed a desire +for whisky and soda. When that came they were +nearly abreast of the stranded <i>Guadala</i>, and His +Excellency saluted the flag that he could not see with +loyal and patriotic strains.</p> + +<p>‘They do not see. They do not hear,’ he cried. +‘Ten thousand saints! They sleep, and I have won +battles! Ha!’</p> + +<p>He started forward to the gun, which, very naturally, +was loaded, pulled the lanyard, and woke the +dead night with the roar of the full charge behind a +common shell. That shell, mercifully, just missed the +stern of the <i>Guadala</i>, and burst on the bank. ‘Now +you shall salute your Governor,’ said he, as he heard +feet running in all directions within the iron skin. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</span>‘Why you demand so base a quarter? I am here with +all my prisoners.’</p> + +<p>In the hurly-burly and the general shriek for mercy +his reassurances were not heard.</p> + +<p>‘Captain,’ said a grave voice from the ship, ‘we +have surrendered. Is it the custom of the English to +fire on a helpless ship?’</p> + +<p>‘Surrendered! Holy Virgin! I go to cut off all +their heads. You shall be ate by wild ants—flog and +drowned! Throw me a balcony. It is I, the Governor! +You shall never surrender. Judson of my soul, ascend +her inside, and send me a bed, for I am sleepy; but, oh, +I will multiple time kill that captain!’</p> + +<p>‘Oh!’ said the voice in the darkness, ‘I begin to +comprehend.’ And a rope-ladder was thrown, up which +the Governor scrambled, with Judson at his heels.</p> + +<p>‘Now we will enjoy executions,’ said the Governor +on the deck. ‘All these Republicans shall be shot. +Little Judson, if I am <i>not</i> drunk, why are so sloping +the boards which do not support?’</p> + +<p>The deck, as I have said, was at a very stiff cant. +His Excellency sat down, slid to leeward, and fell +asleep again.</p> + +<p>The captain of the <i>Guadala</i> bit his moustache furiously, +and muttered in his own tongue: ‘“This land is +the father of great villains and the step-father of honest +men.” You see our material, Captain. It is so everywhere +with us. You have killed some of the rats, I hope?’</p> + +<p>‘Not a rat,’ said Judson genially.</p> + +<p>‘That is a pity. If they were dead, our country +might send us men, but our country is dead too, and +I am dishonoured on a mud-bank through your +English treachery.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</span></p> + +<p>‘Well, it seems to me that firing on a little tub +of our size without a word of warning when you knew +that the countries were at peace is treachery enough +in a small way.’</p> + +<p>‘If one of my guns had touched you, you would +have gone to the bottom, all of you. I would have +taken the risk with my Government. By that time +it would have been——’</p> + +<p>‘A Republic. So you really <i>did</i> mean fighting on +your own hook! You’re rather a dangerous officer +to cut loose in a navy like yours. Well, what are +you going to do now?’</p> + +<p>‘Stay here. Go away in boats. What does it +matter? That drunken cat’—he pointed to the +shadow in which the Governor slept—‘is here. I must +take him back to his hole.’</p> + +<p>‘Very good. I’ll tow you off at daylight if you get +steam up.’</p> + +<p>‘Captain, I warn you that as soon as she floats +again I will fight you.’</p> + +<p>‘Humbug! You’ll have lunch with me, and then +you’ll take the Governor up the river.’</p> + +<p>The captain was silent for some time. Then he +said: ‘Let us drink. What must be, must be, and +after all we have not forgotten the Peninsular. You +will admit, Captain, that it is bad to be run upon +a shoal like a mud-dredger?’</p> + +<p>‘Oh, we’ll pull you off before you can say knife. +Take care of His Excellency. I shall try to get a little +sleep now.’</p> + +<p>They slept on both ships till the morning, and +then the work of towing off the <i>Guadala</i> began. With +the help of her own engines, and the tugging and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</span>puffing of the flat-iron, she slid off the mud-bank +sideways into deep water, the flat-iron immediately +under her stern, and the big eye of the four-inch gun +almost peering through the window of the captain’s +cabin.</p> + +<p>Remorse in the shape of a violent headache had +overtaken the Governor. He was uneasily conscious +that he might perhaps have exceeded his powers, and +the captain of the <i>Guadala</i>, in spite of all his patriotic +sentiments, remembered distinctly that no war had +been declared between the two countries. He did not +need the Governor’s repeated reminders that war, +serious war, meant a Republic at home, possible supersession +in his command, and much shooting of living +men against dead walls.</p> + +<p>‘We have satisfied our honour,’ said the Governor +in confidence. ‘Our army is appeased, and the raporta +that you take home will show that we were loyal and +brave. That other captain? Bah! He is a boy. +He will call this a—a—Judson of my soul, how you +say this is—all this affairs which have transpirated +between us?’</p> + +<p>Judson was watching the last hawser slipping +through the fairlead. ‘Call it? Oh, I should call it +rather a lark. Now your boat’s all right, captain. +When will you come to lunch?’</p> + +<p>‘I told you,’ said the Governor, ‘it would be a +larque to him.’</p> + +<p>‘Mother of the Saints! then what is his seriousness?’ +said the captain. ‘We shall be happy to come +when you will. Indeed, we have no other choice,’ he +added bitterly.</p> + +<p>‘Not at all,’ said Judson, and as he looked at the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</span>three or four shot blisters on the bows of his boat a +brilliant idea took him. ‘It is we who are at your +mercy. See how His Excellency’s guns knocked us +about.’</p> + +<p>‘Senor Capitan,’ said the Governor pityingly, ‘that +is very sad. You are most injured, and your deck +too, it is all shot over. We shall not be too severe +on a beat man, shall we, captain?’</p> + +<p>‘You couldn’t spare us a little paint, could you? +I’d like to patch up a little after the—action,’ said +Judson meditatively, fingering his upper lip to hide a +smile.</p> + +<p>‘Our storeroom is at your disposition,’ said the +captain of the <i>Guadala</i>, and his eye brightened; for a +few lead splashes on gray paint make a big show.</p> + +<p>‘Mr. Davies, go aboard and see what they have +to spare—to spare, remember. Their spar-colour with +a little working up should be just our free-board tint.’</p> + +<p>‘Oh yes. I’ll spare them,’ said Mr. Davies +savagely. ‘I don’t understand this how-d’you-do +and damn-your-eyes business coming one atop of the +other, in a manner o’ speaking! By all rights, they’re +our lawful prize, after a manner o’ sayin’.’</p> + +<p>The Governor and the captain came to lunch in +the absence of Mr. Davies. Bai-Jove-Judson had +not much to offer them, but what he had was given +as by a beaten foeman to a generous conqueror. +When they were a little warmed—the Governor genial +and the captain almost effusive—he explained quite +casually over the opening of a bottle that it would not +be to his interest to report the affair seriously, and it +was in the highest degree improbable that the Admiral +would treat it in any grave fashion.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</span></p> + +<p>‘When my decks are cut up’ (there was one groove +across four planks), ‘and my plates buckled’ (there +were five lead patches on three plates), ‘and I meet such +a boat as the <i>Guadala</i>, and a mere accident saves me +from being blown out of the water——’</p> + +<p>‘Yes. A mere accident, Captain. The shoal-buoy +has been lost,’ said the captain of the <i>Guadala</i>.</p> + +<p>‘Ah? I do not know this river. That was very +sad. But as I was saying, when an accident saves me +from being sunk, what can I do but go away—if +that is possible? But I fear that I have no coal for +the sea-voyage. It is very sad.’ Judson had compromised +on what he knew of the French tongue as a +medium of communication.</p> + +<p>‘It is enough,’ said the Governor, waving a generous +hand. ‘Judson of my soul, the coal is yours and you +shall be repaired—yes, repaired all over, of your +battle’s wounds. You shall go with all the honours of +all the wars. Your flag shall fly. Your drum shall +beat. Your, ah!—jolly-boys shall spoke their +bayonets! Is it not so, captain?’</p> + +<p>‘As you say, Excellency. But those traders in the +town. What of them?’</p> + +<p>The Governor looked puzzled for an instant. He +could not quite remember what had happened to those +jovial men who had cheered him overnight. Judson +interrupted swiftly: ‘His Excellency has set them to +forced works on barracks and magazines, and, I think, +a custom-house. When that is done they will be +released, I hope, Excellency.’</p> + +<p>‘Yes, they shall be released for your sake, little +Judson of my heart.’ Then they drank the health of +their respective sovereigns, while Mr. Davies +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</span>superintended the removal of the scarred plank and the +shot-marks on the deck and the bow-plates.</p> + +<p>‘Oh, this is too bad,’ said Judson when they went +on deck. ‘That idiot has exceeded his instructions, +but—but you must let me pay for this!’</p> + +<p>Mr. Davies, his legs in the water as he sat on a +staging slung over the bows, was acutely conscious that +he was being blamed in a foreign tongue. He twisted +uneasily, and went on with his work.</p> + +<p>‘What is it?’ said the Governor.</p> + +<p>‘That thick-head has thought that we needed some +gold-leaf, and he has borrowed that from your storeroom, +but I must make it good.’ Then in English, +‘Stand up, Mr. Davies! What the Furnace in Tophet +do you mean by taking their gold-leaf? My ——, are +we a set of hairy pirates to scoff the storeroom out +of a painted Levantine bumboat. Look contrite, you +butt-ended, broad-breeched, bottle-bellied, swivel-eyed +son of a tinker, you! My Soul alive, can’t I maintain +discipline in my own ship without a hired blacksmith +of a boiler-rivetter putting me to shame before a +yellow-nosed picaroon! Get off the staging, Mr. Davies, +and go to the engine-room! Put down that leaf first, +though, and leave the books where they are. I’ll send +for you in a minute. Go aft!’</p> + +<p>Now, only the upper half of Mr. Davies’s round +face was above the bulwarks when this torrent of +abuse descended upon him; and it rose inch by inch +as the shower continued, blank amazement, bewilderment, +rage, and injured pride chasing each other +across it till he saw his superior officer’s left +eyelid flutter on the cheek twice. Then he fled +to the engine-room, and wiping his brow with +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</span>a handful of cotton-waste, sat down to overtake +circumstances.</p> + +<p>‘I am desolated,’ said Judson to his companions, +‘but you see the material that they give us. This +leaves me more in your debt than before. The stuff +I can replace’ [gold-leaf is never carried on floating +gun-platforms], ‘but for the insolence of that man how +shall I apologise?’</p> + +<p>Mr. Davies’s mind moved slowly, but after a while +he transferred the cotton-waste from his forehead to +his mouth and bit on it to prevent laughter. He +began a second dance on the engine-room plates. +‘Neat! Oh, damned neat!’ he chuckled. ‘I’ve +served with a good few, but there never was one so +neat as him. And I thought he was the new kind +that don’t know how to throw a few words, as it were.’</p> + +<p>‘Mr. Davies, you can continue your work,’ said +Judson down the engine-room hatch. ‘These officers +have been good enough to speak in your favour. Make +a thorough job of it while you are about it. Slap on +every man you have. Where did you get hold of it?’</p> + +<p>‘Their storeroom is a regular theatre, sir. You +couldn’t miss it. There’s enough for two first-rates, +and I’ve scoffed the best half of it.’</p> + +<p>‘Look sharp then. We shall be coaling from her +this afternoon. You’ll have to cover it all up.’</p> + +<p>‘Neat! Oh, damned neat!’ said Mr. Davies under +his breath, as he gathered his subordinates together, +and set about accomplishing the long-deferred wish of +Judson’s heart.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>It was the <i>Martin Frobisher</i>, the flagship, a great +war-boat when she was new, in the days when men +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</span>built for sail as well as for steam. She could turn +twelve knots under full sail, and it was under that +that she stood up the mouth of the river, a pyramid of +silver beneath the moon. The Admiral, fearing that +he had given Judson a task beyond his strength, was +coming to look for him, and incidentally to do a little +diplomatic work along the coast. There was hardly +wind enough to move the <i>Frobisher</i> a couple of knots +an hour, and the silence of the land closed about her +as she entered the fairway. Her yards sighed a little +from time to time, and the ripple under her bows +answered the sigh. The full moon rose over the +steaming swamps, and the Admiral gazing upon it +thought less of Judson and more of the softer emotions. +In answer to the very mood of his mind there floated +across the silver levels of the water, mellowed by +distance to a most poignant sweetness, the throb of a +mandolin, and the voice of one who called upon a +genteel Julia—upon Julia, and upon Love. The song +ceased, and the sighing of the yards was all that broke +the silence of the big ship.</p> + +<p>Again the mandolin began, and the commander on +the lee side of the quarter-deck grinned a grin that +was reflected in the face of the signal-midshipman. +Not a word of the song was lost, and the voice of the +singer was the voice of Judson.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘Last week down our alley came a toff,</div> + <div class="verse indent1">Nice old geyser with a nasty cough,</div> + <div class="verse indent1">Sees my missus, takes his topper off,</div> + <div class="verse indent1">Quite in a gentlemanly way’—</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>and so on to the end of the verse. The chorus was +borne by several voices, and the signal-midshipman’s +foot began to tap the deck furtively.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</span></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘“What cheer!” all the neighbours cried.</div> + <div class="verse indent1">“Oo are you goin’ to meet, Bill?</div> + <div class="verse indent1">’Ave you bought the street, Bill?”</div> + <div class="verse indent1">Laugh?—I thought I should ha’ died</div> + <div class="verse indent1">When I knocked ’em in the Old Kent Road.’</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>It was the Admiral’s gig, rowing softly, that came +into the midst of that merry little smoking-concert. +It was Judson, with the beribboned mandolin round +his neck, who received the Admiral as he came up the +side of the <i>Guadala</i>, and it may or may not have been +the Admiral who stayed till three in the morning and +delighted the hearts of the Captain and the Governor. +He had come as an unbidden guest, and he departed +as an honoured one, but strictly unofficial throughout. +Judson told his tale next day in the Admiral’s cabin +as well as he could in the face of the Admiral’s gales +of laughter; but the most amazing tale was that told +by Mr. Davies to his friends in the dockyard at Simon’s +Town from the point of view of a second-class engine-room +artificer, all unversed in diplomacy.</p> + +<p>And if there be no truth either in my tale, which +is Judson’s tale, or the tales of Mr. Davies, you will +<i>not</i> find in harbour at Simon’s Town to-day a flat-bottomed, +twin-screw gunboat, designed solely for the +defence of rivers, about two hundred and seventy tons +displacement and five feet draught, wearing in open +defiance of the rules of the Service a gold line on her +gray paint. It follows also that you will be compelled +to credit that version of the fray which, signed by His +Excellency the Governor and despatched in the +<i>Guadala</i>, satisfied the self-love of a great and glorious +people, and saved a monarchy from the ill-considered +despotism which is called a Republic.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_CHILDREN_OF_THE_ZODIAC"> + THE CHILDREN OF THE ZODIAC. + </h2> +</div> + + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Though thou love her as thyself,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">As a self of purer clay,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Though her parting dim the day,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Stealing grace from all alive,</div> + <div class="verse indent4">Heartily know</div> + <div class="verse indent4">When half Gods go</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The Gods arrive. <span class="smcap">Emerson.</span></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + + +<p class="p2">Thousands of years ago, when men were greater than +they are to-day, the Children of the Zodiac lived in +the world. There were six Children of the Zodiac—the +Ram, the Bull, Leo, the Twins, and the +Girl; and they were afraid of the Six Houses which +belonged to the Scorpion, the Balance, the Crab, the +Fishes, the Archer, and the Waterman. Even +when they first stepped down upon the earth and +knew that they were immortal Gods, they carried this +fear with them; and the fear grew as they became +better acquainted with mankind and heard stories of +the Six Houses. Men treated the Children as Gods +and came to them with prayers and long stories of +wrong, while the Children of the Zodiac listened and +could not understand.</p> + +<p>A mother would fling herself before the feet of +the Twins, or the Bull, crying: ‘My husband was +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</span>at work in the fields and the Archer shot him and +he died; and my son will also be killed by the +Archer. Help me!’ The Bull would lower his +huge head and answer: ‘What is that to me?’ Or +the Twins would smile and continue their play, for +they could not understand why the water ran out +of people’s eyes. At other times a man and a woman +would come to Leo or the Girl crying: ‘We two are +newly married and we are very happy. Take these +flowers.’ As they threw the flowers they would +make mysterious sounds to show that they were +happy, and Leo and the Girl wondered even more +than the Twins why people shouted ‘Ha! ha! ha!’ +for no cause.</p> + +<p>This continued for thousands of years by human +reckoning, till on a day, Leo met the Girl walking +across the hills and saw that she had changed entirely +since he had last seen her. The Girl, looking at Leo, +saw that he too had changed altogether. Then +they decided that it would be well never to separate +again, in case even more startling changes should +occur when the one was not at hand to help the +other. Leo kissed the Girl and all Earth felt that +kiss, and the Girl sat down on a hill and the water +ran out of her eyes; and this had never happened +before in the memory of the Children of the Zodiac.</p> + +<p>As they sat together a man and a woman came +by, and the man said to the woman:</p> + +<p>‘What is the use of wasting flowers on those dull +Gods? They will never understand, darling.’</p> + +<p>The Girl jumped up and put her arms round the +woman, crying, ‘I understand. Give me the flowers +and I will give you a kiss.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</span></p> + +<p>Leo said beneath his breath to the man: ‘What +was the new name that I heard you give to your +woman just now?’</p> + +<p>The man answered, ‘Darling, of course.’</p> + +<p>‘Why “of course”?’ said Leo; ‘and if of course, +what does it mean?’</p> + +<p>‘It means “very dear,” and you have only to look +at your wife to see why.’</p> + +<p>‘I see,’ said Leo; ‘you are quite right’; and when +the man and the woman had gone on he called the +Girl ‘darling wife’; and the Girl wept again from +sheer happiness.</p> + +<p>‘I think,’ she said at last, wiping her eyes, ‘I +think that we two have neglected men and women +too much. What did you do with the sacrifices +they made to you, Leo?’</p> + +<p>‘I let them burn,’ said Leo; ‘I could not eat +them. What did you do with the flowers?’</p> + +<p>‘I let them wither. I could not wear them, I +had so many of my own,’ said the Girl, ‘and now I +am sorry.’</p> + +<p>‘There is nothing to grieve for,’ said Leo; ‘we +belong to each other.’</p> + +<p>As they were talking the years of men’s life +slipped by unnoticed, and presently the man and the +woman came back, both white-headed, the man carrying +the woman.</p> + +<p>‘We have come to the end of things,’ said the +man quietly. ‘This that was my wife—’</p> + +<p>‘As I am Leo’s wife,’ said the Girl quickly, her +eyes staring.</p> + +<p>‘—was my wife, has been killed by one of your +Houses.’ The man set down his burden, and laughed.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</span></p> + +<p>‘Which House?’ said Leo angrily, for he hated all +the Houses equally.</p> + +<p>‘You are Gods, you should know,’ said the man. +‘We have lived together and loved one another, and I +have left a good farm for my son. What have I to +complain of except that I still live?’</p> + +<p>As he was bending over his wife’s body there came +a whistling through the air, and he started and tried +to run away, crying, ‘It is the arrow of the Archer. +Let me live a little longer—only a little longer!’ +The arrow struck him and he died. Leo looked at +the Girl and she looked at him, and both were +puzzled.</p> + +<p>‘He wished to die,’ said Leo. ‘He said that he +wished to die, and when Death came he tried to run +away. He is a coward.’</p> + +<p>‘No, he is not,’ said the Girl; ‘I think I feel +what he felt. Leo, we must learn more about this +for their sakes.’</p> + +<p>‘For <i>their</i> sakes,’ said Leo, very loudly.</p> + +<p>‘Because <i>we</i> are never going to die,’ said the Girl +and Leo together, still more loudly.</p> + +<p>‘Now sit you still here, darling wife,’ said Leo, +‘while I go to the Houses whom we hate, and learn +how to make these men and women live as we do.’</p> + +<p>‘And love as we do,’ said the Girl.</p> + +<p>‘I do not think they need to be taught that,’ +said Leo, and he strode away very angry, with his +lion-skin swinging from his shoulder, till he came to +the House where the Scorpion lives in the darkness, +brandishing his tail over his back.</p> + +<p>‘Why do you trouble the children of men?’ said +Leo, with his heart between his teeth.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</span></p> + +<p>‘Are you so sure that I trouble the children of +men alone?’ said the Scorpion. ‘Speak to your +brother the Bull, and see what he says.’</p> + +<p>‘I come on behalf of the children of men,’ said +Leo. ‘I have learned to love as they do, and I wish +them to live as I—as we do.’</p> + +<p>‘Your wish was granted long ago. Speak to the +Bull. He is under my special care,’ said the +Scorpion.</p> + +<p>Leo dropped back to the earth again, and saw the +great star Aldebaran, that is set in the forehead of the +Bull, blazing very near to the earth. When he came +up to it he saw that his brother the Bull, yoked to a +countryman’s plough, was toiling through a wet rice-field +with his head bent down, and the sweat +streaming from his flanks. The countryman was +urging him forward with a goad.</p> + +<p>‘Gore that insolent to death,’ cried Leo, ‘and for +the sake of our honour come out of the mire.’</p> + +<p>‘I cannot,’ said the Bull, ‘the Scorpion has told +me that some day, of which I cannot be sure, he will +sting me where my neck is set on my shoulders, and +that I shall die bellowing.’</p> + +<p>‘What has that to do with this disgraceful work?’ +said Leo, standing on the dyke that bounded the wet +field.</p> + +<p>‘Everything. This man could not plough without +my help. He thinks that I am a stray beast.’</p> + +<p>‘But he is a mud-crusted cottar with matted +hair,’ insisted Leo. ‘We are not meant for his use.’</p> + +<p>‘You may not be; I am. I cannot tell when +the Scorpion may choose to sting me to death—perhaps +before I have turned this furrow.’ The Bull +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</span>flung his bulk into the yoke, and the plough tore +through the wet ground behind him, and the countryman +goaded him till his flanks were red.</p> + +<p>‘Do you like this?’ Leo called down the dripping +furrows.</p> + +<p>‘No,’ said the Bull over his shoulder as he lifted +his hind legs from the clinging mud and cleared his +nostrils.</p> + +<p>Leo left him scornfully and passed to another +country, where he found his brother the Ram in the +centre of a crowd of country-people who were hanging +wreaths round his neck and feeding him on freshly-plucked +green corn.</p> + +<p>‘This is terrible,’ said Leo. ‘Break up that crowd +and come away, my brother. Their hands are spoiling +your fleece.’</p> + +<p>‘I cannot,’ said the Ram. ‘The Archer told me +that on some day of which I had no knowledge, he +would send a dart through me, and that I should die +in very great pain.’</p> + +<p>‘What has that to do with this disgraceful show?’ +said Leo, but he did not speak as confidently as +before.</p> + +<p>‘Everything in the world,’ said the Ram. ‘These +people never saw a perfect sheep before. They think +that I am a stray, and they will carry me from place +to place as a model to all their flocks.’</p> + +<p>‘But they are greasy shepherds; we are not +intended to amuse them,’ said Leo.</p> + +<p>‘You may not be, I am,’ said the Ram. ‘I cannot +tell when the Archer may choose to send his arrow at +me—perhaps before the people a mile down the +road have seen me.’ The Ram lowered his head +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</span>that a yokel newly arrived might throw a wreath of +wild garlic-leaves over it, and waited patiently while +the farmers tugged his fleece.</p> + +<p>‘Do you like this?’ cried Leo over the shoulders +of the crowd.</p> + +<p>‘No,’ said the Ram, as the dust of the trampling +feet made him sneeze, and he snuffed at the fodder +piled before him.</p> + +<p>Leo turned back intending to retrace his steps to +the Houses, but as he was passing down a street he +saw two small children, very dusty, rolling outside a +cottage door, and playing with a cat. They were the +Twins.</p> + +<p>‘What are you doing here?’ said Leo, indignant.</p> + +<p>‘Playing,’ said the Twins calmly.</p> + +<p>‘Cannot you play on the banks of the Milky +Way?’ said Leo.</p> + +<p>‘We did,’ said they, ‘till the Fishes swam down +and told us that some day they would come for us +and not hurt us at all and carry us away. So now +we are playing at being babies down here. The +people like it.’</p> + +<p>‘Do you like it?’ said Leo.</p> + +<p>‘No,’ said the Twins, ‘but there are no cats in the +Milky Way,’ and they pulled the cat’s tail thoughtfully. +A woman <ins id='cor_348' title='Original: come'>came</ins> out of the doorway and stood +behind them, and Leo saw in her face a look that he +had sometimes seen in the Girl’s.</p> + +<p>‘She thinks that we are foundlings,’ said the Twins, +and they trotted indoors to the evening meal.</p> + +<p>Then Leo hurried as swiftly as possible to all the +Houses one after another; for he could not understand +the new trouble that had come to his brethren. He +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</span>spoke to the Archer, and the Archer assured him that +so far as that House was concerned Leo had nothing +to fear. The Waterman, the Fishes, and the Scorpion +gave the same answer. They knew nothing of Leo, +and cared less. They were the Houses, and they were +busied in killing men.</p> + +<p>At last he came to that very dark House where +Cancer the Crab lies so still that you might think he +was asleep if you did not see the ceaseless play and +winnowing motion of the feathery branches round his +mouth. That movement never ceases. It is like the +eating of a smothered fire into rotten timber in that +it is noiseless and without haste.</p> + +<p>Leo stood in front of the Crab, and the half +darkness allowed him a glimpse of that vast blue-black +back, and the motionless eyes. Now and again +he thought that he heard some one sobbing, but the +noise was very faint.</p> + +<p>‘Why do you trouble the children of men?’ said +Leo. There was no answer, and against his will Leo +cried, ‘Why do you trouble us? What have we done +that you should trouble us?’</p> + +<p>This time Cancer replied, ‘What do I know or +care? You were born into my House, and at the +appointed time I shall come for you.’</p> + +<p>‘When is the appointed time?’ said Leo, stepping +back from the restless movement of the mouth.</p> + +<p>‘When the full moon fails to call the full tide,’ +said the Crab, ‘I shall come for the one. When the +other has taken the earth by the shoulders, I shall +take that other by the throat.’</p> + +<p>Leo lifted his hand to the apple of his throat, +moistened his lips, and recovering himself, said:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</span></p> + +<p>‘Must I be afraid for two, then?’</p> + +<p>‘For two,’ said the Crab, ‘and as many more as +may come after.’</p> + +<p>‘My brother, the Bull, had a better fate,’ said Leo, +sullenly; ‘he is alone.’</p> + +<p>A hand covered his mouth before he could finish +the sentence, and he found the Girl in his arms. +Womanlike, she had not stayed where Leo had left +her, but had hastened off at once to know the worst, +and passing all the other Houses, had come straight +to Cancer.</p> + +<p>‘That is foolish,’ said the Girl, whispering. ‘I +have been waiting in the dark for long and long before +you came. <i>Then</i> I was afraid. But now——’ She +put her head down on his shoulder and sighed a sigh +of contentment.</p> + +<p>‘I am afraid now,’ said Leo.</p> + +<p>‘That is on my account,’ said the Girl. ‘I know it +is, because I am afraid for your sake. Let us go, +husband.’</p> + +<p>They went out of the darkness together and came +back to the Earth, Leo very silent, and the Girl +striving to cheer him. ‘My brother’s fate is the +better one,’ Leo would repeat from time to time, and +at last he said: ‘Let us each go our own way and live +alone till we die. We were born into the House of +Cancer, and he will come for us.’</p> + +<p>‘I know; I know. But where shall I go? And +where will you sleep in the evening? But let us try. +I will stay here. Do you go on?’</p> + +<p>Leo took six steps forward very slowly, and three +long steps backward very quickly, and the third step +set him again at the Girl’s side. This time it was she +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</span>who was begging him to go away and leave her, and +he was forced to comfort her all through the night. +That night decided them both never to leave each +other for an instant, and when they had come to this +decision they looked back at the darkness of the +House of Cancer high above their heads, and with +their arms round each other’s necks laughed, ‘Ha! +ha! ha!’ exactly as the children of men laughed. +And that was the first time in their lives that they +had ever laughed.</p> + +<p>Next morning they returned to their proper home, +and saw the flowers and the sacrifices that had been +laid before their doors by the villagers of the hills. +Leo stamped down the fire with his heel and the Girl +flung the flower-wreaths out of sight, shuddering as +she did so. When the villagers returned, as of +custom, to see what had become of their offerings, they +found neither roses nor burned flesh on the altars, but +only a man and a woman, with frightened white faces, +sitting hand-in-hand on the altar-steps.</p> + +<p>‘Are you not Virgo?’ said a woman to the Girl. +‘I sent you flowers yesterday.’</p> + +<p>‘Little sister,’ said the Girl, flushing to her forehead, +‘do not send any more flowers, for I am only a +woman like yourself.’ The man and the woman went +away doubtfully.</p> + +<p>‘Now, what shall we do?’ said Leo.</p> + +<p>‘We must try to be cheerful, I think,’ said the +Girl. ‘We know the very worst that can happen to +us, but we do not know the best that love can bring +us. We have a great deal to be glad of.’</p> + +<p>‘The certainty of death,’ said Leo.</p> + +<p>‘All the children of men have that certainty also; +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</span>yet they laughed long before we ever knew how to +laugh. We must learn to laugh, Leo. We have +laughed once already.’</p> + +<p>People who consider themselves Gods, as the +Children of the Zodiac did, find it hard to laugh, +because the Immortals know nothing worth laughter +or tears. Leo rose up with a very heavy heart, and he +and the girl together went to and fro among men; their +new fear of death behind them. First they laughed +at a naked baby attempting to thrust its fat toes +into its foolish pink mouth; next they laughed at a +kitten chasing her own tail; and then they laughed +at a boy trying to steal a kiss from a girl, and getting +his ears boxed. Lastly, they laughed because the +wind blew in their faces as they ran down a hill-side +together, and broke panting and breathless into a knot +of villagers at the bottom. The villagers laughed too +at their flying clothes and wind-reddened faces; and +in the evening gave them food and invited them to a +dance on the grass, where everybody laughed through +the mere joy of being able to dance.</p> + +<p>That night Leo jumped up from the Girl’s side +crying: ‘Every one of those people we met just now +will die——’</p> + +<p>‘So shall we,’ said the Girl sleepily. ‘Lie down +again, dear.’ Leo could not see that her face was wet +with tears.</p> + +<p>But Leo was up and far across the fields, driven +forward by the fear of death for himself and for the +Girl, who was dearer to him than himself. Presently +he came across the Bull drowsing in the moonlight after +a hard day’s work, and looking through half-shut eyes +at the beautiful straight furrows that he had made.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</span></p> + +<p>‘Ho!’ said the Bull, ‘so you have been told these +things too. Which of the Houses holds your +death?’</p> + +<p>Leo pointed upwards to the dark House of the +Crab and groaned. ‘And he will come for the Girl +too,’ he said.</p> + +<p>‘Well,’ said the Bull, ‘what will you do?’</p> + +<p>Leo sat down on the dyke and said that he did +not know.</p> + +<p>‘You cannot pull a plough,’ said the Bull, with a +little touch of contempt. ‘I can, and that prevents +me from thinking of the Scorpion.’</p> + +<p>Leo was angry and said nothing till the dawn +broke, and the cultivator came to yoke the Bull to his +work.</p> + +<p>‘Sing,’ said the Bull, as the stiff muddy ox-bow +creaked and strained. ‘My shoulder is galled. Sing +one of the songs that we sang when we thought we +were all Gods together.’</p> + +<p>Leo stepped back into the cane-brake and lifted up +his voice in a song of the Children of the Zodiac—the +war-whoop of the young Gods who are afraid of +nothing. At first he dragged the song along unwillingly, +and then the song dragged him, and his +voice rolled across the fields, and the Bull stepped to +the tune and the cultivator banged his flanks out of +sheer light-heartedness, and the furrows rolled away +behind the plough more and more swiftly. Then the +Girl came across the fields looking for Leo and found +him singing in the cane. She joined her voice to his, +and the cultivator’s wife brought her spinning into +the open and listened with all her children round her. +When it was time for the nooning, Leo and the Girl +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</span>had sung themselves both thirsty and hungry, but the +cultivator and his wife gave them rye-bread and milk, +and many thanks, and the Bull found occasion to say: +‘You have helped me to do a full half-field more than +I should have done. But the hardest part of the day +is to come, brother.’</p> + +<p>Leo wished to lie down and brood over the words +of the Crab. The Girl went away to talk to the +cultivator’s wife and baby, and the afternoon ploughing +began.</p> + +<p>‘Help us now,’ said the Bull. ‘The tides of the +day are running down. My legs are very stiff. Sing +if you never sang before.’</p> + +<p>‘To a mud-spattered villager?’ said Leo.</p> + +<p>‘He is under the same doom as ourselves. Are +you a coward?’ said the Bull. Leo flushed and +began again with a sore throat and a bad temper. +Little by little he dropped away from the songs of the +Children and made up a song as he went along; and +this was a thing he could never have done had he not +met the Crab face to face. He remembered facts +concerning cultivators, and bullocks, and rice-fields, +that he had not particularly noticed before the interview, +and he strung them all together, growing more +interested as he sang, and he told the cultivator much +more about himself and his work than the cultivator +knew. The Bull grunted approval as he toiled down +the furrows for the last time that day, and the song +ended, leaving the cultivator with a very good opinion +of himself in his aching bones. The Girl came out of +the hut where she had been keeping the children +quiet, and talking woman-talk to the wife, and they +all ate the evening meal together.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</span></p> + +<p>‘Now yours must be a very pleasant life,’ said the +cultivator, ‘sitting as you do on a dyke all day and +singing just what comes into your head. Have you +been at it long, you two—gipsies?’</p> + +<p>‘Ah!’ lowed the Bull from his byre. ‘That’s all +the thanks you will ever get from men, brother.’</p> + +<p>‘No. We have only just begun it,’ said the Girl; +‘but we are going to keep to it as long as we live. +Are we not, Leo?’</p> + +<p>‘Yes,’ said he, and they went away hand-in-hand.</p> + +<p>‘You can sing beautifully, Leo,’ said she, as a wife +will to her husband.</p> + +<p>‘What were you doing?’ said he.</p> + +<p>‘I was talking to the mother and the babies,’ she +said. ‘You would not understand the little things +that make us women laugh.’</p> + +<p>‘And—and I am to go on with this—this gipsy-work?’ +said Leo.</p> + +<p>‘Yes, dear, and I will help you.’</p> + +<p>There is no written record of the life of Leo and of +the Girl, so we cannot tell how Leo took to his new employment +which he detested. We are only sure that +the Girl loved him when and wherever he sang; even +when, after the song was done, she went round with +the equivalent of a tambourine, and collected the +pence for the daily bread. There were times too +when it was Leo’s very hard task to console the Girl +for the indignity of horrible praise that people gave +him and her—for the silly wagging peacock feathers +that they stuck in his cap, and the buttons and pieces +of cloth that they sewed on his coat. Womanlike, +she could advise and help to the end, but the meanness +of the means revolted.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</span></p> + +<p>‘What does it matter,’ Leo would say, ‘so long as +the songs make them a little happier?’ And they +would go down the road and begin again on the old old +refrain: that whatever came or did not come the +children of men must not be afraid. It was heavy +teaching at first, but in process of years Leo discovered +that he could make men laugh and hold them listening +to him even when the rain fell. Yet there were +people who would sit down and cry softly, though the +crowd was yelling with delight, and there were people +who maintained that Leo made them do this; and +the Girl would talk to them in the pauses of the performance +and do her best to comfort them. People +would die too, while Leo was talking, and singing, +and laughing, for the Archer, and the Scorpion, and +the Crab, and the other Houses were as busy as ever. +Sometimes the crowd broke, and were frightened, and +Leo strove to keep them steady by telling them that +this was cowardly; and sometimes they mocked at +the Houses that were killing them, and Leo explained +that this was even more cowardly than running away.</p> + +<p>In their wanderings they came across the Bull, or +the Ram, or the Twins, but all were too busy to do +more than nod to each other across the crowd, and go +on with their work. As the years rolled on even that +recognition ceased, for the Children of the Zodiac had +forgotten that they had ever been Gods working for the +sake of men. The Star Aldebaran was crusted with +caked dirt on the Bull’s forehead, the Ram’s fleece was +dusty and torn, and the Twins were only babies +fighting over the cat on the doorstep. It was then +that Leo said: ‘Let us stop singing and making +jokes.’ And it was then that the girl said: ‘No—’ +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</span>but she did not know why she said ‘No’ so energetically. +Leo maintained that it was perversity, till she +herself, at the end of a dusty day, made the same +suggestion to him, and he said ‘most certainly not,’ +and they quarrelled miserably between the hedgerows, +forgetting the meaning of the stars above them. +Other singers and other talkers sprang up in the +course of the years, and Leo, forgetting that there +could never be too many of these, hated them for +dividing the applause of the children of men, which he +thought should be all his own. The Girl would grow +angry too, and then the songs would be broken, and +the jests fall flat for weeks to come, and the children +of men would shout: ‘Go home, you two gipsies. Go +home and learn something worth singing!’</p> + +<p>After one of these sorrowful shameful days, the +Girl, walking by Leo’s side through the fields, saw the +full moon coming up over the trees, and she clutched +Leo’s arm, crying: ‘The time has come now. Oh, +Leo, forgive me!’</p> + +<p>‘What is it?’ said Leo. He was thinking of the +other singers.</p> + +<p>‘My husband!’ she answered, and she laid his +hand upon her breast, and the breast that he knew so +well was hard as stone. Leo groaned, remembering +what the Crab had said.</p> + +<p>‘Surely we were Gods once,’ he cried.</p> + +<p>‘Surely we are Gods still,’ said the Girl. ‘Do you +not remember when you and I went to the house of +the Crab and—were not very much afraid? And +since then ... we have forgotten what we were singing +for—we sang for the pence, and, oh, we fought for +them!—We, who are the Children of the Zodiac.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</span></p> + +<p>‘It was my fault,’ said Leo.</p> + +<p>‘How can there be any fault of yours that is not +mine too?’ said the Girl. ‘My time has come, but +you will live longer, and....’ The look in her +eyes said all she could not say.</p> + +<p>‘Yes, I will remember that we are Gods,’ said +Leo.</p> + +<p>It is very hard, even for a child of the Zodiac, who +has forgotten his Godhead, to see his wife dying slowly +and to know that he cannot help her. The Girl told +Leo in those last months of all that she had said and +done among the wives and the babies at the back of +the roadside performances, and Leo was astonished +that he knew so little of her who had been so much +to him. When she was dying she told him never to +fight for pence or quarrel with the other singers; and, +above all, to go on with his singing immediately after +she was dead.</p> + +<p>Then she died, and after he had buried her he went +down the road to a village that he knew, and the +people hoped that he would begin quarrelling with a +new singer that had sprung up while he had been +away. But Leo called him ‘my brother.’ The new +singer was newly married—and Leo knew it—and +when he had finished singing, Leo straightened himself +and sang the ‘Song of the Girl,’ which he had made +coming down the road. Every man who was married +or hoped to be married, whatever his rank or colour, +understood that song—even the bride leaning on the +new husband’s arm understood it too—and presently +when the song ended, and Leo’s heart was bursting in +him, the men sobbed. ‘That was a sad tale,’ they +said at last, ‘now make us laugh.’ Because Leo had +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</span>known all the sorrow that a man could know, including +the full knowledge of his own fall who had once +been a God—he, changing his song quickly, made the +people laugh till they could laugh no more. They +went away feeling ready for any trouble in reason, +and they gave Leo more peacock feathers and pence +than he could count. Knowing that pence led to +quarrels and that peacock feathers were hateful to +the Girl, he put them aside and went away to look for +his brothers, to remind them that they too were Gods.</p> + +<p>He found the Bull goring the undergrowth in a +ditch, for the Scorpion had stung him, and he was +dying, not slowly, as the Girl had died, but quickly.</p> + +<p>‘I know all,’ the Bull groaned, as Leo came up. +‘I had forgotten too, but I remember now. Go and +look at the fields I ploughed. The furrows are +straight. I forgot that I was a God, but I drew the +plough perfectly straight, for all that. And you, +brother?’</p> + +<p>‘I am not at the end of the ploughing,’ said Leo. +‘Does Death hurt?’</p> + +<p>‘No, but dying does,’ said the Bull, and he died. +The cultivator who then owned him was much annoyed, +for there was a field still unploughed.</p> + +<p>It was after this that Leo made the Song of the Bull +who had been a God and forgotten the fact, and he +sang it in such a manner that half the young men in +the world conceived that they too might be Gods +without knowing it. A half of that half grew impossibly +conceited, and died early. A half of the +remainder strove to be Gods and failed, but the other +half accomplished four times more work than they +would have done under any other delusion.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</span></p> + +<p>Later, years later, always wandering up and down +and making the children of men laugh, he found the +Twins sitting on the bank of a stream waiting for the +Fishes to come and carry them away. They were not +in the least afraid, and they told Leo that the woman +of the House had a real baby of her own, and that +when that baby grew old enough to be mischievous +he would find a well-educated cat waiting to have its +tail pulled. Then the Fishes came for them, but all +that the people saw was two children drowned in a +brook; and though their foster-mother was very sorry, +she hugged her own real baby to her breast and was +grateful that it was only the foundlings.</p> + +<p>Then Leo made the Song of the Twins, who had +forgotten that they were Gods and had played in the +dust to amuse a foster-mother. That song was sung +far and wide among the women. It caused them to +laugh and cry and hug their babies closer to their +hearts all in one breath; and some of the women who +remembered the Girl said: ‘Surely that is the voice +of Virgo. Only she could know so much about ourselves.’</p> + +<p>After those three songs were made, Leo sang them +over and over again till he was in danger of looking +upon them as so many mere words, and the people +who listened grew tired, and there came back to Leo the +old temptation to stop singing once and for all. But +he remembered the Girl’s dying words and persisted.</p> + +<p>One of his listeners interrupted him as he was +singing. ‘Leo,’ said he, ‘I have heard you telling us +not to be afraid for the past forty years. Can you not +sing something new now?’</p> + +<p>‘No,’ said Leo, ‘it is the only song that I am +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</span>allowed to sing. You must not be afraid of the +Houses, even when they kill you.’ The man turned +to go, wearily, but there came a whistling through the +air, and the arrow of the Archer was seen skimming +low above the earth, pointing to the man’s heart. He +drew himself up, and stood still waiting till the arrow +struck home.</p> + +<p>‘I die,’ he said quietly. ‘It is well for me, Leo, +that you sang for forty years.’</p> + +<p>‘Are you afraid?’ said Leo, bending over him.</p> + +<p>‘I am a man, not a God,’ said the man. ‘I should +have run away but for your songs. My work is done, +and I die without making a show of my fear.’</p> + +<p>‘I am very well paid,’ said Leo to himself. ‘Now +that I see what my songs are doing, I will sing better +ones.’</p> + +<p>He went down the road, collected his little knot of +listeners, and began the Song of the Girl. In the +middle of his singing he felt the cold touch of the +Crab’s claw on the apple of his throat. He lifted his +hand, choked, and stopped for an instant.</p> + +<p>‘Sing on, Leo,’ said the crowd. ‘The old song runs +as well as ever it did.’</p> + +<p>Leo went on steadily till the end with the cold fear +at his heart. When his song was ended, he felt the +grip on his throat tighten. He was old, he had lost +the Girl, he knew that he was losing more than half +his power to sing, he could scarcely walk to the +diminishing crowds that waited for him, and could not +see their faces when they stood about him. None the +less, he cried angrily to the Crab:</p> + +<p>‘Why have you come for me <i>now</i>?’</p> + +<p>‘You were born under my care. How can I help +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</span>coming for you?’ said the Crab wearily. Every +human being whom the Crab killed had asked that +same question.</p> + +<p>‘But I was just beginning to know what my songs +were doing,’ said Leo.</p> + +<p>‘Perhaps that is why,’ said the Crab, and the grip +tightened.</p> + +<p>‘You said you would not come till I had taken +the world by the shoulders,’ gasped Leo, falling back.</p> + +<p>‘I always keep my word. You have done that +three times with three songs. What more do you +desire?’</p> + +<p>‘Let me live to see the world know it,’ pleaded +Leo. ‘Let me be sure that my songs——’</p> + +<p>‘Make men brave?’ said the Crab. ‘Even then +there would be one man who was afraid. The Girl +was braver than you are. Come.’</p> + +<p>Leo was standing close to the restless insatiable +mouth.</p> + +<p>‘I forgot,’ said he simply. ‘The Girl was braver. +But I am a God too, and I am not afraid.’</p> + +<p>‘What is that to me?’ said the Crab.</p> + +<p>Then Leo’s speech was taken from him and he lay +still and dumb, watching Death till he died.</p> + +<p>Leo was the last of the Children of the Zodiac. +After his death there sprang up a breed of little mean +men, whimpering and flinching and howling because +the Houses killed them and theirs, who wished to live +for ever without any pain. They did not increase +their lives but they increased their own torments +miserably, and there were no Children of the Zodiac +to guide them; and the greater part of Leo’s songs +were lost.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</span></p> + +<p>Only he had carved on the Girl’s tombstone the +last verse of the Song of the Girl, which stands at the +head of this story.</p> + +<p>One of the children of men, coming thousands of +years later, rubbed away the lichen, read the lines, +and applied them to a trouble other than the one Leo +meant. Being a man, men believed that he had +made the verses himself; but they belong to Leo, the +Child of the Zodiac, and teach, as he taught, that whatever +comes or does not come we men must not be +afraid.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="ENVOY"> + ENVOY. + </h2> +</div> + + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Heh! Walk her round. Heave, ah heave her short again!</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Over, snatch her over, there, and hold her on the pawl.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Loose all sail, and brace your yards aback and full—</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Ready jib to pay her off and heave short all!</div> + <div class="verse indent4">Well, ah fare you well; we can stay no more with you, my love—</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Down, set down your liquor and your girl from off your knee;</div> + <div class="verse indent12">For the wind has come to say:</div> + <div class="verse indent12">‘You must take me while you may,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">If you’d go to Mother Carey where she feeds her chicks at sea!’</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Heh! Walk her round. Break, ah break it out o’ that!</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Break our starboard bower out, apeak, awash, aclear!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Port—port she casts, with the harbour-roil beneath her foot,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">And that’s the last o’ bottom we shall see this year!</div> + <div class="verse indent4">Well, ah fare you well, for we’ve got to take her out again—</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Take her out in ballast, riding light and cargo-free.</div> + <div class="verse indent12">And it’s time to clear and quit</div> + <div class="verse indent12">When the hawser grips the bitt,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">So we’ll pay you with the foresheet and a promise from the sea!</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Heh! Tally on. Aft and walk away with her!</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Handsome to the cathead, now; O tally on the fall!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Stop, seize and fish, and easy on the davit-guy.</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Up, well up the fluke of her, and inboard haul!</div> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</span> <div class="verse indent4">Well, ah fare you well, for the Channel wind’s took hold of us,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Choking down our voices as we snatch the gaskets free.</div> + <div class="verse indent12">And it’s blowing up for night,</div> + <div class="verse indent12">And she’s dropping Light on Light,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">And she’s snorting under bonnets for a breath of open sea.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Wheel, full and by; but she’ll smell her road alone to-night.</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Sick she is and harbour-sick—O sick to clear the land!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Roll down to Brest with the old Red Ensign over us—</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Carry on and thrash her out with all she’ll stand!</div> + <div class="verse indent4">Well, ah fare you well, and it’s Ushant gives the door to us,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Whirling like a windmill on the dirty <ins id='cor_365' title='Original: sand to lea'>scud to lee</ins>:</div> + <div class="verse indent12">Till the last, last flicker goes</div> + <div class="verse indent12">From the tumbling water-rows,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">And we’re off to Mother Carey</div> + <div class="verse indent8">(Walk her down to Mother Carey!)</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Oh, we’re bound for Mother Carey where she feeds her chicks at sea!</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + + +<p class="center p2"><b>THE END</b></p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"></div> + +<p class="center p2"> +<i>Printed by</i> <span class="smcap">R. & R. Clark</span>, <i>Edinburgh</i> +</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="MESSRS_MACMILLAN_AND_COS_POPULAR_NOVELS"> + MESSRS. MACMILLAN AND CO.’S POPULAR NOVELS. + </h2> +</div> + +<p class="center p2"> +<i>BY THE SAME AUTHOR.</i><br> +<br> +Crown 8vo. 6s. each. +</p> + + +<p>THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. Re-written and considerably enlarged.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>ACADEMY.</i>—“Whatever else be true of Mr. Kipling; it is the first truth about +him that he has power, real intrinsic power.... Mr. Kipling’s work has innumerable +good qualities.”</p> + +<p><i>GLASGOW HERALD.</i>—“The power and interest are sustained throughout, and +there is nowhere any indication of flagging or of a second breath.... It carries on +the tradition of the author’s picturesque freshness and inexhaustible resources.”</p> + +<p><i>MANCHESTER COURIER.</i>—“The story is a brilliant one and full of vivid +interest.”</p> +</blockquote> + + +<p>PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>SATURDAY REVIEW.</i>—“Mr. Kipling knows and appreciates the English in +India, and is a born story-teller and a man of humour into the bargain.... It would +be hard to find better reading.”</p> + +<p><i>DUBLIN EVENING MAIL.</i>—“This is a delightful book.... Mr. Kipling +is a man of genius, and prefers quality to quantity. Many of his stories are profoundly +pathetic. We think the dominant note of his genius is pathos, but there is humour, +rich and racy humour, in all of them.”</p> + +<p><i>GLASGOW HERALD.</i>—“That the book will at least be as popular here as it +has been and is in India we have no doubt. Possibly even a greater success is in store +for it, seeing that for us it possesses rare qualities of freshness, of strange and brilliant +colouring, of curious characterisation, and of unusual incident, which to the Anglo-Indian +were probably familiar enough, though even in that case the genius of the +writer must have lifted them out of the region of everyday life. One of the first things +that strikes the reader is the exceptional excellence of the tales.... The man who +wrote these tales has manifestly numberless others to tell.... Character, situation, +incident, humour, pathos, tragic force, are all in abundance; words alone are at a +minimum. Of course these are ‘plain’ tales,—lightning-flash tales. A gleam, and +there the whole tragedy or comedy is before you—elaborate it for yourself +afterwards.”</p> + +<p><i>SCOTTISH REVIEW.</i>—“... Whatever may be Mr. Kipling’s ability in the +higher walks of fiction, his ability as a story-teller or for narrating such incidents, +whether real or fictitious, as are here put together is beyond question. They are told +with ease, force, and directness. The humorous stories are probably the best, but +whether humorous or grave—and there are both in the volume—they throw considerable +light upon certain phases of European society in India and on numerous aspects +of native Indian life. There is not an uninteresting story in the volume, and one +closes the book with the desire to read the ‘other stories’ Mr. Kipling so often alludes +to, and somewhat tantalisingly passes over.”</p> + +<p><i>BROAD ARROW.</i>—“Mr. Kipling is accomplished beyond all recent standards +of comparison, and his forty stories are all readable and clever. There is a freshness +about them rare in such delicious morsels of satire and sentiment ... and there is +not a dull page in the three hundred and ten.”</p> +</blockquote> + + +<p>LIFE’S HANDICAP. Stories of Mine own People.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>BLACK AND WHITE.</i>—“‘Life’s Handicap’ contains much of the best work +hitherto accomplished by the author, and taken as a whole is a complete advance +upon its predecessors....”</p> + +<p><i>OBSERVER.</i>—“The stories are as good as ever, and are quite as well told.... +‘Life’s Handicap’ is a volume that can be read with pleasure and interest under almost +any circumstances.”</p> +</blockquote> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"></div> +<p class="center p2"><b>BY ROLF BOLDREWOOD.</b></p> + +<p>New and Uniform Edition. Crown 8vo. Cloth. 3s. 6d. each.</p> + + +<p>ROBBERY UNDER ARMS.</p> + +<p class="center"> + A STORY OF LIFE AND ADVENTURE IN THE BUSH<br> + AND IN THE GOLD-FIELDS OF AUSTRALIA. +</p> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>GUARDIAN.</i>—“A singularly spirited and stirring tale of Australian life, chiefly +in the remoter settlements.... Altogether it is a capital story, full of wild adventure, +and startling incidents, and told with a genuine simplicity and quiet appearance of +truth, as if the writer were really drawing upon his memory rather than his +imagination.”</p> + +<p><i>SPECTATOR.</i>—“We have nothing but praise for this story. Of adventure of +the most stirring kind there is, as we have said, abundance. But there is more than +this. The characters are drawn with great skill. Every one of the gang of bush-rangers +is strongly individualised. This is a book of no common literary force.”</p> + +<p><i>WORLD.</i>—“An uncommonly good thing.... The book, in short, has the +natural touch, both of place and person, on every page.”</p> + +<p><i>MORNING POST.</i>—“As a picture of the earlier days of our Australian Colonies +and as an absorbing story ‘Robbery at Arms’ has few equals.”</p> + +<p><i>GRAPHIC.</i>—“That Mr. Boldrewood knows his subject through and through is +as certain as his picture of the breaking-out of the first gold fever in Australia is the +best ever written.”</p> +</blockquote> + + +<p>THE SQUATTER’S DREAM.</p> + + +<p>THE MINER’S RIGHT.</p> + +<p class="center"> + A TALE OF THE AUSTRALIAN GOLD-FIELDS. +</p> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>WORLD.</i>—“Full of good passages, passages abounding in vivacity, in the colour +and play of life.... The pith of the book lies in its singularly fresh and vivid pictures +of the humours of the gold-fields,—tragic humours enough they are, too, here and +again....”</p> + +<p><i>MANCHESTER EXAMINER.</i>—“The characters are sketched with real life +and picturesqueness. The book is lively and readable from first to last.”</p> +</blockquote> + + +<p>A COLONIAL REFORMER.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>ATHENÆUM.</i>—“A series of natural and entertaining pictures of Australian +life, which are, above all things, readable.”</p> + +<p><i>GLASGOW HERALD.</i>—“One of the most interesting books about Australia +we have ever read.”</p> + +<p><i>SATURDAY REVIEW.</i>—“Mr. Boldrewood can tell what he knows with great +point and vigour, and there is no better reading than the adventurous parts of +his books.”</p> +</blockquote> + + +<p>A SYDNEY-SIDE SAXON.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>GLASGOW HERALD.</i>—“The interest never flags, and altogether ‘A Sydney-Side +Saxon’ is a really refreshing book.”</p> + +<p><i>ANTI-JACOBIN.</i>—“Thoroughly well worth reading.... A clever book, +admirably written.... Brisk in incident, truthful and life-like in character.... +Beyond and above all it has that stimulating hygienic quality, that cheerful, unconscious +healthfulness, which makes a story like ‘Robinson Crusoe,’ or ‘The Vicar +of Wakefield,’ so unspeakably refreshing after a course of even good contemporary +fiction.”</p> +</blockquote> + + +<p>NEVERMORE.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>ACADEMY.</i>—“Is perhaps the best story of the Rolf Boldrewood Series. Must +be allowed to be one of the best works of the period.”</p> +</blockquote> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"></div> +<p class="center p2"><b>BY MRS. OLIPHANT.</b></p> + +<p class="center">Crown 8vo. Cloth. 3s. 6d. each.</p> + + +<p>NEIGHBOURS ON THE GREEN.</p> + +<p>KIRSTEEN.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>SCOTSMAN.</i>—“One of the most powerful stories Mrs. Oliphant has ever written.”</p> + +<p><i>MURRAY’S MAGAZINE.</i>—“One of the best books which Mrs. Oliphant’s fertile +pen has within recent years produced.”</p> + +<p><i>WORLD.</i>—“Mrs. Oliphant has written many novels, and many good ones; but +if she has hitherto written one so good as <i>Kirsteen</i>, we have not read it.... It is +the highest praise we can give, when we say that there are passages in it which, as +pictures of Scottish life and character, it would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to +match out of Sir Walter’s pages.”</p> + +<p><i>NATIONAL OBSERVER.</i>—“Seldom, if ever, has Mrs. Oliphant done better +than in <i>Kirsteen</i>.... There is humour, there is pathos, there is tragedy, there is +even crime—in short, there is human life.”</p> +</blockquote> + + +<p>JOYCE.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>GUARDIAN.</i>—“It has seldom been our lot to fall in with so engrossing a story.”</p> +</blockquote> + + +<p>A BELEAGUERED CITY.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>TIMES.</i>—“The story is a powerful one and very original to boot.”</p> +</blockquote> + + +<p>HESTER.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>ACADEMY.</i>—“At her best, she is, with one or two exceptions, the best of living +English novelists. She is at her best in <i>Hester</i>.”</p> +</blockquote> + + +<p>HE THAT WILL NOT WHEN HE MAY.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>SCOTSMAN.</i>—“The workmanship of the book is simply admirable.”</p> +</blockquote> + + +<p>THE RAILWAY MAN AND HIS CHILDREN.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>ANTI-JACOBIN.</i>—“An extremely interesting story, and a perfectly satisfactory +achievement of literary art.”</p> + +<p><i>MORNING POST.</i>—“Mrs. Oliphant has never written a simpler, and at the +same time a better conceived story. An excellent example of pure and simple fiction, +which is also of the deepest interest.”</p> +</blockquote> + + +<p>THE MARRIAGE OF ELINOR.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>NATIONAL OBSERVER.</i>—“In spite of yourself and of them, you become +interested in uninteresting people, annoyed at their follies, and sympathetic with their +trifling sorrows and joys. This is Mrs. Oliphant’s secret.”</p> +</blockquote> + + +<p>SIR TOM.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>SATURDAY REVIEW.</i>—“Has the charm of style, the literary quality and +flavour that never fail to please.”</p> +</blockquote> + +<p class="center"> +Globe 8vo. 2s. each. +</p> + + +<p>A SON OF THE SOIL.</p> + +<p>THE CURATE IN CHARGE.</p> + +<p>YOUNG MUSGRAVE.</p> + +<p>THE WIZARD’S SON.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>SPECTATOR.</i>—“We have read it twice, once in snippets, and once as a whole, +and our interest has never flagged.”</p> +</blockquote> + + +<p>A COUNTRY GENTLEMAN AND HIS FAMILY.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>ACADEMY.</i>—“Never has her workmanship been surer, steadier, or more masterly.”</p> +</blockquote> + + +<p>THE SECOND SON.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>MORNING POST.</i>—“Mrs. Oliphant has never shown herself more completely +mistress of her art.... The entire story is clever and powerful.”</p> +</blockquote> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"></div> +<p class="center p2"> +Crown 8vo. Cloth. 3s. 6d. each. +</p> + +<p class="p2">BY J. H. SHORTHOUSE.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>ANTI-JACOBIN.</i>—“Powerful, striking, and fascinating romances.”</p> +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<p>JOHN INGLESANT.</p> + +<p>SIR PERCIVAL.</p> + +<p>THE LITTLE SCHOOLMASTER MARK.</p> + +<p>A TEACHER OF THE VIOLIN.</p> + +<p>THE COUNTESS EVE.</p> +</blockquote> + + +<p class="p2">BY MRS. CRAIK.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>(The Author of “<span class="smcap">John Halifax, Gentleman</span>.”)</p> +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<p>OLIVE. With Illustrations by <span class="smcap">G. Bowers</span>.</p> + +<p>THE OGILVIES. With Illustrations by <span class="smcap">J. McL. Ralston</span>.</p> + +<p>AGATHA’S HUSBAND. With Illustrations by <span class="smcap">Walter Crane</span>.</p> + +<p>HEAD OF THE FAMILY. With Illustrations by <span class="smcap">Walter Crane</span>.</p> + +<p>TWO MARRIAGES.</p> + +<p>THE LAUREL BUSH.</p> + +<p>MY MOTHER AND I. With Illustrations by <span class="smcap">J. McL. Ralston</span>.</p> + +<p>MISS TOMMY: A Mediæval Romance. With Illustrations by +<span class="smcap">Frederick Noel Paton</span>.</p> + +<p>KING ARTHUR: Not a Love Story.</p> +</blockquote> + + +<p class="p2">BY CHARLES KINGSLEY.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>WESTWARD HO!</p> + +<p>HYPATIA; or, New Foes with an Old Face.</p> + +<p>YEAST. A Problem.</p> + +<p>ALTON LOCKE; Tailor and Poet.</p> + +<p>TWO YEARS AGO.</p> + +<p>HEREWARD THE WAKE.</p> +</blockquote> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"></div> +<p class="center p2"> +<b>By HUGH CONWAY.</b> +</p> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>MORNING POST.</i>—“Life-like and full of individuality.”</p> + +<p><i>DAILY NEWS.</i>—“Throughout written with spirit, good feeling, and ability +and a certain dash of humour.”</p> +</blockquote> + +<p class="center"> + LIVING OR DEAD?<br> + A FAMILY AFFAIR. +</p> + + +<p class="center p2"> +<b>By SIR HENRY CUNNINGHAM, K.C.I.E.</b> +</p> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>ST. JAMES’S GAZETTE.</i>—“Interesting as specimens of romance, the style of +writing is so excellent—scholarly and at the same time easy and natural—that the +volumes are worth reading on that account alone. But there is also a masterly +description of persons, places, and things; skilful analysis of character; a constant +play of wit and humour; and a happy gift of instantaneous portraiture.”</p> +</blockquote> + +<p class="center"> + THE CŒRULEANS.<br> + THE HERIOTS.<br> + WHEAT AND TARES. +</p> + + +<p class="center p2"><b>By THOMAS HARDY.</b></p> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>TIMES.</i>—“There is hardly a novelist, dead or living, who so skilfully harmonises +the poetry of rural life with its penury. Just as Millet could in the figure of a solitary +peasant toiling on a plain, convey a world of pathetic meaning, so Mr. Hardy with +his yeomen and villagers. Their occupations in his hands wear a pathetic dignity, +which not even the encomiums of a Ruskin could heighten.”</p> +</blockquote> + +<p class="center"> + THE WOODLANDERS.<br> + WESSEX TALES. +</p> + + +<p class="center p2"> +<b>By W. CLARK RUSSELL.</b> +</p> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>TIMES.</i>—“Mr. Clark Russell is one of those writers who have set themselves to +revive the British sea story in all its glorious excitement. Mr. Russell has made a +considerable reputation in this line. His plots are well conceived, and that of +<i>Marooned</i> is no exception to this rule.”</p> +</blockquote> + +<p class="center p2"> + MAROONED.<br> + A STRANGE ELOPEMENT. +</p> + + +<p class="center p2"><b>By VARIOUS WRITERS.</b></p> + +<blockquote> +<p>LOUISIANA; and THAT LASS O’ LOWRIE’S. By <span class="smcap">Frances Hodgson Burnett</span>.</p> + +<p>CECILIA DE NOEL. By <span class="smcap">Lanoe Falconer</span>.</p> + +<p>FAITHFUL AND UNFAITHFUL. By <span class="smcap">Margaret Lee</span>.</p> + +<p>REUBEN SACHS. By <span class="smcap">Amy Levy</span>.</p> + +<p>THE RING OF AMASIS. By Lord <span class="smcap">Lytton</span>.</p> + +<p>MRS. LORIMER. By <span class="smcap">Lucas Malet</span>.</p> + +<p>MISS BRETHERTON. By Mrs. <span class="smcap">Humphry Ward</span>.</p> + +<p>MUCKLE JOCK AND OTHER STORIES. By <span class="smcap">M. M‘Lennan</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"></div> + +<p class="center">Crown 8vo. Cloth. 3s. 6d. each.</p> + +<p class="center p2"> +<b>By CHARLES DICKENS.</b> +</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>THE PICKWICK PAPERS. With 50 Illustrations.</p> + +<p>OLIVER TWIST. 27 Illustrations.</p> + +<p>NICHOLAS NICKELBY. 44 Illustrations.</p> + +<p>MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT. 41 Illustrations.</p> + +<p>THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 97 Illustrations.</p> + +<p>BARNABY RUDGE. 76 Illustrations.</p> + +<p>DOMBEY AND SON. 40 Illustrations.</p> + +<p>CHRISTMAS BOOKS. 65 Illustrations.</p> + +<p>SKETCHES BY BOZ. 44 Illustrations.</p> + +<p>DAVID COPPERFIELD. 41 Illustrations.</p> + +<p>AMERICAN NOTES AND PICTURES FROM ITALY. 4 Illustrations.</p> + +<p>THE LETTERS OF CHARLES DICKENS.</p> +</blockquote> + + +<p class="center p2"> +<b>By BRET HARTE.</b> +</p> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>SPEAKER.</i>—“The best work of Mr. Bret Harte stands entirely alone ... +marked on every page by distinction and quality.... Strength and delicacy, spirit +and tenderness, go together in his best work.”</p> +</blockquote> + +<p class="center"> + CRESSY.<br> + THE HERITAGE OF DEDLOW MARSH.<br> + A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. +</p> + + +<p class="center p2"> +<b>By HENRY JAMES.</b> +</p> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>SATURDAY REVIEW.</i>—“He has the power of seeing with the artistic perception +of the few, and of writing about what he has seen, so that the many can +understand and feel with him.”</p> + +<p><i>WORLD.</i>—“His touch is so light, and his humour, while shrewd and keen, so +free from bitterness.”</p> +</blockquote> + +<p class="center"> + A LONDON LIFE.<br> + THE ASPERN PAPERS.<br> + THE TRAGIC MUSE. +</p> + + +<p class="center p2"> +<b>By ANNIE KEARY.</b> +</p> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>SPECTATOR.</i>—“In our opinion there have not been many novels published better +worth reading. The literary workmanship is excellent, and all the windings of the +stories are worked with patient fulness and a skill not often found.”</p> +</blockquote> + +<p class="center"> + CASTLE DALY.<br> + A YORK AND A LANCASTER ROSE.<br> + JANET’S HOME.<br> + OLDBURY.<br> + A DOUBTING HEART. +</p> + + +<p class="center p2"> +<b>By D. CHRISTIE MURRAY.</b> +</p> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>SPECTATOR.</i>—“Mr. Christie Murray has more power and genius for the +delineation of English rustic life than any half-dozen of our surviving novelists put +together.”</p> + +<p><i>SATURDAY REVIEW.</i>—“Few modern novelists can tell a story of English +country life better than Mr. D. Christie Murray.”</p> +</blockquote> + +<p class="center"> + AUNT RACHEL.<br> + JOHN VALE’S GUARDIAN.<br> + SCHWARTZ.<br> + THE WEAKER VESSEL.<br> + HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. By <span class="smcap">D. C. Murray</span> and <span class="smcap">H. Herman</span>. +</p> + +<p class="center p2"> +MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON. +</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"></div><div class="transnote"> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="TRANSNOTE">Transcriber’s Note:</h2> + +<blockquote> +<p>Obvious errors in spelling, hyphenation and punctuation have been silently corrected in this version, but minor inconsistencies and archaic forms have been retained as printed.</p> + +<p>The footnotes have been relocated to the end of their respective stories and +renumbered to better fit the ebook format.</p> + +<p>The table of contents has been expanded in this version to better fit the ebook format.</p> + +<p>In addition, the following changes have been made:</p> + +<p><a href='#cor_043'>On page 43</a>: harnassed <i>to</i> harnessed</p> + +<p><a href='#cor_250'>On page 250</a>: Welling <i>to</i> welling</p> + +<p><a href='#cor_315'>On page 315</a>: <i>Mungoose</i> <i>to</i> <i>Mongoose</i></p> + +<p><a href='#cor_348'>On page 348</a>: come <i>to</i> came</p> + +<p><a href='#cor_365'>On page 365</a>: sand to lea <i>to</i> scud to lee<a id="FNanchor_4_4" href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_4_4" href="#FNanchor_4_4" class="label">[4]</a> This change is found in most other editions of this poem.</p></div> + + +</blockquote> +</div> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78240 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/78240-h/images/cover.jpg b/78240-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..1c28e50 --- /dev/null +++ b/78240-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/78240-h/images/i_decor.jpg b/78240-h/images/i_decor.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..5a6b7e2 --- /dev/null +++ b/78240-h/images/i_decor.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6c72794 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This book, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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